return them not long afterwards, but with a note and not in person. It did, however, provide an opportunity for me to ask her out, which with some trepidation I did, and to my delight she accepted.10
Arthur’s opening gambit was a good one. The books – apparently Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, The Castle by Franz Kafka, and The Plague by Albert Camus – marked the beginning of an intellectual and, quite likely, emotional connection between Arthur and Lorraine. They were also important books for Arthur, as we will see. Lorraine would go on to read very widely, but in December 1960 she was just two months past her 18th birthday and in her first year at Wits. These were books that were important to Arthur. They also seemed to mark him as a wide-ranging reader, but Lorraine would later joke that while she had thought these three books were the tip of the iceberg, it turned out that for Arthur, not a big reader at this stage, they were the complete iceberg.11 Nevertheless they broke the ice.
Lorraine returned the books in February 1961. They came back with a note, as Arthur said, referring to only two books; apparently Lorraine had already read the third and so did not take it with her that evening. Her note to Arthur, accompanying the books, showed intellectual excitement and personal gratitude but offered no romantic invitation, unsurprisingly since it was apparently to be delivered by Lorraine’s boyfriend Richard. Still it provided Arthur with the opening he needed – and he kept it for the rest of his life. It read:
10th February, 1961
Dear Arthur:
Thanks very much for the two books which Richard has promised to return tonight. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t read much of the Thomas Mann, but I’m determined to try The Magic Mountain. I think that The Castle is one of the finest books I’ve ever read and am very grateful to you for introducing me to Kafka.
Yours sincerely,
Lorraine
Meanwhile, Lorraine’s relationship with Richard Kuper deteriorated, by mail – he went overseas to study, presumably after delivering Lorraine’s note to Arthur.
Arthur went on in his speech, describing the beginnings of their courtship:
One of our first outings was to an Athol Fugard play, I think it was the Bloodknot, which I rather enjoyed. I said so, and that led to our first, but not last, disagreement. Lorraine thought that it was sentimental, said so, and made clear why she did not like it. She was much more assured in this debate than me, and I was unable to deal adequately with her arguments. However, we parted on good terms, and despite my ineptness, she was willing to continue going out with me. Soon after that we went to watch the film Hiroshima Mon Amour. Lorraine thought it was a wonderful film; unfortunately, the film had a hypnotic quality to it which caused me to fall asleep, and I had to apologise. Lorraine wanted me to see the film, and that led to our going to see it again. Lorraine enjoyed it even more the second time, but the hypnotic quality proved too much for me, and I fell asleep again.
It turned out that we were very different persons, but our differences proved to be complementary and not divisive, and strengthened our relationship. Believing that we were made for each other we got married. After more than fifty years, and the tensions and stresses inherent in marriage, I still believe that, and marvel at my good fortune.
Lorraine was young – she was more than ten years younger than Arthur, and an undergraduate at Wits – and passionate. Joel Joffe felt that Lorraine brought Arthur to a deeper expression of his emotional capacity, and that this made him better at leading others, listening to them and bringing them together. She could be sharp: Toni Shimoni remembers driving with Arthur and Lorraine in Johannesburg at Christmas, and seeing a large ‘Merry Xmas’ sign – and Lorraine’s saying, ‘If it were up to me it would say “Fuck you”!’ Her feelings were intense, and the fire of those feelings was so hot that Rosemary Block, who married Arthur’s roommate Julian and knew Arthur and Lorraine as a couple very early on, called her ‘erotic’. Arthur’s brother Sydney remembered her running across the lawn, her red hair streaming behind her. Rosemary also recalled that initially, because Lorraine was so much younger than Arthur, the lovers kept their attachment quite secret – so much so that it was a surprise even for Rosemary’s husband Julian, formerly Arthur’s roommate, to learn of the relationship. Toni Shimoni, however, remembered knowing that Arthur was going out with Lorraine more quickly, in fact not long after the party where they met.
Arthur, fifty years later, describes Lorraine’s intensity in more mellow terms. He recalled: ‘Before we were married, Lorraine’s father, a very sweet man who loved her dearly, once took me into his confidence and described her to me as being very stubborn.’12 Arthur’s memory of Lorraine’s father doesn’t spell out what seems to have been the case: that she was a force to be reckoned with in her childhood home. Rosemary Block said that Lorraine had ruled the roost there, but her rule doesn’t seem to have been a happy one for her. Lorraine told me that she felt that her mother wanted her to be a different person from the one she actually was, and this left Lorraine with a deep and lasting anger.13 As a child, she escaped from her mother into books – she and her father would go to the public library to take them out – and no doubt this helped set her on the intellectual path she would follow. Her parents were not wealthy (her father was a travelling salesman), but they must have been committed to her following her star, since they evidently supported her going to university, and in her generation she may have been the only member of the family who did so. (A better-off uncle, however, may have paid her fees.14) Rosemary recalls that Arthur, for his part, was extremely nice to both of Lorraine’s parents, and they were bowled over by him.
Arthur clearly was captivated by Lorraine’s spirit. He went on to reflect on what her father had called stubbornness:
Well, I agree that she does have firm views which when they take root are difficult to counter. This was evident at a very young age when, on a matter of principle, she ran away from nursery school. The school provided the children with milk, but Lorraine did not care for milk and made arrangements with the boy who sat next to her and who liked milk, to take hers as well as his. When that was discovered they were separated and she was required to drink the milk herself. Smarting under this rebuke, but still at the school, she had another dispute, this time over finger painting. Five colours were on offer but only two could be chosen. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and deciding that she could no longer be part of such a mean school, she managed without being observed to walk out, and find her way home on foot, crossing the main highway of Harrow Road on the way. Her mother, shaken by this, decided that a firmer environment was required and sent her to a convent. But she was made of sterner stuff. The nuns failed to beat a fear of god into her, or to break her spirit. One result of that was that when we got married she refused to have a religious ceremony, and we went quietly and discreetly to the Magistrate’s Court to get the certificate that made our union lawful.15
This is by no means simply a story of a very determined, perhaps even ‘stubborn’, little girl. As Arthur tells it, Lorraine’s objection is partly to absurdity, but partly – substantially – to injustice. She herself felt that she was more emotional than he about issues of justice and injustice; he would later say to her that she had taught him the meaning of justice. Their good friend Ilse Fischer Wilson said that Lorraine was Arthur’s moral compass, even though he was a very moral person too.16 We will encounter her moral force more than once; one example, was Arthur’s repeated statement that Lorraine should receive as much recognition as he did, and that especially when they were younger, she understood the society far better than he did.17 And they must have discussed all these things: Rosemary Block recalled that they were entranced with each other’s thinking, had huge conversations, and both enjoyed them.
They were married on Arthur’s 30th birthday, 24 November 1961, less than a year after they had met. Arthur had wanted to
