Love in Revolution (27 page)

I glanced over my shoulder in spite of myself, checking the gap under the door for the shadow of someone lurking on the other side. I didn’t think there was anyone there. Leon followed my gaze, nodding as if I’d asked a question. He looked mad himself – mad, and old. I wanted to stand up and walk out; but where would I go?

‘Want to know what I did? Why good old Karl turned against me? Want to know? I told him he’d gone a little bit too far, in my opinion. He’s a bloody madman, he’s paranoid. There are things . . . things he did, told people to do –
madness
– and I took him to one side and told him he’d
gone a little bit too far
. . .’ He laughed, gurgling. ‘
In my opinion
. That’s it. That was bloody it. Not that he’d liked me for a long time. People read my leaflets, you see, that was the real problem – they knew Karl was the psychopath and I was the man of the people. I was a bloody good minister, he was just . . . just . . .’

There was a pause. The sunlight had moved. The wall opposite was in shadow.

‘Remember Hiram Jelek, and the young one, the blond one . . . ?’

A pause. I didn’t answer; I wasn’t sure he’d really said it. Maybe my mind was wandering, and I’d imagined it.

‘Pello player . . . The other one. A kid. Won the King’s Cup, the last King’s Cup, remember, we were there, the day the Revolution started? Best player ever, people said. Only a kid. Only a kid . . .’

Pello-Heroes Street
. Whatever Leon was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it; but I couldn’t stop myself. I said, ‘Angel Corazon.’

Leon shut his eyes; and I had the impression that he knew the name perfectly well, he just hadn’t wanted to say it. He said, ‘Yes. The kid. The . . . He was a hero. He was in a gun battle, the first day of the Revolution . . . An icon of the working class . . . poor sod.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said, but I don’t think he heard me.

‘Lost the game, at home, remember? The pressure got to him, he was only a kid . . . But Karl thought he’d done it on purpose, thought he hadn’t tried . . . and then the crowds . . . People care about pello more than politics, course they do, but Karl thought . . . Karl got worse and worse.’

I didn’t know what he was trying to say. I said, ‘Leon . . .’ but I couldn’t make myself change the subject.
Pello-Heroes Street
. . .

‘Telling OGL that the games were a security threat, all that, and then . . . The kid couldn’t handle it, being an icon. He couldn’t make speeches or say nice things about the Revolution, of course he couldn’t, he was just a pello player, for God’s sake, just a kid, and . . .’ Leon shook his head and then opened his eyes, looking at me like someone waking up. ‘House arrest,’ he said. ‘We put them under house arrest, for their own protection. So they wouldn’t get involved in any kind of uprising. Karl said they were a danger to security . . . House arrest.
Room
arrest. An old place, dark. They put them in the top rooms, nurseries. There were bars . . . bars over the windows . . .’

‘You mean . . .’ I swallowed. ‘Hiram Jelek and – and Angel Corazon . . . ?’ It made my heart pound, just to say his name.

Leon frowned and nodded, like a schoolmaster with a slow pupil. ‘House arrest,’ he said again. ‘The kid . . . Funny, Jelek was how you’d expect – shouted, tried to bribe the guards, pleaded, had his wife go to OGL and beg . . . But the kid . . . had a ball in there with him . . . that was all, just the ball against the wall, over and over, all day,
thud thud thud
. Used to drive the guards crazy . . .’

I clenched my teeth. It was stupid – I didn’t even
know
Angel Corazon – but even now, after everything, it made me feel sick, to think of him shut up in a dark room, throwing a ball against the wall. I said, ‘Couldn’t you get him out?’

Leon didn’t seem to hear me. ‘And Karl . . . didn’t understand. Hated him, really
hated
him, used to listen through the wall,
thud thud
, used to shout at him, like he wanted the kid to know he was there . . .’ He laughed. ‘Like it was a fight, and the kid was winning. He’d tell the guards to go in, rough him up a bit, but the next day the kid would be back to it,
thud thud thud
with the ball . . .’

I sat silently, watching the shrinking diamond of sunlight on the floor.

‘Then Jelek got ill, and it was just the kid left, and . . . they started to interrogate him – Karl’s orders. The kid used to get letters from all over the country, people who didn’t even know him, piles and piles; he was a hero, even though he was just a kid bashing a ball against a wall . . . Karl was sure it was some kind of conspiracy, made the guards sit and read the letters, underline anything suspicious, and then they interrogated . . . they . . . and he didn’t know anything, of course he didn’t, he was just a kid . . .’ There was something blank in Leon’s voice, slurring the words, as though he’d said this so many times before that he’d smoothed the edges off the consonants. I imagined him saying it to himself, telling himself this story over and over again, and wished I hadn’t. He swallowed, and I thought he’d fallen silent; but in the end he went on speaking. ‘And then . . . Karl – he was mad, paranoid. If you criticise it’s the end, no one dares to open their mouth . . . but he was obsessed with him, with the kid,
obsessed
. . . and so . . . I tried to stop it, but it got worse and worse. I did try to stop him . . . but they . . . the poor kid, they . . .’

I was frozen. I thought I knew what he was going to say.

‘They . . . it was the only thing he had, and they – they took the ball away . . .’

I shut my eyes for a moment, then opened them again, because the blankness of my eyelids was worse than the real world.

‘Took him away, knocked him out, put him back in the room without the ball, and just
watched
. . .’

I looked at the sunlight, and the shape of it seemed to burn into the back of my eyes. In my head I could see a boy stepping out from behind the fountain in the square, his hair golden, a kind of glamour hanging about him like a halo. I tried to keep hold of the image, because if I let go of it I might believe what Leon was telling me.

‘And he . . . he tried, the poor bloody kid tried to go on –’ Leon paused. He took a deep breath, as if the worst was still to come; then he bent his head, and started to weep. I’d never heard a man cry like that. I thought I knew what it was like to lose everything; but this was different. I should have gone to comfort him, but I was paralysed, repelled, as if he had some disfiguring disease.

He was saying something else, or trying to, but his mouth was the wrong shape to form words and all that came out was noise. Then he said, ‘Mad . . .’ and I thought he was talking about Karl again, until he forced out more consonants. ‘Played with an imaginary ball, throwing and catching it, like he was desperate, like it was the only thing keeping him –’ The tears rose again, cutting him off.

I found myself on my feet, stumbling to the door as if I could escape the sound of Leon’s weeping. I leant my forehead against the wood.

‘Thought he’d go on like that for ever . . . bashing an imaginary ball . . . watching it bounce . . . but he . . . he –’ A long breath in, as if there was only one thing left to say. ‘Killed himself, didn’t he? Only a kid. Drowned himself in his own p–’

‘Shut up! Shut
up
 –’

I’d spun round to shout at him. We stared at each other, shocked, trembling. There was silence, a kind of fragile, shivering silence that I was afraid to break.

He opened his mouth. I said, ‘Please, Leon, please don’t . . . I don’t want to know any more.’ It felt like cowardice, but I couldn’t help it.

Another pause; then he sniffed, with a great snort of snot, and wiped his nose. I remembered suddenly – irrelevantly – how he’d given Angel his shirt, that day when he beat the Bull. Poor Leon.

‘Est,’ he said, ‘you have to leave.’

I stood up.

‘No, I mean –’ He shook his head, laughing a little. ‘Leave the country. Cross the border, over the mountains. I’ll give you the address of someone I know, who can get you out.’

‘But I –’

I don’t know what I was going to say, but Leon smacked his hand down on the desk, making everything shudder. ‘
Esteya
. You are going to
go
. Do you understand? Everyone else in this family has ended up in prison, and I want – please, I just want
one
of us –’ He looked at me, and I saw that he was crying again; but this time his face was still, and only his eyes overflowed.

‘I can’t . . .’ I felt shivery and sick, as if I was ill. ‘Where would I go? I
live
here. This is my home. I can’t just run away.’ It was stupid, to be more afraid of starting again somewhere else, on my own, than I was of staying here and getting arrested; but I was. I thought about what it would be like to cross the mountains and live in a foreign country. I didn’t even speak the language. ‘Leon, it can’t be that bad . . .’ I had a sudden, unwelcome flash of memory: Papa, telling Miren’s father that we were safe.

But if I ran away now, I’d never see them again; I’d be giving up on them . . .

I shut my eyes, thinking of Mama and Papa in prison, in the death pits –
no
, that couldn’t happen, it couldn’t . . . Martin, in a cell underground or with a barred window, thinking of me, praying that I’d find a way to get to him . . . My breath caught in my throat, like a sob. There had to be a way, didn’t there? Surely . . .

‘Esteya,’ Leon said, and I heard him exhale. ‘Do you know how many people disappear every day? And most of them . . . most of them get put up against a wall straight away and . . . you can’t do anything. If you try to find them, if you stay here for another week, another day, it’ll be suicide. Do you think Mama and Papa would want you to stay and look for them?
Do
you?’

‘No, but –’ My voice was thin, unconvinced.

There were footsteps, crossing the floor, and suddenly I felt hands on my shoulders, spinning me round. When I opened my eyes I was staring at the wall. The paint was grimy, institutional off-white, bubbling with damp. Leon was behind me; I could feel his breath on my neck. I tried to wrench away, but he was stronger than I expected. He said, ‘Look.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a wall, isn’t it? Look. At the bloody wall. Suppose I told you that Mama and Papa were on the other side of it, and all you had to do was to knock it down and they’d be free. Suppose I told you that.’

I twisted again, but he held me still. I said, ‘Then I’d – I’d knock it down, wouldn’t I?’

‘Go on then. Knock it down.’

I glanced at him. He was serious, his eyes blazing. I put my hands up and pressed against the cool rough surface of the paint. There must have been a metre of plaster and stone and mortar behind it. I leant my weight on it. Without looking at Leon, I said, ‘This is stupid, Leon, this is –’

‘You can’t do it.’ I felt the warmth of his hands on my shoulders disappear. He walked away. ‘You couldn’t do it, no matter what. There are some things you just
can’t do
. And getting Mama and Papa and Martin out of prison, even if you knew they were still alive, even if you knew where they were, Esteya, you wouldn’t have a hope in hell. You’d be arrested too. You’d be mad to try, you’d be
mad
. . .’

I turned round. I raised my voice, and shouted at him, ‘Shut up! I can do it, I can
try
, at least. You’re just cowardly. It’s all your fault anyway. If they’re dead you killed them – don’t tell me what to do, I’ll do it, you’ll see, I’ll find them, I’ll get them out, I won’t just
forget
them, I can, I will, I bloody will, just you try to st–’

Leon came towards me. He swung his hand back and slapped me.

I fell back, and my skull hit the wall with a
crack
.

Leon’s mouth opened. He reached for me, grabbing my arm to keep me on my feet. ‘Esteya – I’m sorry, I only wanted to – are you all right? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, really, forgive me, I didn’t mean –’

I shook my head and my knees gave way. I slid down the wall, until I was sitting in a heap on the floor.

And then I started to cry; and this time I was crying like Leon, without hope, full of grief and guilt and an awful shame, because I knew he was right.

The sunlight had disappeared from the floor, and the wall outside the window was in shadow. I didn’t know how long I’d been here; I felt painfully tired, as if I might fall asleep and never wake up.

There was a kind of scratching sound, like an insect. When I looked up, Leon was writing something on a scrap of paper. He caught my eye and pushed the paper in my direction. I didn’t move, so he walked over to me and put it on the floor in front of me. I let the words blur into a long line of black.

‘Memorise it,’ Leon said very softly.

‘What?’

‘Memorise it. The guards might search you, and he’s a friend of mine.’

I blinked, and read what he’d written.