Doris Lessing

"You are not American," she concluded. "But I don't care anyway. You are not to bring any more of that stuff here. We won't take it in."

"You will do as you have contracted to do. As was understood," he said, very soft, very threatening. She felt this way of conveying threat had been taught to him: method 53 for intimidating the subject. The contempt she felt for his obviousness was putting her out of his reach.

"I told you, we haven't contracted for anything."

"You have! You have, Comrade Mellings!"

3°3

"When did I? It was never even mentioned. It wasn't mentioned once."

"How could it not have been mentioned? Did you or did you not accept money from us, Comrade Mellings?"

This did set her back a bit, and she frowned, but said, "I didn't ask for the money. It was simply given to me."

"It was just given to you," he said, with polite derision, mild, to match his general style.

"Yes. All I knew about it was when Comrade Muriel, you know, the woman who looks like a goose, handed me a packet with five hundred pounds, just before she went off to her spy course in Lithuania or wherever."

This time he went properly red, a raw beef red, and he did actually glare at her, before recovering himself. Again he sat himself up straight, reminded, perhaps by his anger, that even when one was sitting relaxed at a table, nevertheless one's knees should be set together and one should at the most have one elbow on it.

"If Comrade Andrew or anyone else said anything about spy schools anywhere at all, then it's just a pack of nonsense."

She thought about this, taking her time. "I don't think it was nonsense. Where have Muriel and Pat gone to? They've gone off somewhere for training. Well, I don't care anyway. I'm not interested in America or Czechoslovakia or Russia or Lithuania. None of us are. We are English revolutionaries and we shall make our own policies and act according to the English tradition. Our own tradition."

He said cautiously, after a considerable pause, "It is of course understandable that you owe first loyalty to your own situation. But we are dealing with a struggle between the growing communist forces in the world, and capitalism in its death throes. That is an international situation, which means that policies must be formulated from an international point of view. This is a world struggle, comrade."

"I don't think you quite understand," said Alice. "We are not taking orders from you or from anyone else. Not from anybody," she added.

"It's not a question," he said slowly, emphasising each word, "of what you have or have not decided, comrade. You ca

She completed the circular argument by repeating, "But not by us."

His violently hostile eyes were hastily shielded from her, as he lowered his gaze.

The silence went on for a time, and Alice remarked, quite in her good-hostess ma

She heard his breathing come too loud. Then slow and regular as he controlled it. His eyes were not available for inspection. Everything about him was tight, clenched, even his hand, where it lay on the table. "Well, don't get so uptight about it. With so many in the KGB - millions of you, aren't there? - yes, I know that is for the whole of Russia, only some of you are out keeping an eye on us - well, there are bound to be some inefficient ones." His glance upwards at her did quite frighten her for a second, and she continued bravely, even kindly, for now she genuinely wanted to set him at his ease, if possible, having won the advantage and made him accept her point of view: "I am sure the same is true of our lot. I mean, what a shitty lot, that is, if even half of what you read in the papers is true...." This last part of the sentence was her mother, straight; and Alice wondered that her mother should be speaking so authoritatively and naturally from Alice's own mouth. Not that Alice minded. Dorothy Mellings's voice sounded quite appropriate, really, in this situation. "Getting caught the way they do all the time. Well, I suppose we wouldn't be likely to hear about yours: you'd just rub them out. I mean, that's one thing about having a free press."

Now he moved his position, apparently trying to relax, though he had a fist set upright on the table in front of him. His look at her was steady, his breathing normal; some turning point had occurred in the conversation, if conversation was the word for it. Some decision had probably been taken. Well, so, that was all right. He'd go off in a moment and that would be that.

But he showed no signs of moving yet.

Well, let him sit on there, then. What she really wanted to think about was not him, or why he was here, but tonight, and the adventure that awaited her with Jocelin, with whom, at this moment, she felt an almost sisterly bond, in contrast to the murky complicated feeling she had about this Russian. This foreigner.

She remarked, "I do think that part of our problem - I mean, now, between you and me - is what is referred to as a culture clash!" Here she laughed, as Dorothy Mellings would have done. "Your traditions are so very different from ours. In this country you really ca

What was happening with him now was that he was thinking - as, after all, happens not so rarely in conversations - But this person is mad! Bonkers! Round the twist! Daft! Demented! Loco! Completely insane, poor thing. How was it I didn't see it before?

At such moments, rapid and total readjustments have to take place. For instance, the whole of a previous conversation must be reviewed in this new, unhappy light, and assessments must be made, such as that this person is really beyond it, or perhaps is showing only a rather stimulating eccentricity, which, however, is not appropriate for this particular situation.

Alice had no suspicion that any such thoughts were in his mind; she was happily afloat, all kinds of reassuring and apt phrases offering themselves to her as though off a tape coiled in her mind that she did not know was there at all. If, however, she could have seen her own face, that might have been a different matter; for the upper part of it, brows and forehead, had a worried and even slightly frantic look, as if wondering at what she was saying, while her mouth smilingly went on producing words.

"And I think that was probably Comrade Andrew's problem." (Here the scene on the bed came into her mind, and she actually gave her head a good sharp shake to get rid of it.) "He seemed to have a good deal of difficulty in understanding Western culture patterns. I hope you don't think too badly of him. I thought very highly of him."

"So you did, did you," he remarked, not enquired, in a quite good-humoured way. Everything about him said he would get up and go.

"Yes. He seemed to me a fine person. A really good human being."

"Well, I am glad to hear that," said Comrade Gordon O'Leary from Michigan or Smolensk or somewhere, who now did in fact get up, but in slow motion. Or perhaps that was how Alice saw it, for there was no doubt she was not feeling herself. Lack of sleep, that was it!

"Someone will come for the materiel tonight," he said.

"It's not here," improvised Alice smoothly. They couldn't have this Russian, this foreigner, creeping all over their house. Not with all those bombs and things upstairs. The next thing, he'd be telling them what to do with them. Giving them orders! Well, he'd never understand; he was a Russian; they had this history of authoritarianism.