— Let them go back to the rank and file, man. What do they think. — A small black man with the pock-marks of poverty and the scars of warders' punches spat the match from the corner of his mouth.
— Most of them are the rank and file, so? — -No, no, only three. The other two are exec members. — Comrade Chair… Comrade Chair… can I just… — Caleb is the only one we see. The other — he hasn't attended a meeting for months. — On a mission!—
There was laughter, and private exchanges. — What sort of people are we sending around? Did you hear that? — Some mission. he goes about claiming. I'm telling you—-Makes statements supposed to come from us—
They had their break from tension and then were rapped to order. — This is not a circus, comrades.—
One who always could be counted on to hold the floor as if he were eyeing in a mirror his plump handsome face, himself his own appreciative audience, began a prepared speech. — Comrades. we are facing a grave crisis whose ultimate consequences we may not foresee. the forces of democratic action are threatened from within. this Trojan horse, can it be stabled. I ask you. challenge. is it much different from the truck appearing innocently to be carrying its load of cold drinks, that attracted our children into the street and gave the fascists who were hidden with their guns behind the crates a chance to shoot our children down. Are we to watch our words and stick out our necks to the knives of potential traitors here in this place where we meet to put our minds and hearts in the struggle… are we to sit with Judas in our midst… I say, and I dare to speak in the name of our masses, who sacrifice their bread in strike action, who risk the roof over their heads in rent boycotts, our comrade workers who sweat and toil in the dark of the mines. let us cast out these betrayers of the people's trust, the unity that is our strength, let them do what they will, but we cannot compromise the struggle that is sacred to us—
Stale, stale. Sonny was unaware that he was slowly weaving his head from side to side, away from the rhetoric and melodrama of this performance given by a man as brave as he was vain— how to explain that someone who had endured without breaking seventeen months in solitary confinement could talk like this; that such conviction should be expressed in this overblown way associated in everyone's ears with cant. He believed the disaffected should be expelled; better a split than a schism within. But now he was filled with distaste at the idea of associating that decision with bombast. He clung desperately to the straw of truth in plain speech, plain words; he did not speak.
But someone had to. A movement cannot be run by fastidious abstention. He should know that. The leadership that had protected him (from nothing! from a shadow!) and who exhibited him at their side, already had arrived in private at a compromise that would be carried by the majority. — Comrades — the chosen spokesman looked round quietly at them all and fingered along the ridge of his jaw-bone a moment while attention gathered— I propose, in the best interests of unity combined with the security of the movement, we do not publicly expel these men from the executive. We suspend them, with their agreement— leave of absence — until the executive is automatically dissolved at our Congress. They will not attend any further meetings, they won't present themselves to speak on our behalf in any capacity. They won't give press interviews. We know they'll agree to this. the whole business will become a non-event.—
Everyone waited for another to speak. — They'll remain members — the rank and file as well?—
— Yes. No split. They're being re-educated — if anyone should bother to ask.—
The orator threw back his head and stiffened an heroic profile. — Comrades, I bow to the majority.—
Sonny left with his proper companions, the leaders. A hand took his elbow. — It's the way to deal with it, Sonny.—
— You know what I think.—
Hannah was expecting him to come and report. He drove to the cottage, parked in the lane, pushed through the shrubs where piebald-breasted Cape thrushes flew, whistling, before him. Involuntarily his hands went out to them. There was a pile of cigarette butts beside her, he tasted the smoke of her anxiety dry in her mouth. He told her the decision and then went back to his account to describe how the meeting had gone, leading up to it, paraphrasing even with a little exaggeration for her wry amusement, the speech that, at the time, had embarrassed him. She knew, as he did, the real qualities of that man — what did pomposity matter, despite his sudden yearning to have it otherwise — nothing is simple in a life and a country where conflict breaks up all consistency of character. They'd often talked of that. With particular reference to Baby — his Baby. Her frivolity, the way she manipulated through charm, and the purpose suddenly (who knew?) surfacing in her — the strongest purpose in human society, to change the world.
To change the world. Trumpeting words again.
He leant over and emptied the full ashtray into the garden. — That's enough. No more.—
She pushed the cigarette pack away. — I promise. Not while you're here. — After a pause: —.So it's all right. Somehow. Everything's the same again.—
— Not the same. — He tried to answer her smile but his was a strange grin that stayed and stayed with him under the contradiction of those dark thick brows bunched over blackly intense eyes.
— Can you eat with me?—
He couldn't, he'd promised to let Aila have the car that evening — some invitation he'd managed to get out of, pleading paper-work to be done. So he left soon, and that was his second homecoming. Aila didn't expect any report from him, thank god. He was late — but she was accustomed to that. She took the car keys without reproach and hurried off, smelling of perfume. The boy was out, he'd found a girl at last. Sonny could go to bed in blankness, if not peace.
Hannah did not know her lover was a grandfather — and if only he had realized this, nothing would have changed if she had: with his wife and grown son and daughter the news would have belonged to that dimension of his personality which, without her having any place in it, enriched her share. From the first, when she saw him in prison and visited his home, she was fascinated by the complete context of Sonny, half in love with his family as with his political associates.
There was something she hadn't told him, either. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees wanted her to take on a high-level post. She hadn't applied for it — she wouldn't have thought of changing jobs while she was fortunate enough to have one that kept her where he was. One of the observers from the International Commission of Jurists who had made her acquaintance in knots of discussion at Sonny's and other trials, apparently had recommended she be approached. She was gratified at this unexpected estimation of her, surprised and slightly alarmed. It stirred her like a new sense experienced, the touch of something other than a lover. She enjoyed the esteem of the offer as if that were the beginning and end of it; did not think of it as a decision to be made — she was far from even considering that. But she felt this was not a time to tell Sonny anything; anything unexpected. He had just dealt with a conflict he could not have imagined ever would happen. It was not the moment to present him with anything but herself just as she had existed for him since she visited him in prison. Not even the pleasure, as she thought of it, of something to be proud of, in her. Sonny was her farthest horizon. It would take some other sort of courage, one she didn't think she had, to hoist herself up past unease at the prospect; see that, from there, it was no jump off the edge of the world.
Twice lately while I've been alone in the house the phone has rung and when I've answered whoever was on the other end of the line has hung up. I wonder if he's going to be arrested again: Security checking to find out if he's living at home. I supposed I'd better warn him; but he gave a sceptical smile— Don't worry son. He doesn't come home so often with that current of — what was it exactly — vigour, excitement, shamelessly, hardly hidden from us when he's been with her, his lips full and that curly black hair combed back to make innocent the tousling in bed he's just left; nor with something of the same fast-flowing blood we used to sense in him for different reasons, when he'd been making one of his speeches and defying the cops. Maybe he and his woman have had a row. Perhaps she's the one who calls, hoping he's alone in the house and he'll answer. But I'm the man who's likely to be around at home in my room because I've begun a project — call it that — that needs solitude. I've found a use for the state, compromised and deserted, he dumped me in when he walked off so calmly with his blonde after an afternoon at the cinema.