by Sharon Potts
“We’d love some, thanks.” He went to the painting over the mantel. “Saul made this,” he said to Annette.
She stepped closer, and studied the intense watercolor behind the non-reflective glass.
Essie handed a glass of wine to Annette, another to Julian. “Why don’t you give it a rest, Julian?”
“I wish I could, but it won’t seem to let go of me.” He took a sip of wine. “Nana’s been telling us some interesting things about Saul.”
“Both of you?” His mother sounded surprised.
“Annette’s a journalist. She’s very interested in the atomic-bomb spy rings in the early fifties.”
His mother stood straighter. “What does that have to do with Saul?”
“According to Nana, Saul spied for the Soviets during the war, passing them information about the bomb.”
Rhonda and his mother exchanged a look. He couldn’t tell if this was something they both knew, but they didn’t seem surprised.
Essie perched on the arm of one of the chairs and picked up her glass. “Yesterday you told me your grandmother said Saul refused to help the communists.”
“Right, but she hadn’t told me the whole truth and you knew it, didn’t you? You knew he’d been a serious atomic spy.”
She looked down at her glass.
“Did you also know that Saul doctored up the information he passed on to the Soviets, making it effectively useless?”
“Holy crap.” Rhonda lifted her feet off the sofa and set them on the floor. “He sabotaged what he gave the Soviets? Is that true, Mom?”
Essie continued staring at her glass.
“Saul may have been a spy, but he was also effectively a hero,” Julian said. “So why didn’t he come forward to clear Isaac Goldstein instead of letting him die in the electric chair?”
“My mother’s lying,” Essie said.
“No she isn’t,” he said. “She has no reason to lie.”
“How can you be so sure?” his mother said. “You think she’s a kindly old woman, but she’s the devil.”
His anger flared up. He felt Annette’s hand on his shoulder. He took a deep breath. Getting sucked into a fight with his mother wasn’t the best way to learn what he’d come here for.
“Let’s back up a second.” Rhonda plucked on her wiry curls. “Mom, is it possible Saul sabotaged the bomb information he passed on to the Soviets?”
Essie shook her head.
“Don’t reject it out of hand,” Rhonda said. “Saul spied for the Soviets in 1945.”
So Rhonda knew this, too.
“The Russians didn’t produce a working bomb until 1949,” Rhonda continued. “If what he gave them had been correct, it wouldn’t have taken four years.”
“He didn’t sabotage the Russians,” Essie said. “I don’t know why your grandmother made up that story, but Saul was a traitor during the war.”
Nana’s words came back to him. Saul was a hero. Julian glanced over at Annette. She seemed to be struggling to hold back her emotions. What was the truth?
He looked again at the painting, at the red mushroom cloud, the rotting black oval shapes, the neon green dots that seemed to glow like ghostly fireflies. “I think I understand,” he said. “Even if Saul had misled the Soviets, he also helped build the atomic bomb.” He turned back to his mother. “That’s why Saul felt guilty, wasn’t it? Because he was a traitor to himself.”
Essie drained the rest of her wine, then ran her finger around the rim of the glass. It made an eerie high-pitched noise.
“Why did he give you the painting?” he asked. “And why did Nana hide it?”
Essie reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. Her eyes met Annette’s. “Do you come from a close family?” she asked.
Annette tensed. “Not as close as I’d like.”
“That’s too bad. My mother and I have never been close.” Essie took a sip of wine. “I suppose that’s why I adored my Uncle Saul so much. He was my mother’s brother, but he was her antithesis. Warm, friendly, funny. A little man with curly red hair. He reminded me of a leprechaun and I always looked forward to his visits when I was a child.”
Interesting that Essie’s description of Saul matched Nana’s.
“I hardly recognized him when he showed up on my thirteenth birthday. He’d become as skinny as a starvation victim. His hair had fallen out and there was an awful sore on his lower lip.”
“He died shortly after,” Julian said.
“That’s right.” Essie looked him directly in the eye. “Radiation sickness.”
“Really?” Annette said. “From exposure at Los Alamos?”
Essie shook her head. “No, after that. He stayed with the Manhattan Project after the war when it became the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, and they moved to the Sandia Base in Albuquerque.”
“Whoa,” Julian said. “Saul kept making bombs after the war? That makes no sense.”
Rhonda and his mother exchanged another look.
“Did Nana know he had continued making bombs? Was that why she was angry with him and hid the painting?”
Essie stared at her glass of wine. “Not exactly.”
“Then what the heck was going on? Why would Saul keep making bombs and put himself at risk of developing radiation sickness?”
His mother rubbed her leg. There was a run in her black stocking.
“Tell me, Essie.”
His mother wet her lips with her tongue. “Because it was the best way he could accomplish what he needed to do, and he was willing to accept the consequences.”
“Needed to do? What did he believe he needed to do?”
“Save the world,” Rhonda said. “Make it a safer place.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “By building bombs?”
“There’s no point in keeping this a secret, Mom,” Rhonda said. “I’m going to show them. It’s time.”
“You’re right,” Essie said softly. “It’s time.”
A chill ran through him. A secret. This couldn’t be good.
Rhonda got up from the sofa and shuffled over to the fireplace. She stared up at Saul’s painting for a moment, then turned back to Julian and Annette. “What do you see in this painting?”
They stepped closer. “I assume the spreading red is an atomic mushroom cloud,” Julian said. “The neon green probably symbolizes radioactivity.”
“And these?” Rhonda pointed at the black oval shapes piled up on the bottom of the canvas.
“They look like bombs,” Annette said. “Spent bombs?”
“Not spent. Duds.”
“Dud bombs?” Julian said.
Rhonda nodded. “From 1945 through 1958, Saul systematically sabotaged the United States stockpile of bombs by modifying their sensors so their nuclear cores wouldn’t go critical and produce fission.”
“You mean so they’d fail during detonation?” Julian said.
“That’s right.”
“Jesus! Saul sabotaged American bombs?” The idea blew Julian away. His great-uncle had undermined the United States government. “How could he do such a thing?”
“You have to understand the context,” Essie said from her chair. “Saul was traumatized by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He’d never imagined the magnitude of the atomic bomb when he helped build it. Then when the bombs were dropped, he became deeply distressed. He felt personally responsible for the more than two hundred thousand people who died from the explosions and from burns and radiation sickness. Years later, the effects of radiation were still visible in the survivors who developed leukemia and other cancers, in stillborn babies and in children born with birth defects.” Essie shook her head. “Such horrors.” She softened her voice. “Grotesque deformities. Babies with extra body parts, missing parts, distended brains. Saul had seen the photos.”
No one spoke. A dog barked outside, a car swished by in the wet snow. Had this been why his mother had gone into pediatric oncology and opened the clinic?
“There w
ere other scientists who felt the same as Saul,” Rhonda said. “Deceived by the government. Tricked into creating something they’d believed would only be used in the defense of America. Not as an aggressive weapon.”
“But the U.S. government claimed that by dropping those bombs, it ended the war more quickly and saved many more lives,” Julian said.
“Saul didn’t buy that,” Rhonda said. “He felt betrayed, and he was determined to do whatever he could to keep mass destruction from happening again.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” his mother said. “In trying to prevent more radiation poisoning, Saul knowingly exposed himself to radiation and it killed him.”
Annette was twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she stared at the cold hearth. “So he effectively committed suicide to do what he believed was right.”
“Yes,” his mother said.
Julian walked back and forth in front of the fireplace, deeply disturbed by these new revelations. Could his great-uncle’s actions somehow be interpreted as heroic? “Wait.” He stopped pacing. “How could you possibly know all this about Saul?”
“Because he chronicled it.” Rhonda lifted the painting from the wall, grasping it with both arms extended, then set it on the rug glass-side down. Carefully, she removed the backing. It was obvious she’d done this before.
The inside of the large rectangular insert was completely covered with tiny writing in black ink.
Julian crouched and examined it. He could make out dates and other numbers. Hundreds of entries. Probably the serial numbers of the bombs Saul had sabotaged. Jesus, he said under his breath. He looked up at his mother. “Did Nana know about this?”
“Most likely,” his mother said.
“Why wouldn’t she have destroyed it?” he asked. “It documented that her brother was a traitor.”
Annette had gotten on her knees to study the canvas. “That depends on your perspective,” she said. “Was the government justified in developing and stockpiling thousands of bombs with such terrible potential?” She sat back on her heels and twisted a strand of blonde hair around her finger. “If yes, then the person who intervened to keep the bombs from working could be considered a traitor to his country.”
She paused. “But others might regard him as a hero to the world.”
CHAPTER 42
Her cell phone buzzed, pulling Annette out of her absorption in the implications of Saul’s final message. She recognized the number of St. Luke’s Hospital. She answered, her heart pounding. As she listened to the nurse’s update on Bill, Annette felt an enormous weight lift. “Dieu merci!” Annette said.
“Is Bill okay?” Julian asked when she got off the call.
“He’s awake and out of danger. He wants to see me.”
Essie and Rhonda looked at her with curiosity.
“My friend had a serious accident,” she said, choosing not to share that Bill had attempted suicide. “He has no family. I’m sorry, but I must leave to see him now.”
“Of course,” Essie said. “Anything I can do?”
She was touched by the concern in her face. So there was a caring person behind the façade. “That’s very kind of you, but he seems to be getting good care.”
“Don’t hesitate to call me if you think I can help.”
“Thank you. And thank you for sharing your family’s secrets with me. I won’t abuse what you’ve told me.”
“Saul’s long gone. It won’t matter to him.” Essie turned to Julian. “But I suppose it’s good you know the whole story.” She patted her throat, in that instant reminding Annette of her own mother.
This hard, unhappy woman, with her core of kindness, had been her mother’s childhood friend. It occurred to her how similar Sally Goldstein Revoir and Essie Lowe Sandman were, even though they’d been separated by over sixty years and almost four thousand miles. But Annette understood why her mother was so injured. What had caused Julian’s mother to develop her shell?
“Thank you both.” Julian kissed his mother and sister on their cheeks, which seemed to surprise them.
“The answers are never simple,” Essie said.
“No, they aren’t,” he said.
That was an understatement, Annette thought. The more she learned, the further she seemed to be from understanding the truth about her grandfather.
The taxi that Julian had called for arrived a few minutes later. It smelled like gasoline and vanilla air freshener and made Annette sick to her stomach. Snow had turned to sleet, which hit the windshield hard. Julian put his arm around her as the taxi bounced over a pothole. “Bill will be fine.”
She snuggled against him in the backseat, taking in his scent and blocking out the unwelcome smells and sensations from the rest of the world. “Bill doesn’t have much of a support structure.”
“He has you.”
“I once thought so, but it’s weighing on me that he didn’t call me when he was falling apart.”
“He probably didn’t want to be talked out of what he’d decided to do.”
The windshield wipers squeaked as they pushed the icy rain back and forth.
“I don’t understand being so depressed or guilty that suicide seems like the best option,” she said.
“Because you’re not built that way,” he said. “You’re a fighter. Even when you’re knocked down, you don’t stay down.” She could feel his chest expand and contract beneath her shoulder as he took a deep breath. “Apparently Saul wasn’t a fighter.”
“I think he was,” she said. “Even though he felt guilty about developing the bomb, after the war he tried to keep America from committing even more acts of destruction.”
“Fighters don’t kill themselves.”
“Saul didn’t kill himself—he died fighting,” she said.
The taxi sped along the Grand Central Parkway, splashing through puddles. Muted lights from the traffic leaving Manhattan inched toward them from the opposite direction like a Chinese-lantern parade.
“Do you think Saul sabotaged the information he gave to the Soviets during the war?” she asked. “Your mother was adamant that he hadn’t.”
“But why would Nana say that he gave the Soviets bad info if he didn’t?”
“Je ne sais pas. Maybe she was trying to protect Saul’s reputation.” The driver hit the brakes, pitching her forward, but Julian held her tight. She settled back against him. “I wonder if we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way,” she said. “Could the real issue be what Saul did after the war? Perhaps Isaac didn’t turn Saul in because he didn’t want to expose what he was doing to the post-war bombs.”
“Are you saying your grandfather supported Saul sabotaging those bombs?”
She thought about her grandfather’s words to Grandma Betty. This is a sacrifice I must make.
“If he knew about it, yes. I see that as a possibility. As a final act of bravery.”
“Whoa.” Julian let go of her. “You think it was a noble act for Isaac Goldstein to hide the possibility that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of U.S. bombs wouldn’t work?”
She turned to face him. “I’m just saying my grandfather may have viewed it as heroic and tried to keep this secret. Especially if he shared Saul’s opinion that detonating those bombs would be more destructive to the world than the U.S. not having them as weapons.”
“Then he was playing God,” Julian said. “They both were—Saul and Isaac.”
“You sound like you don’t agree with what they did.”
“Saul’s actions potentially put the United States in a terrible position with respect to our national defense.”
“But what about as an aggressor?” she said, feeling a surge of anger. “Do you really believe the U.S. needed to bomb Japan to end the war promptly? I’ve read that Japan tried to surrender before the bombing. Dropping the atomic bombs was more an act of the U.S. flexing its muscles than one of defense.”
“That’s not what the history books say.”
“Whose history boo
ks? The ones you read in the United States? Did it ever occur to you that not everyone in the world sees America as the center of the universe?”
“Spoken like a French patriot.”
“I’m also American, Julian. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just happen to believe in looking at all sides and perspectives, not wearing blinders.”
“So I’m wearing blinders?”
The taxi hit another pothole and jolted her. She was breathing hard, but she wasn’t finished. She was angry at this country, which played by its own rulebook, and had executed her grandfather because it needed a scapegoat. “I’m just saying, what if the U.S. government took it upon itself to bomb countries they considered threats, killing and poisoning another few hundred thousand people?” She looked Julian in the eye “You don’t like the idea of Isaac and Saul playing God, but isn’t that exactly what the government did?”
His eyes widened. The lights from oncoming traffic made patterns on his face, creating a kaleidoscope of emotion.
“Someone has to play God.” She leaned back against the seat. “I guess the question is who should be making those decisions?”
“Maybe God should,” he said softly.
She stared forward, through the slush-splattered windshield, at the approaching Manhattan skyline, trying to picture where the World Trade Center had once been. “If there is a God,” she said. “Let’s just pray that he really has humanity’s interest at heart.”
CHAPTER 43
Annette jumped out of the taxi in front of the hospital, her hood shielding her from the deluge, until she reached the main entranceway.
Julian followed close behind. “You go on up,” he said. “I’ll wait down here.”
She hesitated. They hadn’t spoken for the remainder of the drive into Manhattan. She couldn’t tell if he was angry with her or trying to make sense of her rant about playing God. She touched his arm. His unshaven face was wet with icy rain. “I didn’t mean to come across like I was attacking you. I—”
“Go.” His voice was gentle. “Go to Bill. I’ll be waiting right here for you.”
Bill had been moved out of acute care to a regular wing. Annette found his room at the end of an antiseptic-smelling corridor. He was propped up against the elevated bed, his face ashen. She was taken aback. Her once larger-than-life professor looked small and wasted.
