The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [115]
“Did you know Bert and Jasper are going to Moscow?”
“Yes.”
A pause. She was thinking. As she always did: a slow, careful working out of the possibilities latent in everything.
“But you didn’t suggest it.”
“No, I certainly did not.”
“No.”
The silence prolonged itself. He even wondered whether she had dropped off to sleep—she had seemed so pale and exhausted. He studied her, turning his head a little, then took her right wrist gently with his left hand. She tensed up, then relaxed: this was very different from the killing grip Jasper used.
“Alice, you should really get free of this riffraff.”
“Riffraff!” she expostulated, with as much energy as she had left. “These are people.”
He said deliberately, “Riffraff.”
She drew in her breath; but let it out quietly.
“What did Muriel tell you, then?”
“What do you suppose she told me? You aren’t stupid, Alice.”
She could feel herself swelling and oozing. Tears ran down her cheeks, she supposed.
“And what about the party,” she almost sobbed. “You weren’t there.”
He remained silent.
Then, gently, he put his arm under her neck, and his left hand on her left upper arm, on the side away from him. He seemed, at the same time, to be lightly supporting her and holding her so as to make sure she would not slide away from him.
“Alice, you must separate yourself from them.”
“From Jasper, you mean.”
“From Jasper, Bert, and the rest. They are just playing little games.”
“They don’t think so.”
“No, but you do, I believe.”
A silence again. She had now at last almost relaxed in his hold, and he reached over with his right hand to lay it on her waist under her breasts. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t have this, and irritably shook him off.
“They are playing, Alice, like little children with explosives. They are very dangerous people. Dangerous to themselves and to others.”
“And you aren’t dangerous.”
“No.”
She gave a little laugh, derisive but admiring.
“No, Alice. If you do things properly and carefully, then only the people get hurt who should get hurt.”
She thought about this for a long time, and he did not interrupt her. She said, “Who do you take orders from?”
“I take orders. And I give them.”
She thought.
“You were trained in the Soviet Union?”
“Yes.”
“You are Russian,” she stated.
“Half Russian: I had an Irish father. And, no, I am not going to bore you with my interesting history.”
Now a long time went by, about ten minutes. She could easily have been asleep, for she breathed slowly and deeply, but her eyes were open.
He turned slightly towards her, and she instantly clenched up and moved away from him, though still inside his arm.
“You are a very pure, good woman,” said Comrade Andrew softly. “I like that in you.”
This, it seemed, she could have contemplated for even longer than his previous remarks. What he could see on her face was an abstracted, bemused look due to exhaustion, but there was a demureness, too, which almost incited him to further efforts. Almost: something stopped him, perhaps the fact that the demureness was masking a surprisingly violent reaction to the word “pure.” Was she, Alice, pure? Was that what she had been all this time without knowing it? Well, perhaps she would have to think about it; if pure was what she was, then she would have to live with it! It was the word! You couldn’t use the word “pure” like that in Britain now, it simply wasn’t on, it was just silly. If he didn’t know that, then … How were they trained, people like Andrew? Perhaps it didn’t matter that he was so alien, so different; after all, Britain was full of foreigners. Had it mattered here, in 43 and 45? Well, that depended on what he wanted to achieve. Carrying on like Lenin hadn’t upset anyone (except Faye and Roberta), but then, she, Alice, knew only part of the picture. What else was he up to?
At last he broke the silence with, “Alice, I think you should take a holiday.”
This so amazed her that she tried to sit up, and he pulled her down.
Now she lay close beside him, and his hot strong body