54
DORIS LESSING
left and the sake of the Communist party - which
of course
they
believed he now found his spiritual home.
But the trouble was that he did want to join it. He wanted
nothing more than to become part of the world of stem necessities
he had followed for so long, but as it were from behind a one-way
pane of glass. Integrity had disenfranchised him. From now on he
could not hope to serve humanity except through the use of the vote.
His life was empty. His resignation cut off his involvement, like
turning off the television on a soap opera, with the deathless real-life
dramas of the tapes.
He felt that he was useless. He considered suicide, but thought
better of it. Then, having weathered a fairly routine and unremark–
able nervous breakdown, became a contemplative monk - High
Church of England.
Another spy I met at a cocktail party, in the course of chat about
this or that - it was in London,
in
the late fifties, said that at the
outbreak of the Second World War he had been in Greece, or
perhaps it was Turkey, where at another cocktail party, over the
canapes, an official from the British Embassy invited him to spy
for his country.
"But I can't," said this man. "You must know that perfectly
well."
"But why ever not?" enquired the official, a Second Secretary,
I think he was.
"Because, as of course you must know, I am a Communist
Party member."
"Indeed? How interesting? But surely that is not going to stand
in the way of your desire to serve your country?" said the official,
matching ferocious honesty with bland interest.
Cutting this anecdote short - it comes, after all, from a pretty
petty level in the affairs of men, this man went home, spent a sleep–
less night weighing
his
allegiances, and decided by morning that
of
course the Second Secretary was right. He would like to serve his
country, which was engaged, after
all,
in a War against Fascism. He
explained
his
decision to his superiors in the Communist party, who
agreed with him, and to his wife and his comrades. Then, meeting the
Second Secretary at another cocktail party, he informed him of the
decision he had taken. He was then invited to attach himself to a
