have been worth it.’
As for Frances, she expected peaceful and productive weeks.
The incendiary letter came addressed to ‘J … indecipherable … Lennox’, and was opened by Julia, who, having seen it was for Johnny, Dear Comrade Johnny Lennox, and that the first sentence was, ‘I want you to help me open people’s eyes to the truth’, read it, then again, and, having let her thoughts settle, telephoned her son.
‘I have a letter here from Israel, a man called Reuben Sachs, for you.’
‘A good type,’ said Johnny. ‘He has maintained a consistently progressive position as a non-aligned Marxist, advocating peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.’
‘However that is, he wants you to call a gathering of your friends and comrades to hear him speak about his experiences in a Czech prison.’
‘There must have been a good reason for him to be there.’
‘He was arrested as a Zionist spy for American imperialism.’ Johnny was silent. ‘He was inside for four years, tortured and brutally treated and finally released … I would take it as a favour if you did not say, Unfortunately mistakes have sometimes been made.’
‘What do you want, Mutti?’
‘I think you should do as he asks. He says he would like to open people’s eyes to the truth about the methods used by the Soviet Union. Please do not say that he is some kind of provocateur.’
‘I am afraid I don’t see why it would be useful.’
‘In that case I shall call a meeting myself. After all, Johnny, I am in the happy position of knowing who your associates are.’
‘Why do you think they would come to a meeting called by you, Mutti?’
‘I shall send everyone a copy of his letter. Shall I read it to you?’
‘No, I know the kind of lies that are being spread.’
‘He will be here in two weeks’ time, and he is coming to London just for that – to address the comrades. He is also going to Paris. Shall I suggest a date?’
‘If you like.’
‘But it must be one convenient for you. I don’t think he would be pleased if you didn’t attend.’
‘I’ll telephone you with a date. But I must make it clear that I shall disassociate myself from any anti-Soviet propaganda.’
On the evening in question the big sitting-room received an unusual collection of guests. Johnny had invited colleagues and comrades, and Julia had asked people that she thought Johnny should have invited, but had not. There were people still in the Party, some who had left over various crisis points – the Hider– Stalin Pact, the Berlin Rising, Prague, Hungary, even one or two who went back to the attack on Finland. About fifty people; and the room was crammed tight with chairs, and people standing around the walls. All described themselves as Marxists.
Andrew and Colin were present, having first complained that it was all so boring. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Colin asked his grandmother. ‘It’s not your kind of thing, is it?’
‘I am hoping, though I am probably just a foolish old woman, that Johnny might be made to see some sense.’
The St Joseph’s contingent were taking exams. James had left for America. The girls downstairs had made a point of going to a disco: politics were just shit.
Reuben Sachs had supper with Julia, alone: Frances could have agreed with the girls, and even their choice of language. He was a round little man, desperate, and earnest and could not stop talking about what had happened to him, and the meeting, when it began, was only a continuation of what he had been telling Julia, who having informed him that she had never been a communist and did not need his persuasions, kept quiet, since it was evident that what he needed was to talk while she – or anyone at all – listened.
He had maintained for years a difficult political position in Israel, as a socialist, but rejecting communism and asking that the non-aligned socialists of the world should support peaceful relations with the Soviet Union: this meant that they would necessarily be in an unhappy situation with their own governments. He had been reviled as a communist throughout the Cold War. His temperament was not suited by nature to being permanently out on a limb, being shot at from all sides. This could be seen by his agitated, fervent discourses, his pleading and angry eyes, while the words that repeated themselves like a refrain were, ‘I have never compromised with my beliefs.’
He had been on a fraternal visit to Prague, on a Peace and Goodwill Mission, when he had been arrested as a Cosmopolitan Zionist spy for American Imperialism. In the police car he addressed his captors thus, ‘How can you, representatives of a Workers’ State, sully your hands with such work as this?’ and when they hit him and went on hitting him, he continued to use these words. As he did in prison. The warders were brutes, and the interrogators too, but he continued to address them as civilised beings. He knew six languages, but they insisted on interrogating him in a language he did not know, Romanian, which meant that at first he did not know what he was being accused of, which was every sort of anti-Soviet and anti-Czech activity. But: ‘I am good at languages, I have to explain …’ He learned enough Romanian during the interrogation to follow, and then to argue his case. For days, months, years, he was beaten up, reviled, kept for long periods without food, kept without sleep – tortured in all the ways beloved by sadists. For four years. And he went on insisting on his innocence, and explained to his interrogators and his jailers that in doing this kind of work they were dirtying the honour of the people, of the Workers’ State. It took a long time for him to realise that his case was not unique, and that the prison was full of people like him, who tapped out messages on the walls to say they were as surprised to find themselves in prison as he was. They also explained that, ‘Idealism is not appropriate in these circumstances, comrade.’ The scales fell from his eyes, as he said. Just about the time he stopped appealing to the better natures and class situation of his tormentors, having lost faith in the long-term possibilities of the Soviet Revolution, he was released in one of the new dawns in the Soviet Empire. And found he was still a man with a mission, but now it was to open the eyes of the comrades who were still deluded about the nature of communism.
Frances had decided she did not want to listen to ‘revelations’ that she had absorbed decades ago, but crept into the back of the room when it was full, and found herself sitting next to a man she did seem to remember but who obviously remembered her well, from his greeting. Johnny was in a comer, listening without prejudice. His sons sat with Julia across the room, and did not look at their father. On their faces was the strained unhappy look she had been seeing there for years now. If they avoided their father’s eyes, they did send supportive smiles to her, which were too miserable to be convincing as irony, which is what they had intended. In that room were people who had been around through their early childhoods, some whose children they had played with.
When Reuben began his tale with, ‘I have come to tell you the truth of the situation, as it is my duty to do …’ the room was silent, and he could not have complained that his audience was not attentive. But those faces … they were not the expressions usually seen at a meeting, responding to what is said, with smiles, nods, agreement, dissent. They were polite, kept blank. Some were still communists, had been communists all their lives and would never change: there are people who cannot change once their minds are made up. Some had been communists, might criticise the Soviet Union, and even passionately, but all were socialists, and kept a belief in progress, the ever-upwards-reaching
