Love in Revolution Page 7

  I stood up, but I couldn’t make myself open my bedroom door. I was cold, properly cold now; but I felt foolish too, half dressed, as if it made a difference that I was in my nightdress. I grabbed my cardigan and wrapped it round my shoulders, and shoved my feet into my shoes. It helped a little, not to be barefoot. Then, gritting my teeth, I went out on to the landing and looked carefully over the banisters. It was dark, and nothing moved; there was just silence.

  I wished Martin had woken up. I thought about knocking on his door, but I didn’t want to make any noise. I was shaking. I went slowly down the stairs, my skin prickling as I listened; but there was still nothing, no movement or sound. There was only the moonlight, steady and silent, giving everything a faint silver edge.

  And when I got to the bottom of the stairs, everything was so dark and quiet that my heart slowed a little. There was no one here. There was only a pale rectangle on the telephone table, grainy and blurry-edged in the darkness. When I picked it up there was just enough light to read Papa in thick black ink. Leon’s handwriting.

  I fumbled, tearing at the envelope, my hands clumsy and sticking to the paper. For a moment, when I got the page out, I thought it was blank. I reached out, finding the light switch with my fingers, and then had to close my eyes as the world leapt into bright yellow, dazzling me. I waited a few seconds, squeezing my eyelids tight against the light, and then opened them. I blinked and looked down at the bit of paper in my hand. The writing on it was thin and spidery, hard to read.

  Dear Papa, it said, By the time you read this I will be on the train to Irunja. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I can’t sleep, so I’m leaving now and I’ll wait at the station for the early train. I want to be sure that if anyone comes looking for me, I’m not there.

  The relief went to my knees and my heart and my hands all at once. I leant back against the wall, hot and trembling, and heard myself laugh in a quiet alien chuckle that went on and on. I sounded like a madwoman, even to myself, but I couldn’t stop. All of a sudden I saw how stupid I’d been, to be afraid that someone had come for Leon; because they pounded on the door, didn’t they? They didn’t care if they woke the whole household up and caused a panic, and they didn’t let people leave notes for their parents . . .

  I don’t know when I’ll see you again. The Party needs me, Papa – more than you do, anyway, or my stepmother. I know you’re afraid of my getting into trouble, but don’t be. I’m working for a better world, where no one will be dragged away in the middle of the night and tortured and never seen again. You have to let me do that.

  Will you tell Esteya and Martin that one of my friends has promised me tickets for the final of the King’s Cup? Maybe they can visit me in Irunja then.

  With a sudden shock, I realised I was reading someone else’s letter. I imagined Mama’s face if she saw me, and put it hastily down on the telephone table.

  Right now, Leon would be waiting at the station – or outside it, sitting on his suitcase, probably reading a copy of The Communist Manifesto by moonlight. He was safe, and we were safe, and even if the policeman came back tomorrow to arrest him, no one would get hurt. I felt the giggles of relief bubble up again. I’d been so scared . . .

  I turned around to go upstairs. The little side table caught my eye, and I paused, looking at the space where the inkwell had been. The circle in the dust was blatant in the electric light. Dorotea hadn’t even bothered to wipe it away.

  I thought I was feeling glad that Leon was safe; but somehow, without anything changing, I knew it wasn’t gladness. It was fury. I was so angry I could hardly breathe.

  Skizi. This was all her fault.

  I couldn’t believe the cheek of it. How had she dared? The guilt and the hurt faded, until I couldn’t feel anything but rage.

  It was as if I was watching myself from outside. I saw myself open the front door and step out into the street, head held high, fists clenched at my sides. The door swung noisily shut behind me, but I didn’t look round. I saw myself stride away, towards the church, following the monochrome streets, my footsteps ringing out in the dead silence. When I got to the church, I turned left, down the alleyways, trying to remember where Skizi had taken me. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going, but I kept walking and I wasn’t afraid, even when I could hardly see anything. I came out by the river and made my way up the hill, through the long grass. Now I could see the path, wide and pale in the moonlight, with low, odd shadows, and the hut and its olive tree, in front of the moon. I sped up, breaking into a run, and my bare feet felt slippery in my shoes.

  When I was a few metres from the hut I stopped to catch my breath. Up here the breeze was stronger, and the olive leaves rustled, whispering to me. I was still shaking with anger. I took deep breaths, but my heart was racing and I couldn’t get it to slow down.

  I walked through the grass to the door of the hut, careful not to kick the blocks of stone that were scattered around. I heard something on the ground scuttle away as I came close. The door was ajar, and it opened loudly as I pushed it, scraping on the ground. I heard a movement from the other end of the hut, where Skizi’s bundle of blankets had been.

  I said clearly, ‘Get up. You dishonest, thieving Zikindi scum.’

  There was a patch of paler grey that raised itself, and I saw the glint of her eyes. ‘Esteya?’ Her voice was thick with sleep; it made her sound very young, like a child.

  ‘You stole my key,’ I said. ‘You let yourself into our house and took my mother’s jewellery and Martin’s knife and all the little valuable things. You’re a thief.’

  There was a silence. The world was developing, very slowly, like a photograph: now it was clearer, with subtle, hardly perceptible hints of colour. Skizi was sitting up, her hair over her face, her eyes catching the light.

  She said, ‘Yes . . . ?’

  It took me aback; I’d expected her to deny it. I took a deep breath and tried to remember what I’d been planning to say. ‘Well, I want them back. Now. They’re not yours. It was a wicked – a wrong – a horrible thing to do.’ I heard my voice, and wondered why I didn’t sound convinced by my own words. ‘Give them back right now.’

  Skizi raised her hand to push her hair out of her eyes and leant forward, watching me through the dimness. She said, ‘Do you need them?’

  ‘No, but – no, but they’re not yours. You stole them.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so . . .’ she said again. Her voice was quiet and level, as if she didn’t understand what I wanted.

  I strode into the middle of the room. The holes in the roof threw a pattern of moonlight on the floor, like angular lace. I said, ‘Where are they? Where have you hidden them? I want them back this instant.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you really need them.’

  But she didn’t move. I could see her properly now. She was still wearing her grimy shirt. Her neck was only a little bit darker than the cloth.

  There was a silence.

  She said, ‘It must be really hard, fighting to survive in a world where you don’t even have a gold crucifix or a little silver box shaped like a heart.’

  There was a part of me that wanted to laugh; a part of me that noticed, surprised, that she did know what sarcasm was, after all.

  I said, ‘I could have told the police about you.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ she said, and I didn’t know whether it was a question.

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I stared at her. I said, ‘Did you want me to?’

  She shrugged. ‘No, of course not. But most people would have done. I thought you might. I hid everything, just in case.’

  There was a silence. I wished I was still angry; it had made everything so simple.

  She said, ‘If all you wanted was your things, you wouldn’t have come here. You’d have told the police.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I want Martin’s knife, that’s all. The folding knife. It’s not worth anything anyway. Plea
se. Just that, and I’ll go. I won’t come back, if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘That’s all you want?’ she said. ‘Really all you want?’

  I didn’t answer. She got up, went to the corner of the hut and knelt on the floor. There was the sound of wood creaking as she levered up a half-rotten floorboard, and she dipped her hand into the dark space beneath it. Then she stood up again and held something out to me.

  I took it. It sat heavily in my hand, the metal cool to the touch. Martin would be glad to get it back; I wondered how I’d give it to him, without letting on about Skizi.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. It should have seemed strange to thank her, when she’d stolen it in the first place; but it didn’t.

  She smiled without meeting my eyes, and touched the knife in my hand with the tip of her forefinger. There was a shaft of moonlight catching her cheekbone, like silver. It made me think of my mother’s jewellery.

  She said, very softly, ‘I didn’t take anything of yours . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  Everything was very still. Neither of us moved.

  I leant forwards, without letting myself think, and kissed her cheek. I just had time to notice that her skin was smooth and cool and slightly damp; then she turned her head to look at me, and her mouth brushed against mine.

  I rocked backwards, almost losing my balance; instinctively, to stop myself falling, I grabbed her shoulders and held myself upright. I started to say, ‘Sorry –’

  And then she was kissing me: fiercely, awkwardly, as though she was thirsty, as though she couldn’t wait. Her mouth was hot and tasted of nothing and sent shivers down my back. She was holding me, one hand on my head, one on my waist, so that I couldn’t get away, even if I’d wanted to. I heard myself try to speak, idiotically, but she took no notice and there was no time, no space to insist or breathe or think.

  I don’t know how much time passed before we both ran out of air. Then we separated and stood looking at each other, breathing hard. I started to laugh. Skizi watched me, her mouth in a kind of half-smile. When I stopped finally, she put her hands on my face, tracing the shape of my cheeks, running the ball of her thumb over my mouth. I thought of her drawing my face, how this and that were almost the same thing.

  She kissed me again. This time she was tentative, very gentle, as if she was listening for my response; and it was me who was fierce, taking control, not letting her get away.

  Somehow, sometime after that, I think Skizi drew me over to her bed. Or maybe it was the other way round.

  I made my way home just after dawn, leaving Skizi half asleep and wrapped in blankets against the early-morning chill. I was so tired that I’d come out of the other end of it, like a tunnel, and I was blazing with a kind of electricity, as if I’d give off sparks if someone touched me. I felt like an angel, or a god, as if everything was possible. I didn’t have a key for the front door, but I knew I could climb over the back wall, get in through the back door and go upstairs without waking anyone. No one would ever know, unless they could read it in my face. I took deep breaths, wondering whether anyone could see me and not know.

  When I went past the church I stopped, my eye caught by something on the wall of the pello court. I stood, my arms wrapped around myself, and looked at it.

  Words: huge, two-metre-high words, in red paint, and the Communist fist stencilled beside them.

  It said: WE RISE.

  I stood there and looked at it, feeling as if I’d written them myself. WE RISE.

  And I thought: Yes. Yes, we do.

  Watch us. We rise.

  Autumn

  Five

  That summer went on longer than usual, baking the earth hard and filling the air with a great veil of dust that shone gold and ochre in the daytime and left a halo round the moon at night. There was no rain, and the sun was merciless, burning clouds away as soon as they appeared. Papa kept getting cases of heat exhaustion – one little boy died of it in August – and the fountains in the town square ran red and brown and then dried up completely. By October you could see fatigue on everyone’s face, and hear the beginnings of desperation in the farmers’ voices.

  But I couldn’t have cared less about the weather; except that, if I’d thought about it, I would have been glad that it was warm enough at night to sleep in Skizi’s hut, and so hot during the day that we could swim in the river without minding the icy mountain water. We spent whole days and nights together, hiding or running away whenever we saw someone who’d recognise me, and nothing else mattered. I went home for dinner, but the meal passed in silence mostly. In the evenings Papa was too tired to talk much, and Mama’s efforts petered out when no one answered her. Even Martin was quiet and pensive, watching me and pretending not to. After a few days of trying to follow me, he’d given up asking where I went. I thought he spent every day alone in his room, or playing pello with one of the stuck-up boys from his school, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t ask. I knew he wouldn’t tell Mama that I was sneaking out every night and only coming home to wash and eat, and didn’t care about anything else.

  And Skizi . . .

  Skizi was perfect.

  It was the beginning of October, and we were sitting outside the hut. The sun had gone down, and the sky was turning a deeper and deeper blue, as if the world was expanding like a bubble. There was a breeze from the west, blowing cool air into our faces. Skizi had her knees drawn up, and her hands linked between them. I couldn’t help stealing looks at her, because she was so still, and so beautiful. After a while she turned to look at me, without smiling, and her gaze was so level and intimate that I had to look away. I could feel her staring at me, and the heat rising in my cheeks.

  ‘See?’ she said, with a laugh in her voice. ‘All this staring gets annoying.’

  ‘I’m not annoyed.’

  ‘What are you then?’

  I shot her a glance, and the gleam in her eyes softened. I thought she was going to touch me, but she just went on looking at me, with a strange half-smile.

  ‘I’m nothing,’ I said, at last. ‘Stop it.’

  She laughed properly then, and dug in her pockets for her tin of dog-ends and cigarette papers. ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ I wanted to kiss her, more than anything, but even now I didn’t quite dare to do it – not just like that, while she was concentrating on something else, like constructing a cigarette from the dog-ends she’d picked off the street. Even now, when we kissed, I felt a pang of surprise and helpless pride that she let me near her. I turned my head and forced myself to keep my eyes on the darkening blue-to-black sky. I heard her light the cigarette, and smelt smoke.

  ‘I have to go soon,’ I said.

  ‘So go.’

  I swallowed. ‘I don’t know when I can come back.’

  She glanced at me and shrugged. ‘Come when you can.’

  ‘School starts next week, and . . . and this Sunday it’s the King’s Cup final, I have to go to Irunja with Martin, Leon got us tickets . . .’

  Something flickered in her face, but all she said was, ‘Lucky you. You’ll see Angel Corazon play.’

  ‘Will I? I didn’t know.’

  ‘Against Hiram Jelek or Francois Mendoza. You didn’t even know?’

  I remembered how I’d been before last year’s King’s Cup: obsessed, scouring the papers for every article, every photo, begging Papa to let me watch the final on the Ibarras’ television with everyone else. But this summer I’d hardly noticed; and the only time I thought about Angel Corazon was when I saw his face on Skizi’s wall. I said, ‘Angel Corazon . . .’ and felt a faint surge of excitement, like an echo.

  Skizi bent her head again over her cigarette. She said, without looking up, ‘I’d like to see that game. It should be good.’

  I watched my hand reach out for hers and then stop. ‘I wish you could come.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone to see me with you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind . .
.’

  She looked at me, half smiling, and then tapped her cigarette ash carefully into the grass. ‘It’s all right. I understand. Look at me. Who wouldn’t be ashamed?’

  ‘I’m not. Really, I’m not.’ I didn’t know if it was true.

  She laughed. There was a silence, and I heard the church clock strike the half-hour. I was going to be late, if I didn’t hurry.

  ‘Imagine what your parents would think of me. Your mama.’

  I shrugged and looked away. It was true that I didn’t want anyone to know about Skizi; but not because I was ashamed. I just didn’t think anyone else would understand.

  She laughed again softly. She’d never heard my mother speak, but somehow she could mimic her to perfection. She said, ‘Esteya! What on earth are you doing, with that Zikindi boy? No – oh, heavens! – that Zikindi girl? Oh, the shame, the shame . . .’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I never thought a child of mine . . . Oh, I can’t bear it! How could you, Esteya? What have I done, to deserve thi–’

  ‘Shut up!’ I was on my feet, dragging her up to face me, my fingers digging into her shoulders. I shook her, hard. ‘Stop it. Stop it! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anyth–’

  She tried to wrench herself away, clawing at my hands with her nails. ‘You think it wouldn’t be like that? You think she’d invite me in for tea? Please, come in, you twisted Zikindi bi–’

  ‘Shut up!’ I said, and slapped her.

  The shock of it stopped us both in our tracks; we stood still and quiet, looking at each other. For a second I hoped, shamefully, that she’d hit me back, and then we’d be quits. But she didn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Skizi, I’m sorry –’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, shrugging. There was a faint hand-shaped shadow on her cheek, only just visible in the twilight. ‘I asked for it, didn’t I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t. I mean – yes, but –’

  ‘Really, it’s all right. It’s not the first time someone’s hit me.’