The Cassandra

by Sharma Shields

  I heard the worry in her voice and I was confused. “Are you talking about Annie? Didn’t she die in the hospital?”

  “It was a dry drowning,” Beth said, and as she spoke Annie materialized behind her, a mournful spirit, both desiccated and dank. The ghost coughed and a brackish steam rose from her lungs. “She choked in Puget Sound. I saw her flailing, drowning, and I dove in after her. I dragged her out of the water and she coughed, sneezed, but seemed fine. She played all day and we went home sunburnt and happy. Later that evening, she was very tired. She said her chest hurt a little. We assumed it was a cold. By the third day, she was unconscious. We got her to the hospital but it was too late.”

  I considered this. Annie turned once, slowly, behind her sister, showing me her damp nightgown and dripping fingers and shining dry braid, and after a full rotation she splashed into a puddle on the floor.

  Maybe there were droplets of the Columbia in my lungs now, dormant, dangerous. When I shook my head, I could hear the water sloshing.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told Beth.

  The puddle of Annie drew in on itself until there was nothing left but evaporated grief.

  Beth’s lips twitched into a furtive smile, an attempt to ease my own discomfort.

  I was moved by Beth’s great tragedies. She carried herself with such confidence, and I wondered if it was because she had lost so much, and knew exactly, unlike many of us, how much a person can bear.

  “She was sensitive like you, Milly, wide-eyed and eager,” Beth said. “Nothing slipped by her. She clung to every detail, just the way you do.”

  Annie was the major heartbreak of Beth’s life. Having experienced it diminished the impact of her husband’s death.

  “Grief can be such a redundant thing,” Beth said. “When Glen passed, I just thought, well, here it is, all over again, just as I expected. It was both terrible and familiar.”

  This, I believed, was why the bell limited me so. It trilled its own troubled history. Beth’s husband had given the bell to her as a wedding present, and it was a pretty item, gleaming with a delicate, heart-shaped handle, engraved in cursive with the words MR. AND MRS. GLEN JOHN GREEN. Below was their wedding date, May 5, 1942. It shone with the silver aura of loss.

  It irritated me in sleep, too, the ribbon chafing my skin, the bulbous metal knocking against my anklebone when I shifted or turned over. But she was Beth and I was Mildred, and I adored her. I would have done anything she requested. It at least allowed her to sleep better, which she sorely needed; her anxiety over my well-being had made her light sleeping even more delicate.

  After a week or so, I convinced myself that the bell wasn’t that big of a deal. I got used to the growing, foggy, stifled sensation in my head, as though there were swirling spirits stopped up there, wailing to be loosed. The long, dreamless nights of sleep had made me calmer if duller around the edges; I told myself this was a good thing. Meanwhile the other women in our barracks (Kathy, of course, was one of them) took to calling me Bessie. If I wasn’t with Beth, they mooed at me in the hallways, whether I was wearing the bell or not.

  To distract myself, I focused on work. Daily I bussed to and from Unit B, ferried along with Tom Cat, Gordon, and a hundred other men. I was one of the few girls who worked at that particular station, and usually the men regarded me like a much younger sister. If I was in earshot of a bawdy joke or if someone spoke too loudly about their dates or their visits to a brothel in Richland, they glanced at me, elbowing one another, expecting to see me flustered, embarrassed, but I only glared back at them stonily, patient for what they might say next. A few of them considered themselves upstanding Christian men, and women were to be treated with deference, innocent beauties before marriage, dutiful matrons following. These men were almost the worst of the lot, pedantic to a fault. I hated it when they shushed everyone, warning about my sensitive nature, when really I tended to lean in to overhear details about sex and corporeality, details that left me ripe and curious if not exactly lusty. None of the men were in love with me, but they tolerated me, and called me “Decent Milly.” The nickname was used behind my back at first but then directly to my face, and I took it as a compliment even though I was fairly certain it wasn’t meant that way.

  On the cattle car, Tom Cat or Gordon usually sat with me or nearby so that we could talk. Gordon liked to tell me about his past and his work, and Tom Cat liked to chat about home, or about his mother, or about the poor conditions of his job outdoors. I spoke with them easily enough, and the time passed quickly. I liked it best, however, when I was left alone, when I could just look out the window at the bright beige world. Every now and again we’d see the wild horses racing for the river, kicking up plumes of dry earth that streamed like long cream veils behind them. Rattlesnake Mountain, fat and smug, hunkered above the curving frown of the river basin, and the rare tree cast a woeful shadow that only a mouse or gopher could use for shade. The wind was almost always there, too, just as harsh and honest as ever. I didn’t let her bother me when I left the cattle car. I hurried inside where I could punch my time card, holding my scarf over my mouth and nose, shielding my eyes with my other palm. The wind terrorized many of the others. I once saw a man cry because of the way she spit sand in his eyes. I sorrowed for his weakness. Gordon couldn’t stand it; he pushed the poor fellow forward, shouting at him to stop acting like a girl, and the man replied tensely that it was difficult for him, as he had to work outdoors in the wind while Gordon worked inside with the Unit B pile. The man complained that the wind sounded like a sack of bees in his head.

  “I’ll go mad from it,” he said. “I just know it.”

  It was not an impossibility—people can go mad from subtler things than the winds of Hanford Reach—but Gordon hated this admission and said that the man was an embarrassment to us all.

  “We’re here for the country,” Gordon scolded. “Stop acting like a queer. Why, even Mildred here has more nerve than you.”

  Later, when we stood in line for the cattle car to return us to the barracks, I whispered to the man, “It’s okay, you know, to hate the wind. She’s powerful and not always kind.”

  He gave me a grateful look, then raked his glance across the open grass and sand, from Rattlesnake Mountain on one side to White Bluffs on the other. “I’ve asked for a change. We’ll see if they move me.”

  “I hope they transfer you,” I told him. “Good luck.”

  Tom Cat came forward then and said, “I requested a move a few weeks back. Took some work on my part, but they said I could switch to a dining room position next week. But if you’d prefer the job, I’ll give it to you. I’m not one for washing dishes.”

  The man blanched with joy, and he and Tom Cat spoke about the particulars while I smiled at them approvingly. They shook hands on it, agreeing to visit the payroll window together later that day.

  We boarded the cattle car a few minutes later. I was hungry and tired. As we settled into our seats, I told Tom Cat what a kind thing it was he’d done.

  He reached over and squeezed my hand. His touch startled me but not in a painful way.

  “I don’t want to wash dishes,” he said again. Then, more quietly, “I wouldn’t get to see you as much.”

  I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but his comment surprised me, the sentimentality of it, the bashfulness.

  He turned crimson; I’d embarrassed him. I put a hand on his arm and hurried to explain, “I’m just not used to someone wanting to see me.”

  But as I spoke my vision blackened. A spiderlike pain crawled behind my eyes, familiar, crushing. I pressed my palms to my temples.

  “Mildred?” His voice sounded distant, water-logged.

  Then the pain and the blackness dispersed. I released my head. I looked up at Tom Cat and watched, expectantly, calmly, I know these nightmares too well, as his face began to melt, the flesh dripping down his coat and onto the toes of his boots.

  The skin of his throat and chest followed, peeling away with his clothes. Only
a skeleton remained, sitting in a glop of fabric and organs and viscera.

  “Oh, Tom Cat.”

  In his rib cage flopped a yellow-breasted western meadowlark. It nursed a broken wing. It cocked its head, peering up at me with one black eye, and then it threw itself wildly against the bones, desperate for escape.

  There was nothing to do but wait until the vision ended, but I was trapped in it, my emotions stirred, too lucid.

  “You poor thing,” I said to the bird.

  The jaw of the skeleton moved up and down. “You all right, Mildred? You’ve gone pale.”

  One easy blink and just like that, he was Tom Cat again, flesh intact, meadowlark concealed, his shoes clean and polished. The bus rumbled toward our destination and the men around us, unaware of their dim futures, spoke and chuckled undisturbed.

  I would never learn why one vision would send me into seizure while another behaved like no more than a tap on the shoulder. Maybe it was a matter of fighting them or letting them be; maybe it was the time, or the stage of my emotions. Or it was random, as chaotic and furtive as anything else in our lives.

  I released my breath like a spear. My hands cramped and ached, I stretched my fingers out wide to relax them; even my mind rattled with meaning and metaphor. At least I was upright, able to speak, if shaken.

  “Do you need some air?” Tom Cat asked me. He leaned over me to crack the window. The breeze helped, I drew the fresh air into my lungs.

  “I thought I saw something,” I told him. My voice sounded foreign to me, accented and unsure. I liked Tom Cat. I wondered if I should warn him. “A vision.”

  The meadowlark. An illness? A memory? Tom Cat’s fragility?

  Tom Cat’s smile wavered. “Visions? Like déjà vu or something? What’d you see?”

  I hesitated, considering.

  “I saw what a wonderful husband you’ll make one day,” I lied. “Because you’re gentle. Like a bird.”

  Tom Cat gave me a funny look. Mad Mildred, I remembered. But then he said, “Was there a nest? Was I a father?”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. “Your children will adore you.”

  He beamed, then touched me on the arm and said, “That means a lot to me.” He lingered in the moment, seemed ready to say something else. I was glad for the grounding sound of wheels on cement. It occurred to me that he took the vision as no more than a flight of romantic fancy.

  “It’s what I see for myself, too,” he said.

  It’s not pretty what will happen to you.

  I tried to feel like I’d done him a great favor, giving him something to picture that was good and wholesome, but I was what Martha had always called me, a liar and a coward, although really she only called me this when I told the truth.

  People only believed me when I lied.

  * * *

  Dr. Hall was on the phone when I entered, speaking in slow, measured tones as though trying not to lose his temper.

  He snapped his fingers under my nose and then made a scribbling motion in the air, and I rushed to take notes.

  “You’re saying to up productivity levels,” he said into the phone, “but there are regulations in place.”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “Well, you’re the general, so please tell me what I can do.” Another pause. “You’re right, of course, especially if you want to destroy Hitler by summer. But I agree with DuPont: There are potential dangers to the environment. Upping production increases the risks.” A pause. I wrote down every word for him, as instructed. “Yes, exactly. Three times the power, three times the output. I know what DuPont says. The engineers are smart enough people, I’m sure, but if you’re going to listen to anyone, it should be the scientists. You need to think about injury. Accidents. We hope the wind and the river will dilute the toxins, but the full extent of the damage might not manifest itself immediately. DuPont’s more worried about their equipment and reputation, but we’re worried about much more than that.” Another pause. “Why don’t you speak with Farmer? He’ll have an even better sense of this unit’s abilities and dangers.”

  Dr. Hall looked at me ferociously for a moment as the voice on the other end of the line squawked in his ear.

  My pen paused over my notes in a manner I thought was very professional. I always felt very professional and important in Dr. Hall’s office. He was one of the few people at Hanford who knew all of Unit B’s secrets. That I was his clerk gave me a confidence that I carried with me beyond the gray office walls.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “It’s more Farmer’s baby than DuPont’s.”

  His voice was pained, as if he were releasing a beloved child to her biological father.

  “There’s no other way around it. The data is solid. We either continue at our current pace and allow for steady dilution into the Columbia and the air, or we up production and create more waste. You can’t have both, sir.” Dr. Hall looked up at me and rolled his eyes. I smiled faintly in response. Then he sat back, sighed, and said, “Yes, the end game is important. Stopping Hitler is paramount. Have you any word of how close he is to completing a project of his own?” Another moment’s pause. “Very troublesome. I don’t like to think what would happen if he succeeds first.” Dr. Hall frowned at me, or, rather, through me, as though staring across the multifold horizons to the mountains of Germany. I didn’t like this race against Hitler: The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Hitler has his own Unit B, I thought, and my heart throbbed with the danger. “I understand, the benefits outweigh the risk. This is a scantily populated region, and that’s one of the reasons you chose it. But do keep in mind the thousands of workers we have here.”

  The voice on the other end of the line hooted loudly in agreement, then murmured something I couldn’t hear. Dr. Hall nodded.

  “I suppose I can support that. Do consult with Farmer. We are, I hope you know, curious to see all that the project is capable of. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

  Dr. Hall signaled me to put aside the pen. I did so obediently and sat primly with my legs crossed and my hands folded on my lap.

  “Yes, thank you, General. Yes, sir. I’ll expect to speak with Farmer myself. It will be a pleasure. He’s a great man. A hero of mine. Of course. Take care, sir.”

  He hung up the phone, shaking his head.

  “The engineers are too precious about their machinery, and the militaristic mind cares only for dominance. It’s our job, as scientists, to make sure this is all done intelligently and ethically. What they’re after is power. And this unit, I tell you, has more power in it than the whole length of the Columbia.”

  I thought of the river’s undeterred strength, how she pummeled her way to the ocean, how she had nearly overtaken me and driven me south and then west.

  “That’s very strong then, Dr. Hall,” I said. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Yes, Miss Groves, please.”

  I rose and started for the door but he said my name again, questioningly.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How much of this all do you understand, Miss Groves?”

  I turned toward him and rested my hands on the back of my chair. “Well, not very much, sir. Just that what we are doing here is very important. It’s our best shot at stopping Germany.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And we might have to make sacrifices to do so,” I added.

  “Yes. Sacrifices. That might be the best word for it. More waste released into the river, into the air, which gives me pause. But you know this wind, Miss Groves. It will dilute the air quickly. We’re hoping it won’t cause too much damage.”

  He smiled at me, and while I very much respected Dr. Hall, was proud, indeed, to work for him, the smile reminded me of the skulls I’d seen in the Columbia riverbed.

  “Is it true,” I began hesitantly, “that Hitler has his own project? A project similar to this one?”

  Angles of worry punctured Dr. Hall’s plain, intelligent face
. “It’s why we’re rushing. It’s why we began this all in the first place. Einstein sent Roosevelt a letter, you see. He was very worried. We all are.”

  “Hitler has killed many children in Europe, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Hundreds of thousands. Dead and dying still.”

  “And women?”

  “Women, men, the very aged, the innocent. He has no respect for life. He must be stopped, Miss Groves.”

  “I had a dream,” I said, and as I spoke I felt I was speaking not in my own voice but in the voice of a more confident Other. “A dream about the children and women and elderly, all burnt to a crisp. They were in the Columbia riverbed, hundreds of thousands of them, choking it with charcoaled bones.”

  Dr. Hall’s graying eyebrows raised. “A nightmare.”

  “A vision,” I said.

  “A sign of a troubled past,” Dr. Hall said quickly. “I must admit, I’ve been having similar dreams, of being bombed here in the Northwest. But our dreams, I’m sorry to say, mean nothing. You’ve heard of Freud, I presume?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. He’s a quack.” Dr. Hall ruffled some of the pages on his orderly desk and then said, more kindly, “You’re an interesting sort of person, Miss Groves, but we mustn’t flatter ourselves that our dreams mean anything more than an anxious mind.”

  “Oh no, sir,” I said. “I don’t. Of course not.” Then, the very next moment, despite myself or because of it: “But it will come true.”

  I closed my eyes and the rattlesnake appeared on the black screen of my eyelids. The snake rose up, hissing, and shook its corn husk tail.

  “All of those bodies,” I said in a clipped, firm voice, the voice I used with my mother when I needed to move her from the toilet or the tub. “Bodies upon bodies, skulls upon skulls. More than you can possibly imagine. The children. The women and the infirm.”

  For a moment it felt as though he heard me, as though he really listened to me, and I held my breath.

  “Yes,” he said, and his words broke the spell. “That’s what will happen if Hitler wins.”