Julia

In the final chapter of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith is sitting in the Chestnut Tree Cafe drinking gin and awaiting an imminent news bulletin about the outcome of a decisive battle in Africa in Oceania’s neverending war with Eurasia. He has survived weeks, perhaps months of torture in the Ministry of Love, but he knows that his release is only a reprieve. He knows that, sooner or later, he will be executed. He is simply waiting. He is a broken, depleted, hollow man. He betrayed Julia, his lover – with whom he had found what he believed was a place where he was safe, hidden from the omniscient eyes of Big Brother. He loved her and he promised not to betray her when they were arrested. But at the end of his tortures, physically shattered, but still clinging to the one thing that had personal meaning for him – his love for Julia – they managed to get him to betray her. He begged that she should take his place, that she should be facing what terrified him more than anything else, that she be devoured by ravenous rats, and not he.  

Sitting in the cafe, a drunken, sad shadow of himself, his thoughts returned to Julia.  

‘They  can’t  get  inside  you,’  she  had  said.  But  they  could get  inside  you.  ‘What  happens  to  you  here  is  FOR  EVER,’ O’Brien  had  said.  That  was  a  true  word.  There  were  things, your  own  acts,  from  which  you  could  never  recover.  Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.  
 

He  had  seen  her;  he  had  even  spoken  to  her.  There  was no  danger  in  it.  He  knew  as  though  instinctively  that  they now  took  almost  no  interest  in  his  doings.  He  could  have arranged  to  meet  her  a  second  time  if  either  of  them  had wanted  to.  Actually  it  was  by  chance  that  they  had  met.  It was  in  the  Park,  on  a  vile,  biting  day  in  March,  when  the earth  was  like  iron  and  all  the  grass  seemed  dead  and  there was  not  a  bud  anywhere  except  a  few  crocuses  which  had pushed  themselves  up  to  be  dismembered  by  the  wind.  He was  hurrying  along  with  frozen  hands  and  watering  eyes when  he  saw  her  not  ten  metres  away  from  him.  It  struck him  at  once  that  she  had  changed  in  some  ill-defined  way. They  almost  passed  one  another  without  a  sign,  then  he turned  and  followed  her,  not  very  eagerly.  He  knew  that there  was  no  danger,  nobody  would  take  any  interest  in  him. She  did  not  speak.  She  walked  obliquely  away  across  the grass  as  though  trying  to  get  rid  of  him,  then  seemed  to  resign  herself  to  having  him  at  her  side.  Presently  they  were  in among  a  clump  of  ragged  leafless  shrubs,  useless  either  for concealment  or  as  protection  from  the  wind.  They  halted. It was vilely cold. The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted  the  occasional,  dirty-looking  crocuses.  He  put  his arm round her waist.  

There  was  no  telescreen,  but  there  must  be  hidden microphones:  besides,  they  could  be  seen.  It  did  not  matter,  nothing  mattered.  They  could  have  lain  down  on  the ground  and  done  THAT  if  they  had  wanted  to.  His  flesh froze  with  horror  at  the  thought  of  it.  She  made  no  response whatever  to  the  clasp  of  his  arm;  she  did  not  even  try  to  disengage herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her face  was  sallower,  and  there  was  a  long  scar,  partly  hidden by  the  hair,  across  her  forehead  and  temple;  but  that  was  not the  change.  It  was  that  her  waist  had  grown  thicker,  and,  in a  surprising  way,  had  stiffened.  He  remembered  how  once, after  the  explosion  of  a  rocket  bomb,  he  had  helped  to  drag a  corpse  out  of  some  ruins,  and  had  been  astonished  not only  by  the  incredible  weight  of  the  thing,  but  by  its  rigidity and  awkwardness  to  handle,  which  made  it  seem  more  like stone  than  flesh.  Her  body  felt  like  that.  It  occurred  to  him that  the  texture  of  her  skin  would  be  quite  different  from what it had once been.  

He  did  not  attempt  to  kiss  her,  nor  did  they  speak.  As  they walked  back  across  the  grass,  she  looked  directly  at  him  for the  first  time.  It  was  only  a  momentary  glance,  full  of  contempt  and  dislike.  He  wondered  whether  it  was  a  dislike  that came  purely  out  of  the  past  or  whether  it  was  inspired  also by  his  bloated  face  and  the  water  that  the  wind  kept  squeezing  from  his  eyes.  They  sat  down  on  two  iron  chairs,  side  by side  but  not  too  close  together.  He  saw  that  she  was  about to  speak.  She  moved  her  clumsy  shoe  a  few  centimetres  and deliberately  crushed  a  twig.  Her  feet  seemed  to  have  grown broader, he noticed.  

‘I betrayed you,’ she said baldly.  

‘I betrayed you,’ he said. She gave him another quick look of dislike.  

‘Sometimes,’  she  said,  ‘they  threaten  you  with  something  you  can’t  stand  up  to,  can’t  even  think  about. And  then  you  say,  ‘Don’t  do  it  to  me,  do  it  to  somebody else,  do  it  to  so-and-so.’  And  perhaps  you  might  pretend, afterwards,  that  it  was  only  a  trick  and  that  you  just  said  it to  make  them  stop  and  didn’t  really  mean  it.  But  that  isn’t true.  At  the  time  when  it  happens  you  do  mean  it.  You  think there’s  no  other  way  of  saving  yourself,  and  you’re  quite ready  to  save  yourself  that  way.  You  WANT  it  to  happen  to the  other  person.  You  don’t  give  a  damn  what  they  suffer. All you care about is yourself.’  

‘All you care about is yourself,’ he echoed.  

‘And  after  that,  you  don’t  feel  the  same  towards  the  other person any longer.’  

‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t feel the same.’  

There  did  not  seem  to  be  anything  more  to  say.  The  wind plastered  their  thin  overalls  against  their  bodies.  Almost  at once  it  became  embarrassing  to  sit  there  in  silence:  besides, it  was  too  cold  to  keep  still.  She  said  something  about  catching her Tube and stood up to go.  

‘We must meet again,’ he said.  

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we must meet again.’  

He  followed  irresolutely  for  a  little  distance,  half  a  pace behind  her.  They  did  not  speak  again.  She  did  not  actually try  to  shake  him  off,  but  walked  at  just  such  a  speed  as  to prevent  his  keeping  abreast  of  her.  He  had  made  up  his  mind that  he  would  accompany  her  as  far  as  the  Tube  station,  but suddenly  this  process  of  trailing  along  in  the  cold  seemed pointless  and  unbearable.  He  was  overwhelmed  by  a  desire not  so  much  to  get  away  from  Julia  as  to  get  back  to  the Chestnut  Tree  Cafe,  which  had  never  seemed  so  attractive as  at  this  moment.  He  had  a  nostalgic  vision  of  his  corner table,  with  the  newspaper  and  the  chessboard  and  the  everflowing  gin.  Above  all,  it  would  be  warm  in  there.   

The  next moment,  not  altogether  by  accident,  he  allowed  himself  to become  separated  from  her  by  a  small  knot  of  people.  He made  a  halfhearted  attempt  to  catch  up,  then  slowed  down, turned,  and  made  off  in  the  opposite  direction.  When  he had  gone  fifty  metres  he  looked  back.  The  street  was  not crowded,  but  already  he  could  not  distinguish  her.  Any  one of  a  dozen  hurrying  figures  might  have  been  hers.  Perhaps her  thickened,  stiffened  body  was  no  longer  recognizable from behind.  

‘At  the  time  when  it  happens,’  she  had  said,  ‘you  do  mean it.’  He  had  meant  it.  He  had  not  merely  said  it,  he  had  wished it.  He  had  wished  that  she  and  not  he  should  be  delivered over to the—— 

His reverie is interrupted by the news bulletin on the telescreen.