Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“The effect of the radiation,” Eisler said, his back still to him. “It can’t have been more than two or three seconds. That’s something. But it’s the distance that matters. It’s good you stopped where you are. You have good manners, Mr. Connolly,” he said dispassionately, as if it were no more than another factor to compute. “Not to walk in. They may have saved your life.”

“You did,” Connolly said, shaking involuntarily.

Eisler turned to face him. “Unless I have taken it.” He paused. “We will have to do some tests.” Then, sensing Connolly’s shock, “I think you will be all right. It was a very small exposure.”

“But what happened? Was that a chain reaction?”

“Oh yes.” Eisler came away from the board, his shoulders drooping. “I am so very sorry, Mr. Connolly. I didn’t know—”

“But what-what should I do?” Connolly said, his voice still urgent and unsteady.

“Do? There’s nothing to do.” Eisler looked at him, then moved over to the table. “We must go to the infirmary. But first, you will permit me? One note.”

Connolly watched, hypnotized, as Eisler wrote on a sheet of paper. So fast, a simple flash. What if he died? Radiation poisoning was a grisly, painful death. Everyone knew that. But nobody knew anything. Minutes ago he had been hurrying through the rain. Just a flash, like a bullet in combat. Here, as far away from the war as anyone could get.

“May I ask,” Eisler said, “why you came here?”

“Weber sent me. To remind you. The Beethoven.”

“Ah, the Beethoven,” he said wistfully. “He will have to wait, I’m afraid. We must get you to a doctor. Right now.” As he moved forward, Connolly involuntarily stepped back. “No, don’t worry, it’s not contagious. I am not myself radioactive. It doesn’t work that way.”

Connolly flushed. “Sorry.” And then, embarrassed that it had not occurred to him before, “But what about you? Are you all right?”

Eisler shook his head gravely, but his voice had the tone of a wry smile. “No, Mr. Connolly, for me it’s fatal. It’s in the numbers, you see,” he said, pointing to the board. “The numbers don’t lie.”

They lay side by side on the small infirmary examination tables as nurses drew blood samples and the doctor ran tests that, incongruously, reminded him of an annual physical.

“Is there anything wrong with me?” Connolly said. “I don’t feel anything.”

“We’ll just keep you overnight to be sure,” the doctor said. Then, to Eisler, “How long did you say he was exposed?”

“A second. Two. Three. It was not significant. There have been worse cases,” Eisler replied, but he was looking at Connolly, reassuring him. “They don’t know, you see,” he said gently. “They put you under observation, but what can they observe? So now we are to be roommates.”

“Just for the night,” the doctor said. “Just to be sure.” But he meant Connolly. The questions, the light reassurances, were directed to him. Eisler, lying quietly in his hospital smock, would not be expected to leave. He was dying.

Connolly knew it when Oppenheimer arrived. Eisler had busied himself sending apologies to Weber, politely teasing the doctor, making small jokes to Connolly about the makeshift hospital, so that it all seemed no more unpleasant than an interrupted seminar. Then Oppenheimer came into the room, his porkpie hat dripping with rain, and Connolly saw his pale face, the bright, quick eyes for once still and afraid.

“Robert,” Eisler said softly.

Oppenheimer looked at him, a silent exchange, then took off his hat.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he said, his eyes never leaving Eisler.

“I’m sorry, Robert.”

“Friedrich.” He came over and took Eisler’s hand. The gesture surprised Connolly. It was something new in Oppenheimer. He had seen frustration, even a kind of haunted wisdom. He’d never seen simple affection. “We’ll have you moved to Albuquerque,” Oppenheimer said, falling back on authority.

Eisler smiled. “Albuquerque? And leave the project? What could they do in Albuquerque? Here is fine. I’ll have it all to myself. Mr. Connolly here will be leaving tomorrow-he’s quite all right.”

Oppenheimer took him in for the first time. “What the devil were you doing there?” he said quickly, and it occurred to Connolly that it might have been his fault, the interruption.

“Robert, Robert,” Eisler said soothingly. “You blame the messenger. It was nothing to do with him. An accident. Stupid. My own stupidity.”

“Are you all right?” Oppenheimer said to Connolly, an apology.

Connolly nodded. “I guess so.”

“How did it happen?” He turned back to Eisler.

“The dragon. It went critical. You can see the notes.”

“I told you—”

“Yes, yes, a thousand times.”

“How long was the exposure?”

“Long enough.”

“My God, Friedrich.” Oppenheimer took his hand again, disconcerted, and Connolly felt the impulse to turn away, his face to the wall.

“It’s a risk, Robert, that’s all. You don’t take risks? Every day? How else can we go forward?”

“It was foolish.”

“Perhaps. But now there’s much to be done. We have the moment now. We need to calculate—”

But Oppenheimer had got up and was nervously lighting a cigarette, glancing toward the open door.

“Robert, a hospital—”

“It’s my hospital,” Oppenheimer snapped, drawing some smoke. He turned back. “It’s over, Friedrich,” he said quietly. “I can’t allow it.”

“Allow? I’m not dead. The effects aren’t immediate, you know. There will be a week. Maybe two. I can still—”

“I’m asking you to stay here. Or Albuquerque.”

Eisler looked up at him to protest, then, seeing his face, settled back on his pillow. “Under observation.”

“Yes,” Oppenheimer said reluctantly, “under observation.”

Eisler was quiet for a minute. “So I am to be the guinea pig.”

“Friedrich—”

“No. Of course you are right. I myself should have thought of this. Each day we observe and then, in the end, we go a little forward. But you will allow me to help organize it, the experiment?”

“Friedrich.”

“No, no, please. We are not sentimentalists. It’s important to know. We can observe the elements break down-how the body reacts.”

Oppenheimer walked over to the sink and doused his cigarette under the faucet. “I’m not asking you to—”

“No, not you. I volunteer. It’s my idea. My wish. For the project.” Eisler’s voice was clear, eager. “It seems fair it should be me.”

Connolly looked over at him, puzzled, but there seemed no irony in his voice. He was back at the blackboard, going about his business, getting ready to keep the chart on his own death.

Oppenheimer turned away from the sink, and Connolly saw that his eyes were moist. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

Eisler thought for a minute. “You have morphine? For later? I’ll need that, I think. I’m a coward when it comes to that. And there’s nothing to learn then. Just the pain.”

“Of course,” Oppenheimer said, almost a whisper.

“Nothing to learn,” Eisler repeated.

The nurse drew a screen between them at night, white cotton stretched on a wheeled frame, but Connolly couldn’t sleep. He had never been in a hospital before and it unnerved him-the constant light in the hall, the discreet sound of rubber soles in the corridor, even, once, the faint smell of night-shift coffee. But Eisler was quiet behind his screen, so Connolly was forced to lie still as well, listening to occasional bursts of rain on the asphalt shingles of the roof. He would drift into a kind of half-sleep, then find himself peering at the shadows on the ceiling, his mind moving from one to the other, making pictures, until he no longer knew when he was awake.