Love in Revolution (6 page)

Miren said, poking at the black mess on the bench, ‘If my silly cousin hadn’t been getting married, I would have been there.’

A shadow fell across the wood, and there was a kind of whispering, over my shoulder. I looked round. Ana’s friends were standing there, looking down at me. One of them said, ‘Ana wants to talk to you.’

‘Tell her to come and talk to me herself.’

They swapped glances; then, without a word, the smallest one detached herself and made her way back to Ana. I couldn’t hear what she said, but after a few seconds Ana met my eyes and glided over, graceful as a dancer. She had something in her hand: a little flag of greyish paper, held between finger and thumb as if it might rub off on her skin. She said, ‘Esteya Bidart.’

‘Ana Himyana,’ I said. Miren shifted nervously beside me.

‘Your father was the last person to see him alive, wasn’t he?’

I shrugged. I didn’t ask who she meant by
him
. ‘He’s a doctor, Ana. He sees lots of people who are ill. Some of them die.’

She tilted her head to one side and tugged at the tiny pearl in her left ear. ‘And Leon Bidart is your brother, isn’t he?’

‘Half-brother,’ I said. I could feel the blood already mounting in my cheeks. Most people had gone home before Leon took his shirt off, but someone must have told her . . .

‘He writes for the
Clarion
, doesn’t he?’

‘Er . . . yes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes. Teddy – the editor – is a friend of his, so –’

‘Did he write
this
?’ With a quick movement she thrust her hand out, and the scrap of paper fluttered and then went limp again.

I took it from her and looked down at it.

The picture was of the Bull serving, his face a grimace of concentration, and there was a blurred shape in the foreground that must have been Angel’s shoulder or head. It wasn’t a great photo, but it showed the Bull clearly enough. The headline was:
DEAD PLAYER LOST LAST GAME
.

Distantly I heard the bell ring, but I didn’t move.

Dead hero of the bourgeoisie Pitoro ‘the Bull’ Toros was defeated in his last ever game, by an unknown peasant boy, the Clarion reveals. In a dramatic prelude to the champion’s unexpected death on Sunday, he was challenged to a pello game and was vanquished in front of a crowd of local fans . . .

I looked into Ana’s eyes and swallowed. ‘He might have done,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. But it’s true. Why shouldn’t he write it?’

‘?“Hero of the bourgeoisie”?’ Ana said. ‘It sounds like your brother, don’t you think?’

. . . a symbol of hope for those fighting against oppression . . . the King, who expressed sorrow for Toros’s death, may well be uneasy at this salutary reminder of the strength of the working classes . . .

‘You’re not wearing anything black, are you?’ Ana said. ‘I suppose that means you don’t care about the Bull. Or is it just that you’re a Communist?’

‘I said I don’t know whether Leon wrote that. It might have been Teddy.’

A cool, low voice said, ‘Well, Esteya, I hope it
was
Mr Edwards. Otherwise your brother would be guilty of a reckless, selfish act.’

We turned to look. Sister David was there, holding the bell. She held out her hand for the paper, and the bell’s clapper made a little clanking noise as she moved. ‘Esteya, please give that to me.’

I handed it to her. She took it and read it, briefly, as if she was already familiar with the contents. She said, ‘So you think there is no reason why your brother
shouldn’t
have written this, morally speaking?’

‘Well – he, the Bull, he
did
lose his last game –’

‘I notice that there is no signature,’ Sister David said. ‘We can hope that your brother, not being a foreigner like Mr Edwards, would know better than to write anything so . . . seditious.’ She handed the paper back and gave me a long look that I couldn’t read. ‘Unfortunately Mr Edwards is being interviewed by the police.’

‘What?’

‘Please say
pardon
, Esteya, not
what
. Mr Edwards, so I am told, was escorted from his home early this morning to answer a few questions about this article.’

‘But –’ I felt the pit of my stomach drop.

Sister David glanced from me to Ana, and then back again. There was something in her eyes: not quite sympathy, not quite sadness, but something close. ‘Now, let’s not dawdle any longer, girls. Didn’t you hear me ring the bell?’ She looked round, and the crowd that had gathered dispersed rapidly, draining into the schoolhouse through the door marked
PUPILS
. ‘Esteya, you can wait here for a moment.’

I stood still by the bench, holding on to the bit of paper so hard I couldn’t feel my fingers.

Miren and Ana stayed where they were too, but Sister David ignored them and stepped closer to me. Her eyes were narrowed against the sunlight. ‘I’m not going to ask you whether your brother wrote that article or not,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know. But what I will say is . . . this: be careful, Esteya. Prudence is as great a virtue as courage. No one –
no one
– gains from unnecessary suffering. Do you understand?’

‘Who saw Teddy being taken away?’ I said. I didn’t have time to be polite. ‘How do you know?’

It was as if she hadn’t heard what I’d said. ‘Your brother has made his own choices. He’s chosen to put himself in danger. But you needn’t let him endanger
you
. Esteya, are you listening?’ She held my look for a few seconds longer, as if she was trying to tell me something else silently. Then she walked away, looking to left and right and shepherding the littlest girls into line.

I swallowed. I could taste the egg I’d had for breakfast. The sun was too hot and too bright and there was too much noise. I thought of the police smashing down Teddy’s door in the dead of night, dragging him out into the street, shoving a canvas bag over his head and driving him away. I thought of the silence, and the bag sucking in and out as Teddy breathed. He would have panicked; or worse, tried to reason with them. They would have hit him to shut him up.

And he would have been in his pyjamas. I’d seen Teddy’s pyjamas, flapping on the washing line he’d rigged up between his windows. They were dark green, with a faded paisley pattern, and an iron-shaped scorch mark on the collar.

Ana said, ‘How does it feel, knowing your brother is a murderer?’

I wanted to tell her to shut up, but my mouth wouldn’t obey my brain.

Miren stood up, sat down, fiddled with her satchel strap and stood up again. ‘I’m just . . .’ she said, and gestured at the schoolhouse door. No one answered.

‘Mind you,’ Ana said, stroking the rose on her shoulder, ‘the Englishman was probably asking for it, wasn’t he? If he was stupid enough to let your Communist brother write a cheap, nasty article like that – and then
publish
it . . .’

Something gave way. I heard myself raise my voice, the words blurring and overlapping one another. ‘So the police are right to take him away, are they? If the police come for my brother, and my father because he’s Leon’s father too, and my mother because she happens to be married to him –’

‘I’m going inside,’ Miren muttered. I didn’t turn my head, but I heard her hurry across the yard towards the door. Ana and I were almost the last people left.

Ana said, ‘Everyone knows what happens to people who say stupid things. Your brother is lucky he hasn’t been arrested already.’

‘And Mr Arcos? And Bero and Jone Carkaya? And the priest from Zurian? They all had it coming, did they, for saying that the harvest’s going to be bad and the poor people are discontented and the King has a lot more money than anyone else?’ I heard my voice get higher.

Ana opened her mouth and then shrugged. ‘I’m just saying he’s stupid to risk it, that’s all.’

I stared at her. I wished she hadn’t said something I agreed with.

I said, ‘As if
you
’d know what’s stupid and what isn’t. With that pathetic thing on your shoulder. What is it, anyway? A very small, rotten lettuce?’

‘It’s a ro–’ She stopped. She glanced over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze. Everyone else had gone in. We were going to be late for prayers.

Suddenly she reached forward, grabbed something off the bench and pushed it into my face. I felt a cold, damp mass hit my cheek and wetness trickle down my neck, and smelt ink. I pulled away. She tilted her head, smiled at me and dropped the wet mess of ink-soaked tissue paper on the ground. It landed in a flat, dark splat. I put my fingers up to the wet stuff running down my face and they came away black. When I looked down there was a long stain on my jumper, already starting to soak down into my skirt. My jaw dripped.

‘Now you look like one of us,’ Ana said. ‘Mourning suits you.’

I went to wipe my fingers on my skirt, and stopped myself just in time. I wondered what Mama would say about the stains; ink didn’t wash out properly, not ever.

I looked up at Ana. She was smiling, still, and her hair was falling over her shoulder in a perfect curve, as if she was posing for a photograph.

I didn’t move.

‘Not
very
stylish,’ Ana added, ‘but then you always look a little bit scruffy, don’t you?’

I knew that if I moved, I’d hit her. If I hit her, I’d be in even more trouble. I swung my hand back.

Then, before I had time to change my mind, I turned on my heel and ran through the school gates, out into the street.

I kept on running, with my satchel bouncing on my back and the sweat starting to run down my face. I wiped my cheek and the smear of moisture that came off on my hand was dark grey. I was shaking. The taste of my breakfast came back into my throat, mixed with something bitter, like lemons.

It was so hot. I almost turned on to the high street, from habit, and caught myself just in time. I didn’t want anyone to see me, not when I should’ve been at school. Instead I went back the way I’d come and ducked into an alleyway. It was cool in the shadows between garden walls. I kept running.

And came out into the square in front of the church, in bright sunlight, so suddenly I was dazzled. The church was on my left, and to my right was the pello wall. I looked down and saw that I was standing on one of the painted lines.

There were a couple of old men outside the bar, but no one else. Everything was quiet.

I reached out and touched the pello wall with my hand, tracing the mortar between the stones. My fingers left faint inky traces. Then I sat down, with my back against the wall and my knees up, and after a while I started to cry.

I don’t know how long I was there, but what made me stop crying, in the end, was the feeling that someone was watching me.

I looked up. My eyes stung in the light, and I felt the last drops of water slide down my face. My hands, where I’d been covering my face, were wet, the lines on my palms picked out in black.

At first I thought I’d been imagining it. The space in front of me was empty. I turned my head, looking from side to side. I
was
being watched; I could sense it, like something crawling up my spine.

There was a brief movement in the shadows in the doorway of the church.

Skizi.

When she saw me looking she raised her arm and waved at me. There was something odd about the gesture, something a bit clumsy, as though she’d never done it before. Then she dropped back into a relaxed, balanced stillness, as if she was made of the same stone as the church. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t seen her standing there. She was like a hunter, waiting.

I stood up, wiped my face again and walked towards her. She had her hands in her pockets, like a boy. She met my gaze, as if no one had ever told her it was rude to stare, and only smiled when I got close.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello.’

‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ Her tone was mocking, and she looked me up and down, taking in my crimson, ink-stained uniform. I felt my cheeks flare.

‘Shouldn’t
you
?’

She grinned at me. I sniffed, squelchily, and shuffled my feet. I felt like a chocolate bar left in the sun, all sticky and oozing.

‘Are you being naughty?’ she said. ‘Did you escape?’

As if rules were inherently amusing, I thought; like banana skins, left on the pavement. Things that happened to other people. I said, ‘Have you been watching me all along?’

‘Yes.’

I wanted to tell her to go away, that it was none of her business, and what did she know about anything anyway? But I found myself saying, ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, but with a thoughtful edge to her voice, as if she was taking the question seriously, at least. She paused. ‘I watch lots of people. But you’re different. You notice I’m there.’

I sniffed again, swallowing. My breath kept catching and snagging in my throat, like a stocking laddering itself.

‘I suppose I wanted you to notice me,’ she said, without any particular inflection. ‘It’s nice. It makes me feel like a person.’