I stepped in. I didn’t close the door behind me, that felt wrong. Jacqueline, he said, I must close the door. There’s no one down here, I said. I know, he said. But I must. And he walked past me and pushed the door shut. It scraped on its frame as he pushed.

And then we were together in that small space. So still. I looked at him, looked at him properly, then.

He looked more groomed than I imagined. His dark beard was thick but trimmed, and his hair was not long, it must have been recently cut. By whom? I thought then of his nights, those many nights, with colleagues in Soweto, in other safe houses, and the help, the support he got. Someone to cut his hair. Suddenly, I wanted to cut his hair.

His glasses were clean, his eyes dark behind them. I’m so sorry for all this, Jacqueline, he said. So sorry. I’m so grateful to you and Howard. Our work is proceeding. We work on, you know. I know, I said. I couldn’t think what else to say. We’d better plug your heater in, I said.

He carried the heater to the plug where the kettle and fridge were, the only outlet in the room, and I said, you’ll just have to unplug the kettle when the heater’s on, and he laughed. Of course, it’s no problem, he said. He plugged it in and right away there was the smell of burning dust, so long unused, that heater.

D’you have enough to eat, I said. Emily can bring you anything you want, you know, you have simply to ask her. I know, he said. I’m fine. I eat very well at night, my friends feed me. They know they must feed me, I’m very important to them, he said, and he laughed. I felt terrible then. I felt close to tears.

He turned away, he was quite amused by what he’d said. His frame was so thin, thinner perhaps than before, his long dark pants, his leather belt, his white buttoned shirt. And I see it now, the shirt unbuttoned at his neck, his pale throat. A pallor, no doubt about it: a pallor. I would lay my head on that white shirt, that shoulder, his thin frame beneath it. I imagined it. I felt a stab of anguish. I must go now, I said, and I turned to the door, pulled it open, and left. So quickly, so gracelessly, I see it now.

THAT AFTERNOON I told Emily that Joseph was getting thin, too thin. Take him more food, Emily, just take more things. What else can you take? Emily looked at me. Ah, ma’am. Okay. Boil some eggs every day, I said. And some apples? Take him fruit also, I said. You must ask him every time, I said, ask him what he needs. He won’t ask you, he’s a very polite man. That is true, ma’am, he’s polite a man, a good man, is true. Emily said this as a pronouncement, or to herself, she had turned back to her work when she said it. Emily, who knew good from evil. My anguish, again, was profound.