The Last Supper: And Other Stories

by Howard Fast

  “A little stuffy in here,” he mumbled apologetically.

  “Quite stuffy,” one of the businessmen agreed.

  “A few moments more,” the other said.

  But those in need of succor did not gather, and the hands of the clock crept relentlessly around, and when he saw the little doctor begin to doze again, one of the volunteers cleared his throat noisily and said,

  “Perhaps we had better begin.”

  The other agreed. He sat down at the piano, and his friend took up a baton, and the two of them burst into Shepherd Show me How to Go. The little doctor wanted to join them, if only to show that he sympathized with their position, but he, had never heard the hymn before, and knew neither the words nor the music. They followed this with Saw Ye My Savior, which lulled the little doctor back into his doze, from which he was awakened by the thunderous chorus of Onward Christian Soldiers. This was an old favorite of his, and he joined in with a will, adding his tenor to the baritone of the others; and when they realized that he was not one of their own and thereby familiar with only general hymns, they turned next to The Lord is My Light and My Salvation, which they followed with The Lord is My Shepherd. The little doctor noticed their reluctance to halt the singing and face the, problem of a sermon to so limited a congregation, but after Rock of Ages they ran out of general hymns and had to turn to Gentle Presence. The moment the stimulus of participation was removed, the little doctor began to drift back to sleep, whereupon the pianist finished his accompaniment with several sharp chords, and his fellow volunteer took up the service.

  “The theme is love and lateness,” he said, and his partner, standing by the piano, nodded approvingly. “The theme is love and lateness,” he repeated, and then cleared his throat and referred to his notes. It was obvious to the little doctor that the notes would have to be revised, for a congregaion of a single person required a particularized approach.

  “Let us say that of love there is never a sufficiency, of time always a sufficiency, for all eternity stretches before us.” Up to here, he was obviously on safe ground, and he paused again. The little doctor concentrated every force of his will on staying awake.

  He wanted desperately to stay awake, for he was captured wholly by the pathos of those two earnest volunteer pastors, who had only himself, a long-time, rock-solid atheist, as their congregation, and who were battling so valiantly against their own sense of the ridiculous to help to save his soul. For the first time in his life, he regretted not having an immortal soul, for if he had one, they could take steps toward saving it and thereby rescue some of their own dignity. This concerned the little doctor very deeply, for he had gone to jail in the first place over matters of principle and dignity, and through his intense weariness he was conscious of a vast sadness for the two plump, balding neatly-dressed volunteers. He said to himself that above all things, he must manage to remain awake through the sermon; but his success was only intermittent.

  “It is never too late to start again, to open your arms, to embrace your Savior—”

  He slept and awakened to, “…The past is dead, and now, within yourself, you can begin to shape a new man.…”

  He dozed off to, “…look into your soul, deeply and bravely …” and such was its effect that he actually had an impression of folding into himself as he fell asleep. The battle of will against fatigue turned into something like a nightmare—and through it all phrases and sentences of the sermon penetrated in a sort of jolting anarchy. When it was finally over, the little doctor felt that he had been through, and not entirely unsuccessfully, one of the greatest efforts of his career. He sat there blinking as the two volunteers approached him.

  One of them thanked him, and the other said eagerly,

  “Did you enjoy the service?”

  “Very much,” the little doctor nodded.

  “You are new to our faith?”

  “Yes—my first time.”

  “Well, you know, the sheep strayed and the prodigal son—”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Possibly we haven’t the best time for our service, since we understand this is the recreation hour. I hesitate to say so, but the Catholics and Baptists have all the best of it here. They still raise a brow at Christian Science.”

  “I found it very engrossing,” the little doctor said.

  “Of course, one wants a large congregation—human vanity and all that. But if we can help just a little to turn one soul into the paths of righteousness, then it’s well worth the time and the effort.”

  “Of course.”

  “We try to avoid being moralistic, but surely a man of your years can find little satisfaction in a place like this.”

  “It’s not bad as jails go,” the little doctor answered politely, “but I can’t say that I like it.”

  “Possibly you have children?”

  “Four grandchildren,” the little doctor smiled.

  “Well, then certainly it’s a regrettable set of circumstances that brought you here. But it’s never too late—never. If you only allow the Lord to enter your heart, you can leave here with your debt paid.”

  “That’s very comforting,” the little doctor said.

  Then they both shook hands with him, and he returned to his cell. He stretched out on his bed once more, and sighed deeply. He closed his eyes and then opened them. The vagaries of insomnia were incalculable. His desire to sleep had been consumed, and when the bell for lunch sounded, he wearily crawled out of bed and shuffled to the door of his cell.

  Schwartz was passing by. He stopped and greeted the little doctor. “Now don’t you feel better, doc,” he said. “A little religion never hurt anybody.”

  “I guess not,” the little doctor agreed, and joined the line to the messhall.

  The Upraised Pinion

  MR. FEATHERBY NODDED, AND MR. NEWTON SAT DOWN. Mr. Featherby noticed Mr. Newton with interest, for Mr. Newton sat there almost like a child, his pudgy hands folded in his lap. His round face was rather sad, his eyes sensitive and introspective. When he smiled, he revealed bad and broken and discolored teeth, and after he had smiled once, he did not smile again. His face was unassuming and undistinguished, without sufficient bone structure to give it any sort of distinguishable character. His skin was faintly pocked, his eyes light, his lashes pale, his brow high and round, and his thin hair combed carefully. He looked like a harried, aging clerk.

  Mr. Featherby faced him. They sat comfortably in two soft chairs in a room that was more likely a general interview room than Mr. Featherby’s headquarters. It was furnished in standard, straightforward government style, with rug, table, chairs, and some formal prints of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the walls. Mr. Featherby himself was a plump and jolly fellow who evidently enjoyed his work. He had small, straight features, clear blue eyes behind rimless spectacles, neatly combed brown hair, round cheeks, one little chin and another under it. In defiance of New York fashion, he wore his vest, which was buttoned over a full stomach, and across this he wore a gold chain from which a Phi Beta Kappa key dangled. His suit was of gray worsted, his shirt was white, his shoes were highly-polished brown calfskin. Just the right length of cuff showed from his sleeve, and just the faintest edge of gold cufflink. He had a large manila folder on his lap, and he was very warm and polite. He had begun the interview by saying,

  “Just try to think of this as an informal chat between the two of us, Mr. Newton. You are cooperating with us, and we are very grateful. No one asked you to come here—no one pressured you to come here. We are rather meticulous on that score; but this does not mean that we welcome your cooperation any the less. Therefore, I want you to consider me—and the department as a whole—as your friend.”

  That was how they began, and there was no doubt but that Mr. Featherby was friendly. His approach was adroit and skilful, and he never pressed too hard. He made Luther Newton feel that at least a part of his dream image was correct, that they were willing to accept information on his terms. Even now,
that took the edge off his actions and permitted him still to argue with himself that he was not playing the classic role of an informer. Nevertheless, there was a development in himself, whether he accepted it or not, as when Featherby asked him,

  “What, specifically, made you come to us, Mr. Newton?”

  Mr. Newton was not unconscious of himself. He could say (a) I was afraid (b) I didn’t want to pay any price for what I no longer believed in (c) There’s a buck in it—somewhere (d) I want people to approve of me, strong, important, white Protestant people like yourself, Mr. Featherby.

  But he did not say any of these things; he said the proper thing to say, and that was an important development in Mr. Newton. He knew what Mr. Featherby wanted, and he composed an answer in terms of what Mr. Featherby wanted.

  “Why did I come to you—that’s not easy to answer, Mr. Featherby. Once there was a time when I thought I could serve my country best through an organization I believed in as a youth. I’m not youthful any longer, and my eyes have been opened to many things. I have to face myself and weigh my actions. I can’t serve two powers, two nations at once. I can’t pray to two Gods.”

  Mr. Featherby nodded, without pressing that point further at the moment. He recognized a certain creative amorphousness about Mr. Newton’s position, and hesitated to pursue it before it was clarified.

  “Now, about The Gazette,” he said. “Just what is your position there? I know that, technically, you are the editor. But what does that amount to?”

  “The editor is responsible for the political line of the paper, the editorial line, that is. He writes most of the editorials—and that is one way in which the line is specified. Also, he directs the news and feature material into similar lines. I’m sure you know that no newspaper just picks up news at random from their reporters and the wire services. They direct the news, and use it and shape it according to their policy. That is properly the editor’s job—but I’m not doing that now and haven’t been for some time.”

  “Why not, Mr. Newton?”

  “A lack of will, of desire, of belief. When you stop believing, when you stop wanting—when doubt comes, and then on top of the doubt, proof—well, you work poorly.” He nodded with regret and self-deprecation, and Mr. Featherby made a mental note of the word “proof,” filing it for later reference.

  “How long would you say it is since you ceased to fulfill the role of editor?”

  “I suppose I haven’t done the job completely, as it should be done, for several months now.”

  Mr. Featherby studied Luther Newton carefully, observing the pointed chin, the round face, the puffy lids almost concealing tiny eyes. This was a man, a specimen, a step, a point in history and a point in time, a store of information, a human soul, a definition perhaps, a mystery. But Mr. Featherby, concerned with solutions rather than mysteries, remarked, almost casually,

  “You are a member of the Communist Party?”

  Luther Newton stared at him for a long while before he nodded and said, “Yes, I am.” But in that long while, the particular universe of Luther Newton tilted. “I am a member of the Communist Party,” Luther Newton said. “I suppose I am,” he repeated thoughtfully, acknowledging that something had changed. Of all the images that might have filled his mind, one seized hold of it. In his mind’s eye, in the broad, tilting, camera angles that compose out of memory, invention, reading and twice-told tales, he saw a street in Paris—he supposed there, but it might have been anywhere—and the workers had built a barricade, tearing up the paving stones, and topping it with carts and furniture and broken pieces of wood and bags of sand too; and all along behind it the workers lay, men and women side by side, and children too, hats tilted back, their rifles cradled and waiting, and even then and there in the picture in his mind—in the flashing instant of reflective memory—one tall and sad-visaged man perched atop of all, took a brown cigarette from his lips and began to sing, and the soundless words and wordless sound thundered back and forth in the caverns of Luther’s head.

  It is beyond human comprehension how fast the mind can work under certain circumstances, and this was a case in point. In the few seconds between Luther’s answer to the previous question and the next question asked, this whole scene had come alive before his inward eye. Every detail was clear and explicit, the birds pecking at horse-droppings in front of the barricade, the wondrous collection of chimney pots on the, slanting rooftops, clothes drying on a crude line from a third floor window, a little lad who insisted on doing his acrobatics on top of the barricade, and thereby was slapped soundly by his angry father, and even such very inconsequential details as, for example, an old saucepan sticking out of the pile of articles that made one section of the barricade.

  But clearest of all was the tall and sad-visaged man who sat right on top of the highest point of the barricade, with his legs crossed, with a brown cigarette stuck between brown fingers, and with his mouth open and vibrating to wordless sound and soundless words. In that brief moment when this scene appeared to Luther, there developed a great necessity that he should understand the content of that song, the meaning of the words—but how was he to know the meaning of the words if there was no sound to the words? Just as quickly as he saw the scene, just so quickly he was filled with anger against this tall man, and just so quickly, it came back to Mr. Newton that this was a man he knew very well indeed; this was a working man, whom he disliked and was afraid of. See the man’s clothes, the threadbare overalls! The dirty and ancient blue shirt! The long face! The mouth with a few yellowed teeth and gum in between! The long sardonic chin! The sneering, contemptuous mouth!

  The voice of Mr. Featherby returned Luther to reality.

  “Card carrying member?” Mr. Featherby wanted to know.

  “You said—?” Luther Newton came forth from his reflection.

  “I meant, do you carry a card?”

  “I don’t even know. I suppose I have one somewhere.”

  “And Mr. Newton, the other people on the staff of The Gazette—are they Communist Party members?” There it was, gently, it had slipped in, gently and logically and inevitably. Now was the moment when he could say, “I don’t know—” But where would that leave him?

  “Some of them are,” he answered evenly.

  “Some of them? Isn’t The Gazette a Party magazine?”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s not owned by the Communist Party, but by its own staff. It’s true that some of the staff are communists and that it often follows the Party line. But slavishly, you know—” He looked pleadingly at Mr. Featherby, grasping for shreds of honor. “Very often we on The Gazette would come to a parallel decision.”

  “And directives? Does The Gazette follow the Party directives?”

  “It’s hard to give a yes or no answer. Very often resolutions and decisions of the Party appear as news releases, and then The Gazette will carry them in full, even if no other periodical does. Now recently, there was all this business about the struggle against revisionism, against an exceptional attitude taken by the American communists. The point is that America is an exception, and that classic economic rules which apply elsewhere do not have application here. The Gazette joined the argument and took a position against this exceptionalistic attitude, so The Gazette was doing the Party’s job.”

  Mr. Featherby was beginning to know Mr. Newton, and now he said gently, “You spoke of some who are not Party members on The Gazette staff. Would you like to mention their names?”

  “I didn’t come here to play the role of an informer,” Mr. Newton said. “I want to cooperate, shed light on certain matters—yes, and serve my country in these difficult times. But for informers, I have nothing but contempt.”

  “The answer to my question,” Mr. Featherby explained reasonably, “is not to inform but to protect—to protect a few people placed inadvertantly in a bad position.”

  “You understand, Mr. Featherby,” said Mr. Newton, “that I have no certain way of knowing who all the communists
on the staff are. I can guess pretty well, but we don’t meet together, and I can’t very well ask. Now you take Mrs. Caldwell—I don’t think she’s a communist.” It was the first name that came to his mind. He threw it at Mr. Featherby in test flight.

  “Elizabeth Caldwell?” Mr. Featherby asked.

  “Yes.”

  Featherby rose, walked to his desk, and scribbled a few words. He then pressed a buzzer. The door opened and a young man entered. Mr. Featherby handed him the bit of paper. He then ruffled through the manila folder which had been on his lap, and selected from it several documents. The door opened; the young man had returned with another folder much like the first. Then Mr. Featherby once again sat down facing Luther Newton. He shrugged apologetically, and began to read from the material in his lap.

  “Caldwell, Elizabeth—age twenty-nine, born Durham, North Carolina, Elizabeth Madison—height five feet, six inches, eyes blue, hair black. Joined Communist Party April 1935, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Married in 1939 to Albert Caldwell. Joined newspaper section, New York City, 1940. Attended meetings weekly at 16 Derry Place, Brooklyn Heights. Put forward as candidate, rank and file slate, News Union. Reported to Secretariat, Communist Party, on work among major newspapers, New York City. Delivered sub-report, Freedom of Press and Freedom of Opinion, meeting Committee for Freedom, July 1941—” His voice trailed off, and he raised his eyes to look at Mr. Newton with a shadow of reproach.

  “Come now, Mr. Newton, did you think that the Department was sitting idle all these years, just waiting for you to appear? I don’t want to belittle your usefulness—it will be enormous, I am sure, and your service to your country will be not inconsiderable—but you really don’t believe that we do nothing, do you?”