Love in Revolution (13 page)

The noise smashed into us, so loud my ears were hurting.

The referee let the players take a longer break than normal. Jelek took a gulp of his drink, gargled and spat, then wiped himself vigorously with the towel; but Angel only wandered over to the wall of the court and stood staring at it, without even remembering to have a drink.

The referee took a deep breath, and said, ‘Final game. Mr Jelek to serve. And . . . play.’

Angel turned and walked back to the middle of the court, still staring over his shoulder at the wall, as if he was trying to learn it by heart. Jelek stared at him for a long time. Then, with his jaw clenched, he took the ball from the official and served.

Jelek wasn’t in the lead any more, but he wasn’t the best player in the country for nothing. When he served you could see, just from that one shot, that he wasn’t going to go away.

But Angel was playing well now. No, not
well
. He was playing . . . unbelievably. It took a player like Hiram Jelek just to hang on to him. Everything seemed to be on his side: the ball, the sidelines, the wall . . . He did things that looked impossible, shot after shot, so even the people who hadn’t seen him play before started to realise that he wasn’t fluking anything. It wasn’t the devil’s own luck; it was genius.

But Jelek was good, and he didn’t give up.

The roar at the end of each point was deafening; and then it dropped into a silence so dense that it seemed as loud as the noise had been. I couldn’t breathe. My throat was dry and aching, and I realised I’d been shouting, along with everyone else. I couldn’t look anywhere but at the court, at Angel . . .

The serve swung back and forth. Twenty twenty-five. Twenty-five twenty. Twenty twenty-five . . .

When the score finally changed – thirty twenty, Angel’s serve – the roar was so loud I felt the vibrations in my bones, like thunder right overhead. I was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. The stands were trembling under our feet, as if the noise could split them apart like a ship in a storm. Two more points, two more points . . . but there was no room to think, only to watch with my heart in my mouth, holding on to Martin’s hand as if I was in danger of being washed away. My pulse was shaking my whole body, saying: oh please, oh please, oh please . . .

‘Quiet, please,’ the referee shouted, pounding on his desk with his fist over and over again until, gradually, the crowd subsided.

And then the silence was like nothing I’d ever heard before.

I didn’t want to watch – I
couldn’t
watch – but I couldn’t close my eyes or look away either. Angel took the ball from the official, took a deep breath, and then served. He snatched a little at the serve, as if he didn’t want to think about it too much, but Jelek wasn’t quick enough to do anything more than smash it back against the wall. And neither player seemed to want to take a risk: shot after shot went into the middle of the court, bouncing at an easy height.

It was Jelek who made the first move: suddenly, as if he’d had enough, he sent the ball spinning off the wall and into the far corner of the court. But Angel was there, smacking it back, dancing out of Jelek’s way to avoid a collision.

I held on to Martin’s hand, hardly realising I was doing it, while the shots got more and more outrageous, the returns harder and harder.

Martin hissed, ‘Esteya, let go of my hand, will you? I might need my fingers, one day.’

Jelek’s next shot took the pace out of the ball, so it bounced off the wall and dropped dead weight to the ground. Angel did well to get to it, but he didn’t even seem out of breath. He knocked it upwards, almost vertical, so it brushed the wall and looped back over his head towards the back of the court. I thought it was going long, but Jelek jumped and smashed it back before it bounced.

And missed.

‘Forty twenty,’ the referee said.

Angel served. Jelek returned it. And then – as if he was just playing against the church wall somewhere, mucking about with a friend – Angel knocked the ball against the wall, straight and low, and sent it wide. It shot sideways, almost parallel with the wall, and hit the line in a puff of white dust.

Jelek stood in the middle of the court, his shoulders sagging.

The devil’s own luck, I thought. But it wasn’t luck.

The referee said, ‘Final game and match, Mr Corazon.’

It was like being in the middle of an explosion. The noise clawed at my eardrums, shook my bones, made the stands shake, like an earthquake. I was shouting – I couldn’t help myself – but I had my hands over my ears, trying to keep out the uproar.

And Skizi was shouting too, with one fist in the air, as if she was giving the Communist salute.

It went on for so long I thought it might never stop. But in the end it faded: not stopping, but receding a little, as if the tide had gone out.

Jelek had gone over to his chair and was wiping himself down, flicking the towel furiously, as if he wanted to hit someone with it. But Angel was standing in the middle of the court, his mouth open and eyes blank, totally still. He didn’t even look happy; just completely stunned. A few photographers had raced to the front of the stands, and tomorrow Angel would be on the front of all the papers.

‘He looks like the village idiot,’ Martin said. ‘Honestly, he’s practically dribbling.’

The referee got down from his chair and nodded to the official, who disappeared into the red-and-green tunnel and then re-emerged, holding the King’s Cup. It was smaller than I expected, but the wide, two-handled bowl shape was familiar. I could have drawn the King’s Cup with my eyes shut.

And when Angel saw it, he unfroze. A slow, wonderful smile spread over his face, and he made a tiny movement with his hand, as if he couldn’t wait to touch it.

Martin asked again, ‘So who’s going to present it? If the King isn’t here?’

And the same question seemed to have occurred to the crowd, as the murmur grew louder again, with an aggressive, mutinous note to it. Jelek glanced round, up at the box, and then shrugged.
He
didn’t care; it wasn’t as if
he’d
won the Cup . . .

The referee said something quietly to the official, and then announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I will now, as His Majesty’s appointed delegate, present the –’

But he didn’t finish the sentence. The buzz of anger got louder and deeper. The crowd was supporting Angel now: after the game he’d just played, they couldn’t believe the
referee
was going to present the Cup . . . An apple core flew from the back row and landed damply on the baseline of the court.

And then there was a bottle, and another, smashing on the clay like little glass bombs. The referee drew back, pulling the official with him, and glanced over at the ranks of policemen who had been guarding the ticket gates. They had their hands on their truncheons, and one of them nodded at the referee.

But the crowd on the east side was overflowing the stand, surging and pushing at the barriers, catcalling and raining pennies and bits of rubbish on the court. A tomato hit one of the policemen, and he swung round, scowling.

I was glad Skizi was in the stand opposite, not on the east side, where the trouble was. In spite of the sun I felt cold.

The referee took the Cup from the official, and said, ‘On behalf of His Majesty, it’s my duty and honour to present the –’

Angel took a step forward, beaming. But the noise from the east stand was overwhelming. The barrier was being battered down, and at the back of the stand there was a group of young men throwing everything they could get their hands on. The policemen were shuffling and glancing around, as if they were waiting for an order from someone.

There was a shout from the royal box.

The referee turned to look; so did the players, and the policemen.

One of the young men – a kid really, a skinny, shaggy kid in a brown shirt – had climbed into the box somehow, and now he was standing on the throne, dancing a little jig of defiance. He shouted something, his whole face distorted, and then swung his arm back and threw a coin. One of the policemen cried out and stumbled back, blood running down his face. There was a crack, as if one of the stands had given way, and the kid in the box dropped to his knees, with a dark patch on his shirt.

Not everyone noticed. The barrier fell with a crash, and people surged on to the court, shouting, pushing the policemen, trying to grab their weapons.

But I saw the blood spread out from the bullet wound in the kid’s chest, and the policeman at the far end of the line look down at the gun in his hand in amazement, as if it had fired on its own.

Martin said, in a small, tight voice, ‘Oh, God.’

Leon turned to look at us, his glasses flashing. ‘You two should go back to the station
right now
.’

But no one was leaving the arena. The policemen were panicking, shouting to each other, threatening the crowd. And then someone – you couldn’t see his face – threw himself into the line of uniforms, screaming and flailing, a broken bottle in his hand, and it was as if something snapped. There were shots – I saw three people drop to the ground – but now the crowd’s blood was up, and they outnumbered the policemen twenty-five to one . . .

It was a battle. I sat still, frozen. I felt as if I might be sick. At the other end of the court I caught a glimpse of Angel and Jelek being hustled into the red-and-green tunnel, away from the danger. So Angel wouldn’t even get to touch the King’s Cup, after all that. Somehow it still seemed to matter.

The stand around us was emptying. I realised that there were people climbing out over the back and sides of the stands, leaping to one of the neighbouring roofs or dropping a couple of metres past the barrier down to the street. They were shoving each other, scrabbling and pushing to get to safety.

I swallowed. I said, ‘It’s not
that
dangerous, is it?’ My voice sounded high and thin.

Leon said, ‘You have to get out, both of you. Go straight to the station. No – go straight to my rooms, in the university quarter. They’re number twelve, in the building opposite the Royal Museum. You’ll be safe there.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Martin said. He sounded hostile, so I knew he was afraid too. ‘Stay here and lead the revolution?’

‘Be part of it, anyway,’ Leon said. He grinned, and the grin scared me more than the shots had.

‘Don’t be stupid. It isn’t a revolution,’ I said. ‘It’s just a fight. Isn’t it?’

‘Go on. Go,’ Leon said, and stood up. He took his glasses off and put them in his pocket.

‘All right,’ Martin said, and took hold of my arm. ‘Come on.’

‘But –’ I looked across at the stands opposite, but I couldn’t see Skizi. My heart twisted, squeezing out the blood, and I felt dizzy. Where was she? I couldn’t leave her here, I couldn’t leave . . .

‘Come
on
! What’s the matter with you? Let Leon stay and get killed if he wants to, he’s hopeless, we can’t do anything about him . . . Please, Esteya.’

‘I – I thought I saw someone I –’

Martin didn’t answer. His grip tightened on my arm and he dragged me sideways, towards the bottom corner of the stands, where we could drop down into the street. I stumbled after him. I could feel tears running down my face. Skizi – where was Skizi?

And then, before I had time to struggle or pull away from him, Martin half lifted, half pushed me over the barrier, and I dropped painfully, landing in an awkward crouch that punched the breath out of me. Then he was beside me, and the noise had faded, and we were in a quiet street, full of people running away.

Seven

I didn’t know where we were, or where we were going, but Martin took my hand, held it tightly and walked as if he knew the way to Leon’s rooms without even having to think about it. I couldn’t stop crying. Once he turned and looked at me as if he was about to say something, but in the end he closed his mouth again and gave my hand an extra squeeze.

‘They were shooting those people,’ I said. ‘With real bullets. They
shot
them. That kid in the royal box . . .’

‘Yes,’ he said, and pulled me sideways, down a narrow street that smelt of drains. I realised, without caring, that he’d kept us off the main streets, where the crowds would be.

‘I want to go back,’ I said. ‘Please, Martin . . .’

He gritted his teeth and pretended he hadn’t heard.

‘Please. Leon’s there. I don’t think we should leave th– him . . .’

‘Shut up, Esteya. We’re not going back. I don’t want to get shot.’

‘It’s our duty! Stop being such a coward. We should be there, with the –’

He swung round, and his face was white and furious. ‘
What?
Our
duty
? To be with the working classes, while they get massacred? God, you sound like Leon! I’m not a coward, I’m just not stupid. You want to kill yourself, you can do it nice and neatly at home with one of Papa’s scalpels, not get battered to bits or shot here. Now, you dare say another word, you
dare
, and I will never, ever forgive you.’ He paused and took a breath. ‘Understand?’