The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. Doris Lessing

still patient, even thoughtful.

      I went into a little eating place on the square and watched the crowds disperse.

      Down from the plinth came Krolgul, smiling and acknowledging homage (comradely greetings) from the crowd. With him Incent, eyes flashing, aroused, palpitating, but doing his best to present the stern and dedicated seriousness appropriate to the military look he aspired to. Like two soldiers they came towards the café, followed by the usual adoring females and some younger males.

      They had seated themselves before Incent saw me. Far from showing guilt, he seemed delighted. He came, first running, and then, remembering his new role, striding across. ‘Wasn’t that just the most moving thing you have ever seen?’ he demanded, and sat down opposite me, beaming.

      Newspapers were brought in. Headlines: ‘Inspiring … Moving … Inspirational …’ Incent seized one, and although he had for the past several hours been involved in this meeting, sat poring over an account of it.

      Krolgul, who had seen me, met my eyes with a sardonic, almost cynical smile, which he instantly abolished in favour of his revolutionary sternness. There he sat, in the corner, positioned so that he could watch through the windows how the crowd dispersed, and at the same time survey the interior of the café. Into which now came a group of the miners’ leaders, headed by Calder, who sat down in a corner, having nodded at Krolgul, but no more.

      Incent did not notice this. He was gazing at the men with such passionate admiration that Krolgul directed towards him a cold, warning stare.

      ‘They are such marvellous, wonderful people,’ said Incent, trying to attract the attention of Calder, who at last gave him a friendly nod.

      ‘Incent,’ I said.

      ‘Oh, I know, you are going to punish me. You are going to send me back to that dreadful hospital!’

      ‘You seemed to me to be rather enjoying it.’

      ‘Ah, but that was different. Now I am in the thick of the real thing.’

      The café was packed. Everyone in it was a miner; Volyenadnans every one, except for three – me, Incent, Krolgul. All foreigners are assumed to be of the Volyen administration, or spies from either Volyen or – but these suspicions were recent – Sirius. The miners, fifty or so of them, here after the rally to discuss their situation, to feel their plight, were obviously wondering how they came to be represented by Krolgul and by his shadow, Incent.

      Krolgul, sensing how people were looking at him, occupied himself in earnest, frowning discussion with a young woman from this town, a native, and in moving papers about, the image of efficiency.

      But it was easy to see that Calder was not satisfied. He exchanged a few words with his associates and stood up.

      ‘Krolgul,’ he said. It was not a large place, and by standing and speaking, he unified it.

      Krolgul acknowledged him with a modification of the fist-high salute: he lifted a loose fist from the table to half shoulder height, and opened it and shut it once or twice like a mouth.

      ‘I and the mates here are not altogether happy with the way things are going,’ Calder said.

      ‘But we concretized the agreed objectives,’ said Krolgul.

      ‘That is for us to say, isn’t it?’

      Given this confrontation, for it was one, Krolgul could only agree; but Incent was half up, holding on to his chair, his face dimmed by disappointment. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘but that was the most moving … the most … the most moving …’

      ‘Yes, yes,’ said Calder. ‘But I don’t think it was entirely on the lines we agreed.’

      ‘But in our analysis of the situation we decided –’ began Krolgul, and was stopped by Calder’s, ‘This one here, is he a friend of yours?’

      Meaning, of course, me. Fifty pairs of eyes focused on me – hard, grey, distrustful eyes.

      ‘Well, I think I could say that,’ said Krolgul, with a heaving of silent laughter that could have been taken various ways, but which Calder took badly.

      ‘Speak for yourself,’ said he to me.

      ‘No, I am not a friend of Krolgul’s,’ I said.

      ‘Visiting here, perhaps?’

      ‘He’s a friend of mine, a friend of mine,’ shouted Incent, and then wondered if he had done right; with a gasp and a half smile, he subsided back into his seat.

      ‘Yes, I am visiting.’

      ‘From Volyen, perhaps?’

      ‘No,’ I said.

      ‘A friend of this lad here, who is a friend of Krolgul, but not a friend of Krolgul,’ said someone sardonically, and everyone laughed.

      ‘You are here to write a travel book?’ Laughter. ‘An analysis of our situation?’ Laughter. ‘A report for –’

      ‘For Canopus,’ I said, knowing that the word would sound to them like an old song, a fable.

      Silence.

      Krolgul could not hide his shock: he knew then, for the first time, that my being here was serious, that we account his activities at this time serious. It is a strange thing that people engaged in his kind of half-mocking, half-experimental, wholly theatrical intrigues often lose the capacity for seeing themselves and their situation. Enjoyment of manipulation, of power, of watching themselves in a role, dims judgment.

      I looked round slowly from face to face. Strong, grey faces that showed all the exhaustion of their lives. Faces like stones. In their eyes, grey, slow eyes, I saw that they were remembering, trying to remember.

      Calder, still on his feet, his great hand on his chair-back, the miners leader whose desperation had allowed him to become subject to the manipulations of Krolgul, looked hard and long at me and said, ‘You can tell them, where you come from, that we are very unfortunate people.’

      And at this there was a long involuntary groan, and then silence.

      This, what was happening now, was of a different kind and quality from anything that had happened in the square, or anything that emanated from Krolgul. I was looking at Incent, since, after all, he was the key to the situation, and saw him impressed and silent, even thoughtful.

      And Krolgul too knew the moment was crucial. He slowly, deliberately got to his feet. He held out both clenched fists in front of him. And now the eyes of everyone had turned to him.

      ‘Unfortunate!’ he said in a low, only just audible voice, so that people had to strain to listen. ‘Yes, that is a word we may say and say again …’ His voice was rising, and slowly his fists were rising too. ‘Misfortune was the inheritance of your fathers, misfortune is what you eat and drink, and misfortune will be the lot of your children!’ He had ended on a shout, and his fists had fallen to his sides. He stood there, appealing to them with the brave set of his body, his pale face, with eyes that actually managed to look sunken and hungry.

      But he had miscalculated: he had not taken them with him.

      ‘Yes, I think we are all aware of it,’ said Calder, and turned to me. ‘You, from – where did you say it was? but never mind – what do you have to say?’ This was a half-jeer, but let us say a hopeful jeer, and now all the eyes had shifted back to me, and they leaned forward waiting.

      ‘I would say that you could begin by describing your actual situation, as it is.’

      This chilled them, and Incent’s face, turned towards me suddenly, looked as if I had hit him deliberately, meaning to hurt. Johor: it is not going to be easy for Incent. It is the hardest thing in the Galaxy, if you have been the plaything of words, words, words, to become independent of their ability to intoxicate.

      ‘I