The Gladiator

I wish it weren't like this. I wish we could speak freely. I wish the Security Police would leave us alone. I wish there were no Security Police.

Tf she did say something like that, what would happen? She'd get labeled a counterrevolutionary. She'd get taken somewhere for what they called reeducation. If she was lucky, they'd let her out after a while. Even if they did, though, her chances for making it to the top would be gone forever.

If she wasn't so lucky, or if they thought she was stubborn, she'd go to a camp after reeducation. She'd probably only get five years, ten at the most-she was still young, so they'd give her the benefit of the doubt. But she'd stay under suspicion, under surveillance, the rest of her life.

Just for saying people ought to be free of the Security Police. For saying people ought to be free, period.

That's not right, she thought. It really isn't. She looked around in alarm, as if she'd shouted it as loud as she could. She hadn't, of course, but she worried all the way home anyway. Maybe she really was a counterrevolutionary after all.

Four

"You're helping me in school," Gianfraneo told Eduardo the next time he walked into The Gladiator.

"Don't say that." The clerk thrust out the index and little fingers of his right hand, holding the other two down with his thumb-a gesture against the evil eye. "Who'd come in here if he thought we were educational?"

"But you are. What would you call it?" Gianfranco pointed to the shelves full of books.

"That stuff?" Eduardo shook his head. "That's only to help people play the games better. Games are just games. How can they teach you anything?"

Gianfranco might not be sharp in school. But he could hear irony, even if he didn't always call it by its right name. "You're trying to fool me," he said now. "Lots of people have learned lots of things from your books."

"Now you know our secret," Eduardo whispered hoarsely. "And do you know what happens to people who find out?"

"Tell me," Gianfranco said, curious in spite of himself.

Eduardo used another gesture, with thumb and forefinger-he aimed an imaginary pistol at Gianfranco. "Bang!" he said.

Even though Gianfranco laughed, he wasn't a hundred percent comfortable doing it. Eduardo was joking-Gianfranco thought Eduardo was joking-but he sounded a little too serious. If The Gladiator had a real secret, he might do everything he could to keep it.

How much was that? How much could people at a little shop like this do if somebody powerful-say, the Security Police-came down on them? Gianfranco's first thought was, Not much. But after a moment, he started to wonder. The Young Socialists' League at Hoxha Polytechnic couldn't be the first set of zealots to notice them. They were still here, though. That argued they had ways of protecting themselves.

But Gianfranco had more urgent things on his mind. "Is Alfredo here yet?" he asked.

Eduardo gri

"I don't know about you, but I sure am," Gianfranco answered, gri

"If you think it would, then it would." In a sly voice, Eduardo went on, "Would you get that excited about finishing in the top two in your class?"

"I don't think so!" Gianfranco said. "Are you going to go all Stakhanovite on me? I thought I could get away from all that stuff as soon as I left school."

"You're probably working harder here than you are there," the clerk said.

"Yes," Gianfranco said, and then, in the same breath, "No."

"Which is it?" Eduardo asked. "You can't have that one both ways, you know."

"Maybe I try harder here than I do in school," Gianfranco said. "I wouldn't be surprised. But this isn't work, you know what I mean? I want to come here. I have fun here. Going to school…" He shook his head. "It's like going to a camp. You do it because you have to, not 'cause you want to. They make you do things, and they don't care if you don't care about them. You've got to do 'em anyway." He eyed Eduardo. "Does that make any sense lo you?"

"Some, maybe, but not as much as you think it does," Eduardo answered. "You've never been inside a camp-I know that. But do you know anybody who has?"

"The janitor at our building-he's a zek, I'm pretty sure," Gianfranco said. The word for a camp inmate sounded about as un-Italian as anything could. Just about every European language had borrowed it from Russian, though. There wasn't a country without camps these days, and there wasn't a country without people who'd done their terms.

"Well, ask him whether he'd rather do algebra and lit or chop wood and make buildings and starve," Eduardo said. "See what he tells you."

"I hear what you're saying. But school still makes you do stuff you don't care about and you don't want to do," Gianfranco said. "That's what I don't like."

"Some of that stuff, you end up needing it," Eduardo said. "You maybe don't think so now, but you do."

"Oh, yeah? How much algebra have you done since you got behind that counter?" Gianfranco asked.

Eduardo looked wounded, which made Gianfranco think he'd scored a hit. But the clerk said, "All right, so I don't have to know X equals twenty-seven. Even so, algebra and your languages make you think straight. You need that, especially with some of the other stuff they put you through."

Which other stuff did he mean? Literature? History the way schools taught it? Dialectical materialism and Marxist philosophy? That was how it sounded to Gianfranco. But he couldn't ask Eduardo to say more, not without seeming to want to entrap him. And Eduardo couldn't say more on his own, not without asking to get denounced.

Before Gianfranco could figure out a way around his dilemma, the bell over the front door rang. In walked Alfredo, with his graying mustache. He looked rumpled and smelled of tobacco smoke. "Ciao, Eduardo," he said, and then, grudging Gianfranco a nod, "Ciao."

"Ciao," Gianfranco answered.

"Shall we do it?" Alfredo didn't sound excited or anything. He just sounded as if he wanted to get Gianfranco out of the way so he could go on to something serious. It was intimidating.

After a moment, Gianfranco wondered if it wasn't intimidating on purpose. If it was an act… If it was an act, it was a good one. He made his own nod as casual as he could, as if he knew he was a tough guy, too. "Si," he said, sounding almost bored. "Let's."

Eduardo had heard him being all bubbly before. The clerk had to know he was faking his cool now. But Eduardo didn't let on. He played fair-and why not? The Gladiator got the same fee no matter who won.

Gianfranco and Alfredo went into the back room. Other games were already going there. The Gladiator had games going from the minute it opened till the time when the clerks kicked everybody out so they could close up. "Good luck," Gianfranco said as the two of them sat down.

Alfredo looked surprised. He seemed to have to make himself nod in return. "Thanks," he said. "You, too." He couldn't keep himself from adding, "It's a game of skill, though."

"Well, sure," Gianfranco said. "That's what makes it fun." Alfredo sent him a measuring stare. Gianfranco felt under the microscope. Part of the skill in the game was figuring out how the guy on the other side of the board thought.

They rolled for first build. That was luck, like seeing who went first in a chess game. Gianfranco outrolled Alfredo, so he got to start. Against some players, it wouldn't have mattered one way or the other. Against Alfredo, he figured he needed every edge he could get.

He would have expanded faster against some players. If some people saw you get a big railroad net in a hurry, they lost heart. Gianfranco played a more careful game against Alfredo. Somebody who knew what he was doing would wait till you got overextended, then attack your weak routes, drive you out of cities where you didn't have a strong grip, and take them over for himself.