Once, after I’d been on about Jack Benator again, he said, look, alright Jacqueline, I’ll ask Jack what’s going on. I’ll ask him if Joseph can be moved. Okay?

For a brief time, I felt hopeful.

BUT HOWARD SPOKE TO JACK, who said these were bad times, people were being picked up every day. Jack said Joseph’s colleagues were very grateful, our home had been remarkably intact as a harbour.

I should hope so, I said. But what if he is found, found out, I said. Then we are compromised.

Howard looked at me. How was he not afraid? Howard, with his mild nature, his wish to help people, was naïve. I had never thought that before.

Aren’t you worried? I said. I’m not worried, Jacqueline, I’m just not worried. The police will never come here, they don’t come snooping around yards in Illovo: they’re looking for minor things here, pass offences, that’s all. Most of the activists they’re looking for are Black, they’re in Soweto.

Howard, I said, come on.

Howard was wrong, he was wrong.

Was this simply blindness, what was it?

You know they’re looking for the students, the intellectuals, the lawyers, the whites as well, come on, Howard.

Yes, Howard said, but not in a corporate lawyer’s house in Illovo, they’re just not. They haven’t found him yet, have they? he said.

I had no answer for that.

But I was alarmed, alarmed at what I felt was Howard’s blindness, his naïveté. And what about Jack Benator, I said. They could figure something out with him, and that leads straight to you.

Then I tried something different. The children, Howard. How can you not think of the children? Seriously, what if he is found and you and I are compromised?

Jacqueline, I’m tired of this now. I’m going to bed, he’d say.

I didn’t sleep.

AND THEN the weather turned. Not a sharp turn, the seasons don’t turn so sharply there, I’ve said that before, but that year — that year — I remember summer ending.

I had Josias bring out an old bar heater from the garage and carry it down to the garden room. I said, just leave it outside at the door, Josias, I’ll take care of it. And then I thought, I have a real reason, an excuse now, I will go and talk to Joseph.

I had been going into my studio every day, but I’ve not mentioned it, because those visits now became visits of pain. The painting stood, a vacancy, and I, my helpless, spattered hands, looking at it. I’ve said before: I’d sit in my chair, and look at it again. How many times can one look at a painting, and fail to see its light, fail to see what it needed? I felt such a sense of failure, I felt so useless.

What if I lost my painting for good, what if I was unable to paint again at all?

I’d fiddle with other small canvases then, I’d fix something small on one, then I’d spend days moving things around in the studio, believing I was tidying it. I cleaned my tubes, threw old ones out, sometimes I just sat in the chair, my head against its wood back, and closed my eyes. That helped. Peace would come, my mind would settle. A temporary reprieve.