The hearing is in a huge downtown hotel. Giant glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling. If one falls, it’ll be instant death. That’ll save us a lot of trouble.
“Knock ’em dead, Mom.” I straighten the scarf around her neck, Dad kisses her cheek, and we send her off into battle with the U.S. Senate.
It’s not easy for her to walk in those spiked heels. Still, when Mr. Quincy takes her arm, she marches right into that hearing room like a pitcher to his mound. The room is already crowded. A small herd of reporters sits up close, and a couple of photographers stand on tables to snap pictures from every weird angle. We’re stuck in a back row where Vic has reserved seats for us.
Mom’s on her own now. The first hurdle is when they ask her to swear on a Bible.
“. . . The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
She hesitates with her hand hovering over the book. Dad groans. We stop breathing in the echoey silence of the room until Mom lays her hand on the book and says, “I do.” It costs her a bundle of self-respect to take the senators’ oath, but she isn’t ready to rock the boat yet. She’s saving her best stuff for later.
I try to listen to everything, but those senators are spouting words the way whales spout water through their blowholes. So I tune in and out, like when you’re doing homework and listening to a game on the radio, and the ump’s calling nothing but balls.
Here’s some of what I catch, with Mom answering yes sir, no sir, and when she tries to say more, they cut her off.
“You stated your name as Rosalie Rafner, correct? Mrs. Rafner, have you ever used an alias? No? Then would you explain who Rosalie Weitz is? Weitz is a Polish name, is it not?”
We know where the guy’s going with this Polish stuff.
“I earned my doctorate under my maiden name, Weitz, before I was married, Senator.”
“Isn’t it true that you’re known around Hawthorne College as Professor Rafner, and not Professor Weitz?”
“That is only for consistency, sir, as my husband and son carry the Rafner name.”
“Ah, so you do use an alias.”
You can see the senators keeping mental scorecards. That’s the way it goes, with them trying to catch her on their hooks. When they hit on the loyalty oath thing, Dad squeezes my hand until it feels like the fingers are gonna snap off and thud to the floor.
“Mrs. Rafner, could you please state for the committee why you’ve stubbornly refused to sign a simple loyalty oath at the college that employs you?”
She’s memorized a speech for this question. “Gentlemen, it is my contention that university loyalty oaths are objectionable on three separate grounds. First, they are contrary to academic freedom, restricting what one may think and teach. Second—”
One of the senators butts in: “You teach at a Quaker college, correct? Quakers are known to oppose oaths, yet we don’t hear you objecting on religious grounds.”
“I am not a Quaker, sir.”
“What religion are you, Mrs. Rafner?”
“With all due respect, sir, I believe that information is irrelevant. However, in the interest of cooperation, I’ll tell you that I am Jewish. Regardless, I support the Quaker belief that the integrity of a person’s word is good enough without swearing an oath.”
“Yet you swore on the Bible,” one senator says with a smirk.
“I did, yes. Otherwise we couldn’t have even begun these proceedings. My second objection—”
“I believe you’ve made your objections quite clear already,” another senator says, puffing away on a cigar.
“Sir, I have a point to make, if you please.” Before he can protest, Mom plows on. “My second contention is that loyalty oaths are contrary to the United States Constitution, which, as you well know, guarantees the liberties of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the freedom to redress justifiable grievances against the government.”
“Why’d she say that?” Vic whimpers.
The chairman jumps on that statement. “May I assume, then, that you have grievances against the government of this country?”
“No, sir, no more than any other patriotic citizen.”
The pot boils. Mom calling herself patriotic must have ticked them off. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a communist organization, or any organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States government?”
“Violent overthrow, never. Your thinking may differ from mine as to what defines a communist—”
“Are you a member of a labor union?”
“A college teachers’ union, yes, but I hardly think—”
“Are you familiar with the Institute for Pacific Relations, known as the IPR?”
“Vaguely.”
“And are you aware that the IPR perpetrated the fall of China to the communists in 1949?”
“No, sir, that is not within my range of knowledge.”
“Mrs. Rafner, exactly what is within your range of knowledge regarding the IPR? More simply, what is your affiliation with that nefarious organization?”
“Minimal. I merely translated a Chinese poem for one of the members.”
“Ah! You speak Chinese!”
“No native speaker would recognize it as such. What I have is a modest reading knowledge from my college minor in Asian literature. Just enough to translate a simple poem.”
“Are you aware that the IPR has been under investigation for more than a year, thus bringing your link with the organization into question?”
“Respectfully, sir, the poem I translated was the lament of a fourteenth-century lovesick maiden. Hardly subversive material, Senator.”
He turns a sharp corner. “We’ll make it simple for you, Mrs. Rafner. Are you now a member of a communist organization or a communist front organization? I remind you, you are under oath.”
Quincy and Mom huddle. I suck in my breath, like I’m underwater with her, swimming in a barracuda-infested sea. If she says yes, she’ll be drawn into the undertow, but before she sinks, they’ll pump her for names of other people. If she says no, and they connect her with some group they claim is communist, she’ll be lunch for the barracudas, because they can nail her for perjury, which is lying under oath. Jail time. Even though she isn’t lying. No wonder people don’t want to take oaths.
Mr. Quincy pushes his chair back and stands tall. “Senators, before my client answers further questions, she wants the record to show that she wishes to stand by a diminished Fifth Amendment.”
“Diminished, sir?”
“Yes, Senator. By that we mean, to the best of Mrs. Rafner’s knowledge and recollection, she will truthfully answer questions pertaining to herself, but will not answer questions pertaining to other people.”
The senator is practically barking now. “May I remind you that there is no such thing as a diminished Fifth.”
“Nevertheless,” Mr. Quincy says with a defeated sigh.
Uh-oh, riptide time. It’s sink or swim now.