The Cassandra

by Sharma Shields

  I floated into the room then, full of witchcraft. I hovered over them both, these two insignificant, churlish women. I glared down at them where they sat on my cot—my cot—as though it were their own. I thought of my grandmother, that enormous bear of a woman.

  Hexe.

  “That’s my bed,” I said, my voice thrown out at them like a stone.

  Beth jumped to her feet. She put up her hands as though surrendering to me, and I could read the fear in her face. My unsmiling mouth confirmed it: I’d heard everything. Kathy moved more languorously, eyeing me warily.

  “Milly, what a surprise,” Beth said. “Are you okay?”

  “Never better,” I told her with a cold smile. “But I need a nap. Get off my bed.”

  Kathy glanced at Beth and then moved toward the door. She said, cheerfully, “Let’s get a bite of lunch, Beth, and then go back to work.”

  Beth looked at me with concern. She took a step toward me but I slid away from her. I undressed, slid into the sheets, pulled the blankets up over my head.

  “Milly, I hope you don’t think—”

  But Kathy interrupted her. “Let her rest. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  But you did. Everything is wrong.

  Beth tarried, pegged to the room by betrayal. I heard her weight shift from one foot to the other, the soles of her shoes gripped by viscous guilt, and I could smell her contrition, a perfume sweet with rot.

  “I’ll find you later, Milly,” she said. “We’ll talk and I’ll explain it all. Everything will be okay.”

  Into my pillow, I mumbled, “Leave me alone.”

  “Milly, listen to me—”

  “She wants us to leave,” Kathy said, and I heard her footsteps approach Beth, heard the soft noise of her pulling Beth away. “Let her rest. She’ll get over it.”

  I listened to them leave. For a long time I lay very still, breathing in the warm blackness of those blankets, wondering if I could die in this way, suffocating myself on anger and sadness and solitude. Eventually, I fell asleep.

  I slept through dinner. I slept through the comings and goings of the other women in my barrack. I woke briefly with a sense of someone leaning over me, smelling of a lavender scent that I recognized but no longer adored. I turned away from the silhouette. I was fully alone now. Solitude offered its own comfort, a lesson I learned over and over and over again. I went back to sleep.

  RAIN OF RUIN

  On August 6, as I scrubbed my armpits clean in the sink of the portable, I heard women outside shrieking and hollering.

  I dried myself off quickly and hurried into my blouse, shoving my nightgown and curlers into my messenger bag. I caught the eye of another woman changing there, and she, too, was hurrying, alarmed.

  “What on earth is going on out there?”

  With a rising sense of panic, we hastened outdoors to see what horrible thing had befallen us.

  Outside was our house mother, Mrs. Berry, her face wet with tears. I was relieved to see she was smiling.

  “We’ve done it!” Kathy shouted, sprinting past me as I squinted into the summery morning light.

  Women celebrated, embraced, and hollered, pouring outside the barracks with cheerful whoops and screams.

  Others wandered around as I did, dazed, asking, “What’s going on? What’s happened?”

  Mrs. Berry waved a paper in the air and whistled loudly, and I approached and touched her arm.

  She whirled to face me, her cheeks ruddy with excitement. “Mildred, it’s incredible! Just incredible!”

  She snapped the newspaper under my nose.

  The church bell began to toll. We could hear the men whooping, too, from their side of the camp.

  I peered at the headline in the Villager.

  IT’S ATOMIC BOMBS

  President Truman Releases Secret of Hanford Product News Spreads Slowly, Surprises Everyone Jubilation and Satisfaction Follows Revelation of Product Manufactured Here

  Richland was about the last place in the country to hear the news of the atomic bomb. As in other parts of the country it was the housewives who first heard the news over their radios and broke it to their husbands in a flurry of telephone calls which kept the switchboards humming.

  “Atomic bombs,” I said numbly.

  Something quaked in the distant field of my vision, a phantasmagoric figure that fluttered and twisted with a dangerous, frenetic energy. I smelled the burning flesh beneath her shroud and dreaded her approach.

  “Truman released a statement this morning,” Mrs. Berry said. “We dropped one today. Japs didn’t know what hit ’em!”

  The figure at the edge of my vision trembled and inched forward.

  “Those who walk in darkness,” I said, trying to stifle the rising panic in my throat.

  “Mildred, you okay, honey? You’ve gone white.”

  “Lady in the dark,” I said, and then the figure was before me, hooded, faceless, draped in black tatters. She hung in the air like a stinking stygian sheet. I pushed my fingers forward but the fabric parted, dissipated, at my touch.

  “Are you talking about the Ginger Rogers film?” Mrs. Berry asked, nonplussed.

  I opened my mouth to yell for help and the figure flew into my throat.

  My cheeks bulged, my eyeballs. My gut swelled with her acid and stench.

  I looked at Mrs. Berry in panic. My nose started to bleed.

  “Mildred, are you having allergies?” Even in my frenzy, I saw Mrs. Berry as a ridiculous woman, kind and always missing the point. She put a hand on my shoulder and pulled something out of her pocket. “Here, no biggie.”

  She pressed a handkerchief to my nose and held it there while my eyes watered. The dark figure in me fought and punched. I tried to swallow her but I couldn’t. My gut churned.

  “Get back,” I managed to say, and then I was heaving, choking with horrible retching sounds.

  The vomit hit the ground, black, chunky, steaming, and splashed onto Mrs. Berry’s legs.

  “Ow!” She swiped at her shin, more shocked than angry. “It burns!”

  The syrupy black gunk shuddered on the ground. I knelt down in front of it and in the liquid’s taut black velvet lifted a hundred tiny faces, agonized, screaming in pain. They emerged like so many bubbles, lifting, writhing, then going flat again. The vomit shuddered and then dissolved like an oil back into the earth. Mrs. Berry stared at the ground where the faces had been, gasping almost as wretchedly as I was.

  “What in the Sam Hill did you eat today?” she said.

  The blood dried in my nose. My stomach settled. I slowly returned to myself. I asked Mrs. Berry if her legs were okay.

  She bent over her shins, examining them. “Huh. Look at that. Right as rain. I thought I was burnt, but I guess not.” She sucked on her big lower lip, marveling. “That was like hot coffee coming out.”

  “What was the name of the place?” I asked her.

  “Huh?”

  “The place in Japan?”

  “Oh. Truman said it was a military base. A place called Hiroshima.”

  “A military base?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Relief. There couldn’t be that many civilians in Hiroshima, not if it was a military base.

  “He’ll drop more if they don’t surrender,” she said proudly.

  “More bombs?”

  “He promised them a ‘rain of ruin.’”

  Off to the side of my field of vision, it was happening again, the shuddering figure drawing herself back together, humming, waiting to pounce.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really not feeling well.”

  “Go to the infirmary,” she advised. “And stay away from black coffee. Seems to bother your stomach. Add milk to it next time.”

  I assented with a grunt, even though I hadn’t yet taken coffee or eaten breakfast. There had been nothing in my gut except for the phantom.

  I stumbled away from her, lacing through the celebrating crowd. I spotted Kathy and Beth
talking excitedly to each other near our barracks’s side door, but I ignored them. The squirming shadow-figure followed me at a distance.

  * * *

  At work, Dr. Hall smiled and rose uncharacteristically when I entered. He seemed happy to see me.

  “You’ve heard,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “How does it feel? Now that you know?”

  I hesitated. He sat down in his chair and motioned for me to do the same.

  “It’s a good thing, isn’t it, Miss Groves? We’ve won a major battle, you realize. And I’m not just talking about Japan and Germany. I’m talking about the race we were in, scientifically. We’ve created the atom bomb first, and this means we can use it to protect ourselves and all good nations. Imagine if it had fallen into the hands of Hitler, as we feared for so long!”

  “Hitler’s dead.”

  “There will be other Hitlers.”

  This was obvious to me. “And what happened to the military base?”

  “You mean where it was dropped today? Hiroshima? We don’t yet know. We’re waiting to hear the reports. There’s never been another bomb like this, so I’m eager for news.”

  “Eager,” I said. “Yes.”

  I felt sick.

  “Miss Groves, I know you’ve expressed concerns about the product. But as our general said, ‘This will be the bomb to end all bombs,’ and I hope that’s true. Our hard work is for the global good.” He explained Japan’s refusal of the Potsdam Declaration. “We gave them every opportunity. Truman warned them, if they didn’t agree with our terms, they would face utter annihilation.”

  “Will they surrender now?”

  “If they don’t, Truman will drop another atom bomb. I can’t imagine the war will continue after that.”

  Off to the side the coat hook shuddered. It was the phantom again, vibrating with terror. She wanted me to notice her. She had a message for me. I strained to listen.

  It was the humming sound. Hir. O. Shi. Ma.

  It hovered closer. I kept my mouth sealed. I didn’t want to swallow it again, couldn’t feel her writhing inside of me.

  Hir. O. Shi. Ma, the figure hissed, and then I was the figure, also hovering, but not here in Unit B, but in the sky far above a town. Peninsulas of land stuck out like toes into a large bay, and a river wound through attractive buildings. The whole map of urban space thrummed with life.

  I landed with a thud back in Dr. Hall’s office.

  “It’s a city,” I said. “Hiroshima. Why would President Truman call it a military base when it’s a city?”

  “Miss Groves, I’m sure he wouldn’t say it was a military base if it didn’t have—”

  “You knew,” I said. “You knew all along it was a city. They told you on the phone that day, about the target.”

  “I wasn’t told much of anything, Miss Groves. Targets were mentioned but not Hiroshima.”

  “It’s all true,” I said. “Everything I told you. The town destroyed, the people mutilated beyond recognition. I told you and you didn’t believe me.”

  “I listened to your hypotheses with much interest, Miss Groves. We’ll see as the reports come in whether or not—”

  “I’ve seen it,” I retorted. “They are facts. We are killing everything by making this bomb and one day they’ll bomb us here, just like I told you. Someone will bomb us. Our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. And that bomb will be thousands of times more powerful than this one.”

  Dr. Hall grew cross. “Did you have so much to say during the Tokyo firebombing, Miss Groves? Hundreds of thousands died then and you protested nothing. And what of the millions the Japanese have killed in China, Korea, Malaysia, Indochina? You have a narrow view of humanity. This is war.”

  I was quiet. My foot tapped anxiously against the floor.

  Dr. Hall wiped at his face. I had upset him. I was glad to see him rattled.

  “Listen, Miss Groves,” he said shakily. “Go home for the day. Emotions are high. I understand your point of view, I do. It’s the point of view of a compassionate human being, and surely the world needs more of those. But please don’t fool yourself: You’ve willfully participated in the creation of this bomb just as I have. Voicing your opinions about it now is too little, too late.”

  “I warned you,” I said. “I told you all of this and you ignored me.”

  He waved me off. I could see from his face that he’d closed his mind to me. I was a woman, unpredictable and shrill. He muttered something about me nearing my menses.

  I gathered my purse and light scarf. The trembling figure was gone from its post near the coatrack. I had said what I needed to say. I was free to go.

  “Talk about it with your friends. You have a right to feel proud of your work here, Miss Groves.”

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  I heard Mother in my voice as I said it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and he really did sound sorry, as though my friendlessness was worthier of his attention than the massacre of an entire people.

  * * *

  I took the cattle car back to campus, but other people had also been let out from work, and the beer-drinking and carousing irritated me. I tried to walk outside, by the river, but the heat shrank my spirit. I returned to the barracks. I read a penny book mystery and napped fitfully. I rose to eat alone in the mess hall and then returned, again, to bed. All around me rose the excited chatter of the women, my roommates, all of them exuberant, prideful, about the bomb. I hated that I couldn’t fall asleep. I craved erasure.

  Finally, haltingly, I dozed.

  * * *

  Later in that long dark night I snapped awake to find myself sitting on top of a rocky cliff overlooking the Columbia River. I was mid-conversation with the heron. I was happy to no longer be in the barracks, and I was even happier to have someone to speak to, even if I could never decode the aufhocker’s intentions.

  The product, the heron said.

  She had been repeating this to me for several minutes now, waiting for my response, but I was only now awake, the word resounding, vibrating, in my left ear.

  “They’ve killed civilians,” I told the heron. “The Japanese will surrender now. Dr. Hall says I’m part of the success. He says I should be proud.”

  The heron squawked; it was an ugly, lonely sound.

  I asked her where the wind had gone.

  She beds down behind the mountains. The more she rests, the stronger she becomes.

  It was strange not to feel the wind’s warm, strong body against me. I found myself missing her, although most of the Hanford residents would be pleased. When she was absent, they played late evening games of baseball and picnicked outdoors rather than in the loud airless mess halls. The children chased one another, shrieking in pleasure when they got caught.

  Without the wind, the night sky was polished to a fine sheen, cloudless, be-glittered with stars. It was a new moon and the stars, liberated, breathed deeply.

  I shut my eyes. There was the sound of the river, washing, washing, Washing west in Washington State. I was drunk with the present and future.

  What fine shoes you have, the heron said.

  “Oh yes,” I said, and I wiggled my feet. Usually I’d been barefoot during my wanderings—I wondered now if putting on the shoes had been my idea or the aufhocker’s. “I ordered them from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Do you know,” I confessed, laughing, “I once wondered if I took this job just so I could buy these nice shoes.”

  They’re divine, the large bird opined.

  The rattlesnake slept on my lap and I petted her gently. I worried at first that she would soil my nightgown, but she was as dry and clean as an old bone.

  I won’t see you for a long time, the heron said.

  “Oh?” I was surprised. “Are you going somewhere?”

  She tossed the long cord of her neck. You are.

  “I’m not sure why you bothered me all this time, anyway,” I said.

  “Empathy
at a distance is a luxury.” You were chosen for your empathy. You were chosen for your distance.

  “You could be talking about anyone,” I said.

  We thought with your visions you could influence change. We thought you’d make the right choice and destroy the product. But how wrong we were. You are doing what they all do. You are the same as them. You’ve become part of their engine, the machine of men’s rule.

  I didn’t take the heron seriously; she annoyed me. Did she really think I could have listened to the coyote and followed all of his hurried, rabid instructions to destroy Unit B? Did she really think anyone would have allowed it? I would have been caught too easily, men crawling all over the walls like greedy spiders. I wanted to believe we were creating something good, something that would save us all.…

  “How irritable you are tonight,” I said. “Maybe it’s a good thing I won’t be seeing much of you.”

  But I didn’t mean it. I was frightened by the prospect of leaving. Hanford was my home now. I’d watched it unravel others but it had only tied my knots tighter. Back in Omak, I’d lost sight of myself. I’d watered myself down with self-hatred and inhibition. This was the only place I’d ever truly known myself. I’d succeeded here. I’d become a working woman, a patriot.

  Hadn’t I?

  The heron’s words made me doubt myself.

  I couldn’t return to Omak. Not now, not ever.

  Someone will join us tonight, the heron announced, and I waited for the scores of wounded and dead to tumble down the slope of Rattlesnake Mountain.

  But it was only a lone man.

  He came down the embankment toward me, swinging his big arms, a graceful figure, athletic, muscular. He walked like a dancer, with a slight lift in each step.

  The tinnitus in my ear whined.

  It was Gordon Nyer.

  I rose to my feet, unsteadily. The rattlesnake dropped away and slithered swiftly into the darkness. The heron flew over the shadowy sagebrush toward the river. My gaze returned to Gordon. There was nowhere else to look.

  He treaded toward me in his work boots. “There you are,” he called.

  “This is no place for you.”