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History, though coy, needs truth to be her handmaiden.
—Haakon Chevalier
“... some sunny day!”
Kitty Oppenheimer and Barbara Chevalier reached the song’s rousing conclusion. Their husbands applauded, Oppie clamping his cigarette between his teeth so he could do so with gusto. Kitty rose from the piano bench, and the two women bowed theatrically.
Oppie got up from the living-room couch, clutching his empty martini glass, and said, “Another round?” He knew the answer: their two dinner guests considered his martinis legendary; Oppie himself took them as evidence that although he’d settled on physics, he’d have made a damn good chemist, too.
Kitty, a brunette, merely raised her thin eyebrows in a “need you even ask?” expression, and Barb, blonde with green eyes, declared an enthusiastic, “Yes, please!”
Oppie collected the other glasses on a sterling-silver tray. He was about to turn toward the kitchen door when, to his surprise, Haakon Chevalier, an inch taller than Oppie’s six feet, lifted himself from the couch. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“Forsaking the company of two beauties for me?” said Oppie. The tension between Haakon and Barb had been palpable all evening; the singing had helped, and Oppie hoped his remark would lighten the mood even more. He motioned with his head for Haakon to get the door, and the two of them entered the spacious kitchen, the smell of an almost-ready suckling pig greeting them. The heavy wooden door swung shut.
“We’re going to miss you,” Haakon said as Oppie put down the tray of used glasses, Kitty’s and Barb’s obvious by their bright-red lipstick marks. “Berkeley won’t be the same without you.”
Oppie had a second set of long-stemmed conical glasses in the freezer. He pulled them out and—his signature flourish—pressed each one facedown as though it were a cookie cutter into a shallow pan filled with lime juice and honey. He was conscious of Haakon’s eyes on him, watching the master at work.
“Any hint of where you’re going?” Haakon asked.
Having now set the glasses down, Oppie poured Black Bear gin into his cocktail shaker and then, with a practiced flick of his wrist, added a splash of vermouth. He thought about replying, “Somewhere even drier than my martinis,” but, no, that witticism had to die unspoken in the name of security. It was such a strange thing to get used to—and, really, if he couldn’t trust Hoke, his closest friend, whom could he? “Sorry,” he said affably. “My lips are sealed.”
Haakon smiled but tipped his head toward a vodka bottle sitting next to the sink. “Genuine Russian, I see. Thank God we’re not at war with them.”
“Ha,” said Oppie as he expertly manipulated the shaker.
“Speaking of the Russians, Robert, do you know George Eltenton?”
Eltenton was a chemical engineer at Shell Development. Was Haakon taking a dig at Eltenton’s Communist leanings? That wouldn’t be in character; Hoke was as Red as anyone. “Not well,” Oppie replied, apportioning his potent mixture among the four glasses. “But he’s been to this very house. He’s a member of FAECT”—the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians—“and came to a meeting here a couple of years ago; I was trying to get the boys at the Rad Lab to join the American Association of Scientific Workers.”
“A good union man,” Haakon said, nodding his approval, but Oppie wasn’t sure if he meant him or Eltenton.
“It didn’t go anywhere,” continued Oppie. “Just as well. Lawrence blew a gasket when he found out—wanted me to give him the names of those who’d been at the meeting. Naturally, I refused.”
“Commendable,” said Haakon. “Anyway, it’s good you know George. He and I move in some of the same circles”—meaning, Oppie knew, the Communist Party—“and a fellow at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco had a word with him.”
“Yes?” said Oppie, deploying olives now.
“Well, we’re all on the same side, and the Soviets—no, one is plenty—well, the Soviets have gotten wind, I guess, of what’s been going on at our university. You’ve never said, but everyone assumes it’s of great importance.”
Oppie made no reply.
“And so George was wondering if, you know, in the spirit of openness, if you were so inclined—that is, if you wanted to—well, any technical information that went to him would very discreetly find its way to your scientific colleagues in Russia.”
The wall clock ticked off seconds. Oppie kept his tone as even as he could. “That’s treason.”
“Of course, of course,” said Chevalier. “I just thought you’d want to know.”
“I want nothing to do with anything like that.”
Haakon nodded and helped himself to one of the glasses. He took a sip. “Perfect, as always.”
#
In May 1943, Oppie, Kitty, and their son Peter, who had just entered the terrible twos, arrived at the place that would variously be called Site Y, the Hill, the mesa, or, in commemoration of the poplar trees that abounded here, Los Alamos. Oppie knew this part of northern New Mexico well. He’d spent the summer of 1922 here, an eighteen-year-old kid in need of toughening up following a string of illnesses before entering Harvard that fall. He had learned to ride horses then and ever since had been in love with the austere, feral countryside.
He’d returned to this area with his younger brother Frank in the summer of 1928, leasing a rustic cabin made of halved tree trunks held together by adobe mortar, a cabin Robert continued to rent to this day. Upon first learning of its availability, he’d exclaimed “Hot Dog!” and the Spanish equivalent, Perro Caliente, had become the place’s name.
So, when he, Leslie Groves, and a few others had begun scouting a location for their secret atomic-bomb lab, Oppie had led them to what he and the general quickly agreed was the perfect spot: a boy’s ranch school situated atop the two-mile-long Pajarito Plateau, 7,300 feet above sea level. Groves acquired it by eminent domain, and Oppie snared for his family one of the six existing houses, originally occupied by the school’s masters, on what came to be known as Bathtub Row. Other accommodations—rude and shoddy since they were only expected to last the duration of the war—were soon under construction; they would have only showers.
General Groves could have claimed one of the Bathtub Row houses for himself, but he wouldn’t normally be on the mesa; his principal office was in the War Building in Washington. But he was there the day Robert chose the Oppenheimer abode. “Very good,” he said. “I’d have picked that one, too.” The general paused—something he rarely did—then said, “I’ve got you a little house-warming present.” He handed a small tin case, less than an inch wide, to Oppenheimer.
“Snuff?” said Oppie. “General, I—”
“No, not snuff.” And then Groves made an odd sound, which Oppie supposed was his chuckle. “Well, it’s for snuffing, but ...” He pointed at it. “Open it up.”
Oppie dug a fingernail under the case’s cover. It hinged back, revealing a small brown oval capsule surrounded by soft padding.
“Potassium cyanide,” said Groves. “You’re to carry it with you until the war is over, and, yes, before you ask, I’ve got one, too.” He patted a pocket. “Everyone at the top levels is getting them.”
“Good grief, General, isn’t that a little melodramatic?”
“What do you think all this talk of security has been for? The Germans are doubtless trying to build an atomic bomb; so, I’d bet my life, are the Russians. But we’ve got the best minds, and the easiest thing for them to do is kidnap you or other key members of your team. If you’re captured, they will torture you, and they will succeed in getting you to talk—unless you take that first. It’s glass, covered in rubber to help keep it from breaking accidentally. Don’t swallow it; it’ll go right through your system intact. Instead, chomp down on it. You’ll be dead in a matter of minutes.”
Oppie looked at the capsule. It was only the size of a pea, but it reminded him of an apple from long ago.