Meeting in the canteen

The meeting in the canteen is the quiet hinge on which Winston Smith's rebellion turns personal: in the crowded underground lunchroom of the Ministry of Truth, after a week of failed approaches, he and the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department exchange a few murmured answers that turn an anonymous love note into a scheduled secret rendezvous. Nothing about the encounter looks like a beginning — two people spooning watery haricot-bean stew without looking at one another — yet it is the moment their illicit affair passes from impulse to plan, and the first concrete step toward the Golden Country, the room above Mr Charrington's shop, and the catastrophe that awaits them both.

Background: A Week of False Starts

The encounter almost does not happen. For a week after the note was slipped into his hand the girl is absent, rescheduled, or sealed off at a table with other girls under a telescreen, and Winston is left with no clue whether she has been vaporised, transferred, or simply changed her mind. On the day she reappears, her arm free of its sling and a band of sticking plaster round her wrist, he cannot resist staring openly at her in relief. The next day he very nearly reaches her, but a voice behind him calls “Smith!” and a man named Wilsher waves him over, making it too noticeable to sit with an unattended girl. It is only on the day after that, when Winston takes care to arrive early, that the queue ahead of him produces a small beetle-like man who makes straight for her table; then a tremendous crash sends him sprawling on all fours, his tray flying, two streams of soup and coffee flowing across the floor. He glares at Winston, evidently suspecting him of tripping him up, but the path is clear.

The Crash and the Table

Five seconds later, with a thundering heart, Winston is sitting at the girl's table. He does not look at her; he unpacks his tray and begins eating at once, because it is all-important to speak before anyone else arrives. A terrible fear has taken possession of him: a week has gone by since she first approached him, and she must, she must have changed her mind. It is impossible that such an affair should end successfully; such things do not happen in real life. The sight of Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with a tray and looking for a place to sit, forces his hand — Ampleforth is vaguely attached to Winston and would certainly sit down at his table if he caught sight of him. There is perhaps a minute in which to act. Both Winston and the girl eat steadily, spooning the thin stew of haricot beans, and in a low murmur, between spoonfuls, they exchange the few necessary words in low, expressionless voices.

The Whispered Arrangement

The conversation is all logistics. “What time do you leave work?” “Eighteen-thirty.” “Where can we meet?” “Victory Square, near the monument.” Winston objects that it is full of telescreens; she answers that a crowd makes it safe. There is to be no signal: he must not come up to her until he sees her among a lot of people, must not look at her, and must simply keep somewhere near her. “What time?” “Nineteen hours.” “All right.” Neither of them looks up; the words are delivered between mouthfuls, pitched too low to be overheard.

Aftermath and Consequence

Ampleforth, as it happens, fails to see Winston and settles at another table, so the moment passes without interruption. They do not speak again, and so far as it is possible for two people sitting on opposite sides of the same table, they do not look at one another. The girl finishes her lunch quickly and makes off, while Winston stays to smoke a cigarette. The meeting has done what the note could not: it has fixed a time and a place, established a way of recognising one another without recognition, and placed the initiative squarely in her hands. The crowded rendezvous at Victory Square, and the walk beyond it into the wood, now have a route.