The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [0]
THE GOOD
TERRORIST
Doris Lessing is the author of numerous award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Golden Notebook and The Grass Is Singing. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She lives in London.
Also by Doris Lessing
Novels
The Grass Is Singing
The Golden Notebook
Briefing for a Descent into Hell
The Summer Before the Dark
Memoirs of a Survivor
The Diary of a Good Neighbour
If the Old Could …
Playing the Game: A Graphic Novel (Illustrated by Charlie Adlard)
Love, Again
Mara and Dann
The Fifth Child
Ben, in the World
The Sweetest Dream
The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot, and the Snow Dog
The Cleft
“Canopus in Argos: Archives” Series
Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five
The Sirian Experiments
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire
“Children of Violence” Novel Sequence
Martha Quest
A Proper Marriage
A Ripple from the Storm
Landlocked
The Four-Gated City
Operas
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five (music by Philip Glass)
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (music by Philip Glass)
Short Stories
Five
The Habit of Loving
A Man and Two Women
The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories
Winter in July
The Black Madonna
This Was the Old Chiefs Country (Collected African Studies, Volume 1)
The Sun Beneath Their Feet (Collected African Studies, Volume 2)
To Room Nineteen (Collected Stories, Volume 1)
The Temptation of Jack Orkney (Collected Stories, Volume 2)
London Observed
The Old Age of El Magnifico
Particularly Cats
Rufus the Survivor
On Cats
The Grandmothers
Poetry
Fourteen Poems
Drama
Each His Own Wilderness
Play With a Tiger
The Singing Door
Nonfiction
In Pursuit of the English
Going Home
A Personal Voice
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
The Wind Blows Away Our Words
African Laughter
Time Bites
Autobiography
Under My Skin, Volume 1
Walking in the Shade, Volume 2
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 2008
Copyright © 1985 by Doris Lessing
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape Ltd, London, and subsequently in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1985.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Lessing, Doris May.
The good terrorist.
I. Title.
PR6023.E833G66 1985 823’.914
85-40214
eISBN: 978-0-307-77765-2
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
First Page
Also by Doris Lessing
The house was set back from the noisy main road in what seemed to be a rubbish tip. A large house. Solid. Black tiles stood at angles along the gutter, and into a gap near the base of a fat chimney a bird flew, trailing a piece of grass several times its length.
“I should think 1910,” said Alice. “Look how thick the walls are.” This could be seen through the broken window just above them on the first floor. She got no response, but nevertheless shrugged off her backpack, letting it tumble onto a living rug of young nettles that was trying to digest rusting tins and plastic cups. She took a step back to get a better view of the roof. This brought Jasper into vision. His face, as she expected it would be, was critical and meant to be noticed. For her part, she did not have to be told that she was wearing her look, described by him as silly. “Stop it,” he ordered. His hand shot out, and her wrist was encircled by hard bone. It hurt. She