Revelation

It was expected, but still Petrosian felt his skin going clammy. 'No.'

'Nevertheless in 1946, you joined the American Committee for Democratic and Intellectual Freedom.'

'Yes.'

'Are you aware that this is a known communist front organization for the defence of communist teachers? That it has been declared un-American and subversive by this very House Committee on Un-American Activities?'

'So I heard. I didn't know that when I joined.'

Alvarez referred to a sheet of paper in front of him. 'On June 30th of 1946 you attended a party at the home of Max and Gill Brogan, who are alleged members of the Communist Party'

'I don't remember.' Petrosian wiped sweat from his brow.

'Present at that party was Martha Haines. Are you acquainted with her?'

'Yes.' The question puzzled Petrosian. She was the local public librarian, a plump, motherly woman. He saw her every fortnight over the library counter.

'Are you aware that Miss Haines is a member of the Daughters of Bilitis?'

'The who?'

'A lesbian organization, sir. You also attended meetings at the house of Paul and Hannah Chapman, who are known to be functionaries of the Communist Party. Paul Chapman was recently dismissed from employment with General Electric as a security risk. I don't suppose you remember those meetings either.'

'I have a lot of friends from my Los Alamos days. I neither know nor care about their affiliations.'

'Yes, let's go back to those Los Alamos days, Doctor.'

A vague feeling of dread began to suffuse through Petrosian's body. 'Let me say it again. I have a lot of friends from my Los Alamos days. I neither know nor care about their affiliations.'

'One acquaintance in particular.'

Kitty! They want me to squeal on Kitty. The bastards! Petrosian wondered if they had noticed the anger which gripped his body.

Alvarez was pretending to read a name. 'A Miss Catherine Cronin. You knew this woman?'

Get the tone right. Don't get hostile, play it cool. 'Kitty Cronin. Yes, we were friends.'

'You were friends.' Alvarez was almost gloating. 'And what was the nature of this friendship?'

Picnics in the woods. Skiing. Glorious days on mountain trails. Barbecues. Movies. Soft, hot flesh and tousled hair on pillows, and passion, and fun. And none of your fucking business. 'We were good friends.'

'How good?'

Show the bastard up. Force him to ask the intimate stuff. Make him look like the prying goat he is. 'We were close.'

Alvarez, however, seemed to sense a trap. He changed tack. 'Did you and she not meet on every occasion when you took time off from your wartime work on the Los Alamos mesa?'

'We did, which wasn't often.'

'On January 14th 1943, did you and Kitty Cronin not conduct a meeting in her house near Santa Fe? And was Klaus Fuchs, the atom spy, not also present at that meeting?'

'I don't recall. Yes I do.' Petrosian steepled his fingers in thought. 'There was a bunch of us. Dick Feynman, Klaus, someone else I can't remember. We all took off in Dick's car. It wasn't a meeting of course, that's just your way of making it sound purposeful and sinister. We just took off for the day to have a picnic and a good time. As I recall we went into Santa Fe first. Dick had arranged to pick up some girl.'

'Did you not stay overnight with Miss Cronin after the others had left?'

'The question is outrageous. A gentleman doesn't ask, nor does he tell.'

Their eyes locked. Alvarez twitched, wondering whether to make an issue of Lev's defiance. Then: 'Did you not, in the course of that evening, pass over a document to Miss Cronin?'

'No.'

It was a lie.

And Alvarez knew it.

The faces on the bench were now displaying a range of expressions from grim to angry. Petrosian felt the hostility like a physical, crushing pressure.

'Were you, at Los Alamos, a close friend of a Doctor David Bohm?'

Petrosian nodded. 'It was a small, intense, closed community. Everyone knew everyone else.'

'Let it be put on the record that Petrosian admitted to friendship with David Bohm. Are you aware that Oppenheimer has described him as an extremely dangerous man?'

'No, but it doesn't surprise me. David is full of dangerous ideas. That's not the same as disloyalty.'

The dirt farmer again: 'Let me get this right, Mister Paytrojan from Russia. Yo're admitting you hob-nob with commies and front organizations, but still you claim you ain't red.'

'Correct.'

'Not even pink?'

Someone near the back of the room laughed.

Alvarez with a twitch: 'Doctor, I'd like to explore this curious claim of yours a little further, if I may. You are aware that the Communist Party in this country is a channel for espionage?'

'No, sir.'

The senator sighed. 'I remind you, sir, that you're under oath.'

Lev shrugged. 'I'm aware of common perceptions in this area. I have no hard evidence to support them.'

Mr Arkansas was leaning over his microphone. His voice was dripping scorn. 'I ain't been to Australia. Are you saying I shouldn't believe it exists because I ain't seen it with my own eyes? Maybe you think Australia is hearsay or sumthin?' There was some tittering from the audience, and the congressman grinned again, openly basking in his wit. Petrosian sat quietly, blinking through his spectacles.

Alvarez threw a brief, irritated glance at his Arkansas colleague. 'Doctor, the American Communist Party has been designated by the Attorney General as a subversive organization which seeks to overthrow the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means, within the purview of Executive Orders 9835 and 10450. Given time, we could find any number of highly authoritative sources, from former communists to professors of history, who will confirm that communism has emerged as a world power with the stated goal of dominating all mankind. In the light of all this, Doctor, are you happy with the statement you have just made?'

Petrosian shook his head stubbornly. 'I don't belong to the American Communist Party and never have. I have no direct knowledge of their activities. I hear the accusations but for all I know they're the product of paranoia or mass hysteria. Or plain stupidity: there's plenty of that around.'

'Don't be absurd.' Dodds was adopting a use-your-common-sense tone. In Petrosian's mind, the identification with Himmler was becoming complete. 'Everyone knows that the Party uses conspiracy, infiltration and intrigue, deceit and duplicity and falsehood. It has infiltrated our universities, our culture and even our State Department.'

Petrosian sat quietly.

'Answer the question,' Dodds-Himmler said sharply, his eyes hard behind his steel-rimmed glasses.

'I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that as a question.'

'Were you a Communist Party member in Germany, before you fled to this country?'

'No.'

Another lie.

Petrosian wondered in near-panic what they knew, whether they had noticed his tiny hesitation. But how to explain to these morons that he had joined first for the love of a girl, and then to oppose thugs, and never out of any conviction about new world orders or similar nonsense?

Dodds-Himmler picked up a sheet of paper and handed it down to the stenographer, who seemed to be doubling as a clerk. Lev became aware of a tremendous tension in his jaw muscles. He tried to relax them, but his body wasn't obeying his brain. 'I'm now going to show you a copy of an entry held in FBI files. Mister Chairman, this is an extract from Gestapo files brought to the States in 1945, and indexed in 1948. I request that this extract be put in the record.'