Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

—Everyone wants a birthday party! said Tamika. —Everyone likes to get presents, right? On their special day?

—I ordered this crate of, like, the best bourbon you can get, said Larry. —You think he’ll like it?

—No doubt, said Ben.

—What kind of cake should I bake? asked Tamika.

—Oppenheimer doesn’t eat cake, said Ben. —But don’t worry. Szilard will eat the whole thing.

—Who doesn’t eat cake?

—He hardly eats at all, said Ann.

—We’re getting a whole bunch of friends to come over, too, said Larry. —Make it more of a party. You know? Mostly surfing buddies, plus some folks I used to follow the Dead with and Tamika’s friends from the yoga studio. It’s a historic occasion. This guy’s come back from the dead and it’s his birthday. How often does that happen, right?

—You’re kidding, right? said Ben.

—It’s going to be a gathering, said Tamika. —A gathering-in.

—It’ll be special, OK? said Larry, and reached out to pat Ann on the hand. —It’ll be something for him to remember.

—He needs joy, said Tamika. —Joy and light.

Ann went out with Oppenheimer that afternoon, walking down a gravel road in a park of towering trees. They were headed for one of Tokyo’s most famous temples, which the guidebook said was “many hundreds of years old.”

—You know, in Japan, when they say a temple is four hundred years old, they don’t necessarily mean that building is four hundred years old, as we do in the West, said Oppenheimer, sliding a cigarette from a silver case. Ann did not recognize the case. Ever since he’d come back to Tokyo he was immaculately fitted out in expensive accessories, as though Larry had appointed himself personal shopper. He used the new accessories easily, a man accustomed to fine goods who had sorely missed them in the brief period of his dependency on lesser resources.

—All they mean is that this land has been sacred for centuries, he went on.

—So what have you been talking about, you and Szilard? asked Ann. —I know he’s been working on you but he doesn’t talk to me about what he wants. I want to listen to him and Ben just wants him to shut up, but still he talks to Ben instead of me.

—Leo has some old-fashioned ideas about women.

—Yes. He does.

—I had time to think after the visit to Hiroshima. I had time to think on the train, and I had time to think when I came back to Larry’s apartment. I had time to think after Fermi told me about the men who threatened him. I thought about all the warnings we’ve had, the incidents at the house and the men who followed us here. I listened to my instincts.

—And what did your instincts tell you?

—They told me Leo’s on the right path. What he wants to do is what we have to do. It’s what we came here for. If it wasn’t no one would be hunting us. So I’ve made a decision: I’m going to join him.

—Join him how?

—Let’s sit down a minute, said Oppenheimer. —Wait: not here. It’s disrespectful to sit down inside the grounds of the temple. The wooden bench there, out through the gate.

Sitting down, putting out his cigarette, he leaned forward and leaned his chin against the steepled fingers of his hands. Nearby some teenagers sported careful pink mohawks and expensive leather jackets. One of them performed an awkward break dance.

—So what does Szilard want?

—The United Nations.

—Surprise!

—Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Robert…

—Happy Birthday to you!

A crowd converged on them as they came in the door, a pot-smoking crowd beneath a floating island of balloons, white and silver helium balloons clinging to the ceiling, bumping against it as the people moved beneath them, densely packed. It was dark and hot and full, lampshades draped with red and purple cloth giving off a sultry light, music warbling beneath the hum of talk, an old song Ann could not identify.

Then she saw it: projected on a large side wall of the living room a black-and-white mushroom cloud bloomed, looming over the milling people below and in front of it. Heads were silhouetted against the surging billows, and over pale faces the cloud moved sliding and broken, its breakneck rate of expansion slowed into poetry. She recognized the sequence of images almost instantly, famous closing sequence of a famous movie, the soundtrack equally famous, eerie and nostalgic. We’ll meet again, don’t know how, don’t know when.

—I can’t believe this, said Oppenheimer under his breath.

—I promise, whispered Ann, —I told him not to do it.

—OK, everyone, said Larry, clapping his hands and jumping onto the coffee table as Oppenheimer slipped off his shoes, embarrassed, to step onto the tatami. Oppenheimer had his head down, was almost hunkering down, Ann thought, as though he could slip through the throng and melt from sight. Tamika was busy ushering people out of the kitchen, shushing them as she gestured, to hear what was clearly an impending speech.

Larry’s guests were people with an abundance of hair, Ann noticed, the men more than the women but the women too, long braided hair, exuberant hair, hair in various streaks of color. They had beers and glasses of wine in hand and munched ploddingly on carrot sticks and crackers. She stood there nodding and smiling as they ambled past and set their eyes on Oppenheimer, standing beside her.

They looked like transients, she thought, grateful to have a place to be, she thought, a comfortable apartment, anywhere, roof over their heads, free food and drink. Possibly some of them were rich and aimless, too rich to care how poor they looked, heroin chic, spending their money on drugs and sleeping wherever they fell. The room grew fuller, and she felt claustrophobic despite the size of the place, which had always seemed bland and vacant. There was goodwill in the crowd, warm and boneless. All was well as long as the deep smell of marijuana pervaded the air.

A man