Free Imago Bird by Nicholas Mosley Page B

state—’
    Sally Rogers was standing with her legs apart and was watching me as if I were one of her tennis balls in California—
    â€˜â€”but I need not go on about this. Take the example for instance of Chile—’
    â€” Her legs bent slightly inwards at the knees: turn her over, and her sand would run down the other way as in an hourglass —
    â€˜â€”No, what we say is, give power to the British worker—the British worker who is a responsible and sophisticated political being—and you will find, once he has been liberated from the conditioning of his oppressed and oppressive past—’
    â€˜But—’
    â€˜â€”that he will be able to look after his own interests: and how will it be in his interests to let himself be oppressed by what will be after all his own police?’
    I thought—Sally Rogers might be like Miss Paragon the Belgian Schoolmistress.
    â€˜But you were saying?’ This was Brian Alick.
    I thought—One day, you old man at my windpipe, I will get you before you get me.
    â€˜How—’
    I thought—I will now do my breathing exercises: in, one two: hold it, three four: out, five six seven eight—like one of those statues that stare out, or wait to give birth, over the banks of the Nile.
    â€˜Take your time, Bert.’
    â€˜How will you free him?’
    â€˜Free him?’
    â€˜The British worker. From his conditioning.’
    â€˜It will take some re-education certainly—’
    â€˜But that’s—’
    â€˜â€”what we’re planning—’
    â€˜â€”what would be done by—’
    â€˜â€”as I was saying —’
    â€˜â€”the secret police.’
    I thought suddenly—Is it the point of my stammering that I won’t accept that I may have to attack people?
    â€” But still, who would be hurt?
    Brian Alick said ‘No. We see this as much more of a natural process when once the substructure and superstructure of an oppressive society have been taken away—’
    But how —
    And so on: round and round: like mice on a treadmill
    I thought—I am frightened of myself being hurt? Of Brian Alick being hurt? Of my opponent, whoever he is, lunging forwards and flying out of the window?
    â€˜â€”a natural process as much as a part of the processes of history—’
    I thought—It is life that does the hurting; and the reeducation, certainly; I should not fear it.
    Then there came in at the door, as late arrivals at the party, a group of people who were like dancers coming on half way through an opera: people different from the others on the stage: very conscious of themselves, of their bodies, of how they looked and moved; in contrast to the lumpishness of an opera chorus —
    â€˜â€”which after all was seen clearly enough by Trotsky—’
    One of the people who had come in was a girl of about my own age who wore a cap and a sort of jacket with bells —
    Brian Alick’s voice faded as if sound had been switched off.
    â€” a girl with such softness, tightness about her; such a taste of dust; that at a touch she might crumble; as if exposed in a tomb after thousands of years —
    The camera, my eyes, remained on Brian Alick; his lips moving like mice on a treadmill —
    â€” someone round and compact as a nut or an internal organ —
    I thought—This, then, is my dark horse? Do I feel life emerging?
    â€” like a butterfly; a girl with such soft skin over sharp bones; a small, self-reflecting, curly-haired girl —
    Brian Alick said ‘But you were saying?’
    â€” that my heart turned over.
    She had come in with two or three men who were older than she. They were shaggy men, like trappers, out all winter.
    They went over to a table and began to eat and drink as if they were starving.
    I said ‘Power is to do with armies and police. That is, once you’ve thrown over custom and tradition. All this