William Boyd - The New Confessions

“Congressman Brayfield will be with us in a moment.”

From the bedroom I could hear the buzz of an electric razor. We stood around in awkward silence. Our roles were about to be defined; until then we didn’t know whether to be pleasant or formal.

“Some fog today,” Bonty offered.

“Yes,” I said.

“We get bad fog in Washington,” Seager said.

“Really?”

Brayfield came in, pulling on his jacket. Representative Byron Brayfield was a fat man who thought tight three-piece suits might disguise this condition. Naturally, it had the opposite effect, as well as making him needlessly hot and uncomfortable. His waistcoat was tight as a corset, a small fan of creases, like crow’s-feet, on either side of the row of buttons. He had a pale fleshy face, with an eave of fat overhanging his collar all round, small alert eyes and thinning crinkly black hair combed straight back. He did not offer to shake my hand. We took our places. I felt a sudden urge to go to the lavatory. Seager made a telephone call and a minute later a stenographer came in. She sat down behind me.

Bonty uttered some preamble about the Brayfield Subcommittee of the House Committe on Un-American Activities being in executive session. Then proceedings were interrupted for a long moment as Brayfield blew his nose with astounding ferocity. His face went quite red and he examined his handkerchief diligently as if he expected to see particles of brain there. Eventually, Seager swore me in and the hearing began.

BRAYFIELD: You understand, Mr. Todd, this is a special subcommittee of one instigated as a result of a confidential dossier we, ah, that came into our possession, alleging subversive activities undertaken by you over a number of years.

TODD: May I know who supplied you with this dossier?

BRAYFIELD: That is classified information. However, such was the seriousness of these allegations it was decided that this committee be set up.… You have lived and worked in Berlin, Germany, I believe?

TODD: Yes. And in Scotland, England, France, Switzerland and the United States.

BRAYFIELD: You are about to start production on a film called Father of Liberty?

TODD: Yes.

BRAYFIELD: And this film is about a [checking notes] man called Rousseau? A French Socialist?

TODD: For heaven’s sake!

BRAYFIELD: Who is producing this film?

TODD: That is a matter of public record; I suggest you get Investigator Seager on to it.

SEAGER: I would remind you, Mr. Todd, this is an official subcommittee. We have powers to cite you for contempt.

TODD: Thank you for reminding me. I will not answer any of your questions until you tell me who gave you that dossier.

BRAYFIELD: I’ve told you—

TODD: Was it someone called Leo Druce?

SEAGER: Who?

BRAYFIELD: Seager!

TODD: Courtney Young? Harold Faithfull? Alexander Mavrocordato? [Blank faces.]

BRAYFIELD: Who are these people? Can we get back to business?… We believe, Mr. Todd, based on information we have in this dossier, that you may be well placed to inform the committee of known subversive and Communistic elements in the Hollywood film community. Any such information you provide us with will remain confidential, of course.… I would like to remind you we are in executive session. Ah, in the light of you providing us with names and information the committee will be predisposed to look favorably on any … any indescretions in the past that you may have, ah, that you may have done. Perpetrated.

TODD: [gets up and takes newspaper from nearby table]: Why are you people wasting your time? Why? Catch some real criminals. Look, look, at random from today’s paper [quotes]: “Two men, Kemp P. Heald, twenty-five, and Coran Schlag, fifty-two, were today accused of breaking into Brewer Poultry Farm at Tujunga on the fourteenth of November and committing there acts of sexual indecency with fifty-four Christmas turkeys, leaving over twenty of the birds for dead.…” Good God! There are your criminals. Why aren’t you out catching them instead of wasting all our time and—

BONTY: May I see that newspaper please?

SEAGER: Mr. Todd, will you please resume your seat?

BRAYFIELD: Can you establish that these two men are Soviet agents? Or members of the Communist party?

TODD: What?

BRAYFIELD: Only then are we empowered to act.

BONTY: Five’ll get you ten they were Commies.

SEAGER: Who?

BONTY: The men who boffed the turkeys. They do that sort of thing in Russia, I read about it. Yeah.

BRAYFIELD: Mr. Bonty, please?

BONTY: Sorry, sir.

BRAYFIELD: Mr. Todd, are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?

TODD: I’d like to plead the Fifth Amendment. *I will not answer that question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself — in your eyes.

When I saw the smile momentarily expand in Brayfield’s eyes and across his plump cheeks I knew I had made a mistake. We wrangled over whether I was entitled to take the Fifth for a while, and Brayfield’s threats became more and more explicit. At one stage he shouted at me, “You are a resident alien! We can deport-scum like you!” All this was excised from the transcript. I realized later I should have taken Bertolt Brecht’s route: lie boldly and then run for it. If Brecht hadn’t followed that course of action, it would have been the Hollywood Eleven. But old Bert lit out. When he was asked in 1947 if he had ever applied to join the Communist party he said, and I quote, “No, no, no, no, no, never,” and left at once for France. As I sat in my sitting room later that afternoon waiting for Page Farrier to turn up, I felt foreboding infest the house like vermin. Had I done the right thing?

“Yes,” Page said. “Without doubt.”

“Oh yes ” said Eddie Simmonette. This was two days after the hearing. We were sitting in what used to be Lori’s diner. It was now called Chauncy’s after her eldest son. I hadn’t been the same since I had returned from Berlin. News of Lori’s death had distressed me greatly and I couldn’t imagine the diner without her. In fact, few memories lingered. Chauncy had redone everything in plasti-pine and melamine — it was altogether more nasty looking, cheaper and dirtier. But when Page had telephoned to say that Eddie wanted a rendezvous “somewhere very discreet,” Chauncy’s had seemed the most convenient.

Eddie wore dark glasses and a snap-brim hat. Page kept looking over his shoulder.

“Look, would you mind relaxing?” I said angrily. “Nobody’s going to know you here.… Have you heard anything? Are they going to cite me for contempt?”

Page told me he thought I would be all right, at least until the Supreme Court had heard the Hollywood Ten appeal.

“Well, thank God for that.”

“Ah, unfortunately, Mr. Todd, you’re on two more lists.”

“Jesus. But I haven’t done anything. Whose lists?”

“The American Legion Magazine and the AMPOPAWL list.”

“The what?”

“The American Motion Picture Organization for the Preservation of the American Way of Life.”

“But at least you’re not on the MPAPAI list,” Eddie said. “Thank the Lord.”

“?”

“The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.”

“Great. Wonderful.”

The waitress came over to our table. Eddie and Page ordered coffee. I looked up. “Nothing for me,” I said. She was a dark, faintly Oriental girl with a grubby apron on over a checked dress. Slim and pretty in an acceptably sleazy way.

“Hey, John, ” she said. “God, how are you?” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Nora Lee,” she said. “Nora Lee Madrazon.”

“Good God. Of course.” I’d last seen her four years ago, a sulky lanky teenager with cropped hair and braces on her teeth.