Silas Timberman (36 page)

“What was said there made a deep impression upon me, because I considered it important and alarming then, and still do. I made no effort to remember the date.”

“The week? Can you remember the week?”

“I don't know.”

“The month? Surely you can remember the month?”

“I believe it was during the early part of March—yes, the first week in March.”

MacAllister turned back to the table, referred to his notes, and whispered a few words to Silas.

“Was there nothing unusual about the Timberman household at the time?”

“Only what I've testified to.”

“Suppose I told you that there was severe illness in Professor Timberman's family all through the first two weeks of March. Does that refresh your memory?”

“It could have been later in March. I told you I was uncertain of the date.”

“But you are certain of those present. I believe you named Professors Amsterdam, Kaplin and Federman, as well as yourself and the Timbermans?”

“That is right.”

“Yet I have here in my hand a hospital receipt which shows that Professor Federman was hospitalized during the entire period from February 12th, 1947 to April 6th, 1947. Would you examine it, Mr. Allen?”

He looked at the receipt, which was then entered as evidence. He shrugged his shoulders. “That was almost four years ago. I was used to seeing Professor Federman at meetings with Professor Timberman. In this case, I could have been mistaken.”

“Yet you are not mistaken at what transpired during this alleged meeting?”

“No, I am not.”

“You testified that this meeting was held under the guise of a bridge game, did you not?”

“I did.”

“Mr. Allen, are Professor and Mrs. Timberman bridge players?”

“Yes, they are.”

MacAllister turned back to the table and came forward with another document, which he handed to the judge, saying, “Would you read this, Your Honor, and pass on its permissibility as evidence?” Mr. Ward joined them, and decided that he would like to read it, too. It was an article from
Fulcrum
on the avocations of faculty members, and it was rather pointed in its amazement at the fact that Professor Timberman had never learned to play bridge. “Which surely makes Professor Timberman unusual if not alone in this area,” it said. The judge read it and passed it to Mr. Ward, who also read it. “I don't see that this bit of gossip has any meaning whatsoever,” Mr. Ward said. “It is gossip, pure and simple.” “It has this meaning. It is proof that Professor Timberman does not play bridge. It would certainly throw doubt on the credibility of your witness.” “That's just it, Mr. MacAllister,” the judge said kindly. “Credibility is not something we play fast and loose with. Mr. Timberman may or may not play bridge. Certainly that fact cannot be determined from this notice in a college paper. Mr. Timberman could have inserted it with a purpose.” “But it was printed two years ago,” MacAllister protested, and the judge said, just as gently, “Come, come, Mr. MacAllister—you are aware of the simple rules in testimony. At best, this is in the nature of an affidavit—and an extremely shaky one.” “A newspaper story is not an affidavit, Your Honor. I must insist on that.” His whispers were hoarse and strained against the judge's gentle confidence. “But you know, Mr. MacAllister, how simple it would be to establish the fact. All you have to do is have a witness present, a close friend or a member of the family, who will testify that Mr. Timberman does not play bridge.” “Your Honor, do you realize what it costs to bring a witness from Clemington to Washington?” “I think I realize such elementary facts as those,” coldly.

The whispered argument at the bench went on, but Silas could already see that it was lost. The lost cause did not even proceed with dignity. MacAllister returned to his cross-examination, but Bob Allen had leaped the biggest hurdle, and he was serene and sometimes amused at this pink-cheeked little man who was trying so hard to find him in the trap of falsehood. At one point, where the word “informer” rolled off MacAllister's lips again, Allen answered earnestly.

“You have called me that name several times, Mr. MacAllister. I don't find it pleasant—but if simple service to my country means that I must endure it, why I will, and eagerly.”

Again, Silas felt that the jury was on the point of cheering, and from the audience behind him, from those strange, rootless spectators who wander in and out of Washington courtrooms, there came a whisper of approval, which the judge quickly and severely stilled. Just as reprovingly, the judge told Bob Allen,

“You must only answer the questions addressed to you.”

The cross-examination finished just before adjournment, and the government's case was completed.

* * *

Silas and MacAllister took a taxicab to the airport to meet Reverend Elbert Masterson and Alec Brady, whose plane was due in at six o'clock—and on the way out there, Silas asked MacAllister whether it might not be to their benefit to have Myra come to Washington to testify on the bridge question. MacAllister didn't think so. “How likely are they to believe Myra? A wife isn't the best witness in the world, Silas, and I think two witnesses from Clemington are about all we can afford or hope to gain from. Can Brady testify to that?” Silas didn't know. He couldn't remember ever having discussed bridge with Brady.

In any case, it was good to see them, and Masterson shook Silas' hand warmly. When Silas tried to thank him, he protested that his weakness was a lack of travel, and that this was a wonderful opportunity. A man ought to be in Washington not less than once in five years, if only to look at the Lincoln Memorial and walk along the bank of the Potomac; and in turn, Brady said that gratitude ought to wait until the result of his testimony could be assessed. “I was very happy you asked me to do this, Silas,” Brady said. “Believe me.” It was Master-son's first plane flight, and he had enjoyed it immensely, and all the way in they had argued theology, the origin of the Church, and the place of the Essenes in the first congregation, the latter subject one upon which Brady was exceptionally well informed. “It is a canard that one does not discuss religion,” Masterson said. “Religion, like other things that serve any human need, thrives on discussion, and I haven't had a theological tussle like this in years.”

During dinner, MacAllister and Silas painted a picture of the trial, giving Brady and Masterson as complete a background as they could, MacAllister concluding.

“So there it is, and not very good. We have a jury of government employees, neck deep in this cesspool of loyalty orders and petty terror. We have a judge who is maddening in his polite destruction of every avenue of inquiry that might help us—a son-of-a-bitch, begging your pardon, Reverend, if I'm any judge—and who is waiting to crack down and let the iron fist be felt through his velvet glove. I think it's only fair that you know this, Alec, and so does Silas. We are agreed that you can't win this case for us, although you might just give us a fighting chance. Do you want to go through with it?”

“Of course I do,” Brady smiled.

“I imagine you have thought it through completely?”

“As much as one can think such a thing through.”

“How does your wife feel about it?”

“Much as I do, although she doesn't share all my views. She feels there is nothing else I can do.”

Silas apologized to Reverend Masterson. “Do you know what we are discussing?”

“Professor Brady informed me of it on the plane. I expressed my admiration for him.”

MacAllister felt good. “I would feel still better with a drink,” he said to Silas. “But I feel better than I have since this damn thing started. Don't you, Silas?”

“I feel very good,” Silas said, looking at Brady. It was quite true. He felt full of something that would never go away.

* * *

The next morning, after MacAllister's argument that the government had made no case and that the indictment should be dismissed, Silas took the stand, opening his own defense, and his testimony was short, direct, and completely to the facts. All of MacAllister's questions were pointed toward a simple refutation of the government's two witnesses from Clemington, his feeling being that in such a way, he made the best use of his client's obvious and open sincerity.

“Are you a member of the Communist Party, Professor Timberman?”

“No, I am not.”

“Have” you ever been?”

“I have never been a member of the Communist Party.”

As simply as that, and yet Silas wondered whether it had any meaning for those twelve strange, silent, expressionless men and women in the jury box. There was a time when he would not—could not—have believed that he could so testify in the presence of twelve Americans without summoning some part of their belief.

“Professor Timberman, you heard Mr. Allen testify to a certain meeting at your house in 1947—at which plans were discussed to take over the administration of Clemington University. Did such a meeting ever take place?”

“No, it did not.”

“You also heard Mr. Allen testify that this meeting was held under the guise of an evening of bridge. Did you ever invite Mr. Allen to your house for an evening of bridge?”

“I did not.”

“Did you ever invite anyone to your house for an evening of bridge?”

“I did not.”

“Do you play bridge?”

“I do not.”

“Do you know how to play bridge?”

“No, I do not.”

“Does your wife play bridge?”

“She has not played since the end of the war.”

But the moment MacAllister veered from this direct examination, he met the wall of Ward's objections. When he tried to ask Silas whether his card habits were commonly known among the faculty, the objections turned him from it as hearsay. When he tried to go beyond the direct facts of Silas' war record and service, to his feelings about the Second World War and the Korean War, the objections turned him away from it with the argument that it was extraneous. Silas, watching him fight his way through the objections and the judge's gentle support of the objections, like a man floundering in quicksand, felt his heart go out to him, felt like crying out to him, “Enough, God damn them!” But MacAllister was patient—enormously patient.

“As your lawyer, Professor Timberman, advising you in preparation for the Senate Committee hearing, I suggested that you should refrain from answering the two questions which are the subject of this indictment—is this not so?”

Ward objected to this again. “I am afraid I must allow this, Mr. Ward,” the judge explained. “It pertains directly to the matter of the perjury. On what do you base your objection?” “Hearsay and framing the answer for the witness.” “Hearsay,” the judge repeated. “No, I'm afraid this is in the direct experience of the witness. But re-phrase your question, Mr. MacAllister.” Then MacAllister, with his first victory in so long, asked Silas what his advice had been, and Silas replied that he had been advised not to answer questions of this type.

“Then why did you answer them, Professor Timberman?”

“Because I had to—as the beginning of a new process of learning to live with myself! And because the asking of them by Senator Brannigan was a challenge to all I have lived by!”

Ward was on his feet, objecting, and once again the argument of the lawyers raged. The judge was annoyed now, and he regarded Silas curiously and without pleasure. Again questions and again objections. The judge sustained Mr. Ward; his tone was petulant as he asked Mr. MacAllister to proceed.

“Professor Lundfest testified that you spoke at a meeting on campus. Did you have anything to do with the preparation of this meeting?”

“I did not.”

“What was the purpose of the meeting?”

Even this could not pass without an objection. Silas looked at the jury. They appeared to be bored with the proceedings at this point; their attention wandered. One of them gazed dreamily at the ceiling. A lady cleaned her nails delicately. A man darted sly glances at a little magazine in his lap. An old man dozed intermittently. Others seemed to be annoyed at the request that they follow this intricate and tedious by-play of objection and counter-objection.

Try as he might to put his thoughts into a hopeful and defiant framework, Silas did not succeed. The questioning went on, and he answered; but there was little confidence in his answers. He was almost relieved when MacAllister said,

“Your witness, Mr. Ward.”

Mr. Ward did not even rise. He smiled fleetingly, waved a hand, and casually answered, “No questions, Mr. MacAllister.” It was completely disdainful and Mr. Ward's first masterful stroke in the entire trial. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed Silas Timberman and his testimony.

Judge Calent smiled slightly in appreciation, and adjourned court for fifteen minutes.

* * *

MacAllister asked for Professor Alec Brady to take the stand, and as Brady walked forward, the jury quickened a little and showed awakened interest. He was an impressive figure of a man, his long, balding head strangely intriguing, his skeptical, rather cynical expression promising them more than average entertainment. He had an air of authority that could not help but impress, and the jury, bored before, settled back to be entertained. He took the oath, and answered the formal introductory questions pleasantly and casually.

“How long have you known the defendant, Professor Timberman?” MacAllister wanted to know.

“As a faculty member—that is, casually—since 1938, when I joined the staff at Clemington University. My social acquaintance with him, as a friend at first, and then as a very close friend of Professor Timberman and his family, began after the war, early in 1946.”

“And you have taught at Clemington University since 1938?”