At the knock on the door they turned at the same time. Jesse could feel the tension in Anna’s body. The difference between an agent’s knock and the knock of someone who lived in the building was the silence that followed. A friend would call out. There’d be the normal bustle around the landing. An agent would silence the building – the stairwells fell quiet, everyone would stop and stare and wait. Jesse stepped towards the door, reminding himself that Yates was looking for the slightest provocation. Taking hold of the handle, bracing himself, he opened the door.

It wasn’t Yates but Tom Fluker, a cantankerous man in his sixties who ran a small hardware store at the corner of the block. Beside him was a young white woman with long dark hair. He didn’t recognize her. Before Jesse could speak Tom launched into a tirade:

—I found this girl trying to sneak around the back, skulking like a thief. She says she’s looking for you. I ask why she can’t use your front door like everyone else. She gets confused, like she doesn’t understand. First I think she’s playing dumb then I realize she doesn’t understand English too good. Got an accent too. So I listen a little more. She’s a Russian! What’s a Russian girl doing round here, looking for you? We don’t need any more problems than we’ve already got, and we’ve already got plenty.

Jesse looked at the young woman, and then at Tom, his face scrunched up in anger. The FBI had tried to isolate Jesse among the local community. Friends and strangers, ministers and businessmen, went on record repudiating his Communist views and claiming that he was a disgrace, entirely unrepresentative of their desire to work hard and build a more integrated America. There were some who wouldn’t speak out against him on record but who thought the adverse attention Jesse generated was senseless. While they were trying to improve conditions for their communities and gain rights for their people, he was dragging them back. Tom was one such man. He’d worked hard. He owned a store. Jesse was an obstacle to his dream of success, of passing on money to his children, of getting them ahead in the world. He didn’t have time for ideology. He counted the dollars in his cash register at the end of the week, and people like Jesse were bad for business. Jesse had no time for this way of thinking. The fact that he’d been subjected to injustice had never made him reconsider his beliefs. That mindset was the worst kind of subjugation, to be fearful of doing what is right in case you upset those who were in the wrong.

Tom turned to the young woman, saying:

—You’re a Russian. Tell him.

She stepped forward.