Universe of Two

by Stephen P. Kiernan

  “Suit yourself. But you ain’t gonna read it now, are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “See, there’s the difference between us, Mister Charlie. I’d rip this thing open right quick, and rid myself of the worry.”

  “What’s inside that envelope won’t change while I think about what it might say, and how that might affect me.”

  Monroe shook his head. “Pure craziness, but what the hell. Enjoy.” He dropped the letter on the bed, and shuffled to his own bunk. Charlie gazed at the envelope, not touching it, till the barracks chief called lights out.

  On the way into the debate, boys crowding in the Fuller Lodge doorway, a steady snow falling and no one taking much notice, Charlie felt a tug on his arm. Bronsky was there, as if he’d been lying in wait. He tilted his head to one side, then marched off in that direction. Charlie stepped out of the line to follow.

  The detonation team leader strode through the hallway of offices and out the side door. He wore rubbers, Charlie noticed, so his shoes would remain unmarred by snow or mud. Charlie double-timed to catch up with him outside the building.

  “Perhaps we take walk?” Bronsky said.

  Charlie thought one was already under way. “Is there something you need, sir?”

  “Place we can speak freely.”

  Charlie glanced suspiciously over his shoulder. “Is there a spy on The Hill?”

  Bronsky rolled his eyes. “Fishk, don’t be fool. There are twenty, if not more. I mean privacy from leadership, who is all attend debate.”

  By then they had reached Ashley Pond, skirting its eastern shore and following a walkway toward the tech area. Snow fell past the lights, spiraling in the wind. Along the row of buildings, steam rose from their heating vents.

  Bronsky pulled up short by a bench. “Here.” He indicated that Charlie should sit.

  “I’ll stand, thank you, sir. Is something the matter?”

  Instead of answering, the man removed a glove and swept snow from the bench. He sat in the place he’d cleared, then brushed the other side free. Charlie considered, then took a seat beside him.

  “Fishk, what you do know about me?”

  “Not much, sir. That you are Russian. That you’re in charge of the detonation team. That you picked me to build the Gadget’s trigger.”

  “All Project Y information. Not Bronsky.”

  “In that case, I don’t know anything, sir.”

  He cleared his throat. “I am born Kiev, November 1900. When I am young, my family is involve in Russian civil war. My father is intellectual full of ideas: rights of individual, limited power of state, independence of Ukraine. Others agree, so they create White Army, which Lenin’s Red Army proceeds to slaughter. I am younger than you are when my family flees to Berlin. I am good student, attain PhD, become professor at excellent Harvard University.”

  “I didn’t know that. I went to college there.”

  “You never take my chemistry class.”

  Charlie leaned forward and the man appeared to be smiling. But the shades closed quickly. “Lenin’s army kills perhaps seven million people, perhaps ten million. Soviet is formed, which now fights Nazis on Eastern Front.”

  “That part I know about,” Charlie said. “The bloodiest part of the entire war.”

  “Hitler retreats every day. But the land does not go to peace. It goes to Soviet.”

  “Well.” Charlie peered back in the direction of Fuller Lodge, snow clouding the view, then ran his hands up and down his thighs to keep warm. “Not much we can do about that from The Hill, is there?”

  “Exactly why I bring you here,” Bronsky cried. He swatted Charlie’s leg with his empty glove. “Exactly. What we can do.”

  As usual when he did not understand, Charlie’s strategy was to say nothing.

  “Outside observer would say: Fishk is smart boy, work hard, likes challenge.”

  “Thank you, sir, I—”

  “Inside observer? Fishk cannot finish job, is not spy or bad guy, but is not in hurry to see Gadget used.”

  Charlie stared at his shoes. The toes were darkened from melting snow.

  “You stick at eighteen detonators for months, until I say you need help. Then twenty-one, again for months, until I add detonator team. Now is twenty-three, for so far five weeks.”

  “Are you implying that I am delaying the Gadget?”

  “I am not imply. I am state as fact. So tomorrow, I add to detonator effort David Horn. He is my doctoral student at Harvard, very smart, I recruit him here.”

  “You don’t trust me anymore.”

  “Trust is peacetime luxury, Fishk. I am worry about Soviet. Seven million, they have kill. If they defeat Nazi, will they be our new foe? Will war extend? Or, we use Gadget, only country with Gadget, Hitler is gone, and Soviet goes home.”

  “I’m incredibly close, sir.”

  Bronsky pulled his glove back on. “Help from Horn will make faster.”

  “Or get in my way.”

  He stood. “Debate is in Fuller Lodge. Here is no debate. Here is decision, and courtesy of telling you directly.”

  “Give me a bit more time,” Charlie insisted. “I’ve earned that request. Please.”

  The team director paused, brushing snow from his coat. “Perhaps.”

  Then he marched off into the technical area, vanishing in a cloud of steam. Charlie sat back on the bench, snow falling like feathers from a burst pillowcase, as only then he became aware that the air all around him was cold.

  He snuck in along the wall. For a debate, the room was oddly silent. Also dark, thanks to the snowstorm, with lights on only at the front. The chemist James Wilson, an expert on isolating explosive uranium, stood between two desks, at each of which two men sat. But no one was speaking. Charlie squatted beside Giles and Monroe.

  “What have I missed?”

  “Anecdoche,” Giles said.

  “Which means?”

  “Everyone is talking and no one is listening.”

  “But hell,” Monroe added, “you’re right on time for the fireworks.”

  Charlie peered around, aware that the room was full of tension. The men at the desks stared toward the back. Wilson stood with crossed arms. “We deserve an answer.”

  Whoever he was addressing did not respond. Charlie saw dissatisfaction on every face. Why weren’t they debating?

  “The whole idea of this project,” Wilson continued, “was civilian control of a potential military instrument, because that device could exceed the military’s capacity for restraint. We have men here”—he gestured to the desk on the left—“who see the war as nearly over, our role ended before it began. Professor Joseph Rotblat, for example.”

  An affable-looking fellow nodded his head.

  “While other men”—Wilson gestured to the right—“say that eventually some nation will obtain atomic knowledge, and the rightful possessor ought to be a democracy, so everyone participates in these decisions—namely the United States.”

  Wilson stepped forward. “But after three debates, we remain stalled by the moral implications. We already know the army’s answer. We do not want President Roosevelt’s answer. They are not men of science. We want your answer. If we have the courage to demand it, you must have the courage to say it.”

  Charlie wished he knew who Wilson was speaking to. He felt the silence’s pressure. One of the men at the desks lit a cigarette. No one else moved.

  Finally a chair slid on the floor in back, and a man came forward into the lights. It took a moment for Charlie to see who it was: Oppenheimer. Wilson immediately gave ground. The Los Alamos director was painfully thin, his head balanced on a neck too slender. He arrived at the front of the room, and stood rubbing his face with one hand.

  “A demonstration,” he said. But there was a catch in his throat. He coughed and began again.

  “We must build the bomb, because someone will. I trust our government and people to manage that challenge better than any other nation. Also, we a
re so close. The uranium Gadget is theoretically sound, no test is needed, only a sufficient supply of materials. The plutonium Gadget has greater potential yield, but we need a test to know if that is attainable as a practical matter.”

  He crossed to the man who was smoking, and asked for a cigarette. As Oppenheimer lit it, and took a long draw, Monroe leaned toward Charlie. “The lives being saved or lost, while he up and has a smoke.”

  Oppenheimer returned to the front. “I will personally encourage General Groves and the oversight committee that the Gadget must not be used on human subjects. Its power is too great. Rather, to prove decisive American military superiority, and the futility of opposing our army and navy, we ought to conduct a public demonstration.”

  He took a long draw on the cigarette. “We will build a Gadget to prove that it can be done, and to show that our nation alone possesses the capability. Perhaps we will also fabricate the impression that we have dozens more, ready for use. Then we will demonstrate it, for all the world to see. Hitler will understand its significance. Nothing more will be necessary. Therefore, a demonstration.”

  Oppenheimer did not take questions, or remain to elaborate. Instead he strode up the aisle, grabbed his overcoat, and charged out into the swirling snow.

  Returning to the barracks after the debate, Monroe and Charlie trudged through growing drifts. Giles had stayed to argue with boys from Theoretical. Not until they’d passed Ashley Pond and the tech areas did Monroe speak. “So, Mister Charlie. You think Oppie believes that horse manure?”

  “He has no reason to lie to us,” Charlie said.

  “Sometimes you are as naive as a mouse. One nibble of cheese can win you over.”

  “He could have said, ‘I want to drop this thing on Berlin and Munich, and you are all ordered to build it.’ Telling the truth costs him nothing.”

  Monroe considered a moment. “Maybe it don’t matter if Oppie believes that demonstration noise, long as the fellas do.”

  “What fellas?” Charlie asked.

  “All of us, I reckon. Now we can keep right on going.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “I mean,” Monroe said, kicking a clod of snowy clay, “Oppie gave us cover, morals-wise. Building a Gadget for demonstration, everyone can work without having to answer the ethical questions. If someday the bomb gets used on humans after all, well, that was someone else’s decision, and our consciences are clear.”

  “If I’m naive,” Charlie said, “then you are cynical.”

  “Could be,” Monroe said. “Or maybe he just gave them all an out.” He realized they’d reached the barracks. “’Nother loop round the pond?”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a letter I’ve been saving.” Charlie opened the door. “Glad to see the Southern boy enjoying the snow, though.”

  “Like ice in whiskey.”

  Charlie watched Monroe wander into the darkness, until someone inside the barracks yelled to close the door, he was letting the heat out.

  Dear Charlie:

  By the time you read this I will be ready to go. To New Mexico, I mean.

  I have made this decision without asking you for two reasons. One, it could take weeks of letters back and forth for us to get comfortable, and arrange the details, and I cannot wait any longer. And two, life here is changing quickly enough that there is no point in staying in Chicago.

  Last week all we sold was one accordion. No pianos, no organs, no sheet music or lessons. One blessed accordion, and it was a beginner’s model.

  Also I think the war is wearing on my mother. I test her patience, when she has almost run out. I hate to say this because I am going to miss her so much, but I think she might be happier if she does not have to take care of me. She is closing the store, so she won’t have that responsibility either.

  But the main reason I am coming is you. Your last letter told me I should say good-bye if I am done with you. Instead I am doing the opposite. You’re a smart guy, you can figure out what that means.

  I have landed a job, and a room in a boardinghouse. I am coming to Santa Fe.

  I read the train schedule. Now I appreciate how difficult the trip must have been for you. I have one reassurance to make it easier: you are waiting at the end of it.

  I appreciate everything about you much more now. I am not afraid to say it. Or write it, anyhow. There is a kindness about you, and it brings out the kindness in me. Which is a thing I think everyone would say is good. Ha.

  Charlie, I hope I won’t be crowding you, or interfering with your work. I hope I don’t get grouchy, like I can sometimes. Because this is all a leap of faith for me. The thing I imagine over and over is an evening, after you’re done with work, and we go for a walk. It’s slow, because there is no hurry, and no destination except returning to where we started. And we see so much of each other, we are talking about ordinary, everyday things. And when it’s done, we have a good long kiss, because oh how I have missed your kisses, Charlie.

  I put my new address down at the bottom, where I’ll be in two weeks.

  Your Brenda

  33.

  First thing that morning, I did my push-ups. Nine; I was getting up there.

  By then I checked more than my makeup in the bathroom mirror. I raised my arms and marveled. They were leaner, they had a shape. I hoped Charlie would like it. I knew full well that I did not have many more chances with him. Maybe only that day, our first meeting since he’d received my lost letter.

  Which didn’t mean that he shouldn’t be a man, but maybe I did not have to tell him so. Life as a young woman—admittedly a headstrong one—felt like threading an endless succession of hurdles. All I’d wanted was to study in a conservatory and find a solid guy. Was that too much to ask?

  The night before I’d decided to stay in, rather than go bar-hopping with Lizzie and the girls from the boardinghouse behind ours. Charlie would not arrive till the afternoon, his letter had said, because of work. But I wanted all my wits.

  No one was at the breakfast table, which was a relief because by then my presence caused Mrs. Morris no end of aggravation. If I tried being extra polite, she recoiled like a dog resists a leash. If I played some new hymn on Sunday, she would all but bare her teeth. That day there was bread, cheese, and dark coffee. I opened the paper and out of habit could not help looking for submarine exploits.

  I had an extra reason, anyhow. Lizzie’s husband was training for the invasion of Japan that fall. He wrote once a week: California was sunny, he was getting in excellent shape, and there was fresh fruit everywhere. But medics’ orders are to run to a wounded soldier’s side, even in the middle of battle. So Lizzie refused to read the paper. She said it scared her too much. I did the reading for her, and delivered good news whenever I could. The Akitsu Mara, 2,246 dead. The Mayasan Maru, 3,456 drowned.

  Only years later did it occur to me how odd that was, that I considered thousands of deaths to be good news. I suppose that is one of the things war does, turns your ideas of right and wrong upside down. Death, for any reason, is no cause for celebration.

  That April morning, the paper was mostly about Okinawa, where a battle had begun ten days before. It seemed as terrible as Iwo Jima—which lasted five weeks and cost 6,800 American boys. From Europe, though, the news was thrilling. Prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp had overpowered their remaining guards and killed them. Already the Soviets had liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. Allied troops were within fifty miles of Berlin too. If the European war ended soon, maybe Lizzie’s husband would not have to be in the invasion. I had no reason for this theory, only hope on my friend’s behalf.

  I left the table to go dress, and saw that the door from our stairs into the house had been left open, as had the back door. That allowed a cooling breeze to blow through, but when I passed the living room I saw that the wind had pulled a section of the newspaper apart, spilling pages all over the floor. I went in and began picking them up.

  All at once there was a great row from outs
ide, behind the house. I tucked the pages under a flower vase and went to the window. It was only open a few inches, but I could hear everything. Reverend Morris was shouting at the top of his lungs, while Mrs. Morris tried to hang laundry on the line.

  “Damnation and hellfire, woman,” he boomed, his big voice louder than ever. “How many times must I tell you?”

  “I can’t let these things stay dirty any longer,” she said.

  But the minister yanked a shirt from her hands and balled it against his chest. “I don’t want to see it. Do you hear me? I won’t see it.”

  Mrs. Morris turned away and began clothes-pinning a sheet to the line.

  “Don’t you ignore me,” he bellowed. His neck did that tic to one side, chin tilted. “I am speaking.”

  “What do you want me to do?” She turned and I saw that her face was shining with tears. “Is it wrong to wash his clothes and put them away nicely?”

  “Put them away?” he yelled. “I will never put any part of him away.”

  Reverend Morris looked around, taking in me at the window, the girls watching from across the back lot, his wife standing next to a laundry basket, looking like she’d just been slapped. With one last roar he grabbed the clothesline and yanked till it snapped. Sheets and shirts fell to the ground.

  Then I heard the back door open; he was coming inside. I bolted up the stairs.

  Lizzie was standing in the hall, facing out the window.

  “You saw all that?” I asked.

  “Everyone within half a mile heard it too.”

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Oh, Brenda.” Lizzie moved past me and sat on the bed. “I’m not allowed to tell.”

  “Is it really all that terrible?”

  She nodded and said no more.

  “You can tell me,” I insisted.

  But she shook her head. “Actually, I can’t. It’s not mine to tell.”

  “So frustrating.” I went to the window and Mrs. Morris was below, reaching up, attempting to knot the broken clothesline. Did everyone have a secret that caused them pain? The thin rope fell, but she bent to grab it, stretched upward, and tried again.