That Wednesday morning started as an ordinary day. Lev had developed a routine. His internal clock woke him at half past seven. He was showered and dressed by eight. Around then the mail would arrive, and he would read this over a breakfast of cereal, coffee, a boiled egg, orange juice (Florida oranges, freshly squeezed) and marmalade on toast. By nine o'clock, he was on his way to the College, a two-mile walk along a broad, tree-lined suburban road. They announced their arrival through a letter with an unfamiliar look and a Washington Capitol postmark. With a vague sense of foreboding, he returned to the kitchen table and slit the envelope open with a breadknife. He read and re-read the contents. Then he stood up, abandoning his breakfast, and paced up and down the kitchen, his head whirling.
Dear Doctor Petrosian:
Your name has been raised in testimony before the Internal Security Subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. This testimony was taken in executive session and publication of it has been witheld pending your having an opportunity to give testimony. We have set Thursday, 4 June 1953 as the day when this may be released. Accordingly, we are asking you if you will appear at 9.30 a.m. on that day, in room 424-C, Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. In the event that you do not avail yourself of this opportunity, the evidence will be made public.
Sincerely yours,
Henry J. Alvarez
Chairman, Internal Security Subcommittee
Petrosian walked his standard route to the College on autopilot, scarcely aware of his surroundings. But instead of making his way to the mathematics building, he took a back path towards the Faculty of Arts and entered the corridors of the English Department. To his relief, Max Brogan was in his office.
Max Brogan was an untidy, overweight West Texan, with curly brown hair thinning on top and a double-chinned face which managed to be permanently cheerful no matter what the external circumstances. His chief claim to fame was his small, overweight wife who ran the Sweet and Tart, a culinary highspot in the little town. Today Brogan was wearing a pink, short-sleeved shirt and shorts. Pencils were sticking out of a pocket. On the face of it the friendship between Petrosian the thin aesthete, and Brogan the good-living, corpulent Falstaff, defied analysis; but a closer examination revealed a common factor: each man detected in the other, in his own way, a quiet but rock-solid individualism. The tides of fashion, whether intellectual or sartorial, ebbed and flowed in vain around these men.
Brogan was at his desk, or at least it had to be assumed there was a desk somewhere under the pyramid of books and papers in front of him. He looked up as Petrosian entered; his normally cheerful expression had a serious edge to it. 'I heard.'
Petrosian collapsed into a black leather chair. 'Anyone else?'
'Neymeier in French Literature, Sam Lewis in Liberal Studies, but what the hell it's only nine o'clock and there are bound to be plenty more. Maybe even me.'
'Why you, Max? You're as American as turkey on Thanksgiving.'
Max raised his hands. 'Maybe some writer on the reading lists I give my students, maybe I went to a party with the wrong people ten years ago. Who knows with these frigging morons?'
An old, old sensation was gradually creeping over Petrosian, a sensation he thought he had left behind twenty years ago in Germany, and fifteen years before that in Baku. It was the feeling of being a target, of being hunted by some ill-defined, implacable, malevolent force. He felt the fear in the dryness of his mouth as he spoke. 'What will I do, Max?'
'Squeal on your friends. It's a ritual. You confess and give them names, they confer absolution and move on.'
Petrosian said, 'But I've done nothing wrong.'
'I envy you, Lev. You're a single man. A man with a wife and three kids who's done nothing wrong, now that's a whole new ballpark.' Brogan shifted uneasily. Lev waited while his friend plucked up courage. Then the Texan was saying, 'Look, these guys scare me. They only need to name you and you're destroyed. Once you're on their blacklist you'll never work again.'
Petrosian repeated, 'But I've done nothing wrong.'
'But can you prove it?'
'I'm not even a communist.'
'You do your own thinking, right? You're a liberal? Maybe even a New Dealer? That's all they need, pal. They have an agenda, which is to put the American political landscape somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.'
'Max, I've done nothing wrong.'
Max was all patience. 'You still don't get it, Lev. That's not a defence.'
Petrosian shook his head in bewilderment, and Max tried again. 'Look, Mary has a cousin, an accountant with MGM Studios. The tales he told us would make your hair stand on end. You know these people reduced the studio czars to milksops? They denounced some wartime movie as Red propaganda because it showed the Soviets fighting Nazis. Another one got the treatment because it showed Russian kids being happy. You said something, or you did something. Yesterday, or twenty years ago. Or somebody thinks you did.'
'My instinct tells me to fight these swine.'
'We got an old saying hereabouts, Lev. Those who wrestle with pigs are bound to get dirty.'
Petrosian stood up. 'Okay, Max. But I'm an old Nazi-fighter and I'll tell you this. Those who are led by pigs end up in their slimy mire.'
Back at his office, a message was on Petrosian's desk, propped up on books so that it could not be missed:
Please contact me immediately.
B. Lutyens.
Petrosian crossed the campus lawns towards the Faculty offices, his stomach churning. Janice was typing briskly on a Remington.
'The boss is expecting me.'
Normally he would have expected a smile, or a joke. But today she nodded without looking up or pausing. Lev knocked on Lutyens's door.
The Head of Faculty, Boothby W. Lutyens, was a burly, white-haired and florid-faced man. Of limited talent, his rise in the College hierarchy had a lot to do with an astute nose for office politics, coupled with an uncanny ability to say the right things at the right time. The fact that he came from a rich Southern family which had generously endowed the University was, of course, neither here nor there.
Lutyens was pouring coffee from a machine in the corner of the room. He was wearing a crumpled white suit, the trousers supported by brilliant yellow braces. He was looking grim and Lev sensed that he already knew something. He didn't offer Lev a coffee. He crossed to his desk and put his feet up. Lev remained standing, and without a word passed over the letter. Lutyens glanced at it and tossed it back. 'I have a copy.'
'What's going on?'
'What it says, Petrosian. You have questions to answer.' Lutyens's tone was cold.
'That's not telling me much.'
'It's all you'll get from me.'
'Who are these people?' Lev asked. The hostility was baffling.
Lutyens stared at Lev over half-moon spectacles. 'Don't you read newspapers, son? It may have escaped your attention, but there's a war on. And while the Commies are in Korea spilling the blood of our boys, others right here in their own country are stabbing 'foresaid boys in the back. Infiltrating our institutions, undermining our values, getting at the minds of our young people. I imagine HUAC's questions will have something to do with your own associations in this regard. If I'd known you were a Commie I'd never have hired you.'
'What associations?'
'The American Association for Democratic Information and Freedom, a front organization if ever there was one. You evidently forgot to inform this College about your membership of that society when we offered you the post.'