Silas Timberman

by Howard Fast

  So he was not an informer. The next step now. When he read in the papers of the stream of driven, frightened men who had come before committees like this one and named names and pleaded and crawled and begged for mercy, he had reacted with the casual interest of a botanist in the possible flora of the planet Mars. The separation of worlds had impelled neither great interest nor self-examination; but now the worlds coincided. He had been asked to be an informer and he had refused. It was strangely academic, almost amusing, and even more strangely, it had nothing to do with Alec Brady or Ike Amsterdam—or any of them. It had only to do with himself. He was only protecting himself. It was something that he could not do, and it made him wonder why he had encountered so many things in so short a space of time that he could not do. He also realized that sooner or later he would have to inquire into and understand the reasons why he could not do these things. But not now; not here and not now, with the lights blazing and the television cameras turning him into a performer for the thousands or millions who watched greedily, pleasantly, deliciously, this spectacle of a man being destroyed so quietly, so politely, a tribute and testimony to the American way of things and none of the beast tactics that had turned the names of Hitler and Mussolini and Franco into dirty words.

  “We will decide what questions to ask, Professor Timberman,” Brannigan said. “We will cite you for contempt every time you refuse to answer. This is a senate committee, not a communist forum. Now, is it true, Professor Timberman, that a special civil defense program was launched at Clemington University?”

  “It is.”

  “What was the nature of that program?”

  “I’m less equipped to answer that than those who formulated the program. All I know is that a civil defense program for the university was announced.”

  “A volunteer program, I presume?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “And were you asked to join, Professor Timberman?”

  “I was.”

  “Did you join?”

  “I did not.”

  “In other words, at a moment when your country was locked in a death struggle with a cruel and remorseless enemy, you refused to take so nominal a step as joining a civil defense organization for the community in which you lived and which gave you your bread and sustenance?”

  “Not the way you put it, Senator—”

  “Answer the question, please, Professor.”

  “I will, by all means. I spent four years in the service, Senator. Don’t load your questions for me. I considered this civil defense plan a fraud and a political move—a move that could only deter any hope of peace. I still consider it so. The atom bomb—”

  D’Marcy was rapping with his gavel.

  “No communist speeches!” Brannigan shouted, the first time he had raised his voice since the hearing began.

  “—does not choose or bow or apologize. You defend yourself against this bomb by not using it, Senator, by learning to live with nations the way decent, civilized Americans live with each other. That’s as complex as my political thinking is, or as simple. That is why—”

  “Either answer the questions or I’ll have you ejected!”

  “—I refused to have any part of a face-saving political dodge. Yes, I’m for civil defense, Senator—I’m for survival and for civilization.”

  “We know what you are for, Professor Timberman. It’s very plain what you are for. You’ve made no secret of what you are for. Do you also believe in the overthrow of the government by force and violence, Professor Timberman?”

  “I do not!”

  “Do you believe that a man with a record like yours is fit to teach youth?”

  “I answered that question before, Senator. May I add that I don’t believe that a man with a record like yours is fit to sit on that bench.”

  “Save that for the Daily Worker, Professor. Do you attend communist meetings at Clemington, Professor?”

  “I do not attend communist meetings anywhere.”

  “Do you attend any meetings at Clemington, Professor?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What kind of meetings?”

  “Faculty meetings, curriculum meetings, English Language Society meetings, departmental meetings—”

  “Those are all?”

  “American Veterans Committee occasionally, and meetings of the local chapter of the Civil Liberties Union.”

  “Do you know that both these organizations have been cited as communist fronts?”

  “I did not know that, nor do I believe it.”

  “We are not interested in your beliefs, Professor. Did you meet with Professor Amsterdam on any occasion?”

  “We are friends. We see each other frequently.”

  “At meetings?”

  “At faculty meetings.”

  “Is Professor Amsterdam a member of the Communist Party?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is Miss Crawford?”

  “I never had occasion to ask her.”

  “Are any of the following members of the Communist Party to your knowledge, Professor—Alec Brady, Hartman Spencer, Leon Federman and Lawrence Kaplin?”

  “I have no idea who is or is not a member of the Communist Party, so far as my colleagues are concerned. But may I add, Senator, that even if I did know, I don’t think I would answer the question.”

  “May I ask why, Professor?” Senator Kempleson put in.

  “Because I consider this naming of names to be the act of an informer, and I despise informers.”

  “Would you consider spies in the service of your country in that category, Professor? I ask you this as one service man to another,” Kempleson said.

  Silas thought about that for a while. He glanced at MacAllister and leaned toward him, and the lawyer said, “I don’t think you have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

  “Not that it makes much difference now.”

  “Not that it does,” MacAllister shrugged, and Silas said, “Yes—if they spied on honest people in their own land, sowed fear, wrecked lives—and replaced reason with terror and fear.”

  “Thank you,” Kempleson nodded curtly.

  “In other words,” said Brannigan, picking this up, “your refusal to serve your country in civil defense extends to an unwillingness to serve in any area of her armed forces?”

  “I did not say that, Senator. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “There is no need to, Professor Timberman. You are doing quite well on your own. Answer the question, please.”

  “I don’t recall any question. You made a statement.”

  “Let me rephrase it. In the event of war between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, would you be willing to bear arms against the Soviet Union?”

  “I served in one war. If my services were needed in another, I would respond, I suppose, the way any other American would. No normal human being likes to leave one’s family and go into the army—it’s not pleasant, Senator. But I’ve done it before, and I suppose I could do it again.”

  “I prefer that you answer the question directly, Professor Timberman?”

  “You mean would I fight the Soviet Union?—it sounds a little ridiculous that way, doesn’t it? I also understand it’s one of what they call the sixty-four dollar questions—”

  “No speeches! Answer the question!”

  “Well, I’m trying to. But you have to think about it, Senator. You’ve put a lot of thought into rigging these questions, and you ought to allow a little thought in answering them.”

  “There’ll be no speeches, Professor.”

  “No—of course not.” Yet the speeches went on, buzzing and throbbing and tumbling over and over in Silas’ mind. Why should he have to search for so many things here, impaled, as it were, like an insect stuck on a pin, writhing and twisting for the whole world to see? Poor world, he thought, poor, damned, twisted, harassed world, playing with the spells and secrets of the universe and all set to blow itself to hell
and gone—to hell and gone with all its laughter and tears and joys and woes and petty sins and saints and sinners, and Brannigan like a frog on a log, Brannigan who had never read a book or pondered over a poem, or heard the first cry of his own child coming into the world, or wondered where his next dollar to feed children was coming from—Brannigan was lord over power and saintly in his hatred of the Soviet Union, a new sublimity; and there was Brannigan and here was he, Silas Timberman, somehow and fantastically, occupying the center of the stage in this mad comedy, plucked out of a sleepy little village in the midlands and brought here on wings to be confronted by Brannigan. Lives came together strangely and interestingly, and at this moment, Silas recalled something Ike Amsterdam had once said, to the effect that there was one like himself, like Silas Timberman, in every town and village in America, clinging to reason and nurturing it like a little plant in the desert—and how annoyed he had been at the old man’s cynicism.… And now, count ten and answer the question. Or tell them to go to hell and be damned. Or tell them that the Fifth Amendment or the First Amendment or some other amendment protects you—or was that over, and had he thrown the whole Constitution to the winds, like someone who inflicts verbal damage on a lover beyond repair and recall? Poor Constitution, he thought with some amusement, poor, uneasy paper house. I lived in you. I built my house of paper. Look at me, gentlemen, a scholar. I know you have no room for scholars. The house I live in was also of paper—manuscript paper, so as to speak. I wanted to find out and write down why Mark Twain was what he was and the way he was; but I never thought it necessary to find out why Silas Timberman was what he was or the way he was—

  The question called him, the one thousand dollar question, or a year’s imprisonment. Take it or leave it, and they were a lot more patient than he would have thought. You had to give them credit where credit was due. That was only fair.

  “If someone had asked me that question yesterday,” Silas said, “it would have been easier to answer. I was never overly fond of the Soviet Union. I don’t like places where they tell people what thoughts they must not think, what books they must not read and what books they must not write. I had always heard that the Soviet Union was such a place, and isn’t it true that where there’s enough smoke there must be some fire—?”

  “No speeches! No communist speeches, Professor!”

  He went on talking against the machine-gun-like chatter of the gavel. “Isn’t it? And so much smoke! It is true that I never took the trouble to find out what lay behind the smoke, but neither did I take the trouble to look behind the smoke in Washington. I don’t know why—apathy, I suppose. That’s a curse, and ignorance is a worse disease—”

  Brannigan was shouting at him and beyond him. Senator Kempleson was standing and gesticulating and saying something Silas could not hear; but then neither was he certain that anyone could hear him, yet he went on talking anyway.

  “—and I suppose I hate ignorance more than anything else, ignorance and wicked men who use it, who fear reason and eschew logic, who curse the scholars and scientists and laugh at them and make mock of them, who fear the truth more than they fear the devil himself—and who scream communism and Soviet Union—and who consider themselves shrewd beyond measure by asking whether one will bear arms against the Soviet Union. But you see, I want to live, Senator Brannigan, and I want my children to live, and the time must soon be over when people like you can scream the gibberish of barbarism and send millions to die! Not for Brannigan! Not for what you represent, sir! Not to bear arms against Russia—but to live on the same globe with Russia, to live, to understand, to comprehend, to learn—that’s the only way I know, Senator Brannigan—the only way left—and there’s the only answer—”

  That was as far as he got. Two United States marshals grabbed him, one by each arm and, half in the air, he was firmly moved toward the door of the hearing hall. It was not a position Silas was either prepared for or conditioned to, and his first direct and simple reaction was that this humiliation was more than he could bear. Therefore, he struggled, kicked, twisted and shouted—in a mass of shouting people. He was dimly aware of MacAllister roaring at the marshals, of Brady trying to interfere, of Brannigan’s voice coming from somewhere—of sound and fury and motion, and then it was over and he was outside in the corridor, his coat collar up, his sleeve torn, and his spectacles hanging from one ear, newspaper men pressing around him, and old Ike Amsterdam trying to shelter him, but chuckling gleefully, such an expression of love and respect on his weathered face as Silas had never seen there before.

  And curiously enough, Silas was quite happy.

  * * *

  At lunch, his colleagues were still regarding Silas with respect and a little wonder, all of it not unmixed with concern. A few blocks from the Senate Office Building, they had found a little cafeteria which served excellent food at low prices—and there, at one large table, they combined retrospect of the morning with some attempt to anticipate the afternoon. Federman said, “It was your morning, Silas. By all the gods, it was!” But MacAllister had kept one foot on the ground all the while, and his round face was creased and anxious.

  “I did put my foot in my mouth, though, didn’t I?” Silas asked him. The exhilaration of the struggle in the hearing room was beginning to wear off.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Bad?” asked Brady.

  “Pretty bad. It depends, I suppose.”

  “On what?” Silas wanted to know. He was beginning to feel foolish, thinking to himself, “It’s pleasant to say your piece when it’s been choking you so long—but what’s the price?”

  “Well, it will depend to some extent on what takes place in this afternoon’s session. I’m not so worried about contempt, Silas. I think Amsterdam and Miss Crawford are clear, but there were at least three instances where you committed what they could interpret as a contempt. The grounds were good—you can’t be an informer and live with yourself and not dirty the ground you walk on, but I think you could have gotten out of that with the Fifth Amendment privilege. The trouble is, you knocked out the privilege the moment you denied being a communist.”

  “I had to,” Silas protested. “I’m sorry, but I had to: I couldn’t do anything else.”

  “I suppose not. But your moral responsibility, as you see it, is one thing. Mine is another. I’m your attorney, and I’m frightened to death of perjury. Perjury is a rotten rap. In an honest court, it’s almost impossible to prove, and in a kangaroo court, like we have these days, it’s impossible to disprove—and it’s five years in prison. Five damned years!”

  Edna Crawford, primly eating a piece of pecan pie, looked up and said, just as primly, “Silas is a friend of mine. He’s not a liar.”

  “I know, I know,” MacAllister nodded wearily. “What in hell are the lot of you—boy scouts? Don’t tell me that Silas didn’t lie. If he’s a communist, I’m a Supreme Court Justice working under cover for the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce! Of course, he didn’t lie! But where’s your esteemed colleague, Bob Allen? Don’t you people ever learn anything? You went to school all morning with Brannigan. Didn’t you listen? Can’t you learn? Where’s Bob Allen—looking at the Mellon Collection? Communing with his soul at the Lincoln Memorial?”

  “Wait a minute, MacAllister,” Brady began.

  “No—no—no! Don’t tell me to go easy! Silas, by God and Jesus, why didn’t you consult me before answering that question? I can’t advise you during the hearing unless you ask it. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew what you would say,” Silas answered slowly.

  “Don’t you believe me? I’m a sour, dirty, down-at-the-heel politician! Jesus, I know politics!” he shouted—every face in the restaurant looking at them now; and more quietly, “Don’t you believe me, Silas?”

  “I believe you. But I had to do what I did. I had to,” Silas insisted, pleading now. “I had to. I have to live with myself. I have to live in this country. It’s like a wife. If you tell me she’s a whore,
I don’t believe it, I can’t. I’m joined to it.”

  “And if you see it?” MacAllister whispered.

  “If I see it—when I see it—then God help me!”

  * * *

  When they returned to the hearing room, Bob Allen was there, sitting at the far end of the front row, the row reserved for witnesses; nor did he look at them as they entered, but sat very stiffly and still, his eyes fixed on the briefcase he held in his lap.

  It called for no comment on their part, and there was none, even MacAllister’s triumph deflated with the fact of his doleful prediction. When Edna Crawford said, “I’m going to have a few words with him. This is perfectly ridiculous,” no one tried to dissuade her, and she walked over to Allen—who froze and tensed until they could feel his stiffness all across the room. Edna stood there for a moment, but no words were exchanged. Spencer observed, “When Edna shakes, the whole world is shaken,” to which Federman answered, “Not the whole world, Hart. Your world.” It was his world, Silas agreed, the world of Hartman Spencer and Edna Crawford. What was his own world? Spencer said, “My world was built on four pillars like Edna Crawford. It was a good world, a decent world. It produced an Emerson and a Thoreau—and a Whitman and an Ingersoll.” His philosophic indulgence was less than Silas would have expected from Spencer, and he could have mentioned that it had also produced a Judge Thayer. “I feel like a fool,” Miss Crawford said as she sat down again.

  “And don’t we all?” Silas thought.

  The television lights went on as the senators entered, their number increased by the portly frame of Murdock of Indiana. The scene was surcharged; the morning had been normal, as normalcy might conduct itself in this part of the world; the afternoon was different. Not only was no one bored, but no one was prepared to be bored, and the part of the room reserved for the public was packed full.

  “The committee will come to order,” D’Marcy said, discharging his function of honor and authority. “Mr. Counsel, who will the first witness be?”

  Dave Cann preened himself. Though he sat still, he gave Silas the impression of a creature bobbing up and down. It would be unfair, Silas reflected, to consider his thin smile of eagerness as a smirk. Smirk was an old-fashioned word, and it belonged to that time of long, long ago when villainy was obvious. Dave Cann was neither obvious nor old-fashioned; and like a virus conditioned to antibiotics, new currents and new situations had bred him to an unusual pattern.