1984 Chapter 5
1984
PART TWO
Acts Against the Party
Chapter 5
A Political Act
Four days later he sees the girl with dark hair again. He is walking to the toilets at the Ministry of Truth and she is coming towards him. She must have hurt her hand. It is in a plaster cast. She has probably hurt it fixing one of the story-writing machines - it is a common accident in that department.
The girl is about four meters away when she falls forward. As she falls, she hits her hand again and cries out in pain. Winston stops. The girl gets to her knees. Her face has turned a sick yellow color, making her lips look very red. She looks at him and her face seems to show more fear than pain. Winston feels a strange mix of emotions. In front of him is an enemy who is trying to kill him: in front of him, also, is a human being, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he starts to help her. He feels that her pain is in some strange way his own. "You're hurt?" he says.
"It's nothing. My arm. It'll be alright in a second." He helps her up. "It's nothing," she repeats. "Thanks, Comrade."
She walks away quickly. Winston is standing in front of a telescreen, so he does not show any surprise on his face, although it is difficult not to. As he helped her up, she put something in his hand.
It is a piece of paper. He opens it carefully in his hand in the toilet, but he does not try to read it. You can be certain the telescreens are watching in the toilets. Back in his office, he puts the piece of paper down on his desk among the other papers. A few minutes later he pulls it towards him, with the next job he has to do. On it, in large letters, is written:
I love you.
For the rest of the morning it is very difficult to work. At lunchtime in the cafeteria the fool Parsons, still smelling of sweat, does not stop talking to him about all the work he is doing for Hate Week.
He sees the girl at the other end of the cafeteria, at a table with two other girls, but she does not look in his direction. In the afternoon he looks at the words “I love you” again and life seems better. He believes her. He does not think she is in the Thought Police, not now. He wants to see her again. How? How can he arrange a meeting?
It is a week before he sees her again, in the cafeteria. He sits at her table and at that moment he sees Ampleforth, the dreamy man with hairy ears who re-writes poems. Ampleforth is walking around with his lunch, looking for a place to sit down. He will certainly sit with Winston if he sees him. Winston has about a minute to arrange something with the girl. He starts to eat the watery soup they were given for lunch.
"What time do you leave work?" he asks the girl.
"Eighteen-thirty"
"Where can we meet?"
"Victory Square, near the picture of Big Brother."
"It's full of telescreens."
"It doesn't matter if there's a crowd. But don't come near me until you see me with a lot of people around me. And don't look at me. Just follow me."
"What time?"
"Nineteen hours."
"All right."
Ampleforth does not see Winston and sits down at another table. Winston and the girl do not speak again and they do not look at each other. The girl finishes her lunch quickly and leaves, while Winston stays to smoke a cigarette.
He arrives at Victory Square early. Big Brother's picture looks up at the skies where he has destroyed the Eurasian airplanes (or Eastasian airplanes — it was a few years ago) in the Great Air War.
Five minutes after the time they arranged, Winston sees the girl near Big Brother's picture, but it is not safe to move closer to her yet; there are not enough people around. But suddenly some Eurasian prisoners appear and everyone starts running across the park. Winston runs too, next to the girl, lost in the crowd.
"Can you hear me?" she says.
"Yes."
"Are you working this Sunday afternoon?"
"No."
"Then listen carefully. Go ..."
Like a general in the army she tells him exactly where to go. A half-hour train journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometers along the road; a gate; a path across a field. She seems to have a map inside her head.
"Can you remember all that?" she says, finally.
"Yes. What time?"
"About fifteen hours. You may have to wait. I'll get there by another way."
She moves away from him. But at the last moment, while the crowd is still around them, her hand touches his - though they do not dare look at each other.
…
Winston opens the gate and walks along the path across the field. The air is soft and the birds sing.
You are not safer in the country than in London. There are no telescreens of course, but there are microphones and the Thought Police often wait at train stations. But the girl is clearly experienced, which makes him feel braver.
He has no watch but it cannot be fifteen hours yet, so he starts to pick flowers. A hand touches his shoulder lightly. He looks up. It is the girl, shaking her head as a warning to stay silent. She walks ahead of him and it is clear to Winston that she has been this way before. He follows, carrying his flowers, feeling that he is not good enough for her.
They are in an open space of grass between tall trees when the girl stops and turns. "Here we are," she says. He stands quite close to her but does not dare move nearer. "I didn't want to say anything on the path because there might be microphones there. But we're alright here."
He still does not have enough courage to go near her. "We're all right here?" he repeated stupidly.
"Yes, look at the trees." They were small and thin. "There’s nothing big enough to hide a microphone in. And I've been here before."
He manages to move closer to her now. She stands in front of him with a smile on her face. His flowers have fallen to the ground. He takes her hand.
"Until now I didn't even know what color your eyes were," he says. They are brown, light brown. “And now that you’ve seen what I'm really like, can you even look at me?"
"Yes, easily."
"I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got a bad knee. I've got five false teeth."
"I don't care," says the girl.
The next moment she is in his arms on the grass. But the truth is that although he feels proud, he also feels disbelief. He has no physical desire; it is too soon. Her beauty frightens him. Perhaps he is just used to living without women…
The girl sits up and pulls a flower out of her hair. "Don't worry, dear. There’s no hurry. Isn't this a wonderful place? I found it when I got lost once on a walk in the country with the Young People's League. If anyone was coming, you could hear them a hundred meters away."
"What's your name?" asks Winston.
"Julia. I know yours. It's Winston - Winston Smith. Tell me, dear, what did you think of me before I gave you the note?"
He does not even think of lying to her. It is like an offer of love to tell her the truth. "I hated the sight of you," he says. "If you really want to know, I thought you were in the Thought Police."
The girl laughs, clearly pleased that she was able to hide her true feelings so well. She pulls out some chocolate from the pocket of her overalls, breaks it in half and gives one of the pieces to Winston. It is very good chocolate.
"Where did you get it?" he asks.
"Oh, there are places," she says. "It's easier if you seem to be a good Party member like me. I'm good at games. I was a Group Leader in the Spies. I work three evenings a week for the Young People's League. I spend hours and hours putting up posters all over London. I do anything they want and I always look happy about it. It's the only way to be safe."
The taste of the excellent chocolate is still in Winston's mouth. "You are very young," he says. "You're ten or fifteen years younger than I am. What did you find attractive in a man like me?"
"It was something in your face. I thought I’d take a chance. I'm good at finding people who don't belong. When I first saw you I knew you were against them!” When Julia said them she meant the Party, especially the Inner Party. She spoke about them with real hate, using bad words. Winston did not dislike that. It was part of her personal war against the Party.
He kisses her softly and takes her hands in his. "Have you done this before?"
"Of course. Hundreds of times - well, a lot of times."
"With Party members?"
"Yes."
"With members of the Inner Party?"
"Not with those pigs, no. But there are plenty that would if they got the chance. They’re not as pure as they pretend to be."
His heart beats very fast. He hopes that the Party is weakened by a lie. "Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"You like doing this? I don't mean just me. I mean the thing itself?"
"I love it."
That is what he wants to hear. The need for sex, not the love of one person, will finish the Party. He presses her down on the grass. This time there is no difficulty.
Afterwards they fall asleep and sleep for about half an hour. Their love, their sex together, has beaten the Party. It is a political act.