TaraShea Nesbit - The Wives of Los Alamos

HE WAS OUR center of attention, quietly. He did not shout but something about him demanded we listen. Six feet tall and stooped, lanky and shifty in any seat. Oppy, Oppie, Opje—we were awed by his erudition, we were charmed by his elegance, we were chilled by the sarcasm he directed at those he thought of as shoddy or slow thinkers. Our husbands said, The man is unbelievable! He gives you the answer before you can even formulate the question.

AND BECAUSE HE spoke eight languages he could recite poems to us in our mother tongue. He told us that À la Recherche du Temps Perdu — In Search of Lost Time —changed the course of his life. He spoke passionately about why he got involved in the war: I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect men’s lives. I began to feel the need to participate more fully in the life of the community.

HE HAD THE bluest eyes. And it was as if he could tell what any one person was thinking and speak aloud a confirmation that they were not alone in the feeling. Even the female scientists let out a giggle in his presence. Even the General said he was A genius, a real genius! We watched him ride through the desert on horseback, we watched him seemingly unaffected by strong martinis and chain-smoking. He seemed unfailingly in control of himself, but not as if it took effort. We suspected he had secrets deeper than the Hill’s shared secrets. Which made him—to some of us—quite tempting.

WHEN THE CHILDREN were at school we sat at our desk typing letters to our mothers. Bobby does the darndest things! Frank keeps busy at work. We girls have a knitting circle now. We edited out our fear, anger, and loneliness for our mothers, who had sons overseas, who were anxious enough.

OUR MOTHERS WROTE to us and said they were enclosing chocolate-covered raisins and when their letters arrived without the raisins we assumed the censors, which were other wives just like us, or maybe the WACs, had eaten them.

OUR PARENTS WROTE to us and asked, What is it like there? When can we visit? When are you coming home? And we replied, Soon, I hope , or, I don’t know , or, We are in the West. The weather is fine! Or we did not reply because we did not know what to say, really.

AND OUR BROTHERS wrote us letters that arrived with postmarks from two months prior. Our brothers described the first time they shot and killed a man and the pistol they kept as a souvenir. Our brothers said: It is odd how hard one becomes after a little bit of this stuff, but it gets to be more like killing mad dogs than people. We replied with sympathetic sentences— I cannot imagine what you are going through over there —we replied with suggestions they could not possibly agree to— Take care of yourself . Be safe. We signed our names as we always did— With Love, Sis , or with more formality— Fondly, Dottie McDougal . Mostly, we could not understand what our brothers were experiencing because we had never experienced it ourselves, just as, perhaps, they could not understand us.

THE HOT IRRITATIONS of summer arrived and our husbands said we talked too much. They accused us of asking questions that were too obvious, or too personal. Secrecy, like cocktails, like smoking, like wearing overalls, was the new habit we acquired.

THE SUMMER’S WEATHER of blue skies and fast, roaring downpours paralleled our annoyance about petty things. The town was growing and there were not enough supplies for all of us. The unrefrigerated truck that carried our milk for hundreds of miles delivered it warm and nearly spoiled each week. Someone stole metal from the Tech Area and now all of our cars were subject to searches. MPs made us and our children stand on the side of the dirt road in direct sunlight as they lifted up and inspected each floor mat, as well as the trunk. What would I want with scrap metal? we asked them. They raised the mat behind the driver’s seat and did find one thing: a soggy animal cracker smashed into the floorboard.

ONE FRIDAY NIGHT at the Lodge Katherine said, while pouring us each a vodka punch, Have you noticed Starla’s outfit, ladies? Why, that’s her best dress, isn’t it. Her last remark was not a question. We let the suggestion settle, except Helen, who wanted to show she’d noticed it first, added, Those silk hose . Was Starla wearing her best-looking outfit, a green dress and her one pair of silk hose, to get the attention of someone? Her husband, Henry, who was kind, but in truth, one of the least exceptional of our men, was out in the canyon testing something for the weekend. Her daughter, Charlotte, was sleeping over at Louise’s. Girls , Katherine said, think of what this might mean. Margaret, always one to identify with sadness, replied: Poor Henry . Poor Louise! the group of us called out.

BUT WHAT COULD we do?

WAS THEIR MARRIAGE not weathering well? Lisa disagreed, which was to be expected. She was, after all, Starla’s close friend from Chicago. How could she not?

WE SOMETIMES RESENTED how our husbands asked us to step out of the room in our own house so they could talk to their friends late into the night. And some of us spied and heard things, and some of us would never eavesdrop though we really, really wanted to, and some of us did not even think to listen to what our husbands and their friends were talking about because we were too busy thinking about our own worries: what Shirley meant when she said that thing yesterday, how to stretch the ration coupons to make a nice dinner tomorrow.

WE WATCHED STARLA throughout the night—one eye on our husbands speaking sciencese, and one on her. Though many men gave her a glance, if she had a preference she did not show it. Each man was greeted kindly, each stance was taken judiciously. Until it was the end of the night, until it was Frank who touched her arm and her eyes betrayed her best look of neutrality.

SOMETIMES OUR HUSBANDS returned from the Tech Area and said they could not stand it anymore. We did not know if it was us or here or their work, but we were concerned it was us. We could not talk to our best friends about this suspicion, because they were back in Idaho, or in New York. A couple of us said, I can’t take this , either , and actually left. We returned to our mothers. We became Nevadans and moved to Reno for a quick divorce. And our husbands moved into the singles dorms and we were unofficially, or officially, separated.

THE HAMBURGER! INGRID called, raising her arms, the hamburger! And we recalled that image of her: Starla’s hamburger keeping us smiling the length of her conversation with the Director, or Starla’s hamburger making us anxious because we could find no subtle way to tell her about it.

WHEN THE SONG ended she came over to us flushed, out of breath, she grabbed our arms and urged us on the dance floor with her. She insisted on taking the lead. Two women—we thought, This is silly! But we let ourselves be pulled into the middle of the room.

AN ARM BRUSHING our arm, the stirring of winter desires—perhaps we spoke of Starla to soothe ourselves. After three songs we collected our husbands, who had fallen asleep in a corner chair.

WE LEARNED TO accept their distracted air, their unwillingness to tell us more about their research, their ignorance of what we did all day or what we gave up to be here.

SOME OF OUR husbands sounded important and acted important and we treated them as if they were important to the project, but we would find out later that they were not very important at all. Or they were important but they never suggested they were. Some of us thought it wouldn’t end for years, that we would live here until we died; others believed we would go home any day now. A few of our husbands would confirm or deny our hunches. We did not know how much our husbands knew or were keeping from us. They were physicists, this we did know, and therefore we had our own suspicions. Arthur, a single male scientist, got a beagle and named him Gadget and said he was our mascot and there was something illicit in the way he said the dog’s name at first, as if he knew he was being mischievous.