Silas Timberman

by Howard Fast

  Fulcrum expressed the horror of the campus, saying, “Such acts of violence are not only to be deplored as the maniacal frothing of a lunatic fringe, but to be doubly condemned as serving the very cause of communism which we so bitterly oppose.” Silas pondered that sentence, which Mark Twain would have called a “daisy,” and put it in his file of memories, along with a note from Anthony C. Cabot’s secretary, informing him that President Cabot also deplored this “savage and brutal attack” against a little child. His catalog of contempt was broadening. He no longer felt any necessity to know the singular identity of the sick hoodlum who had cast the stone; for he had come to realize that this was only the arm of the thrower; the nature of the body and the complexion of the mind were things he was beginning to understand—and he also understood that at some time in the future, his contempt would turn into something else. On that score, he was content to wait; for he had already learned too many things at a not inconsiderable price. All in good time, he would tell himself.…

  It was Brady who said to him during those two weeks of waiting, “Did you know that my wife was a Methodist, Silas?”

  Silas couldn’t think of why it should matter, although he knew that Brady had been born a Roman Catholic.

  “She belongs to Masterson’s church, and last Sunday the old man preached his sermon on what happened to Brian. Fire and brimstone, she says. He pulled no punches, and laid the blame for the whole incident squarely where it belongs, at the doorstep of Mr. Cabot and the Brannigan gang. He also busted the book censorship wide open. My word, that’s a man!”

  “How did the congregation react?” Silas wondered.

  “Mixed. Sarah liked it, others didn’t. She had the impression that most of them didn’t believe any of it—which is what you could expect. Also, a movement’s under way to force Masterson’s retirement. There’s already been a meeting of vestrymen, and I expect they’ll take it up to the top of the Church. Also, Cabot won’t take it lying down. Our elder statesman here at Clemington is a vindictive bastard, I’m afraid.”

  Brady was also different; subtly, he had stopped being a pedagog and was becoming something else. When Silas asked him where and when it would end, he shrugged and said.

  “Partly, that’s up to us, Silas. Where we end it and when we end it is a matter for our decision.”

  “You and me?”

  “You and me and a million like us. You see, this is only the beginning. Nothing begins and ends simultaneously. We can examine the beginning and draw our inferences—but the end is still unformed. It may surprise some people.…”

  But men like Lawrence Kaplin saw no end that was different from the beginning; and the beginning was savagely permanent. His manner, when he came to see Silas, made Silas realize what agony he had suffered at the thought of Brian’s hurt, and his wife, Selma, could not do enough to help Myra. She took the whole thing better than he did—causing Silas to wonder what strange sources of strength women had that men lacked? Kaplin had become an old man over the past few weeks; when they talked about the future, he told Silas that he and Selma were reading proof at home. It was not the best kind of work in the world and rather hard on his eyes, but if they could only maintain their contacts, they could average forty or fifty dollars a week working at home. It made Silas physically sick to hear this man, one of the very great English scholars of the English-speaking world, talk so hopefully and eagerly of earning, with his wife, wages paid to an apprentice in a mill.

  “Then you’re not going to try another college?” Silas said.

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s different when you have three kids—yours are grown. I suppose eventually I will. We’d have to sell the house.”

  “You’re young enough to start again,” Kaplin said. “I’m not, Silas—and I can’t go through the experience of having half the schools in the country explain to me why there’s no place on the staff or allocation in the budget or this and that reason—and all of it the same in the end, and where are your recommendations and where did you teach last and why did you leave? I can’t go through that, and it would be the same in the end, anyway.”

  “I suppose so,” Silas agreed.

  “Did you know Lundfest was in to see me?”

  “No—no, I didn’t.”

  “He offered me my job,” Kaplin said, with a trace of wistful pride. “He said that it was a shame that a scholar of my standing should be lost to Clemington. He said that he had already discussed it with Cabot, and all I had to do was to sign an affidavit corroborating Bob Allen’s story—” His voice trailed away, but the note of wistful pride seemed to remain suspended in the air, and Silas felt his throat choking, his eyes filling with tears as he looked at Kaplin. The things he remembered of what had been done in other lands were supposed to be dead forever; but why was there such indignation when pictures were once printed in these same United States, showing men like Kaplin sweeping dung from the streets of Berlin. And Kaplin was proud! How had Lundfest felt when his offer was refused? Had he stormed, raged, threatened? But there was nothing left to threaten Kaplin with; and he found himself pitying Lundfest. The whole concept of villains was old-fashioned; and there were no villains, only men who ceased to be men, who somehow shed every little bit of that precious cargo of culture and memory which Kaplin treasured so. Probably Lundfest felt nothing at all and had only contempt for a stupid Jew.…

  So it was that the arrest, which came a day after the bandages were removed from Brian’s eyes, meant less to Silas, moved him less, affected him less, than the original serving of the subpoenas.

  * * *

  As a matter of fact, it was quite commonplace and undramatic, and it occurred at four o’clock in the afternoon, when both girls were upstairs keeping Brian company in the still-shaded room, sharing the child’s excitement at the blurred vision that had returned to him. “See my hand?—come on, Brian, count the fingers!” And Myra was in the kitchen, preparing dinner, while Sarah Brady, a sweet but not over-sensitive woman, indulged in the wonder of Brian’s recovery.

  Silas himself was then in his study, his thoughts shifting from the unfinished manuscript on Mark Twain to the possibility of selling the house. Again and again, since the Washington hearing, he had seated himself to work at his book—but the continuation of the manuscript had become agonizing. Its whole purpose had vanished; it was not only that he could no longer see any real opportunity of finding a publisher; more than that, he could no longer see the purpose for the book. It was as much his lack of any real desire to live through the life of another man, think through the thoughts of another man, as the fact that the ordinary purpose for another book by a professor of American literature no longer existed—simply because he was no longer a professor of American literature. Why write a book for a kind of prestige that was gone forever? Why write a book that he did not want to write? And what did he want to write—if anything? What did he want to do—what could he do? To sell the house was no solution; even the incident with Brian did not make him want to sell the house. The house was his home, his base of security. Where would they go?

  His thoughts were moving in this already commonplace circle, when the door chimes sounded, and he called out to Myra that he would answer it—if only as a welcome interruption to his aimless planning. He went to the door and opened it, and there stood a stout, ruddy-faced man, gray-haired, his hat in his hands, and inquiring whether this was the home of Mr. Silas Timberman? Silas knew. Once, with some disbelief, he had heard Mike Leslie say that he could spot a cop, any kind of a cop, private or otherwise, anywhere and under any circumstances; now he was beginning to understand that this could be. He asked the man to come inside and told him that he was Silas Timberman.

  The ruddy-faced man entered uneasily, and after Silas had closed the door behind him, came directly to the point, “The thing is, Mr. Timberman, that I’ve got a warrant for your arrest. My name’s Sweeny, and here’s my badge and credentials. I’m a United States marshal in the
Federal District here. You’ve got a right to look at the warrant and the indictment, if you want to. Here they are.”

  He held out some papers to Silas who, as he scanned them, was nevertheless able to reflect on his own calm. So this was it! This was the finality—the man marked as criminal and being arrested by an apologetic and obviously good-natured cop called Sweeny! He read on the warrant that his indictment had been handed down under Title 18, Section 1621, of the United States Criminal Code—pertaining to two counts of perjury; yet his confidence remained. He hadn’t perjured himself. This would be over. Brian was seeing again. You learned to take things as they happened.

  “I want to talk to my wife,” he said. “Is that all right?”

  “Well—”

  “She’s just in the kitchen. You can come along if you want to.”

  “All right,” the marshal agreed. “But I have to take you in. I’m just a cop, Mr. Timberman. I got to take you in. I don’t write the warrants.”

  “I understand that,” Silas said. “But my boy’s been sick, and the household’s upset. I just can’t walk out.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Where are you going to take me?”

  “To the Federal Commissioner in Indianapolis. Your lawyer will know about that, if you have your wife get in touch with him.”

  They went into the kitchen, and Silas felt like a foolish school boy telling Myra what had happened. Sarah Brady said, “Oh, my God!” and her face went white, but Myra seemed to take it somewhat as he had, and made no fuss about it, but asked him whether he thought she ought to call the girls.

  “No—better not. They set bail on these things, don’t they, Mr. Sweeny?”

  “They do on most things, but that’s for the Commissioner to decide, if he waits for us. Mostly he leaves court about five o’clock, but maybe your lawyer can get him to stay.”

  “Then the chances are that I’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. The thing to do now is to call MacAllister, Myra, and tell him to be at the Federal Courthouse in Indianapolis. That’s where the Commissioner is, isn’t it?” he asked, somewhat abashed at how little he knew of this kind of procedure.

  “That’s right. Sure. Call your lawyer now, Mrs. Timberman. Keep your fingers crossed. That’s all you can do. We have to go, Mr. Timberman.”

  Silas kissed Myra and Sarah Brady, and put on his hat and coat, and went out with the marshal to where his car was parked in front of the house, for all the world like a man leaving on an errand of no consequence. It made as little or as much sense as a number of others things that had happened to him, yet he was glad that Myra had no opportunity to think it through or to react as she would later.

  The marshal’s car was a large, four-door Buick, with another man in the driver’s seat. Sweeny sat with Silas in the back seat, and as the car started, he grinned sheepishly and took a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket.

  “I’ll have to put these on, Mr. Timberman. I know it’s a hell of a note for a college professor, but it’s what the rules say. You get all kinds of people. I know you’re not somebody’s going to make trouble, but I got to do it the way the rules say.”

  Silas nodded and held out his wrists.

  * * *

  The first thing Silas noticed through the gathering dusk, as they drew up in front of the Federal Courthouse in Indianapolis, was the pudgy, reassuring form of MacAllister, pacing back and forth—and Silas sighed with relief and admitted to himself how much he had depended upon MacAllister and how forlorn and frightened he would have been, had MacAllister not appeared.

  The lawyer, seeing the car, strode over to it, opened the door for Silas and Sweeny to get out, noticed the handcuffs, and said to Sweeny.

  “Now what kind of a business is that, Sweeny? You know who Professor Timberman is! What kind of cops and robbers foolishness is this?”

  “The rules say so, Mr. MacAllister. I bring him in without irons and they’ll chop my head off. I don’t make the rules, Mr. MacAllister—”

  “Oh, the hell with it! Take it easy, Silas, and we’ll get out of this in short order. The only damage handcuffs do is to the human spirit, and I think yours can take it. How do you feel?”

  “I feel fine,” Silas smiled.

  “Good. And I hear the little boy has his eyes back. That was a shot in the arm, believe me. I meant to get over to Clemington one of these days—and I will. Now look, Silas, they’re going to book you, just the regular formality of finger printing and filing, and then they’ll bring you right over to the Commissioner’s office. Freddie Johnson’s the Commissioner here, and he’s not the worst guy in the world—but scared and jumpy, like everyone else—and I persuaded him to wait. Maybe he’ll be a little short-tempered because he’ll be late for his supper, but don’t worry about that. Any questions he asks you, answer them, but don’t, by all that’s holy, volunteer information—and if this goes all right, we’ll have bail set tonight. Now take it easy, and I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  He went up the courthouse steps, while the two marshals took Silas around to the back and in through a street-level entrance, through a dingy, dimly-lit corridor to a narrow room which contained two long, facing benches. They left him sitting there, facing two empty-eyed, bedraggled middle-aged women and a young Negro man, whose features were set in a bewildered, hopeless frown. None of them looked at him or spoke to him. He lit a cigarette and smoked for about five minutes, moving his shackled hands awkwardly, feeling foolish and melodramatic every time he looked at the handcuffs, trying to accept and react to the fact that he was being held as a criminal, wondering what Myra and the children were doing now, resisting the persistent and alarming thought that he was gone from them and from Clemington forever, and telling himself commonplace reassurances, such as, “Look, my friend, this is an addendum on nonsense, and like most things which reach the point of the ridiculous, it will topple over and clarify. A little patience.”

  Nor was more than a little required of him. In about five minutes Sweeny returned, unlocked the handcuffs, and motioned for Silas to walk ahead of him through the opposite door from which they had entered. There, a man at a typewriter filled a card with pertinent information concerning one, Timberman, Silas, and another man rolled his fingers expertly over an ink-spread piece of glass, and marked each finger onto the typewritten card. Later, Silas would come to take the impersonal and not unkind attitude of such men for granted; now it surprised him that they should show neither dislike nor curiosity.

  They finished with him, gave him soap and a towel to clean his hands at the sink at one side of the room, and then Sweeny took him out through still another door, down another corridor, and up a flight of stairs to the Federal Commissioner’s office, a room built like a little chapel, with desks at one end on floor level, a raised desk behind a railing for the Commissioner, and then four rows of pew-like benches. The room was empty.

  “Sit here, Professor,” Sweeny said, motioning to the front row, “and I’ll tell the Commissioner you’re waiting.”

  And then, strangely enough, Silas was left there alone, with neither handcuffs nor watchers. Evidently, there was a hiatus in the rules.

  Meanwhile, MacAllister had gone straight to the press room, where the bondsmen usually spent their time. The only bondsman still there was a dried-up, pinch-faced man called Jimmie Snell, who was playing casino with the man from the Daily Eagle. MacAllister waited for the deal, and then said.

  “Got a minute, Jimmie?”

  Snell walked with him to one side of the room and looked at him inquiringly. “What have you got?”

  “Fellow called Timberman. I want to take him out tonight.”

  “How much? You had the hearing yet?”

  “Johnson will set bail within the hour—not more than five grand, I don’t think.”

  Snell whistled. “Five, huh? I don’t know if I can handle five. What kind of a rap?”

  “Perjury.”

  “What in hell are you dealing with, Mac, a murder rap? F
ive is way out of line for perjury. What was he—trial witness?”

  “No, this is Senate Committee testimony. Look, Jimmie, I’m guessing at bail and taking the maximum. I don’t want the man to sit for the night.”

  “Wait a minute—wait a minute, Mac,” Snell said, drawing away. “This is one of the teachers from the university, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Nothing doing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing doing? A teacher’s a better risk than some fly-by-night pimp, isn’t he?”

  “Maybe he is, but he’s a political prisoner. The word’s out to lay off political prisoners or lose the license. I got my bread and butter to think about.”

  “You’re nuts,” MacAllister snapped. “What is this political prisoner song and dance? We don’t have political prisoners in this country! What are you giving me? People have been hit by these senate committees for a hundred years. You know that.”

  “Sure I know that. I also wasn’t born yesterday. Come off it, Mac, because you wasn’t born yesterday either. This is a political prisoner, a commie, and I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. It’s murder to go near a case like this. I like my license too much, Mac.”

  “Timberman’s no more a communist than you are, Jimmie,” MacAllister said patiently.

  “Sure—and maybe I am, who knows? I wouldn’t know one from a camel. But I been told to lay off and I intend to lay off.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Come on, Mac, let’s not play. I’d like to help you, but I can’t. That’s all, I can’t.”

  He went back to his game of casino, and MacAllister found a phone booth in the corridor and put through a call to Myra. When he reached her, he said,