Silas Timberman (2 page)

“Not that I'm so old,” Ike Amsterdam answered him seriously, “but I get older, son.”

“Don't I?” Brian wanted to know.

“Not so you would notice it, no sir.” And then he told Myra how fine the coffee was.

“Ike,” asked Geraldine, “will you walk to school with Susie and me?”

It was no more than an excuse for him to bring out his watch, as he well knew, but he reached into his vest very gravely, took out the huge watch with the intricate bas-relief of fawns and devils on its cover, snapped it open, and considered the time. “Now maybe I'll have time and maybe I won't,” he said. Brian asked him what time was. “Ah,” he grinned, “that's a daisy, Brian. Can't be like money, because you're born with it, born rich or poor, you're born with time—but it gets like money, sonny. Some spend it well and some foolishly, and some of them cling to it and then it's gone anyway and right now you got more of it than I have. Am I right, Silas?”

“Well—”

“It sounds like you read that in a book,” Geraldine said.

“That's the way things you say sound when you get to my age. How have you been, Silas?”

“Pretty good, Ike. Go ahead and eat.”

The old man chewed thoughtfully. The children were almost through with breakfast, and they watched him with interest. Myra sat down at the table, and Amsterdam said to Silas.

“What do you intend to do about it?”

“About what?”

“Civil defense day. Today's the day. The posters have been around for two weeks, and today's recruiting day. Convocation at four o'clock, and Anthony C. Cabot's going to speak.”

“It must have slipped my mind entirely,” Silas said. It came back vaguely now, but he was neither greatly interested nor troubled, and he wondered what all of it meant to the old man. Myra remarked that she thought it was just a routine thing and not worth any particular concern.

“Depends on how you look at it,” Amsterdam said.

“I don't know, Ike,” Silas shrugged. “I suppose those things come down from the state capitol and run their course. What's the difference?”

“Going to enlist?”

“For civil defense?” Silas smiled and shook his head. “I'm a busy man, Ike, and I don't think any bombs will be dropped on Clemington—or anywhere else in the States for that matter.”

“That's just it.”

“What is?”

“The whole foolish fraud.”

“Well—I suppose you could look at it that way. On the other hand, there is a war going on and there are such things as atom bombs and this is more or less of a formality—and, Ike, it's no skin off my back.”

“No? Funny thing about a young fellow like you, Silas, been through a war and a lot of other things, and there you just spread your hands and sit back and say—what the hell—just pardon the expression, young ladies,” he smiled at Susan and Geraldine. “It's no skin off my back.”

“Well, is it, really?” Myra wanted to know. “I don't know much about this war, except that it would have been better if it had never been. There's nothing we can do about it, Ike.”

“Suppose it takes a notion to do something about us? Has a man a right to face idiocy and say it's idiotic? That's what I been doing all my life, and I intend to go on doing so. To raise a civil defense organization here at Clemington is idiotic and worse. In the first place, it reveals an abysmal ignorance of what this bomb is and what it does. In the second place, its alarm-mongering, and I don't like alarm-mongering. In the third place, it's a fraud. And in the fourth place, it's an insult to a normal man's intelligence.”

“What does abysmal mean?” Susan asked him.

“Both of you get your books. It's time for school,” Myra said.

“For the life of me,” Silas said, “I can't understand why this has provoked you so, Ike. No one is asking you to be an air raid warden or anything else of that sort. If Cabot wants to cut up and make a big thing out of this, why let him. It doesn't involve you.”

“It involves my common sense,” Ike Amsterdam replied.

“I don't see that at all,” from Myra.

“If I think a thing, believe a thing, and then remain silent, that's a prime matter of conscience,” the old man said, rather primly. “I'm disappointed in both of you—disappointed,” he repeated. “Now, if you will permit me, I will escort these two young ladies in the direction of their school.”

* * *

After the children had left with the old man and Brian had gone out to play before kindergarten, Silas still had better than an hour until his first class, and he helped Myra get through the breakfast dishes. At this point, neither of them was unduly disturbed by what the old man had said, for it was quite plainly the kind of thing Ike Amsterdam would say and had been saying for a long time. It did not mean, they decided, that he was for the war or against the war, for civil defense or against civil defense; it simply meant that he considered his intelligence to have been insulted on a matter of simple logic. All the rest, all the talk about conscience, they decided, was window dressing.

“Then I wonder,” Myra asked, “why it depresses me so?”

“You felt that way before he came,” Silas observed.

“Why? Because I didn't wake up laughing and singing, as you did? Can't you get used to the idea that not everybody reacts to everything the way Silas Timberman does?”

“Myra, I'm not going to walk into a silly argument.”

“Whatever comes from me is silly—is that it?”

“Did I say that, Myra?”

“All right—all right, I'm sorry. I feel rotten this morning. I'll be all right later. It's nothing for you to get disturbed about.”

She kissed him before he left, and reminded him of cocktails with the Lundfests late that afternoon, about five-thirty.

* * *

When they had the pleasure of Professor Amsterdam's company, the two girls took the long way to school, up the hill and across the entire campus to Science Hall and then back down, instead of cutting down the dirt path through the scrub woods behind their house to Whittier Road. The distance was doubled, but the girls considered it fair exchange, and they always pretended that they used no other way than this, regardless of whether the old man was with them or not. He, in turn, knew what was expected of him, and his own secret of success lay in the charm and thoughtfulness he exercised during these walks—whether it was banter precisely on their level, stories he spent hours devising, comments on the students and faculty members they passed, tales out of history, social as well as his own, or solemn and serious advice concerning their own problems. They spoke of many things, subjects as far apart as the
Indian Wars
fought once in the neighborhood of Clemington, and the present divorce actions of two of the faculty members. The children were just at that age to accept him without qualification and with complete trust, and he in turn looked upon this friendship as a precious and pleasant matter.

He had always told himself that he knew nothing at all about children, and he was inordinately pleased to discover otherwise; yet he never presumed, never took liberties, never condescended. He never turned away questions and he never attempted to answer something he was incapable of answering properly.

In other words, with them he was an entirely different person than he was with anyone else, but very much the person he desired to be.

This morning, as they turned into Oak Common, the park of magnificent oaks in the very center of the campus, he reflected again on the great beauty of Clemington. It seemed to him that as he grew older, as he came closer to the end of things for himself, he became more and more keenly aware of all aspects of beauty. The mornings were sharper and more refreshing; the colors of autumn leaves were more vivid; laughter became more like music; and the tall, handsome, free-striding young people who made up the student body were even more beautiful than he remembered them as being, more possessed of all the godly gifts of youth. Clemington was a well favored place. The immense quadrangle of ivy-covered granite buildings enclosed what was widely admitted to be the finest campus in the middle west, and in Amsterdam's own rovings on the continent and in England, he had found nothing he liked better. Yet even this familiar and admitted situation grew upon him and increased its virtue of comeliness. This morning, it laid hold of him with added intensity; he was absorbed in it, and Geraldine's voice came to him as from a great distance. She had to repeat what she was saying.

“My dear,” he said. “I'm sorry. Do you know what I was doing? I was thinking how lovely this place is. Did that ever occur to you and Susan?”

“I guess it's nice,” Susan said. “It's kind of dull.”

“I want to know why you got mad at daddy this morning,” Geraldine said.

“I wouldn't say that I got mad at him.”

“Oh, yes. You were mad at him,” Geraldine insisted.

“Now, I was not,” said Amsterdam soberly, addressing himself to the girls straightforwardly and flatly. “I was not mad at him—not at all. Perhaps a little annoyed, a little provoked, but not angry. There is a difference, you know. I like Silas and consider him a friend. He's a very unusual man.”

“Do you think so?” Susan asked.

“I think so, yes—for reasons I can't explain to you as easily as I might like to. You see, Silas has two rare qualities called integrity and honesty—”

“What does that mean?” Susan wanted to know.

It always happened. All his life, the old man had dealt with words offhandedly; they were easy to use, old tools that he had given up thinking about a long, long time ago. Now two little girls returned words to him, all sorts of words. “Well, what does it mean?” he asked. “Do you know, Geraldine?” For himself, he wanted time to think about it.

“I know about honesty. That means not to steal or lie. That means that you're honest. I think I know what integrity means, but I can't explain it.”

He realized that he could not explain it either. Suppose he told them that it meant a state of wholeness; would that explain it any better? And what was the state of wholeness that it referred to? It was easy to say that a man became one with himself, but what real validity lay in such a concept? Was he himself whole with himself? He had become somewhat alarmed, if the truth be told, at the announcement that the university would set up its own air raid civil defense organization; but when he approached Timberman, he had rationalized his alarm into an affront to his own precious sense of logic, and even now he did not know precisely why he was alarmed or just what he had expected Silas Timberman to do or say about it. His strides became longer and longer, until the two children were running to keep up with him.

“Ike, I can't walk so fast,” Susan protested.

He apologized profusely and came to a stop. They had emerged from the grove now and in front of them was the stretch of green lawn that led to the Science Building and Whittier Hall. Here was where the children turned off the campus and down the road to their school, and he found himself grateful that the discussion would proceed no further.

“Please don't be mad at him, Ike,” Geraldine said.

They left him standing there alone, rather puzzled with himself and not altogether pleased with himself, and there he stood for minutes, stuffing his pipe, lighting it, puffing it, contemplating the increasing flow of boys and girls over the lawn, and trying to think through a very cloudy matter indeed. But his thoughts reached no logical, positive conclusion, and the striking of the big clock on the tower of the Science Building recalled him to the needs of the day.

* * *

It is only natural that the
case of Silas Timberman
was more often and thoroughly reviewed in his own mind than in the mind of anyone else, and his own picture of all the facts and factors that went into the making of it was both more and less complete than what is provided by the official files. If he had a tendency to seize upon seemingly unimportant factors, it was because subjectively he required apparent motivations rather than a more subtle integration into a vast and complex whole. Later on, he would examine his own origins more closely, and resist less the possibility that he was different from most of his colleagues, and this would come as he developed his own understanding of the forces that produced his colleagues—and as his own desire to be like them in so many ways lessened. However, for a good while to come, he would cling to the belief that the visit of Ike Amsterdam on this particular Monday morning was a prime factor.

He had not gone more than a dozen paces from his home this morning when he experienced an almost irresistible desire to return and say something to Myra in the way of explanation. He did not turn back, however, because he was unclear as to what he might say; although he was quite clear in his feeling of being found lacking, which began a deepening depression rather unusual for him. For uncertain reasons, he now disliked both himself and the picture he was certain he had presented to Myra, and he felt a sudden sense of loss, desolation, and abandonment. When Brian called after him, “Wait for me—wait for me, daddy!” he stiffened almost guiltily and stood quite impassive, briefcase in hand, waiting for the impact of the child's hurtling body. Brian noticed the difference and stopped short in front of Silas, his enthusiasm suddenly dampened.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing—nothing,” Silas said, feeling rather foolish in the pose he had struck for the little boy.

“Bring me something back?”

“What?”

“You bring back something. Bring me a water gun. Bring me a space gun, will you?” The round, pudgy, freckled face stared at him with simple, uncomplicated hope, faith and trust. Bring me a gun, said the child. Silas picked him up in his arms and assured him that he would bring him something. “You forgot your briefcase!” Brian called, running after him.