Universe of Two

by Stephen P. Kiernan

  “Whatever’s showing.”

  By then we were standing beneath the marquee. I tore my gaze away from Chris’s pretty face, craned to see the title—The Mummy’s Curse starring Lon Chaney Jr.—and realized which theater he’d chosen: the same one I’d gone to with Charlie on our first date.

  It was an understandable coincidence. There weren’t that many movie houses in Hyde Park. But the bottom fell out of my stomach, and all the steak with it. Here I was with one guy, walking into a place already made special by another guy. I scanned the room and there was nobody that I knew, no one who could tell on me, or come up to say hi and ask how Charlie was doing. No one to call me a back-doorer.

  Except myself. “Excuse me,” I said to Chris, extracting my arm. “I need to use the ladies’.”

  “I’ll get tickets.”

  I closed myself in a stall, trying to slow the thrumming of my heart. What kind of girl was I? Was there anyone I could talk to about this situation, now that I had lied to Greta and my mother? Should I ask him to take me home? Or was my devotion to Charlie a bad idea, and should I trust infatuation instead?

  I was standing at the sinks, washing my hands thoroughly as a surgeon, when a tall girl came barging in. Wearing a perfume that smelled of citrus and musk, she went straight to the mirrors to freshen her makeup. While I dried my hands, she spoke to her reflection. “You’re with that lover boy, ain’t you?”

  I glanced around, realizing she was speaking to me. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, is you or ain’t you?”

  “I’m his date tonight, if that’s what you mean. He’s very nice.”

  “I bet.” She snapped her compact closed, gave me a quick up and down. “His kind don’t come knocking every day.”

  I wanted to leave, but felt momentarily powerless. “We’ve only met recently.”

  The tall girl worked a fresh red gloss onto her lips, then tucked the lipstick away in her little bag. She puckered at her reflection. “You want to keep him? Make him happy. If not, though? Give a sister a shot.”

  She breezed back into the foyer. I followed, as her route passed near Chris. She took a good long gander despite me standing there watching, then sashayed past. He stood facing a full-length mirror, smiling at himself.

  “Hello, stranger,” I said.

  “My CO said going home would make me soft and fat.” He slapped his trim stomach. “I can’t wait to prove him wrong.”

  I felt rattled in nineteen ways. “Um, should we go in?”

  He stepped aside with one arm forward. “Ladies first.”

  I felt like I was with a movie star, that’s how many girls’ heads turned. The attention was a little thrilling. Like tasting an exotic food you didn’t know you’d always craved.

  Now? Now I look back and feel mortified. This was the place Charlie and I had run up and down the aisles. And I was profaning that memory. I could have insisted that we see another movie, in another theater. Or suggested we go for a walk, to continue our conversation. Or asked for dessert somewhere. A hundred ways I might have shown a speck of decency. Instead I nestled into the seat beside Chris, one last turn of my head as if to toss my hair back, though in truth it was to count how many girls were still watching, and settled in for the show.

  The newsreel gave me no mercy. Oh sure, at first it was the usual “United News” introduction, the drawing of an attacking eagle, then martial music. After that, though, came the headline: “Submarine Operations Revealed.”

  I felt like someone had punched me. Charlie’s work, right on the screen. A long, narrow ship sliced through the water, then sank from view. Young men peered through periscopes. A Japanese merchant vessel floated on the horizon. A torpedo hit the ship in the exact middle, it tipped on its side, Japanese sailors plainly visible. Cut to another sub, shirtless men fired a torpedo. When this one hit, it made a geyser. The enemy ship was lost in spray and smoke.

  Oh, it was terrifying and brilliant. The next sub entered the harbor of a place called Nagasaki, and two torpedoes dispatched a coal ship at anchor.

  “Such courage,” I whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Chris replied, louder than necessary. “Doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “When I fly over a place, the enemy can hear me coming, and see me once I’m in range.” Someone shushed him from behind, but Chris continued at the same volume. “He shoots flak at me, maybe scrambles a fighter to take me down. We battle each other.” He waved his hand dismissively at the screen. “With those sneaky underwater things, there’s no fight in it at all.”

  I felt my dander rising. “Well, what do you know about it?”

  But Chris laughed, easy as loose shoes. “Not much. But I sure like seeing how it stokes your furnace, princess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve made you peeved, Brenda. Damn, it makes you handsome. I’d gladly tick you off twenty times, to see you look so good.”

  When it came to disarming me, the man was an expert. Besides, I didn’t have to persuade him. I could hold my loyalty to Charlie, and to submarine warfare, close to my heart and Chris would have no idea. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  The movie was terrible. Slow, predictable. After one scene that was supposed to startle us, but didn’t, I leaned over. “I am so very frightened.”

  Chris turned in concern. “Is this too much for you?”

  I shook my head. “Just kidding.”

  “Oh. Got it.” He sat back, so did I, and the movie refused to end. He put an arm over my shoulder, which I pretended not to notice. When the lights came up, neither of us said word one. On our way out, he held the door for me. “How about this idea?” Chris said, “Once we’re married, you can choose the movie, okay?”

  How is a girl supposed to answer that? It made the movie seem like a cartoon. All I could muster up was bravado. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

  “Oh, I mean it. You’ll see, princess.”

  We were two blocks from home when I gave him a hug good night. It was a decent squeeze, if awkward with the sling arm between us. He went for a kiss but I turned and all he got was cheek.

  “What time tomorrow do you finish work?” he asked, without a beat of hesitation.

  “Five sharp.”

  “I’ll be waiting here at six. Would that be okay?”

  “I need to check with my—”

  “I don’t mean to come on so strong,” he said. “But I’ve waited a long time to be with you, years, Brenda, and I only have six more days home.”

  My stomach did another flip. “Six days?”

  He grinned. “That’ll be plenty—if we make the most of them.”

  Chris surprised me and went for another kiss, on the lips, done and gone before I could pull away. He backed off, almost skipping. “Good night, princess. Sweet dreams.”

  He turned and ran up the avenue, his shadow shrinking as he passed under a streetlight, then growing suddenly tall as it rushed out ahead of him.

  I stood there, on the street corner of my childhood, and bobbed with the buoyancy of joy. Or was it the speed of time? With Charlie, we’d had centuries to flirt, eons to get acquainted. I’d enjoyed being coy, until that unforgettable Christmas kiss. After that I still felt no hurry, I had the leisure to notice how he made me feel, how he calmed me and made me stronger, how my repertoire grew as I learned songs to play for him. It felt natural, nothing pressured or rushed.

  Chris was the opposite. Six days until good-bye. Six evenings to spend in his company, assuming my mother would let me go out every night, and not press for details when I came home. Which was as likely as her learning to stand on her head.

  All these years later, I realize how ordinary my situation was. Thousands of couples faced the same dilemma. Some collapsed under the weights of distance and time. Some boys died on the battlefield. Some came home in no condition to be anyone’s husband. Many returned to marry and have kids faster than ever before, creating
the Baby Boom.

  Chris and I were a part of this gathering tide. I felt its undertow, pulling at my legs. But I did not run back to dry land, no. I waded deeper in.

  24.

  That Sunday after lunch, Monroe emerged from the bushes laughing and shoving with a crew of teen boys. The instant he spied Charlie near the barracks, he sobered, shaking hands with the boys one by one, the oldest of whom looked about thirteen.

  “You all are good fellas,” he said. “And you won’t grow roots waiting on me to keep my side of the bargain.”

  The boys ducked around behind the building, while Monroe slapped his belly and sauntered Charlie’s way.

  “What mischief are you up to now?” Charlie asked.

  “Wait right there.” He ducked into the barracks, returning with a folding chair and a twinkle in his eye. “Come along a minute, would you, Mister Charlie? Got some fine entertainment.”

  Charlie fell into step beside him, realizing soon enough that they were marching toward the guard house. “You do know these guys have no sense of humor, right?”

  “You just set a minute.” Monroe unfolded the chair under a spindly pine. “It’s time them grouchy dogs learned a little respect.”

  “Is the punch line of this joke that I get arrested?”

  Monroe laughed. “Better by a mile. Just you watch.”

  “All right.” Charlie took a seat as Monroe swaggered in his sway-hipped way over to the gate.

  The guards scowled as usual, Monroe showed his pass, and they let him through. “Thank you, fellas. All clears, and job well done. Have a beautiful afternoon, hear?”

  With that, he moseyed away down the road.

  “What the heck?” Charlie said. He knew there were no rides going out till hours later, no buses to Santa Fe. Was Monroe actually strolling twenty miles to the next human being, without so much as a water bottle?

  The answer came not five minutes later, when he came sauntering from behind the barracks. Monroe put a finger to his lips, swaying up to the guard house again.

  “Hey there,” he called, slowing to an amble. “How you-all doing today?”

  The first guard began to check Monroe’s pass, then caught himself. He glanced over his shoulder, down the rutted road, then handed back the pass.

  “Perfect day for a constitutional.” Monroe sauntered through the gate, waving his fingertips. “Adios, compadres.”

  Charlie sat back to see what would happen next. Giles came strolling up from the mess tent, and Charlie waved him over. “This is rich,” he said. “Stick around.”

  Giles settled himself beside the chair. “If Monroe embarrasses those jokers somehow, it will make my day.”

  “Still smarting from the night we arrived?”

  “You remember the hangover I had. They questioned me for three solid hours. And it later turned out that my pass was on the bus, just fell behind my seat.”

  Charlie smiled. “I bet you’ve got it with you right now though.”

  Giles reached into his pocket and waved the card in the air.

  Another minute or two and Monroe sauntered along, grinning like a crocodile. With a wink, he marched right up to the gate. “Gents, I do believe I’ll go for a stroll.”

  Both guards were ready for him, and stood blocking the gate. “Back to your post, mister, wherever it is.”

  “You saying I can’t go for a walk?”

  The senior officer growled. “I’m saying I don’t like civilians, and I don’t like you.”

  Monroe opened his arms wide. “What harm have I ever did to you-all?”

  “You civilians think this is all a damn joke. No discipline, no order. Wandering around at all hours doing who knows what. Our duty is to protect you, but that doesn’t mean we have to respect you. Now move along, unless you’d rather be detained.”

  He chuckled. “Here I’ve been thinking your job was to keep outsiders out. Now you want to keep insiders in?”

  The guards stood shoulder to shoulder, saying not a word.

  Monroe slapped his thigh. “End of the war comes, fellas, this right here is what you’re gonna have for memories.” He strode back to Charlie and Giles with a bounce in his step. “Now ain’t you tickled?”

  Giles shook his head. “There’s a hole in the fence?”

  “Leave it to the teenagers to find a gap,” Monroe answered. “Getting them to show me didn’t cost but two beers.”

  “Worth every penny,” Charlie said.

  “Double,” Monroe laughed.

  “Can I drag you tricksters off to Sebring’s lecture now?” Giles said. “We might find out what we’re doing here.”

  Charlie rose from the chair. “Why not?”

  Fuller Lodge had been transformed, now neither dance hall nor place of worship. Chairs stood in rows wall to wall, with a lectern at the front, behind which hung a large periodic table of the elements. An easel stood nearby, holding flip charts. Though the boys were fifteen minutes early, they found nearly all the chairs taken. They settled for a pair in the front row, with Monroe behind them.

  Charlie leaned toward Giles. “I have never seen so many people in here before.”

  Giles pointed at the periodic table. “Do they bring that out for square dances?”

  Monroe leaned forward. “Where’s the dang popcorn?”

  A side door opened and Robert Sebring entered, followed by Robert Oppenheimer.

  “Hellfire,” Monroe whispered. “It’s the man.”

  Oppenheimer, director of the entire Project Y, had bright blue eyes, hair wild in the manner of Einstein though not as long, and a neck as thin as a bird’s. A brown suit hung loosely on his bony frame, draping as he bent to say something in Sebring’s ear.

  “If I may call us to order.” Sebring rapped his knuckles on the podium.

  There was no microphone, so the room took a moment to go quiet. Sebring cleared his throat. “You’ve all been told to stick to your knitting,” he said. “To learn things based only upon your need to know. You have worked in silos of understanding, unaware of what others are doing, though it might help your work, just as yours might assist them. This has been official government policy—compartmentalization—to prevent any potential spy from possessing sufficient information to be damaging. This afternoon, that policy comes to an end. Oppie?”

  Sebring stepped aside, moving to a low table where he found a glass of water and drained it in one go. Oppenheimer stood at the podium, gripping each side with one hand. “Hello everyone.”

  The crowd murmured a greeting.

  “It is not possible to be a scientist,” he said, “unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity.”

  Charlie noticed that the man, as he spoke, had risen on his tiptoes.

  “And that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge. And”—he gave all in the room a stern look—“are willing to take the consequences.”

  Then he winked at them, as if to say yes, we all secretly share that willingness. He relinquished the podium and Sebring resumed his speech. “First, theory. Second, practice. Between them, an intermission.”

  He smiled in feigned casualness, and continued without notes.

  “If you place your hand in still water, it will look as though your wrist has broken. This is called refraction. If you play on a swing, at the peak of your height you experience weightlessness. You see, it is easy to find exceptions to what we consider natural laws. The only force that we currently know to be universal, from our labs to the theoretical reaches of outer space, is in the atom. Protons in acute vibration, electrons orbiting at the fastest speed that anything moves, and as scientists discovered not twelve years ago, neutral particles that give the atom mass and stability. Unlike light, which is easily bent, unlike gravity, which can be defied on a playground, the power that holds these tiny objects together has no exceptions, anywhere, from the alpha of the periodic table . . .” At this he touched a poin
ter to the top-left corner, occupied by hydrogen. “. . . to the omega.” Sebring hovered the pointer over the lower right, the heavy metals.

  “Imagine if you could harness the energy that animates these atoms, indeed that animates everything in the universe. Suppose you could somehow slice these particles apart, and as they sundered, they made a small, a very small, pop. Are you with me?”

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  “For most of this chart, it is not possible to perform such a slicing. But when we investigate the heavier atoms—uranium, plutonium—we find less stability. In fact, people in this very room have successfully divided them into parts, using for a knife a single neutron moving at high speed. One uranium atom, if cut correctly, will divide into barium or radium or other things, with a minuscule pop. This we call fission. The division also throws off additional neutrons, which might slice other nearby uranium atoms. This we call a chain reaction. Pop pop pop. Do you follow me?”

  Monroe leaned forward again. “Is this supposed to be the gunfight scene?”

  “Shh,” Charlie said. “I’m trying to understand.”

  Sebring glanced at them. “Is there a question?”

  “’Scuse me, sir,” Monroe said. “Please go on.”

  “Here is the crux of part one.” Sebring faced the full room again. “Food for thought during intermission: If you put enough of these heavy atoms close together, and trigger them with enough neutrons, the chain reaction pop will exceed in energy any other process known to mankind. For generating electricity, operating the heaviest machinery, or enabling weaponry whose force exceeds our imagination. Once again: exceeding in energy any other process known to mankind.”

  Sebring left the podium to fetch another glass of water. In light of the enormity of what he had to say, Charlie thought the man was rather small.

  The crowd dispersed onto the patio, with none of the hearty conversation that typified intermissions at Fuller Lodge events. Charlie and his pals wandered farther, across the grass to an empty basketball court. Monroe picked up a basketball and took a shot. It hit the rim and ricocheted straight back to him. “What do you fellas think?”