Kitty is drinking and in a fierce soliloquy evokes images of war, death, and resurrection. Kitty and her Tewa housekeeper Pasqualita are with the Oppenheimers’ children, awaiting news of the test. The Oppenheimers’ residence the same evening. Alone, conflicted, and exhausted, the plutonium sphere looming above him, Oppenheimer pours himself into John Donne’s wrenching sonnet, “Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God.” Groves and Oppenheimer have a moment of quiet. Meanwhile, Groves’ refusal to postpone means there will be no evacuations despite the threat of nuclear fallout. Groves is furious with meteorologist Frank Hubbard who refuses to predict good weather. General Groves, under pressure from Washington, will not move the test. The bomb awaits final adjustments for the midnight test, threatened by a huge thunderstorm. Alamogordo, New Mexico the Trinity test site July 15, 1945. Kitty responds, “Love must imagine the world.”
He ignores her, and then, suddenly aroused, makes extravagant love to her in their secret code of the words of Baudelaire. Oppenheimer is absorbed with paperwork, oblivious to his wife Kitty. The Oppenheimers’ bedroom evening of the same day. He describes his recent visit to Washington where decisions on Japanese targets were made. Oppenheimer warns that such a discussion is potentially treasonous. Robert Wilson, a young protégé of Oppenheimer, announces a meeting about the morality of atomic bombing. Edward Teller reads Robert Oppenheimer a letter from physicist Leo Szilard which urges scientists to take a stand about what many feel is the government’s unethical use of their research. The country is at war, and pressure to have the bomb ready for deployment generates an air of intense, nervous activity. The chorus describes Einstein’s breakthrough in understanding the nature of energy and matter. Physicists, engineers, and military personnel are preparing the first atomic bomb for its test and imminent use.
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