A Ripple From the Storm

  ‘If that’s the case,’ said Marjorie indignantly, ‘why do you take out that girl from McGrath’s – she’s got dyed hair.’

  Bill Bluett snorted with laughter. Now they all laughed, except Jimmy and Anton, who seemed angry.

  ‘I would remind you,’ said Anton, ‘that this is a communist group. Not a music hall. Comrade Jimmy, you can’t bring up a big question like this casually. You are raising the whole question of the position of women, May I suggest that we appoint an evening for the discussion of the position of women?’

  Martha watched in herself, and with surprise, because it was contrary to what her instincts told her about Anton, contrary to what she felt when she remembered the Austrian woman, the familiar feeling of trust and relief well up, as if Anton’s words built a pillar on which she could support herself. Draping myself like a silly clinging vine on anything that sounds strong, she told herself disgustedly.

  Andrew said: ‘Comrade Anton, you’re behaving like a capitalist government asked an awkward question – they always appoint a select committee and hope everything will blow over before the report is published.’

  ‘But it is a question of the position of women,’ said Martha.

  ‘You say that,’ said Jimmy, furious, direct to her, and it was at once obvious to everyone that his attack had from the first been directed at her. ‘You say that. You’re worse than anyone.’ Jasmine said: ‘I think Comrade Jimmy’s attitude is very sectarian. I see no reason at all why women comrades should look ugly.’

  ‘I didn’t say ugly,’ said Jimmy.

  Jasmine said, with defiance, blushing: ‘If a majority vote decides that we should give up cosmetics, then I shall regard it as masculine domination – it’s nine to five. I personally consider that all men, whether communists or not, have remnants in them of middle-class ideas about women. Even Lenin. Even Lenin talked about greasy glasses.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Marjorie. ‘Men make me sick.’

  Martha said: ‘I quite agree.’ She laughed, however, and Jimmy turned on her and said: ‘And I want to criticize you, Comrade Matty. You’re flippant. You aren’t serious. Middleclass comrades are all the same.’

  ‘But Matty isn’t being criticized,’ said Bill Bluett.

  ‘Well, I’m criticizing her.’

  ‘I agree with Jimmy,’ said Tommy. He was perspiring, and his eyes begged apology from Martha, even while his whole body insisted on his right to say what was very important to him. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Comrade Matty isn’t serious. I mean, she acts seriously, but she doesn’t talk seriously. Well, I’ve been reading this book – I’ve said about it before, this Count Tolstoy. Well, and I’ve discovered from that book that her manner is a middle-class manner. The middle-class say things that are serious in an unserious way. Jasmine and Matty and Marjorie all do it, but Matty worse than anyone. It’s contemptuous. They say something and you have to think, do they mean it or don’t they?’

  ‘I protest,’ said Andrew. ‘I protest against two things: first, the working people are not grim as Tommy seems to think, he seems to suggest the middle-class have a monopoly of humour – ’

  ‘Not being funny,’ said Tommy earnestly. ‘Not that. But saying things as if you’re poking fun at yourself for saying them. It’s snobbish.’

  ‘– and secondly,’ continued Andrew, ‘Matty isn’t under discussion at all at the moment. The next comrade on the list for criticism is Anton.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bill. ‘And I’m surprised at our chairman for not stopping the discussion before. So irregular too, and not a word out of Comrade Anton.’ To Martha he said, mockserious, ‘We’ll deal with your flippant manner later.’

  ‘Comrade Anton,’ said Andrew. ‘Comrade Anton, kindly stand up for criticism.’

  Martha understood that both Bill and Andrew were protecting her. Also, that Andrew was about to protect Anton from Bill.

  Anton slowly stood up. His hands, hanging down by his sides, were quite steady.

  ‘And now I’m going to let you have it,’ said Andrew to Anton, in a gruff humorous voice. ‘You’re an arrogant, stiffnecked, domineering bastard. You’re a pedant and a hairsplitter …’

  Anton was smiling slightly. He knew Andrew was protecting him from Bill, and resented it. The lines around his mouth quivered into life, giving his face a crumpled look, like a used table napkin.

  ‘You’re a bureaucrat, Comrade Anton. You’re the image of a bureaucrat. I’d like to take you to a low pub every night for a week and see you drunk and making a fool of yourself. Then you might begin to be a good comrade. At the moment you’re a pain in the neck.’

  Everyone was laughing. Elias Phiri was rolling on his bench with laughter. Anton, still smiling very slightly, nodded at Andrew.

  ‘Anyone disagree with this criticism?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, we all agree,’ said Marie pleasantly. ‘You’re just too good to be true, comrade. I wish you’d let up a little.’

  Elias Phiri, spluttering out laughter, said: ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ and tossed his feet up. Then, seeing that everyone was watching him, smiling, he stopped himself laughing and sat shaking his head, internal amusement shaking his whole frame, while his face remained grave.

  ‘The point is,’ said Bill to Anton, ‘do you agree with these criticisms?’

  Anton said stiffly: ‘Yes, comrade, I am well aware that I tend to be a bureaucrat …’ It seemed he had been going to say something more, but he stopped.

  ‘Right,’ said Andrew. ‘You may sit down, Comrade Anton. And mend your ways or we’ll get another chairman.’

  Anton sat down. He glanced at Bill as he did so; Andrew also looked, with some apprehension, towards Bill. Bill was lolling back, arms folded. He said: ‘Comrade Andrew has taken the words out of my mouth. I’ll bring up certain other criticisms later.’

  There was a pause, then Carrie Jones stood up for criticism. But a note of frivolity had crept into the thing. She listened good-humouredly to criticisms of her ‘excessive attention to her personal appearance’, and sat down, nodding. Before Tommy stood up, Anton warned them that this was a serious matter. But the rest of the criticism went fast, with plenty of laughter. Again, when they reached Martha, Anton insisted that they were being ‘fundamentally irresponsible’, but it did no good: Martha, Andrew, Jimmy and Murdoch were criticized fast, in a rapid crossfire of goodhumoured phrases from all over the room. Anton then said: ‘That’s it, comrades. It’s half-past ten, and I suggest we leave the group criticism and self-criticism until next week.’

  Bill Bluett uncoiled his long thin body in one fast movement, sat forward and said: ‘Oh, no, oh, no, you don’t. Now we’re going to be serious.’

  Anton laid down his pencil, and sat up, on the defensive. ‘I was under the impression we were being serious.’

  ‘You know perfectly well that this has been a farce. This is not how criticism is conducted in a serious communist group.’

  ‘You’re suggesting we should begin again?’

  ‘No, since it is apparently impossible to conduct criticism properly in this group – at least, as presently constituted, then I propose we have general criticism.’

  Andrew said, slowly packing tobacco into his pipe: ‘Comrade Bill, haven’t our criticisms been covered by the criticisms made of Comrade Anton?’

  ‘Your criticisms,’ said Anton promptly, on the alert: he had been waiting for this, as they could all see: ‘Do I understand you to say that the RAF comrades are making a criticism, as a group, of the group as a whole?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew, ‘you’re of course right if you are suggesting that is factionalism, but there are special circumstances here. Of course it is factionalism. And I would like to say in advance that I do not go all the way with the RAF comrades.’ He turned to Bill and urged: ‘Comrade, wouldn’t you agree that what we intended to say has already been covered?’

  ‘No, I would not.’

  ‘I’m not accepting the criticism of an inner group,
’ said Anton. ‘That is contrary to every party principle.’

  ‘If it makes you easy,’ said Bill, ‘I’ll say I’m making criticisms for myself.’

  ‘I agree with Comrade Bill, though,’ said Murdoch excitedly.

  ‘And so do I,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I will not, as chairman, accept factionalism,’ insisted Anton.

  ‘Oh let up, Anton,’ said Marie, as she might have spoken to one of her children. ‘Let up, do.’

  Bill said: ‘I insist on saying this: the work of the whole group is a complete waste of time.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Anton. ‘You are proposing, I gather, that we need a fresh analysis of our work? In that case I shall put it on the agenda for next week. Make a note of it, Jasmine.’

  Bill said: ‘Oh, no, you don’t. Next week it would seem that we are discussing the position of women in capitalist society, in order that our lady comrades will know whether to use lipstick or not. Jesus!’

  Anton said: ‘If you will kindly make detailed criticisms instead of broad generalizations, we can proceed to discuss what you have to say.’

  But before Bill could say anything, Murdoch shrilled out on the humorous defensive note he had been criticized for five minutes before: ‘Och, but it’s a fact. And to my mind it’s your doing, Comrade Anton. It’s your attitude that does it.’

  ‘Comrade Anton has already been criticized and has accepted the criticism,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Will you please be specific,’ said Anton. Now he was furious: his face quivered with anger.

  ‘Hell, man – anyone can see it. OK then – take your attitude to Matty’s friend who got herself in the family way. You’re not human.’ He mimicked Anton’s voice: ‘“She should have thought of that before.” Hell, what sort of attitude is that for a communist?’

  Marie said: ‘What’s all this, Matty? What’s it about?’

  Martha said: ‘A girl I know got herself pregnant. We were discussing it. That’s all,’

  Anton said: ‘Am I to take it, comrades, that this group, a communist group, now proposed to discuss seriously what to do about a girl who needs an abortion?’

  ‘But she doesn’t want to have an abortion,’ said Martha.

  ‘This group is now going to accept the responsibility of finding abortionists or husbands for all the girls in the Colony who’ve got themselves pregnant?’

  ‘There you are,’ cried Jimmy. “That’s what I mean. That’s how you talk.’

  ‘You are criticizing me for a tone of voice?’ inquired Anton.

  Andrew said: ‘I agree with Anton that all this is quite irregular, but there’s nothing wrong with us trying to help someone who’s in trouble. I remember one of our lassies back home got herself in trouble and we fixed her up with a husband. ‘

  Anton said: ‘In that case, Comrade Andrew, since it seems that you are familiar with this type of important party work, may we leave it that you will be responsible, with Comrade Matty, for the problems of this girl? And now, since that is dealt with, may we continue?’

  Andrew said to Martha: ‘I’ll be in town tomorrow for lunch. I’ll have it with you and we’ll talk it over.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Martha gratefully, moving closer to him. He put his arm around her, and said: ‘Comrade Matty and I constitute ourselves a sub-committee for the solving of personal problems.’

  Anton had been watching them, in cold patience.

  Bill said: ‘All of our energies go into the white minority in this country.’

  Anton allowed himself to appear ironically surprised.

  ‘Again?’ he said. ‘This has come up at every meeting we’ve had for the last six weeks. Every time it is the same thing. Do we really have to go through it again?’

  Bill said: ‘Yes, we do.’

  Anton and Bill faced each other for the fight that both had been manoeuvring for all evening, but Jimmy interposed. He said: ‘You say, we can’t make contact with the Africans. But I have. While you town types sit on your arses and talk red revolution, and tell these white settlers about the glorious Red Army, I’ve been selling The Watchdog in the Location. Ask Elias if I haven’t’

  Elias moved unhappily on his bench. Again the soft brawn skin above his brows was puckering. He said, sighing: ‘Yes, comrades, but it is not easy.’

  ‘It was a group decision that the RAF lads should not go into the Location,’ said Anton sharply. ‘And now I have come to my criticism of you – you have no discipline, you come to the meetings or not, as you feel inclined, you do party work or not as the mood takes you, you are all absolutely unreliable.’

  That’s right,’ said Jimmy roughly. ‘And we break the sacred rules of the Colony by having Coloured girls as friends.’

  Marie said impatiently: ‘We discussed all that last week. You know why we took the decision we did.’

  Here Tommy began to shift on his bench, grinning unhappily, in the way they all recognized and respected because of his desperate sincerity.

  ‘I want to say something,’ he said. ‘It’s this. There’s something wrong. We say, we don’t believe in inequality, we don’t believe in the colour bar and that. But when it gets down to it, we take a decision to behave like everyone else. We say, Don’t let’s upset people.’ He said apologetically to Elias: ‘I must say straight, comrade, that I don’t think it’s right for black and white to marry, but I know it’s because I’ve been brought up here – I’m just trying to say what I think …’

  Elias nodded, his eyes lowered.

  ‘But that’s what we say we believe. Yet when Comrade Jimmy there falls in love …’ he hesitated and changed it: ‘… likes a girl from the Coloured Quarter, then we say no. Because it would make people say bad things about communists. But it seems to me there is something wrong with it all.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Jimmy, direct to him.

  ‘Comrades,’ said Anton, weary with exasperation. ‘If we all of us, at this moment, made ourselves red flags and walked out of this room and down into the Location, shouting: Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers – then what would happen? I would be put into the internment camp. Every RAF member would be posted. The two government servants, Marjorie and Colin, would get the sack. Piet would be asked to resign from his job in the trade union. And anyone else would be deported. Is that what you want? Well, is it? Because that’s the logical conclusion of what you’re saying. And if you want this group to shout out about sexual equality, then it’s the one way to get ourselves in trouble with everyone. Would it help matters if every single man here married an African or a Coloured girl tomorrow – not that it would he possible. Or if we all took Coloured mistresses? There’s nothing new about white men sleeping with Coloured and African girls. Is there? The basic problem is economic and not social. Use your heads, comrades.’

  ‘Why do you have to make every simple human problem into a big question of principle?’ said Bill suddenly.

  ‘Are we communists or aren’t we?’

  Jasmine said earnestly to Jimmy: ‘Your attitude is very bad, comrade. We explained everything last week and took decisions. But it makes no difference to you what decisions we take – you just go straight on doing what you like in any case. I don’t see why you bother to come here at all – if you’re a group member you have to accept discipline.’

  Jimmy stood up, straightening his tunic, tucking his cap over his heavy hair. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I bother to come here either.’ Murdoch stood up beside him grinning weakly, adjusting his cap. Bill Bluett rose and joined them.

  Jimmy looked slowly around at them all, his fevered face and eyes burning. ‘You can count me out.’ He remarked to the wall above Martha’s head: ‘I’ve got myself a real working-girl, a girl like myself, and I’ve got myself comrades in the Coloured Quarter and in the Location I can talk to as man to man. But I can’t be a member any more of this talking shop.’

  He crashed out of the room; Murdoch went after him saying, ‘So long’ i
n a hasty friendly way. Bill, nodding at them all around in an impartial manner, followed them.

  Andrew stuffed his pipe away quickly, and said; ‘Well, comrades, I’m sorry about that, but I’ll see what I can do about it.’ He, too, hurried out.

  Elias, who had been looking under his eyebrows at them all, frowning, said: ‘And I must go too. I haven’t got a pass to be out.’ He departed, while they said good night, good night, good night, after him.

  ‘I suggest,’ said Anton, as if nothing in particular had happened, ‘that we now end this meeting.’

  ‘But aren’t we going to do something?’ asked Marjorie.

  ‘Comrade Andrew will do what he can. If he can’t, then we shall work without the RAF comrades. Anything else? Then I declare the meeting closed.’ He slid his books and papers together, and went with the same abruptness as the others.

  Jasmine was almost in tears. Marjorie seemed stunned. ‘But what’s happened?’ she said, appealing to everyone, ‘what’s happened, I don’t understand.’

  Colin patted her shoulder, and she irritably shrugged him away.

  Carrie shrugged, slinging a soft white wool coat over her shoulders, as she went to the door. ‘Perhaps communism isn’t suited to this country?’ she remarked. ‘Well, good night, I must get some beauty sleep.’ And she, too, departed.

  The du Preez, standing side by side, gazed unhappily at the place where Anton had sat, as if he might rematerialize and solve all these problems. At last Marie sighed and said: ‘That boy, Jimmy, what he needs is a good doctor, if you ask me. He’s dying on his feet of TB – anyone can see it by looking.’

  Piet said, grinning: ‘Women! We’d better make a rule that no one can come to group meetings unless their temperature is normal.’

  Tommy said: ‘But it wasn’t Jimmy, it was Bill, wasn’t it? I mean, Jimmy did the talking, but you could see it was Bill all the time.’

  Piet affectionately thumped the side of his fist against the boy’s head and told him: ‘Now you shut up for tonight, and we’ll give you a lift home. Who’s for a lift?’