Silas Timberman (23 page)

“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.

“Robert Allen,” he replied, his little eyes veiled with excitement.

Allen came over to the witness table, carrying his briefcase with him. All alone and without a lawyer—a brave man, a forthright man.

“Look not to others but to yourself.”

D'Marcy said, “Will you raise your right hand, please, Mr. Allen? In this matter now in hearing before the committee, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

“What is your full name, please?” Dave Cann asked.

“Robert D. Allen.”

“Allen? A-l-l-e-n?”

“That is right.”

“And you are currently employed as a member of the faculty of Clemington University?”

“I am.”

“As a professor?”

“As a teacher, an instructor.”

“In other words, I would not address you as Professor Allen?”

“Oh, no—not yet, anyway,” he replied with boyish modesty and sincerity.

“Mr. Allen,” Cann said, “how exactly does the position of instructor differ from that of professor?”

“I suppose it varies from school to school, and each school practices some latitude in making its own rules. At Clemington, a doctorate is mandatory even for an assistant professorship. I mean a Ph.D., a doctor of philosophy. Of course, you can have a doctorate and still not hold a professorship—the school has the right to confer that.”

“It means more pay?”

“Oh, yes—more pay, more honor, and tenure, of course. If one begins a career at Clemington, one starts as a student-instructor, in other words, graduate work and a certain amount of teaching combined. I am a full instructor, which means a faculty member working under a professor and using him as a control upon my work.”

“And which professor do you work with, Mr. Allen?”

“Professor Timberman.”

“How long have you been employed at Clemington as a faculty member, Mr. Allen?”

“This is my fourth year, my seventh semester. But I did some teaching a year previous to that, while doing graduate work.”

“And what subject do you teach?”

“American literature—mostly modern.”

“You are also a graduate of Clemington University, aren't you?”

“I am—yes, sir.”

“When you were a student at Clemington, did you ever have Professor Timberman as a teacher?”

“I did.”

“Professor Amsterdam?”

“No, sir.”

“I will mention some other names. Lawrence Kaplin, Leon Federman, Alec Brady and Hartman Spencer. Did you ever have any of these people as teachers?”

“Only one of them, Professor Kaplin.”

“Then you knew both Professor Kaplin and Professor Timberman as a student?”

“I did.”

“And when Professor Timberman was your teacher, did you notice any attempts to indoctrinate students in his teaching?”

“Sir?”

“Let me rephrase it. Did you feel that Professor Timberman's method of teaching was an American method?”

“Well, sir—the last class I took with him was in 1941. He was highly critical of the Nazis at that time. He constantly emphasized the incompatibility of Nazism and literature.”

“Do you recall him being equally critical of communism or of the Soviet Union?”

“No, sir. I cannot recall any criticism on either of these questions. In fact, I remember his praising several Russian books.”

“Do you recall the names of those books?” Brannigan cut in suddenly.

“No, sir. But there were a number of American books he urged upon his students—books by writers poorly thought of today but then in more vogue. They were books deeply critical of American life and American standards. Professor Timberman's attitude was always a very critical attitude. He never tired of finding things wrong with the American way of life.”

“Can you name those books?” Brannigan pressed him.

“Some of them, yes.
An American Tragedy
by Theodore Dreiser,
Babbitt
and
Elmer Gantry
by Sinclair Lewis, and
Martin Eden
and
The Iron Heel
by Jack London. There were others.”

Brannigan picked up the line of questioning. “Theodore Dreiser was a member of the Communist Party, as I recall. Did Professor Timberman ever point out that fact to his students?”

“No, sir.”

“And
Babbitt
and
Elmer Gantry
, these are both books which preach the hatred of business men and free enterprise, aren't they, Mr. Allen?”

“To some extent.
Babbitt
pokes fun at a real estate man and
Elmer Gantry
is an attack on the church.”

“Sinclair Lewis was also a communist, wasn't he?”

“Not publicly, sir, so far as I know. He may have been.”

“And Jack London was a communist, I understand, and made no secret of it—which is more than you can say of a lot of people today. Aren't both of these books you mention dedicated to the overthrow of the government by force and violence?”

“
The Iron Heel
is, yes, sir, but in
Martin Eden
, it's a matter of innuendo.”

“You mean he doesn't come right out and say it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And do you recall Professor Timberman ever warning his students as to the nature and intent of these books he advised them to read and study?”

“No, sir. I do not.”

“And during that time, did you ever suspect Professor Timberman of communist tendencies?”

“I did, sir.”

Until this point, Silas had listened with great detachment, his mind moving forward in lightning-like leaps and bounds, making adjustments quickly and automatically—but never connecting himself with the handsome young man who was giving testimony. A stranger was giving testimony, and he only half heard it. It was ridiculous, it was childish, it was pointless, it was foolish—it was lies and half-lies and quarter-lies. He had never used
The Iron Heel
in one of his classes; as a matter of fact, he had not read it since his teens, and he had always considered
Martin Eden
a rather mawkish and adolescent piece of work. Knowing the difficulty in assigned reading, he would usually recommend
Sister Carrie
and then perhaps
The Financier
for the study of Dreiser—almost never
An American Tragedy
, although he did recall telling Bob Allen, only a few weeks ago, how highly he considered the book. Reason clawing at his mind demanded that he divorce himself from what sat at the witness table; logic separated him from recognition. No matter how quickly his mind moved to new adjustments, the fact remained that he had lived forty years of his life in one world, and he could not abandon it immediately for this one. If he had gone to bed one night next to all the familiar warmth and comfort of Myra, and then had awakened the next morning in the Arizona desert, he would have been hard put to adjust to the fact. He was hard put now.

But when this question was asked and answered, he rose to his feet without realizing that he was doing so, only to be dragged back to his chair by MacAllister and Brady.

“Easy, now, easy, lad,” said MacAllister, and Silas heard Edna Crawford whisper, “Poor Silas.”

“Poor Silas,” echoed and re-echoed in his mind. “Poor Silas.” But Brannigan was a man working, without time for pity, and he worked well. “When was it,” he demanded, “that you first suspected Professor Timberman of communist tendencies?”

“When I noticed how consistently he slanted his teaching. Always against the rich: Always ridiculing people of position. He ennobled the poor in a manner that had no relationship to reality.”

“You wouldn't consider this a general practice in the English Department at Clemington, would you, Mr. Allen?”

“No, sir—I don't think so. It is true that Professor Kaplin showed bias against the British nobility, but he dealt with the Middle Ages.”

“Would you say that made it easier for him to conceal his position than it was for Professor Timberman?”

“Possibly—”

Silas glanced at Lawrence Kaplin, whose face was white and drawn, and twitching at the same time with little giggles; and he had, for the first time, a sense of the tragedy that was taking place in the lives of the other six. For himself, he had never really considered it to be a tragedy. It was a blow, a dreadful blow, but not a killing one; it shook him in mid-stream, turned him off the course of his life, and laid upon him the burden of finding a new course and a new life. But he had never really entertained doubts that he could make a new life. He had Myra alongside of him; he was fairly young, strong, and in good health. He had come from a line of men who had worked with their hands, and it did not defeat him to face the fact that he too would probably have to work with his hands again.

But what of Kaplin, what of old Ike Amsterdam, what of the others? What was tearing inside of Lawrence Kaplin now—at this moment?

“You said that Professor Timberman forced his students to study books that advocated overthrow of the government by force and violence. Did you ever hear Professor Timberman advocate this line of action himself?” Brannigan asked softly, gently.

“I did,” just as softly, apologetically—
forgive me the knife before I plunge it into your belly. Try to understand the grief of the murderer
.

“Would you describe the occasion?”

“It was at Professor Timberman's home during 1947. We—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Allen. Would you state the names of all those present?”

“Yes. Professor Timberman, his wife, Professor Amsterdam, Professor Kaplin and Professor Federman—and myself, of course.”

“Was it a social occasion or a meeting?”

“Well, it's very difficult to draw a line of demarcation, sir. At a university, the best cover for a meeting is to prepare it as a social occasion. Let us say a bridge game—”

That Silas and Myra did not play bridge was of no significance now—no part of the boiling anger of Silas' thoughts.

“Then you could describe it as a meeting?”

“Yes, sir. I think you could.” A note of permanent regret and sorrow had now entered Bob Allen's voice. No one could help but understand how difficult this was for him, how agonizing. Whatever the suffering of one, Silas Timberman, it was plain that Robert Allen suffered equally or more.

“And what went on at that meeting?”

“Professor Timberman spoke of the need to build an organization at Clemington which would be prepared, at the proper time, to move to take over the administration of the university—an act which would be coordinated with a much larger action throughout the country. He asked me—”