Kapitan Kemp’s Diary.

This story has two connections..The first is the idea and theme for the setting which came from a contribution in a WW2. official government publication ; “As You Were”..one of many such publications put out during and after the second world war from the Australian military..The writer was T.G.Hungerford..for whom I gratefully thank…the article was ; “Last Entry in Red” (As You Were; 1950).I have shifted the setting for the tale to the retreating German army and the Russian front.
The second connection is from a story told to me by an acquaintance many years ago about her father and his best friend, who signed onto the Czechoslovakian resistance in the 2nd.WW. as sixteen year old boys..the incident described in the story below about the young boys happened to the father.

It went like this..
Kapitan Kemp’s Diary.
My name is David Groetz, I am a teacher of German at the college. A week ago my neighbour at the units where I live stopped me outside my door as I came home from work.

“Ah, Mr Groetz!” He touched my sleeve.

“Yes?”, I didn’t remember his name.
“Mr Groetz…excuse me,.. I have a little problem,.. a bit of translating I would ask you to do…seeing as it’s in your line of work, so to speak.”

He was an old man so I obliged him to look at the “bit of translating”.

“You see,” he commenced as he handed me a slim note-book, very old and rather damaged. “It is from the war…yes…I took it from the hand of a soldier that I had shot…yes…in an attack of course.” he hastened to reassure me “I was with the advancing Russian army chasing the Nazi retreat.” he explained.

I eyed him wearily. I wasn’t keen to get caught up in another war epic, so I sighed and placed the slim note-pad on the table while I prepared a coffee in my unit to which we had both adjourned.

“Why do you wish to translate it?” I asked.

“Curiosity”…the old man shrugged, “that is all…curiosity and,… I am growing old and a small thing puzzles me about the soldier I took that note-book from.”

“You are puzzled by a dead man after all these years” I gazed at him quizzically.

“Yes…I tell you:…”

He sat and clasped his hands together in front of him on the table.

“I was a corporal with the Soviet army and we were chasing the German retreat out of Russia. Myself and my platoon advanced upon this post, an old foresters hut within a clearing in the forest. As we crept up to it, one of the sentries gave a cry and we attacked with grenades…I came in from the left flank and took up a position behind a thick stump of a tree Just as I did so, this soldier, the Kapitan, ran out of the door close to me and turned away from me.

“Stoi !” I yelled…”Halt!” but he just looked at me, turned away and ran…now this is the queer thing,…he ran not to cover, but rather to the centre of the clearing, out in the open!”

“Halt” I shouted again but he kept running toward the centre of the clearing, so I opened fire and he stumbled but kept on going forward the most…most sad, hopeless expression on his face and finally he fell, almost relieved, I couldn’t help but think, into this sward of…of “fialki” we call them…white violets…and as I ran up to him I saw that he, with his last strength, sort of embrace an armful of these violets and as I stood over him I heard him murmur with his dying breath, “Liebling…mien liebling.” I took this note-book from his hand there and then…I have always wondered if that captain was mad or if there is a clue in the note-pad, for he had no gun on him, only that book…and he looked so very determined when he ran toward those violets.”

I raised my eyebrows appropriately at my neighbour’s story and said very well, I will look at it and translate that which is readable.

“I know it seems a trivial thing..yes…but…I am an old man now,” he sighed as he passed through the door ” and I feel I must know about that captain and the answer, maybe is in that book”.

The writing in the note-pad was very faded, in most places illegible. But I thumbed through it just to satisfy my neighbour. It was toward the last few pages of transcript that I found a reference to the flowers that the captain had died in. I translated those last few pages for the old man so:

From Kapitan Kemp’s Diary.

” Monday:

Violets!, violets! can you imagine that mein liebling, violets as pure as the snow they break through! who would have thought this cursed Russian countryside could produce something so beautiful. They reminded me immediately of you my dear, after all, you share their name: ” Viola” – violets. I say your name to myself so as to relish your memory and hope for the time when I will see you again. …perhaps now that the flowers have bloomed maybe spring is here enough for us to get out of this place. The men are of high morale considering the circumstances… I have my orders to hold the ground at all costs and to remain until further orders come through. It is not Berlin here,…but…

Tuesday:

Things must be moving fast at the front which is god knows where by now. At night the sky is a veritable bonfire. The men are jumpy, but on the whole, disciplined, although Sergeant Richter reported some rations missing, he suspects one of the two young boys (Klaus and Dieter) of taking them. He wants them disciplined, but I have my doubts it is they at all. I will look into it, I tell him and he grudgingly dismissed himself. I worry about Richter, he always seems to find trouble among the men.

We have four peasant soldiers in the unit and they are a very morose lot, they say they can feel death approaching…fools… they call death: HE. “He’s around about”, one of them would say mysteriously nodding his woolly head or, “He’s coming for sure”, when we’d get a barrage of artillery. I had to command them to “shut-up” that kind of talk. Just then some artillery howled away over-head toward the distance:

“Those’ll be ours” I lied to boost their morale, but the sergeant just looked at me strangely so I said, “eh ,Sergeant?”

“Yes”, he replied quietly, “ours…yes sir,” but I don’t think the men really believed me.

The violets are springing up in a big patch in the middle of the clearing…they look truly wonderful…like the terrace garden in that little park at the end of our street…Ach! that I could be there with you now. Dieter and Klaus couldn’t have stolen the rations, they are too simple, too honest both with me and with each other, like twins, mere boys…maybe sixteen, no more than…

Wednesday:

Enemy snipers have moved forward, one of our peasant soldiers shot dead yesterday, means their front is approaching, still no word from H.Q. The men are nervous, it’s the waiting, waiting that gets at them, at me too, not sleeping much at all. A message from Post 12 on my left flank half a kilometer away they are getting short of supplies, could I afford to send a few? Am getting low ourselves, can’t get to the bottom of this thieving business…have secretly assigned corporal Schmidt to observe the store surreptitiously night and day! Sent what food I could spare back with the messenger…shouldn’t weigh him down in the snow!

Every evening I am going over to the patch of violets…”the Kapitans’ flowers”, I have heard the men giggle behind my back, but I don’t mind, indeed it is just that…my violets…my Viola! I go there and kneel next to them on one knee and slowly sweep my hand through…they are so soft and yielding…tonight as I was there thinking of you my darling, one of the young boys…Klaus… came and stood behind me and addressed me so that I almost got a fright, but I kept my balance.

“Sir,” he called softly (I think he respects my solitude…he is a good boy).

“Yes”, I replied without turning.

“The men were wondering if they…we, could have permission to tune in to a home broadcast tonight…Sir.”

He stood rigid to attention there…those others must have sent him as they know I have a soft spot for the “children” as I call them sometimes. Ordinarily I would never permit such a thing, the ordeal would be too upsetting, hearing songs and talk from back home while stuck here at the front. but tonight for some reason I acquiesced.

Tonight I feel for the first time I will never see you again… forgive me this cowardice.

Thursday:

What a cursed day! That bloody radio program last night did just as I suspected it would; it upset the whole camp, it was all I could do to call the men to order this morning. It started out alright, with a bit of news and a few “bar room” songs that had the men stomping their feet and singing along, I even wished I had a few steins of beer to give out…and a few buxom barmaids to serve them!! But then after a pause in the music for a bit of talk, a new song came over. The woman singing, I have to admit had, if not a wonderful Voice, a voice very coaxing, very gentle, almost caressing tone about her, and the words and music crept deep into my mind, my heart, and the men quieted down with that song and no-one looked to each other anymore, they all gazed down at the little fire we have in the middle of the floor.

Oh! her voice, it was like yours my love, like yours, like my mothers, like…like…all the women I have heard…like home… ya, like home…maybe soon eh?.

Corporal Schmidt reported on who is stealing the supplies. He noticed the soldier creep quietly out from the sing-along with the radio and go outside…he followed him and saw him take a portion of the rations to a hiding place just away a bit in the woods. The thief is Sergeant Richter! Yes, surprise, surprise, although he has the eyes for it. And he would have seen the young boys punished for it! A cruel man. I shall have to deal with him soon.

More Violets! Yes even more. I think of that song the woman sung last night:
“My legs grow strong, My pack is light!” Yes, my heart too is light at the mere thought of you, Viola, are you waiting for me like Lili Marlene? .

Friday:

Things go from bad to worse. No sleep at all last night. Although same could be said for most of this week. I am at my wit’s end, and the men feel it. Still no orders from H.Q….is there still a H.Q.?…are we forgotten here?…But must stay…only cowards and the stupid desert their posts. And seeing as I’m not about to become a fool, and I pray God for courage, I shall stay, but feel now there is little hope. The war seems all around us, the night is forever ablaze! Shall I ever touch your soft skin again as I touch the violets Will you ever yield to my love as do the violets to my hand? I day-dream often of my family, but then wince away the memory, for I have my duty here although my heart has already fled away.

Sadness, waste. Dieter is dead. Sent a patrol out to scout for the enemy front and they were ambushed. Dieter was shot in the stomach and fell screaming at Klaus’s feet. Sergeant Richter tried to get Klaus to take cover but he would not leave Dieters side. They returned in an awful state with a few others minor wounded.

“I told him Captain,” Richter explained. “We must go…we have to leave him, we are under fire! But he would not leave his side, bloody fool could’ve got us all killed…ya..ya. I know Dieter wasn’t dead, but we couldn’t carry him in his condition and we couldn’t stay.”

“Well, what did you do?” I asked

“Me?…nothing…not I, sir.” Richter shrugged, and then turned his gaze slowly to the boy…god, only a boy. “He did it” Richter said softly.

“Did what?” I demanded fiercely.

Richter just put his index finger slowly to his, temple and made a gesture with his thumb. Klaus just stood there in shock…only a god-damned boy…

“With his rifle?” I asked.

“Nien…Sir…” Richter wet his lips “I gave him my Luger.”

I looked at Klaus just standing there, a boy, they send us mere boys to be brutalized so…I lost my temper at the futility of it all and grabbed Richter by the throat and thrust him against the wall.

“You…you made the boy do what you,…a grown man…an experienced soldier and commander should have done” I was speechless with rage… “You made him kill his friend while you looked on…lent him your Luger.. lent – him – your – bloody – Luger!…his best friend for gods sake!…” and I shook him and shook him and I think I might have throttled him if I had not heard a sobbing sound coming from Klaus that caught my anger and brought me around. I let go of the sergeant slowly and turned to look at Klaus who was standing loosely to attention and his shoulders shaking and trying his hardest not to cry..The boys had signed up together..just a boy…

“We had to go, Captain..” the sergeant continued, still fallen against the boxes where I had pushed him. “We had to go…and besides,Sir..besides.. he too is…is now..a soldier…Sir.”

I turned quickly to address this thief, but words would not come to my mouth. I dismissed him to get him out of my sight. Klaus I kept a while longer.

I did not go tonight to the violets.

Saturday:

All is over, I can hear small arms fire out at the enemy front and to my left flank, presumably the other post I sent the food to. Speaking of which, I finally dealt with Sergeant Richter. I discover from one of the men that he was going to desert us and also that he had been selling our scarce rations for money for this adventure. I could have shot him myself, but this would have unnerved the men so I wrote a dispatch to the commander of the post on my left flank:

“Commander, the man who delivers this dispatch to you is named Sergeant Richter. He is a liar, a thief and a coward. Execute him immediately”… I signed it ; “Captain Kemp.” and I put my official seal on the envelope. I called Sergeant Richter.

“Here, sergeant.” I kept my face stony, but it was giving me pleasure, though I hate to admit it.

“Take this dispatch to the commander of post 12. See that he receives it personally.”

“But sir.” He shifted his feet anxiously. “It is getting toward evening” he cowered. I raised my eyebrow.

“What I mean Sir.” he shifted ground. “Seeing as it’s getting dark and it will be night by the time I turn around to come back…would it be alright for me to stay there the night?” I laughed to myself cruelly…I laughed;

“Why, yes…yes sergeant…you will stay there the night.” and I saluted him off.

As I write this I am becoming more and more sure we have been forgotten by H.Q. and I am almost of the opinion that we should pull back toward our own lines. Yes! I feel certain of it as I write this. Indeed, I will finish this entry then give the order to abandon post! Yes mein liebling, soon now I will come home to you, I promise. I will be there in time for the spring and together we will touch the violets, and maybe also then you will yield to my love… All I now ask is to have the chance to see you again, just for the joy, please God, please , plea…”

End of diary.

(translator – Groetz)

 

The end of stories.

I can remember exactly when that feeling came over me that here was one of those moments when, through some “native intuition”, you can feel that it is the ending of an era…a passing of a moment in time when something important is being lost…

I was at my aged mother’s house doing some regular maintenance..I am a carpenter and her house, built by my Italian father just after the second world war, was a hotch-potch of scrounged materials and added-on-as-needed rooms that now, some sixty years later was a veritable endless loop of patch-up and maintain.

My mother was quite old at the time…she is deceased now..and I was there having a small lunch after doing the jobs..and it was at the moment when I was spreading some honey on a bit of toast that I remembered something..

“Mum….do you remember telling us about that old chap back there in your Mallee days, who used to raid those honey-bee hives in the hollowed trees and he had a big square tin of honey and comb mixed that he used to give you and your brother and sisters a scoop of honey and comb in a twirled cone of wax-paper when you went past on your way to school?”

My mother was fussing around over at the kitchen sink as I asked..fussing over nothing in particular..as mothers seem to be able to do..

“ Oh, yes…old Charlie Rhidoni…yes…I remember..”…she had looked up and now went back to whatever she was doing.

“Yeah…I suppose that’s him..if that’s his name”…I continued..” You oughta jot that little story down so others can read of what life was like out there in the Mallee in those days.”..and I bit into my toast.

“Ah…nobody’s interested in those silly yarns anymore.” Mother absently remarked.

“I don’t know..” I persisted..”there are so many I remember you telling me of those days..like the Italian men at the charcoal burning camps near the Murray River during the war, where you met dad when he was interned there…and that old German man who carried a small pebble with him every time he crossed the river because he couldn’t swim…an’.. (here, I paused, hoping my mother would pick up and run with the yarn…but she didn’t) ..and he did so because he said the little pebble represented his soul..and if the punt started to sink, he believed that if he could throw that stone to the closest bank and it reached the bank, he would be saved..but if it didn’t and fell in the river..he would drown…That’s a good one too!”

But my mother just kept at her business in the kitchen sink, neither acknowledging my enthusiasm nor exhibiting the slightest interest in my talking..so I had to catch her attention..

“Mum…?” I called to her gently.

“What?..Oh yes…they may have been interesting then, but people are busier with other things now..There’s mortgages and car payments and the cost of living and all that…even IF they have a regular job now..they don’t have time for some old stories of olden times…nobody’s got time anymore for old stories.”

And that was the end of that.

But as I sat there, I could feel like an essence of spirit was escaping from me..a losing of that muse of enthusiasm when YOU are the only one showing keenness in an idea and you have to let the feeling go. So I didn’t press on with the conversation…but I sure as hell could feel that at that particular moment, an era was passing from my grasp..

It saddens me at this moment to even write about that time..it gives an ache to my body..for now, my mother..both parents to be exact..and all those earlier generations I grew up with in those times…grandparents and their friends, Uncles and Aunts ..have all gone and with them passed away a record in oral anecdote and short tale all those wonderful, colourful, terrible and tragic snippets of stories of when work, home and childbirth was an enormous struggle with life itself..just to survive..just to make ends meet..especially if you came from the place where my folk came from..and so many others of that class of people.

So I have written them down..as close as I can remember them having been told to me..I have written them down, but now too, I am getting old..and being a recorder/writer of no note, I am certain those stories will die with me. There is not many in my immediate family holds great interest in either story, anecdote or the times and the people. It is like a whole episode of the past has been boxed and sealed off and put up on the dead-storage shelf to be forgotten.

I have written of that old man with his pebble crossing on the punt on the Murray River .. https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/a-small-pebble-2/ …I have written of the birth of my Aunty in a smaller punt on the river whilst my grandfather wrestled with the mid-wife who was trying to trick them out of the birth-endowment money from the government.. https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2016/04/01/proverb-parable/ ..  I have written story and tale of love affairs and loss in the Mallee.. https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/the-seven-weeping-men-of-sedan/  story after story of that generation who had so little that they would be willing to take a chance on WHATEVER came their way..truly courageous folk hardened in the wars and a great depression..Their everyday events taking on a almost mythological epic…like the story of old (now long deceased ) Alma suddenly breaking pregnancy waters at home with no-one around to help her with the birthing save her own thirteen year old son…who had to act as mid-wife to the birth of his brother…story after story…moment after moment..I cannot empty the pail for them..the stream of stories is unending… https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/joyce-delivers-the-flowers-2/ .. For me, I will persevere while I can maintain this isolated enthusiasm…I work on alone.

But not for my mother…her enthusiasm for a past was being slowly squeezed dry..where once there was enormous enthusiasm to write of the world around her, I could now see that the weight of social responsibilities in trying to raise six children in the city suburbs drained the last bit of creative energy from her and she sacrificed her story-telling ambitions for the duties of a hired domestic cleaner to wealthier ladies who could afford to pay (so little) for time to persue THEIR own pleasures. Here is a little of her writing : https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/renmark-to-mildura-in-a-rowboat/  .

I remember she paused at one moment in what she was doing at the kitchen sink and spoke out to her garden outside the window there..and in that last mention of the subject, in that hiatus of forever, what she said sent a shiver through my soul and I could hear in the emptyness of her words the passing of time itself and a portend of the possibility of my own loss of connection to the past…

“No…no-body’s interested in those old things anymore…there comes a time, I suppose, for the end of stories..”

The Vanishing Door.

Though pleasant enough ;

These days of wine and roses,

When the wash of an evening sunset

‘Purples the fleece’d horizon.’

And yet..yet..does this doubt seep

Over me, like the fevered shiver

Of an approaching cold.

I have everything..and yet the

Small freedoms I have traded

For some obscure security

Seem to hark back to me as whispers

From behind a wall..or door!

A vanishing door!

Through which passes every thought,

But I stay.

I see them vanish, but I stay.

Last night’s dreams..I’ve forgotten,

Yet , I still feel I enjoyed them so.

Gone, with my youthful memories,

Through the vanishing door.

And even the door soon will close forever.

But I fear;.I will stay…

The Commission.

I read of this incident, one of many, in a biography of Albert Namatjira  called “Namatjira ;Wanderer Between Two Worlds”, by Joyce Batty.

If ever you want to read a matter of fact account of simply appalling , disgusting, vile racism that can ever be afflicted upon and to deliberately destroy a fine spirit and an artistic genius, then the understated outrage inflicted upon Albert Namatjira  carefully written in that book will serve you well.

It was a moment of absolute disgust , the manner in which he and his family were treated, as the indigenous are still now being treated. Will we ever see an end to this behaviour?

The Commission.

”Ah! there he is”….

Of course, she had been keeping a keen eye out for him.

“Albert ! ” she obviously but cautiously called, “Albert Namatjira?”

Janet Littlemore was the wife of the bank manager. She was a woman voluntarily trapped into that facile world of middle-class “social responsibility”, of contrived behaviour moulded by an invisible force into “correct” mannerisms and “polite conversation”. Though she had a sensitive side, it was a side almost, but not quite, defeated. She had just that week returned from Adelaide to The Alice on a visit to that southern metropolis of societal bondage and while there, had gone to an exhibition of Albert Namatjira’s paintings..now she wanted one. Many of her friends (or at least those that mattered) had one of those curios..one of those transitions between two cultures, called ( for want of a finer spirituality)”Water-colours by ; Albert Namatjira.” Janet wanted an original Albert Namatjira water-colour.

She had remarked while mingling with her entourage in Adelaide that;

Why yes, she had seen Albert Namatjira many times wandering around the town…and though she had never before had call to speak to him (perish the thought!) in the street, she might now “commission” him to do a painting for her.

“Albert!” Janet called again, her gloved hand holding a delicate balance on her purse.

“Yes missus?” Albert tipped his hat politely, while his eyes searched Janet’s face and demeanor for meanings, for here was “THE bank manager’s wife” accosting him in the street!

“Albert, I saw last week, a painting by you of Mount Sonder. I would like to purchase that painting”. She paused and snapped open her purse and took out a twenty pound note which, Albert intued, must have been put aside for just this action and moment.. “Now, all I am prepared to pay is twenty pounds”.

Janet flourished the note pinched between thumb and index finger as she had been advised ; (“show him cash…”they” can’t resist cash!..then wave it around a little under his nose”…). Albert remained silent. Staring first at the twenty pounds and then raising his eyes slowly, he looked directly into the bank manager’s wife’s eyes. He held his gaze. Hers answered for a moment , strengthened by the social position of her class, but then wavered and dropped and when they rose again to meet his, it was as an equal.

Albert shook his head wearily and sighed. He then spoke to her in his ‘mocking-English’ voice;

“You go along New South Wales (a pause). You go along gallery of Anthony Horden (pause) you see Albert Namatjira painting there ; one hundred and twenty five guineas. some smaller, one hundred guineas. You say : ‘That nice painting, I like, I give twenty quid? ‘ no, no..him price you pay what Anthony Horden say.”

Albert stopped there. He looked at the woman; she turned her head shamefully aside, this was the evidence of the remnant of Janet’s sensitive side..the instinctive knowing that she was trying to take the man down in snobbery and monetary fairness…her lips pinched together. Albert nodded his head , for here was the weakness in the chain, the Achilles Heel of the colonial white-man, the rock from which they will fall ; insatiable greed!… and failing to attain their desire; a swift descent into begging, for that is the soft underbelly of a haughty middle-class.

Nonetheless, as an individual, Albert could feel for the wretched woman, being fully aware of the structure of white-man’s society, he could see the shame the woman now endured. He could picture the build-up to Janet approaching him in the street like she did, the desire for a painting, not, as he was aware, for its artistic merit, but for the social status it gave. The contrived “assimilation”, the act of contrition unspoken, undemanded, uncommitted, that was bestowed upon those of that higher social status that “owned” a work by the aboriginal artist, a “veil” which, hung on the wall, would mask the abyss between their world and that of “the others”. It was this sad weakness in Janet that Albert turned from in sympathy. Janet touched his sleeve as he turned.

“Albert…Mr Namatjira.” she spoke softly, with a now less haughty pleading tone…could you then paint me a landscape of the Macdonnell Ranges?”

Albert turned his eyes to where Janet still held his sleeve. Her eyes followed, they both stood transfixed for the moment, then she quickly pulled her hand back to clutch her purse.

“I will,” Albert said, looking into Janet’s eyes, “But I want the money in advance.”

“How much?” Janet asked nervously, “I….I only have..my husband doesn’t think..I…” she ran out of words. Albert stared hard at the woman…one eye flickered a little.

“Twenty quid.”…….Of course, this price was Albert Namatjira’s way of satirising the banal meaness of both spirit and penny-pinching money value of Janet’s class…a satire that Janet, of course, completely failed to notice.

“You what! well there’s twenty pounds (Janet’s husband always used the correct name for currency) gone on a bender for Albert and his tribe!….AND, fat chance of you ever getting a painting from him!” Janet’s husband railed at her when she told him of her purchase.

“But Thomas… ”

“If only you’d have consulted me first. I could have arranged…oh….something or other though why you want one of Albert’s paintings I cannot begin to fathom… ”

“The Turnbulls have one.” Janet appealed .

“Likely as not!..they buy any daubing they see. Really, some of the ghastly prints they have..Bob Campbell rejected him, and if he’s not good enough for the National Gallery…”

“ That may just be Bob’s taste in art..”

“Be jiggered!…why, Bob’s on the board of half a dozen respectable companies. He’s a man with impeccable taste….in all things cultured….No. I’d suggest most strongly  you keep a good look-out for your Mr. Namatjira and chivvy him along about your painting or you likely as not can kiss that twenty pounds goodbye!”

Such a ponderous lecture from her husband made Janet worry that she had been a little unwise in trusting Albert. The last thing she would want is to be made to look a fool by a Black…!

“Oh lord! how the tongues would wag!.”

So Janet kept an eye out for Albert and the next time she saw him ,reminded him of her order.

“I’ll bring you the painting,” he promised. “What do you think I am…a bad white man?”

A couple of weeks later, Janet was walking down the street with a close companion, when Albert called her from the other side of the street. He waved and held up a rolled article.

“Oh!” she exclaimed “It’s my painting..yoo hoo!, Albert….over here!…over here! Oh is the man deaf..surely he doesn’t expect me to go running across the street after him now does he? Hoo-oo! Albert!… over here!” and she waved her gloved hand.

Albert stood there. He had one hand in his pocket. He put the rolled painting under that arm and then put his other hand in the other pocket. He stood still where he was. Janet suddenly stopped waving and making noises when she saw this….she was no social slouch. She was well skilled in the art of snubbing. Many a cutting remark had she delivered on cue with devastating effect.

Janet’s companion started prattling on at her elbow. but Janet had no ear for it. She had locked eyes duel-like with a “solid rock” and she knew she would lose!..But how to lose gracefully? How to keep face with her companion : To be seen crossing the street to gratify a Black man. Janet squared her shoulders .

“Oh well,” she heaved a false sigh with just ,she hoped, the right mixture of pique and impatience…”if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed…” and she stepped to cross the road.

“Wait here, Madeline, I’ll just be a minute while I deal with this.”

Albert watched as Janet crossed the road. It didn’t give him any pleasure to force her hand like this, he was a polite man..but there was something about the way she …she…expected things…and as he watched her arrogant confidence. he realised how terribly ignorant were these merchant people…and what compounded their ignorance was their dull insousiance!