Good for them.
That is enough for one day.
Olga came back from the famine yesterday. She looked awful. I ran her a hot bath and put her into it. I felt as if I was her mother. I made her eat some sandwiches. I put her into bed. She was quite dazed and gone. I sat with her while she lay in bed. I turned the lights off when she asked so she could see the stars through the window. I understood sitting there that Olga will not live long. She is worn out. More than that. She is far away from me. From us all. When she is with us, you would say she is being absentminded if you didn't know her. Olga is never absentminded, because she is always interested in everything going on. What is happening is that she is going away inside.
Today in the living room there was George and some people, mostly Chinese, not official Chinese. Mother was sitting with us. George was telling them where to go, what to do, what not to do. Then Benjamin came in. He has become quite different now he is so successful. That is malicious. Now that he is so useful. That is the exact truth. But he is bluff King Benjamin. He wears a uniform invented by himself of jeans and bush shirt and a keffiyeh. Usually he sits and listens but today he must have had something very good happen because he was full of himself and kept breaking in and talking. The Chinese were waiting for him to shut up. But he didn't. George just waited. But Benjamin seemed too large for the room, he is so big and everyone else in it was small in comparison and well behaved and courteous. Suddenly Olga began crying. It was out of exhaustion. I could see quite clearly that years of Benjamin had suddenly become too much. She kept sobbing, Oh do stop it, stop it, Benjamin. He was absolutely devastated. He collapsed. George signed to me, and I took Olga out and put her to bed again. In a minute Benjamin came to the room, and asked to be let in. He sat by Olga and held her hand. She was still crying. He was crying. I was crying.
Simon came back today with his Peripatetic Hospital. He has been working twenty hours a day for weeks. He and Olga sit in the living room like two ghosts. They hardly talk. I see they don't need to. I see that our family often sit in the living room for hours and say practically nothing, George too. George has been spending hours sitting with Olga and Simon saying not a word. Being with them. Benjamin came marching in and asked about Simon's trip. By then Simon had recovered a bit. He said this and that, and then Thank God they were Chinese. Meaning the Overlords. (People's Representatives.) Where he had been travelling. I have seen that Simon and Olga often say Thank heavens he or she or they were Chinese. But what I am suddenly asking myself is, Why the Chinese? I mean, why is it that absolutely everywhere you go there are Chinese. Ever so efficient and useful of course. Never put a foot wrong. Tact personified. Simon and Olga say, common sense personified. Last month when Olga went to the famine, she actually grabbed a Chinese from some office or other and took her too because they are worth their weight in gold. In common sense. There are six Chinese doctors in Simon's Peripatetic Hospital.
This afternoon has been peculiar. George came back from college at three. He lectures there on Systems of the Law. Because he says it is a good thing that people are reminded that such a thing as Law is possible. There were people waiting for him. I had given them mint tea and cake. Then I saw they were all hungry so I gave them what we had ready for supper. They were two Germans, three Russians, one Frenchwoman, a Chinese, and one Britisher. When George came in and greeted them and sat down, at once there was something different. An atmosphere. Usually what happens is that there is some small talk, and news about what is going on, and then George begins to talk in his way. Sometimes you can catch when he begins, and sometimes it is all happening before you have seen it. People who know him watch for it. But those who don't, blunder about spoiling it all. Until they catch on. This afternoon I could see at once these were people who had been with him before, somewhere on his trips. There was the attentive atmosphere. But there was something wrong too. It was someone there who was wrong. I wondered who? Someone there was dangerous. I saw it was the Britisher, Raymond Watts. Once I had seen it I couldn't understand why it had taken me so long. It was obvious that he was a spy. I saw that the others who had arrived with him had not seen this but they knew something was wrong. Slowly one after another they got it. It was very nasty. Soon everyone was sitting looking at Raymond Watts. Who was uneasy and false. He was scared. He had good reason to be. I was waiting for George to say something. Or do something. But he sat smiling as usual. Then the others, the Russians first, got up and said they were going. I could see it was all dreadful. The others went out after the Russians. Not Raymond Watts. George looked at me. I stayed. He went out into the lobby with the others, and he was there some time. I tried to talk with Raymond Watts but he was shaking and sweating. The voices from the lobby were loud and angry. I knew they were wanting to kill Raymond Watts and George was saying no. Then they went off and George came back and nodded at me and I went. Later I said to George, Are they going to kill him? George said, No. I told them that Raymond would change. I thought a bit, seeing quite a few things. I said, Oh, it has happened before. George began to grin. I saw that it had. Often? George said, There are as many spies as not, these days. He was looking at me. I knew perfectly well what was coming, more about me toughening up. George said, First of all, people have to eat. And then, for many people, being a spy or something of the kind is the obvious thing. They have not been given an alternative. Don't you see? No, I said, I don't see. At which point, he said, Rachel, you really must try to be stronger. You have had a sheltered life in many ways. That made me angry. I said to him, What has been sheltered about it? He said, First of all, you have never been tempted to do something you shouldn't because someone you loved was hungry or because you were hungry. And secondly, you have been all your life with advantaged people.
I said to him, Like Naseem and Shireen, for instance. Advantaged?
Yes. They were brought up to be decent. They were good people. But most people now are not brought up to be decent, but the opposite and it is not their fault.
It took me some time to hear what he had said. I said to George, Are they dead then? George said, Naseem died a month ago, of an infection. He got chilled. I said, You mean, he died of not having enough to eat. That's right, he said. And Shireen died in the hospital in childbirth.
So what has happened to the children?
He said that two of them have died of dysentery, and the baby Shireen died of is being looked after by Fatima. The other three have been taken into a Children's Camp.
By then I was crying, though I had decided not to cry.
George said, Rachel, if you can't face all this, then you'll have to come back and do it all over again. Think about it.
I have been trying to think about it.
I wish I was dead with Naseem and Shireen.
I have to write down that George is not beautiful the way he was only two years ago. He is actually ugly sometimes with being tired.
I have seen that Simon will not live long. He is like Olga, a long way from us. George sits with them, every minute he can. I go in too, then I leave because I want to cry, and they are certainly not crying, but very serene.