Red Crystal (8 page)

She blinked, reluctantly impressed. ‘I see.’ She had a vision of him leading a charge of demonstrators into a line of police. Then she remembered that the Italians had probably gone much further than that and she allowed new images to develop in her mind. She pictured him hiding out at secret addresses; planning a campaign; perhaps even using a gun. The images were attractive and more than a little exciting.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

She smiled. ‘Okay.’

‘I am going to bed now,’ he said. Then, matter-of-factly: ‘Will you come with me?’

A few moments ago she would have kept the matter in doubt much longer, just to show that she had control of the situation, just to demonstrate that she despised his arrogance.

But now there was no need. He understood what she wanted from him: access to the right people, the means to learn. Now it was a straightforward arrangement of mutual convenience. The matter was decided.

The afternoon of the 10th May began quietly enough with a rally in the Place Denfert-Rochereau attended by students, school children, teachers, trade unionists and sympathizers of every age and sort. At six-thirty came news that at long last the government had made some conciliatory proposals. But
not
about the imprisoned students - they were not to be freed.

A great roar went up:
‘Liberez nos camarades
!’
,
and the crowds marched on the Sante Prison. A mass of police prevented them from reaching the prison walls and they turned away, heading for the Maison de la Radio, the government-controlled broadcasting centre on the Right Bank.

The government ordered all bridges across the Seine to be blocked and then they closed off the Boulevard St Germain - another ill-judged decision. Now the students were hemmed in on the Left Bank. They had nowhere to go: only back the way they’d come or into their own territory, the Latin Quarter.

The student leaders hurriedly conferred and announced their decision.

They would take the Latin Quarter and hold it at all costs.

It was the beginning of the worst violence Paris had seen for thirty years.

The news spread through the crowd like a bolt of electricity and the students ran for the Latin Quarter, fanning out through the maze of narrow streets around the Sorbonne.

Gabriele ran with Giorgio and it was only when she looked over her shoulder that she realized Max was no longer in sight, lost somewhere in the crowd.

They ran until they were short of breath, and found themselves in a small street to the south of the quarter among a group of about two dozen students. Already a car had been dragged into the middle of the street.

Then Giorgio had an iron bar in his hands and was hacking at the ancient cobblestones, trying to lever them off the road. Another car was pushed into the street and was rocked violently until it fell on its side with a loud grinding noise.

Gabriele searched desperately for materials, tugging ineffectually at gratings and street signs. Then she saw that Giorgio had got under the
pavés
and was levering them up fast. She joined the chain carrying stones to the rapidly growing barricade.

Later, when it grew dark, they were joined by more students, trade unionists and sympathizers, until there were over a hundred people in that one small street alone. Food and drink were brought by well-wishers and residents of the quarter. Everyone paused to eat. The atmosphere was warm with comradeship and the exhilaration of shared danger. Gabriele felt an overwhelming sense of achievement and well-being. Impulsively she put her arm through Giorgio’s. She thought: I love it all.

A messenger roared up on a motorbike with information from the student leadership. Massive reinforcements of riot police were encircling the quarter.

The group set to work with fresh ingenuity, raiding building sites, tearing down scaffolding and barbed wire, until by midnight the barricade had grown into a formidable wall of cobblestones, cars, wire, and jagged metal. Gabriele armed herself with a metal bar torn from the frame of a shop’s window-blind.

The CRS were sighted at two-ten. Gabriele felt her mouth go dry. Slowly, without urgency, the riot police formed themselves into ranks at the far end of the street. They made a sinister sight: the rows of long black coats, the invisible faces, the goggles and helmets, the shields which glinted darkly in the street lights. Someone shouted, ‘
Pigs! Fascists!
’

At two-fifteen a deathly silence fell, broken only by the sound of shuffling feet. The line of raised shields was moving towards them.

Gabriele took her position half-way up the barricade, adjusted the handkerchief round her mouth and gripped a cobblestone in her hand. She wasn’t frightened any more; the adrenalin was making her light-headed, almost euphoric.

A shouted order, and the black line paused. Snub-nosed pistols were pointed in the air and fired. Missiles with long white tails sailed up and over the barricades. The air became thick with sharp pervasive gases … Gabriele pressed the handkerchief to her face, but the gas seeped through, stinging viciously at her eyes, stabbing at her throat until she choked.

A low rumble echoed along the dark street. The rumble grew to a clatter, a crescendo of batons beating on shields, and the black line was charging forward, unchecked by the hail of stones,
paves
and missiles from the student lines. Gabriele stood up and hurled a cobblestone wildly into the darkness, then bent down to pick up another.

Suddenly she realized that the gleaming black figures were mounting the barricade. Dropping the cobblestone, Gabriele reached for the iron bar at her feet and grasped it tightly.

Quickly, so quickly it took her by surprise, a dark shape loomed up in front of her. The figure swung his arm up in a high arc, a baton clutched viciously in his hand.

She lashed at him with the iron bar. The metal made contact and swung back to hit again. The figure swayed as if off-balance. Then it was twisting to one side, the arm coiling back like a spring, and too late she saw the baton coming rapidly savagely down.

She raised an arm against the blow, but it caught her on the side of the head, a dull sickening jolt of pain. She fell back, the sounds of the battle ringing in her ears.

Another blow thudded on to her shoulder and with a cry she rolled down the mound of stones to the ground.

She covered her raging head, but there were no more blows. Through her dim agony she could hear the sounds of the fight: thuds, cries, shouts, boots scrabbling on the stone … Then the
whoomph!
of a small explosion and the crackle of fire. With an effort she crawled away, searching for the shelter of a wall, a doorway … Suddenly a foot in her side, a body falling over her and running off … Cries of pursuit growing fainter … Then quieter – just the crackle and spit of a fire nearby.

After some time she felt hands grasp her and started in alarm. But the hands were gentle, the voices soft. They pulled her to her feet and led her to a lighted interior. A cloth wiped her head, soothed her burning eyes … Rest, a soft pillow … Ah – peace.

She lay still for a long time until the pounding in her head dulled to a sullen throb. Outside, it was quieter. As much as an hour had passed. Dimly she concluded that the fight must be over. She dozed uneasily.

Suddenly there were sharp obtrusive noises: the sounds of heavy vehicles and shouted orders and doors opening.

Confused and alarmed, she opened her eyes and tried to understand.

Harsh voices, boots on the stairs.

What on earth—

The fear leapt into her throat. Through the door came black helmets, faces invisible …

She stared incredulously.

It was a bad dream relived, a second nightmare, except it was real again. She thought:
I’ll die if they touch me
.

They grabbed her and she gasped. They pulled her to her feet. She yelled, ‘
Let go, you pigs!
’ They were pawing her, searching her. A gloved hand came close to her mouth and she bit it hard, meeting flesh through the leather. There was a cry. She struggled and kicked out. They grabbed at her arm and, catching the wrist, twisted it harshly up her back.

She thought:
I’m going to go mad
.

She screamed and kicked out with her feet, finding a target. There was a shout of anger.

The next moment her head exploded and a wall of blackness closed in on her.

Through the blackness she heard someone groaning loudly and realized it was herself. Then, as if in a dream, she was being half-dragged, half-carried across a hall and down some stairs into the street. A veil of warm wetness covered her smarting eyes and there was a strange sweetness in her mouth. She was hauled roughly over stones and heaved backwards into a van, the metal floor cold and hard on her skin.

She mustered her strength to gasp, ‘Fascist Nazi pigs! Fascist bastard pigs! Fascist—!’

Then the doors slammed shut and there was nobody to hear.

The night of the 10th May became known as the Night of the Barricades; over sixty makeshift barriers were thrown up in the streets of the Latin Quarter. From all over Paris thousands of young people, manual workers and professionals, rushed to the students’ aid until the CRS riot police were faced with an enormous army of guerrillas. The fighting raged for four hours and was remarkable for its savagery and hatred.

But if the hand to hand fighting was bloody – beaten heads, broken limbs, four hundred seriously injured – it was the mopping up operations which were remembered with most bitterness. The injured dragged from stretchers to be beaten up for a second time; a Negro thrown into a van to emerge with a battered bloody face; girls stripped and taken naked into the street; innocent passers-by attacked. In many areas the police took their opportunities for revenge.

Local residents and onlookers were horrified. So too was most of France. The next day the government tried to mediate, but it was all too late. The workers and the students were united. Within two days there was a mass anti-government demonstration of over eight hundred thousand people. Three days later more than nine
million
workers were out on strike. A student soviet occupied the Sorbonne and several provincial universities were taken over. Even members of the most respected professions – the doctors, lawyers, scientists, musicians – rebelled, questioning the outdated structures in which they worked.

The revolution had arrived.

The hospital room was white and brilliantly lit and hurt her eyes. At least two days had passed, though she wasn’t absolutely sure. At one point the police came and demanded her name. She closed her eyes and didn’t answer.

They returned with her shoulder bag which she supposed they had found somewhere near the barricade.

They held out her passport.

Linda Wilson.

She smiled because it didn’t matter if they knew that name.

Another night came – the third? – and a voice obtruded into her consciousness. It whispered urgently ‘Gabriele! Gabriele!’ Someone was shaking her.

She stared into the semi-darkness and saw two figures leaning over the bed. One of them was Giorgio. Already they were pulling her out of bed and wrapping a coat round her shoulders.

She said, ‘I knew you’d come.’

T
HE WEATHER WAS
blustery but fine, and the coast of France was clearly visible across the straits. On the green, white-flecked sea beyond the breakwater a ferry turned in a stately arc to negotiate the eastern entrance to Dover harbour.

‘She’ll be docked in about seven minutes,’ said the local Special Branch man. ‘D’you want to come down to the desk or watch through the window?’

‘The window,’ Nick Ryder replied. He didn’t want to be seen.

He picked up the batch of names and photographs, tapped his pocket to make sure he had a pen, and followed the officer down to the observation room.

The room was sited high in the wall of the immigration hall and had a large one-way window so that it was possible to look down on all six of the channels unobserved. Nick settled down in a chair and spread out the photographs on the shelf in front of him. Picking up a pair of binoculars, he practised focusing them. Below, the local Branch men were stationed behind the immigration booths.

The first passengers came into the hall at a rush, anxious to get to their trains and coaches. Then came the families and shoppers, hampered with children, large amounts of baggage, and trolleyloads of French food. Orderly lines formed in front of the immigration booths.

Nick scanned the lines carefully, but there were no familiar faces. At the far end of the hall the slower passengers shuffled in: a group of older people; some young hikers with enormous back-packs …

He sat up. And some faces.

Yes. Several he recognized.

He took one at a time, matching each face to the list or, where he had a photograph, to that as well.

Ellis, Bishop, Wheatfield …

He tried to remember something about the first two although, as Marxists, they didn’t strictly fall into his Section. Ellis: International Marxists and CND; Bishop: International Marxists and Vietnam United Front. The third was Wheatfield, Max. International Trotskyists and now Socialist Students’ League. One of his.