Silas Timberman (3 page)

Age and weariness far beyond his forty years rode him as he walked toward the campus. Unlike Amsterdam, he saw little of the beauty for which Clemington was so justly famous. His thoughts went toward Myra; he had a beautiful, witty and accomplished wife—who in turn was possessed of a plodding and unspectacular husband, a person whose days of accomplishment were hardly to be distinguished from each other, whose intelligence was modest at best, and who moved without thought or particular purpose to no particular destination other than old age or retirement. Yet, he asked himself, wasn't most life like that, and weren't the periods of so-called happiness no more than intermittent glandular easements, and wasn't it possible that he might not be envied by people who had neither refrigerators nor cars, could they but know him as he knew himself? However, he had enough wit of his own to realize that such philosophizing was neither profound nor particularly adult; and he was almost grateful to run into Ed Lundfest and thereby be relieved of the sole company of his own thoughts.

“Beautiful morning, Silas,” Lundfest said, gulping air as if he had suddenly been confronted with a totally new atmosphere. “October is our best month at Clemington. No doubt about that—no doubt at all. Only one word to describe it—salubrious. An old-fashioned word, but in situations like this, there are no substitutes for sound, old-fashioned language. Don't you agree?”

Silas did not agree; and the knowledge that he would be easily dishonest in his failure to express disagreement did not raise his spirits. He had never fully admitted to himself how thoroughly he disliked Professor Edward Lundfest; for to have done so would have made it next to impossible to continue amicable relations with a man who was head of his department. Instead, he fragmentized the question; he considered Lundfest's manner of speech ridiculous, his bearing pompous, his use of language infantile—yet he continued to propose to himself that he respected the man. At this moment, he would have bet his last dollar that Lundfest had only the vaguest notion of the meaning of
salubrious
, but he would have died before he would have brought himself to ask.

“A very nice morning,” he said, disliking himself.

“Football weather,” Lundfest continued, and as if by magic materialized two chunky, round-cheeked boys out of the throng of students passing by, gave them the time of day, and asked how things looked for the weekend game and how this year's squad was shaping up. Silas winced at the thought that he would not have recognized either of the boys, that he knew nothing about the 1950 squad, and that he was singularly lacking in all the various side-effects that contributed to academic success. Lundfest never denied the rumor that he had been a considerable player himself, and he looked the part, broad-shouldered, handsome in a heavy-set way, with a great head of hair that was turning iron-gray. In himself, he combined the scholar and the man of deeds, and if Silas had contempt for Lundfest the scholar, the man of deeds drew his grudging envy.

“Good boys,” he told Silas, “damn good boys.” They walked on, and he asked Silas how it looked for this semester, offering his opinion that in two weeks, a skillful teacher should have all of his problems catalogued and denned.

“I don't anticipate too many problems,” Silas answered.

“No—well, that's good, admirable, if I may say so. I wish I could say as much for myself. You took the run-over in American Literature, didn't you, Silas?”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Of course. Only—this question of making Mark Twain the pivot of the whole matter—well, I sometimes feel that it becomes more a question of Mark Twain than of American literature.”

“I wouldn't say I make Mark Twain the pivot of everything. Possibly I use him as a standard of measurement—as a carpenter might use a level. I find that necessary.”

“Well, you would,” Lundfest smiled, “seeing as how you're writing a book on the man. Although for the life of me,” he added, “I can't see the place for another book on Mark Twain. But that's for your judgment, not mine. I have always considered Mark Twain to be the very opposite of a profound writer, more of a skilled entertainer, clown, and pamphleteer, a man concerned with surface effects and surface manifestations, and ready to twist the facts every which way, so long as he achieves his desired effect.”

All of this was the last thing in the world that Silas expected this morning from Ed Lundfest. A lecture, indeed a denunciation of Mark Twain, out of nothing and out of nowhere, was hardly typical of Lundfest; and the abruptness of it left Silas baffled, angry, and for the moment, wordless. The reference to the book he was writing was particularly pointed, for as Lundfest knew, he had been at work on it, intermittently, for three years—with little enough progress. But most of all, he resented the comment on profundity, coming as it did from a man for whose intellectual achievements he had so little respect.

“I hope I haven't hurt your feelings,” Lundfest said.

“No—not at all.”

“No morning for an argument, is it, Silas?”

“No—”

“Then I have stepped on your toes. Well, suppose we bite into that another time. We'll talk it out and get at the root of it. As a matter of fact, there was something else entirely that I wanted to mention to you. You have until nine-thirty, haven't you?”

They were at Whittier Hall now. Silas nodded. The man was his superior, officer, boss, employer—what you will. When you broke with the head of your department, you found another university; so you composed yourself and swallowed your anger, and you nodded amiably; and Silas was an amiable and good-natured man. It might also be observed that English teachers were not exactly rare, even talented ones, and Silas did not know whether he was talented with anything more than persistence and a retentive memory. Certainly, he did not think so at this moment.

“Suppose we chat a few minutes. I want to speak to you about the convocation this afternoon.”

Again Silas nodded, still unable to trust himself to speak in a tone sufficiently warm and pleasing to convince Lundfest that their relationship remained congenial; but he made no real connection with Lundfest's remark, nor did he relate the mention of the convocation to Ike Amsterdam's argument.

“I've been discussing it with Dr. Cabot,” Lundfest went on, “and he's desirous that it should be a complete success. I may tell you, Silas, that this thing has ramifications not entirely local—”

It soothed Silas to note the subtle misuse of words, and his flush of anger died as he began to listen.

“—not local by any means, but rather pertaining to the state picture and the national picture as well. I might say that Clemington finds itself in a position of unique importance. You know as well as I do, Silas, that there is a most peculiar apathy toward civil defense all over the country ever since the war began in Korea.”

“I imagine most people don't like the war particularly.”

“Well, of course, Silas. War isn't something one likes, any more than one likes communists or Nazis. But war exists, and frequently it's necessary. Here, we were faced with an act of cynical aggression, a bare-handed advance by the red tide. You might say that we faced our Rubicon and crossed it in Korea, and I would question whether there ever was a purer struggle, a nobler action than our country took in this war. And mind you, I say this as a Republican—but this transcends politics. Don't you agree with me?”

“I haven't thought of it in just that way,” Silas said.

“Damn it all, there's our trouble! We don't think of things! Our attitude is—leave me alone to mind my own business, to live my own life. Well, that might have been an acceptable attitude in 1890—but it's a most provoking and unpatriotic attitude in 1950!”

Silas was trying to think and listen, to remember and relate, to explore his own mind and his own feelings, and to decide exactly how much of his own thinking it would be wise to express here and now. The fact of the matter was that he was not called upon for expression of opinion. What Lundfest thought was Lundfest's affair. A man had the right to think as he pleased. For himself, he had thought very little concerning this war, and now he realized that this very lack of thought and judgment was in itself a conscious act. He did not want to think about the war. In that, Lundfest was absolutely right. He wanted to be left alone—with his work, his wife, and his three children. He had done his years of service; he had seen one war through, and now he was past forty and beyond any call—and he remembered, in this brief passage of complex thought, how often he thanked all fate that Brian was only six years old. Yet that was only natural, and he resented Lundfest's implied monopoly of patriotic passion. In Silas' formative years, patriotism, when it went deeper than the cheap patter of politicians, was considered something reserved to a man and his conscience and rather embarrassing when bared to the public gaze; patriotism was a word one used rarely and judiciously, and certainly, since 1945, he himself had been rather painstaking with the word. Like many men whose years in the army had been a mixture of discomfort, boredom and doubt, he rarely referred to his own part in the war; however, he was almost prompted to ask Lundfest where his patriotism had been at that time. That he did not do so was a tribute to his own balance and judgment; for here it was not yet ten o'clock in the morning, and both tension and trouble had intruded upon a fairly normal and satisfactory pattern of life.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, unable to think of any other reply both noncommittal and less than humiliating.

“Not that I blame you, Silas,” Lundfest went on. “You're our average American, and certainly no one should be dressed down for that. But these are not average times, and we have to get over being average people.”

“Does he listen to himself?” Silas wondered. “Does he hear himself? Here is the head of my department at a great university, a leading figure in a college of fine arts—can he talk like that and hear himself?” The problem grew upon him, and he stared at Lundfest with a fascination which the other mistook for respect.

“I think we can begin to get over it this afternoon, at convocation,” Lundfest nodded. “In my discussion with President Cabot, it was felt that if one group took the lead in volunteering for civil defense, there might be an overwhelming response, a sort of bandwagon effect, so as to speak. Believe me, Dr. Cabot is under no illusions as to the apathy on campus, and because he was not willing to face an inexplicable and unforgivable default, he consulted with me in terms of our department. I assure you, I was flattered and honored, not for myself of course, but for the department. He suggested a unanimous enrollment of the entire department for civil defense. Naturally, I agreed with him.”

Silas continued to stare at the man, with increasing wonder and a sort of marvelous disbelief. “You don't mean the entire English Department?” he asked.

“I do, Silas.”

“But how could you commit the whole staff?”

“Because I had no doubts as to their patriotism.”

“But is this a question of patriotism?” Silas asked slowly. “Really, Ed, I don't want to get into a foolish argument on a matter like this, but it's not an open and shut thing by any means.”

“It isn't? Just how do you see it, Silas?” All the warmth went out of his voice now. He put his hands in his pockets and squared his shoulders, staring somberly at Silas, his head up, his massive body posed rather strikingly.

“Before I say another word,” Silas replied evenly, “I'm going to spell out your attitude and protest it. I've known you a long time, Ed, and you know me. If you have an opinion on Mark Twain, you're entitled to it, and I respect it. If I have an opinion on civil defense, I am also entitled to it, and I think you should respect it. I am not a communist, and I have nothing but hatred for totalitarianism. You know this very well indeed, and as for my patriotism, I gave three years of my life in that direction. I don't like to bring that up, but you force me to, and I will not accept any implication that there is anything disloyal or unpatriotic in what I may say.”

Lundfest looked uncomfortable, broke his pose, and placed one hand on Silas Timberman's shoulder. “That is the last thing in the world I intended to imply,” he said with sincerity. “By God, if you have no right to say what you please, Silas, then what in hell's name is the good of any kind of defense, civil or otherwise!”

Even coming as it did from Lundfest, there was a certain insane truth in the statement, and it at least served the purpose of returning Silas to time and reality. He was still standing in front of Whittier Hall on the campus of Clemington University. The grass was green and the sun shone. Most of the students had drifted into the various buildings, and the clock on the tower told him that he had only ten minutes left before his own class started—meaning that he would be unable to do any of the preparatory work he had left for this morning. He brought his eyes back to Lundfest before he answered, and looking at the man now, the tall, sturdy figure in Harris tweed, cashmere sweater, white shirt and neat blue tie, he envied an ability to dress so well and casually, and said to himself, “I don't want to make an enemy out of Ed Lundfest. There's no reason why I should. He has his ways and I have mine, but we've always been good friends, always respected each other. Of course, he's impulsive, but on the other hand, I'm stodgy—I don't move at all. People are different. He's not asking any great sacrifice from me, only to take him off the hook by joining this civil defense nonsense. Why not? What do I lose?” So his thoughts went, and it seemed as if someone else was speaking when he said, as he had to,

“But where is that right after you've committed me?”

“Committed you to what?” Lundfest demanded.

“To civil defense.”