(1961) The Chapman Report (22 page)

“Nonsense,” said Dr. Jonas. He turned to Paul. “I’ve got something better for you out in back.”

Peggy Jonas settled into the corner of the sofa. “I’ll be right here, then. If you need me, make whimpering sounds.”

Dr. Jonas had Paul by the arm. “Let’s go,” he said. “It’s through the kitchen.”

Paul followed his host across the dining room and kitchen. Dr. Jonas held the rear screen door open, and Paul went through it.

“Careful,” said Dr. Jonas. “There are two steps.”

They tramped across the wet grass toward the far side of the yard. Despite the slight drifts of fog, the moon was visible. For a moment, they walked in silence.

Paul had arrived at Dr. Jonas’ modest early-American house in Cheviot Hills at ten minutes after eight. Whatever apprehension he had suffered in his drive from The Briars was swiftly dissipated by Dr. Jonas’ cordial welcome. The Devil’s Advocate, as Dr. Chapman had bitterly characterized him, would have been completely miscast in the role of Inquisitor. He was perhaps five feet nine or ten. His rust hair, parted on the side, hung down his forehead in the Darrow manner. His gray eyes were lively and blinking, and his nose was a great hooked beak that seemed to obscure a cheerful mouth. He wore an open sport shirt, and corduroys, and he moved like a man who still had five more things to do. His pipe-which he had been smoking when he greeted Paul at the doorwas an aged corncob. On anyone else, it would have been an affectation.

Dr. Jonas had been reading to his boys when Paul arrived. At once, after introducing them to Paul, he had shouted out for Peggy. Paul had insisted that he finish whatever he was reading, and immediately, without apology or self-consciousness, he had waved Paul to the large wing chair and returned to the sofa where the boys were waiting and had resumed. Paul liked that. Peggy appeared just after the story had been finished, and Paul rose to acknowledge the introduction. Then, they all sat for ten or fifteen minutes, Peggy and Dr. Jonas conversing with Paul on the science fiction just read, on comic books, the press in Los Angeles, the fog in Cheviot Hills, the beauty of The Briars, life in California versus

life anywhere else, the public schools, and the Dodgers. It had all been so easy and natural that Paul felt he had been part of this family and this house for years.

Now, walking beside Dr. Jonas in the shrouded moonlight, he realized that they had arrived at a miniature bungalow located at the farthest extremity of the yard.

“My workshop,” said Dr. Jonas. “I think this is why we bought

the house.”

He opened the door, turned up the lights, and they were inside a large single room. Paul surveyed it quickly. It was dominated by a worn oak desk piled high with loose papers and manuscripts. The armless swivel chair faced an old typewriter. A door, partially ajar, revealed a narrow lavatory. Against a wall were four file cabinets. A brick fireplace dominated another wall, and near it was a cot and then an entire wall of books.

As Dr. Jonas went to open a window, Paul, as was his habit whenever he entered a new study, strolled along the shelves and noted the book titles. He saw Dr. Chapman’s book at once, and then a second copy of it. There were volumes by Freud, Adler, Jung, Alexander, Fenichel, Bergler, Dickinson, Terman, Stone, Stopes, Gorer, Hamilton, Krafft-Ebing, Lynd, Reik, Weissenberg, Mead, Ellis, Guyon, Trilling, Kierkegaard, Riesman, Russell.

“Chartreuse, dry sherry, or cognac?” asked Dr. Jonas. He was standing beside a low table of bottles that Paul had not seen when he came in.

“Whatever you say,” said Paul.

“I recommend the chartreuse highly,” said Dr. Jonas.

“Perfect.”

Dr. Jonas filled two liqueur glasses, set one on his desk and brought the other to the lamp table next to the plastic upholstered chair across from the desk. Paul settled in the plastic chair while Dr. Jonas filled his corncob from the walnut humidor on the desk.

“I suppose you know all about me, Mr. Radford,” Dr. Jonas

said suddenly.

Paul was taken aback. “Why, a little, of course-I always try to … to read up on someone .- . . before meeting them.”

“So do I.” He smiled. “I even read your book.”

“Oh, that-“

“You showed real promise. It’s a pity you haven’t written more. I presume you don’t, now. One writer in the family’s enough.”

Paul refused to meet the allusion to Dr. Chapman head-on. “We-all of us work together on Dr. Chapman’s books. I’m afraid that’s enough to keep me occupied.”

Dr. Jonas had the corncob smoldering. He lowered himself into the squeaking swivel chair. “You told your boss that he was also invited tonight?”

“Of course, but he couldn’t make it. We start the last sampling tomorrow morning. He’ll be up until midnight preparing.”

“So you have to do the dirty work alone?”

Paul scowled. He was about to retort that there was no dirty work, but he knew that once he made the proposal this would make him look foolish. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“I mean simply I can’t believe you came all the way out here-to a stranger-out of mere intellectual curiosity-to pass the time of evening. I may be wrong. If so, forgive me. But that’s what I mean.” Observing that Paul had taken his briar from his pocket, Dr. Jonas pushed the humidor toward him. ‘Try my mixture.”

Paul worked his way to the edge of the chair, lifted the lid of the humidor, and dipped his pipe into it.

“As a matter of fact,” said Dr. Jonas, “I’m glad Dr. Chapman didn’t come. I don’t think I’d like him. And I rather think I like you.”

Paul wanted to be loyal, yet was pleased with the offer of friendship. ‘You might be surprised. He’s intelligent, decent-“

“I’m sure. But there’s something else about him-I-no, forget it. What I want to say, better say, right off, is that many people who don’t know me find me abrupt and disagreeable. I’m not. Understand that. I’m only frank. I may not always be right, but I am frank. When I’m in this room-the hard-think room-with my intellectual equal, I have no patience for the amenities, the social word game. That’s deplorable waste. I like to get to essentials, get on with it, get the best from my opposite, and give my best, and learn and improve. That’s fun. If you will tolerate that, then we will get along. This could be a valuable evening for both of us.”

“Fair enough,” said Paul, sinking back in the chair.

“Need a match?”

“I have one.”

“Now, you know how I feel about Dr. Chapman’s highly publicized surveys. I don’t like them, for the most I don’t. You, I assume, believe in them fervently.”

“I certainly do.”

“Good. The lines are drawn.”

Paul recalled the emotions he had felt at Reardon, upon first reading Dr. Jonas’ reviews of the bachelor survey. He had thought them short-sighted and unfair. Had Dr. Chapman’s personal annoyance influenced him at the time? Dr. Chapman had loftily implied that Dr. Jonas was a gnat bothering an elephant. Of course, in all justice, Dr. Jonas’ dissents were handicapped by lack of publication space. Now, however, the old emotions filtered back. Our work is so simply right, Paul thought. Why can’t an intelligent man like that see it? Was he, as Dr. Chapman contended, crafty and ambitious?

“You know how I felt about the bachelor book,” continued Dr. Jonas, almost uncannily, as if he were reading Paul’s mind. “A few of my feelings were published. Well, I want you to know I feel even more set against the married female sampling-and the use Dr. Chapman will make of it.”

“But it’s still in preparation,” said Paul. “How can you be critical of something you haven’t read?”

Dr. Jonas’ corncob had gone out, and he busied himself lighting it again. When he had it smoking, he looked up at Paul. “There’s where you are wrong. I have read the female findings-most of them-enough of them. As you probably know, I’ve been retained by a certain group connected with the Zollman Foundation in Philadelphia to analyze the female survey-both surveys, in fact. Well, your Dr. Chapman is trying to win those people over; he’s been regularly sending them copies of your findings.” “It’s hard to believe. The work is still in progress.” “Nevertheless, the Zollman directors are abreast of it, and so am I. They’ve supplied me with photostats of what you’ve done.” He pointed off, “I have a couple hundred pages of your newest survey in the top drawer of that second cabinet. Everything, in crude form, up until two months ago. So I believe I am qualified to discuss with you your latest findings.”

Paul had been totally unprepared for this, had even unconsciously counted on Dr. Jonas’ lack of knowledge of their latest effort to support him, and now he was vaguely disturbed. Why had Dr. Chapman been so quick to rush their undigested efforts to critical outsiders? And why had Dr. Chapman kept this secret from him, leaving him now so vulnerable? Most probably, he supposed, Dr. Chapman had believed that Paul already knew that this must be done, that every calculated risk must be taken to sweep the day. Still, it was disquieting. Nevertheless, meeting Dr. Jonas’ direct gaze

now, he was determined that the unusual man behind the desk, piercing eyes, monstrous nose, foul corncob, be made to understand the basic worth of their crusade.

“Yes, I suppose you are qualified,” said Paul. “What beats me, Dr. Jonas-“

“Excuse me, but would it offend you to get on a first name basis? Otherwise, it’s as if the referee said, Mister Dempsey, this is Mister Tunney, who’s going to try to knock your head off.”

Paul laughed. “All right.”

“Not that I anticipate any real Donnybrook. This is my study, and the word here is gemiitlichkeit. If we’re going to belabor each other, let’s make it a friendly pummeling. I’m sorry I interrupted you, Paul. You were saying?”

“Okay, Victor.” Paul had been prepared to make a high-level defense, but now it seemed pompous, and he tried hastily to revise and slant what he had to say to the informality of the occasion. “I read a good deal of your writings on our bachelor report. I agreed with you, still do, about a lot of minor shortcomings. But it always 6eemed to me you missed the forest for the trees. Since the Mayflower, people in this country have been living in a dreary house behind a puritanical curtain. They’ve grown up in this cold, stark house built by John Calvin of Geneva, and the sign on the door, sternly printed by Jonathan Edwards, read, ‘No frolicking.’ The best parts of their lives have been lived in this dark, unlighted house, and it is unhealthy and unwholesome, and we’ve merely been trying to get rid of that curtain and let some light in.”

“How have you done that?”

“How? By gathering data-information on a little-known subject-and we’ve done this on a scale never before attempted. As Dr. Chapman says, we’re the fact-gatherers.”

“Not enough,” said Dr. Jonas placidly. “You add up your digits, and you spew them out, and you say that does good. I wonder. As someone said of another such reportI think it was Simpson in The Humanist-just looking up and counting stars never achieved the science of astronomy, and just collating what married women say on their sexual behavior won’t give us real insight into this behavior.”

“Well, I disagree with you,” said Paul warmly. “We’re making a giant first step. The very idea of removing sex from scrawlings on lavatory walls to frank, sensible, open discussion will do infinite good. I remember Dr. Robert Dickinson saying that the enemies of

sex freedom were conception, infection, detection. True. But we’ve controlled most of these. Still, we are left to fight one more enemy rarely challenged-ignorance-and ignorance thrives on silence.”

Dr. Jonas banged his corncob on the cork center of his circular metal ash tray. When the bowl was empty, he dipped it into the humidor again. “You are persuasive,” he said. “I grant you that the final enemy is ignorance. But I believe Dr. Chapman is fighting that enemy the wrong way. He has done much good, of course, but he has done a greater amount of mischief.” He ran a flaming match over the rim of the pipe and then blew the match out and dropped it into the tray. “Of course, you are dealing with married people in our society, and that makes research even more difficult. I suppose man was really meant to be polygamous, but then monogamy was imposed upon him-as were a hundred other unnatural customs and credos like turn-the-other-cheek, love-thy-neighbor, fair play, sportsmanship, and so forth. He is burdened with all sorts of pressures inconsistent with his real nature. But, by accepting this, he receives certain benefits, and so the pressures are the price for being civilized and advanced. Man sets his own rules, then tries to make them work, unnatural though they may often be. Sex is one form of behavior that suffers gravely.” “I don’t deny that.”

“Making sex work, under these repressive circumstances, is a delicate assignment. You think it can be done by simply counting noses?”

“I don’t think so and neither does Dr. Chapman. No, I’d say we’re going so far, as far as we can, and others will go further.”

“Yes, Paul, yes,” said Dr. Jonas. “But the problem, as I see it, is this-you know you are going so far and no further. You understand this, but your public doesn’t. The vast public has been propagandized to believe that whatever science says is so. They believe science is some mystical society, with a direct line to God, that cannot be quite understood but must be believed. Naturally, they accept Dr. Chapman’s reports as the Final Word on sexual behavior. They do not know that the data are raw and uncooked. They think the findings are ready for consumption, and Dr. Chapman does not tell them otherwise. So the readers read the reports and act accordingly. Misinformation is added to ignorance, and the result is harmful.”

“What makes you so positive we are disseminating misinformation?”

“Your methods. Do you want me to go into them?”

“Please do.”

Paul saw that the tobacco in his own pipe had been burned to white ash. He laid the pipe aside and sipped his chartreuse. He regretted his mission. He would like to have known Dr. Jonas under other circumstances. The conversation, not unfamiliar, might have been stimulating, but now, because of what he had been asked to do, it was little more than a waiting, a prelude to a bribe. Still, he told himself, the work was not only Dr. Chapman’s work but his own, his own more than Horace’s or Cass’s, and it must be protected.