Charmed Particles (19 page)

Unlike Lily, Meena had not attempted to read the Environmental Impact Statement. The open box sat in the middle of Abhijat's study, where he had pulled out and leafed through a few of the volumes.

Instead, Meena had focused her attention on the Letters to the Editor in the
Nicolet Herald-Gleaner
. These she read carefully, as though they might help her to gauge the mood her father was likely to be in on a given day: distant and preoccupied (these were the nights she sometimes had to knock at his study door to remind him to join them for dinner), or happy and hopeful (these were the days in which someone, preferably not from the Lab, had written in support of the project), for Abhijat, too, kept a careful eye on the papers.

I am Mrs. Dixie Edmonson, and I am the president of the Nicolet High School PTA. I am for our tax dollars being used in our classrooms, not under our classrooms. This is an experimental facility fraught with uncertainty. It does not belong in any populated area.

Abhijat's response to these letters was a growing sense of dread. It would be taken from him—his chance at a legacy, he worried. If they were allowed to prevail, if Sarala's concerns about the community were right, it would be snatched away, again just out of reach.

As the residents of Nicolet sat down to make their way through the daunting box of Draft Environmental Impact Statement documents, many were outraged to find themselves referred to as “human receptors” in a section detailing the potential for exposure to radiation.

At the entrance to the Lab, Abhijat and the other scientists now faced a throng of protesters each morning when they arrived and each evening when they left, stationed just outside the entrance, chanting, “We are people, not ‘human receptors!'”

Rose, who was preparing to announce her candidacy for next year's mayoral race, had also been carefully monitoring the community response. As soon as the word “radiation” entered the conversation, Rose noticed that the arguments in the newspaper took on a fevered pitch, opponents insisting that no one really knew the risks of cancer for those who would live above the beam line. The letter writers pointed out that many experts argued that there was
no
safe dose of radiation. And to that, supporters (among them a number of physicists from the Lab) countered that the public was exposed to radiation all the time—in soil, rocks, food, and in the very air they breathed.

Each morning as she ate her breakfast, Sarala studied the paper and kept a silent tally of the letters for and against the collider.

We did not ask to have our homes located on top of this science experiment, this atom smasher. I won't allow you to build this death ring below my home.

I am not one to stand in the way of progress, but if you want me to support this you will have to guarantee three things: that my property values will not decrease, that my water supply will not be impacted, either by drying up or by being contaminated, and that there is no health risk to living on top of this experiment.

Sarala felt like a bit of a traitor when she found herself thinking that some of the concerns seemed, to her, entirely reasonable.

The seeds in the flats on the back porch had begun to sprout. Sarala had followed the directions on the slim envelopes, each bearing a map of the United States with colorful swaths indicating optimal times for planting. She'd watched the flats carefully, keeping the soil moist, moving them to different spots on the porch, following the patches of sunlight throughout the day.

She had felt such wonder when she'd spotted the first few sprouts unfolding themselves from the potting soil—that with water, soil, and sunlight, they'd come to life just as promised. She'd expected it, of course, but found it no less astonishing because of that. Soon it would be time to transplant them, to dig up the sod and prepare the beds along the front walkway. Soon they'd take root there, she thought, and bloom as the spring turned to summer, making their house look, in this small way, just a bit warmer, more welcoming.

In response to the sheer size, not to mention the dry, academic tone of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the Lab began to produce slick, glossy, magazine-style reports, offering “an overview of the issue.”

Persons living in the vicinity of the SSC need not be concerned about the public safety aspects of the project. While some radioactivity would be generated, the radiation levels will be carefully monitored by sensitive instrumentation. Throughout the facility, stringent safety standards will be maintained.

Extensive, continuous monitoring, both inside and outside the tunnel, will assure the protection of SSC personnel and the local population alike.

But for many in the community, these assurances—packaged as they were in slick brochures delivered to each home in Nicolet—were suspected of being nothing more than advertising, than propaganda, and thus fell on deaf ears.

Sarala sat with Carol and Bill on their screened-in porch, enjoying the warm air of the approaching spring. Meena was spending the night at Lily's, and with Abhijat ensconced in his study, Sarala's own house was quiet by comparison. As the sun began to set, late in the day this time of year, the sounds of dogs barking and the neighborhood children being called in from their evening games floated out into the night.

Carol and Bill sat in a wicker love seat, Bill's arm around Carol.

“I just think they need to be clearer about what it is they're doing out there,” Bill said. They were again discussing the matter of the collider. “For one thing, why do they need their own fire department? I used to think that seemed reassuring,” he continued, “but now, I'll admit, it's got me wondering.”

“What does Abhijat think of all the discussion in the papers?” Carol asked.

Sarala thought of how distant Abhijat had been lately, how absent he seemed. “I think he is very concerned that it may not happen,” Sarala confided. She'd begun to feel caught—stuck between the town's growing suspicion of the Lab and her loyalty to Abhijat.

On the streets, in line at the bank, and at coffee shops, nearly all of the conversations were about the collider, about the Lab. People had begun, too, to wonder about the buffalo. Were they, as signage around the Lab indicated, there to hearken back to the land's simple prairie past? Or were they being monitored by the Lab staff, early indicators that something might be going wrong?

Sarala felt, sometimes, like she ought to apologize to Abhijat for the town's response. And she felt, other times, like she ought to apologize to the town for the Lab's.

Later that night, back at home, Sarala sat propped up in her and Abhijat's bed watching the latest episode of
Dallas
. As she watched, she flipped through yet another one of the glossy reports that had arrived in their mailbox the week before, and in every mailbox in Nicolet, courtesy of the Lab.

Sarala had herself begun to wonder about the collider. She imagined the accelerator below her home, the protons whirling and spinning, smashing into each other in a mad collision. Sometimes she imagined she could feel it, their house trembling above it.

Downstairs, she could smell Abhijat cooking again. Ginger, turmeric, oil dancing in a hot pan.