Harry Turtledove Crosstime 05 The Gladiator (v1.0)

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"Better later than sooner," Gianlranco answered. "Another tournament'll start
soon, and I'm going to win this one!"
"You've got it bad, don't you?" Annarita might almost have been talking with a
girl (riend who had a crush on a boy.
Gianfranco grinned at her he must have recognized the tone. "I have fun.
What's wrong with that?" he said. "I haven't found anything I enjoy more." He
grinned again, in a slightly different way. "And if 1 don't still feel like
that once I find a girl . . . well, I'll worry about it then. I've seen it
happen with other guys."
"All right," she said, because that was in her mind, too.
And then he looked at her again, thoughtfully. "Eduardo said I was a fool
because you weren't my girlfriend."
"Did he?" Annarita said. Gianfranco nodded. She wagged a finger at him. "If
Eduardo wants to tell you how to run your railroads, that's one thing. If he
wants to tell you how to run your life, that's different. It's none of his
business, you hear?"
"Si, Annarita." Gianfranco sounded more subdued than usual. "But you know, it
might not be so bad."
She almost laughed in his face. Only the thought that she'd keep on seeing him
at breakfast and supper every day held her back at first. Her family and the
Mazzillis needed to be able to get along with each other if they could.
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Because they'd shared so much for so long, though, they did have some notion
of what made each other tick. Yes, Gianfranco was a year younger than she was.
But there was more to him than she'd thought, even if it came out in his game
and not in something really important. He might not be her very first choice
for a boyfriend, but she realized she could do worse. A couple of years
earlier, he would have been an impossible object. These days . . . ? She
looked at him with new eyes. No, he wasn't so bad.
She tried not to let any of that show. She didn't want Gianfranco getting a
swelled head. That would make him impossible. All she said was, "Well, we've
both got other things to worry about right now." He just nodded, which was a
point in his favor.
Annarita found out how right she was when she came out of Russian that
morning. She ran into Maria Tenace on the way to her next class. No, that
wasn't how it happened. Maria was lying in wait for her outside Comrade
Montefusco's door, and waved a newspaper in her face as soon as she came out.
"Did you see this?" Maria shouted. "Did you?"
"If you don't get out of my way, Maria, you'll see stars, 1 promise," Annarita
said.
The other girl paused for a moment, then decided Annarita wasn't kidding and
backed up a step. That was smart, because Annarita would have loved an excuse
to knock her block off. But Maria kept waving the paper. "Did you see the Red
Banner? Did you see what's in it?" Her loud, shrill voice reminded Annarita of
the noise a dentist's drill made.
"What's in the Red Banner, Maria?" Annarita asked resignedly. She paid as
little attention to the Party newspaper as she could. Any newspaper was full
of propaganda, but the Red Banner stuffed it in the way a sausagemaker shoved
ground meat and spices into a salami casing.
"Here. See for yourself."
Maria pointed to the story she had in mind. CAPITALIST PLOTTERS ARRESTED IN
ROME! the headline screamed. The article said the Security Police had seized
seven men and a woman on suspicion of trying to undermine
Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. They were accused of planning to set up a
corporation to enrich themselves and grind down their workers. And they were
supposed to have got their ideas from playing games at a shop called The
Conductor's Cap, a place that sounded an awful lot like The Gladiator.
When the Security Police came to this wicked den of iniquity, they found the
proprietor and his henchmen fled, the story said. Their capture is expected
momentarily, for they cannot hope to escape the aroused forces of Socialist
justice.
"You should have listened to me." Vindictive pleasure glowed on Maria's face.
It bubbled in her voice, like noxious gas bubbling up in swamp water.
Even if she knew what she was talking about, her attitude disgusted Annarita.
"Why should anyone listen to you, Maria?" she asked.
"Because I was right!" Maria exclaimed.
"A stopped clock is right twice a day. Nobody pays any attention to it
anyway," Annarita said.
She got what she wanted she made Maria angry, too. It wasn't pretty. It was
scary, because Annarita could see Maria putting her in a mental card file.
Subversive, the card said. Reactionary: Capitalist sympathizer. Those were the
cards that spawned denunciations, all right.
"Go ahead. Have your joke," Maria said now. "But they'll come after The
Gladiator, too. And do you know what they'll do then? They'll come after you.
And do you know what else? I'll be glad!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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