The Lacuna (51 page)
Authors: Barbara Kingsolver
The Evening Post,
October 6, 1949
“Books for Thought,” by Sam Hall Mitchell
An End Foretold
Harrison W. Shepherd is that twentieth-century phenomenon—the international Communist. He has vehemently shunned publicity, but thanks to a persistent campaign of public exposure his ties with Mexican Communists have lately come to light. His life has been obscure but hardly small, as thousands of Americans were drawn into his message, particularly the young and impressionable as his writings pressed their way even into children’s schoolrooms.
Now his latest arrives as the most insidious of the lot.
The Unforetold
is the story of an ancient empire crumbling through its final days, while those in power remain insensible to their nation’s impending collapse. This book takes a dismal view of humanity indeed, leaving no room for wise leadership or energetic patriotism. We should expect nothing else from Harrison Shepherd, who was quoted two years ago in the
New York Weekly Review
(March ’47) as follows: “Our
leader is an empty sack. You could just as well knock him over, put a head with horns on a stick, and follow that. Most of us never choose to believe in the nation, we just come up short on better ideas.”
Earlier this year Shepherd was dismissed from a government position for Communist activity. The public cannot now be blamed for wishing to second the motion with a single mind, dismissing the rogue scribe from our libraries, bookstores and homes.
Mrs. Brown is on a war path. “Mr. Shepherd, it’s a character in your book that said that. Would they hang Charles Dickens for a thief because he made up the old fellow Fagin that told boys to go pick pockets?” Given the current climate, I told her, Charles Dickens is wise to be dead already. Which did not please her.
Intestinal fortitude, Mrs. Brown has got. Marching in here to work despite Mrs. Bittle’s ban, the concern no longer being polio but other contaminations. Mrs. Brown says if the lady evicts her, she will go live with a niece. One of Parthenia’s daughters “up and married a towner” and they get on well, the niece and aunt. The couple’s house is small as a pin, but she could sleep on a chaise, care for the baby, and try to be a help.
We waited for the telephone to ring off its handle. Other newspapers are sure to pick this up, as it’s too thrilling to keep under a hat. She stood near the telephone, arms crossed, ready to knock me cold if I tried to overrule her. “You can go on about your business now and leave me be, Mr. Shepherd, any man who calls here to confirm that quote will have me to talk to, and he shall hear what’s what.”
I agreed, we seem to have no choice this time. We can set the record straight: these are words spoken by a character in a novel, Poatlicue by name, disgruntled with a deranged Aztec king.
We looked it up, to verify the passage. It’s from
Pilgrims of Chapultepec
, we both recognized that—a scene about midway through, the fourth forced exodus, the two boys talking while they skin out the
deer. Sure enough, he’s got it word for word, this Sam Hall Mitchell, but why that line, attributed to an interview? Mrs. Brown looked through the files and found he did take it from the
Review
, as he says, a piece about the book that quoted that excerpt. She had several copies in the files, and I may have sent one to Frida—we’d liked this reviewer. He was thoughtful on many subjects, including Soviet containment, a new doctrine at that time. Poor man, they’ll now be after him too. The last line he’d quoted from my book, Mr. Mitchell has dropped in his exposé, for better or for worse. Wherein Poatlicue says, “It’s probably a law: the public imagination may not exceed the size of the leaders’ ballocks.”
Not a call came about it. A strange, quiet day, the telephone did not ring once.
October 19
Of all things unexpected, this is the largest. Harrison Shepherd fires the shot heard ’round the world. That quote has gone everywhere, even overseas to the armed services, they’ve run it in
Stars and Stripes. Here’s what one spineless fellow thinks back home, and you can bet Harrison Shepherd did not serve active duty: “Our leader is an empty sack, let’s knock him over, put some horns on a stick and follow that. Most of us never choose to believe in our country, we just come up short on better ideass.”
Republic Digest
, “Words from the Nation’s Most Dangerous.” Harrison Shepherd has gone to the top of their list, above Alger Hiss and the Hollywood Ten. The clip service at the publisher’s counted sixty-one newspapers and magazines running the quote so far, and the monthlies are yet to come. These words seem to be driving some form of madness that gets in the head like a nursery rhyme. Leader is an empty sack, empty sack, empty sack! Head with horns upon a stick, follow that!
It’s hard to guess why the publisher needed to call Mrs. Brown
with that stunning figure from the clip service. Can it be they are pleased? Because they are rid of me now? The receptionists at Stratford’s are star-eyed at the measure of my infamy; they have no capacity to resist it. The reach of the quote has gone far beyond any readership of mine, by a hundredfold, bringing joy to people with no prior knowledge of my prowess. It’s bracing in these times. A man you can love to despise.
Mrs. Brown is so distracted she can’t type a letter. Most of the morning she sat in a chair near the front window, knitting a baby shawl. She keeps dropping stitches, finding mistakes, tearing it all out to begin again. Her eyes go out to the street. I’ve never seen her so frightened. More dangerous than Alger Hiss. Who is well on his way now to conviction for treason.
Most of us never choose to believe in our country, we just come up short on better ideas
. The most widely printed words ever written by Harrison Shepherd.
The Echo,
October 21, 1949
Spy Secrets Between Hard Covers
Author Harrison Shepherd has covered a long career of Communist tricks under the guise of mild-mannered writer, producing facile novels that appeal mainly to intellectuals and longhairs. But he has thrown off his cover with the latest round of arrogance, declaring openly in print, “Our leader is an empty sack. You could just as well knock him over, put a head with horns on a stick and follow that.”
Threatening violent overthrow is a matter for public outrage. What’s at the bottom of this twisted mind? His family life tells it all. Born in Lychgate, Virginia, Shepherd was a child of divorce. The father worked as an accountant in the Hoover administration, while the mother was an impecunious Mata Hari, changing her name repeatedly to get close to men
in government on both sides of the Mexico border. New York psychiatrist Nathan Leonard, asked to weigh in on the disturbing case, said, “The shattering psychological effects of a maternal example like this cannot be escaped.”
The son dropped out of school to become a Communist sympathizer, working in the households of leading Stalinist functionaries in Mexico City. From there he moved on to a life of such intrigue it would confound most men: art smuggler, womanizer, State Department courier, using at least two pseudonyms on two continents. All this he accomplished despite a physical appearance so repellent, photographers have shunned him for a lifetime. Such remarkable feats of philandering and espionage carried out by a homely man may arouse false hopes in the Walter Mittys among us. But Harrison Shepherd is not cut from the ordinary cloth.
Among the latest charges: he supplied secrets to the Communist Chinese revolt against Chiang Kai-shek. Like all enemies of America, he adheres to the plan of giving aid and comfort to our enemies. A year ago he told the
Evening Post
he agreed with Bernard Baruch that our atomic bombs should all be thrown in the drink. Now he’s found a better way to throw us on the mercy of the Communists: experts confirm a copy of his book has been found with certain passages underlined, possibly a coded blueprint for the atom bomb. Fortunately this country has a cure for such troubled minds. It is known as the electric chair.
According to the United Press, the Committee on Un-American Activities has already documented countless plans to smuggle bomb secrets to Russia and China. In a 384-page report released last week after five years of investigation, the committee detailed techniques used by American Communists for sending coded secrets to Moscow. “Devices for concealing such messages include necklaces, boxes containing matches cut at various lengths, dental plates, a notching of postage stamps, engraved cigarette cases, embroidered handkerchiefs, special book-bindings and tiny compartments in phonograph records.” A copy of George Bernard Shaw’s
Devil’s Disciple
, the report
disclosed, was found to carry a Russian code message by means of having certain of its words underlined in invisible ink.
Now another Devil’s Disciple, in the guise of writer Harrison Shepherd, has released his latest tome,
The Unforetold
. To such a chilling title we need only add a small footnote: buyer beware.
November 7
Mrs. Brown went to the bookstore to have a look. She did not want to go, and did not want to tell me about it when she came back. So help me God, I pressed her into spying for me. They’ve made a “Ban Harrison Shepherd” window display. I’m not alone; they’ve found a pile of other books written by Communists.
The sign asks, “Would you buy a book if you knew your money was going to the Communist Party?” Under the question were two boxes marked “Yes” and “No,” with a cup of pencils handy for the plebiscite.
What more can they take from me? I asked Mrs. Brown, what do they want? About what anyone wants, was her best guess: safety. That and grace. They know not what they do. Probably they were all aimed at heaven at one time, and lost their way.
What is that,
grace
?
She says, believing you are special and saved from harm. Kissed by God.
Well, that’s how thick I am, I never knew how to want what everyone wants. I only thought to look for a home, some place to be taken in. Handing over a crumpled heart, seeing it dropped in the wastepaper basket every time. Here, though. Americans sent love letters in return.
December 22, 1949
Dear Shepherd,
All right pal, keep your hair on. Probably this is not going to be the salutations you’ve been waiting for. Merry Xmas and all that. Things have changed here, it can’t be helped. I collared a job in ads. No fish! Me myself, in an office full of neck ties, and let me tell you, these cats are steaming. I don’t want to be the jerk that can’t keep up.
Listen, I sure was hung up to see what you wrote about our country. Sorry you feel that way, I guess I never really knew you so well. Cats joke around, but I for one still believe in the Patria and I’m just sorry you can’t say the same. I guess coming from another country, you have your reasons
.
Don’t be a dog about this, right? Nice knowing you but things change. Best for both of us if we shove off and no more correspondence. No one in my present situ knows of our acquaintance
.
So long
,
TOM CUDDY
1950, January
The newspapers slump under the weight of their end-of-the-world headlines.
ALGER HISS VERDICT: SPY AND LIAR
. Larger type even than used for V-J Day; evidently the new enemies are worse than the Japanese. Phony liberals who sell their souls along with the secrets that safeguard our nation. Stalinist tuning forks. Slobbering on the shoes of their Muscovite masters. Henry Wallace is under fire now too, testifying before the Un-American Committee. Henry Wallace, vice president under Roosevelt, the Liberal Democrat candidate in the last election, now faces Trial by Headline.
WALLACE DENIES SENDING URANIUM TO RUSSIANS
. May God protect him, today he lashed out against the press: “King Solomon should add to his list of things beyond the
wisdom of men: why the newspapers print what they do!”
Mrs. Brown noted that Wallace has been reading aloud from his diary in the hearings, as evidence of what was said in the uranium meetings now under scrutiny. “Good thing he kept that diary,” she says, standing in my doorway in a red-and-white-checked tailored shirt. With her, there’s no knowing, it could be the latest fashion or something she made from a tablecloth—or both. Mrs. Brown proves stylish gals can still be thrifty in ’fifty.
She believes I’m taking things too personally. She brings the articles on Wallace, Robeson, Trumbo, those Hollywood writers, the union men, teachers, accountants, office workers, the butcher, the baker, and in the end neither of us is consoled. It’s not just you, she says. People driven out of work, children taunted at school. The children whose father was shot, over in Oteen. What can any child be learning now, she asks, but to fear the wide world and all that’s in it?
“Mr. Shepherd, they have to grow up in this. How will they all be?”
The Asheville Trumpet,
February 12, 1950
Asheville Writer Faces Tough Questions
by Carl Nicholas
In a letter received this week from Federal Investigator Melvin C. Myers, the
Asheville Trumpet
has learned local writer Harrison Shepherd faces numerous charges related to his Communism. Foremost among them is misrepresentation of qualifications in signing an affidavit that he had never been a Communist. He is further charged with falsifying qualifications to serve as an educator. The press release from Myers stated a subpoena will soon be sent to Shepherd with arrangements to follow regarding a hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C.
Fellow citizens of Asheville cannot say we wish him well. It is no source of pride that our town is called home by one of
the many Communists now known to have infiltrated government, as revealed this week by Senator Joseph McCarthy at a meeting of the Ohio County Woman’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia.
Mrs. Herb Lutheridge, President, Asheville Woman’s Club, confirms the Senator’s speech was intended here when the freshman Senator first contacted the Program Committee, hoping to make our city the first stop on his re-election campaign crusade through the South and West. Mrs. Lutheridge says honorarium discussion was under way when the Senator’s office notified her of plans to kick off the tour instead in W. Virginia. Mrs. Lutheridge regrets the mixup but stated, “The main thing is, we are proud of this young man going to Washington to ferret out all those with Soviet leanings.”
The information release concerning Shepherd states that House Un-American Activities Committee has full authority to subpoena a suspect and ask questions based on substantive researches, for the public record. If the hearing warrants, criminal charges will follow. The subcommittee is charged to investigate communism in many guises including “education,” which pertains to Harrison Shepherd as many schoolchildren read his books about the Mexican civilizations. In closing, the letter states, “Through a simple exercise of question and answer, the witness may prove his innocence or be seen to hide behind the Fifth Amendment.”
The
New York Times
reported this month that Communist parties worldwide now have a record membership of 26 million persons.