Silas Timberman

by Howard Fast

  “Look, Mrs. Timberman, everything’s all right and we’re going in for the hearing now. However, you got to raise bail. I thought we’d get a bond on him, but we can’t, and you got to raise the bail yourself, and Silas will have to sit until you raise it.”

  “How much?” Myra wanted to know.

  “They haven’t set it yet, but my guess is a maximum of five thousand dollars—maybe less, if we’re lucky. It has to be cash or certified check or government bonds, the coupon bonds. How much do you think you can lay hands on right away?”

  “We have about two thousand in the savings bank, but I can’t get that until tomorrow. We have a little more than that in government bonds, but they’re not coupon bonds. I can sell them, though—that will also have to wait until tomorrow. What should I do?”

  “I’ll tell you what to do—leave your own money alone. If this complaint isn’t dismissed, we’ll have to go to trial, and your two thousand dollars won’t look like twenty cents, believe me. Let it take until tomorrow, but raise the money. Borrow it. Bail is a loan. You’re not asking for money, you’re asking for a loan, and when we lick this case, the money is returned—”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll call you back as soon as bail is set. Goodby, now.”

  He felt he was late, and he swung into a clumsy waddle that was half a run, panting as he arrived at the Commissioner’s office. The Commissioner and his clerk and the government attorney, Silas and Sweeny—all were there.

  “My apologies,” MacAllister gasped, and the Commissioner said caustically, “Well, get to it. I don’t intend to spend the night here. I want to go home and have dinner.” The clerk read the indictment and turned to Silas,

  “How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty,” Silas said.

  The Commissioner, a pink-cheeked man whose white hair was cut in a Yale brush, and who still gave evidence of the strength and health of his youth, stared at Silas curiously.

  * * *

  The government attorney, an intense young man in his early thirties, intense and consciously forceful with each word he spoke, was beginning to bore the Commissioner, who interrupted him to say.

  “Come on with it, Mr. Harris. This isn’t a trial.”

  “I understand that, Commissioner. I also understand something of the tradition implicit in our practice of bail, and the meaning of Anglo-Saxon tenets regarding bail. However, as I have pointed out in some detail, this is not an ordinary moment in history. I do not think, sir, that I am necessarily shaking tradition when I suggest the denial of any bail to people accused of disloyalty, people who have done their best to impede this nation in its task of a just war against a merciless and godless aggressor, people who believe in overthrow of the government by force and violence—”

  “Objection to that!” MacAllister snorted. “For heaven’s sake, Commissioner, what do we have here? Who is he trying to impress? This man wasn’t indicted for attempting to overthrow the government by force and violence, nor was he indicted for impeding the nation’s war effort!”

  “I’ll accept that, MacAllister. Look here, Mr. Harris—what are you getting at? Do you want me to deny bail for this man?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I have given the reasons as the government sees them.”

  “That’s not the way the indictment reads,” Johnson said. “The indictment mentions two counts of perjury under Title 18, Section 1621—and that’s all. What this man thinks and what his personal politics is are of no interest to me here.”

  “I would hardly think, sir, that the security of the nation could be of no interest to you.”

  “If you want to bring in an indictment on questions of national security, by all means, bring it in, Mr. Harris. I have to stick to what I have here. I shall have to ask you to suggest a figure for bail. I see no reason to deny bail.”

  “Very well,” Harris nodded, accepting the rebuke graciously, “the government asks fifteen thousand dollars bail.”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars? You don’t consider that excessive?”

  “The government does not.”

  “What’s your point of view, MacAllister?”

  MacAllister rose slowly this time, and it seemed to Silas that there was some subtle difference in his attitude, some small break, some change in the way he held himself. Freddie Johnson might not be the worst in the world, but he said Mr. Harris and he didn’t bother with Mr. MacAllister, and his objectiveness concerning the indictment did not include anything that could really offend Mr. Harris, who was so intense and sure of himself. What would happen to Mr. Johnson, who was as specialized in his profession of a commissioner politically appointed, as Silas was as a pedagog—if he did offend Mr. Harris? Silas wondered—and wondered about other things too, and listened to MacAllister say.

  “I don’t know, Commissioner. I mean, I’m taken aback. My client is a scholar, a married man who lives with his wife, the father of three children, and the owner of a home in Clemington. He is also a veteran of the armed forces of the United States. Except for the interruption of the war, he can claim an unbroken period of more than a decade on the university faculty. His record in the service was impeccable, and he received an honorable discharge. This is the sort of man who does not jump bail, who does not avoid arrest, and who does not avoid the consequences of whatever actions he takes. He pleads not guilty to the charge, and if there was ever a question where the guilt of a man must be proven beyond dispute, it is on a perjury count. I must admit that I am astounded and wholly taken aback by Mr. Harris’ demands. I see no justification for the inordinately high bail demanded by the government. I also have some record in the practice of law in this community and some reputation too. Therefore, I am going to ask you, sir, to remand him in my custody.”

  Johnson shook his head with obvious irritation. “That won’t do, MacAllister. You’re doing the same thing as Mr. Harris did. Name a figure, please.”

  “Very well. I’ll ask that you set a thousand dollars bail. This isn’t unusual in perjury cases.”

  “But you will admit that this is not a usual case, won’t you?”

  “A far from usual case,” Mr. Harris put in.

  “I can’t accept that. A man is accused of lying under oath, and he denies it. Why is that unusual?”

  It went on and on, and Silas found that his interest, so strong at first, began to wander. He found his eyes closing. He began to listen again. When the sum of five thousand dollars was finally decided upon by the Commissioner, he found himself less relieved than amazed. Where could he or Myra get five thousand dollars?

  * * *

  Myra didn’t know where she could get it, but she knew that she would get it—beg it, borrow it, steal it, plead for it, get it somehow from somewhere. She had to get it. You remain married to a man for a long, long time, and you never think that a price will be put on him—here he is, and do you want him or not, and how much is he worth to you? Bail had been just a word; like Silas, she had lived all the years of her life surrounded by words that had no meaning in her existence, but were like little triggers to excite her and amuse her when she read them in books—bail, arrest, jail, poverty, sentence, guilt, innocence, perjury, one count, two counts, three counts—go to the movies or turn on the television, big prison break, and the mutinous convicts defy warden—da, da, da, Brian would go; that was a machine gun; bop—bop—that was a pistol. “The meaning of bail,” she had explained to Geraldine, because she had to explain, “is a sort of insurance against a man running away—escaping, I suppose.” “Daddy?” “Well, yes, daddy. You see they arrested him. They charge him with doing something he never did. That’s why we need the bail—to get him back.” “You mean if we pay them five thousand dollars, they’ll let him go?” “No, no, darling. I wish it was as simple as that. The bail is just money we pay to guarantee that he’ll be here when they want him.” “Don’t they know Silas will be here? This is wh
ere we live.” “No, they don’t know; they’re not like us, darling.” “Are they bad?” “The things they do are bad—and I suppose if they do them enough, they’ll become bad too.” “But if we went to them—suppose you and me and Susie went to them, and we could tell them about Silas—and they’d know he doesn’t lie.” How do you answer it? Geraldine and Susan and Brian would not grow up as she did; words would not be titilating names to them.

  At first, she reacted foolishly, without thinking or planning. Silas had given her a small diamond engagement ring when they first planned to be married, and she had heard that diamonds had increased greatly in value since then. MacAllister had told her not to touch the money they had, but he didn’t mention things like the diamond, and she got into the car and drove madly into Clemington to reach the one pawnbroker in town before he closed. He lent her one hundred and seventy dollars on the ring—and to some degree, returned her to reality. At home, she telephoned Alec Brady and asked him to come right over, and then she put in a long distance call to her mother.

  Myra had never allowed an actual break to occur with her father and mother; whatever they did, she told herself that it was only what they could do, and that they knew nothing else, and she recognized how consistently she had disappointed them according to their own lights. Her original marriage to a penniless college instructor was disappointing enough; the fact that now, with three children, she continued to work as a school teacher and do her own housework in the bargain, confirmed their original gloom. They felt that Silas had betrayed her in terms of the only kind of betrayal they really understood—a betrayal of dollars and cents; and within the context of this, narrow though it was, they felt that Silas had taken her from them and poisoned her mind against all they believed in. Perhaps the fact that she never asked anything from them prevented the break from becoming concrete. Christmas and Easter, they would invite Myra and Silas and the children to spend a week with them—and then shower the children with gifts and make the week agony for Myra, a web of contradictions in which she would flounder helplessly, hating them and pitying them at the same time.

  For this Christmas, Myra had decided to remain in Clemington, and she had written to her mother and explained that Brian was sick, so they would have to miss their visit. The answering letter mentioned that the local papers had carried an account of Brian’s sickness, accused Myra of putting her son’s life in jeopardy to further the communist tendencies she obviously shared with her husband, and ended with the hope that her children would not suffer forever the sins of the parents.

  Myra did not answer the letter. Even then, she proposed no complete break with her parents; and if she had, Silas would have explained, as he had so often before, that they were the result of something, not primarily the cause of it; but she actually knew of no way in which to answer the letter. She had read a story of a woman in California whose child had been taken away from her because she had been accused of communist sympathies—and even the implication in her mother’s letter that she was not a fit parent for her children filled her with nameless terror.

  But all of this receded now; when all was said and done, her mother and father were still her mother and father, and it was only her own foolish pride that could keep her from turning to them. And when she heard her mother’s voice on the phone this evening, she couldn’t help feeling a rush of warmth and comfort and reassurance. Her mother sounded surprised and pleased, and apologized for not calling to find out how Brian was.

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Myra told her. “We were worried about him, but now he’s all right.”

  “It’s so long since I’ve seen the children,” her mother said.

  “I know. It’s a shame. It seems we’re only in touch with each other when there’s some trouble.”

  “Well, that’s what mothers are for—trouble, you know.”

  “I suppose so. Look, mother, this is going to be something of a shock, but I might as well put it to you bluntly. That’s the best way, I think. Silas has been arrested—the result of this seriate hearing. He’s been arrested, and he’s in jail right now, and we have to have bail to get him out. We have to. That’s why I’m turning to you. We are going to need five thousand dollars bail, and I’m asking you to lend it to me.”

  The silence was more than Myra had anticipated it would be, once she had blurted out the essence of the facts. She herself was cold and removed. Her mother was on another planet. She counted to ten, slowly, precisely—and then when she was speculating on the possibility of a broken connection, her mother said.

  “This is a very poor joke, Myra.”

  “It isn’t a joke. Silas is in jail and we need five thousand dollars tonight.”

  “But why? What for?”

  “For bail, mother! Don’t you understand?”

  “Myra, don’t shout at me. I’m upset enough. I’ve not been well, and this is just the final straw. Why did they put him in jail?”

  “Because they say he lied to the senators—perjury, it’s called.”

  “Did he lie?”

  “No, he did not. Please—mother, I can’t go on trying to explain all this on the telephone. I need the money. Will you lend it to me?”

  “I should think you would want to explain it, on the telephone or not. I think it needs explaining. I was never one to interfere, but you cannot be married to a communist—”

  “Mother, Silas is not a communist. I’m also upset. Can’t we argue about this when I see you? I must have the money.”

  “But I can’t just answer yes or no. Five thousand dollars is a great deal of money.”

  “It’s just a loan, mother. I’ve never asked you and dad for anything since I married Silas—”

  “But you should have. You know we’ve never refused you anything.”

  “I know that. And will you give me this money?”

  “But Myra, darling, I don’t have the money. It’s up to your father, and you know how he feels about Silas.”

  “But this is for me and the children—”

  “The thing is, Myra, that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. You can’t tell me that people are arrested because someone has a whim to do it. This is a very serious matter. It will be in the papers, won’t it?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “I don’t see how you can be so unfeeling as to say such a thing. How can you say what difference does it make? You don’t know what we’ve suffered since that Mark Twain business and then the hearing in Washington—and people asking your father what his dues in the Communist Party are? Of course, they were joshing him, but it hurt his business. There are people we just don’t see anymore, believe it or not, and I don’t know where it will end. And now this. How can you ask father to throw five thousand dollars away on a man who’s been arrested as a criminal?”

  “Silas is not a criminal, and the money will be returned. For God’s sake, mother, will you lend it to me?”

  “I don’t think that’s any tone to take, Myra.”

  “I’m sorry. But can’t you answer me? We must have that money.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I don’t see how I can ask father for it, Myra. If I had it myself, I’d gladly give it to you, but I know exactly what your father’s going to say. Especially when he sees it in the papers. Maybe in a week or two, when this has simmered down a little, he would feel differently. But right now, Myra—”

  “In other words, you’re trying to tell me that you won’t give it to me.”

  “That’s very unfeeling of you, Myra. I’ve just explained that I can’t give it to you. If you’ll only be patient—”

  When Myra put down the telephone, Geraldine was standing there, and asked her, “Was that grandma, Mommy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” Geraldine said, and no more. Myra asked her to go up and sit with Brian. Myra was going to cry, and she wanted to do it alone with a door closed behind her, but when she had sat down in Silas’ study, all desire to weep left her, and for
a while she sat without doing anything, just looking at his books and thinking. Her anger went away. Anger, she had discovered, used you up. It was to no purpose.

  She went upstairs to where Brian was in bed for the night—he had been walking around the house for the first time that day—and interrupted the story Geraldine was reading him to kiss him and say goodnight; thinking how wonderful Gerry and Susie had been about all this, and wondering how she could have functioned at all without them. She went into her bedroom, sat down at the dressing table, and looked at her face. A woman looks at her face in a variety of ways; Myra looked at her face as she would at that of a stranger, as she hadn’t looked at herself for weeks, with curiosity and some annoyance. Myra was one of those fortunate women who had early in life accepted the fact that she was comely and who had never labored under a burden of doubts about how the world looked at her; and therefore, the lines around her mouth, the hollows in her cheeks and under her eyes, and the abundance of gray roots in her hair, came as more of a shock than she might have expected. She tried to be indifferent and failed—and tried to remember when she had last had her hair done. She combed it out, powdered her face, rouged her lips, and went downstairs to answer the tinkling chimes that Silas had always hated so.

  Ike Amsterdam and Alec Brady were there, grinning and chatting the moment they walked in, Amsterdam making the ancient quip about the prisoner who claimed that they couldn’t do it to him, and Brady wasting no time in turning over to Myra twenty-two hundred dollars in cash and bonds which they had already collected. He spread it on the dining room table, identifying each part of it. “A five hundred dollar bond from each of us, Ike and me. Our only apology for the small amount is that this should be spread around. I can get up another five hundred in cash, if I have to. The third five hundred dollar bond is from Henry Miller, in the Physics Department—I don’t know whether you know him. He was on leave for six months to Los Alamos, and this is conscience money. Two hundred dollars from Moe Henderson and a hundred from Joel Seever—more conscience money. Three hundred from Federman and a hundred from the staff of Fulcrum—what do you think of that? Larry Kaplin and his wife will be over later with whatever they can lay hands on or pick up. Spencer will get to the bank in the morning. Lennox and Al Morse are covering the student body with a committee, and they expect to have a thousand dollars before midnight. Even if Silas has to bed down there for the night, we’ll have him back in the morning. Do you feel better?”