“It seems we have a volunteer,” I said, cool as an ice cube. One by one I closed the stops, and when I removed the lower manual the note ceased.
“There is an occasional cipher on that keyboard,” Mrs. Morris said. “Sometimes I’ve had to confine my playing to the upper manuals.”
“Well,” I replied, “don’t we all have good days and bad days?”
“That’s where the Lord comes in,” the minister boomed. “Faith keeps us steady.”
What song to play first, to establish my ability and set them at ease? My last audition had been for Oberlin, a run through the literature of French and German composers, mostly hoping to impress three conservatory professors with the range of my repertoire. They showed as much response as a trio of statues, then recommended me unanimously for admission. Now the pressure was different, because I was rusty. I’d practiced very little during my whirlwind with Chris. Also I’d been playing popular songs instead of classical. I smiled, imagining how they would panic if I played “Alley Cat.” But in truth only one piece would do: that difficult Toccata in D Minor by Bach.
I would not have to perform the whole thing to put them on their heels. In fact, I was only a few measures along when Mrs. Morris flinched—her eyes flattening as if someone just behind them had closed the blinds. Thirty seconds more music, and she marched away up the aisle, her shoes hammering.
I paused, hands hovering over the keys. “Is everything all right?”
“Excellent,” Reverend Morris declared at top volume. His chin did that tic, tensing the muscles in his neck. “Continue, please. It sounds heavenly.”
28.
All day the crew would gather at the concrete bowl and blow things up. Gunpowder, TNT, ammonia-based explosives. They tried devices that blew in one direction, then two, then four. They compared a medium bomb detonating in four directions with a small bomb exploding in six ways.
Over the course of a day, some boys went slightly deaf. By the next morning the ringing in their ears would have stopped, but then they’d ride in a truck bed back down for another day of detonating.
Others grew blasé, retreating from explosions only as far as the site boss insisted. He had stopped using the air horn, instead blowing a referee’s whistle he’d found in a closet at Fuller Lodge. It lay atop a pile of athletic gear, from back when The Hill had been a boys’ school. The whistle was a small prize compared with another find: a pump, complete with needle, to inflate basketballs. Now, most nights after dinner, there were pickup games in which the boys appeared casual while choosing teams, but turned fiercely competitive the moment play began.
It was not unusual to see a guy at breakfast with a shiner, inflicted by a stray elbow during a rebound tussle. One morning a boy showed up at the tech area with his arm in a sling. Someone bumped him, and he’d broken his wrist.
“I’m half-tempted to prohibit basketball,” the site boss threatened.
“You do that, sir,” Monroe advised. “The boys’ll hate you till the rivers run dry.”
So they concentrated on the next detonation, a hexagonal TNT. And when it had burst, the first person down to the concrete bowl was always the same: Charlie Fish.
He’d measure how far the wood or metal pieces had flown. He’d study the burn marks on the concrete. He’d kneel with a protractor, assessing the angles of force. Then he’d write notes furiously while the crew set up the next explosion. The number of devices grew by painful steps—sixteen, eighteen—always with one or two not detonating. Therefore, even though Charlie continued to set records for the number of simultaneous explosions, each test was also a failure.
Sometime midafternoon, Bronsky’s truck would appear on the ridge. Everyone could see Charlie stiffen. Collecting his papers of test results, he’d nod at the site boss—“Thanks again, sir”—before trotting up the hill to the truck. He’d hand the pages in the passenger-side window, then tumble in back. The truck climbed the dirt hill, reached the gravel road, and roared away out of sight.
Each night he would work in the lab, soldering, testing, soldering, building detonators, soldering. Only when he had enough designs to occupy the testing crew the next day would he step out into the fall New Mexican night. Never had he seen so many stars. The air smelled sharply of pine. He could hear distant conversations, as if from across a body of water. Charlie would reach Ashley Pond, squatting at its edge, and in the soft dirt with his finger he would write one letter: B.
The Allies had reached Paris in August. Hitler ordered his troops to destroy the city on the way out, but they had not obeyed. Brussels came next, liberated in early September. Hitler survived an assassination attempt, and Rommel committed suicide rather than be executed for his role in it.
Meanwhile, Brenda was waking and sleeping, eating and working, and not answering his letters. He’d sent three, without a word in return. In a way, he had his answer. A woman not responding to letters was, in a fashion, being quite articulate.
Charlie straightened and left that B in the mud. After stretching his back and neck, he wandered off toward the barracks.
“There he is,” Monroe hailed from across the yard, veering in Charlie’s direction. “Rarest critter in these parts: Charlatius Fishius.”
“An uncommon sighting indeed,” called Giles, who wobbled a bit himself. “I thought they’d gone extinct.”
“You’re looking at the last of its kind, right here.”
Charlie stood still as they approached, a tortoise out of steam.
“The species may be extinct after all.” Giles lifted Charlie’s arm and let it fall to his side. “This one appears to be dead.”
“Pity,” Monroe answered. “A loss to us all.”
“Hello, guys,” Charlie said. “What did I miss tonight?”
They glanced at each other and both burst out laughing.
“Really?” Charlie said. “That good?”
“No,” Giles protested, though he continued laughing. “It was terrible.”
“I can’t wait to hear.”
Monroe tried a serious face but could not maintain it. “The fella nearly died.”
“Till they turned the lab into a vomitorium,” Giles said, and that sent them on another spasm of laughter.
Charlie sighed. “It’s been a long day, guys.”
“Of course,” Giles said, sobering. “But it exemplifies the absurdity of this place.”
“It went like this.” Monroe held his hands wide, like he was holding a picture frame. “Don Mastick, nice chemist fella, expert at scoping the smallest reactions. Oppie loves that stuff, so Mastick’s holding a glass vial, tiny, maybe the size of a sewing needle.”
“This afternoon,” Giles added. “Six hours ago.”
“Setting in that tube, though?” Monroe hastened to say, peeved at the interruption. “Near about half the world’s plutonium supply.”
“Now I’m interested,” Charlie said.
“Well, during the afternoon some of the liquid done gassified in there. When he held the vial in his hand, the heat was too much.”
“So it burst?” Charlie said.