Silas Timberman (11 page)

“A cigarette?”

Kaplin gave him one, lit it for him, and watched him smoke for a moment. “Reading, Silas?” he asked gently.

“Damn it! Have you read this?”

“Silas, I don't think there's anyone at the university who hasn't read it by now.
Fulcrum
is sold out, and the issue of Monday, October 30th, will unquestionably become a collector's item.”

“But what on earth does it mean?”

“You know what it means, Silas. It means that if you give youngsters a free hand in publishing and editing a paper, they're going to pull a whopper every so often. This is it.”

“But how the devil did they know—?”

“Everyone knew, Silas. I knew. Selma knew. You know how that kind of thing gets around.”

“But these aren't just youngsters—they're capable journalists. I know Morse—” He thought of him then, a small, sandy-haired, thin-faced man of twenty-five, a war veteran, sharp, alert, bitter. He had taken four classes with Silas—too bitter, perhaps, in school on the GI Bill of Rights and saturated with a love for literature and contempt for word-mongering. How did he work and write alongside of Hoffenstein?

“Who is Hoffenstein?” he asked Kaplin. “I don't think I know him.”

“I don't know him too well either. I had him in one class, I believe. About twenty-two, clever—shrewd might be a better word for it. Big, handsome, dark fellow. Father was a German publisher, I think, and fled Hitler in 'thirty-three—a liberal or social-democrat of sorts, or whatever they called them over there. That was the father. He must have fled well-padded, because now he owns a large printing plant in Cleveland and seems to have a lot of money. I know about him because he printed an edition of
Canterbury Tales
for which I did the preface, and I had lunch with him when he was down here. That's the father. I don't know much about the son, except that he's very effective in a dirty sort of way. That last paragraph of his is the foulest thing of its kind that I ever had the displeasure of reading in
Fulcrum
.”

“But why? Why?” Silas demanded. “I don't know the boy. What could have prompted him? What was he after? In all conscience, how could he say that? You don't move up to a man and slander him willfully, thoughtlessly, just as an exercise in journalism.”

“Morse was no kinder to Lundfest.”

“But he didn't accuse him of communism?”

“Is that what bothers you so much, Silas?”

“Jesus God, Lawrence, we live in this world! Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a communist! And now to have this tag pinned on to me—I don't understand!”

“Why not, Silas? It's a common tag these days. Music is being played, and we have to learn to dance to the melody. We don't know how yet, you and I, but we have to learn.”

“Learn what? Is there some secret code here that I'm too stupid to understand? Or do you think I'm a communist, too, Larry?”

“No, I don't think you're a communist,” Kaplin replied, a little wearily. “Neither does Hoffenstein accuse you of being one, if you'll just read that through more carefully. Also, why do you protest so much? Suppose he had called you a Jew? There are Jews who are Jews, and they manage to live with it. And I suppose that there are communists who are communists and somehow manage to live with it. Maybe they comb their hair over their horns.”

“That isn't what I meant at all.”

“What did you mean? Suppose he said you took dope, or drank too much. You'd laugh it off, wouldn't you? You wouldn't preach to me about how much you abhor drunks.”

“But this is different.”

“I know. This is fear. I'm afraid too. But what are we afraid of? Have you tried to figure that out? What are we afraid of, Silas, that someone just breathes the word
communism
, and suddenly we lose all signs and habits of civilization and culture and intelligence and turn into terror-stricken primitives? Is it because we're afraid of losing our jobs? But we wouldn't act so irrationally and blindly if our doctors told us we had cancer and only a little while to live? It's something deeper—”

“But the long and short of it is that I'm not a communist,” Silas insisted.

“Aren't you? Silas, the truth is that I don't think you know any more than I do about communism, and that's very little. But we both know something else. We know what happens to people who are called communist. That's the folklore of our time, isn't it? A Jew knows. He can cover up his nostrils with a gold-plated quilt, but still the stink of burning flesh comes through. Do you remember Pat Simmons? He taught Modern French Literature back in '35 and '36, when you first came onto the faculty, and then he left to enlist in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and went to fight for the Republic of Spain, until the Franco people took him and pulled out his fingernails and gouged out his eyeballs and cut off his genitals—enough for two columns in the
New York Times
. We remember that kind of thing, and Pat Simmons wasn't a communist either, but the memory is strung up and down our nerve fibres, and we know all about the
Gestapo
and what they did to communists, and that's also lodged somewhere in our brain, next door to the home of fear, and so we hate communism and we abhor it, but what good does it do?”

Staring at the other man miserably, groping for something, seeking for something to latch onto, Silas protested, “Yet when it came to civil defense—”

“I know. I'm no hero, and in four more years I'll be sixty, and all my life I've been afraid of physical violence, and if I lose this job I'll never work anywhere again, but I try not to lie to myself. That's a small virtue and a smaller salve to my conscience, but it's some use—”

“And what do I do?” Silas asked.

“Frankly, I don't know. I would think you do nothing at all, and ride it out. But I don't know. Have you seen Lundfest yet?”

“No. Have you?”

“I caught a glimpse of him marching into Cabot's office.”

“I imagine he'll be upset.”

“I imagine so,” Kaplin smiled.

* * *

The speculation was valid, as Silas learned only a short while later; Kaplin had left him alone in the office, and he was gathering up his papers for his next class when Lundfest entered, and it was a relief to Silas to discover that he himself was not terribly disturbed. He had been doing a good deal of thinking during the past few minutes, not philosophically, but in the sense of putting many small things at hand together and getting some sort of a pattern out of it. He understood quite well that the first part of courage was knowing and admitting that you were afraid; and once that was accomplished in the present crisis, he felt that he was able to live with the situation for the time being. As had been the case with Myra, he was coming to the conclusion that the seeming inevitability of events, the interworking of cause and effect, was a part of his own nature as well as the result of objective circumstances, Even when something like this
Fulcrum
incident occurred, apparently apart from him and out of his control, it did not leave him without alternatives and various escape hatches. He was no puppet dangling on another's strings, nor was there any given moment when he was denied the exercise of his own free will—and a sense of humor helped him toward this realization. In part, yet not wholly, he was prepared to admit that Kaplin was right concerning his horror at the charge of communism—to the extent that he never mentioned it in his short but bitter conversation with Lundfest.

Lundfest made no attempt to conceal either his anger or the direction it took. Throwing a crumpled copy of
Fulcrum
on the desk, he informed Silas that he was held responsible for it.

“That's a hell of a note,” Silas said softly.

“Is it? In the first place, what Morse writes is a lie—and I intend to see that he pays for it! I never threatened you with reprisals if you did not change your syllabus! There were no implications whatsoever! And the only occasion where the matter arose was that evening at your house—between the two of us—in a private conversation! What have you got to say to that?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing! Is that you're attitude?”

“Damn it, Ed—what should my attitude be? Suppose you tell me. I read those editorials only a little while ago, and I know no more about it than what I read. I was not consulted—any more than I imagine you were. If I had been, I would have fought like hell for that stuff not to be printed.”

“I don't believe you!”

“In other words, you're calling me a liar?”

“I want to know how Morse discovered the substance of a private conversation between you and me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“My guess is that you told him.”

Silas took a deep breath and said softly, “Look, Ed. I don't want to say anything that I'll be sorry for later. You said something to me the other night. Not just a casual remark, but something of grave importance to my career. You imposed no pledge of silence upon me. You did not even ask for confidence. You simply said it. Of course, I talked about it. I discussed it with Myra—and with other people as well. Why not?”

“What other people?”

“What?”

“I said, what other people?”

“You can't be serious. You don't expect me to name everyone I repeated the conversation to—and then who they might have repeated it to.”

“I do,” Lundfest said.

“Well, I won't. This is my responsibility, and I have no intentions of naming any names.”

“I thought so,” Lundfest said, and turned on his heel and walked out.

* * *

At home, rereading
Fulcrum
, Myra found that both her alarm and her anger had vanished, to be replaced by considerable amusement. And wondering at this reaction in herself, she came to the conclusion that the whole affair was so ludicrous, so childish that it merited amusement more than anything else. A few years ago, even the thought of such buffoonery would have been impossible, and a public argument as to whether or not Mark Twain was laboring in the cause of communism would have been laughed out of any sane school in the country; and while levels of sanity might have changed, the substance of both editorials, Myra thought, was recognizably ridiculous. She had a sense of the furor that might be raised on campus over it, but actually did not expect it to go much further. When Joan Lundfest called, half hysterical, Myra managed to calm her; and then, for the next hour, until the girls came home for their noontime break and lunch, the phone rang intermittently—and Myra's amusement dissipated.

Fulcrum
called to arrange an appointment with Professor Timberman. Dr. Cabot's office called. Ike Amsterdam and Hartman Spencer each called. The
Associated Press
called from Indianapolis to say that the gist of the affair was already on the wire, and could they send a man over to see Professor Timberman that evening. The campus student correspondents of
The New York Times, The New York Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune
, and
The St. Louis Post Dispatch
each called and each explained that they had to interview Professor Timberman that afternoon or evening, and two of them wondered whether he was going to issue a denial. Whereupon, Myra's amusement vanished, and that ominous phrase,
the case of Silas Timberman
, came into her thoughts as she realized that this would not die a-borning or wash out in indulgent laughter. It was even more worrisome to note that apparently no one on campus had any doubts concerning the identity of the two persons involved.

Then Joan Lundfest called again, and demanded, “But how could Silas do it? How could he?”

“Do what?”

“Violate a confidence. Make Ed the laughing stock of the campus.”

“Silas doesn't violate confidences,” Myra said patiently. “This is a God-awful mess, Joan, and I think we just have to wait until it clears up a little. But don't worry so.”

“How can I not worry with the phone ringing constantly?”

Myra calmed her and got rid of her, and gave her attention to Brian who demanded food. Then Susan and Geraldine stormed into the house, dropped their books, and told their mother about
Fulcrum
.

“How on earth did you know?”

“Everyone knows,” Geraldine answered calmly.

“What does it mean?” Susan wanted to know.

“As far as I am concerned,” Myra said uninterestedly, “it's a tempest in a teapot and means absolutely nothing of any importance. Two thoughtless young men have seen fit to write some very thoughtless things in
Fulcrum
. I have no intention of allowing it to disrupt the function of this household. Suppose both of you wash your hands and sit down at the table.”

“She is right,” Brian agreed.

“You shut up, you little stinker,” Susan said, and Geraldine asked casually.

“Is it true daddy's a communist?”

“What?”

“I told you,” said Susan.

“Where did you get that?”

“We were having an argument about it,” Geraldine replied. “It says in
Fulcrum
Samuel B. Clemens is a communist and he's Mark Twain, and I know that Silas is writing a book about him. Ruth Hildegard says that's the same as Silas being a communist, and I gave her whatfor—”

“What is a communist?” Susan interrupted.

“Just sit down and eat your lunch and stop talking,” Myra said determinedly. “Just sit down and eat.”

* * *

With his last lecture that day, Silas made the situation plain and told his students flatly, “When we finish here, I want no questions or comments concerning
Fulcrum
. None. I will not discuss it, and as far as I am concerned it has neither validity nor importance. I am saying this to avoid any embarrassment on your part or mine—and to avoid any unpleasantness. I trust you will honor my wishes.”