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‘Goodbye, dear,’ she said warmly.

‘Well, what am I to say to Mr Zlentli—if it is Mr Zlentli?’ asked Martha.

‘Oh dear, I wish I wasn’t pregnant. I’d love to come with you.’

‘You’re welcome to it, believe me,’ said Martha.

‘Oh dear, don’t say that you’re losing interest too, Matty?’

Martha left: she had to go home to wait for a call from Thomas. When he rang, it was to say that the police had been and it was bad news. He would tell her when he came into town. No, it wouldn’t be in the next day or two, he had things to do.

He sounded—not like himself; Martha had been on the point of describing his voice, his manner, when she realized that, on the contrary, he sounded exactly like the Thomas of this year, of these last few months. He sounded utterly unlike the Thomas she had first known…the Thomas of the loft, as she put it to herself. She took her bicycle and went off to meet Mr Zlentli, heavy with worry about Thomas, and feeling that this business of seeing Mr Zlentli was ridiculous, badly prepared, and bound to come to no good.

And so it proved.

In the street parallel to Johnny’s in a minute house similar
to his, where she, Martha, had often enough sold
Watchdogs
in the old days, three Africans were waiting for her. One was the young man she recognized from Johnny Lindsay’s—he had raised his hand like a boy in class to ask provocative questions. An older man, bearded, with a majestic, composed air, sat in the background and never opened his mouth, not once. At once Martha assumed this was Mr Zlentli and directed everything she said to him.

A third man, rather young, probably about twenty, brusquely welcomed her: he was going to be spokesman.

She had leaned her bicycle against the wall, and left it there.

‘Do you not lock your bicycle?’ said the spokesman, with affected concern. He was of a type like Solly’s, Martha decided: dramatic, self-conscious—childish, in short. His eyes were wide with pretended concern. Normally Martha would have enjoyed it—the young man playing his part with such relish. But instead she found herself irritated.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘But surely in such rough parts of the town, it is wise to lock your bicycle?’

Martha again said briefly, ‘No,’ with the intention of showing she had not come to waste her time. She looked at the majestic man who was smoking in silence, watching her. The question-asker sat by him, quietly. Although it was he who had—must have—given reports of Martha, and in fact had decided what was going to happen now, he looked quite unconcerned, as if nothing of this was to do with him. The lively, sarcastic young man now introduced himself as Mr Simon, and pushed a chair towards her. She sat. It was still warm from somebody’s body. Mr Simon’s? The chairs in the little room were several, and arranged in a rough circle, and by each were ash-trays full of stubs. Martha recognized the atmosphere of the political meeting. A door stood half-open into an inner room. Behind that door, Martha suddenly knew, sat, or stood, one, or two or more people, who had been at a meeting when interrupted by Martha’s arrival. Among them, perhaps Mr Zlentli? Or even Solly? How was one to know?

And now she knew she ought not to be here, or at least not like this. She thought: Two or three years ago, if we met Africans, or they met us, we
knew
we could help each other. And now I haven’t the faintest idea what to say.

She said: ‘I expect you want to know why I am here?’

They did not reply. She was sitting, trying to think of the right words to use, when Mr Simon said something unexpected: ‘And how
is
our good friend Mrs Van?’

‘But I didn’t come here to discuss Mrs Van der Bylt,’ said Martha.

‘But there is no doubt she will be interested in the results of our discussions.’

Martha had no idea what to say. She had understood that Mrs Van was a villain of some kind, in these circles. Not just someone ‘misguided—a misguided paternalist’—but somebody assumed to be intriguing against them.

Martha looked towards Mr Zlentli—if it was Mr Zlentli—and hoped he would say something. After all, she thought, if he had not expected something from her coming, he would not be here at all. And he will probably have made his mind up by now—but his face said nothing, so she said to Mr Simon, looking at Mr Zlentli: ‘You’ve made a mistake; my visit has nothing to do with Mrs Van.’

‘But we are always to interested to meet our white sympathizers,’ said Mr Simon, drawling.

‘I am sure you are. Now, all I really have to say is this: if you want help of any kind, there are people who are prepared to help.’

This sounded lame: she thought that in a different atmosphere these same lame words might be the beginning of something really useful. So she sat, making herself smile, refusing to feel annoyed when Mr Simon said, immensely sarcastic: ‘And what kind of help could you possibly have in mind?’

‘That would depend, wouldn’t it? For instance, there are books we could order for you. Information—all kinds of things.’

Now Mr Zlentli glanced at the young man next to him
and at Mr Simon. The three pairs of eyes communicated—but unintelligibly as far as Martha was concerned.

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Simon. ‘We will remember your kind offer.’

‘Also we know people who have contacts—for instance, if you have students who need training, we could help perhaps.’

‘Trained for what?’ said Mr Simon.

Martha could not help smiling—there was an unmistakable air of interest suddenly.

‘For instance, there might be scholarships to learn engineering—or medicine or teaching. Things like that. Through trade unions and that kind of body.’

They did not look at each other. The atmosphere announced that an opportunity had been missed, or an expectation failed. She knew she might just as well go.

She said: ‘When so few of your people are trained for anything at all, then surely it’s worth while even to get one or two some education.’ No response. ‘How does one know what help one can give without knowing each other?’

She did not expect an answer to this, and she got up. Mr Simon said: ‘Very many thanks, Mrs Hesse, we are grateful for the interest shown by certain white people in our affairs.’

Suddenly, without knowing she had been going to say this, she remarked: ‘Mr Solly Cohen—he’s not the only help there is, you know.’

And now at last, real response, a sudden agitation. Eyes met, and separated.

‘Solly Cohen?’ said Mr Simon quickly.

‘I understand you are friends of his.’

‘No, that’s not the truth, we have never heard of any Solly Cohen.’

‘Never have been in his organization,’ said the youth near Mr Zlentli—speaking carefully and just this once.

‘That is so, we have never been associated with Mr Solly Cohen at all,’ said Mr Simon.

‘Ah,’ said Martha. ‘Well, it’s a misunderstanding. It was understood that Mr Zlentli and Solly Cohen were working together. I am so sorry.’

‘This is too bad,’ said Mr Simon, putting on an air of fierce resentment. ‘And here is Mr Zlentli implicated as well!’

Martha looked at the mysterious man against the wall, who looked back at her. The large, controlled, serious face, with its trim beard, the straight, lively eyes—if they belonged to Mr Zlentli, then she was disposed to approve of Mr Zlentli. But while he allowed his face to look as if it
nearly
smiled, while his eyes showed he was not angry, that was his lieutenant’s function, he made no further sign, merely put his cigarette in his mouth, drew in smoke, and sent it out through flaring nostrils.

‘Look,’ said Martha, to the three men generally. ‘Let’s get this straight. I’m not here to spy on you.’ As she said this, it occurred to her that in a way she was. ‘I’m not here to find out anything—or to tell tales about you afterwards.’

‘Tell tales?’ said Mr Simon, with hostility. ‘How do you mean, tell tales?’

‘As far as we are concerned—we wish you luck, and if you need help, come and ask. If we can, we’ll help.’

With which she smiled all round and went down a short flight of cement steps on which a dog sat licking its fleas. Getting on her bicycle, she looked up to see Mr Simon watching her over the veranda wall.

‘And you must give our kindest regards to Mrs Van,’ said Mr Simon, with a social amiability as false, as ‘put on’, as enjoyably theatrical, as his hostility.

‘When I see her, I shall,’ said Martha. And she bicycled away, while the dog ran beside her, yapping at the back wheel, and Mr Simon shouted: ‘Come back here, sir, come back here at
once
!’

It was a couple of days later. Again Martha sat in the Founders’ Street restaurant with Thomas. He had telephoned Martha to say there was something urgent he had to tell her. But Jasmine was there too, and there had been no chance for him and Martha to talk.

Jasmine was on a week’s visit to her parents, after over three years in Johannesburg. They had heard suddenly that she was married. A frightful family crisis!—and here she was, to take part in it.

‘You’d never believe the fuss,’ said Jasmine, smiling composedly, drinking tea. ‘You know how it is—when you’re working for the Party day and night, and you haven’t time for personal matters, you forget about how things are in ordinary life.’

It was early evening. Soon Thomas had to leave. On the telephone he had said: ‘If you can get an hour free, we can go to the park and talk.’ Now he sat with a plate of fried meat and chips in front of him, silent. It looked as if he were not listening to Jasmine. They were all waiting for Solly, who had promised to come. Jasmine had said to him: ‘I’m your cousin, for one thing, and for another I’m from the Party.’

‘And why should a dirty Trotskyist listen to the Party?’

‘It’s in your own interests. You’ll hear something to your advantage, as they say in the lawyers’ advertisements.’

‘It’s funny being back home,’ said Jasmine, staring around the bare restaurant which, as they looked at it with her eyes, became the ugly, sordid place it was. ‘When I think I spent years of my life in this dorp and I never took it seriously—’
she looked at Martha, remembered Martha’s situation and said: ‘When are you going to England, Matty?’

‘When Anton’s got his nationality and then we can get divorced.’

‘Luckily, getting divorced, there’s nothing to it these days.’

The sophistications of the big city had not changed Jasmine’s appearance at all. She was still a tiny, slender, dark girl, with black curls all over her head, and enormous dark brown eyes—the picture of a protected Jewish girl destined for a secure marriage. A great white wool sweater added to her delicate look. She was telling the story of her marriage.

It appeared that a year ago the police asked her to leave the Union of South Africa. She was not a national and they were getting rid, as Jasmine said, of any spare Reds. She investigated her status: it turned out she did not have one at all, was not even Zambesian. For reasons no sensible person would be able to understand, although she had lived all her life in this country, she was not its national. The police suggested she might like to go back to Lithuania, where her parents came from.

There was nothing for it, she would have to marry a South African. The Party was able to help her. An ex-serviceman who had been wounded in such a way as to make marriage irrelevant to him said he was willing. ‘I said to him: “Are you sure, comrade, because you’ve got quite enough problems, it seems to me.” He said: “Help yourself to what’s left, comrade.”’

They married and had lunch together. ‘We had quite a few interests in common, it turned out, but he was off to organize a branch in Ramsdorp, so we kissed and said goodbye. We cried, too, wasn’t it ridiculous? We sat at the table and shed a few tears about life in general.’ Six months later came the divorce, on grounds of desertion. Jasmine had turned up at the Court, properly dressed, as she said, but she had not known women were supposed to wear hats for the purpose of being divorced. She had no hat. Five minutes before she was due to stand up and ‘speak up for
myself, my lawyer said: “Where’s your hat?” So I got a duster from the cleaning woman and tied it over my head. Suddenly, there was my cousin Haimi. “What are you doing here?” he said. “I’m getting divorced,” I said.’ Here Jasmine rolled her eyes demurely, in the old way, which seemed to dissociate her for ever from anything even remotely irregular. ‘He said: “What have you got that filthy doek on your head for?” I said: “Well, whose fault is it, if you must make such silly laws?”—because he’s a lawyer you see. He borrowed a hat from a woman in the audience—so to speak. It was black straw—very smart. So I got divorced in the black straw and I handed it back to Haimi and said: “Thanks for all your trouble.” Then I suddenly understood I was out of touch with reality—this was my cousin Haimi. “Don’t tell my parents,” I said, but it was no good. There was a telegram that night. When I got home I said to them: “Keep your hair on, I only got married to give myself a South African nationality. He’s a good type,” I said, “and he was doing me a favour.” But my mother went to bed and cried all night, and said she would never forgive me, so then I said: “All right then, if that’s what you want—he was a filthy beast who made me pregnant and then when I had a miscarriage he deserted me and he beat me too. I divorced him for cruelty and I will carry the scars until I die.” Then my mother felt fine and kissed me and said she would always be my mother, and my pop gave me £100. And now everybody’s happy and for Pete’s sake, thank God I can go back to Johannesburg now, because how anyone can stick this dorp I really can’t imagine,’ said Jasmine, rolling her eyes again.

‘We
can’t
stick it,’ said Martha.

‘I suppose it’s all right for the Africans,’ said Jasmine. ‘They’re persecuted day and night, it gives them an interest in life. But I swear, all my parents’ friends, they might just as well have been dead and buried these last fifty years. And you’re not far off, Matty, I’m warning you.’

‘Well, thanks,’ said Martha.

At which point Solly came in. He smiled at them generally, and said: ‘Up the Reds!’

Then he sat down and, seated, directed a mock, obsequious bow towards Jasmine. ‘I hear you have orders for me, cousin comrade?’

‘Not orders.’

‘That’s a good thing, in the circumstances.’

Johnny Capetenakis stood by his old customer Solly, offering him a plate of stuffed vine leaves.

‘And how goes it, Johnny?’

‘Fine, Mr Cohen. I’m going back home soon.’

‘You’ll get a bullet in your back.’

The Greek shook his head. ‘No, in my village things are quiet—the rebels are chased out.’

‘
You
are the rebels, Johnny.’

‘I do not have politics in this restaurant.’

‘And have you heard from Athen?’ asked Jasmine.

The Greek tactfully averted his eyes at Athen’s name, but listened.

‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I suppose he must be dead.’

A moment’s silence, then Johnny said, in a hard, angry sorrow: ‘He was a brave man. He was a brave man, but he was crazy.’ And he walked away, shaking his head.

‘So let’s have it, cousin Jasmine, because I’m on my way.’

‘The Party has decided your activities are all right-wing deviations,’ announced Jasmine.

‘How can I deviate from something I’m not a member of?’

‘It’s an objective truth,’ said Thomas, speaking for the first time, and bitterly. The note he struck was so sombre, so harsh, that for a moment they were silent, looking at him.

Then Jasmine turned back to Solly: ‘That’s not really what I wanted to say, though. After all, no one can stop you if you want to play Napoleon, all by yourself.’

‘Why don’t you make enquiries of comrade Matty here? She’s an old friend of Mr Zlentli, aren’t you, Matty?’

‘I went to see Mr Zlentli, if it was Mr Zlentli, because Joss wrote and told me his little brother was up to no good,’ said Martha.

‘And what is my big brother doing up North?
He’s
playing Napoleon too, but I suppose that’s all right,’ said Solly.

‘At any rate he accepts discipline,’ said Jasmine.

‘And how
was
Mr Zlentli?’ said Solly to Martha.

‘If it was Mr Zlentli, then he’s fine. But surely you should know?’

‘I don’t know, why should I know?’

‘Do stop it, children,’ said Jasmine. ‘I’m not surprised that everything goes from bad to worse here, if you go on like this.’

‘I haven’t been going on at all,’ said Martha. ‘You must apply to Solly for information.’

Here Solly grinned, made another mock bow, stood up, and with his hands folded together meekly on the table, in a pose of willing patience, looked at Jasmine.

‘Okay,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s this. The people in the Party who know this kind of thing…’ here she rolled her eyes again, ‘…they’ve got a contact in the Special Branch, and they have found out that
they
are hand in glove with the police here.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Solly.

‘Of course,’ said Martha.

‘It’s one thing to say of course—that’s theory. But it’s different finding out it’s really true. What I have to tell you is this: there is some kind of demonstration being organized, a national demonstration, with a man called Zlentli running it. Well, the authorities here know all about it. They’re just waiting. The South African authorities tipped them off, they intercepted some letters. So the Zambesian authorities just sit here, waiting to scoop up the leaders. So I’m detailed to tell you, since I was coming up here anyway, that if you are in contact with Zlentli, that you must warn him
they
know everything and he’d better lose himself for a time till things blow over.’

She was eating a stuffed vine leaf, as she talked, and now she wiped her fingers carefully on a scrap of handkerchief. She frowned as she discovered traces of yellow oil on a small, pink fingernail. She said to Solly: ‘That’s all. So if you are in a position to do anything about it, it’s all yours.’

Solly had absorbed this, as one could see from the quick, darting movements of his eyes while he tucked away the information and made plans. Now he re-directed an intent
black stare at his cousin—but in fact he was pleased and this was merely routine aggression: ‘How am I to know it’s the truth and not some kind of trap?’ said he, widening his eyes and putting his face close to Jasmine’s, in a fierce scowl.

‘Please yourself,’ said Jasmine, picking up another stuffed vineleaf between thumb and forefinger. ‘I’ve done what I said I’d do and now it’s up to you.’

‘But what if Mr Zlentli doesn’t trust Solly?’ enquired Martha, of Solly.

‘Then Solly had better see that Mr Zlentli gets the information from some source he does trust,’ said Jasmine.

They all smiled at each other, sweet and knowledgeable.

Then Solly smiled, said: ‘Will do,’ and departed. As he passed the Greek, who was serving a table a few paces off, he laid his hand on the man’s shoulders and said: ‘See you on the barricades.’

‘Everything goes on as usual, I see,’ said Jasmine. ‘When I think the fate of a big national thing is in the hands of cousin Solly, then…’ she rolled up her eyes and began collecting herself to leave.

‘What you don’t realize,’ said Thomas, again in the overintense, harsh voice, ‘is that that’s how things are everywhere. Everywhere in the world cousin Jasmine sits licking her pretty fingers and thinking, No wonder everything’s in such a mess if they are in the hands of cousin Solly. And of course that’s the point, they
are
in the hands of cousin Solly.’

Martha and Jasmine looked at him—it was from a distance, a distance he was putting between him and them. What he said was meant for a light tone, and should have been followed by a laugh. But he spoke in a dark, angry voice, and everything was discordant and disconnected.

‘And you’re all getting very defeatist,’ said Jasmine: and her words, fitted for a half-joke, were suddenly harsh and sorrowful. She looked surprised herself. She got up. ‘I’m going to pack now. Goodbye, Matty. If you get fed up waiting for Anton to sort himself out, then drop down South and
see me some time.’ She hesitated before saying to Thomas, in a tentative, gentle voice: ‘Goodbye, Thomas.’ He nodded.

Jasmine bent over to kiss Martha and said softly into her other ear: ‘Do leave, Matty. You’ve no idea how nice it is to get out—you’re human when you get out. People have no idea how awful this place is until they leave it.’

She stood up, raised her gloved hand towards Thomas and said: ‘Barricades!’—which abbreviated farewell was the fashion, apparently, that year in ‘the Party down South’.

She departed lazily, wrapped in her thick, white wool. As she went past Johnny, she said to him: ‘Good luck in Greece—but I’m only speaking personally, if you get what I mean.’

‘Well,’ said Thomas, ‘if that had gone on another five mintues I’d have shot myself.’

‘You mean, anything that happens here is too unimportant to take seriously,’ said Martha. Hearing what she had said, she realized Thomas was about to announce his departure.

‘What were you thinking about—while that went on?’ enquired Thomas.

‘
Went on—
I suppose it is of some importance?’

‘What was Jasmine saying to you?’

‘That I should leave.’

‘Of course. You’re mad to stay.’

After a moment she said quietly, very hurt: ‘One of the things I was thinking, while Solly was here, was that I can’t be all that mad—because instead of having an affair with Solly I stuck around for you.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Thomas. Again, it should have been light—humorous. But it sounded irritated. Seeing Martha’s face, he sighed, and shut his eyes a moment. Then he said: ‘I’m angry with you because I’m trying not to care about you. I’m leaving.’

‘So I thought.’

‘When I got home that night the police were there. I’m afraid even to tell you—it’s so impossible. But they had worked it all out: my wife’s third cousin is in the Stern Gang, or so it seems. Not that I knew it, or my wife knew it. But they know it. And I’m a Red. And my name is Stern.
Put these facts together—and I’m responsible for the atrocities in Israel.’

His face was swollen with anger, with hatred.

‘I nearly laughed at first. You can imagine how it was: my friend Michel sitting there stroking his pretty, black beard and smiling: All this has nothing to do with me, I’m just a man of peace. And two nice Zambesian boys with their raw, red thighs and their stupid faces. Tell me, Mr Stern, are you responsible for the murder of our fellow-national, the poor British Tommy in Haifa last week? Do have a drink, Sergeant, sit down, Trooper Jones. No, I must explain things to you—the fact that my wife happens to be visiting her aunt in Tel Aviv does not automatically make me responsible for the murders of your British boys in Haifa. They smiled—embarrassed at putting me to such trouble. But excuse me, just for the records, your name is Stern, sir, isn’t it?’