The Pledge (23 page)

“Do you want to give us a sidebar? We'll print it.”

“Thanks. That's very decent of you.”

“Bruce,” Buttonfield said, “we've had your application for reinstatement under consideration — I might say favorable consideration. This sets us back.”

“I was sure it would.”

“I can understand your bitterness. These are strange times.”

“You can say that again.”

Buttonfield led Bruce to the city room, where a young reporter named Calahan interviewed him for the sidebar. In his mind's eye, he read the proposed piece with embarrassment: Mr. Bacon denies that he has ever been a member of the Communist Party, and so forth and so on. Guilt was underlined by the denial. He finished the interview and left the building, resisted an impulse to have a drink with the injunction to himself that he was not going to lay whatever had happened or was going to happen on a bar for solace. To hell with that. He was not a singular, misunderstood martyr; he was a part of something dark and ugly that was happening in America, and a great many other people were also a part of it.

The telephone was ringing when he entered his apartment, and when he picked it up, Molly's voice asked where he had been and did he know? Her voice was so full of concern that he could almost feel her reaching out to comfort him.

“I'm all right. Yes, I heard.”

“I wrote the story for the paper. At least one place will print the truth about what happened.”

“I'll see you at dinner,” Bruce said.

“Do you know,” he said to Molly when he saw her later, “this afternoon, I just sat in my apartment and looked at the wall and did absolutely nothing. I didn't read. I didn't turn on the TV. I just looked at the wall. Jesus God, Molly, they're reducing me.”

“No — those bastards can't reduce you. They're not fit to wipe your shoes.”

“Unfortunately, they're not in that line of work. But look at it. No newspaper will hire me. What do I do? I've written a book, a very large book, and that's the hardest thing I ever did in my life, and I gave it to Bronson over three weeks ago, and I haven't heard word one, and I haven't got the guts to call him.”

“Bruce, don't worry. That's a massive tome you wrote, and it takes time. No publisher accepts a book on one reading. But you've written a wonderful book, a beautiful book — I think the best book on this war that I've read. But let's talk about what has happened.”

There was a great deal to talk about in terms of what had happened. What would be the next step? Would they indict him and put him on trial? And what was the punishment if he went on trial and was found guilty?

“The contempt of Congress is only a misdemeanor, and they can't give you more than a year in prison for that. On the other hand, if they decide to go after you for perjury — no, we shouldn't be talking about that. You have to have a lawyer.”

“Trouble is, I can't afford a lawyer.”

“Of course you can. What you can't afford is Frank Britain.”

The next day, Frank Britain called and told Bruce that a serious talk was required and as soon as possible. His father had already conveyed word that his mother was deeply worried. Thus he had both his parents and Frank Britain on the same day. Britain was the easier of the two.

“I have the transcript of your hearing,” he told Bruce, handing him a printed leaflet, “an extra one for you. I wish I had gone with you.”

“I don't think it would have made much difference,” Bruce said. “I wouldn't have stepped out of the room until they threw me out.”

“Perhaps. Now, Bruce, as you know, I am a Republican and a conservative. I don't understand what's going on today, and I don't think I approve of it. You have given me your word that these allegations are untrue, and I accept it. But it would appear to me that the manner in which these members of the committee are proceeding indicates that they intend to indict you. I think you have very good grounds for defense — primarily in the field of the lawful work of a congressional committee. Such committees are constituted to gather information that will help in the writing of new legislation. They have broad powers, but for a defined purpose. However, these are strange times. You realize that?”

“I do indeed.”

“And you must realize that we are corporate attorneys. We don't deal with criminal law, and I'm afraid we lack the facilities to do so.”

Bruce smiled. “And yet you had enough congressional committee business to print a pamphlet?”

“These are hearings, Bruce, not trials. As a favor to your father, I have given you legal advice, for which the firm is not charging you.”

“For which I am grateful.”

“And you must understand that our services are very expensive. There are very few if any legal firms in this city who charge more for their services than we do.”

“I have been told,” Bruce said deliberately, “that if I have distinguished counsel, I am a foot ahead in this thing. Your firm is probably the only opportunity I have to enlist distinguished counsel. You indicated during our previous conversation that you would be willing to take on the case — or so I understood.”

“I think you understand incorrectly,” Britain said, offering his own smile this time.

“If it's a question of money, I can borrow the money from my father.”

“It's not simply a question of money, Bruce.”

“Then why don't you come out and say that, having read this transcript and knowing what I am accused of, you no longer can see your way toward representing me, that there's dirt in the water now and you don't want to put your hands in it?”

“If you are trying to say that we will not represent a person accused of communism, I must reject your statement. On the other hand, Bruce, we have only your witness that these assertions have no truth to them.”

Bruce rose and said, “I don't want to press this point. You have been very kind. Thank you.” With which he turned and walked out.

The evening with his mother and father was more painful, since he arrived at his parents' apartment while his father was still in surgery at the hospital. He had been asked to come at seven for dinner at eight, but when he got to the door of the apartment, he found that it had been left open a crack so that he would not have to ring, and inside he was greeted by the maid, who told him in a whisper, “Mrs. Bacon is lying down with a sick headache. She said to call her when you come, but since Dr. Bacon is held up at the hospital, I thought I might let her rest a while longer.”

“Very good thinking,” Bruce said. “Suppose we let her rest another half hour or so.”

In the living room, Bruce found the
Tribune
with the story of his citation for contempt. He blessed makeup for putting it on page six, with a straightforward headline that did not name him:
TRIBUNE REPORTER CITED FOR CONTEMPT.
His sidebar was almost as large. But if his mother had not seen this, why was she in her room with a sick headache?

He learned later that Calahan, the young man who had interviewed him for the sidebar, had called and spoken to his mother; but for the moment the important thing was that she knew and Bruce had to face her. He rose as she came into the living room a few minutes after he had arrived, and she took him to her bosom. “My poor, poor darling.”

“Mother, sit down, please,” leading her to the couch.

“No, I can't sit on the couch,” she said forlornly. “At my age, Bruce dear, one wants a hard chair.”

He took that as a good sign. True grief would not be so selective where chairs were concerned. She was worried, but not too worried, and she must have discussed it at some length with his father. The maid came in with a folded napkin, which Elizabeth Bacon pressed to her forehead for a moment or two and then put on an ashtray.

“What will happen, Bruce? What awful thing will happen now?”

“Nothing terribly awful, Mother.”

“You treat everything that way. You wrote all those cute little letters during the war, as if I didn't know what dreadful things went on over there in Europe. Can't you take anything seriously?”

“It's not that serious, Mother.”

“Bruce, don't you understand?” The tone reached back twenty years. “They're saying you're a communist. That's such a dreadful thing to say about anyone, and they're saying it about you.”

“Mother, I'm no more a communist than you are. You know that. And all the worrying you did during the war was to no end, and here you are worrying again. It's not good for you. You know that.”

“You keep saying I know this and that. I don't, Bruce. Will they send you to prison?”

“I don't see why. I haven't done anything criminal.”

“Bruce,” she said, turning her glance away from him, “I know this will upset you, but I must ask you. That girl you brought here, the one with the red hair that you're so fond of —”

“You mean Molly Maguire, Mother.”

“Yes, the Irish girl. I never asked you what she did, I was so sure you'd get over that infatuation. But I have a feeling she's involved in this?”

“No, Mother,”

“Are you still seeing her?”

“Yes. She's a fine person. When you know her a little, you'll realize that.”

“Doesn't she work for a radical newspaper of some kind?”

“Yes.” He smiled and went to his mother and kissed her. Prejudices that in another person might have made him furious were meaningless where his mother was concerned, even when she said dolefully that they had never had a Catholic in the family before. “And I know you want to marry her,” she added. “You do want to, don't you?”

“At times, Mother.”

“I knew it.”

Dr. Bacon came in at that point, and all through dinner he and Bruce steered the conversation away from his session with the Un-American Committee. But after dinner, in his father's consulting room, lighting the cigar he smoked when offered to him, he agreed that there was a possible jail sentence in sight.

“What are your chances?”

“I don't know,” Bruce said. “It's very strange, a sort of Alice in Wonderland thing. They seem to be spreading their net for anything they can catch.”

“And Britain, that bastard — he threw you out.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear things,” the doctor said, watching the smoke of his cigar. “Fifty million people died in the worst war in history, and our own inheritance is prosperity, intolerance, and corruption. I operated with Dr. Goldstein today, and when we were washing up, he offered me this sad little joke. Nineteen fifty, and Cohen meets Levy in Berlin. What happened to Stein? Cohen asks Levy, and Levy says, He never got out of America. Horrible little joke, but it says something.”

“I'm afraid it does,” Bruce agreed.

“As for Britain, well, there are other lawyers. We're not rich, Bruce, but we're not poor, and the money is there when you need it”

“I know. But I think this business of distinguished counsel is out. I don't want it. I'll find a competent lawyer who fits into my budget.”

“Just remember that I'm here. I spoke to Berman, the hospital manager. He's a lawyer and smart, and he says he can't see how they can convict you. To him, it's an open-and-shut case.”

But it was nothing of the kind to the lawyer Molly brought him to. Sylvia Kline had graduated from law school with honors two years before, and since then had been a public defender in New York. A month earlier, she had opened her own office at Eighteenth Street and Sixth Avenue and became licensed to practice in Washington, as well. Molly had gotten to know her during her time as a public defender. “She's smart and decent and on the side of the angels,” Molly told Bruce. “She's not a communist, which is all to the good, and from what you tell me of your Comrade Britain, she's got it over him in spades.”

Sylvia Kline's place was small, a tiny waiting room, a receptionist-stenographer-secretary behind a desk, a room with books and a table, and a very small office. She was a thin, birdlike woman with a delicious smile, a tousled head of brown hair, bright blue eyes, and apparently bursting with energy.

“I am so proud to be able to help you — if you want me to,” she said to Bruce. “I lived through the war with you — with you and Ernie Pyle; but you did more. You made me hate it more. Now, we'll talk about price first, before we talk about your case. Price is put away in a drawer by high-class lawyers, but I am not a high-class lawyer. Now, even if they don't move for an indictment — and I pray they don't — we'll need some hours of discussion and consultation, because we must be prepared, and for this my charge will be three hundred dollars. If we go to trial, the trial will be held in Washington, since that's the Federal district where the misdemeanor took place, and I must stress that we will, if possible, refer to this as a misdemeanor and not as a crime. It is being used viciously and with malice, but it still remains on the level of a speeding ticket or smoking in the subway. However, the punishment can amount to a year in prison, and that is not to be dismissed lightly. Now, as to the trial — if we go to trial — my charge will be five hundred dollars a day during the trial term, plus expenses. Since I can hardly anticipate circumstances where the trial will last more than five days, your overall charge should be no more than twenty-five hundred dollars and in all probability less. Can you afford that?”

“No problem there.”

“Very good. Suppose we have our first session next week. There's no hurry. Even if they should move immediately for indictment, the calendar down there is tight, and they probably would not set a trial date sooner than two or three months, and I can have it postponed at least a month or two more. I feel that the country can't get much crazier, and maybe a few months from now, we'll begin to come to our senses. Don't you think so, Molly?”