The Big Wolves

Anya is a South African exile who manages, con brio, a smart dress shop in London. Laczi is a sculptor who left his country for England after the Soviets put down the Hungarian uprising. Both are outsize personalities. The dress shop and the sculptor's atelier are in the same building. Working in stone makes noise and dust. Clash of Titans ensues. Followed by grudging interest on both sides. Followed by wary mutual inspection. Followed by-well, we've all read the novels, we know what followed. The encounter of these two particular beings is comic, passionate, and troubled (Whim of Iron meets Very Nearly Immoveable Object). For example, the high and mighty Anya has a social conscience, and a political one; Laczi's experience of life in Hungary has taught him that politics is murder. She tells him, in effect, Call yourself a man? He tells her, in effect, I'm trying to be a grown man. Now, can this love affair prosper? Hardly. They separate. They get together again, the worse for wear. They try to ignore their spiritual differences, which is rather like ignoring what Paul Goodman used to call one's way of being in the world. But these domestic trials, serious enough it would seem, are scarcely all God's dangers. There is a demonstration. Anya, large and handsome, Is a conspicuous target in it. And yes, politics turns out to be murder, in Britain as in other places. A large, handsome, generous life is beaten to death.