Love in Revolution (24 page)

‘More arrests here, in town,’ Bernardo said. ‘Mainly Socialists and Anarchists, couple of Catholics . . . business as usual . . .’ He laughed, but the sound of it made me wince, and I imagined Papa frowning and glancing quickly at his medicine cabinet. I might have been right; at any rate, after a few seconds I heard the clink and glug of pouring, and the chink as Papa put the brandy bottle back on the sideboard.

Papa said, ‘Pull yourself together, man. Drink this and calm down.’

‘Calm down? Anton – do you know why I’ve come? Not to chat about the news in town, I can tell you! It’s . . . You know Miren, my daughter Miren –’

‘Of course I know –’

‘She talks to the guards a little bit, trying to keep them on our side, you know, not everyone has your adv–’ Bernardo stopped, as if he was suddenly uncertain of what he was saying, and I heard him gulp. ‘Talks to them, calls them “comrade”, never really approved but she was right to do it, Anton . . .’

‘Certainly,’ Papa said, but he wasn’t agreeing, only trying to keep Bernardo on track.

‘She gets to hear things that way, you know, things that aren’t in the newspapers, well, nothing
is
, these days, is it? But the gossip, the talk in the Party, things trickle down from the top, never thought Miren would be so useful, of all people . . .’ He started to laugh again. I crouched opposite Mama and put my ear to the door. I couldn’t help it.

‘All right, Bernardo, stop it!’ Papa had raised his voice, and he caught himself and took a deep breath. There was a pause, and another glug and clink: he was pouring a drink for himself. He never drank alcohol during the day. I didn’t look at Mama.

In a quieter voice, he said, ‘Come on. You want to tell me something, don’t you? It’s all right, Bernardo. Whatever it is, spit it out.’

‘They’re coming for you,’ Bernardo said.

I thought I heard the rattle of glass against teeth. Then there was a sharp click, as if Papa had put his drink down.

‘Nonsense.’

There was another silence.

‘They are,’ Bernardo said, and that painful note of mirth was back in his voice. ‘Us, too, because we’ve got a well in our courtyard and they want the water. But they’re coming for you, soon.’

‘Where on earth did you get that idea?’

‘The talk . . . the gossip in the Party . . .’

‘From Miren? Honestly, she’s simply being over-imaginative. I may not be proud of my – of Leon, but I –’ he hesitated – ‘I thank God every day that his protection is allowing me to go on with my work.’

‘Leon is the problem, Anton. They say he’s not . . . He’s being edged out . . .’

‘Nonsense,’ Papa said again. ‘You think the guards know more about the situation than Leon himself? We would
know
, Bernardo.’

Bernardo didn’t answer. I looked up and met Mama’s gaze, but her eyes were empty, as if she hadn’t heard. I put my head against the crack again. I felt strange, as if everything was very distant and cloudy.

‘Come on,’ Papa said, and laughed; but his laugh had something in it like Bernardo’s, as if the hysteria was contagious. ‘We mustn’t let things get blown out of all proportion. The Party is taking preventative action against civil war, that’s all. I mean . . .’ He faltered. ‘I don’t mean the arrests are
right
. But there’s logic in them. You said yourself, Anarchists, Socialists . . .’

‘Catholics, Royalists, Zikindi, people who’ve been a bit rude to the guards . . .’

‘Yes, all right!’ Papa broke off and was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was wet, blurred. ‘What I’m saying is that
we
are safe. Even if we didn’t have Leon, we’d have no reason to –’

‘You’re not listening, Anton. Leon has enemies. That means that
you
have enemies. You’re
not
safe.’

‘Oh . . .’ Papa blew out his breath, and his footsteps crossed the floor to where the window was, looking out into the courtyard. ‘It’s kind of you to come all this way to say this to me, Bernardo, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t pack up immediately and run away from my responsibilities here. We’re all under a lot of pressure and it’s very easy to blow a few bits of gossip out of all proportion.’

‘Anton . . .’ I could hear the frustration in Bernardo’s voice, but it was mixed with fatigue, and a kind of resignation. ‘We’re leaving. We’re going to my aunt’s place in the country, and – you won’t mention that to anyone, will you, Anton? – with any luck we’ll find a way to get over the border, I’ve got a cousin who lives there . . .’

‘No, I won’t mention it to anyone,’ Papa said.

Then there was silence, apart from creaking floorboards as one of them shifted his weight.

‘Anton . . . you’re sure . . .’

‘Yes,’ Papa said, cutting him off. ‘Thank you for your concern. And I’m very glad to have the opportunity to say goodbye, before you go. I shall miss you. But I don’t think we need to worry about ourselves.’ It sounded as though he was reading the words out of a book.

‘Thanks for the drink.’ I heard a little click as Bernardo put his glass down; then there were footsteps crossing to the door. I stumbled backwards, grabbing for the handle of the door to the drawing room and pulling it open just in time. Mama leapt up and together we half waltzed, half scuffled through it. It should have been funny, but neither of us was laughing.

Bernardo paused in the study doorway, and then his footsteps went back into the room. I heard him say – clearer than before, now that the door was open – ‘Oh, Miren gave me a letter for Esteya. Shall I leave it on the hall table?’

Papa murmured something, and Bernardo came out, walking past the drawing room and putting the envelope on the table with a crisp papery sound. He let himself out, and the front door shut behind him heavily. The silence in the hall was very thick, like syrup, or dust.

Mama didn’t look at me. She took a deep breath and went into the hall, then into Papa’s study without knocking. I couldn’t bring myself to move. I leant against the wall and listened. At first I couldn’t hear anything; then Mama raised her voice, and I heard her say, ‘But – Anton, the children – if he’s right, and Leon is in trouble . . .’

‘How dare you listen to my private conversations!’ The door slammed, muffling Papa’s voice, but it was still audible, just. ‘You know what Bernardo’s like – scaremongering, full of his own importance. Please don’t –’

I put my hands over my ears, not quite knowing why.

But Papa was right, wasn’t he? If something had happened, with Leon and the Party . . . we’d know. If we were in danger, Leon would have told us. And even with that list, growing and growing on Martin’s wall, I didn’t believe that
we
could be next.

My parents’ voices rang and blurred in my ears. I made an effort not to understand what they were saying.

I couldn’t stay where I was. I crossed the hall, picked up Miren’s letter and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs to read it. It wouldn’t be anything very interesting; the usual things, news that wasn’t really news, complaints, maybe with a little sentimental bit at the end to say goodbye. The thought of it gave me an unexpected pang. Once Miren was gone . . . She’d been my best friend, for years, all through school. It was only when I met Skizi that everything had changed. And poor Miren had hardly noticed.

The flap of the envelope peeled up cleanly. I took out the sheet of paper and scanned it, already almost bored.

We’re leaving, although Papa says I mustn’t tell you where. I don’t exactly want to go, but I’m always afraid now, and maybe there I won’t be. I’ll miss you, Esteya, even if we don’t see each other very much and you don’t even answer my letters. Remember the fun we used to have at school?

Papa is going to visit your father to tell him about what the guards said to me, about your brother, so I expect you know already. There isn’t much to say, except that there are rumours that he’s not as central to the Party as he was, and that other people are writing the leaflets now. But from the way the guards were saying it, it sounded as if he was in trouble, and they were pleased – you must know that lots of people don’t like your family because of Leon and because you all had food over the winter and special privileges and that sort of thing . . . So please, please be careful. I never thought I’d have to say that, but please, Esteya, I’m frightened for you.

In a way, though, I’m glad I can give you this warning. That’s because I’ve got something to tell you that you might be angry about, but honestly I had to do it. I needed to make friends with the guards, in the spring, because Papa kept saying things about the Party, and Mama asked me to . . . And, a long time ago, ages ago, last summer in the holidays, I saw you going up to the Ibarras’ hut on the hillside and you were with a Zikindi girl and I saw you both there together and that she was living there, and so when I was talking to the guards I told them about her, because they had targets for undesirables. I don’t know if she was still there when they went looking for her. I could have asked them, but I didn’t. Anyway, I’m sorry. But now I’m warning you about Leon, and that makes us quits, doesn’t it?

Please don’t be angry with me. It was just that I had to give them something – information, I mean – to make them like me.

And when I saw you together I thought she was leading you astray, and –

I folded the letter along the crease and put it back into its envelope. There was something about doing it that made me feel queasy. For a moment I wasn’t sure why; then I realised it made me think of the letter I’d written, about Ana Himyana. I shut my eyes and tried not to think. From the study I could hear snatches of words: ‘For the children’s sake, then, Anton!’ and Papa replying, ‘Who is the master of this family?’

Leading you astray
. . . She hadn’t, she didn’t. If anything, it was the other way round; because it was always me who loved more, who wanted more, and Skizi who went along with it, because she might as well . . .

And I’d loved her so much that I’d – when I thought it was Ana Himyana who’d told the guards – I’d –

I put my hands over my eyes, pressing until my head started to ache. I didn’t want to think about what I’d done.
Ana Himyana is an Anarchist
.

And Miren . . . I wanted to be angry with her. But I wasn’t. She was only protecting herself, and I understood that. Or maybe I was just too tired; maybe I’d used up all the anger I had, and now there was nothing left, like a container with only dry dust in the corners.

Somewhere behind me, Mama and Papa both raised their voices at the same time, and there was a thud and a crash, like something smashing against a wall. I’d never heard my parents argue before; it seemed a good time for them to start. I thought I heard Martin’s bedroom door opening upstairs, and the creak of his feet crossing to look down over the banister. He called down to me, but I didn’t look up.

I’d killed Ana Himyana, as surely as if I’d borrowed a rifle from one of the guards and shot her myself. And I’d known it, when I wrote that letter. I’d known exactly what I was doing.

Ana Himyana is an –

Ana Himyana –

I clenched my jaw, pressing my back teeth together. I couldn’t move. If I stayed still, I wouldn’t exist.

‘Est!’ Martin hissed down from above me. ‘Est? What’s going on?’

I stood up. Everything felt a long way away. I took a few steps forward, opened the front door, went into the street, shut the door behind me and walked down the narrow strip of sunlight between the houses. It was chilly, and I felt the skin on my neck prickle. I thought I heard Martin call my name again, but I might have imagined it.

I walked up past the church – it was empty, the windows smashed, the doors wrenched off their hinges, the pews taken away for firewood – and through the network of alleys that led to the edge of town. They were full of rubbish, scraps of fabric and dirt I didn’t want to look at. Everything was quiet.

And I went to the only place I could think of.

Fourteen

No one had been in the hut for months; at least that was my first impression, when I pushed my way in. The door was stuck, entangled in weeds, and most of the roof had come down and was on the floor, in great grass-covered mounds. You wouldn’t have known where Skizi’s bed had been. The scrawls on the plaster were still visible, and I took a careful breath, somehow expecting to smell faeces and ash, as if it was only yesterday that Skizi had been taken away; but the air was clear and didn’t smell of anything.

But I hadn’t been the last person in the hut. I saw – feeling nothing – that the guards, or partisans, Anarchists or Socialists, had left three rifles stacked in the corner, and there was a dog-eared pile of leaflets on the shelf, which had slid down the wall and was at an odd, lopsided angle. I picked up the top page:
A Letter to the People
. . . They were home-printed, hardly legible, and the grammar was all wrong. I looked round, imagining candlelit meetings, arguments, and then . . . They’d left their rifles here, and there were cobwebs strung across them like ribbons. They must have been arrested.

I picked up one of the rifles. The stock was cool and clammy, and it was heavier than I remembered. But it was the same model that the guard had taught me to load, and to fire. I leant it against the wall and walked back to the door, wiping my hands on my trousers, and stood looking out. The breeze ruffled my hair.