Los Alamos

15

“I won’t bloody do it,” she said, sitting up.

“You’ve got to.”

“I don’t.”

She had gathered the crumpled sheet around her as if she had been surprised by an intruder. The room was warm, closed against the afternoon light.

“You’re the only way it can work,” he said calmly.

She stared at him, then jumped out of bed and grabbed the clothes off the floor. She held them in front of her, then turned to the bathroom door, tripping in the dimness. “Bugger,” she said, stumbling toward the window. When she jerked the cord of the shade, the light of the room, amber and erotic, flashed harsh white. A cheap rug and Formica table, Connolly sitting up in the messy bed. He watched her try to pull on her slip, turning it around to find the opening, anxious to be covered.

“I’ll be with you. Every step,” he said.

She stopped, frustrated with the slip, and stood holding it.

“You’re lovely,” she said. “Lovely. Waiting till we’d done it before you’d ask. What did you think? A good slap and tickle and then a bit of spying on the side? There’s a good girl. You must be mad. I won’t.”

“Emma, please. I’ve explained it badly.”

“Have you?” she said, struggling with the slip again. “Cheat on one husband, then go and trap another. That’s roughly it, isn’t it? I won’t, thank you very much. He’s my husband. Or was. Is. Whatever he is, I’m not sending him to jail.”

“He won’t go to jail. They don’t want him-he’s the go-between. At the worst, they’d ship him home.”

“Yes? Funny, I can hear the keys rattling already.”

“I don’t understand you. He walked out on you.”

“Well, that’s not quite a prison offense yet, is it? They wouldn’t have enough jails.”

“It’s not about him.”

“It is to me. I don’t want to see him. He’s dead. And I’m not bringing him back to life. Just so you can put him away.”

“Nobody’s putting him away.”

“Well, whatever happens, it would be my doing, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t even know he existed if I hadn’t told you. Before you got your marvelous idea.”

“Calm down.”

“I won’t calm down,” she said. “I suppose you’ve already offered my services. That must have caused quite a stir in the security office. Lord, what a past. Who’d have thought. I didn’t know she went in for that sort of thing.”

“Nobody knows. Nobody’s going to.”

“What made you think I’d do it?”

“I thought you’d want to,” he said evenly. “We’ve got to find out. It’s important.”

“Want to? Why? For the good of the country? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I thought you’d do it for Karl.”

“Karl?” she said, disconcerted. “Karl’s dead.”

“So is Eisler. Maybe somebody else, for all we know.”

“Maybe the whole bloody world. Look, you carry the sword of vengeance. You’re good at it.”

“Emma, I need you to help me. He’ll trust you.”

“What makes you think so? Old times’ sake? Or am I supposed to go to bed with him? Is that it? Maybe you want to watch.”

“Don’t.”

“Is that it? Just like Mata Hari?”

“No, of course not. If you’d let me explain—”

“Oh, you. You’d talk the birds from the trees to get your way. I suppose we’ll be saving the world next. With me on my back.”

“Will you listen?”

“You listen,” she said, giving up on the slip and walking over to the bathroom. “Listen to yourself. You might be surprised what you hear.” She slammed the door behind her.

He sat on the bed for a minute, waiting, but there was only the sound of running water. He put on his pants and went over to the window, turning the slats of the blinds halfway to look out at the dusty parking lot. Her anger had surprised him. It seemed to thrash and spurt like some well that bursts deep down, thwarted till it reaches air. He thought of that night at the square dance, when it seemed no more than high spirits, when he had first wanted her. He wondered if she was douching, washing him away. He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke catch the light. The awful thing was, she was right. He’d waited till they were finished. He’d made love to her knowing he would ask.

When she came out of the bathroom, she was in her slip and her face was still damp with water. She brushed back her hair with her fingers and sat down, crossing her legs with a theatrical calmness. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t bite. Do you have another one of those?”

He handed her a cigarette, not saying anything, so that the silence was an apology. The air in the room settled, all the bad words seeping out the window with the smoke.

“Is it important to you?” she said finally.

“Yes.”

“Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it?” Her lips curled in a kind of amused resignation, as if she were laughing at herself.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“About my father,” she said, almost dreamily. “He got it right, didn’t he? Here’s the room-seedy, that would be his word for it. In the middle of some American desert. That’s about nowhere, or near enough. And I’m sitting here, smoking a cigarette in my slip, like a slut.”

“Emma.”

“No, like a slut. Some man’s sweat still all over me and a husband down the road and another somewhere else-my God. Quite a sight. And my lover. Well, my lover. All very much as he predicted.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I love you.”

“And that makes it all different. Whatever that means.”

“It means I won’t ask you again. I won’t ask anything. Forget it.”

“Could you? No, you may as well ask, now that we’ve started. What, exactly?”

“You mean you’ll do it?”

“I won’t do him any harm. Can you promise me he won’t be harmed? No, never mind. You can’t promise, but you would. You’d lie. You couldn’t help it.”

“I won’t lie to you. Nothing’s going to happen to him.”

“I won’t whore for you.”

“Do you really think I’d ask you to do that?”

“No.”

“Then what’s this all about?”

She turned away, facing the room. “I don’t know. Not wanting to rake up the past, I suppose. Can you understand that? You never know what you’re going to find. I don’t want to go back.”

“It’s just this once. You’d have to sometime.”

“To straighten things out, you mean? Oh, that’s good. Darling, do let’s get a friendly annulment. Meanwhile, here are some lovely secrets for your trouble. Is that the idea? My God, I don’t know if I can do it. I’m not that good a liar.”

“It’s not a lie. The papers are real.”

“I wouldn’t be. He’d spot it in a minute. Why him, of all people?”

“You didn’t have anywhere else to turn. You trust him.” He met her glance.

“Why now? How did I know where to find him?”

“You’ve known for some time. You just didn’t want to-rake up the past.”

“But now I’m ready for a bit of gardening.”

“This was important. You need his help. For your lover’s sake.”

“Well, at least that wouldn’t be lying.”

“Your lover, Corporal Waters. Box 1663, Santa Fe.”

“What’s he like, this one?”

“An idealist. Like the first one.”

“What a bastard you are.”

“He’ll believe you. These things run to type.”

“Until you,” she said, stubbing out the cigarette. But she was interested now, in spite of herself. “Why not Daniel?”

“He’s real. They could check.”

“What am I supposed to tell him, by the way? I’m off to New York for some shopping?”

“I don’t know yet. We’ll have to come up with something. Maybe Oppie’s asked you to help with some visiting Brits. It’s a chance to get away. Something.”

Emma got up and looked out the window. “I’ll have to tell him about us sometime, you know. Maybe it’s now.”

“Not yet.”

She turned to look at him. “Why? Out of curiosity.”

“It’s better to wait. We don’t know how he’ll react. Besides, he’s busy.”

“Useful, you mean. To the project. We wouldn’t want to risk any complications now, would we? Of a personal nature.”

“No, we wouldn’t.”

She looked at him for a minute, then began pacing across the room. “Right. So my new friend-I suppose you’ve got a whole history worked out for him?”

“We can do that on the train.”

“My new friend, the latest in that long line Daddy predicted—” She put her hand up before he could speak. “You want me to get into the spirit of things, don’t you? Anyway, he’s all in a bother. Conscience?”

Connolly ignored the tone. “We’re building a terrible weapon,” he said deliberately. “So terrible it will change everything. We thought the Nazis were building one too. But now they’re gone, so he doesn’t understand why it’s still secret. Some of the scientists don’t want it used at all. They want to get the word out, but there’s nothing they can do. The whole place is sealed up tight. The only hope they’ve got of controlling it is if everyone knows. If everyone gets scared. Otherwise the army can do anything it wants. Not just Japan. Russia, anywhere it likes. Why not tell our own allies, unless we want to keep it for ourselves? For afterward. As long as we own the secret, we’re a threat to everybody. We’ll be the Nazis.”

Emma stared at him, her face sober and quiet. She had stopped pacing and was crossing her arms and holding herself as if she were huddling against a chill. “Is that true?”

“It’s how Corporal Waters would see it.”

“The scientists, I mean. Do they really want everyone to know?”

“They will. Right now all they can think about is getting it to work. They think it’s theirs. They don’t realize they’re just doing piecework for the army.”

“Do you believe it, though? Or is it all just part of the story?”

“It doesn’t matter. But I think if you’re the only guy holding a gun, a lot of people will feel like Corporal Waters. Maybe they’d be right.”

“But you want to stop them. Even if they’re right.”

“I don’t believe in handing someone else a gun either. He might shoot. People usually do.”

“Like cowboys.”

“No, like countries. Like show trials and wars and killing lots of people, not just one. I don’t trust them with a gun. I’m not an idealist.”

“Yes, you are,” she said quietly. “You’re the worst kind. You want to do it yourself.” She dropped her arms and slowly moved toward him. “I know. I run to type.”

He stood now, facing her, afraid to touch. “I won’t ask. If you don’t want to.”

She shook her head, placing her hand on his arm. “No. Ask me. Nobody ever did before.”

“You’d have to be careful. Remember Karl.”

“Careful. If I were careful, I wouldn’t be here at all.”

“Then you will.”

“You want me to, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“You’ll come with me?”

“I have to. You’re my cover,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I told you, nobody knows. If I leave the Hill, our friends in G-2 will follow me. They’ll wonder where I’m going. They won’t wonder after they see you.”

“You think of everything, don’t you? And what’s our story? Are we supposed to be having an affair?”

“We could be,” he said, smiling.

“Do you think anybody would believe that?”

“Anybody.”

She was silent for a moment. “But no harm to Matthew. What if you’re wrong? What if he won’t do it? What if he sends me packing?”

“Then we’ll have a weekend in New York. He won’t, though. The stuff’s real. They won’t be able to resist.”

“But no harm.”

“No,” he said, reaching for her. “You’re awfully loyal to your husband.”

“Mm,” she said. “All of them. But think what I do for you.”

He kissed her, holding her close to him now. “I just appeal to your better instincts.”

“You’re a bastard. You’d even use this to get your way, wouldn’t you?”

“If it would work,” he said, kissing her again. “Would it?”

“Ask me later.”

“I thought they canceled all leaves,” Mills said.

“Civilians get special privileges,” Connolly said. “It’s only four days. Don’t you think I’m entitled to one, listening to you all day?”

“Two leaves were arranged,” Mills said, handing him the papers. “Maybe you’d better take both.”

“I don’t think so. I only need one,” Connolly said, taking it. “Are you being cute, or is it just my imagination?”

“Anything special you want me to do while you’re gone?”

“No. Check in with Holliday, though, just to be nice. See if anybody’s gone to church. Tell him I still haven’t got a goddamn thing. Not even an idea. Maybe I’ll think of something while I’m away.”

“You intend to do a lot of thinking, huh?”

“You know, in security you get to know all kinds of things. The trick’s not to leap to any conclusions. Of course, I don’t have to tell you-you’re a professional.”

“Right,” Mills said, then grinned. “Have fun anyway.”

Connolly smiled back. “Do me one favor, though, will you? When you talk to whoever it is you talk to, would you leave her name out of it? I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. People get upset.”

“You’re lucky you don’t get shot. You going to leave a number? It’s procedure.”

“Make one up. I’d only leave a phony.”

“And I’d find out. That’s procedure too.”

Oppenheimer had pulled strings for a Pullman, an oasis of privilege on the crowded train, but even so the trip was hot and dusty. After the high New Mexican plateau, they went down into the flat bottomland of America, where the heat was oppressive, a furnace of hot air that left grit on the skin as it blew through the car, drying sweat and scattering paper. A group of servicemen, rowdy and insistent, had taken over the club car, and their singing as they crossed the empty plains had the disruptive sound of a brawl. Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Connolly thought irritably. Maybe the musicians who had written the happy train songs had been drunk in the club car too, seeing the dingy interiors glow with a boozy shine. Dinner was chewy lamb chops and canned peas, slapped down by harried waiters with an eye to the line already forming at the door for the next sitting. They drank cold beer and went to bed, exhausted without being tired, waiting for the clicking of the rails to lull them to sleep. Instead Connolly lay on top of the hot sheets, squirming in the dark, and finally dreamed of Eisler standing at the blackboard, studying his fate.

The next day was better. Emma sat leafing through magazines, her skirt hiked up around her thighs to catch the breeze. The landscape was green now and moist, and Connolly watched it lazily, ignoring the magazine in his lap. A GI’s account of Okinawa, filtered through another Connolly at OWI for the right polish. No incontinence and night fears. Wounds to the abdomen, never lower. No one was ever hit in the genitals. Corpses in photographs were whole. Connolly had heard stories of loose body parts being removed from the ground so that the picture could be shot. But that had been before, when morale had been an issue. Now there was a new brutality to the layouts. GIs stared out from the slick pages, glazed and slack-jawed, stunned by the fanaticism of the enemy. The hills were pockmarked with thousands of hand-dug caves. Even at the end, the war meant to go on and on. There was still time for the gadget. Outside the window, farms and wooded hills slipped by, sleepy and unknowing.

A quick thunderstorm sent streaks of rain along the dining car windows during lunch, blocking the view. Emma, preoccupied, picked at her chicken salad, too listless to look out.

“You all right?” Connolly said.

She nodded.

“You’re not sorry you came?”

“I was sorry before I came. Now I’m curious.”

“About Matthew?”

She nodded again. “What’s he like, do you think? Do you know, actually? Did they tell you?”

“An address. He works in Union Square. He still does some kind of work for the party. I don’t know what.”

“Do you mind? About him, I mean.”

“I haven’t seen him yet,” he said lightly. “Is he good-looking?”

“He was. Maybe he just seemed that way because the comrades were so dreary.” She caught his look. “Yes, he’s good-looking. Fair. Thin-he never ate. Cheese and a biscuit, that would do. He liked-You don’t really want to know all this, do you?”

“No.”

“No,” she agreed. “Anyway, that was then. People change.” She turned her fork, thinking. “If he’s still working for the party, why is he allowed to stay?”

“It’s not illegal.”

“But they keep an eye out.”

“I guess.”

“Do they know about me?”

“No, you don’t exist.”

“I like that. Like riding on trains, isn’t it? No one knows who you are. You’re just a ticket. I’ve always liked that. Even now. I shouldn’t, I know, but I’m rather enjoying this.”

“You don’t look as if you’re enjoying it.”

“I am, though. In a way. Watching you get all cross in the heat. Nobody to bother us. Not even having to talk.”

“Not a care in the world.”

She looked up at him. “All right, not exactly.”

“We’re not exactly alone, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t look-no, really, don’t look. Why do people always turn when you say that? When you get a chance, the guy two tables behind you in the paisley tie.”

“What am I supposed to do, drop a fork?” she said, teasing. “I haven’t done that since school. Are you serious about this?”

“You might look for a waiter. If you want some more iced tea.”

“You are serious.” She waited for a minute, then turned to look, her eyes resting only for a moment on the other table.

“What, the man with the ice cream?” she said as she turned back. “You’re joking.”

“No. He’s tailing us.”

“How do you know?”

“Did you see his hat? They always put their hats where they can get them in a hurry. It’s practically a calling card.”

“Rubbish.”

“He hasn’t looked at you once.”

“Maybe I’m not his type.”

“Not that way. He hasn’t looked at you at all.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fine. All the better. You’ll act naturally, which is what we want.”

“Not now, I won’t,” she said, putting down her fork. “Why all the mystery, anyway? It’s ridiculous. Isn’t he one of yours?”

“I hope so.”

“Then why—”

“Army Intelligence doesn’t like me very much. Somebody comes in from the outside, they have to think something’s going on. They hate being left out. So they watch. It’s what they do.”

“But can’t you have him called off?”

“Then they’d know something was going on. Right now I’m just a bad boy taking advantage of some privileges they wish they had. They have no idea what we’re doing.”

“Except the obvious.”

He smiled. “Except the obvious.”

“Then why did you say you hoped it was them?”

“Well, there’s another possibility. We still don’t know who’s on the Hill. Karl was in intelligence and he’s dead. This guy may be one of ours, but I don’t recognize him. So I hope it’s just somebody Lansdale’s brought in to play house detective. Otherwise, we could have a problem. Either way, I don’t want him around when you see Matthew. That could ruin everything.”

Emma thought for a minute, stirring with her long iced tea spoon. “You’re right. I’m not enjoying this. Not anymore. It’s not much fun, is it, everybody lying to everybody. I wish you hadn’t told me. Why did you?”

“You’d have to know sometime. We have to lose him. I can’t do that alone.”

“Why bother? You’d just be looking for the next. At least he’s the devil you know.”

“We can’t do this with an audience. Whoever he is. One of ours. One of theirs. Maybe both at the same time. We can’t take the chance. Matthew has to believe you, or this won’t work at all.”

“And what if he’s just a man with a hat?”

“Then he won’t mind. Look, nobody knows about Matthew. It’s the one chance we have of protecting him.”

“Unless it works,” Emma said, turning her head to the window. “The rain’s stopped. Now it’s just steaming.”

“I said I’d do what I could,” Connolly said. “Why don’t we take this one step at a time?”

“Right. What do we do first? Push him off the train?”

“It’s not a joke, Emma.”

“Then stop enjoying it so much. It’s all a game to you. Spot him, lose him. See how good they are. See how good you are. My God, I wish we were done with this.”

“We’re almost there,” he said evenly, calming her.

“Can I ask you something? If no one knows we’re doing this, that means no one’s looking after us either, doesn’t it? If anything happens, I mean. There won’t be anyone. Not even the man with the hat.”

“That’s right.”

“I hadn’t thought about that. Should I be frightened?”

“Are you?”

“No. Oddly enough. But then I’m a well-known fool.”

“Nobody knows that here,” he said, smiling. “You’re just a ticket, remember?”

“Your friend knows,” she said, moving her head slightly toward him.

“He knows you’re here. He doesn’t know what you’re doing.”

“What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Having fun. Being bad.”

He reached across the table to cover her hand.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Pretend. Smile back at me. Laugh a little, if you can manage it.”

“I thought we were trying to lose him, not put on a show.”

“Not yet. Later. First we have to establish you.”

“How do we do that?”

“Finish your tea. Then we’ll go back to the compartment and hang out a DO NOT DISTURB sign and make lots of noise.”

“They listen at keyholes?” she said.

“They bribe porters.”

“You’re serious?”

“About the noise, anyway.”

“It’s hot.”

“Steaming. We’ll take some ice.”

She laughed at him now, a low murmur.

“That’s it,” he said. “Just like that.”

“How long does all this take? Before I’m established?”

“We have all day. We can lose him in New Jersey. People are always getting lost in New Jersey.”

They left the train in Newark, half hidden by a pool of servicemen greeting their families on the platform.

“Go to the ladies’, then meet me at the buses,” he said as they walked.

“Where?”

“Out to the right. Follow the signs.”

“While he follows you.”

“No, he’ll assume we’re still on the train.”

“What about the porter?”

“We left the tip-he won’t care. He’ll think we’re in the club car. Last call.”

“And if he does follow you?”

“Then you won’t see me at the bus station.”

But he was waiting for her, fanning himself with a newspaper on one of the wooden benches. The air, heavy and sticky, smelled of cheap diesel.

“What have you got in here, anyway?” he said, pointing to her suitcase.

“My trousseau.” She sat down. “So are we alone?”

“I think so.”

“Now what?”

“Bus in ten minutes. Then we find a hotel.”

“You didn’t book?”

“Yes,” he said smiling, “but if we go there, why did we bother to get off the train?”

“I told you I wasn’t very good at this. I just want a bath. I don’t care where it is. What do you think that man’s doing now?”

“Our friend? He’s running around Penn Station. Sweating.”

Emma giggled. “Goodness, he must be angry. Unless you’re wrong, of course. Maybe he’s just a man heading for a long soak in the tub and we’re the ones running around sweating.”

“Either way,” Connolly said.

The bus was crowded and Connolly had to stand, resting against the arm of her seat and holding on to the luggage rack as they bounced through the New Jersey marshes. When they swept around the great curve to the tunnel, the city gleaming across the water, he felt for the first time the excitement of homecoming. Then the overbright bathroom tiles of the tunnel and they were in the crowded streets, turning down into the basement of the Hotel Dixie with its rows of storage lockers and shoeshine stands and people holding tickets on their way to somewhere. Out on the street, he felt overwhelmed, like a farm boy in the movies. Even in the heat, everything moved quickly, taxis and boys in navy whites and khaki and lights racing through neon tubes. No one had even heard of Los Alamos.

They took a taxi to a hotel on Lexington, not far from Grand Central, where he managed to wangle a room facing the side street. When he opened the window, soot blew in with the sound of the Third Avenue el, but there was a fan and water gushed from the taps, a world away from the drought on the Hill.

“Not exactly the Waldorf, is it?” Emma said.

“We wouldn’t get into the Waldorf. Have a bath, you’ll feel better. It’s the same water.”

“At half the price. Care to join me?” she said, undressing.

“You go. I have to make some calls.”

“Old girlfriends?”

“No. About tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said, no longer smiling, then went to the bathroom and closed the door.

He called Tony at Costello’s to arrange the next day’s meeting-“Yeah, two booths, I got it. What you got going, some skirt?”-then talked to a friend on the paper about the wire. He placed a call to Mills, smoking a cigarette by the window as he waited for the long-distance connection.

“I thought you were at the Hotel Pennsylvania,” Mills said.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

There was a pause. “Very funny,” Mills said finally.

“I never made it. It’s hot back here. I decided to cool off in the country instead.”

“Which is why the operator said the call was from New York.”

“Must be a mistake.”

“Yeah. How’d you manage the disappearing act?” Connolly was silent.

“Okay, so I’m just wasting the government’s money. Why’d you call, anyway?”

“To hear what you just told me.”

Mills paused again. “You don’t want to annoy people, Mike, you really don’t. Now what am I supposed to tell him?”

“Tell him there’s a good band on the Pennsylvania roof. He’ll enjoy it. I just want some privacy. Out here in the country.”

“Yeah, privacy. Well, you’ve got it. Unless I can trace the call.”

“Don’t even bother. I’m in a booth. But you probably figured that already.”

“Shit,” Mills said, hanging up.

When he went into the bathroom, she was lying back with her knees sticking out of the water like islands, staring ahead at nothing.

“You going to stay in there all night?” he said, starting to undress.

“Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?” she said, still preoccupied.

“Yes.”

“I mean, really all right,” she said, looking up at him.

He nodded. “Come on, finish up and we’ll go out somewhere.”

“You’re joking. I can’t move.”

“Okay,” he said, climbing into the tub and falling on her, splashing water over the side.

“What are you doing?” she said, laughing.

“Let’s stay here,” he said, kissing her.

“Stop. Oh, look at the mess.”

“It’s water. They expect that here.”

“Oh, it’s that sort of hotel, is it?”

“Sure.”

“No, really, we can’t. Look at the floor.” She sat up, water sliding off her breasts.

“I thought you couldn’t move,” he said, holding her by the waist. “Come on, lie down.”

“You ought to cool off,” she said, rolling over on top of him and pushing him under. When he pulled his head up, sputtering, she was already out of the tub, grabbing a towel. He stood up, playing a sea monster, and reached out for her.

“My God, you’re not going to chase me around the room,” she said, laughing. “You look ridiculous.”

He lunged for her. She darted out of the room, and ran over to the fan, but he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her toward the bed.

“We’re all wet,” she said, playing.

“So what?” He lowered her to the bed.

“The bed’ll be sopping.”

“We’ll sleep in the tub,” he said, moving his hand up along her leg, soapy and slick. “Anything else?”

“The curtain,” she said quickly, her breath shallow.

He grinned at her, then got up and flicked off the light. He had thought she might move, but she lay still, the fan blowing over her body. He stood at the foot of the bed, looking at her white skin in the faint light that came from the bathroom, then moved his hands along her legs, passing over her belly until they rested under her breasts. When he bent over and kissed them, one after the other, she shivered.

“It’s not right,” she said. “This isn’t supposed to be fun.”

He moved his face from her breasts up to her neck, lowering his body onto hers so that their wet skins slid against each other.

“Who says? Who made that up?”

She took his head in her hands as he bent to kiss her. “Tell me you love me. Tell me it’s all right.”

“It’s all right,” he said. And then, entering her, he felt her clutch him inside, as if her whole body were holding on to him.

Afterward they showered separately, suddenly shy with each other. She toweled her hair by the fan, rubbing it with a tropical laziness.

“Do you really want to go out?” she said. “Can’t we just have room service?”

“I don’t think they have room service here. Maybe a bellboy with an ice bucket. Do you want a drink?”

“I’d fall over.”

“You’ll feel better after some food.”

“Should I call him now?” she said unexpectedly.

“No. In the morning. Don’t give him any time to think,” he said, a hunter’s voice. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” she said dully, and got up to dress.

They ate in a restaurant near Times Square, oysters wedged in a plate of crushed ice and tall glasses of beer whose coating of frost evaporated in the heat. Outside, the streets were crowded and steamy. Emma picked at her food, barely making conversation, and after a second beer Connolly began to wilt too, so that even the rattling noise of the restaurant became fuzzy.

“Want to go hear some music?” he said.

She smiled at him. “You always said we’d do that. And now that we’re here, I’m too tired to go. Maybe tomorrow. When it’s over.”

“All right,” he said, not wanting to talk about it. “We could go to the top of the RCA Building. There’s always a breeze there.”

“You don’t have to entertain me. I’d be happy with bed.”

But it was too hot to go back to the hotel, so they went to an air-cooled movie instead, where the crisp refrigerated air reminded him of the Hill. The newsreel was still filled with clips of German atrocities and now the long lines of DPs shuffling sadly past the bomb sites. The feature, something called Pillow to Post, with Ida Lupino, was bright and shiny, oblivious to what had come before, and halfway through Connolly forgot what it was supposed to be about. Emma took his hand in the movie, holding it lightly, as if they were on a date.

The streets were as crowded as before, people pouring out of the theaters and flirting and eating ice cream cones. The lights were dazzling. Knickerbocker beer. A giant Pepsi in perpetual effervescence. Here, anyway, the war was over, but everything familiar seemed to him suspended. They had all come out to pass the time while they waited for the next thing, the feature after the newsreel. What could it be except brighter, worth the wait?

He steered away from the theaters and they walked back on quieter streets, still holding hands, easy with each other, listening to the sound of her heels on the pavement. He’d thought of a drink in the Astor Bar, or now the Biltmore, but all that seemed curiously part of the past too, nothing to do with them. Now they were a couple, eager to get home. When she smeared her face with cold cream back in the room, it seemed to him more intimate than lovemaking, a new familiarity.

He sat at the window while she drifted off to sleep, restless, and it occurred to him then, looking at her, that the trip wasn’t about tomorrow anymore. Tomorrow would take care of itself. But while he waited, his life had changed. This was what it meant to be married. Her help, so casually asked for, now bound him in some deep obligation. If they stopped now they could be as they were, idly suspended like the crowd, hidden away in this cocoon of humid air. Instead, he would compromise her, as determined and heedless as Oppenheimer to see his project through. But they weren’t going to stop-it was sleep talking, the nighttime jitters. This was the next thing. She had understood before he did, accepted it. She turned over in bed, no longer fitful, breathing deeply. He had always loved her fearlessness. Now she was offering it to him, a secret marriage. They could have something more than peace. He thought of her leaping up the trail at Chaco, eager, lending him a hand.