Anton said nothing. Athen, newly arrived guerrilla fighter from the mountains of Greece, had more right than he to make judgments. So they all felt, and he knew it.
Chapter Two
The six, Jasmine, Martha, Marjorie, Colin and the du Preez entered their first executive meeting together, and five minutes late. The room was familiar to them, because they had rented it for various meetings of their own. It was a large brown dusty room, of the kind in which it seemed they spent most of their lives now, but distinguished from their own office by two large pictures, one of Ramsay Macdonald and one of Keir Hardie. With themselves, there were twenty people present. At the table of office sat Mrs Van, and beside her an elderly clergyman, a tall greyhound of a man with a thin pleasant face, who surveyed them all, impartially, with determined goodwill. Mrs Van was a large woman, Dutch by origin, calm, matter-of-fact, controlled. Short grey hair lay flat beside serene cheeks. Her eyes were small, blue, direct. She wore a dress that looked like an overall.
A big untidy Scotsman was speaking as they settled themselves. Martha recognized him. He was Mr McFarline, whose existence she had forgotten, since it belonged to three incarnations ago, her girlhood on the farm. His fist rhythmically jabbed into the air beside him, and he was chanting the classic phrases of the socialist credo with every appearance of passionate belief. Martha was stunned, in spite of expecting to find such evidences of hypocrisy in the Labour Party. Mr McFarline was the richest man in ‘the district’. One of the richest men, they said, in the Colony, especially since he had bought up a lot of city property which was in the path of new development, He was famous for the illtreatment of his African workers, and was probably not able to number the half-caste children who shared his features in the compounds of the mines he owned, but did not run.
This man orated about the brotherhood of humanity while the six listened, careful to keep from their faces any look of irony. They were determined to make a good impression. It was obvious to these connoisseurs of political meetings that a good deal was going on under the orderly surface that Mrs Van was so ably preserving.
There was something else: a sense, in the way people spoke, of weight and consequence. They were all being reminded that in the group meetings they might represent world communism, but that what decisions they took affected little but themselves. This was the executive of the Social Democratic Party which had seven members of Parliament and was the official opposition to the Government. What was decided in this room presumably had some effect on the course events took in the Colony. If the atmosphere of self-dedication which was the natural air they breathed was absent here, they were being introduced unexpectedly to a feeling of power. Why had they been invited here at all?
The item on the agenda which made it clear was soon reached. Mrs Van remarked that six newly formed branches of the Party had asked the Executive Committee to appoint delegates to attend meetings on their behalf: the branches were remote, three of them several hundred miles away, and they could not afford to send delegates. Mrs Van reminded the meeting that she had put forward the six names of the new delegates to the last meeting, and they had been approved. She then paused and waited for comment.
Mr McFarline was whispering to the man beside him who was nodding vehemently. The words ‘barely a quorum last time’, were audible. It seemed, then, that Mrs Van had put forward the names at a time to suit herself, and that the faction who would have opposed them was represented by the Parliamentary members, who made their feelings quite plain by directing long hard stares towards the six communists.
Mrs Van had, in short, put a fast one over on her opponents, and they were taking their defeat badly. And yet these men were expressing admiration as well as resentment in their scarcely-concealed grimacing grins towards the table where the chairman and the secretary sat. And Mrs Van, although she was placidly in command of herself, could not refrain from directing at them a single steady beam of quiet triumph. It was as if she had laughed out loud.
And so, the six were thinking, they were here as pawns in some internal battle they did not yet understand. Mrs Van, who was notoriously unsympathetic to communism, a lady of the utmost respectability (she had been a town councillor for many years now) felt so passionately about something, some issue, that she was prepared to saddle her own side with the weight of six communists? The meeting wore on. It was conducted with such devotion to the rules that they could only admire Mrs Van, for it was clearly she who had brought this job lot of people to such a pitch of discipline. The chairman, a delightfully sympathetic man, was obviously chairman by virtue of his personality, and not because of his efficiency. He lost his way in the agenda, slipped up continually over resolutions and amendments, and corrected himself with self-deprecating charm when Mrs Van put him right, which she instantly, firmly, and maternally did.
Meanwhile, the seven members of Parliament continued to lounge and smoke, arms crossed, legs outstretched, in the poses of men who have sat too long on hard benches.,
It was not until the end of the agenda that the six understood why they were here. It was an item called African Membership, and now the members of Parliament showed by their sudden attention that this was why they were here too.
Mr McFarline rose to his feet and said that while there was no one in the Colony more passionately devoted to the welfare of the blacks than himself, he thought the establishment of African membership was inopportune because … But he was ruled out of order, Mrs Van pointing out that the decision to have African members had been taken at the last meeting, and the question now was: What form was this to take? She added that if the Parliamentary members attended executive meetings more often, or read the minutes with attention, they would not be quite so out of touch with the affairs of the Party.
At this, Mr McFarline’s neighbour, a dark and lean man with the rancorous speech and eye of the self-hater, delivered himself of half a dozen brief remarks about Kaffir-lovers and do-gooders.
He was ruled out of order with the same maternal severity.
Mrs Van said with the utmost amiability that in view of the lateness of the hour and the heatedness of people’s feelings, the whole subject had better be left to the next meeting.
‘But it’s been put off twice already,’ said Mr Playfair.
‘It has been put off,’ said Mrs Van, ‘because of the inability of certain Parliamentary members to attend, but I am quite prepared to put it off again if everyone agrees?’
Anger broke out from the opposing faction, and during the noise Mr McFarline was heard ejaculating to his dark lieutenant: ‘That lot will have the vote next time; they haven’t got it this meeting.’ And he nodded with dislike towards the six communists.
‘We can discuss it now or at the next meeting, as you prefer,’ remarked Mr Playfair, after Mrs Van had whispered to him.
The dark man put his lips to Mr McFarline’s ear. Mr McFarline, grinning, said: ‘I’m in agreement with a postponement.’ He added: ‘There are a lot of branches that have lapsed and need whipping up.’ In short, he intended to strengthen his own side as Mrs Van had strengthened hers. His look at her was triumphant. But she nodded, a small smile at the corners of her mouth: she could not have said more clearly: You think you’ve done me but you haven’t.
Mr McFarline hesitated, apparently wondering who would have the advantage from a postponement devoted to the ‘whipping-up’ of the constituencies.
He was seen to cast a practised eye over the people present now, counting up his supporters. Mrs Van did the same.
He said: ‘I think it would save time if we took a vote now.’
Mrs Van agreed. They all agreed. Whereupon Mrs Van blandly pointed out that the six newly co-opted members were entitled to vote on this issue according to … here she produced the constitution and read the relevant clause.
Mr McFarline frowned, but had to agree she was in the right.
The vote was then put, the six communists voting with Mrs Van’s faction: African membership of th
e Party was confirmed; and their votes were to count the same in the affairs of the Party as the white members. The question as to whether they should form themselves into special branches or not was to be discussed in a fortnight’s time.
The meeting broke up. The six communists remained where they were, watching how people would disperse for clues as to how they were aligned. They were waiting, too, for some kind of explanation from Mrs Van.
Martha was watching Mr McFarline. She half-wanted him to remember her. Throughout the meeting his eyes had been on her, sometimes with the hard glance which she earned as a member of the communist faction, sometimes with the frankly assessing stockman’s look of a woman-lover, and this she resented now for the same reason she had years before – he was an elderly man and had no right to look at her like that!
Now he came over to her, a big smiling man, easy with the good-nature of power, and said: ‘Lassie, don’t I know you?’
She was confused when she did not want to be; Mr McFarline, lover of women, was shedding on her an impersonal kindly warmth, his brown eyes were extraordinarily shrewd and even gentle. She felt herself instinctively raising her hand to her hair in a coquettish gesture. She let it drop, and said: ‘I was Martha Quest.’ Mr McFarline nodded, fitting his memories together. He said, tentative and inviting: ‘So now we’re going to be comrades in arms?’
Martha said: ‘Hardly comrades, Mr McFarline!’
He nodded, laughed out, switched off the warmth of his attention, and turned away. His bilious lieutenant who had been watching him during his passage with the communist faction now went after him with a taut cold face. Three other members of Parliament went with them.
Piet du Preez said to Martha: ‘You’d better watch it. That’s an old swine if there ever was one. He boasts that if all the women he’s had were laid end to end they would cover the railway lines between the Zambesi and the Limpopo – only he doesn’t express himself quite so nicely!’ His eyes were enjoying Martha’s confusion. It was one of the moments she was made to learn something about herself: the men of the group were all watching her and she felt exposed.
Marie came to her rescue by shaking her husband’s arm and saying: ‘That’s enough from you – if I didn’t keep you in order you’d be as bad.’
Colin and Marjorie stood to one side, listening. He had his hand on her elbow; her forearm dangled loose below it, and her hand was a fist. Marjorie said: ‘What’s the joke?’ moving a step nearer, stopped by Colin’s grasp. Martha, still irritable because she had responded to Mr McFarline, noted the proprietary hand, the stiff resenting forearm, and thought, disliking Marjorie: Why did she marry him? What for? She doesn’t love him … I’ll tell Anton today it’s no good us going on.
At this point Mrs Van came towards them, Mr Playfair had remained, and one of the members of Parliament, a small battling Scotsman, Jack Dobie; also a tall thin freckled man, grey-haired and eager-faced — this was Johnny Lindsay, an old miner from the Rand.
Mrs Van said smiling: ‘I am very pleased to see you all here.’
Jasmine and Piet, both old friends of hers, stood forward, like official representatives of the group.
Mrs Van laughed, a warm girlish laugh, and said: ‘Well, we’ve won that round – and it serves those old so-and-sos right for not attending meetings.’
The group laughed in response, but not as frankly: being allies of Mrs Van had its difficulties, since, by their definition, she and her friends were all reactionaries.
Johnny Lindsay said cheerfully: ‘That’s one thing we can count on you communists for — you’re fine on racial questions.’
Here Mrs Van, Jack Dobie, Mr Playfair and Johnny Lindsay all nodded and smiled together, and the group finally understood exactly why they had been co-opted on to the executive.
That lot can’t stand you,’ said Jack. His small fighting face was lifted by the chin, aggresively thrust out in a characteristic gesture, as if presenting itself to enemies with every belief in the power of that sharp point to repel no matter how strong a fist. ‘They hate your guts,’ he added, but with a mock-threat in it now, like a growl. ‘And, comrades, let me tell you – I’m from the Clyde, I’ve worked with the Reds all my days, and so you’d better not get up to any of your tricks. I’m warning you, you won’t get away with it.’
And now they all laughed together in a relief of tension, liking each other.
Jasmine said in her demure way: ‘But, Jack, communists are always prepared to work with the labourites on certain issues.’
He growled out: ‘So you’re prepared to work with us, is that it? Well, I was a member of the CP myself once, so I know it all – and watch your step.’
Mrs Van said, stern and formidable: ‘You can be communists outside this room, but in here you’re members of our Party and please remember that.’ She gave them an emphatic nod. ‘We’re in the habit of taking our rules and regulations as seriously as you take yours!’
At which Johnny said: ‘And our Mrs Van is a mistress of rules and regulations – and aren’t that bunch sorry for it now!’
The general laugh was led by Mrs Van’s full-throated ringing peal, the laugh of a girl who was still buried somewhere in that large, placid matron’s body. ‘Come and have a cup of tea in my office,’ she said. ‘We need to do a little plotting.’
Mrs Van’s personal office was in the same building, across the court – the usual dingy square of soil surrounded by a veranda off which rooms opened.
The six group members, with Mr Playfair, Johnny Lindsay and Jack Dobie, sat themselves around Mrs Van’s tidy paperfiled, filing-cabineted office, noting that above Mrs Van’s head hung two portraits: Nehru and Gandhi. They drank tea and did not plot; there was no need to, for they were all in harmony. The issue was clear. These were all people who felt deeply about the situation of the Africans of the Colony; they did not need to support each other in their belief that Africans, though deprived of a vote, should somehow be introduced, even if in small ways, to political responsibility, and if being members of this particular political party was a small way, it was better than nothing. Mrs Van’s faction wanted the African members to form a branch because it would educate them in democratic procedure. The reactionaries, led by the members of Parliament, did not want black men in the Party at all. Jack Dobie, member of Parliament and therefore a traitor to his group, since he did not stand with them on this issue, spoke of them as career men and white trade unionists.
And yet he was himself a white trade unionist, elected by white railway workers.
Piet, white trade unionist, challenged him, saying that they weren’t all anti-African.
‘Is that so?’ demanded Jack. ‘You say that to me?’
‘You’re sitting here, aren’t you?’ said Jasmine.
‘Not because of my views on the Native Question.’
It was clear to them all that his particular quality, the one which got him elected, no matter how much his views contradicted those of the men who elected him, was one that the other members of the Parliamentary group did not have. Jack had the quality of honesty; a simple, unselfregarding honesty. The others were politicians. One could not sit in the same room with him for five minutes and not feel the difference between him and them.
They played the white trade unionist line. He would stand on a platform before a couple of hundred railway workers, all of them Kaffir-hating, wage-jealous white men, talling them they should be ashamed not to consider the Africans as brothers and fellow-workers!
‘They elect you,’ said Mrs Van, ‘because they have consciences after all.’
‘Is that it? I’d like to think so.’ He added, grimly: ‘They elect me because they have it both ways: they have the satisfaction of knowing they’re electing someone with the principles they ought to have – and they know that since there’s only one of me it won’t make any difference to the policy of the Parliamentary group – and that’s why you aren’t out on your ear, Brother Piet, don’t you make any mistake about
it!’ With which he gave them all an efficient nod, thumped Piet on the shoulder, and left them for his duties in the House.
Mr Playfair departed also: he had a church service to manage. Mrs Van and Johnny Lindsay sat together, talking.
The six communists watched them a while and then exchanged smiles. Mrs Van and Johnny were discussing how to use the rules of procedure in order to get their way over the African Branch. They were talking like old friends, which they were, but it was more than that: the white-haired man with his sunburned boyish face and startlingly young blue eyes, and the fat matronly woman, calm with selfcommand, their heads bent together over four sheets of printed Rules and Constitution, gave such an impression of warmth and of trust that more than one member of the group involuntarily sighed and envied them.
Martha was again feeling her old pain, that she was excluded from some good, some warmth, that she had never known. She thought: They are like lovers – though of course they aren’t.
Mrs Van, a fat forefinger half-way down a page, raised her grey head, looked triumphant and said: ‘There, see that? That’ll cook their goose for them.’ And Johnny, alive with the delights of intrigue, nodded vigorously, with ‘That’s the stuff, That’ll dish them!’ They were like a pair of conspiring children, and the group, seeing they were no longer wanted, said good-bye and left. The du Preez went home saying they must put the children to bed, but later, it went without saying, their house was available for group activity.