Defending the Truth, page 31
Mac lingers behind. This ain’t right. Major. Them are all neutrals. We ain’t got the right, Major. We can’t steal all their food and then put ‘em to slave labor.
I don’t say anything. What is there to say? I walk out of the office and follow the men behind the barracks to the open pits that await the bodies of the dead people, my people. I look at the corpses, and each of them has my face and Hanna’s and Adam’s. And they have fifty yellow stars stitched to their ragged sleeves or filth-stiff chest pockets, like the little gold star that my wife Rachel always wore around her neck on a thin chain.
Mac Reilly orders his men out of the pits. They climb out, staring at the Czech civilians.
Pick up the shovels and pickaxes, I tell the mayor in Yiddish, close enough to German that he fully understands.
His look of fear dissipates, and he fixes me with defiant blue eyes. I have not noticed before that he is a big man, much heavier than I am but not fat, perhaps forty or forty-five years old.
I see now the problem, he spits at me through hate-quivering lips. You are a Jew, Major. Then he looks at Sergeant Reilly behind me and says in broken English, You see? No good. No good. The priests have always tell us, no good, no good.
One of the other men, the aged, arthritic land baron, says placatingly in much better English: They were bad, the Nazis. But they knew about Jews. Not your kind, Major—he holds up his hands toward me in a halt gesture to assure me that he thinks I’m human—but these medieval Jews we had here. They were different. We had such trouble.
I step toward the mayor, and he is emboldened by the land baron’s support. His lips are a thin surgical scar. He swings at me with a meaty right fist. I jerk back, letting the blow swish harmlessly in front of my face, then I step forward and kick him as hard as I can between his legs. He doubles over with a huge groan, and I smash my fist upward into his face. He topples backward into the open pit, writhing on his back, both of his hands holding his crotch. His face is covered with red as though he has suddenly been painted in Mercurochrome. I pick up a shovel and begin throwing dirt on him. Then I hurl the shovel at him like a spear. The blade crashes against his collarbone. He screams in agony, his left arm goes limp, and his right snaps upward to ward off any more blows.
Mac Redly grabs me from behind. Jesus Christ, Major, he mutters in my ear. You outta yer mind? What the fuck you think you doin’?
I feel like shit, all hollow inside. I go back to my office. I take out a bottle of Steinhäger left behind by the SS kommandant, and I drink from it in long gulps to try to deaden my soul.
Tears press against Joshua Rabb’s eyelids, and then they pour down his cheeks. You ain’t the man I thought you was, Major, Mac Reilly says.
You’re right, Mac. I’m not the man I thought I was.
“Mr. Rabb,” Judge Buchanan says, “You may argue.”
The jurors turn toward Joshua, sitting at the defense table, tears glistening on his face. The jurors are skeptical about his tears. They know in their cynicism that he is putting on this phony show for them. It is his choreography, his lawyer’s trick. A tricky lawyer with a wily Commie client. What kind of strange man is this, this one-armed, haggard-looking man, who appears and sounds like a smart and tough guy, but who sits and weeps like a chickenshit idiot while the prosecutor gives his closing argument.
Joshua stands up, not knowing exactly what he will say. And slowly words begin to come.
“I apologize to you for the tears on my face,” he says, his voice hoarse. He walks up before the walnut railing of the jury box and slowly looks from one to another of them. His face is earnest. “I was not crying for Professor Livinsky, I was crying for myself. ,, He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and roughly dries his tears.
“I was crying because I know how deeply pressing our need can be to wreak vengeance on someone who has not wronged us, but whom we hate anyway. And I was crying because I know from my own experience that I am not exempt from that aberration of character.”
The jurors stir just a bit in their seats. They stare truculently at him. What the hell is this cunning bastard trying to pull with all those big words and a confession?
“Mischa Livinsky is innocent of criminal wrongdoing, and everyone in this room knows it. The group of professors who belonged to Academics Against War, each of whom believed exactly as Professor Livinsky did in opposing the Korean War and striving for peace, are at the university today teaching your sons and daughters. You have not demanded their ouster, you have not insisted that the president of the university be fired for his treachery in retaining them as teachers, and they are not here on trial for their lives for treason. Turn to the juror next to you and raise your eyebrows and wonder why.”
“I object to this, Your Honor, it’s absolutely improper,” Mike Brink says angrily, standing at the prosecution table.
“No, I don’t think so,” Judge Buchanan says. “Go on, Mr. Rabb.”
The jurors don’t know whether to look at each other or to stare at Joshua. They squirm, feeling oddly threatened.
“He is on trial because he once belonged to the Communist party of Moscow, even though he fled that country twelve years ago because he feared for his life. If you had been a professor of political science at the University of Berlin in 1939, you would have had to belong to the Nazi party, but when you fled to the United States because you feared for your life, you would have been hailed as a person of courage and right judgment. What is the difference here? Why is Professor Livinsky on trial for his life? Turn to the juror next to you and raise your eyebrows and wonder why.”
The jurors’ faces are grim now, and they stare unhappily at Joshua, angered by the liberty he so cavalierly takes with their minds and their emotions.
“The law is an instrument of man. Not of man in some abstract philosophical sense, but each one of us. Each of us individually is given the opportunity from time to time to help make the law, to shape it in the way that we feel is best for us, to protect us, to nurture the kind of lives we wish to live. And that is what you are doing here today. You are being asked by your own government to shape a society where evil people call someone a traitor and put him to death based on the fact that he kept notes about a pacifist organization in Yiddish. That is the only evidence of treason in this case. And you are asked to shape a society where you convict him of failing to register as a Communist when the other seven professors who also failed to register are at the university today, standing at their podiums, lecturing to your children about Aristotle and organic chemistry and Shakespeare as they did yesterday and will do tomorrow. Turn to the juror next to you and raise your eyebrows and wonder why.”
Joshua looks at each of them in turn. Their eyes are riveted on him.
“I do not need to stand here any longer and lecture you about the meaning of justice. First of all, I haven’t the right. And second, you know what it is just as well as I do. It is like a breeze. You cannot see it, but you feel it. It ruffles your hair, it cools your body. It comes and goes without a trace, but you know it with certainty. You know what justice is. And in this place, at this time, it is in your keeping, you are its champions, you are its sculptors, its cobblers, its carpenters.”
He looks compassionately at them, and their faces are no longer hard, their eyes less opaque and flat.
“I had a very dear friend once, the former chief of the Papago tribe, Macario Antone. He is dead now, and I miss his wisdom and his gentleness. He told me a story once. He said that he grew up in a little village below the sacred Baboquivari Mountains about fifty or sixty miles from here. There was an old man who lived in a cave on the mountaintop, and he was believed by many of the villagers to be a sage, wise and unfailing in judgment. One of the young men of the village boasted that he could outsmart the sage. So he took a small bird and put it behind his back and walked up the mountain to where the man was sitting and meditating.
“And he said to him, ‘Old man, what do I have behind my back?’
“And the man said, ‘It is a bird.’
“Well, the young man was surprised, but he had more questions. ‘Old man, in which hand am I holding it?’
“‘In your left hand,’” came the correct answer.
“The young man was astounded, but he knew that he could get him. He would ask the sage if the bird was alive or dead, and if he said alive, he would crush it.
“‘Old man, is the bird alive?’”
Joshua’s arms are behind his back, as though he were holding the bird. He brings them forward, his right hand open and turned up in front of him, his stainless-steel prongs next to it.
“And the old man said, ‘It is in your hands, my son.’”
He holds his hands up before them, a minute, two, three minutes. And then he drops them slowly to his side and walks to his seat at the defense table.
Barbara is smiling at Joshua, nodding her head slowly, her mouth slightly open. Hal Dubin sits stone still, tears brimming in his eyes.
“Never seen nothin’ like it,” one of the spectators whispered to another. They walked out of the courtroom with the hundreds of other subdued spectators. “That one-armed som bitch had ‘em in the palm of his hand.”
“Sure was somethin’ to see,” said the second man. He shook his head. “The guy’s a fuckin’ alchemist, turns shit into gold.”
JUSTICE, JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE, read the crudely painted paper banner over Professor Livin-sky’s office door. It had been there since moments after the verdict, hastily prepared and tacked up by several of the professor’s students.
Inside the small office on the second floor of the political science building, there was a victory celebration attended by Joshua, Barbara, Hanna, and Jan Diedrichs. Ten or twelve other students and faculty now and then stuck their heads into the small office for a few seconds, said a congratulatory word or two, and scurried quickly away to safety.
Livinsky poured Chivas Regal into several small tumblers. He passed one to each of them.
“To Joshua Rabb,” he toasted, “a man of courage and ability.”
They drank.
“Did either of you happen to glance at the newspaper this morning?” Barbara asked.
Joshua shook his head.
“No, I was a little distracted,” Livinsky said.
“McCarthy kicked off his senatorial campaign in Milwaukee with the publication of a new book, McCarthyism, the Fight for America. The newspaper says that this time he accused Secretary of State Dean Acheson of being a Communist.”
“Well,” Livinsky said, “at least he’s calling someone else a Commie for a change.”
Barbara frowned. “When will he stop?”
Joshua shrugged. His eyes were bloodshot, and he appeared exhausted. “When God abolishes all evil from the face of the earth.”
Chapter 26
Hanna came running up the stairs. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table with Barbara having lunch.
“Look!” Hanna said, brandishing an envelope at him.
Joshua took it. It was a letter from Mark Goldberg, handwritten on plain white paper stamped UNITED STATES I CORPS HOSPITAL, PUSAN. He started to read it.
“What is it honey?” Barbara asked.
“From Mark.” He read it aloud:
“Dear Hanna:
“I love you, I love you, I love you. I miss you.
“I’m sure the Defense Department has notified you that I was wounded and that I’m now okay. I was in the fighting for Heartbreak Ridge, and my battalion got overrun by Chinese and NKPA (sorry. North Korean People’s Army, they’re the bad guys) after we captured the ridge. We ran out of ammo, and me and eleven of my men were cut off. We were all wounded and some of the guys died. There was so much of our own artillery coming down and Corsairs strafing the top of the ridge that they couldn’t get to us for weeks. We just laid there until the Ninth Regiment retook the ridge.
“So anyway, I hope nobody notified you that I was KIA or anything, because I’m fine. I was wounded in the left leg during the fighting, just a pretty minor wound really, but it got infected. That’s why I’m here at the hospital in Pusan. Unfortunately, it’s not a million-dollar wound, so I won’t be coming home. But my doctor put me down for restricted duty only. That means no combat assignment when I leave here. So I’m going to the third logistical command on Koje Island next week as an aide-de-camp to the commander, Colonel Maurice Fitzgerald. Koje is ten miles south of Pusan. It’s the island where we’re holding about 125,000 NKPA and Chinese Communist prisoners of war, and I Corps is building up the cadre during the armistice negotiations. It’s going to be cush duty, a long way from the bullets and the mortars and the Long Toms. So anyway, when I arrive wherever I’m going in a few days, I’ll write immediately and give you my address.
“I love you. I miss you more than you’ll ever know. I can’t wait to see you again. It won’t be long.”
Hanna was radiant. Barbara and Joshua both got up from the table, and all three of them threw their arms around each other, their eyes sparkling with tears.
About the Author
RICHARD PARRISH spent two years as acting Jewish chaplain at the United States Military Chapel in the Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, Germany, and as articled law clerk to the chief of the Domestic Law division of the Israeli Attorney General’s Office in Jerusalem. In 1977 he created and became the first director of the Economic/Organized Crime unit of the Pima County Attorney’s Office in Tucson. He is now in private law practice in Tucson, Arizona.
Table of Contents
Title
Publisher
Description
Booklist
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Richard Parrish, Defending the Truth
