For a week he didn’t come near me, again no explanations, nothing, he was a stranger who came in, nodded, went upstairs. For a week I watched the female creature shrink, then grow angry, grow jealous. It was terrible, spiteful jealousy I didn’t recognize in myself. I went upstairs to Saul and said: ‘What sort of man is it who makes love to a woman with every appearance of enjoying the process for days on end, and then switches off without so much as a polite lie?’ The loud aggressive laugh. Then he said: ‘What sort of a man, you ask? You may very well ask.’ I said: ‘I suppose you are writing that great American novel, young hero in search of an identity.’ ‘Right,’ he said. ‘But I’m not prepared to take that tone of voice from inhabitants of the old world who for some reason I don’t understand never have a moment’s doubt about their identity.’ He was hard, laughing, hostile; I was also hard, and laughing. I said, enjoying the cold moment of pure hostility: ‘Well, good luck, but don’t use me in your experiments.’ And went downstairs. A few minutes later he came down, no longer a kind of spiritual tomahawk, but kindly and responsible. He said: ‘Anna, you are looking for a man in your life, and you’re right, you deserve one, but.’ ‘But?’ ‘You’re looking for happiness. It’s a word that never meant anything to me until I watched you manufacturing it like molasses out of this situation. God knows how anyone, even a woman, could make happiness out of this set-up, but.’ ‘But?’ ‘This is me, Saul Green, and I’m not happy, and I never have been.’ ‘So I’m making use of you.’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Fair exchange, for your making use of me.’ His face changed, he looked startled. ‘Forgive me for mentioning it,’ I said, ‘but surely it must have crossed your mind that you are?’

He laughed, a real laugh, not the hostile laugh.

Then we went to drink coffee, and we talked about politics or rather about America. His America is cold and cruel. He talked of Hollywood, of the writers who were ‘red’, who fell into a conformity of being ‘red’ under pressure from McCarthy, of the writers who became respectable and fell into a conformity of anti-communism. Of the men who informed on their friends to the inquisitorial committees. (*9) He speaks of this with a sort of detached amused anger. Told a story about his boss, who had called him into the office to ask if he was a member of the Communist Party. Saul wasn’t a member then, had in fact been expelled from the Party sometime before, but he refused to answer. The boss, full of regrets, then said that Saul must resign. Saul resigned. Met this man at a party a few weeks later, and he began to weep and accuse himself. ‘You’re my friend, Saul, I like to think of you as my friend.’ This note I’ve heard in a dozen stories from Saul, from Nelson, from others. While he talked I felt in myself an emotion which disquiets me, the sharp angry pressure of contempt for Saul’s boss, for the ‘red’ writers who took refuge in conforming communism, for the informers. I said to Saul: ‘It’s all very well, but what we are saying, our attitude, stems from an assumption that people can be expected to be courageous enough to stand up for their individual thinking.’ He raised his head, sharp and challenging.