The Gladiator

"Did the Security Police catch the people from The Conductor's Cap in Rome?" A

"No," Maria admitted, even more reluctantly than before. "But they can't hope to escape revolutionary justice, either."

"How do you know they're really guilty of anything?" A

"They must be guilty. If they weren't, the Security Police wouldn't go after them." Maria could even say that and sound as if she meant it. Anyone with the sense of a head of cabbage knew the Security Police did whatever they wanted and whatever their Russian bosses told them to do. Whether you were guilty or i

"I guess." A

"F'm going to tell Filippo to make sure my report on The Gladiator is the official one," Maria said importantly. "I don't want the Young Socialists' League to be seen as out of step with the advance of revolutionary and progressive elements in the state."

"You can't make a majority out of a minority," A

Maria looked at her as if she were very foolish to say such a thing. "Of course I can. What do you think Bolshevik means?"

A

"Do you really want to get tagged as an unreliable? You're sure working on it." Maria went off shaking her head before A

At least half in a daze, A

"Yes, Comrade Montefusco. Please excuse me," A

"Well, I'll try," he answered. "I know you're a better student than you're showing. Is everything at home the way it ought to be?"

"Yes, Comrade," she answered truthfully. If the authorities had left The Gladiator alone… If Maria had let her alone… But none of that had anything to do with what went on in her apartment.

Comrade Montefusco still didn't look as if he believed her. "Try to keep your mind on the grammar and the vocabulary, then," he said.

"Yes, Comrade," A

Things were almost as bad in her other classes. They got a little better, because she wasn't in such a state of shock as she had been to start the day. Even so, she had a lot more on her mind than the rest of the students did.

She went looking for Filippo Antonelli at lunch. He found her first. One look at his face told her he'd already talked-or, more likely, listened-to Maria. "You're not going to change the report, are you?" A

"Well, I don't know," Filippo answered. "If we're on the wrong side here, it makes us look bad. We shouldn't do that, not if we can help it."

"We still don't know the authorities raided The Gladiator. All we know is, it's closed." A

And Filippo broke the straws even as she took them in her hand. "The Security Police did raid the place," he said. "They didn't catch anybody, though."

"How do you know?" A

Filippo looked smug. "I know because I've got friends I can ask," he answered. "And I'll tell you something else fu

"What's that supposed to mean?" A

"No, not only in the Italian records. That's what my friend says," Filippo told her. "Not in anybody's records, even the Russians'."

"That's impossible," A

"I thought so, too, but that's what I heard," Filippo said. "And they found a big secret room under The Gladiator."

"What was in it?" A

"It does, doesn't it?" Filippo said. "There wasn't anything in it. It was just a room with a concrete floor. There were yellow lines painted on the floor, lines that might warn you to stay away from something, but there wasn't anything to stay away from."

"That's… peculiar," A

"Well, he must have been there once upon a time, or the Security Police wouldn't have raided the place," Filippo said, which proved he believed what his friends in high places told him.

"I guess so." A

"Question him, I suppose." Filippo sounded as if he didn't want to think about that. Even the way he answered said as much. It was true, but it didn't go far enough. The Security Police didn't just question. They drugged. They tortured. They did whatever they had to do to find out what they wanted to know. Everybody understood that. But nice people-and Filippo was a nice person-didn't like to dwell on it.

A

Gianfranco went back to the Galleria del Popolo after school hoping for a miracle. Maybe he'd just had a bad dream. Maybe The Gladiator would be open and everything would be fine. Maybe pigs had wings, and they'd built the roof on the Galleria because of that.

The shop was closed. He might have known it would be. He had known it would be. What he hadn't known was that it would be swarming with Security Police officers, the way cut fruit at a picnic would be swarming with ants.

He tried to amble on by as if he'd never had anything to do with Rails across Europe or any of the other games they sold there. One of the men from the Security Police spotted him. "Hey, you!" the officer yelled. "Si, you, kid! C'mere!"

"What do you want?" Gianfranco wasn't so frightened as he might have been. That came from having a father who was a Party official.

"Let's see your identity card and your internal passport," the man said. As in the USSR and most other Communist states, you needed permission to travel inside your own country, not just from one country to another.

"Here you are, Comrade." Gianfranco didn't dream of not handing them over. He had no idea how much trouble you could get in by refusing, and he didn't want to find out.

"So you're Mazzilli's brat, are you?" The officer didn't sound much impressed.