I never went back to Villiers, or Johannesburg, I’ve never been back. Another failure, a great failure, of mine.

On the other hand, I feel I am in that cemetery near Villiers, its pale weeds, its dry yellow grass, its iron gate, every day. And perhaps they lie, my mother and father, in peace there, after all.

I DIDN’T GO and say goodbye to André. He was Eric’s friend, and I couldn’t bear to hear or talk about Eric. And I was afraid. Perhaps André too was an informer, a government informer. I don’t know, and I will never know, now.

Eric? I seldom say his name, I cannot. I got no letter from him, ever again, so I believe he betrayed us: me; the cause; everything. I have believed it all these years, and I believe it as I am telling you now.

I went to Howard’s office one morning to say goodbye to Candace and Frederick Jones. Candace cried, she said she’d miss Howard. She’d not yet organized her art lessons, but she told me she would. Did she, in the end? I don’t know, I don’t know what happened to Candace.

Frederick Jones stayed on alone at the firm, he continued his corporate law practice for years after, Howard and Jack Benator were in touch with him sporadically. He was a good man — a good lawyer and a good man, both.

AND THEN came the day we said goodbye to Emily and Josias.

We’d sold our house. Our neighbours would adopt Chester and Teddy as their own. Helena and Stephen had said goodbye to the two of them, and in that moment it seemed to me this hurt them more than anything. I remember Helena’s face buried in Chester’s golden fur, and her crying and crying.

We were standing in our driveway, surrounded by a mound of bags and suitcases, it was August 15th, 1973. A cool day, in Johannesburg. I remember the children in sweaters, Stephen’s one my mother had made. (How I remember the blues in that sweater!) A taxi was coming for us. A flight to Rio de Janeiro (Mom, why can’t we stop and visit there, I remember Stephen saying. It’s just a stop, a two-hour stop, I said), and then one to New York. Such a long journey.

We’d never been to New York. Only Howard had, he’d been twice to arrange things in the last few months. The Benators were going to meet us at the airport, at JFK, the Benators who had recently arrived there themselves.

At first everyone had been happy and excited, Josias carrying some of the bags, Emily helping, Howard jousting with everyone. Who will carry your bags in New York, Josias joked, as everyone laughed. And the cooking, ma’am! (Emily said.) More laughing. Even I, laughing then.

And then: goodbye Emily. I went to Emily and hugged her. I’d never hugged her before. And then I couldn’t let her go. Emily crying and mopping her eyes with her apron, and I crying, while Josias looked . . . stunned. And then the children started crying, both of them, again. And Howard was . . . I don’t remember what Howard was doing. We stood like that, a strange family under the cool winter sun, our bags in piles around us.