The Capture
It's on a train during the Two Minute Hate session that she first sees him. She sees him staring at her, with eyes that seem to undress her and ravish her. That's unusual, she thinks, as she continues on crying out at Goldberg's name. She sees out of the corner of her eye that the strange, old man continues to stare with eyes that are so beautiful they seem cruel. She sees her partner stare at him coolly, before a name pops into her head. She is thankful she is used to these messages, or the jump she would have made would have alerted the man watching her.
Winston, the thought is. Winston Smith, an old man who works at MiniTru. His wife left him not too long ago, due to the fact they couldn't produce children. The thoughts seemingly prattle on through her head for what seems like ages, telling her all she need know about this man, this possible traitor to the Party, but in reality is only but a moment as her body switches on autopilot to continue the Hate session. A quick glance out of her peripheral vision at her partner confirms her beliefs that he was the one to tell her such things.
As the Tube lurches to a stop, O'Brien, her partner, stands up to face the man—Winston, Winston Smith, she thinks—and greets him, his body language and words giving nothing away about what just occurred but plots ideas in his head all the same. Ideas of an organization that could never exist, not under the careful watch of the Inner Party.
It's but a day later that her instructions are given, the note that needs to be delivered in hand. She shudders at the thought of what she is about to do, all in order to condemn this man. Being a rookie of the Thought Police almost always meant you got the short-end of the straw, especially in cases like these. It was her first real, in the field experience, her first true job. And she was determined to see this plan fall through as wanted, determined to make her first mission an honest-to-God success. And she'd be dammed if some weak, hormone-induced, old pervert was the one to stop her.
I love you, the note in her hand says, now on top of Winston's work desk. She scoffs as she glances down at it, beginning to glare as she left the room. Such lies never would have been told before The War, but now, as she learned from working in the Thought Police, such things were a common place in this dystopian world, much more common than she ever imagined as a little girl. For little girls always had stupid ideas, her widowed-father would say. Little girls never were right. Little girls had to be quiet, for they were stupid. Well, he was right about the last one. How was she to know stabbing a man seventy four times would kill him?
She leads Winston behind her, deeper into the forest, all the way to their meeting place. Of course, she knew what was to be expected of her. She was to seduce Winston, coerce him into having sex with her, officially making him an enemy of the party.
After the deed was done- numerous times, she might add—she was loathe to admit it, but the act of premarital sex (and the fact that it was with an older man) made her feel extraordinarily giddy, a feeling that temporarily made her fear being caught with him before she realized how ridiculous she was being. These were orders, and orders were made to always be followed. Right?
Well, now she knew she was wrong. About everything. Everything she knew and understood had all been a lie. It was a test to see if she'd disobey orders just to follow the laws. And she failed. Miserably. She also now knew she loved Winston. And she told him so.
"And I, you," he replied. "Goodbye, my sweet Julia."