‘Good evening, Mr Newman,’ said the man.

Mr Newman’s tensed body unwound. It was Mr Finkelstein.

‘Could I help you?’ he asked.

‘I’m all right.’

They stood there.

‘I think you want to take off your jacket. It don’t look nice,’ Mr Finkelstein said after a moment.

Mr Newman started to deny it when he noticed that half his jacket was hanging loose from his shoulder. He drew down on the edge of his sleeve and half of his jacket slipped off and hung from his hand. He took off the other half and rolled them both up.

‘You going home ? I would like to walk with you, if you don’t mind company,’ Mr Finkelstein said, and fell into a slow stroll with him. They walked a whole block in silence. Finally Mr Finkelstein spoke. ‘I seen there what happened.’

Mr Newman looking straight ahead, made no reply. In the lot behind them crickets were chewing noisily at the night. After waiting a few moments, Finkelstein spoke again.

‘I figure,’ he said, ’that they’ll come to me anyway, so first I’ll go to them. I stood outside. I seen what they done, to you.’

Mr Newman made no sign of so much as hearing what the other said. They walked a block in silence.

Had it been daylight he would have made an effort to get away from Finkelstein; even now in the darkness of night a stain of resentment was spreading through him at the way the man had managed to impose himself, when it should have been obvious that he wanted to be unseen.

And yet as they walked along the dark street Mr Newman felt a sharp curiosity. What had Mr Finkelstein to say to him now? Despite himself he felt drawn to this man. It was not that he thought of himself as being in the same situation as the Jew walking leisurely beside him, for consciously he did not think of himself that way. It was only that he saw the man in possession of a secret that left him controlled and fortified, while he himself was circling in confusion in search of a formula through which he could again find his dignity.

He glanced at Mr Finkelstein’s protruding jaw and bulbous nose. Mr Finkelstein turned to him, and spoke with some embarrassment.

‘The reason I stopped you just now is this,’ he said. Then he looked down at the sidewalk and thought. ‘First I’m asking you to understand me; to you I ain’t pleading for anything. I’m out for information. What’ll happen is going to happen and I myself can’t stop it. I am a man what reads every day several newspapers. All kinds, from the Communist to the utmost reactionary. It’s my nature I shouldn’t be happy unlest I shall understand what is going on. This I can’t understand.’

Mr Newman found himself listening. For beneath Mr Finkelstein’s deep voice a quavering betrayed itself. It drew him. It was something he instinctively believed he might comprehend. The man beside him was feeling some intense emotion. They kept walking. He wanted something tonight that he could understand. He listened to the deep, nervous voice.