Ashcroft Gave Me a Secret Military Tribunal

NOVEMBER 15, 2001 ? In the morning, my coffee, heated, tasted bitter on my tongue, like acid. The news the night before had been brutal; my book, The Astonishing Theater of Martin Cohen, a beautifully rendered tale of sexual obsession among cartoonists in wartime, was denied the National Book Award in both the fiction and nonfiction categories. At the ceremony, the aging men in their ossified coats, seated next to the withered editor-women, had all laughed and laughed at the strained jokes of the ceremony's host, a talentless hack whose hair appeared to have grayed long ago. But I felt ignored, because I was.

Upon waking, I picked my thigh scabs with rusty tweezers and wept. My literary reputation was declining, and had been for weeks now. Outside, the wind blew. I thought of the two winners, Jews both, and younger than me. This gave no solace. I felt as though the son were killing the father with a small knife, and my mouth refilled with the hot phlegm of grief.

The phone rang, as it often did. It was the editor of the Book Review, informing me that The Complete Works of Isaac Babel, all 1076 pages including an introduction by that rarely seen bird Cynthia Ozick, had been released by W.W. Norton & Company, our leading publisher of Russian literature in translation.

"At last," I shrieked, perhaps too loudly, "Isaac Babel's work will be discovered by a new generation!"

My personal connection with Babel was too strong for me not to describe in this space. When I was six years old, in 1936, my father took me to Russia to learn about the people's struggle. We drank human blood with Stalin and visited the flesh mines of Kiev, but my fondest memory of our trip was meeting the author of Red Cavalry.

Isaac Babel wore a black cap that seemed to reach to the sky, and a velvet jacket with epaulets. Behind his glasses were sly, wise, knowing, doomed, prophetic, highly ambivalent eyes.

"So!" he exclaimed. "This is America's youngest bestselling author!"

He kissed my head. His two-day growth was rough, like unshaven paper. Soldiers came then. They took him into the next room and beat him with heavy sticks. I heard his screams and knew that I would be a writer forever, and a martyr someday.

How many American writers can say that Babel has influenced them in the same way? A lot, I think, because Babel is the discovery of truth in the thicket of lies, both implied and official. His writing is the memory of history, shorn of illusion, laying bare the emptiness of pain itself. Above all other work produced in the last century, Babel's work illuminates the noble paradox of tragic inevitability that awaits us all.

The phone rang again, and my memory paused. It was the editor of the Review of Books, who was also interested in what I had to say about the Babel renaissance.

"We would like to pay you $1200," he said.

The day progressed. It rained. The e-mail brought more lucrative assignments. By noon, I was writing for the NYTBR, the NYRB, TNR and NRBQ. An unemployed Web journalist named Rachel came over and fellated me in the shower, her creamy brown breasts heaving over my grateful loins. I had a most delicious Cuban sandwich for lunch.

At 1 p.m., the buzzer rang.

"Office of Homeland Security," said a voice.

"Not again," I said.

"Pack your bags, please," it said. "You have been summoned."

I took my leave of Rachel and gave her my dog-eared copy of Tales of Odessa.

"Thank you," she said, "for this eternal gift. Because no one speaks to unemployed Internet journalists like the great Isaac Babel."

?The province of Maryland lies across the River Potomac, and we crossed it, passing through a dark moist thicket of woody hills, west of Virginia. A dark-skinned man in a leather coat led the brigade, his hair long, but not so long as to instigate a federal investigation, which have become common these days. I rode a sweaty, ancient mare at the back of the column, which numbered six equines in all. My hands were clamped in irons.

"Excuse me," I said. "Why are we riding horses?"

"Quiet, hooligan!" said the man in front of me. He was a jowly, repulsive fellow who had pasted an Ohio State bumper sticker to his horse's ass.

"That is a legitimate question," I said.

He buttoned his coat against the cold, which had drifted in from the sea.

"It seems to me that writers are especially dull," he said.

We passed by a stream, nearly dry from drought. The column leader removed a musket from his pack and shot a deer in the leg, leaving it bleeding and whimpering by the bank. I kept quiet, for now was not the time to protest. With a sigh, I fingered the 50-cent piece that I had wrapped in a rag in my pocket. I wondered if dinner would come soon. Tell me, reader, have you ever witnessed such casual cruelty in your life, and to no purpose? I have.

?My secret military tribunal took place in a cabin somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia. I sat at the end of an oak table, which was illuminated by candle-bearing wall sconces. Three generals sat on either side of me. They sipped hot coffee, or perhaps soup, out of cups apparently procured during a recent public-radio pledge drive. At the head of the table sat a figure wearing a white hood. His headgear must have been itchy, I thought, because he kept scratching himself.

"Are you Schlemiel Pollack?" he said.

"How did you know my Hebrew name?" said I.

"We eavesdropped on your conversation with your lawyer the last time we arrested you."

An old beggar woman carrying a chicken under each arm entered the room and cackled madly, mostly for the sake of atmosphere. She bit off the head of one of the fowl, and left, her lips stained with pointless blood and feathers. She was a bitter bitch, and I was glad to be rid of her.

"What am I charged with?" I asked the hooded figure.

His voice grew loud, as indicated here: "YOU NEED NOT BE CHARGED WITH ANYTHING TO BE CALLED BEFORE THIS SECRET MILITARY TRIBUNAL!" he said. "THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS HANDLING THIS SITUATION IN ITS OWN WAY! BESIDES, YOU CRITICIZED US ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, AND THAT IS GROUNDS ENOUGH!"

Suddenly, I knew my inquisitor.

"Hello, Johnny," I said. "Apparently, you're still quite the Klansman."

"SILENCE!" he said. "I AM IN CHARGE OF THIS TRIBUNAL!"

I am a clever chap, and know how to deal with the arrogant and powerful. Addressing the generals, I said, "Listen, fellows. I know that this is an awkward situation and all, but I thought I could tell you a story about Attorney General Ashcroft and me. You see, many years ago, I was just an itinerant Beat poet, hitchhiking my way across the country, looking for the real America. Well, a nasty windstorm just outside St. Louis waylaid me, and I sought refuge in the house of a stranger."

"LIES!" exclaimed John Ashcroft.

"He certainly had some unusual ideas about black people," I said, "and he was more draconian than the boys I usually went for back in the Village. But he was forceful and handsome and ambitious, and I always admired that in a man. We had a few drinks, and before you know it, we were in bed together. I wore a condom so he couldn't tell I was circumcised. It was pretty obvious at the time that he didn't like Jews. But what a lover John Ashcroft was! A real Cossack in the sack, I'm telling you!"

The inquisitor fumed and threw objects at me while the generals roared with laughter.

"LIES!" Ashcroft shouted. "THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO CORROBORATE HIS STORY!"

"You don't need evidence at these proceedings," said a general, and they all roared again.

John Ashcroft fled the room, weeping bitterly.

The generals bowed to me, and one of them said, "Gracious writer, please accept our sincerest apology at your unjust arrest and uncomfortable journey. Let us make sure that, in these times of national trouble, you do not encounter such a fate again. As a feeble gesture of forgiveness, we have prepared a wheelbarrow, drawn by peasants, to take you back to your loft apartment in Brooklyn."

I stood up from the table.

"Gentlemen, I thank you for your patronage," I said.

Outside, the itinerant moon glimmered in the reflection of its own light. My heart, sore from overuse, throbbed with dreams of better days. I stepped forward into a pile of leaves, which was actually covering a hole, and fell a long way before hitting bottom.