Japan didn't last much longer. In August the terrible news of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came through on the radio. Juliet felt sick as the newspapers carried pictures of the damage that had been done by the atom bombs. That had been a building--there was a child's shoe. Those people--all of those people--they might be the enemy but they were still people!
"I don't know if victory is worth this," she whispered.
"Things will never be the same again," Uncle Perry said. "Splitting the atom has changed the way wars will be fought from now until the end of time."
"Perry the Pessimist," Aunt Ilse said. "There will never be another world war like this one."
"That's what we said after the Great War, Ilse," Mother reminded her. "Our children will say the same thing about this one--and our children's children will prove them wrong."
"Well, this war will be over soon," said Aunt Ilse, clasping her hands together. "It must. I want my boy home. Will Japan never surrender, or do the Allies have to drop another bomb?"
The grown-ups began to argue about what an atom bomb would do to the environment. Juliet could take it no more. She would smash the radio if she didn't get away--soon. She went out to walk in the humid night air. I had rained earlier, and it would rain before the night was over. How much she took for granted in her own life! The newspapers were reporting that a hideous acid rain was falling now on parts of Japan. Nuclear fallout, they called it. If you were caught out in it, it left burns on your skin. Oh, terrible--terrible!
Soon the sky became more threatening and Juliet realized that it would storm before her walk was over. She looked around dismally and tried to calculate how long it would take to get home. No, she couldn't make it. Priest Pond was closest--she would go there and hope Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Dean were not sleeping. Perhaps she could spend the night, or stay until the storm was over. Fat, cold raindrops dotted her hair and dress. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rolled ominously, matching her mood.
"Come in, child, come in," said Uncle Dean, who was in his pajamas and robe but not asleep. "Little Elizabeth has gone to visit Bella and Douglas for the week-end. Bella's getting more and more nervous as the time for the baby gets closer. Can you believe I'm going to be a grandfather? Can you believe I'm not already? I'm certainly old enough to be, times and times over. Well, I'm all alone and I could use the company tonight. Come in."
Juliet went up to Bella's old room and dried her hair, and changed into a clean, dry, faded dress that was hanging in the closet. Uncle Dean was puttering in the kitchen. When Juliet went back down he presented her with a mug of tea.
"Would you like to listen to the radio, Jewel?"
"No!" said Juliet adamantly. "Definitely not. It's all news today Uncle Dean and--and I can't take it! It's so horrible. How do we live with ourselves as human beings after something like this?"
"We do the best we can," Uncle Dean said. "When I was your age, Juliet, I remembered being terrified of the idea of dying. So terrified that I couldn't sleep at nights, sometimes. It was such a frightening prospect. To put in a dark box, laid in the ground, and covered over, separated forever from everything you love right here on earth."
Juliet shivered. She, too, was afraid of this. How could she live--apart from Mother, and Father, and Douglas, and New Moon? If heaven didn't have those things--Juliet thought she would not like heaven at all.
"But as I've grown older," Uncle Dean continued. "I grow more and more weary of this earth. Yes--I love Bella, and I love Little Elizabeth, and I would love to see my grandchild grow up. But I'm getting too old to take much more of the horrors of this world. I want to be at peace. So I've made death into a friend. But I do wonder and worry about my little descendant, born this Christmastime. What kind of world is this for him to be born into?"
"Or her to be born into," Juliet smiled.
"Or her," Uncle Dean concluded. "We won't listen to the radio, Jewel. We'll pretend this is a less noisy and tiresome age. We'll light candles and read, yes, read. There will be ghostly shadows on the walls, and we'll be better able to appreciate the grandeur of this storm that wants to shake my house off its foundation. Maybe if we're lucky, the power will go out all together. Come, let's go into my library and raid the shelves."
Uncle Dean pulled Heroditus off the shelf for himself. "There is nothing like reading about ancient wars during a modern one," he said. "It makes you realize that human beings haven't changed--and won't, not if we're given a thousand thousand years in which to develop. Our techniques get better, yes, but our motives haven't changed. We want to dominate still--and control."
Juliet pulled a slender volume of poetry off of the shelf and curled up with it in front of the candle, which did cast ghostly shapes over everything, as Uncle Dean had promised. But she could not concentrate. She read the same lines over and over again,
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.
What did that mean? Juliet tugged at her hair in frustration. What was one person's own suffering when people all over the world were dying, or starving? Why help one if you couldn't help all? Why did some people receive and others never? What did it matter if Allan did or did not love her when thousands upon thousands of people all over the world had died? Juliet suddenly felt so sick with herself that she launched the poetry book across the room. The spine broke and pages flew everywhere.
She gasped and felt immediately contrite when Uncle Dean's eyes set on her.
"I--I'm sorry," Juliet whispered. "Oh, Uncle Dean, I'll buy you another copy. Just tell me where you got it"
Uncle Dean smiled kindly at her. "The only person who is angry with you is Miss Dickinson. She's probably rolling in her grave. I often feel like doing that myself lately," he said thoughtfully. "Which is why I stick to history. There's not much comfort in reading poetry on a day like today, is there, young Juliet?"
"There's no poetry in life anymore at all," said Juliet morosely.
"Juliet," said Uncle Dean, "Those people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die in vain. They died more valiantly than any other person ever will--they are heroes more than you and I could hope to be. They lost their lives in the struggle to end the greatest war known to man. There will be peace because of that sacrifice. Do you not think that is poetry?"
"You're right," Juliet said, tears rolling down her face. "It is."
"There is no poetry in life," Uncle Dean quoted, and then continued:
There is no poetry in life,
There is no vale outside my door.
And if there was a limpid brook,
I'd scarcely know what it was for.
Poetry's a saucy lass
Who flies from whence to whither
You cannot force her feet to pass
Or try to draw her hither.
Pretend that life's poetical !
You'll find that you can't fake it
No, there's no poetry in life
But if there is, you make it.
"Now," Uncle Dean said. "Come into my library again. We'll find you something else to read. Some history--you children are taught nothing of history in schools. I've a biography of Anne Boleyn. Come pour over that."
Juliet did, and found it vastly interesting. Nevertheless, her eyelids felt heavy and began to close, and in a few minutes she was fast asleep.
Uncle Dean chuckled to himself. "Works every time." He covered her with a blanket and there Juliet slept, peacefully, until she awoke to a fresh, clear, cloudless morning--and the news that the war was over. Japan had finally surrendered.