Love in Revolution (17 page)

It felt good, to have her looking after me – as if she really wanted to keep me safe, as if she really
cared
. . . I nodded, too tired to reply.

‘Come on then. On your feet.’

She pulled at my wrists, taking my weight, as I stood up. Then she let go of me, and I heard her move to the door and open it. A faint trace of light shone through the gap, just enough to make her eyes gleam. I could smell smoke again.

‘All right,’ she said, peering out into the street. ‘Can you find the way back to Leon’s rooms, if I go with you?’

‘Probably,’ I said, and giggled. I felt light-headed, dizzy with fatigue.

She looked back at me and shook her head. ‘This is serious, Esteya. Honestly, try to concentrate . . . I suppose it’s in the university quarter?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded, and held out her hand, as if I was a little girl. I took it, loving the familiar cool, dusty feel of her skin. I wanted to stay here with her, for ever.

‘I can smell burning,’ she said, turning her head from side to side.

‘Can’t we stay here?’

She pulled me forward into the street. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I thought you might be dead,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

She glanced at me, without smiling. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘And Esteya . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘What have you done with your shoes?’

I thought I’d be able to find my way back to Leon’s rooms without too much trouble; but in the dark the city looked different, and the streets were full of a strange, heavy silence that made me too uneasy to concentrate. Twice we retraced our steps to avoid the shouting that we could hear in the distance. My feet hurt, and Skizi walked too fast, holding my hand so I had to keep up with her.

After an hour, I thought we were lost. We were at the corner of a little street, opposite a church; it had scuffed, wonky pello lines painted in the little square in front of it, and the wobbly bits looked familiar, even in the dark. I said, ‘Skizi . . .’

‘Yes, I know.’

We looked at the church in silence, and she took a long, deep breath. She said, ‘Do you have any idea at all which direction we should be going in?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ She sighed again, and looked from one side to the other, as if she was trying to remember which way we’d gone last time. ‘If I knew where we were, I could probably work out where to go. But . . .’

There was a silence. I thought I ought to help her, but I was so tired.

She glanced at me, and rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. ‘All right. We’ll walk in one direction until we get to something you recognise.’

She set off, without looking back, and I stumbled after her. I was afraid I’d fall asleep on my feet, or start to cry. But after a while I went into a sort of dream, and the tiredness faded into a sort of trance. I stared straight ahead, at the golden, flickering sky, and let my thoughts drift.

I woke up, with a start, because Skizi was doubled over, coughing. I ran the last few steps towards her. ‘Are you all right?’

She caught her breath, nodded and spat. The spittle gleamed reddish in the light. ‘It’s the smoke, that’s all.’

The smoke. Of course, the smoke. I’d been smelling it for so long I’d stopped noticing; but the air was thick with it, itching in my throat, and when I swallowed I could taste it. And that was why the sky was glowing, why the windows in the street gleamed orange at the edges . . . I said, ‘What’s burning?’

‘A barricade?’

‘No.’ I took a step forward, as if it would help me to see more clearly. I could hear shouting, and the faint crash of glass, and shooting, and screams . . . I said, ‘No. It’s a building. They’ve set fire to a building. A big one.’

‘But . . .’ Skizi narrowed her eyes. ‘If we’re where I think we are, then there’s nothing in that direction but the Queen’s Park, and the –’

‘The Palace,’ I said, and we looked at each other.

Skizi opened her mouth, and then started to laugh. She said, ‘Come on,’ and grabbed my wrist and started to run.

It hurt to go with her – my feet stung every time they hit the pavement – but my tiredness was gone. It was stupid, it was mad, to run
towards
the fire; but that didn’t matter. The Palace, on fire . . .

We stopped at the gate to the Queen’s Park. There was no need to go any further: through the railings we could see the flames on the Palace roof and pouring out of the windows, throwing sparks upwards. And against the fire there were black figures, standing still and watching, rifles slung across their backs. There seemed to be hundreds of them. I thought I could hear screaming, but no one moved, beyond passing a bottle or lighting a cigarette; and I might have been imagining it.

I heard Skizi say, ‘The Palace . . .’ She made a noise like a laugh, full of disbelief and admiration.

I said, ‘They said they were going to attack the prison.’

Skizi leant her forehead against the railings, and I saw the gleam of her teeth. ‘Maybe they already did. Or maybe the guards just gave up and let everyone out. Better than being shot.’

‘But –’

‘Do you think the King is still in there?’

‘Of course not. If he was in there, he’d be –’ I stopped, but the word hovered in mid-air. I didn’t even need to say it. I swallowed.

Skizi turned to look at me. ‘What’s the matter?’

I sat down, without meaning to. I wanted to be sick. Everything was . . . They were burning the Palace, and everything was . . . I closed my eyes. It wasn’t just a bread riot, it was . . . I said, ‘I’m scared.’ It was almost the right word, but not quite.

‘We’re safe here. No one’s seen us.’

‘No, I mean . . .’ I thought of Martin, asking me if I thought there’d be a revolution. I understood how he felt now. ‘What’s going to happen, Skizi? It’s all going to be . . . different . . .’ But I couldn’t explain how I felt. It was like trying to describe vertigo.

‘Yes,’ she said, and I felt her crouch down next to me. She stroked my hair. ‘It’ll be different. But don’t worry – once the fighting’s over, it’ll be good. Equality and freedom and no more hunger or people being dragged away in the middle of the night. That’s what Leon says, isn’t it? And men and women being equal, and gypsies and Jews and Zikindi all being equal too . . . Don’t be scared. It’ll be all right, I promise.’

Her voice had the same dreamy tone that Leon’s did. I tried to laugh. ‘I didn’t know you were a Communist.’

I felt her stiffen and stand up. I opened my eyes and she was glaring at me.

‘You don’t understand, do you? You don’t have a clue. I’m not a Communist, I just don’t like being hungry and cold and having to run away from people because I’m Zikindi. I don’t like knowing the police could take me away and no one would ever see me again and no one would
care
. I don’t like it that you’re ashamed of me –’

‘I’m not ash–’

‘I don’t like it that people would hate us both if they knew! Why can’t you understand that? Do you
want
things to stay as they are?’

‘No, of course I don’t.’

‘So stop being so
weak
.’ She spun round and pointed at the flames. ‘That’s the old world, burning! And it deserves to burn! Can’t you see what it means – for everyone, for
us
? I don’t want to have to hide any more, I don’t want
you
to have to hide –’

I stared at her. I’d never seen her like this. I said, ‘I didn’t know you cared.’

‘Of course I bloody care!’ She held my gaze, and slowly the anger went out of her face. ‘Of course I care.’

I got to my feet unsteadily, and took her hand. She didn’t move.

I said, ‘I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you –’

She turned and ran, tugging at my hand. I stumbled after her, cursing my bare feet. She pulled me into an alcove, and pushed me up against the wall, in the shadows.

I said, ‘I lov–’

She kissed me, cutting off the words. Her hands slid round and dug into my back. She was pressed against me so hard I could feel the stones in the wall behind me, and the cold seeping through my shirt. I was shivering. I felt a drop of water land on my forehead, and another and another; it was starting to rain.

She broke away, slid her mouth down over my chin, burrowed her face into my neck, and then kissed down my collarbone to the neckline of my dress. I said, ‘Skizi . . .’

‘Stop talking.’

‘D’you think this is the revolution? Really?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Right here, just us, together. Me and you, against a wall.’

‘No, I meant –’

Somehow I knew she was smiling. ‘I know what you meant. Stop talking.’

And then she moved her hands, and I stopped thinking about the revolution, and the smell of smoke and the rain on my face faded into nothing, and all I could think about was her, her, her.

Winter

Nine

It was cold the day we came home from Irunja, the rain pelting against the windows of the crowded train. The sky was as grey as the ash that was still settling, days after the Palace burnt to the ground. And the rain went on and on, until it turned into sleet, weeks later, and then snow, as if winter had arrived early the day of the revolution and refused to go away. Martin said it was because the Communists had forgotten to appoint a Minister for Weather, but he never said it very loudly.

Christmas was cold and muted – Leon stayed in Irunja, too busy to come home, although he spent the afternoon of Twelfth Night with us, and he didn’t talk about bourgeois religiosity with the same venom as normal. He looked tired, and he didn’t mention politics until Papa asked him how his new job was going; then he smiled without using his eyes and said, ‘Papa, we’re building a new world from scratch, how do
you
think it’s going? It’s –’ he hesitated – ‘hard work.’

‘What do you do all day?’ Martin said. ‘I mean, it’s all very well, building a new world, but what do you actually
do
?’

‘Paperwork, mainly,’ Leon said. ‘I’m in the Ministry for Information. Well. I suppose I
am
the Ministry for Information.’

‘How lovely,’ Mama said. ‘A pity you had to give up your studies, though.’

There was a silence, and she stroked the teapot with the tip of a finger. It was an English teapot, blue and white, that Teddy had given her because he didn’t have room for it in his suitcase when he packed to go home, just before Christmas. He’d come to say goodbye, cradling a cardboard box in his arms, with the teapot and the cups to go with it. I’d been standing at the top of the stairs, and I saw him fumble and drop it as he tried to put it into Mama’s arms. The teapot was the only thing that survived the smash, and when Teddy had crouched down to sort out the wreckage he’d started to weep into his hands, desperately, as if someone had died. I’d never seen a man cry before, and now whenever I looked at the teapot all I could think of was Teddy, sobbing on his knees in our hallway.

In the silence Leon said, ‘I should get back to Irunja. I’m so busy I hardly have time to sleep.’

After that, he wrote, sometimes; but that was the last time we’d seen him. And then it was February, and we were waiting for spring, and for everything to get better.

We were sitting outside in the schoolyard, in the freezing cold, waiting for the bell to ring so that we could go inside again. I leant my head back against the wall, and then jerked it away from the stone when I felt the cold soak through my hat and into my scalp. I narrowed my eyes against the grey light, wishing I could be somewhere else.

Next to me, Miren was turning a pamphlet over and over in her hands, as if it was a precious relic. It was one of Leon’s, that he’d sent with his last letter: it had a picture of Angel Corazon on the front, and the title
NEW HOPE
. He’d got Angel to sign it for me. His letters were in rough, childish handwriting.
To Esteya, form Angel
. I thought of the last time I’d seen Angel – that smoke-smelling street in Irunja, in the sunshine and gunfire – and it seemed worlds away, as if it couldn’t possibly be the same person who’d signed the grainy, badly reproduced paper that Miren was touching so carefully. I was glad he’d survived, but . . .

I shut my eyes completely, but all it did was intensify the cold. I hadn’t seen Skizi for nearly a week, and the last time I had, we’d sat silently for a long time, too cold even to move. When I tried to kiss her, she’d smiled faintly and turned her cheek away. She was thinner, and her golden tinge had gone, leaving her the colour of dirty cream. She smelt stronger too – because she was too cold to wash, I supposed – and she seemed not to want me to get too close. I hoped that was why, anyway. I dreamt of sneaking her into our bathroom for a long, hot bath, but I knew it wouldn’t work, and it was too dangerous. If Mama caught us . . .

I was shivering so hard I could hear the seams in my coat cracking with the strain. I opened my eyes again, trying to imagine the wall opposite without its hat of grimy snow. I prayed for the clouds to open, because at least if it was actually snowing the nuns would let us back into the schoolhouse.