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

go with us wherever we go, said Oppenheimer. —I promise. As long as you want to.

Stiffly, almost formally, he leaned toward her and put his long, thin arms around her, formal but protective. It was an awkward embrace, and she thought a firm hold would alarm him so she let her arms rest lightly.

Even when he tried to be close Oppenheimer stayed distant. He was always himself bracketed, at least one step away. But still he had consoled her.

Ben was sitting at the breakfast table before work, his plate dirty and coffee mug emptied, about to fold the newspaper closed when he saw it, buried at the bottom of the sixth page. He jerked back in his chair, startled.

Ann was sitting across from him and a few feet away stood Fermi at the counter, pouring tea.

—I can’t believe this! he said. —Scientists Sue Defense Department! They ran Szilard’s story.

—Read it to me, said Ann.

—Yes please, read it, said Fermi anxiously, walking over in his sock feet with teacup raised.

—A consortium of nuclear physicists has filed suit against the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, read Ben.

—Does it say our names? asked Fermi nervously. —Oppenheimer’s, Szilard’s and mine?

—I don’t think so, said Ben, scanning. —Along with the Coalition for Global Disarmament, a student organization at the University of New Mexico, the scientists, including John Ramager and Rajiv Sarathy—who the hell are they?

—Szilard convinced them to be on the suit, said Ann.

—… have alleged that the Department of Defense is withholding both personal and medical records they requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The scientists say they’re entitled to the documents, which they claim contain information they need for medical care. Says Sarathy, a research fellow at UNM, “This is also information that may prove the eligibility of some of the people we represent for federal funds under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. It’s an underused law that lets victims of nuclear research and testing programs conducted between the 1940s and 1960s—”

—Let me read it, OK? asked Ann, and he held out the paper to her. —“This is a classic case of the Department of Defense violating the law to avoid transparency,” said Ramager, an associate professor of physics. “There’s nothing in these papers that poses a risk to national security. These are personal medical records we’re talking about. This is a perfect example of the Army showing it doesn’t have to abide by the law, that it’s not responsible to the average American citizen.”

—Yeah. Szilard’s John Q. Public.

—His name isn’t here anywhere.

—Good, he’s invisible, said Ben. —Just the way I like him.

—They’re leaving on a trip, said Fermi. —I talked to them this morning. They called when you were in the shower. Did you know?

—Another trip? Already?

—Where to? asked Ann.

—Somewhere out past Hawaii, said Fermi.

Ben looked at Ann over the newspaper and saw her face fall, surprised by disappointment. He reached out to touch her wrist, against the edge of the table.

—Damn it, he said. —He promised he would keep you in the loop, didn’t he?

—You can go if you want, said Fermi to Ann. —Robert told me to tell you. They’re leaving tonight.

—I see, said Ann slowly.

The two-piece swimsuit known as the bikini is named after Bikini Atoll, destroyed by a bomb in a televised test. The garment was christened by a French designer, who put his product on the market soon after the first atomic tests in 1946.

The Bikini natives, who were relocated from their coral reef home while the U.S. prepared to blow up the island with Shots Able and Baker, lived out their lives on a string of other nearby islands. They were shuttled between them over the decades that followed, from island to island, avoiding the bombs.

After the first series of tests, the leader of the Islanders, known to Americans as King Juda, was told by U.S. representatives: “You have made a true contribution to the progress of mankind.”

When she called Oppenheimer she got Szilard.

—I wish you’d given us some warning, she told him.

—We just decided yesterday. Larry and Tamika were already going there to see giant clams. Tridacna gigas. Four feet long. They’re an endangered species, ask Fermi.

—You’re going to see clams?

—Of course not. They are. I will be busy. I have no time for mollusks.

—When are you coming back?

—We’re not flying into Santa Fe. We have an appointment at the Nevada Test Site first. Oppie wants to see the craters. Wait, here he is.

—Ann? said Oppenheimer, getting on the phone. —You’re not going to come with us?

—To the Pacific Islands? I don’t think so, she said stiffly. —I’m tired of long flights. I wish you could have waited.

—I apologize for the scheduling, said Oppenheimer after a pause.

—Will you call me at least? Keep me up to date?

—Of course I will, said Oppenheimer heartily.

She nodded tightly to herself, saying nothing. He spoke into the silence.

—Come to Nevada at least. Meet us there. Won’t you? You can drive. It won’t be expensive. And if you want to fly I’m sure Larry will foot the bill.

With money everything was possible, she thought. There were no bounds to life except for the end of it.

—I’ll think about it.

The atolls of the Marshall Islands, which had once been a paradise for the small number of natives who lived on them, fishing and swimming in the turquoise shallows, diving among coral, eating breadfruit, coconut and crab, were thus re-christened by the American military. The new name was “Pacific Proving Grounds.”

Here numerous test series were carried out. Shot Mike, with a yield equivalent to ten million tons of TNT, or ten megatons, was detonated two days before the presidential election, on Halloween day in 1952. The Mike device itself, and the housing that contained it, weighed sixty-five tons.

It vaporized the island of Elugelab.

In 1954 Shot Bravo, with a yield of fifteen megatons—about a thousand times the destructive force of Little Boy—spread lethal radiation over seven thousand square miles of the Pacific Ocean. Fully