“well, you know, i never thought our struggle was perfect or that the people engaged in it were saints. but i’ve always believed in the need for a different world. and i still believe in it.” this answer must have struck him as too solemn and abstract, too bound up with the ideas of his youth. he inclined his head slightly: “you see that fellow over there, yes, the one in shorts. with a spotted shirt. the steak he’s eating weighs at least a pound. his country, america, defends this man’s right to eat that amount of meat with all its might. and especially his right not to give a good goddamn that on the opposite shore of the atlantic children with amputated arms are chewing on bark to assuage their hunger before they die. and yet the two shores are one and the same world. you just need to take the long view, to stand up on tiptoe, like this, to see it.” he did just this, stood up in the middle of the restaurant terrace where we were sitting. this is one of the clearest images i shall retain of him: a man upright, straight as a blade, towering above the crowd of diners.