October 1955
Harlem, New York City
The letter from the Board of Education had said exactly what she thought it would say. She was to report to a certain building at nine A.M. on the next Friday.
There’s no evidence, Hannah said. I put a ten-dollar bill in a jar—that was the annual dues. I barely said anything. Nothing was ever written down.
Doesn’t matter, Billy said.
I can refuse to answer, Hannah said. I can sit there and be silent.
Doesn’t matter, he said.
The mothers of my kids will write letters, Hannah said. They did it for Alice Citron.
The Board of Ed isn’t people, Billy said. It’s a machine.
A machine for what? Hannah said.
Billy shook his head.
The rain had started with a few scattered drops on the tin roof next door, like a handful of little stones. The speed and frequency increased, and soon it was raining hard. It is odd, Hannah thought, how rarely one hears thunder in the city. Their windows were still open and the rain muffled Billy’s voice. The street sounds were muffled, too.
We can build an ark, Hannah said.
They both laughed. They did not hear the buzzer right away.
Their visitor was reduced to standing on the stoop in the torrential rain, ringing the bell every thirty seconds. He could see the light on in their apartment, so he knew they were home.
After ten minutes the rain let up slightly, and then, through the two glass doors, Billy was lumbering down the stairs.
Can I help you? Billy said automatically as he opened the door.
Billy, it’s John Wilkie.
John!
They had not spoken in five years.
We should talk about Hannah’s letter, Wilkie said.
What letter? Billy said.
The one from the Board of Education, Wilkie said.
How could you possibly know about that?
I won’t keep you long, Wilkie said, and he entered and started up the stairs without being asked.
The Quicks’ door, on the third floor, was standing open. Wilkie knocked in a pro forma way, and entered. Hannah was sitting at the small kitchen table.
John! Hannah said. What a nice surprise. Coffee will be ready in ten seconds.
It was an attractive thing about her, Wilkie thought, the unflappability. Hannah had openly disliked him; had conceived and carried out a monstrous and long-term excommunication of friends and family; had now added on to that, if the Board of Education was to be believed, the real possibility of sedition; and yet she maintained these unforced, crystalline manners. He felt very aware of his wet raincoat.
Let me take your mac, Hannah said, and when she stood Wilkie saw her very large belly. He had not known that she was pregnant. He wondered if Lila knew.
Congratulations, Wilkie said.
You find us overcome with blessings, Billy said, closing the door behind him.
A pause followed that, among friends, would have been awkward. However, since it was prelude to an explanation of Wilkie’s unexpected visit, this particular silence was close, meaningful, alive. It was almost like intimacy.
In the silence, Hannah hung up his dripping coat on a rack on the landing, closed the door, and picked up the coffeepot.
Hannah, Wilkie said, I understand that you received a letter from the Board of Education.
Still milk and two sugars? Hannah said.
Yes, Wilkie said.
I received that letter just today, Hannah said.
She put a monogrammed silver tray on the small kitchen table, and poured the coffee into a china service that, Wilkie happened to know, was a wedding gift to them from Lila. He was surprised that she had kept it.
I was asked to come here to do two things, Wilkie said. First, to tell you what you should expect from the Board of Education hearing, if you choose to appear, and second, to offer you a better path than the one the Board of Ed wants you to travel.
Asked by whom? Hannah said.
By Peregrine Wilkie, he said.
I would have thought, Billy said, that this was a dangerous thing for your father to get involved in.
We take the world as we find it, Wilkie said. First, the Board of Education. The prosecutor will ask about—rather, he will announce—Hannah’s membership in the Communist Party. Are you still a member?
No, Hannah said.
Are you currently active in the Party, Wilkie said, in any way?
No.
Did your family—other than Billy—know about your Party membership?
No.
Wilkie had his first sip of the coffee. Everything had depended on her answer to those three questions. Should Hannah have answered yes to any of them, he had explicit orders to leave the apartment immediately.
How did they find out? Hannah said.
The FBI is involved, Wilkie said, as are others with similar resources. The important thing to understand is that all Board of Education hearings are mandated to be public. In practice, then, once your name is listed on the docket at one of these hearings, it is in the papers. All of the papers. You are marked forever as a Communist. For the targets of the first prosecutions, I imagine that was not too much of an inconvenience; they were true believers and prepared for martyrdom. My understanding, though, is that Hannah’s Party activity was incidental at best.
You have good information, Hannah said.
You mentioned an offer, Billy said.