Cycling past McGrath’s hotel, she remembered that after all she belonged to a world where people might sit drinking in large rooms, served by waiters; they might dance; they might even eat dinners (bad dinners, but formal, that was something) in restaurants. She would ring up Anton from the foyer and ask him to join her for a drink, and perhaps dinner. He would say humorously: ‘And what are we celebrating, Matty, have I forgotten your birthday?’
He would protest at having to come, but he would be pleased. They could drink for an hour or so, have dinner, listen to the band, and in this way both could forget (Martha hoped) the implications of the fact that practically everything he said, or did, these days, was really a reproach for her not doing, or being, what he now wanted her to be.
Chapter Two
It was almost seven. Martha had been waiting since five. Waiting now being a condition of her life, like breathing, it scarcely mattered whether she waited for an interview or for when peace would be restored—the new phrase, which showed that the old one, ‘when the war ends’, had proved inadequate. She waited with the whole of herself, as other people might pray, yet with even prayer become something to be practised, kept in use merely, since it could be effective only with the beginning of a new life. Waiting for her life to begin, when she could go to England, she waited for ‘the contact from the African group’, and with the same ability to cancel out present time. She read half a pamphlet about Japanese atrocities with an irritated boredom with propaganda which did not mean she disbelieved what she read. She absorbed a column or so of statistics about African education but with the irritation of impotence. She filed her nails, brushed her hair as she never had time to do in her bedroom, ‘fifty strokes on each side’, tidied a cupboard full of pamphlets that dealt definitively with affairs in at least a hundred countries, and finally sat down with deliberately idle but restless hands, on a bench under the window over Founders’ Street.
The heat of a stormy day had drained into the scarlet flush that still spread, westwards, under bright swollen stars only intermittently visible. Hailstones from the recent storm scattered the street and lay on the dirty windowsill, and gusts of sharp cold air drove from racing clouds across the hot currents rising from the pavements. It would be winter soon, the ice seemed promise of it. Martha’s calves sweated slipperily against the wood of the bench, and she sucked a bit of ice as an ally against heat, watching her smooth brown skin pucker under the gold down on her forearm into protest against cold. There was a blanket folded on top of the wooden cupboard. The blanket was because friends in the RAF sometimes slept here if they were too late for the last bus to camp. Martha now spread it on the bench against the unpleasant slipperiness of sweat, and wrapped her legs in it. The hailstones, even under a crust of dirt, sent forth their cool smell, and Martha twisted herself about to watch the sky from where the winds of a new storm already poured over the town. Sitting with her back turned, she did not see that Solly had come in, and missed the moment when she could judge why he was here. For a moment the two stared deeply at each other. She broke it by saying: ‘I’m waiting for a man to come from the African group.’ She had decided on this admission to save half an hour of fencing. A bad liar, she knew it, and had thus acquired the reputation: Matty is such a sincere person. Meanwhile, part of her mind juggled to find convincing lies to put him off.
‘It’s such a pleasure having dealings with you, Matty, always as honest as the day.’
‘It occurred to me recently there’s no point in being anything else, living in this—ant-nest.’ Her voice was shrill, and she set guards on herself; noting meanwhile that ‘enemy’ Solly ceased to be one when she thought of him as a fellow victim of the provinces. She smiled at him: as a cat which has been scampering about a crouching tom suddenly rolls over and lifts meek paws. Not quite, however. But the flash of seriousness on this young man’s face (whatever the reason for it) when he had first seen her under the window had after all weakened the force of her decision not to like him. So would he look into her face from a few inches’ distance if. But he was now saying, vibrant with sarcastic hostility: ‘You have a point, I grant you. Yesterday I met a comrade of yours from the camp who said, how was Matty? I said what did he mean? It seems our liaison is common gossip.’
‘What fun for you.’
‘Well, I do hope so, Matty.’
‘The thing is, I have to meet Athen at seven and it must be that now.’
‘Well, I would be only too happy to wait to seduce you until you had finished conferring with comrade Athen.’
He was on the bench beside her. His face grinned into hers from not six inches away. Luckily, however, not at all ‘serious’, far from it, so she was saved. She got up and began piling pamphlets about the Second Front (now unsaleable) into the cupboard.
‘Solly, are you seeing Clive de Wet?’
‘Why should I tell you, comrade Matty?’
‘Well, if you want to be childish.’
‘It’s you who are childish. This is Solly Cohen, the Trotskyist.’
‘But it looks as if the African group want help?’
‘There isn’t an African group.’
‘But a group of Africans?’
‘What can you do for them I can’t do?’
She shrugged and then laughed. The laughter was because of a picture so sharp to her imagination it was hard to believe it wasn’t in his also: ‘the African group’, like a small starving child, its hands held out for help, was being torn to pieces by a group of adults fighting for the right to help it.
At that moment came a knock on the door. Martha shouted ‘Come in’ and a small black boy came in, looking nervously from one to the other of the two white people.
‘Missus Mart,’ he said.
‘No Mrs Mart here,’ said Martha.
‘Idiot, it’s you.’
Solly was already grinning: he knew what was in the dingy envelope that the small boy held out.
A single sheet of exercise paper said:
‘Dear Mrs Martha,
I apologize for not coming this afternoon, I have been prevented by unavoidable circumstances. Hoping I may have the pleasure of your acquaintance at another time.
Yours sincerely,
Signature illegible.’
Probably purposely so.
‘Who sent you?’
The little boy shifted his feet and his eyes and said: ‘Don’t know, missus.’
Martha gave him a shilling and he started to run off. She said: ‘Please tell whoever sent you that I will be here tomorrow afternoon at the same time.’
‘Yes, missus.’
He vanished and Solly jeered: ‘Ever faithful Matty, waiting day after day in pursuance of duty. But he won’t come, I’ve seen to it.’
‘Luckily you’re not the only influence abroad. There’s Athen and Thomas as well.’
He grinned. ‘Dear Matty. What makes you think it’s the same group?’
‘Oh, isn’t it? Well, never mind, I’m late for Athen.’
‘May I have the pleasure of walking you to Dirty Dick’s?’
‘How do you know it’s Dirty Dick’s?’
‘Where else?’
On the pavement large drops of warm rain fell all about them. She wriggled her shoulders inside damp cotton. The warm wet was lashed by cold. Overhead, miles overhead, very likely, air masses had shifted, had clashed, and here spears of acid-cold water mingled with fat warm drops from a lower region of sky. Lightning splurged across the dark, and Solly pulled Martha under an awning. He put his hot arms about her, and dropped a hot cheek close to hers, while ice from the clouds bounced around their feet.
‘But Solly, there’s absolutely no point in it.’
‘Look where all this highmindedness has got you. The arms of Anton Hesse. Not to mention the divorced arms of Douglas Knowell. Why didn’t you listen to Joss and me? We told you, didn’t we, and you’d never listen.’
‘All right. But I’m late for Athen.’
The
Piccadilly was empty. Rather, it had half a dozen civilians in it. Unpredictably the RAF flowed in and out of the town, and tonight the tide was out: not a uniform in sight. The big oblong room, with its shiny yellow walls, that were usually hung with hundreds of caps, jackets, coats; its hundred tables tightly massed with grey-blue uniforms, was empty. At the end of the room, a neat dark little man in a light suit rose to meet them. Athen himself. Martha had never seen him out of uniform and she examined him while Solly said to Johnny: ‘Where are all our gallant boys?’ But Johnny spread out his palms, empty of information, and shrugged.
‘Any news from home?’ Martha asked politely, as usual.
‘It’ll soon be over now. We’ve offered them…’ here he nodded towards Athen, ‘…an amnesty. Yes, Elas and Elam will give themselves up now, you’ll see.’
Athen watched Martha approach and smiled. But he saw Solly and his face went on guard. Athen despised Solly. Not for being a Trotskyist: Solly was not a serious person, said Athen. Before taking a person’s beliefs seriously, he must be worthy to have beliefs. At any rate, when Solly was mentioned he simply shrugged. As for Solly, since it was not possible to despise Athen, he regarded him as the dupe of Stalin. Martha was angry with herself for letting Solly be here. It was going to be another awful evening, another among hundreds. It was her fault. She could never remember that because she ‘got on’ with people, it didn’t mean they should ‘get on’ with each other. She was always creating situations full of discordant people. It did not flatter her that she could: on the contrary. If such tenuous ties she had with people, easy contact, surface friendship, yet had the strength to bring them together, what did that fact say about them, about her, and—she would not be Martha if she did not go on—about associations, groups, friendships generally? And it was no quality to be admired in herself that made her a focus. She was, at this time, available. That was all. If not her, it would be someone else—just as, before her, it had been the du Preez’ and before them Jasmine Cohen.
Very well then, it seemed that for this period of her life, her role was to—well, this evening for instance, there was a group consisting of Athen and Solly and herself; and then these three (unless she could shed Solly and there seemed no likelihood of that) and Anton and Joss and Thomas Stern would all go to the pictures. And afterwards everyone would come home to their flat (Anton’s and hers) and she would cook eggs for them. This was friendship. She reminded herself that ten years before she had been saying critically, in such different circumstances: This is friendship! and made herself pay attention to her present scene. Solly was looking at her, very close, across the table, reminding her with his eyes why he was here. And Athen was standing by his chair, face to face with Johnny Capetenakis, and the two men spoke low and fast in bitter Greek, their eyes burning hatred. Martha had never seen this Athen, and she thought that if these two men were now, this evening, standing in the same way on their mother soil, it would be to kill each other. Athen’s eyes blazed murder; Johnny’s eyes blazed back. Athen’s fist trembled as it hung by his side. Johnny Capetenakis spat out a last low volley of hate and turned and went off to his desk by the door of the restaurant.
Athen sat down. ‘He says our people should give themselves up to the amnesty, they would be safe. I told him, it’s not the first time. There’s a clause, criminals will be shot. I told him, we know who these criminals will turn out to be. He tells me I am a traitor to my country.’
He sat, sombre, looking about him with dislike, then he said: ‘I cannot stay here, I am sorry, but it is too much to sit here, in this man’s place.’
‘Well, we’re late for the pictures anyway.’
Martha led the way out, greeting Johnny at the desk, not knowing whether she should feel disloyal for doing so or not. But she noted that Athen nodded at Johnny, and that Johnny nodded briefly back.
The rain had gone, the stars were washed clean, steam rose from the tarmac that shone like dark water, reflecting rose and blue and gold. It was nearly eight. Main Street was filled with groups of civilians moving towards the cinema. No RAF, absolutely none.
‘It might just as well be peacetime,’ said Martha.
‘There is a big man coming tomorrow,’ said Athen. ‘Everyone has to polish their buttons tonight.’
‘What big man?’
‘From England. An Air Vice-Marshal.’
‘Why are you allowed out then?’
‘All the Greeks have got week-end leave, all of us. They have worked it out: the Greeks are all communists, and the communists are anti-British, therefore the communists will try to assassinate the Air Vice-Marshal.’
Athen sounded bitter, and Martha, who had been going to laugh, stopped herself.
‘What are you complaining about,’ said Solly, ‘if you’ve got the week-end?’
Martha had never seen Athen like this: the gentle controlled little man was beyond himself, he was flushed with anger, he looked humiliated and his hands shook.
‘This proves what I always said about the reactionaries. They always know facts. They always know who is a member of what. They know who has written letters to who. They know who has attended this meeting, that meeting. They know who is a man’s relatives and who can be made to talk. This they know because of their spies. But they can never interpret these facts, because they put their own bad minds into our minds.’
Athen stood bitterly on the pavement, talking—not to them. Martha and Solly stood on one side waiting.
‘I used to say to our comrades in the mountains. If it is a question of fact, they will know. Yes. Be frightened of that, and guard against it. But if it is a question of intention—if they interrogate you and say: “You mean this, you want this”, then keep your mouths shut and do not worry. They know nothing. They are too stupid. Their Air Vice-Marshal is safe from us,’ said Athen, his white teeth showing in bitterness.
‘Athen,’ said Martha gently, but he was going on. Probably, she thought (since he spoke often of that time) he was in a freezing cave above a pass as narrow as Thermopylae. Tomorrow, or next week, they—he and his soldiers—would roll boulders down bare brown hillsides patched with snow to crush one hundred and fifty of their countrymen who, in British uniforms and British-officered, were hunting them out. ‘I tell them,’ Athen said softly, ‘I tell them always: Remember who you are, comrades. Now we are like criminals hunted over the mountains, but soon that will end, and we will be men.’
‘We are going to be late,’ said Solly. He went on ahead, having decided to take the others on the offensive of his effrontery. Martha heard him say: ‘Good evening, comrades, one and all! And good evening, brother Joss!’
Athen had taken Martha’s hand. ‘Martha, I have to ask you something serious.’
From fifty yards off, Solly, then Joss, called: ‘Come on, you two, it’s late.’
‘Have you noticed a change in me?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Thank you for saying so. It is true.’
‘Athen, have you seen Maisie?’
Athen let Martha’s hand go and frowned. ‘I know why you ask me that, Martha.’
More shouts from outside the cinema.
‘I must talk about this with you, Martha.’
They ran towards the cinema and the waiting group.
There was a girl in the group—a red-haired girl in a white dress. Whose? Not Solly’s, this evening; so that meant she must be Joss’s, or Thomas Stern’s. Probably Thomas’s—he liked thin girls. As Martha decided this, Thomas took both her hands—Martha’s, announced that she looked terrible, very pale, and much too thin, and that while he was always her slave on principle, tonight, because of her irresistible look of illness—she was irresistible. So she must be Joss’s girl? No time to find out, no time even to be introduced—Martha and the red-haired girl smiled goodwill, and then the group joined the crowd that was being sucked into the cinema, quickening as it went, like bathwater into a hole. The manager stood by the box office, his smile benign, but not e
nough to conceal his disappointment at the absence of his best customers. He kept darting glances at the entrance in case at the last minute the familiar blue-grey uniforms would appear, and all his seats be filled. But there were, after all, many RAF present, in ordinary clothes, like Athen, and soon the manager was smiling and urging his flock into the dark with smiles, a pressure of the hand, a pat on the shoulder. To Martha, who after all he had been welcoming for five or six years now, he said jovially: ‘And how are you these days, Mrs…?’ But he was unable to remember her current married name.
The programme had started. Across the screen that was lifted high in the big dark space over the crowded floor, moved a file of soldiers which, seen in the confusion, the jerking about of finding seats, then sitting, then finding places for handbags and jackets, looked like the columns which, in one Allied uniform or another, had marched, flown, parachuted across that screen for the last five years. But suddenly they understood the great, staring hollow-cheeked face they looked at was a German, and the uniform he wore, which was worn into rags, was a German uniform. The announcer’s voice had a note they had not heard before. It was jeering: ‘And so here he is, the Ubermensch, the Superman, the ruler of the world, here he is, and take a good look at him.’ The German on the screen was eighteen? A starved twenty-year-old? A bit of rag fluttered wildly on his shoulder, and he shivered so that it seemed as if the whole cinema shivered with him. He stared into the cinema-crowd with eyes quite empty of expression. So he had stared a few days ago into the camera which took pictures of the defeated armies—he had stared probably not knowing what the machine was doing there or what it wanted. He stared, his cheek-bones speaking of death, into the faces of a thousand full-fed people, his victorious enemies, in a little town in the centre of Africa.
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