The Lacuna
Page 98

“‘The mad march of Red fascism in America. Teaching our youth a way of life that will destroy the sanctity of the home and respect for authority. Communism is not a political party but an evil and malignant way of life’—these are his words. A disease condition. A quarantine is necessary to keep it from infecting the nation.”
“I read that. But newspapers exaggerate. I couldn’t quite believe he said all that.”
“You have a point. Maybe he did not. And yet in this case it happens that he did. I acquired a transcript of this testimony because it pertains to certain of my clients.”
“Why did he say it? I mean, what are his rational motives?”
“Rational motives are not the scope of this discussion. He is an excitable man. He heads a powerful agency. The newspapers love this kind of thing, as you say. It’s a moment of history, my friend. You wonder why you’ve received this letter. I am attempting to draw you a picture.”
“Is that really his signature?”
“No. They have a machine. I read Frank Sinatra has one also, for autographs. Maybe you need one. Okay, do you know anything at all about this Dies Committee?”
“I’ve heard of it. Years ago they contacted my boss to come and testify. This was in Mexico. The State Department arranged visas for us, but it never happened.”
“Your Mexican boss had something to say about un-American activities?”
“He wasn’t Mexican, he was in exile there, under threat of death from Stalin. So he had a lot to say about the man. This was before the war, when the U.S. was getting very friendly with Stalin. Trotsky felt the U.S. was being hoodwinked. They needed to know he was treacherous.”
“Trotsky.”
“Lev Trotsky. He was my boss.”
The cigarette ash fell to the floor. For a moment the lawyer himself seemed poised to follow it. He straightened, shook his head slowly, and reached for the letter on the desk. “I am going to give you a piece of advice. Don’t mention that you once were employed by the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.”
“I was a cook. And this was Trotsky. He hated Stalin even more than J. Edgar Hoover does. He spent his whole life trying to overthrow the Soviet politburo. The American Communist Party vilified him.”
“Let me just say, these subtleties are lost on your secretary’s Woman’s Club, and they are lost on the Dies Committee. Most of them don’t know what communism is, could not pick it out of a lineup. They only know what anticommunism is. The two are practically unrelated.”
“You’re telling me anticommunism is unrelated to communism. That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense to you. You’re a man of words, so you think we’re speaking here of tuna fish and disliking tuna fish, but we are not. We’re talking tuna fish and the Spanish influenza.” He reached into the papers on his desk and drew out a pair of spectacles. “All former places of residence and former employers,” he read. “Schools and colleges attended, organizations in which you have been a member.”
“What should I write?”
“Tell them exactly what they already know. Mexico, they probably know very little. Military service record they know. What was your tour?”
“Civilian service. That’s how this came up. I helped move federal property for the Department of State during the war.”
“Civilian service, so you were 4F?”
“Something like that.”
He waited. The intensity of the man’s gaze is extraordinary.
“Blue slip,” I said.
“Okay. Disqualified from service on account of sexual indifference to the female of the species. This one I could never figure.”
“They offered to put me in a psychiatric hospital, to get me sorted out. But then suddenly my particular talents were needed elsewhere, moving art treasures out of Washington. Both coasts were under attack, so it looked very urgent.”
“This was when, ’42?”
“The end of summer, right after the Japanese deployed their floatplane bomber from that sub they sent up the Columbia River. It looked like a good time for the country to get our goods under cover.”
“You’re putting me on. If it weren’t for Tojo attacking Fort Stevens…”
“That’s right. I might be up at Highlands Hospital with Zelda Fitzgerald. Instead, I’m living down the street from there in a house I bought with Uncle Sam’s paycheck.”
“Shazam,” said Artie. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“Believe me, I know this. Better than most.”
“Well, for better or worse, all this they already know about you. What else? What employment history do they have in your file at the State Department?”
“I’m not sure. I think my name must have come to them through a gallery in New York where I delivered paintings from Mexico. Or the school where I taught Spanish.”
“Okay, mention those. And anything you recall listing in your employment records at those establishments. Church membership, this kind of thing, to pad out the résumé. Though you are not a joiner, you’ve said. So give them primary schools in Mexico, the one in D.C. The name of the painter who sent you to New York.”
“Will they really go and talk to instructors at the Potomac Academy?”
“So what, they’ll find out you were a schoolboy. I don’t want to worry you excessively, but schoolboy shenanigans are not now your biggest concern.”
September 3
Today Bull’s Eye departed, and all this he took with him: schoolboy shenanigans, promises broken, dormitories and secret assignations. An invisible boy made manifest, seen for once by another’s eyes, if only for a short while. A city of memories has gone up in fire and gas, and there can be no remorse.
Mrs. Brown wouldn’t tolerate having the notebook burned in the fireplace. But in the end she did the job herself, outside in the barrel where she burns scrap papers. “Potomac Academy 1933” has left the world.
She was opposed at first. “You need your notebooks,” she kept insisting. Without the notes she fears I’ll make a mess of things, like Tristram Shandy. She still refuses to believe the memoir will not be written. I met her gaze, and leveled.
“Look, Mrs. Brown. You’re a practical person. And you know me. So don’t ask for impossible things. I’m working on a different book now.”