The Last Supper: And Other Stories Read online

  He maintained that feeling as he passed into the sumptuous waiting room of Henderson, Hoke, Baily and Cohen, and he greeted the girl at the reception desk with a smile as gentle as it was pure. And when Jack Henderson came bustling out, Crane greeted him with the same benign smile.

  “Well, thank God you don’t seem as worried as you sounded this morning,” Henderson said. Henderson was a stout, broad-shouldered man, with a fine thatch of prematurely white hair, and given to wearing gray tweeds and dark bow-ties. He had that thing as necessary to a successful attorney as a bedside manner is to a successful physician, an air of self-possession and calm assurance which never deserted him. Just looking at him reassured a client; but such was Crane’s mood that he even felt superior to a need for reassurance, and was a little amused at what Henderson’s reaction would be when he discovered that he, Crane, had already worked out the problem.

  Henderson led Crane into his private office, a commodious and well-furnished room, the windows of which overlooked the mouth of the Hudson River and the Bay. Then he asked Crane to let him see the subpoena, which he read carefully while Crane made himself comfortable in the leather chair facing Henderson’s desk.

  “I guess you’ve given some thought to this, Harvey,” the lawyer said finally. “I’m glad you’re less worried. I don’t say this isn’t a serious business, but I would call it more of a serious nuisance.”

  “I was nervous for a while,” Crane admitted. “Then I got to thinking. Had lunch with a friend of mine, and we discussed it rather thoroughly.” He told Henderson the substance of the discussion at lunch. “And the fact is,” he finished, “that I think I’m man enough to confess that what I wrote in those years was wrong—yes, even subversive, the way we look at things today. I’m man enough to say that I’m sorry for what I wrote then—sorry and ready to disown it. In other words, I’ve found the humility that a creative artist must find at a certain point in his career, or stagnate. Humility. I’m not afraid of the word, Jack.”

  “Harvey.”

  “Yes?”

  The lawyer shook his head and said, “Harvey,” again.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Oh, hell, I believe you. Of course, I believe you. Only—Oh, Christ, Harvey, the truth of the matter is that they don’t give a damn what you’ve written. They don’t read books. They don’t go to the theatre. This is a lot simpler and a lot more complicated. Yes, it’s the sins of your youth, but not the way you think. The fact is that someone has tipped them off to your past—either that you were a member of the Communist Party at one time or you associated with people who were, or maybe they think you still are. What this subpoena says is, come down to Washington and be, prepared to talk or we’ll ruin you. That’s all it says, Harvey, no more, no less.”

  “You mean, they think I’m a member of the party?” Crane said slowly. “That’s fantastic.”

  “I think it’s fantastic, yes.”

  “But how can you be so certain——”

  “Because our firm has handled half a dozen of these cases. They run to form. We also are not without our own lines to Washington.”

  “Then can’t you fix it?” Crane demanded, his state of beatification beginning to dissolve. “If you have lines to Washington, can’t you put a fix in? God damn it, Jack, I pay you a retainer of five thousand dollars a year. That ain’t hay. If they think I’m a commie, that ought to be easy enough to disabuse them of. You know those politicians are crooked as hell. For a thousand dollars, you can buy a senator——”

  “I know, I know, Harvey. Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. But the subpoena is already served, and it’s no lead pipe cinch to fix it now. The point is, you have to be prepared to go down there and clear yourself, and, as I said this morning, to come out of this thing positively with your career unimpaired.”

  “And isn’t that what I was saying, Jack?”

  “Not quite. It may help to tell them that you’re sorry for what you wrote and that you were misled and misguided and even used as a tool. You can tell them how disillusioned you became with that whole commie crowd, and that will also help a little. But that’s background material, if you follow me. They are going to want to know if and when you were a member of the party and who else is or was. In other words, Harvey, they want cooperation. They want names. That’s how you wipe the slate clean. You name names.”

  “You mean I become—an informer?”

  Henderson shook his head reprovingly. “I don’t even like the word, Harvey. We’ll think of cooperation, from here on.”

  “And if I refuse?” Crane asked, stiffening, head up, thinking to himself, God damn it, that’s the trouble with men like Henderson: Nothing but expediency! Everything gives way to expediency! They can’t understand that there’s such a thing as human dignity.

  “Well, if you refused—and I think we have to talk a good deal about this, Harvey—one of two things would happen. You could take a position on the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any questions, and then you’re through, finished, your career over. No play of yours could ever be produced again. Your name would never be mentioned on a dramatic page again. But—let me put it bluntly, Harvey—you would have to find other attorneys. We don’t represent Fifth Amendment Communists. Either we serve a client or we don’t, and you can’t serve a Fifth Amendment Communist. The second alternative would be to lie, and then you take your chances with a five-year perjury rap—again with other lawyers. We don’t advise our clients to commit perjury.”

  Suddenly, his voice changed; it became soft and warm and ingratiating. “Now isn’t that a hell of a note, for me to talk to you like that, Harvey. The thing for us to do is to get down to cases and work our way out of this—and come out clean and proper. I’m your attorney, you understand? We’re in a crisis now, and we have no secrets from each other. Suppose we get down to cases. Were you ever a member of the Communist Party?”

  “Can he understand?” Crane asked himself. “Can anyone understand? There’s no use getting sore at Jack Henderson. I should be proud and pleased that I have someone like Jack Henderson to stand by me. But how can he understand? Did he ever reel a knot of hunger in his belly? Did he ever know what it means to go for a week with never more than ten cents in your pocket? Did he ever stand on a soup line?” Such thoughts filled him with self-pity, which restored some of the pleasant state of ennoblement he had felt after talking to Jane. Once again, he felt a part of a certain elect, a man of unique sensitivity and experience, apart from other men.

  He sensed that he was being seared now by deep and angry flames, and out of the chaotic flow of his thoughts, there emerged vague currents of creativity, a sense of wonderful things he would write in the future, the drama of hurt and inner suffering, not the, bald, vulgar pain of people who were poor, hungry and cold, but the deeper travail of those who struggled with their own souls and emerged in a victory composed of meekness and humility. And so he said to the lawyer, his voice low and compassionate,

  “Jack, I’m not here only as a client, but also as a friend. If I seem headstrong, it’s due to a lack of knowledge. Then it’s up to you to put me straight.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, Harvey. I’m damn glad to hear you say that. Now suppose we talk.”

  Crane talked. He told how he had joined the Communist Party in 1934, of his poverty, his heartsickness and despair—of how suddenly he found friends, comrades, warmth, of how he became a part of a little group of actors and writers who were working for and dreaming of a new kind of theatre——

  “In other words they used you as a dupe for their ends,” Henderson said understandingly. “How long did you remain a member?”

  “Until September of 1935. That was when my first play was produced on Broadway—the first bit of success I ever had. It brought me to my senses, I suppose.”

  “All right—now the thing is this, Harvey. When you were a member of the party, you met with a group. We have to have a list of the people in that gro
up, and when the time comes, you have to be prepared to name them.”

  “Name them?”

  “That’s right, Harvey.”

  Crane’s face fell. “The truth is, Jack—and you’ve got to believe me—the truth is I don’t remember but one of them. There were only seven or eight in that group, and it is almost twenty years—and I can’t for the life of me recall their names——”

  Henderson’s face hardened. “You said you were leveling with me, Harvey. Do you mean to tell me that you met with a group of people for over a year, and you don’t remember their names?”

  “Jack, look, I told you I’m talking to you as a friend, and I am. These people were Communists—and none of them except the one I remember are important people today. They were just names, and they faded away. Of course, there were others in the theatre group who are people of some reputation today, but of the Communists, I only remember the name of one of them.”

  “And what was his name?”

  “Grant Summerson.”

  Henderson raised his brows. “You mean the Hollywood star?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned! Grant Summerson a commie! You never know, do you, Harvey. Well, that doesn’t help us one bit. You can’t name Summerson. It’s out of the question.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious why? There’s maybe six million dollars invested in Summerson. He’s Joe Lunck’s biggest property, and two of his pictures are on Broadway right this minute. As a matter of fact, Lunck is represented by Stillman, Levy and Smith, and this is just something you don’t do. It’s not playing the game, Harvey. We’re not wreckers. We may face some rough situations, but we’re still Americans, and we have to behave like Americans, don’t we?”

  “Of course we do,” Crane agreed, secretly relieved. “I have no desire to ruin Summerson.”

  “None of us do. Nevertheless, they’re going to want names and you’re going to have to produce names. How about the others in the theatre group?”

  “But they weren’t Communists, Jack.”

  “What difference does that make? A subversive is a subversive. It’s just a technicality as to whether he’s a commie and pays dues. Anyway, how can you be sure they weren’t commies? How can you be sure they didn’t join after you had left? Isn’t it a little arrogant to set yourself up as a judge in these cases, Harvey? You were talking about humility yourself just a moment ago.”

  “That’s true, I was,” Crane admitted.

  “Then you have to be consistent. You’re still friendly with Joseph Friedman, aren’t you. Wasn’t he with that group?”

  “He was,” Crane nodded.

  “Then suppose we use him as a starting point.”

  It occurred to Crane that it was Friedman who had first read something he had written, Friedman who had gotten him to join the group, and Friedman who had encouraged him constantly while he was writing Let the Sun Shine. As a matter of fact, if not for Friedman, he would never have been in the spot he was in now, and Friedman was a television director now, well-paid, without a care in the world, while he, Harvey Crane, faced the “inquisition.” Well, the mills of the Gods did grind, no matter how you looked at it. “Yes, Friedman,” he said, Friedman and Pat Macintosh, both of them feeding him that same line about a man who wrote for the people and of the people. “Start with Friedman and add Pat Macintosh.”

  “Macintosh? The old character actor?”

  “That’s right. They did it to me—now I do it to them!” He felt firm and righteous in his anger. They did it to him when he was just a kid, too green and innocent to know what the score was—taking him, twisting him, using him. Now he was returning the favor.…

  When they had eighteen names on the list, four of them deceased, six more already named several times over, and eight bright fresh ones, never spoken before in the august halls of Congress, Jack Henderson felt that they were sufficiently armed. He called in his secretary to make copies of the list, and then he lit a fresh cigar and smiled at Crane with the satisfaction of a job well done. “And don’t think,” he told Crane, “that it’s a small thing to come down there with eight fresh, clean names. God damn it, at this point there just aren’t enough pinkos working to satisfy those wolves in Washington. Now it’s up to you, Harvey, to know these names backwards and forward. Don’t worry about calling a spade a spade. You saw them at commie meetings. What the hell—if you talk about anything but the weather these days, it’s a commie meeting. The point is—and this must always be in your mind—that you’re doing a service for your country. You’re exposing a group of subversives, and the sooner they put their hands on all of them, the better you and I will be able to sleep nights. Now I want you to put your own past out of your mind. Let me worry about it. Today you’re a firm, true part of the American way of life, the way of life that means so much to all of us—yes, to the whole free world.”

  “But for God’s sake, Jack, I can’t just go down there and testify off the cuff. I hardly know some of those people.”

  “Let me worry about that. We’ll have four and a half hours on the train tomorrow morning. I’ll get a compartment, and by the time we hit Washington, there won’t be any loose ends. I’ll have a dossier on every one of them before I leave here tonight. But that’s what I’m paid for, Harvey. You just memorize those names and forget about everything else for the moment. And above all, don’t worry. Tomorrow night, you’ll have the respect and admiration of everyone in this city.”

  There was no resisting Jack Henderson when he put on this warm and hearty manner, and Crane could not help absorbing some of that warm, glowing confidence. All day, he had been in a process of fighting through this, the deepest and most terrifying crisis in his life. Now, as he left the offices of Henderson, Hoke, Baily and Cohen, he felt a new lightness of heart, and added sense of benignity. It remained with him all the way home, and such was his mood of compassion that he withheld the tirade he had planned to launch against the manager of the building for allowing a process server to come to the door of his apartment. “After all,” he said to himself, “we all serve in our own way. Like me, he simply had the best interests of his country at heart. For all he knows, I might be a Bolshevik with a bomb in each hand.”

  He also felt a twinge of conscience at the way he had treated Madaline Briggs, breaking a luncheon date without a word of explanation. It wasn’t only that she was the lead in his show; she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever known, and he had gone so far that she had every right to expect a certain sense of responsibility from him. He had always been proud of a decent and forthright manner toward women. With these thoughts in mind, he telephoned Miss Briggs, and asked her to dine with him before the show.

  “No, I’m not angry,” she said, “not at all, not even annoyed, Harvey. I knew something important had come up. Is it all straightened out now?”

  “Just about.”

  “But, darling, I already have a dinner date. Now, don’t be jealous. As a matter of fact, I’d love it if you joined us. Please do. It will be just perfect, and I’m sure he’ll want to meet you again. He said he knew you many years ago, and it would make your face burn, the nice things he said about you.”

  “Who said about me?”

  “Pat Macintosh.”

  “The old man?”

  “Yes—he’s so sweet, Harvey. You know, he gave me my first job. So we’re having dinner at Sardi’s, and you will come, won’t you?”

  He hesitated at first, because his immediate instinct was to say no. But he wanted to see Madaline now as much as he had wanted to see Jane at noontime, and he thought to himself, “Why not? It’s probably the last time I’ll see the old man socially. Why shouldn’t I show him that I have nothing against him personally—that this is bigger than both of us?” So he told Madaline, “Sure, sure—and you’ll both be my guests. At Seven.”

  “And you’ll tell me all about whatever disturbed you?”

  “After the show,” he s
aid gently, “when there are just the two of us. God, Madaline, do you know what you mean to me, honey?”

  “Not now—later,” she whispered.

  Harvey Crane was smiling compassionately as he put down the telephone. He felt a pervading warmth, and he reflected that nothing made a man more conscious of a woman he cared for than the trials of sorrow and danger. Perhaps not everyone would understand his role and actions—but not everyone had the same opportunity offered to him to serve in humility and meekness. A little self-consciously, he thought of himself as Harvey Crane, American.

  The Ancestor

  YOU WOULD HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORD Puritan to comprehend the ancestor. Later the word came to mean something else, something more specific, and in this land of ours something rigid and hard, shaped by the very stones that appeared to obscure the earth. But it had no defined and exact meaning at this time, which was in the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. It did not mean particularly a church or a sect—or even yet the rolling, indomitable ranks of Cromwell’s men; it did not mean that you were either in or out of the established Church of England; it was a way of life being defined, a manner, a curse to some, a liberation to others.

  It was the way young Henry Adams was, who held about seven acres of land from the Manor of Baarton St. David under its lord, George, Alvin, to begin his seven names, who was a fop and a fool, even in circles that were noted for neither morality nor brains. It was in the manner of Henry Adam’s stance, which was erect, tight, and even arrogant, but in a new way to the Lord who, observing him once, asked of his overseer,

  “Who is that who stands like that?”

  “Adams who holds the Coldhill cottage.”

  “Is he a king that he stands like a king?”

  “He’s no king, my lord, unless the devil crowns kings.”

  “Which he does, I have no doubt. What is he then?”

  “One of them.”