The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [153]
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 cannot turn up and tell people what to do or think. It’s not on. We have a democracy. We have had a democratic tradition now for so long it is in our bones,” she concluded, kindly and smiling.
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 matériel 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.
“Where is it?” He whipped about on her, standing very close. She had stood up, holding on to the back of her chair. Now he didn’t look smooth and clerkly and nothing. All the terror that she might reasonably have felt during the last half hour swooped down into her. She could hardly stand. He seemed enormous and dark and powerful looming over her, and his eyes were like guns.
“It’s on the rubbish tip at Barstone. You know, the local rubbish dump, the municipal dump.” Her knees seemed to be melting. She was