Atdtda31: We are the world to come, 879

[Paul Nightingale]

A brief section that dwells on a moment in the Cyprian/Yashmeen
relationship. The opening makes it part of their routine ("Late at night
they would lie ..." etc); yet, in keeping with the formal organisation of
the narrative, the exchange offered is evidently from one such,
representative, occasion. Yashmeen invokes the power of imagination (and
politics, it seems, is not the art of the possible): "the world to come" is
juxtaposed to "the dying".

This phase in their relationship begins on 869: "One day ... Cyprian came
unexpectedly face-to-face with Yashmeen Halfcourt ..." etc. Cf the earlier
chance meeting on 716: "... and at that moment Yashmeen Halfcourt came
around the corner". On the previous page in that chapter: "He kept
blundering into huge Socialist demonstrations" (715), with the overheard
"slow return of the repressed", a formulation that pre-echoes Yashmeen's
response to Cyprian's reappearance/absence/reappearance here in Ch60.