Love in Revolution (14 page)

I swallowed, and nodded.

‘Good.’

He sped up, so I had difficulty keeping up with him, and we went the rest of the way without speaking. I had a sharp hook of fear in my chest, dragging me back towards the stadium; but I tried to ignore it, and followed Martin.

The building opposite the Royal Museum was shabby and dark inside, with peeling paint and the tiles missing from the floor of the hall. It was silent too, with a dead, echoing sort of silence as if no one had lived there for years. We walked up the stairs, and the cold air brushed against my face like cobwebs.

Leon’s door was closed but unlocked. Martin pushed it open and grimaced at the smell. There were dirty plates on the table, a couple of tins with crusty spoons and a half-empty bottle of vodka. The curtains hung half open, and there was a fly buzzing at the window. Martin looked round, shaking his head. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Who would’ve thought students lived in such style?’

I went over to the window. There was a desk in front of it, covered in papers.
Your country needs you. A war is starting. An underground war is starting. Your comrades need you. A
secret war
fight for
Leon Bidart.
Mr Bidart
Comrade Bidart, Secretary of the Communist Party. Comrade Bidart,
the nation’s darling
. . .
There was a pile of textbooks under the windowsill, but their spines were grey with dust.

I said, ‘I’m not sure he counts as a student, any more. Not of medicine, anyway.’

Martin came over and stood beside me. He took a deep breath.

‘Papa is going to go mad,’ he said. ‘I
knew
there was something up.’

The door behind us opened, and we spun round. There was a pale young man in the doorway, holding on to the door frame as if he had trouble standing upright. He said, ‘Who are you? What’s going on?’

‘We’re Leon’s brother and sister,’ Martin said. ‘Who are
you
?’

‘Oh,’ he said, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Hello. I’m Karl.’

Martin glanced at me. ‘Er . . . oh. Like Marx?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ Karl said, and gave a little fragile smile. ‘My
nom de guerre
. As a tribute to the great man.’ He yawned. ‘Where’s Leon?’

‘There was some trouble at the King’s Cup final,’ I said. ‘He stayed.’

‘Trouble?’

Martin said, ‘Shooting. The police against the crowd.’

All Karl said was, ‘Oh. Again . . .’ But he glanced at the far end of the room, with a kind of stifled excitement in his face. I followed his eyes. Through the murk I could just see a huge photograph tacked to the plaster over the mantelpiece. It was of a man who looked like an office clerk, in collar and tie, with a sagging mouth. Karl glanced at me. ‘Our Glorious Leader,’ he said. ‘He’s in prison. But when the revolution comes . . .’

Suddenly, as if on cue, there was the sound of shooting: a couple of single shots, and then the long rattle of machine-gun fire. It was a few streets away, maybe further, but Martin and I both jumped and took another step into the middle of the room.

Karl laughed, and hurried past us. He pushed the window open with a grunt and leant out, looking this way and that down the street. He said, ‘It’s over by the Queen’s Park – must’ve spread . . .’

I sat down on Leon’s chair, feeling sick.

‘There’ve been riots all week, haven’t there?’

Karl said, ‘Ye-es . . .’ still staring out of the window, as if he hadn’t really heard what Martin had said.

‘The King wasn’t at the final,’ Martin said. ‘That’s why the shooting started. The crowd started throwing things on to the court. Then the police – they looked sort of . . . ready, like they knew there was going to be trouble, like they were expecting something to happen . . .’

‘They were,’ Karl said. ‘We’re rising. They know that.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘No buts.’ Karl drew his head back in. He was grinning, and he didn’t look quite so harmless any more. ‘You know what? This could be it.’

‘It?’

The grin broadened, and he swung back into the middle of the room. ‘You had better stay here. If Leon comes back, tell him I’ve gone to headquarters. Tell him to find Nico – no, of course, he’s in prison . . . Never mind.’ He hurried out without waiting for us to answer, and the door shut behind him with a squeak. The room was very quiet. Far away there was another burst of shooting.

There was silence. Martin pushed aside a dirty plate and sat down on the table.

He said, ‘What do you reckon’s happening?’

I didn’t want to think about it. Ever since I’d heard the guns, I could see that boy with blood on his chest, dropping to the ground; only he had Skizi’s face.

Martin poked one of the spoons, then lifted it up, wrinkling his nose when the tin came with it. Then he paused. ‘I can hear shouting.’

I listened. He was right, and it was getting closer. There was the smash of glass too, and whistles, and drums . . .

I stood up and walked over to the window. My knees felt soft and watery, and I had to hold on to the windowsill just to keep myself upright.

Martin came over and stood beside me. I could feel the heat coming off his body, and smell the stuff he put on his hair. The shouting flared up into a sudden roar, and when I looked round there was a trickle of men running out of one of the side streets, spilling into the road. They had handkerchiefs over the bottom half of their faces, like bandits, and one of them was clutching his head and dripping blood on to the paving stones. None of them was Leon.

Then, like a flood, there were more and more people running out into the street. Someone called out, ‘They’ve got us cornered, the bastards!’ and someone else yelled, ‘What happened to those bloody rifles?’

I looked sideways. The clattering noise got louder, and with a shock of recognition I thought I knew what it was. Then they came into sight, and I
did
know.

Cavalry.

The King’s Cavalry. They looked wonderful, like a pageant: in blue and gold, with their sabres drawn and glinting in the sun. Even their horses had an arrogant look in their eyes.

Martin breathed, ‘Mother of God . . .’

I pulled away from the window, leaning back against the wall; but not even the wall seemed stable any more. I remembered Karl saying, ‘This could be it . . .’

‘Esteya,’ Martin said, and reached out for me, as if he wanted to hold on to something. ‘Look. They’re . . . look.’

It took an effort to turn my head. I didn’t want to look; I wanted to stare into the corner of the room until the grimy flower-patterned paper was imprinted on my memory. But something in Martin’s voice was irresistible.

The far end of the street was packed with people. There were lots of young men, with their faces covered, but there were old men too, and women . . . I saw a one-legged man on crutches, and a woman wearing a silky, expensive-looking dress and no shoes. And there were kids too, a group of boys, a little girl who kept looking round . . . It wasn’t just people like Leon and his friends, it was
everyone
. . .

The man in the centre of the cavalry called an order, and slowly, without hurrying, the line of horses advanced. The crowd pushed and shuffled backwards, but there was nowhere for them to go. There were still people spilling out of the side street.

The line of cavalry stopped ten or twenty metres away from the crowd, and the crowd stayed where it was, murmuring uneasily. The young men pushed to the front, armed with broken bottles and police rifles.

The cavalry officer said something to his men, and they sheathed their sabres. My heart leapt, but it was only so that they could unsling their own rifles and point them at the civilians.

No one moved. The street was silent.

Very quietly, Martin said, ‘We shouldn’t be by the window.’

‘No,’ I said. But we stayed where we were.

There was a little disturbance in the crowd, and I flinched; but it was only the barefoot woman – no, girl, she was younger than I’d thought – in the silk dress, pushing her way to the front. She stepped out into the open, right in front of one of the rifles, and stood there for a moment. She had something in her hand: a green branch, dotted with red flowers. The crowd behind her rustled and whispered.

She walked slowly towards the line of cavalry. They still had their guns pointing at the crowd. I prayed for her to stop before she got too close, before someone panicked and shot her, but she kept on walking. It seemed to take for ever for her to cross the empty space.

She stood in front of the officer, and held out the branch.

He looked at her. His hand went to his sabre. My heart stuttered.

Then he shrugged, smiled, took the flowers, and bent to give her a kiss.

Martin turned away, his eyes closed, and dropped into the nearest chair. He’d gone white. He put his hands over his face and started to laugh.

I drew away from the window and sat down too. I felt sick and shaky, as if I’d been out in the sun too long. There were voices from the street, faint laughter that echoed Martin’s.

Martin said, ‘Technically that’s probably a mutiny.’

‘Better than a massacre.’ As soon as I’d said the word I wished I hadn’t. I stood up again and paced to the window, then to the mantelpiece, where I stood looking at the picture of Our Glorious Leader, without seeing it. If only Skizi was in the street outside . . . but she wasn’t. And that meant she was somewhere else, somewhere where the shooting might not have stopped . . . In my head, that girl offered those flowers over and over again: but the officer didn’t take the flowers and kiss her, he drew his sabre and cut her down . . . And over and over again I saw the boy who’d been killed in the royal box, and Skizi’s face.

‘Where’s Leon, anyway?’ Martin said.

‘How should I know?’

‘No reason.’

‘Then stop asking bloody stupid questions!’

Martin squinted at me, as if I was something very far away and hard to see. There was a silence. He peered at one of Leon’s plates and scratched the rim with his fingernail.

I went on pacing, for what seemed like hours. When I looked out of the window again there was no one left, except the man who’d been dripping blood. He was in a doorway now, slumped against the frame with his eyes closed and his whole shirt stained red. He looked like he was asleep. The shadows had advanced so that there was only a narrow strip of sunlight on our side of the street. Nothing moved, not even the dust or the curtains in the windows opposite. My heartbeat made my ears ring.

I went into the corridor to find the lavatory, and took my time washing my hands, because it was something to do. When I came back Martin was asleep.

I couldn’t believe it. The world was falling apart around us, and he’d gone to sleep. He was snoring gently with his mouth open, and I wanted to slap him. How dare he? Skizi could be
dead
. . . I reached out to shake him, and then stopped.

Skizi could be dead.

I had to find her. I had to.

And now Martin was asleep. He might not even wake up before I got back.

I went to Leon’s desk, found a piece of paper and wrote:
Dear Martin, Gone to look for Leon, won’t be long, don’t worry, I’ll be careful. See you soon. Love, Esteya
. I was afraid the sound of the pen would wake him, but he didn’t stop snoring.

Then I left it on the table, propped up against an ancient tin of beans, and slipped out of the room.

The street was quiet and cool, but the tension was still in the air, and I could feel the windows looking down on me from both sides, as if they were people. I stayed close to the buildings, ready to duck out of sight if I needed to. For a moment I glanced up at the building I’d come from, wondering whether Martin would come after me; but I told myself that it would be all right, that he might not even wake up, and even if he did he was sensible enough to stay there, where he was safe. More sensible than
I
was . . . I stopped and closed my eyes, and saw the note I’d written superimposed on my eyelids.
Gone to look for Leon
. As if Leon needed looking after, as if it would be any use if I did find him, as if Leon would let anyone distract him from the revolutionary struggle –

As if I cared half as much about Leon as I did about Skiz–

I opened my eyes, and the daylight hit my retinas. I did love Leon, yes, of course I did, it was just that –

Skizi was everything. I couldn’t live without her.

I heard the words in my head as if someone else had said them, and they hit me like a punch. I heard them again, appalled, afraid. I couldn’t
live
. . . It was true. I’d known before that I loved her, but
this
 –

I took a deep breath, looking straight ahead. It doesn’t matter, I thought. How you feel doesn’t matter. Just –
find her
.