Establishment (19 page)

“As to why I have been subpoenaed, we have not the faintest notion, except to guess that it concerns my own harebrained adventure when I undertook my mission to Berlin. But since I put that in a book for the whole world to read, I am not concerned about repeating the story to these local anthropoids. Anyway, here I am in Washington, and today we made the front page in both the
San Francisco Chronicle
and the
Washington
Post
. I really am notorious. And it just occurs to me, as I write this, that poor Tom will have no end of explaining to do to his Republican sponsors. What will they think of a conservative candidate whose sister is redder than a rose? I think I shall clear Tom by making a public statement to the effect that we disagree about everything. After all, Booth's career was not ruined simply because his brother shot Lincoln. Or was it? I shall have to check that.

“Anyway, just as you must assuage your soul by such dumb escapades as the present one, so must I as a writer poke my nose into this and that. It did occur to me that daddy, with all his kudos from the War Shipping Board, might do something about quashing this silly subpoena; but the poor man had a mild heart attack, and right now he's in the hospital, and this is hardly something to annoy him with in his present condition. He is going to be all right, but still, I did not want him to know about it until he was much stronger. And I must confess that I am filled with curiosity as to how our local brand of repression functions, and also, believe it or not, it's my first trip to Washington. I am to appear before the committee at ten a.m. tomorrow, and if they don't keep me too long, I intend to spend the rest of the day sightseeing, since I don't have to be at the airport until five.

“Also, you must not worry about Sam. Our beautiful son is up at Higate, where Eloise is taking very good care of him. We do have good and dear friends. Harvey Baxter is a very nice gentleman, but I think he is a dunderhead; if you ask why I didn't find another lawyer, the answer is that one doesn't. He was Sam Goldberg's partner, and he must know something. Anyway, I have my own common sense to fall back on, so I am not really worried, just quite curious to see what faces me.

“Now to bed, and please, please be home when I arrive tomorrow, so we can resume our sensible, plodding lives. It should please you that I am ready to be so content in a world that is so packed with discontent. I love being a housewife and I love being a mother, and if you have gotten all the maggots out of your system, I am ready to discuss having a second child. I know I can't produce the half dozen you originally desired, but two are a nice round number.
Get home!
”

She underlined the last two words.

***

Stephan Cassala opened the door of Dan's room tentatively. He had been a daily visitor since the heart attack, and today he came with a briefcase and his son, Ralph. Ralph, a short, slender boy, much like his father, was twenty-one and a senior at Stanford. He was Stephan's only child, a fact of considerable sorrow to Stephan's mother, whose daughter, Rosa, had presented her with five grandchildren.

“Come on in,” Dan called out; Stephan was relieved at the strength and vigor in his voice. Dan's bed was tilted up, and half a dozen newspapers were spread out over the counterpane.

“I had dinner in town with Ralph,” Stephan explained. “I thought I'd bring him along. He wanted to see you.”

“Glad you did.” Dan shook hands with the boy. It was two years since he had seen him. “You look fine.”

“How do you feel, sir?”

“Good. What are you up to, Ralph?”

“Well, sir, you know I'm at my last year in school. They've been allowing me to do some independent work on the Wilson cloud chamber method, and I think I've found a way to improve it.”

“Physics?”

“Well, it's all I ever really wanted.”

The boy shook hands with Dan again and left. When he had gone, Stephan shook his head. “I try, Dan, but he's beyond anything I understand. Would you believe it, there's a good chance he's on his way to a Nobel Prize. Twenty-one years old, two generations out of a Sicilian hole of ignorance and superstition. We didn't do too badly.”

“We sure as hell didn't. How's Joanna?”

Stephan shrugged. “How long can an empty marriage survive? She lives, I live. There's no point in talking about that. How do you feel?”

“Pretty good. Another week, and Jean takes me home—but how I'm going to stand another week of this, I don't know. Tom came to see me.”

Surprised, Stephan made no comment.

“It wasn't too bad. It's time.”

“Yes, it's time,” Stephan said.

“I've been reading about my daughter,” Dan said, pointing to the newspapers.

“I know. I saw Senator Claybourne. He happened to be in town yesterday, and I pulled all our rank to get to him. He gave me ten minutes.”

“We gave that sonofabitch ten thousand dollars.”

“Well, it's a thousand dollars a minute. It didn't buy much. The truth is, Dan, he's scared. So help me God, McCarthy and this committee has the whole damn country running scared. He says there's not one blessed thing that he or anyone else in the Senate can do about the House committee. He won't touch it. This business of guilt by association has become a disease with us.”

“Did you get anything from him?”

“Nothing. He suggested that you might call the President. You do know him, don't you?”

“I met him once. So did ten thousand others.”

“I spoke to Judge Fredericks. His feeling is that you should relax and simply let events take their course. They will question Barbara, and she'll answer their questions, and they'll make their headlines, and that will be the end of it. Whatever damage it may do to her career—well, that has already taken place, and she'll survive it. I had the crazy notion of a lawsuit against the committee—”

“That's not so crazy.”

“Well, it's out of the question, Dan. You can't sue a congressional committee.”

“I'd like to corner the lot of them in a dark alley. That's all in the head. I indulge the luxury of talking tough, and there isn't a damn thing I can do for the kid. What's all that?” he asked, pointing to Stephan's briefcase.

“I thought we might go over some things.”

Dan shook his head. “No. No, forget it, Steve. Business is the last thing in the world I give a damn about right now. I've been lying here trying to make some sense out of being alive sixty years on this earth, and in my present state of confusion, you'll get nothing sensible out of me. By the way, have you been able to reach Bernie?”

“No. Nothing at the house, and at the garage, they've heard nothing.”

***

It was almost three o'clock in the morning before Barbara finally fell asleep, and she was awake at seven, wide awake with no feeling of weariness, cheered by the thought that after seeing this long day through, she would be back home in San Francisco before midnight, California time. Jean had been very insistent about Barbara's clothes, having always regarded her daughter as a prime enemy of fashion; so in deference to her mother's wishes, Barbara had agreed to appear in a navy blue suit, black pumps, and a white shirt. Her light brown hair was just wavy enough to present no difficulties. She wore it parted on the side and cut evenly just above her shoulders, and it took her only a few minutes to comb it out. Her complexion was good, and after a brief glance in the mirror, she decided that the occasion did not warrant make-up.

Before breakfast, she walked in the lovely gardens of the hotel. She was alone except for a black man who was trimming rose bushes and who bid her good morning.

“It's a beautiful morning,” Barbara agreed. “Do you have many days like this?”

“Some. Not so much at this time of the year as in another month. You ain't from here?”

“California. San Francisco.”

“That's a long way.”

“It is. It is indeed.”

She walked back to the hotel dining room, hungry now. Harvey Baxter was already there, hunched over bacon and eggs. He jumped to his feet.

“Oh, don't get up, Harvey. I feel wonderful. We shall tilt against Mr. Drake's committee and conquer them. Onward and upward!”

“Barbara, I do wish you'd be serious. It's not Mr. Drake's committee. He's simply well known locally because he's from our state. Not that I wish to defend him. I find most of his practices deplorable. But you must take this seriously. I just had a call from Congressman Hood's office. He's the ranking member. The hearing will be public. It will not be filmed or televised, but they will have a press table.”

“What made them change their plans?”

“I don't know, and that worries me. They must have dug up something. Barbara, are you sure that we've discussed everything?”

“I think so. Harvey, please don't worry.”

“One slight ray of sunshine. With this kind of hearing, I shall be sitting next to you, and you can consult me whenever you wish.”

“Good. Now let the condemned woman eat a proper breakfast.”

They took a cab to the House Office Building, and Barbara, looking about her, observed, “It is a rather nice city, except that one has seen so many pictures of everything.”

“I keep thinking that Sam Goldberg would have been more thorough,” Baxter said worriedly.

“I suppose it's why I'm here that keeps me from being thrilled. You've been here before, so you're not thrilled. That's the Capitol, Harvey.” The truth was that Barbara was simply impatient with the whole thing. Her mood of a few hours before was washing out, and now she was irritated that a handful of men in Washington had the undisputed power to summon her across the country and ask her questions—with the threat of punishment hanging over her head if she refused to answer. The guard at the desk in the House Office Building took their names and told them what room to go to. It was on the main floor, down a corridor to where a cluster of men stood smoking and waiting. They examined her with their eyes as she and Baxter entered the room, but no one spoke to her, and she wondered whether they were reporters.

There were five men already in the room. Three of them sat at the press table. One sat in front of a raised platform that held a long table and fiddled with a stenotype machine. The fifth man, tall, cadaverous, and gray-complexioned, came to them as they entered. He had small, dark eyes under bristling brows, sunken cheeks, and a long hatchet chin; he introduced himself as Donald Jay, counsel to the committee. Barbara noticed that his fingernails were clogged with dirt. He shook hands with Baxter. She told herself that if he offered a hand to her, it would go untouched.

“You can both sit here, Mr. Baxter,” he said, indicating a small table in front of the press table and to one side of it.

There were only six chairs at the press table, but Barbara noticed a dozen additional chairs behind it, either for additional press or for some small section of the public. The room itself was no more than forty-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide. On the long table on the raised platform, five small placards spelled out the names of the congressmen who would make up the quorum: Arthur Hood, Norman Drake, Lomas Pornay, John Mankin, and Alvin Bindle. Of the five, Barbara was familiar only with Drake, who represented a district in the Bay Area.

A few minutes after Barbara and Baxter were seated, people began to drift into the room—a United States marshal, a fat man in a dark suit, his badge pinned to his jacket; additional members of the press, until all the seats at the press table were filled and four more seats behind it; and finally the congressmen: Hood, short, tight-lipped, pale blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses; Drake, expressionless, his puffy, round cheeks giving him an air of innocence; Pornay, fat, rolls around his neck, a bright pink complexion, a sort of Tammany Hall caricature; Mankin, the oldest of the lot, his face drooping in folds of flesh like a hostile basset hound; and last, Bindle, good-looking, youngish, smiling nervously. They took their respective seats, picked up the pencils at each place, surveyed the group, and waited, for the most part expressionless.

Then, after what he apparently considered a suitable amount of time, Mankin, speaking in a heavy southern drawl, said, “Meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, sixteenth day of March, nineteen forty-eight. Let the record show that a quorum is present.”

“So noted,” Donald Jay said.

“Is the first witness present?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let the witness be sworn,” Mankin said.

The marshal walked over to Barbara and held out a Bible. “Put your hand on it,” he said. “Do you swear that the testimony you give here will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” The words ran together, blurred and meaningless.

“I do,” Barbara said.

“Let the record show that the witness has been sworn,” Jay said. He had moved to one side of the room so that he would not block the view of any of the congressmen, and he stood there with his arms folded.

“Will the witness state her name?” he asked Barbara.

“Barbara Cohen.”

“Is that Miss or Mrs.?”

“Mrs.”

“Is that your only name?” Dixon snapped suddenly.

“I don't understand you.”

“Are you known by any other name?” Jay asked her.

“Barbara Lavette,” she replied uncertainly.

“Is that a pseudonym?”

“No, it's my maiden name. I use it for my writing.”

“Why?”

“Because I began to publish before I was married. I had a circle of readers who knew me as Barbara Lavette. I saw no reason to change my literary name.” Then she whispered to Baxter, “This is idiotic. Must I answer any stupid question they ask me?”

Baxter nodded. “Please—you must, Barbara.”