July’s People by Nadine Gordimer

In July’s People Nadine Gordimer presents a scenario laden with fears. Written in 1981, the book presents a South Africa afflicted by near-worst case Cold War disintegration. With rumoured external support, the urban black population has instigated a revolution of sorts, transforming the cities into war zones. No longer “nice” places to be, they are no longer home for decent white liberals like Bam and Maureen and their youngsters.

Twenty-five years on, it is this aspect of July’s people that grates. The scenario now seems horribly and, perhaps, naively, simplistic, improbable. At the time, people saw things differently, from a perspective that is difficult to communicate to anyone who did not live in through the Cold War.

But then this is an unimportant point. We do not criticize Orwell for the passing of 1984 without Big Brother. Neither do we regard Huxley’s current lack of either Bravery or Novelty as a restriction on the relevance of his book to our world. Similarly, the scenario of Margaret Attwood’s Handmaid’s Tale makes the novel both possible and successful, but its likelihood is no more probable as a result of this well-conceived fiction.

So Nadine Gordimer’s scenario, once accommodated, can be taken as a given, an imagined premise upon which the free-standing substance of the story both develops and succeeds, and then this becomes a strength of the book, not a weakness.

Bam and Maureen, long-time employers of a “houseboy” called July, decide on flight. They pack what little they can in the bakkie – a go-anywhere, basic truck of local manufacture, and set off, mother, father, their two boys, and July, their “boy” to seek safety. Bam bought the truck for bush trips, weekends when they might commune with nature in a limited, controlled way, protected from the harsher demands of Mother Nature by the maintained proximity of a retreat to urban protection.

But now the laden truck is driving into new territory. The city is uninhabitable and the journey to July’s rural home area is potentially one way. And so the white-black, black-white relationships of employment, protection, patronage, reliance and condescension are reversed - or at least questioned. And so the liberal white family must come to terms with the precarious necessity of rural poverty. They discover things in themselves that a sophisticated city gloss has hidden or suppressed. They realize how dependent they have been upon status, a commodity not valued in a fundamentally more cooperative way of living.

July’s People is presented from Maureen’s perspective. She is thirty-nine, a fundamentally confident, though constantly doubting, forceful mother and wife. As the book progresses, she tries to preserve the memory of the family’s former life as a way of protecting herself and her brood from the threats of new unknowns. Their “boy”, July, is generous, kind, but also pragmatic, and realizes he must make sacrifices on their behalf.

July’s People is ultimately enigmatic. It remains undermined to a degree by the hindsight-rendered unlikeliness of its scenario. Its most powerful statement is the way in which the sensibilities of the urban sophisticates are questioned by mere natural necessity. It is a short book, but feels much bigger, much more of a statement as a result of Nadine Gordimer’s pithy, abrasive style.

Just as the rural poor find a use for everything, Nadine Gordimer wastes not a single phrase or even word, and neither does she consume more than she needs. The book’s prose is economical in the extreme, the language sometimes pricking like the thorn bush described. It remains a moving book about culture and social identity, despite the unlikeliness of its setting.

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July's People

Victims

Thursday

I need urgent advice and assistance. Please read the following in the context of my previous reports over the last fortnight, especially the details of my visit to P... last week. I have transcribed my tapes verbatim, omitting items of little or no substance. What follows is as accurate a rendition as I can manage, given the shortage of time. Some spellings and local names may not be wholly accurate. My sessions with Father Peter all took place in Room 258 of the Mount Gardenia Hospital. I have indicated in parenthetic comment the source of interruptions or other events that caused either remark or pause from either myself or Father Peter. I, of course, am AG throughout.

Tuesday

I started the recorder as we exchanged greetings.

AG: So, Father Peter, I’ve found you at last.
Peter: Alison! Hello there, Miss Grady. I didn’t expect… How did you find out I was here?
AG: I was in the agency office when the news came down from the north. There’s been nothing in the press yet, One of the relief officials arrived from the camp at M.... He said you would be here in Mount Gardenia. They didn’t seem to know you at the main reception, but when I said the man with shrapnel wounds, they told me to check Room 258.
Peter: What else did the man from the camp say? Did he know what happened last Friday? Who else was hurt?
AG: He only had news about you, because you were transferred via the camp, I think. Please tell me what happened, Peter.
Peter: We had obviously been targeted. They used helicopters. The convent wasn’t touched - only the church and the buildings along the road.
AG: Those were the places where the displaced people were staying?
Peter: Yes, that’s right. I was told that some of them were killed.

We were both silent for a while. I remember not knowing how to proceed. I could neither confirm nor deny.

Peter: When was it that you visited us?
AG: It was just last week, on Friday. I arrived at around eleven thirty. We left Colombo at eight and landed at the military airfield at nine. It took two hours to get to you because we were going through the blockade.
Peter: I remember that you left around four.
AG: That’s right.

A nurse came in and addressed Peter directly, cutting across me. She asked whether he was comfortable. She started in English, but then continued in Sinhalese. I remember Peter nodding towards me – as best he could, given the fact that he was connected to a battery of machines and bottles and had very restricted movement. In any case, it seemed that he had no movement at all in the lower half of his body, which was protected from the weight of the bedding by a tent frame. The nurse fussed a little at his pillow, checked his drip and then left. I remember looking around the room and noticing for the first time that his was not the only bed and that I was not the only visitor. Though the room was small, there clearly was another bed behind the curtains beyond Father Peter. The drapes that ran from floor to ceiling. They stretched across something rigid at one point as they turned the corner. I assumed this was a chair back and, indeed, its position moved just a little when the nurse squeezed her way past, having satisfied herself that all Father Peter’s inputs were in place and working. So there was someone sitting on the chair by the other bed when I arrived.

Peter: Where were we?
AG: I left at around four on Friday afternoon. It was already going dark by the time I reached the airfield and it was after eight before we landed back in Colombo. We had to wait for the plane to come back from where it had gone after dropping us off that morning. The officer who made the trip north with me was also going back.
Peter: Miss Grady, please don’t think in any way that I am suggesting that you may be responsible…
AG: Did I tell him about my visit? Yes, I did. But all I said was that I was visiting you on behalf of the relief service…
Peter: Did you mention the displaced people?
AG: Only to confirm that anyone who was displaced by the fighting might need humanitarian assistance. I said nothing about where they might be from, where they might be or how many there were. I spoke only in the most general terms.

I remember how quiet Peter became. The tape ran on for over a minute before either of us spoke again. The chair by the other bed nudged back against the curtain a little. I pointed towards it and asked Peter without speaking if he knew who was there. He shrugged, as best he could.

Peter: I arrived on Sunday, but I came into this room late last night. I was sedated. When I woke this morning, that’s all I could see. It hasn’t changed.

For some reason both of us began to whisper. I have had to interpolate the words in some of the following exchanges because we spoke so quietly the tape did not pick them up. I believe my memory of what was said remained clear.

AG: So how do we handle this?
Peter: I have nothing to hide. Have you?

I shook my head, thinking how futile a gesture it was. I thought I had been careful with my words the previous Friday and yet, perhaps, someone had read into them whatever they had wanted to hear.

AG: Please tell me what happened.
Peter: At around seven on Saturday morning we heard helicopters. It’s quiet around P..., as you know, so we heard them when they were still a long way off. I went outside to see where they were heading. The current operation started over a month ago, so we have grown used to going outside to watch the comings and goings. Since the displaced people arrived, I have had regular conversations with several of the men about exactly what and where was being targeted.
AG: So Saturday morning was nothing special.
Peter: No. Quite ordinary, at least to begin with. There were six of us – all men – standing near the store house at the back of the shops. There’s some raised ground there at the side from where you can get a better view.
AG: Was it the men who had their bunks inside the store house? Were they the ones who were interested in what the military were up to?
Peter: One or two of them were there…
AG: When I visited on Friday, the whole store house area was deserted. There were six bunks inside, but there was no-one around. In the other buildings – the ones occupied by the families – there were clear signs of life. Had those men cleared out because of my visit? Who are they?
Peter: Who were they…?
AG: I’m sorry…
Peter: As I told you last Friday, all I can relate to you is what I am told myself. The people came from two villages in the line of fire. The military gave them one hour to leave their houses. They all arrived at my church with only the things they could carry. They had walked ten miles or so. And that was a month ago. I can hardly claim to have got to know them in the last month, but I at least know something about them. All I can tell you is what they told me. The families were clearly travelling as groups, but the single men seemed to keep apart, apart from the families and apart from one another. The families immediately negotiated shelter in the shops. As you know there is no commerce any more in our area so those shops have not been in business for some time. But the families wanted the single men to be separate, and the men, themselves, also seemed to want to stay apart. So they offered to build themselves bunks in the store house at the back. None of the men were related to any of the families. I was told later that they were employed as labourers. They used to sleep in shacks set apart in the paddies. They never even went to the village. Also, they were originally plantation people…
AG: So they had to be segregated from the rest? Not quite clean enough, not quite pure enough to rub shoulders with the real thing?
Peter: Now you are being judgmental. It’s the way things are…
AG: (interrupting) Please go on. I’m sorry. Please tell me what happened.
Peter: Well the story is short and simple. We heard the helicopters and went out to watch. We started to chat and speculate about which way they would go. It was only a minute or so later when we realised that they were heading directly for us. I can’t remember who ran first. I can’t even remember if anyone ran. By the time we were ready to admit that they were heading our way it seemed almost too late to move. I remember thinking that they might fly straight over us on their way to somewhere beyond, but then that wasn’t at all likely. There’s not much past us in that direction, only a few mangroves and sandbanks before you get to the sea. I don’t remember much more. Only that there was a lot of smoke for a while – and then I couldn’t stand. It was a while before I felt any pain – and then it was unbearable. I must have passed out. I can remember someone with a syringe. The person said something, but I couldn’t hear. And then it was Sunday evening and I was in the camp at M.... I recognized the French doctor as soon as I saw him He told me I was going to be air-lifted to Colombo immediately. I still don’t know what happened to any of the others. The military on the plane told me that people had been killed. One said six, another ten. The pain had gone. I couldn’t feel anything, but my hearing was starting to return. I arrived here late on Sunday and then went under after another injection. I woke up yesterday evening and have been here in this bed ever since. I have not moved. I felt a little bit better this morning when the doctor came to see me. He said I have shrapnel in my lower legs and some small pieces in my back. They have removed what they can. He said that the MSF doctor in the camp saved my feet. Without him I would now be a double amputee. I still may be, because I can neither see nor feel anything below the waist. And I can’t move.
AG: How long will you be in here?
Peter: I asked the doctor this morning. He says it is too soon to judge how long things will take. But for a start he says that I’ll have to stay here for a month. They have to change the dressings twice a day. And then they say we’ll have to wait and see. It took me a while for his words, “We hope you will be able to walk again” to sink in. I have had a day to get used to the idea and it’s still hard to know what it really means.

Peter paused here and looked again towards the other bed on his right. Nothing stirred behind the curtains. He then turned back towards me.

Peter: So how did you know I was here?
AG: I was at a meeting of the relief agency all day yesterday. I heard news of the operation in your area early yesterday morning and it was around midday when some people arrived from M.... They had been travelling for a full day. They came straight into the meeting because they knew we were discussing how to get relief supplies up to the north. The first thing they did was tell us what happened to you. But they didn’t know where you were. It took most of yesterday evening on the telephone to find you. And then I was told that you could not take visitors until the afternoon because you were in surgery. No-one seemed to recognize your name…
Peter: That’s because they would have used my other name…

I didn’t pursue this at the time. I now wish I had done. Peter William clearly had another name, perhaps a Tamil name, by which he is also, perhaps more commonly known. His baptismal name, it seems, is for external use only.

Peter: … and of course he came in yesterday…

He nodded vaguely towards the curtain.

It was just at that moment that the curtains moved for the first time. There was a clear swish on the tape as the runners slid on their track. The complete silence that Peter and I maintained was a reflection of our surprise at what was revealed. And it was a while before I realised that, from his fixed position, Peter could not see everything that I could. Peter would have seen the policeman, but not the patient in his bed. The policeman was the occupant of the chair near the foot of the bed. What threw me was the fact that he also had a tape recorder. It was on the bed next to where he sat, alongside an open spiral-bound notebook on top of which lay a pen. The young man in the bed seemed to be unconscious, his head lolling to one side at a strange angle.
The policeman studied me. He studied my tape recorder. I must have done the same to him. It seemed like an age at the time, but my tape revealed that it was just a few seconds before the curtain swished closed.

I looked at Peter, who quizzically returned my gaze. He sensed my apprehension, because he said nothing. I did not know what to do. I feared the worst, though I had no idea what that might be.

I remember leaning over towards Peter and whispering. I told him what I had seen, words that did not register on my recording, though the tape was still running. I can recall sensing an irony in my willingness to confide in a man whose acquaintance I had shared for only a few hours in total.

My mind was suddenly full of imagined fears. The policeman was recording us, I concluded. We had already mentioned Father Peter’s “other” name. There was clearly a lot I didn’t know, didn’t understand, or alternatively there was much from which I was deliberately excluded. Peter’s lack of reaction could have been resignation. It could have been simply “so what?” Or it could have been expectation. I started to get up.

Peter: What’s the problem, Miss Grady?
AG: I thought I might go and ask someone about…
Peter: We have nothing to hide. What’s the problem?

Then the nurse reappeared. She carried a metal tray in which some small bottles rattled. She immediately registered my concern. I must have looked at her, across to the other bed and back again. She paused. Then Peter spoke, craning his neck forwards as far as he could. The words are there on the tape but I can’t transcribe them because they are in Sinhalese. Perhaps Peter merely asked who was in the next bed. The nurse answered at length and went behind the curtain.

Peter: It’s a man with gunshot wounds. He is in a coma. He has been shot by the police, having been caught dealing drugs on the street. He tried to run away, but the officers were armed and they shot him. They hope he will be able to talk if he comes round. She says he was admitted in the middle of the night, but obviously I must have been heavily sedated at the time.

Peter and I listened to various noises that followed. It was an injection being administered, with an associated rattle of glass and cellophane, breaking of seals and clanking of enamel that seemed to last an age. The noises are all clearly recorded on my tape, which means that anything we had said could be on the policeman’s tape. The nurse reappeared. As the policeman held the curtain aside for her, they exchanged a few words.

Peter: So we are both full of metal?
Nurse: You are, but he has two pieces, whereas you have many. Unfortunately for him, his pieces are big and in places where we can’t take them out.

She then left the room.

Peter: She asked if the man had said anything. The policeman answered, “Not a word.” There probably isn’t much more you can accomplish by staying here, Miss Grady. But I would like to ask you a favour. Could you…

At this point there was a growling and a muttering from behind the curtain. The policeman’s chair moved. The voice was almost liquid, as if passing through oil.

Peter: Could you get a message back up to M... for me? I want someone to go back to P... and take some pictures. I need to see what damage has been done. I think the agency truck is scheduled to go up there tomorrow or maybe Thursday. Can you ask someone to arrange a camera for whoever will visit? We need pictures of the damage and also of any injured people who are still there.
AG: I’ll certainly do that. Whom should I ask?

The tape now has several long guttural sounds from the next bed. They are not intelligible, I think, but they go on for several seconds, during which time both Peter and myself instinctively try to listen. I cannot tell if Peter understood anything, but he certainly seemed to register something. I recall inviting him to tell me, but he ignored my request.

AG: So whom should I ask?
Peter was still listening.

Peter: Alicia will know. The woman who runs the office. Try her. And also can you check if there is any mail for me at the office? I am expecting some letters. If you are planning to visit me tomorrow, could you bring them here?
AG: I’ll try. I have a meeting there at nine. Perhaps I could get here by twelve?
Peter: That will be fine. And please can you phone Alicia this evening to ask her about the trip to the north? Please don’t leave it until tomorrow.

I switched off the tape at this point before I said my goodbyes and left.

Wednesday

Room 258 was jammed with people when I arrived just after twelve thirty. Peter was completely surrounded. There was a pair of nurses, one either side of the bed-head. They had clearly just manoeuvred him into a semi-upright position with the assistance of several pillows under his shoulders. A doctor stood to the side. He asked me to wait until he had finished his examination. As I stood in the corridor outside, I could see past the group around Peter’s bed to the policemen beyond. The curtains around the other bed were fully open. I could see the young man clearly this time. His head was bandaged and an apparent multiplicity of tubes and cables connected him to various bottles and machines. Two uniformed officers stood slightly apart at the foot of the bed, whilst two men in plain clothes stood on either side of the young man. One held a microphone near the boy’s face while the other bent low over the bed and occasionally spoke. The boy appeared to be conscious, but only just. He was clearly responding to the prompts, however, and whenever he spoke, the questioning plain clothes man repeated his words so that the boy could confirm with a nod and also so that one of the uniformed officers could take notes.

I watched this scene for ten minutes or more. Peter’s doctor was checking all of the wounds on his feet and lower legs. His right foot in particular seemed to be very badly damaged. But I was distracted throughout by what seemed to be happening beyond Peter’s group. It seemed that the interrogator was deliberately trying to hurt the boy, who started to cry out. Neither the nurses nor the doctor paid any attention to this, however, so I thought no more of it at the time. Only now has its incongruity full registered. A nurse noticed my interest. She told me that the boy was a drug dealer and did not deserve my sympathy. She said that this was the first time he had regained consciousness and the police were keen to learn what he knew.

When the doctor finished examining Peter I was allowed into the room. I greeted Peter and placed my recorder in the recess near the top of the side table, to Peter’s left. I remember thinking that the interrogating policeman might object to its presence, but he did not seem to be interested. Or maybe he just did not notice it.

AG: So what did the doctor say?
Peter: He seemed to be pleased with the operation. He thinks that there are still many small bits of shrapnel in my right foot, but my left foot is probably clear. They did an X-ray before the operation, but they want to operate again. He said he would have to consult a colleague, but he thought they might have to wait a couple of weeks for everything to settle down before making a decision.

It was obvious that Peter was much stronger. The previous day’s conversation had not been punctuated by the head rocking that is so characteristic of the region. Today, almost every phrase Peter said was accompanied by a virtuoso performance from the neck up. It seemed like he was trying to write the words with his nose. I nodded towards the policemen.

AG: It’s a bit dramatic…
Peter (quietly): They have been questioning him for an hour. The boy is incoherent. They are feeding him with statements and sometimes he makes a noise. They then tell one another that he has confirmed what they have said.
AG: I spoke with people in the office this morning. Your story is now in the newspapers. It appeared only today. Basically all the reports have reproduced a press release from the military. They say that the church compound in P... was bombed because it had been occupied by guerrillas and that they had taken you and the nuns hostage. They regret the fact that you were hurt in the attack and cite that as proof that the guerrillas were using you as a human shield. They claim to have killed all of the guerrillas.
Peter: What about the families?

There was a pause in our conversation here. As Peter asked his question, a doctor came into the room. He was polite but forceful with the plain clothes men. He was clearly saying that the boy needed rest. They argued for a while, during which time we were silent. Just as they finally agreed to leave, a nurse came in with a tray and gave the boy another injection. Three of the policemen then did leave, but one uniformed man stayed. They left the tape recorder with him.

AG: They should move you out of this room.
Peter: Human shield? What are they talking about?
AG: At least they have not accused you of harbouring the rebels.
Peter: What they say in the papers and what they say to one another are quite different things. Take nothing for granted, Miss Grady. Do you know what happened to the other people?
AG: No-one knows. At least no-one is saying. There is currently no communication open with P..., not even with the convent.
Peter: Did the reports say anything about the military moving in to the area?
AG: No. They only mentioned the air strike.

Another nurse appeared. She spoke to Peter.

Nurse: We want you to have another X-ray. The doctors need to know how much shrapnel is left. We can do it now that the tissues have had some time to settle down after the operation. They think you are well enough to move.
Peter: When?
Nurse: We will come for you in a few minutes.

As the nurse left, she cast a glance towards the other bed. In the short time that she had been in the room, much had changed. Possibly as a result of the injection the boy had been given, possibly because he had drifted into semi-consciousness, he began to rant. He started making strange noises, half-singing, half-speaking. Sometimes they were high pitched and shouted. Sometimes they were barely audible, merely mumbled.

The policeman scribbled away madly on his pad. He repeatedly pushed the tape recorder closer, or pulled it back, depending on the volume of the boy’s utterance. I couldn’t understand anything. Presumably it was Sinhalese, but Peter’s reaction suggested that it might have been Tamil. He seemed surprised, but said nothing.

Peter: Well, I suppose that’s progress. I hope they are not going to operate again before I have had some more time to recover. I feel very weak.
AG: But you don’t seem to be in pain…
Peter: That’s because of the medication. I can’t feel a thing. I’ve also had nothing to eat…
AG: That’s a point. Shall I go and get you something?
Peter: That would be wonderful. Please do.
AG: There’s a shop just over the road. I’ll go and get you some snacks.

I was away for longer than I had planned. It ought to have taken only a few minutes, but the shop was full and there was an argument about money. Both of the shop’s proprietors were involved and all other activity seemed to be suspended until the problem was solved. It was over half an hour before I returned to Peter’s room. I knew immediately there was a problem. Peter had gone. His bed, presumably with him still in it, had been wheeled out of the room. I assumed he’d gone for the X-ray. The man was still ranting. There was an absolute torrent of words flowing from him, but still he seemed only barely conscious. Though the curtains around his bed were now completely drawn back, he offered no acknowledgement whatsoever of my entrance. But the policeman had also gone. Earlier he had been so careful to write and record every word that was uttered, so diligent in checking his recording level for every sound the poor man made. And now there was this torrent of words and yet the policeman had left, taking his tape recorder with him. It didn’t make sense. I found a nurse – not easy, since the ward seemed deserted and I had to go right through to the end of the corridor – and asked what had happened to Peter. She had to ask two others before one clearly senior nurse confirmed that he had gone for his X-ray. She estimated that he might be back in half an hour or so.

I decided to go back across the road for a cup of tea. When I returned, about an hour later, Peter’s bed was back in the room, but it was empty. The man was still ranting and there was still no policeman. There was, at least, a nurse in the corridor. But she said that she had only just come on duty and could tell me nothing. I went down to the main reception and asked if they knew where Peter was. They said they had no idea, a response which I found strange, to say the least. I asked them to check the patient record of the occupant of Room 258 and they gave me one name only, the name of the drug dealer, I assumed, because it clearly wasn’t Peter’s name.

By the time I got back to Room 258, the nurse was re-making Peter’s bed. I asked again where he was and she also said she had only just started her shift. She speculated that he might have been transferred. I asked to where and she merely shrugged her shoulders.

I was about to set off again when I noticed that I had left my tape recorder on Peter’s side table. I had placed it there when I first entered the room. I had set it running to record our conversation and it had been recording ever since. I went across to retrieve it. When I turned it off, the nurse clearly registered the click. She was about to say something, but I left the room immediately, not giving her a chance to speak, dropping the recorder in my bag. I went back to the main office where I tried to explain who I was and whom I was trying to contact. They claimed to have no knowledge of a priest with shrapnel wounds having been admitted.

I must have stayed with them for fifteen minutes or so. Then I decided my only course of action was to find the nurse who had told him about the X-ray. Even if she was no longer on duty, I decided my best bet was to talk to the ones upstairs who had replaced her.

I went back upstairs and along the corridor to Room 258. There was still no sign of Peter and, strangely, no sign of anyone else either, no policemen, not even nurses. The place was deserted. I took the opportunity to go behind the service counter that separated the nurses’ work area from the rest of the foyer. I looked around a little, thinking I might be able to see a paper, a register or roster with Peter’s name.

And then all hell broke loose. The swing doors flung open and two men ran along the corridor away from me. Instinctively, I crouched down behind the counter, but I could still tell what happened. I heard a door open and close and then several muffled shots. I then heard the men leave, their haste leaving the doors swinging back and forth several times. Barely twenty seconds had elapsed between their entrance and exit.

I stayed behind the counter for several minutes. No one appeared. I stood up and checked the corridor and lift area before going down to Room 258. The man, obviously, was dead. I didn’t go close. There was no need. The top of the bed was just a mass of blood. But still there was no-one around.

I hurried back to the ground floor. I paused only to tell a nurse on reception what had happened. She looked shocked and told me to wait, but I was already on my way out of the hospital’s main entrance. I went back to the reception desk and spoke to the nurse and a colleague she had called over. They looked sincerely shocked. They didn’t believe what I was saying. They told people in the office behind and someone went upstairs to check. He returned less than a minute later in a highly agitated state.

And then I was taken by surprise. Without warning, three other people approached. I expected to be told to wait until the police arrived. I was, after all, a witness. But they led me immediately out into the street and told me very clearly to go. I now presume that they knew nothing about my tape.

So I left, quickly. I came straight back to the hotel and immediately set about transcribing the tapes of my conversations with Peter. When I turned on the television for the evening news, there was a report of an “incident” in Mount Gardenia hospital. It said that a man had entered the hospital and shot dead two patients in a room on an upper floor. Two patients… The incident, said the report, was thought to be related to crime, specifically drug dealing.

A later report in the same bulletin was what prompted me to seek immediate assistance and guidance. It claimed that our partner agency in Colombo, and my personal contacts, no less, were being investigated. They stand accused, said the report, of channelling funds to the rebels in the north.

Thursday

I am currently in the Stanley Gardens Hotel in room 176. I have a tape recording lasting more than ninety minutes of the drug dealer’s ranting, not a word of which I can understand, and I was a witness to his death. I saw the murderers. And I think they saw me. And according to the news, Peter was also shot dead by the same men, an assertion I know to be false. I believe my main contacts are in custody. I await directions from head office, which I hope to receive via the same route that I send these notes. Please advise.

Emperor by Colin Thubron

Emperor by Colin Thubron is a mightily ambitious novel. It describes the conversion to Christianity of the emperor Constantine the Great, the circumstances of which are unknown. But this was an event that changed human history. This single event elevated Christianity, previously a minority sect amongst many, to the status of official religion of the Roman Empire. Thus it became the religion of a continent, a status it has never lost.

What is so original about Colin Thubron’s book, however, is its form. The novel is constructed as if it were a sheaf of documents by different authors. The entries are arranged by date, but are constructed as if assembled from a jumble of material stuffed at random by an incompetent clerk into a satchel that was then lost. The author thus assumes many voices, many forms, many perspectives.

Constantine has embarked upon the final phase of his conquest of Rome to establish himself the undisputed leader of the empire. He was in York when his father died and Maxentius, his wife’s brother, usurped the throne. Constantine must therefore raise an army and conquer his way to power all the way from the north of England to the imperial capital. Emperor takes us from the boundaries of Verona to the outskirts of Rome, the progress described via the jottings of several characters.

Constantine’s own journal is the centre-piece. In it the emperor muses on military tactics and the progress of war. But we also discover a sensitive, emotional character often preoccupied with significance deeper than the mundane. The letters and jottings of Fausta, Constantine’s wife and sister of the pretender Maxentius, show how little those involved are able to express or trust their own feelings. Constantine is besotted with her, but she always demands a distance. We are never completely sure of her motives – or loyalties, for that matter.

Synesius, Constantine’s secretary, has seen it all before. His often witty musings offer both context and interpretation. Hosius, Bishop of Cordoba, is the Christian voice that travels with Constantine’s army. His reactions to events are always fundamentally different from what the other characters expect or predict. And there are other minor characters, lesser voices that add further detail and different perspectives.

One of the book’s great achievements is its highly effective portrayal of the pan-European character of Constantine’s alliance and its consequent religious diversity. It seems that there was a real free market in Gods at the time and we quickly feel the need for a unifying cultural and ideological force to match the political and military presence of Constantine. And so the Emperor’s personal needs and pragmatic concerns suddenly coincide and the charismatic presence of Hosius assists.

Overall I felt that Emperor did not quite achieve the ambition of its inspiration, however. In the end the originality of the form became a limitation, constricting the author’s ability to convey both background and context. The story he told was considerably bigger than the form could sustain and so the climax was unsatisfactory. As criticisms go, however, it’s a very small one.

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Emperor

Life At The Top by John Braine

After recently re-reading John Braine’s Room at the Top, I went On Chesil Beach, courtesy of Ian McEwan. Without doubt the latter is a masterpiece, whereas the former seems to be a little too reliant on its contemporary setting, its social mores, its finely tuned appreciation of social class to be considered more than “of its time”. Concatenating the two books, however, has made me think a little more about the underpinning thesis of Ian McEwan’s book, that the early 1960s remained an age when sexuality was not discussed, dealt with or even experienced in the more open, liberal manner of just a decade later. In the context of Ian McEwan’s setting and for his characters, this was undoubtedly the case. Memories of John Braine’s 1950s, however, remind me that there might have been room for a different reading.

And so I approached a re-discovery of Braine’s Life At The Top with more than just an interest in the narrative. Of course the book is a sequel, an attempt to recreate the success that had eluded its author in the intervening years. But it is based in the early 1960s, precisely the time when Ian McEwan’s fumbling lovers marry.

Life At The Top is ten years on from its germ. Joe Lampton and Susan are married and have two children. Joe is also firmly ensconced in his father-in-law’s firm, has made a moderate success of his career and, certainly relative to others around Warley, has plenty of money. But as those for whom success seems to be a given, it is necessary to be reminded that, “It’s one thing to get there, and quite another thing to stay there”. And so it is with Joe Lampton. He becomes a councilor – a Tory one at that – and all seems to be made. But then, but then… he’s still our Joe. He still likes his pint, though now it’s more likely to be a scotch, and perhaps Susan is still as naïve as she was a decade before – naïve, that is, until she decides what she wants.

So, obviously, in Life At The Top Joe and Susan’s life together turns sour, even a little bitter. But John Braine’s plot and style always keep the process above soap opera, where character only exists to fuel plot. In some ways, the pair of novels, Room and Life At The Top, is a loose allegory of the experience of the author, himself. In Room he’s an upstart successfully staking his claim, but at a cost in terms of pigeon-holing and confinement to a genre. In Life he’s a known success and is clawing on to its retention.

But after finishing the book two points stand out. The first is a reminder of the apparent sexual liberty enjoyed by its characters. Not only Joe, but also Susan and eventually Norah, not to mention the ailing Mark, are apparently free-loaders. Only Mark’s wife seems to possess the frigidity, perhaps aridity, that Ian McEwan seems to associate with the era. I can remember when Life At The Top was a much watched film. It was seen as racy, even a bit risqué, but not because of what it portrayed, only that it was portrayed. It wasn’t the content that shocked; it was the fact that the content was made public.

On the other hand, if John Braine’s mission had been purely to shock, then the ultimate morality of the outcome would be incongruous at best. Life At The Top is the kind of novel where what happens is crucial, so to reveal the finishing point would detract from the experience of reading the book. Suffice it to say that, in its own way, Life At The Top becomes an affirmation of a given set of values, even if those who want to live by them do not always live up to them.

So I return again to On Chesil Beach and conclude that there may be a greater element of social class – or even stereotype – involved in Ian McEwan’s reading of the mores of that age. A shortcoming it might be, but it detracts in no way whatsoever from the quality of the book. The imagined rules applied to those described, despite the fact that, as John Braine’s Life At The Top reminds us, they might not actually have been rules and certainly didn’t apply to everyone, especially the imagined.

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Life at the Top

Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge

At first glance Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge suggests it might be quite a light book, an easy read, a period piece set in the mid-nineteenth century. This would be wrong. Master Georgie is no safe tale of country house manners, of marriages imagined by confined, embroidering young women. Beryl Bainbridge’s Master Georgie is anything but a tale of such saccharine gentility.

Master Georgie is a surgeon and photographer, and the book is cast in six plates – photographic plates, not chapters. Death figures throughout. From start to finish morbidity crashes into the lives of the book’s characters. We begin with Mr Moody, dead in a brothel bed, his host of minutes before in shock. Later we move to the Crimean War, where the carnage is graphic, extensive and apparently random. And even then individuals find their own personal ways of adding insult and injury to the suffering.

The book uses multiple points of view. We see things Master Georgie’s way. Myrtle, an orphan he takes in, adds her perspective. The fussy geologist, Dr Potter, imprints his own version of reality. And still there are less than explained undercurrents, undeclared motives which affect them all. Thus, overall, Master Georgie is a complex and ambitious novel. Though it is set in a major war, the backdrop is never allowed to dominate. The characters experience the consequences of conflict and register their reactions, but we are never led by the nose trough the history or the geography of the setting.

But we also never really get to know these people. Myrtle, perhaps, has the strongest presence. She has a slightly jaundiced, certainly pragmatic approach to life. But even she finds the privations of wartime tough. Why the characters of Master Georgie are all so keen to offer themselves as support for the war effort is an aspect of the book that never fully revealed itself. And ultimately this was my criticism of Beryl Bainbridge’s book. While the overall experience was both rewarding and not a little shocking, I found there was insufficient delineation between the characters and their differing motives. The beauty of the prose, however, more than made up for any shortcoming. The language created the mixed world of mid-nineteenth century politeness and juxtaposed this with the visceral vulgarities of soldiering and the general struggle of life. This rendered Master Georgie a complex, moving and quite beautiful book.

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Master Georgie

The Mission Song by John le Carré

In The Mission Song John le Carré re-visits the world of espionage that we associate with his writing. He is a master of the clandestine, the deniable, the re-definable. Bruno Salvador is a freelance linguist. His parentage is complex, his origins confused, but his skills beyond question. By virtue of an upbringing that had many influences, he develops the ability to absorb languages. Having lived in francophone Africa and then England, he is fluent in both English and French plus an encyclopaedia of central African languages. His unique gifts, considerable skills and highly idiosyncratic methods qualify him for occasional assignments as an interpreter. He is trusted. He is also, he discovers, pretty cheap, and already has considerable experience of working for those aspects of government and officialdom which sometimes transgress legality. He is also, therefore, vulnerable. So when a new assignment – so urgent that he has to skip his wife’s party – drags him to a secret destination, he initially takes everything very much in his stride.

But Bruno is much more than a linguist, certainly much more than a translator and, as a result of the application of conscience, considerably more than the interpreter his employers have hired. His perception of language is so acute that it provides him with an extra sense, a means of interpreting the world, no less, not just a method of eliciting meaning. But he also has the intellectual skills to identify consequences, to interpret motives. And it is here where he begs to differ with his paymasters.

The Mission Song is the kind of book where revelation of the plot, beyond this mere starting point, would undermine the experience of reading it. Suffice it to say that Bruno’s task is both what is seems to be and also not what it seems. Bruno’s ambivalence in relation to its aims prompts him to go beyond the call of duty. And, in doing so, he learns more about his near-anonymous employers. But, of course, they learn more about him, a reality that eventually has fairly dire consequences.

The Mission Song is also a love story, or two, one on the way in and one on the way out. It’s also about privilege and power, plus their use, misuse and abuse. In many ways it inhabits similar territory to John le Carré’s Absolute Friends, but is singularly more successful, especially in the credibility of the eventual denouement.

Fans of John le Carré will need no convincing. For those who have found his other work less than satisfying, The Mission Song shows the author at his best, presenting a complex, highly credible plot in a skillful, illuminating, informative and yet entertaining way. Its eventual message about the abuse of power is subtly threaded into the very substance of the plot and makes its point with strength and relevance. We know a little more about the world by the end.

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The Mission Song

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns having just finished Kite Runner. I would like the opportunity to live life again (who wouldn’t?), if only to have a chance of reversing the order of this experience. I suspect that had I read A Thousand Splendid Suns first then none of the criticisms I raise about the book would even have been imagined, let alone expressed. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a wonderful book, a compelling and gut-wrenching story of two women, Mariam and Laila, who share a husband throughout the years of Afghanistan’s tragedy and turmoil. The fact that Khaled Hosseini can sustain expression, narrative, emotion and interest across two novels with ostensibly similar themes in the same territory is testament both to his supreme skill and the depth of the country’s despond.

Where Kite Runner tells the story of two boyhood friends approaching maturity, separating and reuniting, A Thousand Splendid Suns presents two women who are forced together by arrangement. As in Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini presents ethnic and social class differences as the givens of the story. Similarly, Afghanistan’s turbulent thirty years from the mid-1970s is more than a backdrop: it is the very substance of the idea, eventually revealed as the flesh on the story’s bones, the driving force of circumstance that creates the inevitability of the characters’ fate.

And this is why I wish I could read both books again in the different order, because too often in A Thousand Splendid Suns I felt I had been there before. The backdrop came just too much to the fore, in some parts so much so that I felt Mariam and Laila became puppets of its detail and demands.

That, I suppose, may also be part of the point. Whereas Kite Runner concentrated on male experience, A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on women and, given what happened in Afghanistan over those decades, it may be that the sense of subservience to the turn of events is the very essence of these women’s experience. Thus, it is almost true to say that they were not, themselves, protagonists. They were done unto.

Mariam and Laila differ in age, ethnicity, birthright and social class. They both, and for different reasons, finish up unhappily married to the same man, Rasheed, older than both combined, brutish, bigoted and sadistic. Rasheed is thus a symbol for the traditional male role without declaring himself as such. In Western terms, we read this “tradition” as misogyny, however, and it is here where I find the book’s weakness. In my opinion – for what it’s worth, and not much at that - A Thousand Splendid Suns would have been an even greater novel had Rasheed been cast as a more liberal figure and had he also suffered as a result of his own conflict with the requirements of changing times. But Khaled Hosseini made A Thousand Splendid Suns from the women’s stories and a more complex role for their husband might have deflected attention from them.

The two women had quite different experiences of youth, and demonstrate quite different capacities to relate to others and even to life, itself. But they have enough in common to need to act together, to need to form a relationship, less than an alliance, more than acquaintance. Pragmatism might have been easier, but the two women develop a real bond, a relationship that shares out the pain, disappointment and unfulfilled dreams of their marital confinement. There is tragedy aplenty and ultimate resolution of a kind.

And then it was the eventual similarity between Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns that prompted me to take my eye off the ball, to lose a little bit of interest in the story at mid-point. But if this is a criticism then it is an extremely minor one. As I suggested at the start, had I read the two books in the opposite sequence, I would probably have levelled my criticism differently. But having also said in a review of Kite Runner that I would not criticise the book for a lack of explicit position on the politics, I feel that in A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini ought to have said more about the status and role of women. Mariam and Laila live a tragedy, but they are also offered as icons for something bigger, which is women’s position in the society at large. In A Thousand Splendid Suns I thus wanted the author to offer explicit comment on the plight of his characters, at least some general comment, even a dose of polemic to merely label absurdity. Alternatively, as I stated earlier, he could have made Rasheed, their aging husband, a little more complex, a tad more endearing in order to offer a source of the social attitudes without the need to justify them.

But these are all minor points. A Thousand Splendid Suns is, in its own right, another supreme achievement by Khaled Hosseini and a further reminder to all of us that ideology imposed blindly can be a blunt and dangerous instrument.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns