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identity but a convention worn like a raincoat thrown over the shoulders. She turned the attentionof a clear smile when spoken to yet, as an adult gets out of the way polite acknowledgement of the presence of children, firmly returned the concentration of her grey eyes to Joe, who read through documents those eyes were following from familiarity with the contents. Pauline spread cream cheese, strewed a pollen of paprika, shaved cucumber into transparent lenses and opened a tin of olives. She sniffed at her hands and washed them in the sink before carrying into the livingroom the mosaic of snacks worthy of her sister Olga. The girl drank fruit juice and ate steadily without a break in the span of the room’s preoccupation, while Pauline hovered with small services in the graceful alertness of a cocktail party hostess.
    â€”D’you know who that was?— Pauline came into the bedroom where Carole and Hillela had holed up.
    â€”Daddy said. Rose somebody. I see she goes to Eastridge High. Horrible school.—
    Pauline’s vivid expression waited for its import to be comprehended. —That’s Rosa Burger. Both her parents are in prison.—
    Theirs was one of the trials in which Joe was part of the legal defence team. The red-haired handsome woman with the strut of high insteps who had accompanied the Burger girl was also one of the accused, though out on bail, like the old black gentleman who came to stay in Pauline and Joe’s house for a few weeks. There were discussions about this, at table, before it happened; the old man had some illness or other and dreaded, Joe said, the strain of travelling from Soweto to the court in Pretoria every day. Hotels did not admit black people. Sasha’s room was made ready for the guest; then Pauline decided it was too hot, the afternoon sun beat through the curtains, and Carole and Hillela were moved out of their room, for him.
    There was a rose in a vase on the bedside table. Although Alpheus occupied the converted garage, no black person had everslept in the house before. The old gentleman really was that—a distinguished political leader and also a hereditary chief who was to be addressed by his African title specifically because the government had deposed him. The ease of the house tightened while he was there. Other people who came to stay were left to fit in with the ways of the household, but there was uncertainty about what would make this guest feel at home. When he was heard hawking in the bathroom the girls shared with him, they looked at each other and suppressed laughter and any remark to members of the family. Joe put out whisky but the old gentleman didn’t take alcohol; Pauline got Bettie to squeeze orange juice; it was too acid for him. He drank hot water; so a flask was always to be ready, beside the rose. He had a magnificent head, Pauline explained; he ought to be painted, for posterity. She phoned her sister Olga, patron of the arts (let her move on from the 18th to the 20th century for once) who could tell one of her artist friends of the opportunity for sittings with someone a little different from the wives of Chairmen of Boards, someone whose life would go down in history. —My poor sister—her first reaction is always to be afraid of
trouble!
Would it be all right? Not cause any
trouble?
I think she was nervous her famous friend would land in jail for so much as committing the shape of Chief’s nose to paper.—
    The old man put his hand to his nostrils as one dismayedly adjusts a tie before being photographed.
    â€”More likely her famous friend would be nervous of getting no more contracts for murals in government buildings, after such a commission.— Joe made one of his corrections.
    It was not a painter but a sculptor who came. The old black man had agreed to a portrait—Oh I have been photographed I don’t know how many times—as courteously as he accepted every other necessity of being in