The Trinity Paradox (23 page)

Elizabeth knew
where she would run.

Graham Fox lived alone in a small apartment in the bachelor scientists’ complex. An important researcher in the explosives preparation section, Fox was accorded the fringe benefit of having space to himself. He had never invited Elizabeth there, but she knew he would not turn her away.

It took her most of the day scrambling on foot along the mesa to make her way back to Los Alamos. Her skin prickled with sharp stings of cold, and the winter air caused her to shiver. She had not dressed properly for overland hiking. The horse blanket around her shoulders kept most of the chill away, but it made running difficult.

The horse had pulled away from where she had tethered it at the top of Frijoles Canyon. Elizabeth stood panting, wanting to crumble to her knees as she stared at the empty spot. Hoof prints plunged off through the whiteness, back toward the stables. The clear snow showed no other paths ahead of her.

Somewhere below, Oppenheimer must have located the rangers by now. They were hunting her, finding her tracks. The gunshot had echoed between the narrow rock walls—how well had Oppie managed to determine the direction? Wouldn’t the rangers think to look in the ruins under the cliff overhang?

They would find where she had waited in ambush. Where she had failed her mission. She had not been able to get up the nerve to do what she had to. But Elizabeth was not a killer, no matter how well she could rationalize it in her mind. Logic could not decide such things. Even her emotional decision, while sitting beside Jeff’s grave, could not make her pass the moral wall she had erected.

Oppenheimer’s head had been in the rifle sight. She had intended to pull the trigger and splatter his brains on the snow. She had thought she would feel justified at the great victory she had accomplished.

She had tried to commit murder.
I
am become death ...
 

The Los Alamos rangers would find her boot prints on the path up the canyon wall. The day looked blue and clear; snow would not cover her tracks for quite some time. She needed to get back to the chaos and well-traveled pathways of the site. She had to hide, she had to think, she had to snap herself out of this shock and self-loathing.

She avoided open spaces, fighting through low junipers, striding under tall ponderosa pines. Melting snow trickled from the branches, but everything else remained silent. She heard no sound of pursuit, no horses, no barking dogs, no gunshots.

What if she had lost the rangers? She didn’t consider herself skilled enough for that. But what if Oppenheimer hadn’t even reported the incident?

She paused and stood under a tree as the sun hovered on the Sangre de Crista mountains to the west, tinting them orange and magenta, not quite the deep red Christ’s blood for which they were named. She thought of what Oppenheimer had seen and heard that morning.

He had been riding alone. A single shot had sounded in the canyon, then nothing more. Oppie had fled on his horse—but he could not know the bullet had been aimed at him. Indeed, when Elizabeth dropped the rifle, the shot probably had not passed within a hundred yards of the intended victim. Other Project workers rode out to hunt jackrabbits and deer—didn’t it make sense to go hunting in the morning after a fresh snowfall?

Oppenheimer would never believe someone had tried to kill him. He seemed too naive. Easier to make up some other explanation.

Elizabeth plodded through the snow, approaching the outskirts of the town. That changed nothing. She had tried to kill a man. Her stomach tightened at the thought.

Dizzy, cold, and bedraggled, she walked past the women’s’ dormitory at dusk. She did not want to face the questions or concern of Mrs. Canapelli at the moment.

In the cold, she walked down A Street. The bustle of the Project took no notice of her as it wound down at the end of the day. A jeep drove by, splashing mud, but the driver did not turn to look at her. Nobody acted differently around her. She wondered if Oppenheimer had returned to his office after his morning’s ride, opened his door and gone about business as usual.

Elizabeth couldn’t think of that now. Her mind was a blank, scoured clean by her horror and astonishment.

She found herself at the outer door to the bachelor scientists’ quarters. She had walked with Graham Fox to the porch, but had always left. Now she looked on the weathered index card tacked to the posts on the porch, staring at the list of room numbers and names. Not caring if anyone noticed, she climbed the wooden stairs inside and found his door.

It was after dinner. She knew Fox ate early or late, never at the “normal” time—a carryover from his British upbringing. He might go back to his lab later or he might stay in his room, reading or scribbling notes. She prayed
he
would be in his room; she needed to be with someone.

Elizabeth stood at the door for a long moment, trying to get up the nerve to knock. Did she really want to see him? She felt afraid to depend on someone, afraid to open herself up and become vulnerable. She meant to be strong. Why should she be afraid of Graham Fox?

A man with thick glasses came out of another room down the hall and threw a glance at her. Without hesitation, Elizabeth took one more step forward and knocked on Fox’s door. The other man raised his eyebrows, but walked down the steps.

Fox opened the door and took a complete step backward upon recognizing her. “Elizabeth!” Then he paused again and his eyes widened, seeing her condition. She pictured herself with mussed hair, shell-shocked eyes, and drawn features. “What happened?” He looked around and narrowed his eyes. “Come in.” Touching her elbow, he applied gentle pressure that drew her inside, and he closed the door.

She was afraid Fox would ask a barrage of questions to ferret out what she had done”. She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to admit it to anyone. She just wanted to be beside another human being, not necessarily to say anything, just to feel invisible support, companionship.

Fox surprised her by not asking any questions. He seemed to have his own suspicions of who Elizabeth was and what she was up to, but he did not want to confirm them.

Elizabeth turned away from him, frightened to meet his eyes. Fox’s room looked pathetically barren, with a bed, a chair, and little other furniture. No pictures hung on the wall. A radiator ticked under the window and sent enough heat into the room that Elizabeth began to sweat again, though she couldn’t stop herself from shivering. A hot plate with a steaming pot of water sat on a small tabletop. From the books scattered on his bed, Fox seemed to prefer lying down to study rather than working on the cramped surface of the table.

“May I get you some tea, Elizabeth? I believe I have an extra mug.” She nodded, but didn’t really have any taste for tea at the moment.

Fox continued to say nothing, but it felt like a comfortable silence. He waited for her, not pressuring her to talk. If he did learn about the assassination attempt—if Oppenheimer himself reported it—he might figure it out for himself anyway.

He plunked a tarnished silver tea ball into her cup. Tea was strictly rationed, and his tea leaves had been used before, but he dunked the ball repeatedly until the water turned brown.

Elizabeth took the cup, looked down and saw her reflection between the ripples in the tea. Without drinking, she set the cup down beside the hot plate on the table, turned to Fox and took a step toward him.

She put her arms around his waist. Fox’s body tensed, but he did not pull away. She closed her eyes and pushed her face against his chest. He wore his usual white shirt, but had unbuttoned the top button and let his tie hang loose around his neck. She wondered if he considered that to be casual attire.

Fox patted her shoulder in a paternal way, but then something changed and he ran his hand along her back. “Hush! It’ll be all right,” he said quietly, “whatever it is.”

Elizabeth felt herself trembling. She wanted to explode with what she had done—the pointing rifle, Oppenheimer’s floppy cowboy hat in her sights, steam coming from his horse’s nostrils, and the snow all around, clean and white like a drop cloth to cover such a dirty deed.

“Just hold me a minute.” She squeezed him tighter.

Fox bent down to kiss the top of her head. Elizabeth blocked out all thoughts of Jeff and of her obsession with Oppenheimer. She and Jeff had made love only three times since he came down from Berkeley. It had been all too brief. She had not held anyone close in so long, had not felt herself moving beneath a lover, felt him inside her as their passion grew, building toward a release that could drown out all the anger in her life. It had been half a year.

She groaned deep in her throat and tilted her head up. Reaching with one hand to pull Fox’s face close to hers, she kissed him. His eyes went wide, but she closed hers and she kissed him again. He responded this time. She let her teeth fall open and touched out with her tongue, probing between his lips. Fox made a thin sound and pushed his body closer to hers.

Then he straightened and pulled himself away from her. She looked up at him, waiting for him to say something else, but he remained quiet.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” she said.

Fox looked down at her. His thin face and his big eyes gave him an intense puppy-dog expression. She found it charming, very attractive. Pressing her hips against his, Elizabeth pulled off his loosened tie and unbuttoned his shirt.

Fox kept his own hands moving, but seemed a little shy. Elizabeth remembered many fumbling but passionate moments with other physics nerds she had dated in college. Being one of the minority of women in the curriculum, she had never had trouble getting men to go out with her. Something about Graham Fox reminded her of that shyness. She took his hand and guided it to her breast.

It seemed to release a restraint in him, and he made another one of his cooing sounds. He kissed her more deeply. “You’re not wearing a brassiere.”

Elizabeth tilted her head back. “Scandalous, isn’t it?” she mumbled around his lips. “I guess I’m just ahead of my time.”

Fox kept his eyes closed for the most part. Elizabeth watched him make the most delicious wince of pleasure when she slid her hand down the front of his pants.

Caressing, she made herself move carefully and slowly. She didn’t want to excite him too much. She wanted—no, she
needed
this to last a long time.

Elizabeth woke, shivering, in the middle of the night. The sweat had dried on her body, and now she felt stiff and grimy. She needed a hot shower. Fox lay next to her, but he had pulled most of the single blanket over his own shoulders. She smiled and felt the remnants of afterglow.

Elizabeth slid out of bed. The mattress springs creaked enough for Fox to mumble and roll over, partially awake. She went to the table and sipped the cold tea she had not touched before. After steeping all night long, it tasted bitter.

She stood next to the radiator, hoping for more warmth, but the heat had been shut off for the night.

Fox sat up in bed, blinking. Upon seeing her, his face carried an expression of pleased surprise. She wondered if he thought it had all been a dream. “Something the matter?” he said.

“Nothing.” She came back to sit next to him, brushing the sheets before she sat down. He rolled over and put his arms around her waist. He kissed her.

“You never told me what was bothering you when you came.”

“When I
came?”
She raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t think he understood her comment.

“When you came to my door.”

Elizabeth frowned. “I’m not sure I want to.”

Fox nodded. “Then you don’t have to.”

They sat in silence in the dimness. A bluish-white glow from the floodlights outside crept through the blinds.

“Why are we doing this?” Fox asked in a quiet voice that implied he had rehearsed the words to himself many times. “Why are we here? Why are we working on such things when we
know
what will come of it?”

Elizabeth clenched her fist and said nothing, reminded again of what she had tried to do, and how she had failed. One fraction of a second to pull the trigger, to change the whole world, and she could not do it. She still didn’t know if she had made the right decision. Who was she to decide things like that?

But didn’t every person have to act on their own conscience, to follow their moral imperative? It was not good enough just to brush aside the responsibility to someone else.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Ted Walblaken had said, “and damn the consequences.”

Fox sat up in bed and leaned over, slipping both hands around her. “This is life. We’re alive,” Fox continued. “Why are we working to bring about so much death, just to show off what we can do with our physics?”

“Is that what you really think I’m working toward?” Elizabeth asked. Her throat grew dry. She was leading him on. She hadn’t the nerve to do what she herself had decided to do.

“Do you—” Fox hesitated, swallowed, and then continued, as if he couldn’t restrain himself from asking anymore. “Do you have some sort of plan? I wish I knew who you were.”

She considered long before answering. “You can’t listen to anybody else when it’s your own conscience at stake. Do what you have to do. Damn the consequences.” Feeling like a hypocrite, she got up and began to get dressed in the dim light.