He was standing strictly before her, holding the briefcase by its handle like a good commuter.
"You know what we should do?"
She didn't.
"March. All of us. Before they destroy us for ever." Offering her his forearm, he lifted her to her feet. "From the United States, from Australia, Paris, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon-from everywhere in the world where there are Palestinians. We take ships to the borders. Planes. Millions of us. Like a great tide which nobody can turn back." He handed her the briefcase, then began swiftly gathering up his tools and packing them in the box. "Then all together, we march into our homeland, we claim our houses and our farms and our villages, even if we have to knock down their towns and settlements and kibbutzim in order to find them. It wouldn't work. You know why not? They would never come." He dropped to a crouch, examining the threadbare carpet for tell-tale traces. "Our rich would not be able to sustain their social-economic drop in lifestyle " he explained, ironically emphasising the jargon. "Our merchants would not leave their banks and shops and offices. Our doctors would not give up their smart clinics, the lawyers their corrupt practices, our academics their comfortable universities." He was standing before her, and his smile was a triumph over all his pain. "So the rich make the money and the poor do the fighting. When was it any different?"
She walked ahead of him down the stairs. Exit one tart, carrying her little box of tricks. The Coca-Cola van stood in the forecourt still, but he strode past it as if he had never seen it in his life and climbed into a farmer's Ford, a diesel with bales of straw strapped to the roof. She got in beside him. Hills again. Pine trees laden on one side with fresh wet snow. Instructions, Joseph-style. Charlie, do you understand? Yes, Khalil, I understand. Then repeat it to me. She did. It is for peace, remember that. I will, Khalil, I wilclass="underline" for peace, for Michel, for Palestine; for Joseph and Khalil; for Marty and the revolution and for Israel, and for the theatre of the real.
He had stopped beside a barn and put out the headlights. He was looking at his watch. From down the road a torch flashed twice. He reached across her and pushed open her door.
"His name is Franz and you will tell him you are Margaret. Good luck."
The evening was moist and quiet, the street lamps of the old city centre hung over her like caged white moons in their iron brackets. She had made Franz drop her at the corner because she wanted the short walk across the bridge before she made her entrance. She wanted the puffed look of someone stepping in from outdoors, and the nip of cold on her face, and the hatred back in her mind. She was in an alley among low scaffolding, which closed round her like a spindly tunnel. She passed an art gallery full of self-portraits of a blond, unpleasing boy in spectacles, and another next to it with idealised landscapes that the boy would never enter. Graffiti screamed at her but she could not understand a word until she suddenly read "Fuck America." Thanks for the translation, she thought. She was in the open air again, climbing concrete steps strewn with sand to beat the snow, but they were still slippery underfoot. She reached the top and saw the glass doors of the university library to her left. The lights were still burning in the students' cafe. Rachel and a boy were sitting tensely at the window. She passed the first marble totem-pole, she was on the treewalk high above the carriageway, crossing to the farther side. Already the lecture hall rose ahead of her, its strawberry stone turned to blazing crimson by the floodlighting. Cars were pulling up; the first members of the audience were arriving, climbing the four steps to the front entrance, pausing to shake hands and congratulate one another on their immense prominence. A couple of security men perfunctorily checked ladies' handbags. She kept walking. The truth will make you free. She passed the second totem-pole, heading for the town staircase.
The briefcase was dangling in her right hand and she felt it brushing her thigh. A whining police siren made her shoulder muscles convulse in terror, but she kept going. Two police motorcycles with whirling blue lights pulled up, cossetting a shiny black Mercedes with a pennant. Usually when grand cars passed, she turned her head away in order not to give the occupants the satisfaction of being looked at, but tonight was different. Tonight she could walk tall; she had the answer in her hand. So she stared at them and was rewarded by a glimpse of a florid, overfed man in a black suit and silver tie: and a sullen wife with three chins and a mink rug. For great lies we need naturally a great audience, she remembered. A camera flashed and the eminent couple ascended to the glass door, admired by at least three passers-by. Soon, you bastards, she thought, soon.
At the bottom of the steps turn right. She did so and kept going till she reached the corner. Be sure you do not fall into the stream, Helga had said for extra humour; Khalil's bombs are not waterproof, Charlie, and nor are you. She turned left and began skirting the building, following a pebble pavement on which the snow had failed to settle. The pavement widened and became a courtyard, and in its centre, beside a group of concrete flower tubs, stood a police caravan. In front of it, two uniformed policemen were preening at each other, lifting their boots and laughing, then scowling round at anyone who dared watch. She was not fifty feet from the side door, and she began to feel the calm that she was waiting for-the sensation, almost of levitation, that came over her when she stepped on stage and left her other identities behind her in the dressing-room. She was Imogen from South Africa, long on courage, short on grace, hastening to assist a great liberal hero. She was embarrassed-dammit, she was embarrassed to death-but she was going to do the right thing or bust. She had reached the side entrance. It was closed. She tried the door handle but it didn't turn. Dither. She put the flat of her hand on the panel and pushed but it wouldn't budge. She stood back and stared at it, then looked round for someone to help her, and by then the two policemen had stopped flirting with each other and were eyeing her suspiciously, but neither came forward.
Curtain up. Go.
"I say, excuse me," she called to them. "Do you speak English?"
Still they did not move. If there was a distance to be covered, then let her do the walking herself. She was only a citizen, after all, and a woman at that.
"I said do you speak English? Englisch -sprechen Sie? Someone needs to give this to the Professor. Immediately. Will you come over here, please?"
Both scowled, but only one of them came over to her. Slowly, as befitted his dignity.
"Toilette nicht hier," he snapped, and tipped his head up the road where she had come from.
"I don't want the toilet. I want you to find somebody who will give this briefcase to Professor Minkel. Minkel," she repeated, and held up the briefcase.
The policeman was young and did not care for youth. He did not take the briefcase from her, but he made her hold it while he pressed the catch and ascertained that it was locked.
Oh boy, she thought: you just committed suicide and you're still scowling at me.
"Offnen," he ordered.
"I can't open it. It's locked." She let a note of desperation enter her voice. "It's the Professor's, don't you understand? For all I know, it's got his lecture notes in it. He needs it for tonight." Turning from him, she beat loudly on the door. "Professor Minkel? It's me, Imogen Baastrup from Wits. Oh God."
The second policeman had joined them. He was older and dark-jawed. Charlie appealed to his greater wisdom. "Well, do you speak English?" she said. At the same moment, the door opened a few inches and a goatish male face peered at her with deep suspicion. He spoke something in German to the nearer policeman, and Charlie caught the word "Amerikanerin" in his reply.