Revelation

'Doctor Lutyens, Americans have been forming societies for mutual purposes since America began. The process is part of democracy. The reason I belong is this: I was a student in Germany in the thirties. I saw what cowards academics are. They talk a lot of bullshit about freedom but as soon as a threat like this comes along they head for the hills. It seems to me the only safe organization to join these days is the Methodist Church.'

Lutyens puckered his lips, forming the skin above them into tight, vertical, disapproving wrinkles. 'Watch your tone, Petrosian.'

'It strikes me that for a man to freely hold and express his beliefs is the American way. Do you have a problem with that?'

Lutyens said, 'There's a point beyond which academic freedom should not be pushed, Petrosian. We're very dependent on federal funding these days. Meaning we are vulnerable to government definitions of loyalty and politically appropriate attitudes.'

'I envy you, sir. I wish I had your moral flexibility.'

Lutyens thumped his coffee furiously down on the table. He stood up angrily, open-mouthed. Lev said, 'Can you at least tell me what testimony the loyalty board are talking about?'

Lutyens glared angrily. 'You got difficulty with your hearing? I told you, I have no more information to give. Now get out.'

Janice didn't look up as Petrosian left.

* * *

Over the next few days, subtle changes took place in Lev's professional and social life. The first time a colleague crossed the street, out of greeting distance, Lev put the apparent slight down to his own over-sensitive imagination. The second time it happened, with another colleague, he was not so sure. The third time, it was becoming clear: to be seen with Lev Petrosian was bad news. He met no overt hostility in the common room; it was just that his colleagues were polite and distant. They tended to exclude him from conversation. He was assuredly excluded from the jokes, and more than one outburst of ribald laughter, it seemed, was directed his way. In the classroom, his sophomores stared out the window more, rattled desks more, paid less attention than usual. It might just be, he thought, that the course was getting tough; but the usual banter and repartee which he shared with his students was gone, to be replaced by a sullen and hostile silence.

There was, however, nothing subtle about the unsigned note which Lev found at his feet when he opened his office door one hot, sticky afternoon. The ribbon on the typewriter was worn, and the typist was clearly unskilled. In upper-case letters, it read

JEWS, NIGGERS, COMMIES, YOU'RE ALL THE SAME.

HITLER DIDN'T FINISH THE JOB.

WE WILL.

Petrosian found Max Brogan again in a quiet corner of the campus, seated in the shade. About fifty yards away some girls were trying out Hula-Hoops, pausing from time to time to collapse in giggles on the parched grass.

'You're looking pale,' Brogan said as Lev flopped onto the bench.

Petrosian passed over the message. Brogan's lips tensed angrily as he read it.

'What does it signify, Max?'

'Semper in excretum, solo profundis variat.'

'And boy, am I up to my neck in it.'

A lithe girl in tight white sweater and shorts was gyrating her hips and Max paused momentarily. 'Lev, you need representation. I know a liberal-minded lawyer. Maybe you can plead the Fifth or something.'

Petrosian shook his head. 'I don't need a lawyer. I've done nothing wrong. And I'm not even a Communist.'

Max Brogan laughed sardonically. 'Well, that helps. You know what they say.'

'No. What do they say?'

'You don't lynch the wrong nigger, that's not the American way.'

'Don't knock your country, Max. I lived under the Nazis.'

Brogan shrugged. 'You're doomed anyway. The Board of Regents are scared shitless. I hear whispers they're aiming to buy off McCarran with a loyalty oath. That ought to shake a few professors out of their torpor. Lev, are you going to co-operate with HUAC?'

'I guess so.'

Max grinned bleakly. 'Of course you are. You're a baseball-loving, gum-chewing, God-fearing, loyal American. And you have one thing more going for you.'

'What's that, Max?'

'You're white. God help you hereabouts if you'd been born Theodore Sambo Roosevelt.'

14 Inquisition

'Hello FBI, Atlanta, this is Lewis Klein of Domestic Intelligence, Washington. Would you connect me to Don Dilati?' A pause, then: 'Don? Lewis Klein here… Fine, thanks, and yourself? … It's about this guy Petrosian… your very own commie, yeah. The HUAC hearings… there's been a change of plan. The guy's college is holding an internal enquiry to root out Reds and HUAC want him shunted onto it on account of they're overloaded up here. Anyway, it's being held locally and I was wondering if we might liaise with you guys down in darkest Arkansas. We have very bad vibes about this Petrosian. We see him as more than just a parlour pink. We suspect he passed information on to Russia when he worked on the atom bomb… Sorry, the source is restricted. We have permission from the man upstairs to plant the usual devices and we have a trash can recovery order… What do you mean, law and order Arkansas style, we can match you people any day… 'Kay, I'll come down with my team and see if we can't stick one on him this time. I mean get something to burn him. I'm deadly serious, that was the word, "burn" as in high voltage… Sure, same to you. Good hunting.'

* * *

A local junior grade high school had been turned over to the hearings. Petrosian, feeling terribly alone, turned into the main gate and made his way to the entrance, where a black security man was sitting at an uncomfortably small school desk. The man examined Lev's letter, checked his name against a list, and waved him to the left with a sympathetic grunt. In Petrosian's lonely world, a sympathetic grunt was like a mother's hug.

A bare corridor was lined with people, mostly men, smoking, and the air was blue with cigarette smoke. Eyes, some curious, some hostile, followed his route. Black cables snaked from a window into a noisy classroom. A card tacked on the door had 'HUAC INTERVIEW ROOM' written on it in blue crayon, and another blue-collared security guard looked at Lev's letter and led him by the elbow into the room. There was a buzz of conversation as he entered. Some flashbulbs popped. Two movie cameras sat on tripods at the back of the room. The guard ushered him to a seat at the front of the classroom and then went to another one to one side of the door. Two microphones faced Lev on the desk and he thought they were unnecessary for such a small room. He found himself facing a raised dais, on which was a long desk with carafes of water, tumblers, papers and a wooden gavel. Three black, high-backed chairs were at the desk. Each had a small card in front of it: 'Mr Andrew Dodds, Board of Regents, Greers Ferry College', 'Congressman Olaf B. Yates, Arkansas', 'Senator Henry Alvarez, HUAC, Washington'. On the wall was a blackboard which had been wiped clean, an American flag hanging limply, and next to it another door. Lev assumed that his inquisitors would enter through this second door, which probably adjoined another classroom. Hot, sticky air was circulating from an open window. The morning sun streamed across a stenographer next to the door. She had white, pulled-back hair and was sitting straight-backed in a corner, staring ahead, like a machine waiting to be started.

A couple of minutes passed. The heat was stifling and Lev's mind began to wander. He was wondering about the gavel, whether they'd transported it from Washington or borrowed it from the local courthouse, or bought it from a gavel shop, when the door near the blackboard opened and three men walked in.

They were all in their forties. Lev knew Andrew Dodds, the College representative, by sight. He was small, near-bald, with a weak, receding chin and small eyes which peered out from behind round, steel-rimmed spectacles. Petrosian thought he bore a startling resemblance to Himmler, could hardly separate the two in his mind.