Day of the Bomb (5 page)

“Yes. I sure miss my mom’s cooking.”

“You got some change for a tip? All I have on me is
this last dollar bill.”

“Sure.” Sally tossed a dime and nickel on top of the
dollar.

“Why don’t you come along home with me? It’s nice
having someone to talk to. Real nice. I’ve been kind of lonely ever
since Jason died. Him coming back here was what kept me going. I
could use a friend like you right about now.”

For three years, Ensign Rhinehardt had spent more
time on ships than on land. So going ashore, even on a conquered
nation’s land, was welcomed. Memories of the damage he had seen
inflicted on islands by conventional bombing and shelling had
convinced him that dropping atomic bombs on two cities instead of
invading what would have been by far the most heavily defended
island yet was probably the best choice that President Truman could
have made. As he walked down the gangplank he wondered what FDR
would have decided.

Once ashore, he met his driver and they drove from
the harbor toward what was left of Nagasaki. At first, the ensign
studied the occupation force of marines and army sent to ensure
order while politicians and diplomats sorted out the details that
accompany surrenders and treaties. But when he came within viewing
distance of the epicenter of where the atomic bomb had exploded he
started to wonder what the scientists back home had released.

“Sort of spooky, huh?” His army driver asked. “I got
the same look on my face you have the first time I saw all the
damage. But you get used to it.”

The jeep could only penetrate the fringes of the
destruction because too much rubble – chunks of concrete,
splintered wood, and fused pieces of matter – still blocked many of
the roads. So Ensign Rhinehardt asked the driver to park the jeep.
He explored the remains of the city on foot while the driver stayed
with the jeep and smoked cigarettes. By the time the ensign
returned, a cluster of children had surrounded the jeep and driver.
They begged shamelessly.

“Hey, GI, you got chocolate?”

“No, kid.”

“Candy?”

“No.”

“Gum?”

“Beat it.”

“Cigarette?”

The flustered corporal flipped his half-finished
stick of tobacco at the children’s feet. They pounced on it and
each other. The oldest, a girl, emerged from the pile-on smoking
it. She blew a smoke ring at her benefactor.

“You nice GI. You come meet sister. You like.” She
shook her hips, which made those around her point and giggle.

The driver hopped into the jeep and started it. “What
are you going to do with people like that? They’re hopeless. I
write home and tell my folks and girl but they don’t understand.
Where to now, sir?”

His passenger stared at him blankly.

“How about the hospital where they treat the
survivors?”

“Okay.”

At the hospital the driver went through half a pack
of Lucky Strikes before his charge finally emerged from the
building. “I was getting ready to send out a search party for…” He
stopped joking as the ensign vomited on the jeep’s front right tire
and fender. The driver helped him into the passenger’s seat. “Sorry
sir, I…”

“That’s okay. You have anything to drink?”

“Yes, sir.” He tossed equipment around until he found
a canteen behind the driver’s seat. “It might give you the runs
because you’re not used to the water around here yet. But it’s all
there is.” He handed the metal container to him.

After rinsing out his mouth, he drank slowly from the
canteen as the jeep lurched into gear. “Any place else left to
see?”

The driver backed up his jeep. “Yeah. Smitty’s
lab.”

“Lab? Is he a scientist?”

“No, sir. He’s just a jarhead photographer, but a
really good one. I drove him around when he took photos of the city
shortly after the bomb was dropped. He runs a photo lab.”

Smitty was out on an assignment but his clerk proved
helpful. “You’re in luck, ensign. Smitty’s the best photographer in
all of the Marine Corps. You’ll see.” He handed him an eight-inch
thick stack of photos. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a job
with some big city newspaper or one of those weekly magazines when
he gets out.”

The jeep driver smoked his remaining cigarettes while
he waited. When his passenger rejoined him there was no new vomit
or apology for soiling his vehicle, only appreciation.

“Thank you, corporal.” He held onto the windshield
with his right hand to brace himself against the jolts as the
jeep’s tires hit potholes and debris.

“For what, sir?”

“For helping me understand what really happened here
last month.”

“Just trying to do my job, sir.”

His passenger turned toward him. The ensign’s smile
was gone, along with a piece of his easy-going disposition. “Have
you seen those pictures?” He jerked his thumb behind his shoulder
toward the photo lab.

“Sir, I was there when he took them. I really don’t
want to look again.” He threw the remnant of his last cigarette
onto the street. “You got a cigarette I can bum off of you, sir?
I’m all out.”

“Sure.” He handed him an unopened pack that he had
planned to trade on the black market. “Keep them.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Tell me something. Those photos of the bodies
that looked like burnt up marshmallows, were there many bodies like
that?”

“Only close in where the bomb hit, sir. They were the
lucky ones. You got to see the unlucky ones back there at the
hospital. So far, they’ve taken hours, days, or weeks to die. God
only knows how long it’ll take the ones you saw in there to die.
Who knows? Maybe months. Maybe even years. I try not to think about
it.”

“Ah, comrade Yankhov, come in. Sit down.”

“Thank you, comrade.”

Major Tsavich lit a cigarette and sat behind his
desk, which he used more as a pulpit than to do the piles of
paperwork that were stacked high atop it. “Want one?” He reached
across the desk so that three of the cigarettes protruded from
their package.

“No thank you, comrade.”

Major Tsavich studied his subject. Although she was a
civilian, in his eyes that meant any such were even more under his
control. Soldiers he simply ordered executed; civilians, well, they
could be made to talk through “physical means of persuasion” that
lasted for days if it was administered to his satisfaction and
specifications. “It’s a shame, comrade.”

“What?”

“That you are just a scientist instead of a
soldier.”

“I can’t help it. I was rejected from serving for the
Motherland during the war.”

“No matter. You serve Russia best as a scientist.
That is why you are being transferred to work on the same kind of
weapon that the Americans used to destroy Japan.”

“What?”

“I need not remind you that your work is top secret.
You can talk about it to no one other than your fellow scientists
whom you will be meeting three weeks from now.”

“But where…”

“That too, is secret. You will be told after you
spend some time in Moscow getting acquainted with them. You will
travel to your assignment together. In the meantime, I suggest you
return home for a visit. It may be some time before you can visit
there again.” He motioned that the meeting was ended as he picked
up his phone.

Return home? To what? First Comrade Stalin starves
millions from my homeland to death. That killed off momma. Then he
purges the officers’ ranks of the army. That killed off cousin
Alexi and Uncle Boris. Next he had his secret police shoot
civilians, millions of them. I bet he only ordered that stopped
because the army was running out of bullets and Hitler was making
Uncle Joe sweat bullets of his own. So what does Comrade Stalin do?
Sign a pact with the Fuhrer, just like that fool Englishman
Chamberlain did. Let’s see, who else died as a result of the war
that Stalin promised us would never happen because of his wonderful
diplomacy with the Nazis? Brothers Joseph and Yuri. Wasn’t it
enough to have Momma and Poppa name Joseph after you, Comrade
Stalin? How nice of you to allow me to return home for a visit
before I spend years helping to build our version of the atomic
bomb, most of which will come from whatever we can steal from the
Allies. I’ll give you this much, Uncle Joe; you have the best spy
network in the world. Hitler and his Gestapo and SS were a bunch of
pikers by comparison.

The major’s secretary disturbed Yankhov’s thoughts.
“Comrade Yankhov, here is your ticket. Your train leaves at 8:30
tonight. Have a nice trip.” She lowered her voice as she handed
over the ticket. “I’ve enjoyed working with you.”

Arkhip Yankhov nodded. “Your assistance has been most
appreciated, comrade.” Arkhip wanted to hug the secretary but
feared doing so. Oh, nothing would happen to Arkhip. She was too
valuable a scientist. But secretaries are worth a ruble a dozen.
Someone no doubt would see the display of affection and report it
to the major.

He would put two and two together and conclude that
at least two under his authority had greater loyalty to each other
than they did toward Father Stalin and Mother Russia. Then his
thought processes would begin to turn just as they did in the
millions of party members who ran the USSR, each of them a
miniature Stalin: Traitors who had hugged one another! But how
great was their treachery? If Stalin had ordered the assassination
of Trotsky while he was in exile in Mexico, then no enemy of the
state can be allowed to remain free. Ferreting out traitors took
the skill of the NKVD. Let them purge the less than loyal workers
of our marvelous Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Now that the
war is over surely there are enough bullets to spare for use on our
own people once again. Such a shame! Why would anyone question our
great all-knowing leader as Marx’s vision of a world ruled by
communism comes to fruition? Just look at how much our influence
has spread now that WW II has ended. Oh, it was touch and go there
toward the end. That crazy General George Patton wanted to battle
us after he took care of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, SS, and all those dumb
countries allied with him and his doomed from the beginning Third
Reich. But as usual, our fourth column saved the day for us, the
useful idiots scattered throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia
who act as apologists for communism. Now there are our real
comrades, toiling day by day in the newspapers, magazines, and on
radio, at the universities and colleges, and every level of
government, marching ever forward to deliver their countries over
to us as well. Take your time dear useful idiots, it’s no hurry. We
have our hands full. How do we love the Allies? Let us count the
ways. They gave us half of Germany, and all of Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia…the list goes on. How
fortunate that we cut the deal for them while FDR was still alive.
That gruff-looking Truman might not have been so generous. Wasn’t
he so very willing to use the atomic bomb on civilians? That’s
enough to scare us to ramp up our research for our own arsenal of
atomic weapons. It was Kant and Nietzsche and all those wonderful
German theologians telling the unwashed masses that “God is dead”
over and over until they finally believed it. Now if Hitler had
just been content to make the Fatherland Germany’s God, he could
have won, or at least still be fighting on instead of just a pile
of burned bones after his followers burned him outside the bunker.
But what does the Dumkopf do instead? He revives the paganism of
Germany from long ago. Maybe he liked what Jung says about people
being inherently religious – that you can take the people out of
the religion but not the religion out of the people? Maybe Herr
Hitler thought that if his pagan ancestors could defeat the Romans
he could do the same by having his hordes of Huns swear allegiance
to him instead of the Fatherland? Religion? The opiate of the
masses as Brother Marx put it. Why is it that almost thirty years
after our glorious revolution to overthrow the Czar that some still
cling to their God and their Bible? Oh, well. Czar Nicholas’ wife
had Rasputin the mad monk so is it any wonder that some still cling
to Jesus Christ instead of our centralized socialist state that
dictates every part of daily life and death? Who knows? Perhaps a
stay in Siberia will bring such fools to their senses.

Arkhip caught her train promptly at 8:30 that
evening. She knew better than to tarry. The major probably had
ordered at least one man to watch and see whether she did. Perhaps
another would follow her home to make sure she did not disembark
the train before her prescribed destination. Then a third would
monitor her visit just to ensure where her loyalties truly lay.
Can’t be too safe these days. The word is that Uncle Joe, Comrade
Stalin, has taken to sleeping in a different room at the Kremlin
each night. Is that what happens when you rule as emperor for too
long over a kingdom of your own making? Do you just become one of
Shakespeare’s sorry characters, perhaps Hamlet, Macbeth, or Julius
Caesar? Truth is stranger than fiction. Look at Mussolini, hung
upside down like an Italian sausage along with his mistress by his
own people after they shot them full of holes. What ungrateful,
unloyal citizens they proved to be. At least Il Duce made the
trains runs on time or so they claim.

***

More of a time of closure than vacation, Arkhip’s
days spent at home passed too quickly for her, “just a slight
parole from my life sentence in Uncle Joe’s vast prison system” she
said to her father when she was certain no one could eavesdrop.
Poor Father. Ever since Mother’s death he had begun a long, slow
slide toward his own departure from this life for the next. Yes, he
still clung to the God of his youth, though secretly of course. But
now that his brothers and sons had been swallowed up along with the
other tens of millions whom WW II had taken forever from Russia he
seemed not to care what happened to him.