The Work Is Innocent

by Rafael Yglesias

  The police seemed terrified by this shift until one young man was grabbed by a cop when he came too close to the barricade and was pushed. He hit the pavement hard and Richard felt cold and distant from the crowd, convinced that a riot was imminent. “Pigs!” Do I run? He was a foot away from the cop who had done it, and he understood from the crowd that something was going to happen. “Cool it, people!” A loudspeaker said this. “Just cool it. We’re here for Bobby and Ericka.” In the distance he heard people singing, “We love you, Bobby.” Everyone moved on slowly, the scene suddenly calm.

  The police ordered them to the other side of the street, and Richard found his friends sitting on top of cars in order to get a good view. The chant had changed to a sweet sentimental song about how much they loved Bobby and Ericka. It embarrassed him but he forced himself to sing and finally he enjoyed the song.

  The doors opened and several plain-clothes cops walked out, behind them Bobby Seale, in handcuffs. “All power to the people!” everybody shouted. There was applause and the song and raised fists all at once, and Bobby smiled intimately at them while he ducked into the car. He returned a clenched fist awkwardly because of his manacled hands: Richard had the illusion while Bobby’s car pulled out, preceded and followed by patrol cars, that Bobby was a good friend going off in triumph.

  For the first time he realized Bobby might be electrocuted. The police no longer looked like foolish copies of tough movie cops: they meant to kill that sweet and graceful man.

  Ericka’s departure was even more emotional. And when they returned to the front of the courthouse to see the jurors off, Richard honestly joined in the rage that everyone put into their chants.

  He watched the jurors as they came out. He wanted to shake them by the lapels. The frustration of knowing that they looked like hundreds of people who would complain of blacks and whose prejudices he had ignored, hurt him—it meant he had done nothing to prevent Bobby’s and Ericka’s deaths.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The jury was out for a week before admitting they were hopelessly deadlocked. The case was dismissed and the charges dropped. The trial had cost the state more than a million dollars and along with other Panther trials throughout the United States had become almost the sole concern of the Left.

  Richard was delighted. He had hated being there (sleeping in unheated houses and eating improvised meals depressed him) except for the ritual of seeing the jury off each afternoon. And it must have had an effect, he thought. He finally had concrete respect for the Movement, but, to his amazement, they didn’t give themselves credit or feel encouraged by the victory.

  Two days after they returned to New York City his brother and Louise invited Richard and Joan over for dinner. The phone rang while they were having coffee and Louise announced, after a brief conversation, that Aaron was in New York and was coming over.

  Joan gulped for air and Richard laughed when she exaggerated her nervousness by running to the nearest mirror and fluffing her hair. They were still joking when Richard’s father arrived, and Aaron listened to Leo’s telling of their hilarity with impatience.

  Richard realized that Aaron was preoccupied. He hadn’t even bothered to charm Joan. “What’s up?” Richard asked. “What brings you to New York?”

  “Well, it’s over the Padilla thing. I’ve come in to do an article for Henry Wilson to accompany the letter Sartre and everybody else has signed to Fidel.”

  “It’s such a big deal you have to come into New York?”

  “Well, they’re in a rush. They want it in this issue. And it is quite important. Whatever you may think, young man,” Aaron said, his eyes telegraphing the imminent sarcastic reproach, “your father is considered to have some influence.”

  “What is it they want you to write?” Louise asked this question in a hushed voice. She held her head in her hands as if she were in pain.

  “Uh, essentially background to their letter from the intelligentsia.” Aaron smiled to take the curse off his last word. “So that people know what has happened to Padilla.”

  “What has happened to Padilla?” Richard asked.

  “He has confessed to being a counterrevolutionary.” Aaron looked blank for a moment and then laughed scornfully. “It’s a terrible thing, but I can’t help laughing at the idea. Poor helpless Eduardo, who can’t make a cup of coffee for himself, was accused of being a CIA agent”

  “By Fidel?” Leo asked.

  “No, of course not. You think Fidel cares about a spoiled avant-garde poet? It’s infighting on the part of the Writers Union. Fidel has been put in an untenable position by them. They’re pro-Soviet and they’re in the process of pushing out the real leftists in the intellectual circles. Fidel’s hands are tied because he’s become utterly dependent on the Soviet Union. They’ve had ghastly crop failures and Fidel’s being pushed into taking a hard Stalinist line.”

  “You mean he’s a patsie?” Richard asked.

  “Fidel!” Aaron was shocked. “A patsie?”

  “No, no,” Richard hurried to explain. “Padilla.”

  “Oh yes. Exactly. They know this is the time to make their move. Fidel has been protecting all those elements in Cuba from Soviet pressure for years. Those old shits of the Communist Party are daring Fidel to intervene. They know he won’t risk the food the Cubans need from the Soviet Union to keep the arts out of the clutches of those old CP farts.”

  “Are you going to say that in the article?” Louise asked. “About Soviet pressure?”

  “Oh, my God, yes! I have to make that clear.”

  Louise leaned forward and touched Aaron on the arm. “Good. I’m glad you’ll put that in, Aaron. You know, so that no one will think that Fidel is another Stalin.”

  “Yeah,” Leo said. “And also so that it’s clear that the United States is responsible.”

  Aaron looked at Leo, his face slightly puzzled. “You mean because of the embargo?” Leo said yes, and Aaron continued. “Well, you know it’s hopeless to try to prevent people from misunderstanding and believing that this is a betrayal of Cuba. From both sides. Fidel will be outraged. I expect to be attacked by leftists. Certainly nothing will prevent reactionaries from being delighted that Sartre and the intellectual world are attacking Fidel.”

  “But, Aaron, don’t you think you should make it clear that, at least, you are not doing that?” Louise pleaded.

  “Frankly,” Leo said, “I doubt the sincerity of the other people.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aaron didn’t conceal his knowledge of what Leo meant by this statement, he merely used the words to invest his anger. “Are you talking about Sartre and the others who signed the petition?”

  Richard wished that Leo would take the hint and back off, but Leo said that he did. “Are you crazy?” Aaron asked, searching the room with his eyes for support. “You can’t mean that. You’re talking about people who have been active in the left for longer than you’ve lived. Some of them”—and Aaron rattled off a series of Spanish names whose rhythm alone meant powerful Communism to Richard—“are responsible for the Revolution itself.”

  Leo made a face and twisted in his chair. “Not most of them,” he said. “Not the ones who will attract American interest. All anybody is going to get out of it is that Sartre has rejected Fidel.”

  “Leo!” Aaron snapped the word out as if it were a command. “Don’t fall into that old Communist Party bullshit.”

  “It doesn’t matter what people will think,” Richard said. They looked at him as if surprised by his existence. He felt foolish suddenly. “I mean, nothing is going to convince people who are already reactionary that Fidel jailing poets is a noble act. It’s better to address reasonable people reasonably, right?”

  Leo smiled with regret at having to restrain his sarcasm. “The point about being revolutionary, Richard,” he said gently, “is that you try to convince people of the correctness of one’s opinions.”

  “Yeah. But not by lying.” Richard lost his timidity while Leo sp
oke. He smiled at Leo with unrestrained malice.

  “Come on, man,” Leo said, disgusted. Louise reproved him, also, saying, “You know, Richard, that Leo wouldn’t suggest Aaron lie.”

  “The point,” Aaron said, and waited for their attention, “is that I can’t temper my judgments in anticipation of how they may be interpreted. That leads to bad writing. I shall say what I think and if that’s misused, it’s unfortunate but unavoidable.”

  Richard, of course, remembered and thought over only this aspect of his father’s problem. It was obvious to him that his family had always stood for writing the truth in clear, fearless prose, and Richard was surprised that Leo and Louise even attempted to get around that maxim. From every discussion of political tactics that Richard remembered the family having, the point was made over and over: the Rosenbergs should never have attempted to conceal that they were members of the Communist Party; indeed, no one during the McCarthy period should have adopted that defensive posture, no matter how terrifying and hysterical the country’s anti-Communism was. Only the Soviet Union inspired people to conceal their true ideology behind metaphors of patriotism, because they were ashamed of the mockery they had made of socialism. Richard remembered Leo arrogantly saying that movements must not blindly support other nations, that revolutionary movements depend on their own people and resources for truth and success. It was impossible for Richard to reconcile that with Leo saying Aaron shouldn’t publicly criticize Fidel for wrong acts.

  He walked home with Joan, pleased that his brother had stumbled and crossed into the reactionary camp. “Well,” he said, with little explosions of nasty laughter, “my brother, the madcap student revolutionary, who used to ridicule the Old Left for its behaving like an old maid defending her virtue, has become a Stalinist at twenty-five. I should have thought he’d have lasted until his forties at least.”

  Joan didn’t respond and Richard, guilty that he was enjoying this imagined score over his brother, was bothered by her silence. When they were home he said, his voice bluffing confidence, “Weren’t you amazed by Leo’s behavior?”

  “No.” She glanced at him and then walked about nervously, straightening the room.

  Richard said, “I take it that you agreed with him or something.”

  “Richard,” she said with sudden urgency. “You’re feeling a little crazy about this, aren’t you?”

  “Huh?” He was shocked. She looked meekly and hopefully at him and he sensed that it was important to say no more on the subject.

  Joan told him that night that she felt it was bad for her to live off his money and that she was going to get a part-time job. He enjoyed a brief pretense of being manly and protective but was even more thrilled by her long speech that having her own money was healthier for their relationship. After it was settled, he said, “Well, we’re straight out of a New York Times article or something.”

  “What?”

  “You know. Front page of the second section. YOUNG COUPLES FOUND TO REJECT OLD WAYS.”

  “We’re not doing anything special.”

  “I know. I wasn’t being egotistical. That’s what I meant. We’re right in the cultural flow.”

  “Don’t say that. That’s depressing.”

  “But it’s true. You go off to women’s meetings while I wash the dishes.” What pleased him was the idea that he had secured love so early. He lay awake beside her telling himself he needn’t accomplish anything else. The world would shortly reward him for the smarts it took to survive feminism and the gross commercialism of publishing. I live with honor, he thought, conscious only of the words’ romantic glow.

  Joan left the house early to look for work and Richard found himself playing over the political discussion of last night. He was filled with confident, contemptuous judgments of the political people he had met, all of whom he thought of as being summed up in his brother’s person. He admitted to himself that he was disappointed in them for no other reason than the surprise of learning that they were not only no smarter than he, but just as self-indulgent and bourgeois. He felt nasty thinking it, but he refused to shut up the undisciplined, irrational criticism: kids don’t make revolutions.

  After the first rush of feeling superior to political people, Richard began to feel nauseous and bored. He was aware only dimly that these intense shifts of feeling about politics were due to the complications of making judgments based on his emotional ties to his family. When he noticed that his belief of the inadequacy of young movement people was accompanied by contempt and that when he had believed in his brother he then felt guilt and self-righteousness, he thought suddenly, I’m mimicking my father and brother. And was so appalled that he instantly decided this was examining himself too closely and could only lead to total passivity. He had to take his own judgments on faith. If they were due to others originally, that couldn’t change them now.

  His father’s article appeared without Richard thinking anything more about it. He thought of it as a purely family matter and, when he and Joan were invited to dinner at Mark’s apartment, Richard was unprepared for the question that a young woman asked him immediately after they were introduced. “Why doesn’t Leo confront your father about his article?” she said aggressively, but with a charming, self-satisfied smile.

  Joan had told him that Lisa, his questioner, was a lot of fun, though slightly crazy. Madness being a loosely applied term by his friends, Richard thought this meant she was frivolous, and her appearance fit that image. Lisa was small with curly ringlets that along with her oval face made her seem like a clown. “Your sentence doesn’t make clear whose article you’re talking about. Leo’s or my father’s.”

  “Come on,” Lisa said, even more harshly but still smiling. “Leo’s behaving like a whimp.”

  “Lisa!” Mark said reprovingly.

  “It’s true!” She protested. “He tells me a lot of liberal shit about how there is no point in dealing with it because it’s already done. That’s whimpy.”

  She said all this in a high voice with such delight and animation that Richard was confused by her insistence and the alarm in Mark’s face. She was apparently serious. But since her appearance was easygoing, Richard felt confident. “Leo’s smart not to,” he said. “Dad would destroy him. Because Leo knows little or nothing about it and because Dad’s right and Leo’s wrong.” Richard laughed at Lisa’s expression of astonishment. “You didn’t expect that, eh? He’s being whimpy because his position is just peeved self-righteousness. Leo knows he’s wrong.” Richard looked at Mark and quickly felt the need to impress him. “Yes, I have the gall to agree with my father.”

  “That’s not new,” Mark said.

  “I can’t believe—” Lisa began but Mark interrupted: “Set the table while I check out the food.”

  Salvatore, who shared the large apartment with Mark and Lisa, entered the living room. Richard listened casually to Joan’s conversation with Sal about the new Stones album. Lisa had put him in a contentious mood, and he wanted to tell Joan and Sal that they were fools to discuss the Stones seriously. But that was a private snobbery he knew he should never reveal to his contemporaries. He prepared himself for further harassment from Lisa while they were eating, but the talk was casual.

  He was so preoccupied with imagined arguments about Aaron’s article that he didn’t hear Lisa’s next reference to it. She was handing him what proved to be a watery cup of coffee and he smiled automatically at her friendly expression. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Richard asked.

  “I said, So you think Leo’s just pretending to disapprove of Aaron’s article?”

  “Oh no, I never said that. I think that Leo wouldn’t dare criticize Dad about it because Dad’d tear him apart.”

  “So you agree with your father?” Lisa asked with a prosecutor’s anticipatory glee at the discovery of a weakness.

  Richard couldn’t answer at first, afraid of the terms it might create for a discussion. “Yeah, I do. I can’t believe I’m sitting here terrified to a
dmit it.” He looked at them during the silence that followed. Suspicious of their private thoughts, he said angrily to Mark: “And I resent your crack that it’s not unusual for me. I’ve fought with him over everything in the past few years. In fact, inside, it feels like he’s agreeing with me, not the reverse.”

  “Why are you so defensive about it?” Lisa asked with that familiar tone of a person beginning to interrogate.

  Richard felt clever and he smiled to show it. “Because you keep expressing your incredulity about my opinion as if you were about to drop an atomic bomb.”

  Salvatore laughed while both Mark and Joan showed in their smiles an acknowledgment of the justice of Richard’s remark. When attacked, nothing was more important to Richard than the approval of the bystanders.

  “How do you know Padilla wasn’t an agent?”

  “Come on. He was accused of helping a CIA agent to develop propaganda for anti-Cuban articles published in the United States.”

  “He admitted!” Lisa said triumphantly. “He admitted he helped an agent.”

  “All right,” Richard said, repeating his clever smile and making a dramatic gesture with his arm. “He admitted. Now do you really believe the CIA would bother to research such an article? Have you noticed that reactionary columnists are suddenly showing scruples about writing lies?”

  “Well, if it’s so unimportant why does your father have to write an article denouncing Fidel in—”

  “He didn’t denounce Fidel!”

  “He said Fidel was a stooge for the Soviet Union.”

  “What are you talking about? He didn’t say that.”