But she planned meals with Emily in the kitchen, and sat on the patio under the trellis with her handwork, her knitting, in the afternoons. My father talked to the children, humoured them. He asked them about homework, or helped them with homework. I don’t know.

Howard went back to work.

And one day I went down for the first time again to the garden room. It was as we’d last seen it, even the chair still overturned. Emily hadn’t bothered to take and wash the bedsheets, the towel. The door broken and splintered on its hinges, gaping wide. A ransacked room.

The painting, its back slashed and gaping also, was still on the floor where we’d left it. I picked it up and turned it over. The canvas was still intact.

I took the painting then, and went to my own studio, next door. Another ransacked room. I’d not been in there either.

AND ONE MORNING, as I paged through the newspaper on my patio, I saw it:

Joseph Weiss, lawyer and anti-apartheid activist, working underground for the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe, was arrested in a dawn raid in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. He faces charges under the Sabotage and Terrorism Acts. If convicted he faces twenty years to life in prison. He was remanded without bail and will remain in custody at John Vorster Square until trial.

My newspaper had managed to report this event. Weeks after it happened, it is true. But reported, at last.

That newspaper had many more years of battles ahead, but this was one small victory. If victory you can call it.

ON THE SUNDAY of Helena’s visit last time, she brought out a box of photographs from the cupboard in her room. They were old, some yellowed. There was one of her and Stephen, standing at the edge of our pool, hand in hand, she in that green swimsuit we liked so much. There was a picture of Stephen holding a trophy, and photos of Chester and Teddy, of me and Howard. I on my pool-chair, reading a book, caught unaware by the camera. Happy pictures. Some were taken at the beach by the sea, with Howard’s sunburned face. And there was one of my mother in Villiers, her rose garden behind her. She had a tentative smile, which was typical of her. Who had taken that photo?

And Helena said, I wish I could visit the cemetery in Villiers where they’re buried. She’s never said that before.

How often I’ve thought of that cemetery near Villiers. A small Jewish cemetery in the middle of the veld, far from everything. An iron gate, forlorn headstones with Hebrew lettering. Pale weeds, an endless sun.

And I said, well you know I’ve never visited there either. It was Uncle Bernie who buried them, remember?

I remember, Helena said.

WE CAME TO New York.

Jack Benator helped Howard with the arrangements, because Jack was planning emigration for himself and his family too. Visas; bar exam; bank accounts. Everything.