Alex Herrendon and Harry Bontecou worked every day, Alex working out his passion to put his finger on what he thought the great question raised by the twentieth century: the capacity of totalitarian movements to capture the loyalty not only of multitudes of people, but of intellectuals. And Harry, the historian, wanted to tell the story of the most prominent American figure in the anti-Communist scene in America in the early fifties. Alex and Harry worked together in the same library, the sometime Red and the sometime Redhunter. They were reaching a level of investigative conviviality that began to affect the nature of their feelings toward one another. It was after a substantial dinner by the fire that Alex brought it up. “It’s becoming a little weary—wouldn’t you agree, Harry?—our joint inhibition, our … coping with great questions side by side with our refusal to touch on the personal questions?” He looked over at Harry, whose hand was on the side table, his fingers playing with the coffee cup’s handle.
