Determinant

Undark

25 U n D a r K Radium Luminous Material. Shines in the Dark. Undark is a combination of zinc sulfide and radium. The latter is used in such minute quantities that it is absolutely harmless. —From an advertisement by the United States Radium Corporation I could hardly believe the manner in which they worked. . . . There is absolutely no means of destroying the substance once it enters the human body. —Marie Curie The dial-painter strips for the examination. She can see already that something is wrong. The professor stands in the corner, breathing through the thin lawn of his sleeve. in the windowless room, light escapes from her skin like a cry. He takes notes and doesn’t speak. Later, she makes her way through the dark trees at her parents’ house, miles from the factory in orange, new Jersey. Hours with rough cotton washcloths, water hot as the pipes would give, and still she feels weight on her skin, an invisible greenish-pearl. Steam in her lungs, hot and heavy, like the radium wasn’t. She’s going down to the lake to be alone, she tells her mother, but she doesn’t. no more water. no more trying to scrub it away. The other girls had laughed, sucking paint into their mouths. in dark ecstatic bedrooms, they’d gasped bright o’s, love visible as a moon. She’d been embarrassed at the stories. Following their voices on the breeze, 26 she opens her mouth as wide as it goes. She’d been quiet on the bench, hating the loud girls, the louder laughs at her red face. She painted more watches than anyone—thousands of faces. She grew almost proud of the glowing spidery numbers, pin-sharp brush. She makes her way. Through the dark trees, she can almost see the rows of girls. The pine needles wobble like her left hand, painting the small nails of her right with luminous radium paint. The needles sway like loose teeth. Her tongue touches the steep curve of her gums, and the distant stars are all she sees, bright as watch paint, dolls’ eyes, the numbers on every Washington avenue shop front. everywhere, something is undark. Stars so bright the sky looks darker, the way the X-ray’s honeycomb of black holes had made the white bone shine whiter. They cannot light the way she’s gone or where she’s going. The light comes from her fingertips. From inside her mouth. She knows they will die first, the other girls. The ones who’d brought home paint in their handbags, dabbed it on underclothes. They’d wanted it. Had she? She makes her way through the dark trees. She’d loved the work. The beautiful dials, the money she spent on cold milk, ribbon for eleanor’s hair. She could have stayed in her parents’ home, read the story in newsprint. it’s wrong, she thinks, but she feels a kind of pride. Thousands of faces, all glowing like stars. She goes down to the lake to be alone. ...