Silas Timberman (7 page)

“You have the right to surmise anything you choose. I also have the right to reject his arguments and to take no responsibility for them.”

Cabot leaned back, smiled, and puffed on his cigar. “So there we are—and both of us becoming a little childish in our arguments. Believe me, Professor Timberman, I have no desire to play the inquisitor, nor do I relish the role. It's a nasty business at best. But here we are in a web of uneasy and unpleasant circumstances, and I must deal with them, whether I desire to or not. Also, believe me, I am not being spiteful over the foolish letter of a foolish old man. It is quite true that I've never received such a letter before, but I think I have enough experience and enough stability to consider it amusing rather than dangerous. I have no intentions of directing any reprisals against Professor Amsterdam—although I think some sober reflection should indicate that an apology is called for. However, I am disturbed by the suggestion that he is not speaking merely for himself. There are various kinds of unusual letters, and this one arrived yesterday from the Justice Department in Washington. Let me read it to you.”

Again he opened the manila folder, removed another letter consisting of three sheets, and spread it out before him.

“It advises me,” he continued, “that a petition has been circulated throughout the United States, calling for an interdiction of atomic weapons, now and forever. The circulation of this petition began last May, and has recently been concluded, with more than two million signatures claimed by the sponsors. The Justice Department informs me that, and I quote now, ‘the number of students and faculty members of Clemington University who affixed their names to this petition cannot be precisely determined. You will understand that the facilities available to us for the correlation of such information are still limited, but we have reason to believe the total number is in excess of what we are able to supply you. In spite of the fact that the State Department considers and has publicly stated that the aforementioned petition is contrary to and destructive of the best interests of the United States, and in spite of the fact that the Justice Department considers the said petition to be communist inspired and circulated, no measures are, for the time being, planned to be taken against the signers. At the same time, we feel it is in your best interests and in the best interests of the university and the country as a whole, that these names should be made available to you.' The names follow,” Cabot said, looking up at Silas now, the large, handsome face serene and thoughtful, the high brow marked by only one horizontal crease.

Again he was waiting, and Silas, somewhat amazed, thought to himself, “I had forgotten all about that.” His anger had passed, and he was not yet afraid; but he could recognize, almost objectively, that here were elements to make a normal person afraid. Here was something building and shaping itself very slowly—so slowly that nothing at all would come of it just now; of that he was certain; but a process was in motion. Was he really discovering it only now, he wondered? If so, he was obtuse—obtuse enough to sit through this entire fantastic inquisition, as if it were all happening apart from him and also as if it could not possibly contain any unpleasant consequences for him.

Later, much later, this attitude on his part would be recalled by him, re-examined and re-appraised, and he would come to the conclusion that before this particular day, Wednesday, October 25, 1950, a certain kind of fear did not exist in his psychological makeup; the patterns of this fear had not yet been formed. Other fears were normal to him and of vivid and constant acquaintance, the fear of being unemployed, the fear of danger to his children, the fear of the loss of Myra's affections, the fear of his own inadequacy being publicly displayed, the fear of death, of sickness—a whole index of fears with which he lived in fairly decent companionship; but this particular and singular fear of speaking his own mind and of obeying the moral dictates of his own conscience, this was too new, too unspecific, too amorphous as yet to ring any strident bells of alarm or anxiety within him.

But this realization would come only later. For the time being, he was curiously undisturbed, wondering only to what end Cabot was constructing this sequence of unorthodoxy.

“The names,” Cabot continued. “I thought I would read them to you, Professor Timberman. While I do not propose to make them public, neither do I intend to have them secret. To a large degree, I am responsible for the vast and complex organization which a modern university has become. Part of that responsibility is a need to understand every phase of life on this campus. I must confess that this part is difficult to understand.” He smiled. “I am not threatening, believe me. Here are the faculty members. We start with Edna Crawford, in the Department of Domestic Science. Do you know her?” Silas nodded. “Then you understand my bewilderment. This is a woman of sixty, the author of a nationally known home manual, and a member of a very good Massachusetts family. Leon Federmen, in the Science Department. I must say the sciences are well represented, and of course, I find the inclusion of Jews more natural.”

“Why?” Silas asked, in a sort of desperation.

“Isn't it obvious, Professor Timberman. The Jew has always allied himself with dissident elements. His loyalty, in a deep sense, is to no single land or culture, and his position is certainly bettered by disunity. I do not project this as a plot; that would be ridiculous, but as a pattern of conditioned behavior, with, naturally, a number of exceptions. To match Dr. Federman, we have Hartman Spencer, Caleb Ellman, and Isaac Amsterdam, none of them Jews, and all from the School of Sciences.”

“And you find this so unnatural, whereas Dr. Federman's position seems natural?” Silas asked incredulously. His pipe had gone out and was forgotten, and his careful wiping of his glasses was less a nervous gesture than a straw to seize upon, while he thought to myself, “I must keep my head. There is nothing so remarkable in the airing of prejudice by one bigoted career man. The world is not standing on its head. These names mean nothing, but they are fuel for his sense of importance, and there must be a need on his part to sit in judgment.”

“I find it quite unnatural,” President Cabot nodded. “Here is your name and Alec Brady and Jackson T. Templeton and Lawrence Kaplin and your wife, Professor Timberman, and Max Rhinemaster, Sadie Dawson, Joel Seever, Prior Unger, Frank Easterman, Kenneth Joad and Joshua Cohen. In all, seventeen names, seventeen men and women who saw fit to place their signatures upon this document. The fifty-five student names which accompany these I find more understandable and far less disturbing. There is an impetuosity, an idealism which is a part of youth and which one tends to regard with a certain amount of tolerance—tolerance which in no way changes the nature of their action. But seventeen members of our faculty are hardly something that one can regard with equanimity.”

Silas had finished his meticulous wiping of his glasses, and as he replaced them, he felt that security which a myopic man draws from complete vision. The blurred edges and features of President Cabot's face drew together. A faint smile lingered upon the full, shapely mouth, but the mouth was also straightened with anger and determination; and Silas realized that the man's expression was controlled and carefully rendered. It registered what the president desired it to register, no less and no more, leaving Silas to guess at what lay beneath, and to grope for a course of action. The awakening of fear made him raise for himself questions of courage and principle; and even a cursory scanning of possible developments recalled to Silas the dangers of incurring this man's anger and enmity. Also, there was no need for that; there was nothing that would not melt in the warm light of reason, and there was also no cause for him to assume a mantle of guilt.

“I can understand your impatience with all this,” Silas agreed. “These are difficult times—how difficult for a person in your position, I can well imagine. Yet I fail to see what I and these other men and women have done that is so wrong or disturbing. We signed a petition calling for the outlawing of atomic weapons. Surely any person of conscience or understanding cannot disagree with such a position.”

“Why, Professor Timberman?”

“Because there is no defense against atom bombs. There is a difference between war as we knew it and the prospect of the whole world as an atomic wasteland. This is a weapon which must never be used again—I feel that most strongly.”

“And you mean to tell me, Professor Timberman, that you considered the signing of this petition would facilitate such an end?”

“No—no, I can't honestly say that I thought that. As a matter of fact, I was dubious about the whole petition and certainly about the effectiveness of it.”

“Yet you signed it?”

“That was put to me as a matter of principle, and as a matter of principle, I found it quite inescapable. How small or ineffectual the blow might be was beside the point.”

“And who put it to you, Dr. Timberman?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You say this was put to you as a matter of principle. In other words, someone gave you the petition to sign?”

“Yes.”

“Who was that person?”

A long moment went by before Silas answered, a moment almost without thought. This had been a long time coming, and finally it was there. And finally, Silas replied.

“I don't think I can say.”

“Really! I thought my offering you the substance of this letter, Professor Timberman, would make you aware that this petition which you so readily signed is part of a world-wide communist action. It would seem to me that alters the whole question.”

“Perhaps it does.”

“And still you refuse to say who circulated it among the members of my faculty. Did you, Professor Timberman? Are you a communist?”

“Is that a serious question?” Silas said evenly.

“Most serious.”

“Then I'm sorry you had to ask it,” Silas answered softly. “Until now, I kept assuring myself that nothing was basically different or could be. No—I am not a communist. I am not a communist, President Cabot.”

And Cabot said, “Thank you, Professor Timberman, for your cooperation.” He rose to indicate that the session was over.

* * *

Brian saw him a long way off and raced to meet him. Brian became jet-propelled. He streamlined his body and fire roared from his jets. He came on with a rising pitch of sound, and Silas swept him up.

When Silas held him at arm's length, Brian paid tribute to his father's strength. “You're strong,” he said. “I'll bet. In fact, I bet you're the strongest man in the world.” He laughed as he said it, his small blue eyes crinkling and sparkling like bits of stone. “The strongest man in the world,” Silas thought to himself. It was a beautiful opinion. The sun was shining again, the white puffs of cloud tumbling across the autumn sky, and warmth and pleasure flowed back into Silas.

“I saw you a long way off with a telescope,” Brian said.

“No?”

“With binoculars, I mean. I took your binoculars. I didn't ask, but it's all right, huh?”

Silas put him down. “It's all right, sure. But where'd you put them?”

“On the grass. I'll get them.”

“We'll both get them,” Silas said, as they walked along, hand in hand.

“You got them in the war, huh? Did you kill anyone with them?”

“You don't kill people with binoculars, Brian. You use them to see things with that you didn't know about before.”

“Like stars. Suppose you were on the moon. You know, you could just put on the binoculars and see Mars as clear as day. Did you know that, Silas, if you were on the moon. And you know what Uncle Ike said—you know what he said?”

“I guess I don't know, if it's a real surprise.”

“He said, some night, when I can stay up late, he'd take me into the obsotory—is that right?—where the big telescope is.”

“Observatory, you mean.”

“Observatory, where the big telescope is. It's so big it needs machinery just to move it around. Did you know that, Silas? Were you ever in the observatory?”

They came to where the binoculars lay, and Silas picked them up and slung them around Brian's shoulder. “I was there,” he told the boy. “Yes, Uncle Ike took me there.” It all came back to him, vivid, clear and wonderful—the first time he and Myra had gone in there, with Amsterdam and Hartman Spencer and old Dr. Lazarus Meyers, who had worked with Lowell and had been involved in the famous controversy as to whether the lines on the planet Mars were canals and whether there was life on Mars. That had been a good night, a special night with Myra, the two of them walking hand in hand until darkness fell and the lights began to blink on in the sky, and then going along the walk behind the
Main Building
to the little hillock on which the observatory was perched. It was not much of an observatory compared to some of the newer big ones around the country, but to Silas and Myra, who had never seen any other, its dome was large and impressive, and to Brian it would be even larger and more amazing. Amsterdam had been waiting for them, and as he took them inside, into the deeper darkness, he held his finger to his lips. The old man, Meyers, was taking a sight on Venus as it rose up above the horizon, and he was crochety in the silence he demanded when he worked at the instrument; so there was no other sound than the faint whir of the machinery that moved the telescope and the breathing of the men who stood around. Gradually, Silas' eyes became used to the darkness, and he was able to make out the figures of the others, the white beard of Meyers, in the diffused starlight that came through the opening at the top of the dome.

Then, when his own turn came, eternity opened up before him. That was only five years ago, but until then in all his life he had never looked into a telescope, and he was not prepared for the starry glory that appeared; he was not prepared for his motion into it, for the manner in which it absorbed him and enfolded him, enlarged him and dwindled him, so that his soul soared out only to be crushed back upon itself, himself a measureless mite in all the vastness. Myra must have experienced something of the same emotion, for when she turned away from the instrument, she went to him and held him—