“This guy right here,” he said, clapping a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Victory is only one day old, but some people already have big plans for Trigger.”
“Please don’t call me that,” Charlie said.
“Sorry.” He held up both of his hands. “Sorry. But look.” He tipped his hat backward, as if he’d just unsaddled a mare. “We need to talk, son.”
“I have to finish here,” Charlie said. “In time for the afternoon bus to Santa Fe.”
“Hell with that.” Simmons made a dismissive wave. “I’ll give you a lift.”
“Um.” Charlie stared down at the canyon. “A lift.”
“Sure. Meet you at the mess hall at four. That way we can chat at our leisure.”
The professor strode back to the truck, and they heard him speaking as he climbed in. “Now, are you going to drive me back like a sane person?”
They watched as the truck turned around and eased uphill.
“Phoniest man who ever lived,” Charlie said.
“Isn’t he your uncle?”
“That makes it harder. No one likes to realize their relative is a fake.”
“Maybe,” Giles replied. “But you told him you have to finish here, when you know that will take months.”
“Guilty, Your Honor.”
“What opportunity could he possibly have for you at this point? They haven’t even signed the surrender documents.”
“I have no idea or interest,” Charlie said, as he started the wheelbarrow toward the concrete bowl. “Unless it involves whiskey.”
Simmons did not have a truck for the ride to Santa Fe. He had a blue Ford sedan, which he parked directly in front of the mess entry, forcing hundreds of people to squeeze around him. Charlie came along with his face washed, wearing a fresh shirt.
“Now you’re looking sharp,” the professor said, opening the passenger door. “But, Charlie, did you hurt your leg?”
“No, why?”
“I thought you might be limping.”
Charlie shook his head and sat in the car. “My legs are fine.”
The road from The Hill, he noticed, was an entirely different experience if you weren’t in a bus. Simmons drove slowly, and Charlie’s stomach stayed in one place.
“You know, son, you’ve made us very proud with the work you’ve done here.”
Charlie pursed his lips and said nothing.
“You’re a hero to us all,” Simmons continued.
“I am not a hero,” Charlie said. “I was barely in the war.”
“Nonsense,” he said, chuckling. “I mean, sure, people died because of our bombs. But think of the countless people who did not die because of them. Japanese men and women. American soldiers. You saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
“Why am I suddenly reminded of my mother coming home from a dress sale with a stack of boxes, telling my father how much money she had saved?”
The professor took a long look at Charlie before bringing his eyes back to the road. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”
Charlie ran his thumb along the door handle. “Uncle John, I feel very, very old.”
They rode in silence for a while. Simmons cleared his throat and tried again. “What about all the wars you have prevented? The Hitlers that will never rise, because mankind fears this new weapon so much?”
“Only until other nations learn how to make atomic bombs. We did it, from zero to Hiroshima, in twenty-nine months. How long do you think it will take the Soviets?”
The professor chewed on his lower lip and did not speak. As the road turned toward Santa Fe, they caught up with the bus from The Hill. “Tell me this doesn’t feel good,” Simmons said. He accelerated and passed the bus, air roaring in the car’s open windows. Slowing again, he patted Charlie’s leg. “You know, this conversation hasn’t been going at all as I’d expected. But I want to tell you about some options you have.”
“Options for what?”
“Next steps, son. The future.”
“There is a future?”
“There are several futures. And your uncle is in a position to help, as of about forty-eight hours ago. First option is that you stay on The Hill. It will remain a national research laboratory. I can offer you a post under Hans Bethe, who will be writing a history of the bomb project. An incredible honor to work with him, of course. Where you climb from there depends on how well you do. I’ll be on the scene in a related role, to make sure your path is a smooth one.”
“There’s another option?”
“I am approved to offer you a spot in the PhD program in physics at Stanford University. You will work with Nobel Prize winners, in the best labs, with a brilliant research career before you.”
Charlie shook his head. “I can’t afford anything like that. I have a wife now.”
“So I heard, and congratulations,” Simmons said, flashing his toothy smile. “But you misunderstand. This offer would be a full ride: tuition, books, a housing stipend.”
“How is that possible?”
“Let’s just say that you live in a grateful nation.”
Charlie had no reply for that. They had reached the outskirts of Santa Fe.
“You’ll need to direct me,” the professor said. “I don’t know this town.”
Charlie checked his watch. “I’m glad we’re early. I have something I need to do.”
“Happy to help.” The rest of the ride they were silent, Charlie saying left and right as needed, till they arrived at East Palace Avenue. Charlie had opened his door when Simmons reached out to grasp his forearm. “You can study all kinds of physics there, you know. It doesn’t have to be military.”
“That’s what I thought about math.”
“This offer won’t wait, son.” He let go. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“Maybe.” Charlie headed across the square. Outside a boot store, a man perched on a stool had an elaborate mermaid inked onto his arm. Charlie, having noticed him before, approached the man and they had a brief conversation. The man pointed up the street, angled his hand to the right. Charlie set off in that direction. Only then did Simmons drive away.
Five minutes later Charlie rapped on the glass of a tattoo parlor. A man so sunburned his skin looked like leather came to the door and mouthed no.
“It’ll be quick,” Charlie called through the glass. “Only a few numbers.”
The man shook his head again. Charlie could see an eagle on his neck, stretching as the man moved. He waved a wad of bills back and forth.
The man threw back the latch. “Entra entonces,” he said, shuffling to the back.
Charlie followed, saw the man sit on a metal stool, and took a seat on the wide chair beside it. “Numbers,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. He tapped his right shoulder. “On this side, a three, a two, a two, and a six. Black ink, half an inch tall.” Then he tapped on the left. “Over here, I want a two, another two, a five, and an eight.”
The man nodded. “With comma? Like two thousan’?”
“Exactly,” Charlie said. “Two thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight.”
The man nodded. “What is this numbers for, senor?”
“One hundred thousand and seventy thousand, each divided by thirty-one.”
The man’s expression did not change. “Five dollar, each side.”
He pushed Charlie back in the seat, lit a cigarette, then left it to smolder in an ashtray. As he wiped the skin with alcohol, Charlie felt the cool of it evaporating. Then the man leaned over with his needle and ink.
“Is going to sting some, tu entiendes?”
“It’s all right,” Charlie said, closing his eyes. “Hurt me.”
49.
He looked like hell, to tell the truth. Worst I’d ever seen him. Hunched over like someone had hit his sternum so hard it knocked the wind out of him, and he hadn’t gotten his breath back yet. I’d planned to greet him with a declaration of love, to relieve my conscience and confirm it for him without a doubt. But his appearance sen
t that plan soaring away over the rooftops. He looked like a shell of himself, hollowed out and still. “Oh, Charlie,” I said, pulling him into a bear hug.
“Ow, ow,” he said, wincing. “Easy.”
Only as I drew back did I notice the bleeding on his shoulders. “What on earth?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Not important.”
Opening his shirt, I saw numbers on either side. “What are these about?”
“Reminders,” Charlie muttered. “Souvenirs.”
“Here, come out of the sun,” I said, leading him to a bench away from the bus crowd. The emptiness felt worse to me than his shaking weeks before. At least that had an energy to it. This was scary. As we sat, too, I noticed that he smelled sour. “We need to take care of you, Charlie.”
“There is,” he held up one finger, as if he were interrupting me, “an order to the universe. A way things work, at the smallest level, and a force that keeps them intact. Now imagine the universe’s sharpest knife.” He leveled that finger, making a jabbing motion. “So sharp, it can slice the order of things in half. When that happens, even to a few small ounces out of all the matter that exists, the universe complains. And when something that powerful complains, it blows down everything for miles.”
“You’re talking about the bomb now.”
“I did not discover any of it, Brenda. I did not even invent the knife. I only developed a way to get the knife out of its sheath. Now look at what’s happened.”
He was damaged. And it was my fault. “It was war, Charlie. Every man had to do his part. My brother, my father, my friends. This was your part.”
“Sure.” He nodded, but with his face scrunched up like smoke was getting in his eyes. “If you take the best warriors on our side—best tank commander, best fighter pilot, best machine gunner—how many do you think they killed? One hundred? Two hundred?” Charlie rubbed his face with both hands. “This is hundreds of thousands, Brenda. Not counting however many more who die from the radiation sickness we did not even know existed.”
“Charlie, you said yourself it was a giant gun, and someone else was responsible for aiming it and pulling the trigger. You didn’t make those decisions.”
“I am talking about the universe, Brenda. We made it complain. And I am not certain that it is finished complaining.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you dare to brush up against God, He is likely to notice.”
By then I had reached my limit of crazy talk. This was my husband, after all. The guy my mother had said was likeliest to come out of the war intact. “Look, Charlie. We can chew this into little pieces over the months ahead. In the meantime, there is peace. The fighting is done. Our men will be coming home.”
“It’s true,” Charlie conceded. “Things are already different on The Hill too.”
“In a while we’ll need to figure out where we go next.”
Charlie turned to me then, and his expression softened. “Hi, Brenda,” he said, touching his fingertips to my cheek. “Hello, my wife.”
“Hi there,” I said, taking his hand, kissing his palm. Here was my moment, to make the declaration I’d withheld. “Charlie, one thing I need to say—”
“You’d like to return to Chicago. I know. And I’m inclined toward Boston, for the same reasons. But you should know they’ve made me some offers.”
He deserved to say his piece first. My words of love could wait. “Really?”
“A grateful nation moves quickly, I guess. Anyway I could stay in Los Alamos—”
“No.” I waved the idea away. “New Mexico has been good for me, but not for you. The next thing Charlie Fish needs is to be in a good place.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I could go get a doctorate in physics at Stanford.”
“Stanford University? In California?”
“For free. I’d work with the best people imaginable.”
“Would you have to build more bombs?”
“Exactly the right question,” he said. “I don’t think so. There’s acoustics. Optics. Radar, which is still in its infancy.”
I could see how the discussion was bringing him back to earth, how his forehead relaxed. “Acoustics would be great, Charlie. After all your organ listening.”
“Do you think so?”
As he spoke, I became aware of a little flame, burning in my heart. A silent candle I had sheltered from all the winds of the past two years, and all at once it seemed to have renewed heat and light.
“I do,” I said. “But there is one thing.”
He turned to me, the face of innocence. “Yes?”
“Do you think they have a music department at Stanford?”
“A university that renowned? They must.”
It was all I could do to keep from jumping in the air and shouting. “Do you think it would be possible for me to study there, and maybe take courses in the organ?”
“What a terrific idea,” he said, brightening. “I could see if my uncle can add it to the deal.” Charlie banged his thigh with his fist. “I’ll insist on it.”
After all that, he still cared for me. I took both of his hands. “Charlie Fish, I don’t care if it’s California or Kalamazoo, I’ll be right there with you.”
I was ready to say more, to say everything, but he did not respond with the delight I’d expected. Instead his face folded into itself, and he started to weep. After a few seconds Charlie lowered his head, crying harder, then collapsed into me completely, a sobbing mess. His tears darkened the yellow shirt I’d put on specially for him.
I wrapped my arms around Charlie, careful not to touch his sore places, and rocked him back and forth. The feeling of newness, of giving comfort, was as strong as the weeks we’d spent learning the pleasures of sex. I had not yet declared it, but I was not done falling in love with Charlie Fish.
“I’ve always been interested in acoustics,” he blurted out into my belly, before burying his face there again.
I nearly laughed. Instead I said, “Then it’s settled.”
The superior girl still had not learned. I thought I was saving him. I was wrong.
50.
The lecture hall was only half-filled, as the semester began with many men still on active duty. Not everyone was eager to return to a classroom.
“In the course catalog you will see curriculum modifications,” said Richard Zeno, world-class particle physicist and physics department chairman. He had bushy eyebrows, hair in his ears, hair in his nose. Behind him sat other professors, plus postdoc fellows, observing with undisguised boredom.
“I can’t believe it,” a boy to the left whispered. “The same room as Richard Zeno.”
Charlie nodded, but he was paying attention to the speech. The demands for some faculty members to aid in the war effort, low enrollment, availability of research funding—all of these forces “may require an adjustment of expectations,” Zeno said. “It could be some time before we are at full throttle. But I assure you, we will have no deficit of excellent instruction, no shortage of work.”
Charlie’s curiosity overcame his desire to make a good impression by listening closely. He pulled out the course listings. There were three optics courses on the list, but in reading the descriptions he realized they were about focusing techniques for aircraft bombing runs. He searched further, finding one course in his area of interest—“Foundational Principles of Acoustics”—and it was not offered until spring semester.
Zeno invited the new students to ask questions. A student to Charlie’s right raised his hand. “Will Stanford be helping to develop the hydrogen bomb?”
Several of the professors in back roused themselves at that question. Zeno pointed to a long-bearded fellow who, as he spoke, held his jacket by the lapels. “We intend to play a leadership role,” the professor said. “There will be course offerings, lab work, postdoc and field opportunities, and presumably, jobs for those who excel.”
Charlie saw heads nodding all around the lecture hall.
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Another hand rose. “Will we be working on atomic electricity? Or just weapons?”
Zeno answered that one himself. “Funding at present is weapon-centric. But I fully expect that other applications of fission and fusion will gradually come to the fore.”
He scanned the room. “One more?”
Charlie found his hand in the air. “What about acoustics?”
Zeno chuckled. “What about acoustics?”
“I’m only seeing one course in the catalog.”
“Professor Fusco, yes. We expect him to return from Oak Ridge this fall.”
“But that’s the only offering in that discipline?”
Zeno turned to the professors, none of whom seemed interested. He smirked at Charlie. “That field will return to prominence the moment we find a way to win a war through the application of acoustics.”
People laughed here and there in the audience, after which a department administrator came forward and described the registration process. After him, lunch.
Charlie took his tray across the cafeteria to a crowded table, an empty seat at the far end. The fellows nodded hello, while one at the head of the table was saying something. “I didn’t hear one concrete example of how we’ll work on the H-bomb. And who was that guy asking about acoustics? I mean, let’s be deliberately irrelevant.”
Charlie waved his fork in the air. “That was me.”
“Well, then.” The boy seemed not at all abashed. “How does that contribute to the betterment of America?”
Charlie scooped mashed potatoes with his fork. “Personally, I feel like I’ve done quite enough national betterment lately. Now I want to enlarge my mind.” And he shoveled the food into his mouth.
“I knew it,” a boy across the table said. “You’re him, aren’t you?”
“Him who?” said the loudmouth at the head of the table.
“Trigger. I heard he was in our program. You’re him.”
Charlie spoke with his mouth full. “I don’t like that nickname.”
“But you’re a hero,” the boy said. “You made thirty-two things happen at once.”
“Actually it was sixteen. Two arrays and a doubler.” He scooped more potatoes.
Universe of Two Page 40
