Clockwork Phoenix 5

by Brennan, Marie

  Malka’s father waited for a minute or two, and then cleared his throat.

  None of the three looked up. “I think you’re in the wrong store, white man,” the fat man said.

  Malka’s father put his hands in his pockets. “I was told that I could purchase a bottle or two of wine here.”

  “You a Fed?” asked the man with slicked-back hair. “Only a Fed would be stupid enough to walk in here by himself.”

  “Ain’t no Fed,” the fat man said. “Listen to him. He’s a Jew. Ain’t no Fed Jews.”

  “There’s Izzy Einstein,” said the man with the hair. “He arrested three guys in Coney just yesterday. I read it in the paper.”

  “Too skinny to be Izzy Einstein,” said the fat man. “Nah, he’s just your everyday, ordinary white man who’s looking for some cheap booze.”

  “I was told I could buy wine here,” repeated Malka’s father calmly, although Malka could see that his hands, which he kept in his pockets, were trembling. “I was told you had kosher wine.”

  The man with the scar stood and came over as the other two watched. Now Malka could see that his suit was worn and not as clean as it could be; he walked slowly, carefully, as though he knew he wasn’t sober and didn’t want to give it away. When he reached Malka’s father, he stopped and waited. He didn’t acknowledge the boy who followed him solicitously, as though ready to catch his father should he fall.

  Malka grinned and waved. “Hi, David,” she said, and then, aware that she might be calling attention to herself, whispered, “I didn’t see you before.”

  David put his finger to his lips and shook his head.

  “So?” Malka’s father asked. “You have wine for sale?”

  “My landlord is a Jew,” said David’s father, challenging.

  “So’s mine. And I’ll bet they’re both sons of bitches.”

  There was a moment of silence. Malka held her breath. And then one corner of the man’s mouth twitched. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe we can do business.” His two colleagues relaxed; the man with the hair swept up the cards and began shuffling them. “Where did you hear about me?”

  “Your son David, here,” said Malka’s father. “He suggested I contact you.”

  “My son David told you,” the man repeated, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yes,” Malka’s father said, sounding puzzled. “Earlier today. Is there a problem?”

  There was a pause, and then the man shook his head. “No, no problem. Yeah, I’ve got some of that kosher wine you were talking about. I can give you two bottles for three dollars each.”

  Malka’s father took a breath. “That’s expensive.”

  “Those are the prices.” The man shrugged. “Hard to get specialized product these days.”

  David stood on his toes and whispered up at his father. The man didn’t look down at the boy, but bit his lip, then said, “Okay. I can give you the two bottles for five dollars. And that’s because you come with a—a family recommendation.”

  “Done,” said Malka’s father. He put out a hand. “Abe Hirsch.”

  David’s father took his hand. “Sam Richards,” he said. “You want to pick your merchandise up in the morning?”

  Abe shook his head. “I’ve got to work early,” he said. “Can I pick it up after work?”

  “Done,” Sam said.

  Malka’s father turned and walked toward the door, then turned back. “I apologize,” he said, shaking his head. “I am an idiot. David, your son, has been invited to my house for dinner tomorrow night, and I have not asked his father’s permission. And of course, you are also invited as well.”

  Sam stared at him. “You invited my son to your house for dinner?”

  Abe shrugged.

  “Hey, Sam,” called the well-dressed man, “you can’t go nowhere tomorrow night. We’ve got some business to take care of uptown at the Sugar Cane.”

  Sam ignored his friend and looked at Malka, who stood next to her father, scratching an itch on her leg and grinning at the success of her plan. “This your little girl?”

  It was Abe’s turn to stare. He looked down at Malka, who was nodding wildly, delighted at the idea of another guest at their Sabbath meal. He then looked back at Sam.

  “Okay,” said Sam. “What time?”

  “Around five p.m.,” Abe said, and gave the address.

  “We don’t have to be uptown until nine,” Sam said to his friend. “Plenty of time.”

  He turned back to Malka’s father. “Okay. I’ll bring the wine with me. But you make sure you have the money. Just because you’re feeding me—us—dinner don’t mean the drinks come free.”

  “Of course,” said Abe.

  * * *

  At five p.m. the next evening, everything was ready. The table had been pulled away from the window and decorated with a white tablecloth (from the same woman who’d sold Abe a boiled chicken and a carrot tsimmes), settings for four, two extra chairs (borrowed from the carpenter who lived across the hall), two candles, and, at Abe’s place, his father’s old prayer book.

  Abe, wearing his good jacket despite the heat, and with a borrowed yarmulke perched on his head, surveyed the scene. “Well, Malka?” he asked. “How does that look?”

  “It’s perfect!” said Malka, running from one end of the room to the other to admire the table from different perspectives.

  Almost on cue, somebody knocked on the door. “It’s David!” Malka yelled. “David, just a minute!”

  “I’m sure he heard you,” said Abe, smiling. “The super in the basement probably heard you.” He walked over and opened the door.

  Sam stood there, a small suitcase in his hand. He had obviously made some efforts toward improving his personal appearance: he was freshly shaven, wore a clean shirt, and had a spit-polish on his shoes.

  David dashed out from behind his father. “You see!” he told Malka. “Everything worked out. My daddy brought the wine like he said, and I made him dress up, because I said it was going to be religious, and Mama wouldn’t have let him come to church all messed up. Right, Daddy?”

  “You sure did, David,” said Sam, smiling. “Even made me wash behind my ears.” He then raised his eyes and looked hard at Abe, as if waiting to be challenged.

  But Abe only nodded.

  “Please sit down,” he said. “Be comfortable. Malka, stop dancing around like that; you’re making me dizzy.”

  Malka obediently stopped twirling, but she still bounced a bit in place. “David, guess what? There’s a lady who lives across the alley from us who, when it’s hot, walks around all day in a man’s T-shirt and shorts. You can see her when she’s in the kitchen. It’s really funny. You want to come out on the fire escape and watch?”

  David suddenly looked troubled and stared up at his father. “Is it okay, Daddy?” he asked. His lower lip trembled. “I don’t want to get anyone mad at me.”

  Sam took a breath and, with an obvious effort, smiled at his son. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be right here, keeping an eye on you. Nothing bad will happen.”

  David’s face brightened, and he turned to Malka. “Let’s go,” he said. The two children ran to the window and clambered noisily onto the fire escape.

  Sam put the suitcase on one of the chairs, opened it, and took out two bottles of wine. “Here they are,” he said. “Certified kosher, according to the man I got it from. You got the five bucks?”

  Abe handed Sam five crumpled dollars. “Here you are,” he said, “as promised. You want a drink before we start?”

  Sam nodded.

  Abe picked up one of the bottles, looked at it for a moment, and then shook his head, exasperated. “Look at me, the genius,” he said. “I never thought about a corkscrew.”

  Sam shrugged, took a small pocketknife out of his pocket, cut off the top of the cork, and pushed the rest into the bottle with his thumb. Abe took the bottle and poured generous helpings for both of them.

  They each took a drink and looked outside, where Malka and Da
vid sat on the edge of the fire escape, her legs dangling over the side, his legs folded. A dirty pigeon fluttered down onto the railing and stared at the children, obviously hoping for a stray crumb. When none came, it started to clean itself.

  David pointed to a window. “No, that’s not her,” said Malka. “That’s the man who lives next door to her. He has two dogs, and he’s not supposed to have any pets, so he’s always yelling at the dogs to stop barking, or he’ll get kicked out.” The children laughed. Startled, the bird flew away.

  “So,” said Abe.

  “Yeah,” said Sam.

  “What happened?”

  Sam took a breath, drained his glass, and poured another. “He had gone out to shoot rabbits,” he said slowly. “I had just got home from the trenches. We were living with my wife’s family in Alabama, and we were making plans to move up north to Chicago, where I could get work and David could get schooled better. He was sitting on the porch reading, and I got mad and told him not to be so lazy, get out there and shoot us some meat for dinner. When he wasn’t home by supper, I figured he got himself lost—he was always going off exploring and forgetting about what he was supposed to do.”

  He looked off into the distance. “After dark, the preacher from my wife’s church came by and said that there had been trouble. A white woman over in the next county had complained that somebody had looked in her window when she was undressed. A lynch mob went out, and David saw them, got scared and ran. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he was a Negro boy with a gun, and they caught him and …”

  He choked for a moment, then reached for his glass and swallowed the entire thing at a gulp. Wordlessly, Abe refilled it.

  “My wife and her sister and the other women, they went and took him down and brought him home. He was … They had cut him and burned him and … My boy. My baby.”

  A single tear slowly made its way down Sam’s cheek, tracing the path of the scar.

  “My wife and I—we didn’t get along so good after that. After a while I cut and run, came up here. And David, he came with me.”

  For a moment, they just sat.

  “We lived in Odessa,” said Abe, and, when Sam looked confused, added, “That’s a city in the Ukraine, near Russia. I moved there with the baby after my wife died. It was 1905, and there was a lot of unrest. Strikes, riots, people being shot down in the streets. Many people were angry. And when people get angry, they blame the Jews.”

  He smiled sourly. “I and my friends, we were young and strong and rebellious. We were different from the generations before us. We weren’t going to sit around like the old men and wait to be slaughtered. I sent Malka to the synagogue with other children. There were hiding places there; they would be safe. And I went to help defend our homes.”

  “At least you had that,” Sam said bitterly.

  Abe shook his head. “We were idiots. We had no idea how many there would be, how organized. Hundreds were hurt and killed, my neighbors, my friends. Somebody hit me, I don’t know who or with what. I don’t remember what happened after that. I …”

  He paused. “I do remember screaming and shouting all around me, houses burning, but it didn’t seem real, didn’t seem possible. I ran to the synagogue. I was going to get Malka, and we would leave this madness, go to America where people were sane, and children were safe.”

  “Safe,” repeated Sam softly. The two men looked at each other with tired recognition.

  “But when I got there, they wouldn’t let me in. The rabbi had hidden the children behind the bima, the place where the Torah was kept, but … They said I shouldn’t see what had been done to her, that she had been … She was only nine years old.” Abe’s voice trailed away.

  The children out on the fire escape had become bored with the neighbors. “Do you know how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors?” David asked. “Here, we have to face each other. Now there are three ways you can hold your hand …”

  “Does she know?” asked Sam.

  “No,” said Abe. “And I don’t have the heart to tell her.”

  “David knows,” said Sam. “At least, I told him. I thought maybe if he knew, he’d be at rest. But I don’t think he believed me. And—well, I’m sort of glad. Because it means …”

  “He is still here. With you.”

  “Yes,” Sam whispered.

  The two men sat and drank while they watched their murdered children play in the fading sunlight.

  The Trinitite Golem

  Sonya Taaffe

  It is easy to destroy a life. Take thirteen and a half pounds of δ-phase plutonium-239, stabilized by alloying with gallium at three percent molar weight and hot-pressed into solid hemispheres of slightly more than nine centimeters in diameter; electroplate with galvanic silver to reduce chemical reactivity and encase within a seven-centimeter tamper of neutron-reflecting uranium-238. Enclose within another spherical shell, a shock reflector of aluminum eleven and a half centimeters thick—some admixture of boron prevents the scattering of spontaneous fission neutrons from the tamper back into the pit. Place the whole assembly at the center of thirty-two hexagonal and pentagonal lenses of high explosive, tripartite blocks interlocking in the pattern of a soccer ball—each two-thirds high-velocity Composition B and one-third slower Baratol—and ring with explosive-bridgewire detonators whose shockwave converging on the plutonium pit will compress it, crushing the fragile gold-and-nickel urchin of the neutron initiator at its center and releasing, from the instantaneous mixing of polonium-210 and beryllium-9 and the bombardment of the latter’s atoms by the alpha particles of the former, the nanosecond-pouring stream of neutrons that will trigger a chain reaction in the supercritical plutonium. Thirty meters over the sands of the Jornada del Muerto, the fireball ruptures the sky like a second sun. Five hundred meters above wood-framed houses, cathedral spires, cloud-covered steep hills, only shadows remain.

  * * *

  It is easy to destroy a life. Take one theoretical physicist who has not published a paper in four years, who a dozen years ago made himself over into a director and administrator as thoroughly and ruthlessly as he once metamorphosed a misfit rock collector from Riverside Drive into a mesmerizing polymath with quotations in nine languages at his Chesterfield-callused fingertips, the benefit being the A-bomb, the cost being all the rest of his concentration, and then in open court and the public eye strip him of all authority and trust. A brilliant and distractable, self-despairing and ambitious man, tailor his cross-examination to his frailties and insecurities, his fracturing discomfort in his own taut skin: show him that he is unreliable, unstable, artificial, found out, no better for marriage and the Manhattan Project and all those covers of Time and Life and Physics Today than the tightly strung student his friends used to find collapsed in a depressive heap on Cambridge floors, and when he falls back on the pose of a victim, make all of the helplessness and none of the sympathy stick. It is not as clean-cut as martyrdom, Galileo-like though he will look. He was important, inventing the atomic age, arrogant with his creation as well as appalled; he gave up names to the same McCarthyist frenzy that now sweeps him over. Revoke his security clearance. The process will take about four weeks. For thirteen years after, he will speak about nuclear proliferation and write on science and ethics and oversee the researches of others at the Institute for Advanced Study, he will receive medals from two presidents, he will sail the peacock-bright waters of Hawksnest Bay and recite the Odyssey softly to the night, and contemporaries and historians will agree that something broke in him that spring of 1954, beyond healing or repair; he will not fight back. He will die of diffidence and five packs a day, a thin spiral of sand-white smoke finally burning out.

  * * *

  For some weeks after the hearing, he had known he was being followed. He was not surprised; he knew the joke about paranoia. Letters had been pouring in for days, some spiteful and vindictive, others aghast and supportive, the rare handful from friends that he was glad to read and the phone ringing off the hook until he hoped
it was still tapped and giving someone in the FBI a headache. Surveillance swirled around him like a cloud of ash, a soft stain on the fingers of anyone who touched him. He watched the slight figure in the trenchcoat hanging back from the students on the station platform and the maple-lined bricks of Fuld Hall and did not wonder if it was a reporter or a gawker or a G-2 man; he could not see what difference it could make anymore, the last aftershock of plaster rattling down after the building’s collapse. There were no more guards outside his office door like angels at the gates of knowledge, no more Washington on the line, no more classified papers and no more safe to store them in. He chain-smoked, read Newsweek, thought about St. Croix. If the watcher followed him home, down the dawning summer shade of Olden Lane to solemn-eyed Toni and Peter with his chalk-scrawling protests and fierce, brittle Kitty turning a martini glass between her hands as though it were just the strength of Teller’s neck, he did not see it.

  He saw it in late June, standing quietly in his office where the half-raised blinds made white cross-hatches of the morning light. At first he wondered if he was seeing some kind of eccentric prank, a coat rack from another office or a mannequin from some department store in town scarecrow-dressed in a tightly belted trenchcoat and a soft hat pulled down far enough to camouflage its absence of face, but he could not imagine who at the Institute would try something so pointless and juvenile, or to what end. He was a restless man, nerves ticking in the absentminded click of teeth or cigarette-worrying fingers; he was not given to jumping at shadows or unwanted guests, only the inside of his own head. He said sharply, “Are you here to audition for a part in this farce?”

  In the silence, he heard for the first time the faint turntable hiss, the staticky nail-scratch of a Geiger counter registering only a little more radiation in the room than the background presence of a sleeping body. He could not hear breathing. The pulse in his wrists was suddenly quick as the blood in his ears, a clear cold shock that was not surprise. The figure by the window, as haloed by summer haze as a gunman by shadows in a gangster film, said, “I have been a long time looking for you.”