Maybe my jather could keep me safe, he thought. Plenty of Party officials' children stayed out of trouble when other kids without connections ended up in deep. But if he got arrested on charges having to do with capitalism, would the Security Police care whose son he was? He didn't think so.
And he didn't think he ought to rely on his father here anyway. "All I've done is play games and read books," he said. "How bad can that be?"
"As bad as the Security Police want to make it," Annarita said, which was bound to be true. "Don't do anything silly, that's all."
By the way she talked, he half expected to see Security Police vans in front of Hoxha Polytechnic to carry off all the students who ever went into The Gladiator. No vans there. Everything seemed normal. Everything was normal. He had an ordinary day. He didn't butcher his algebra quiz, but he didn't think he aced it, either.
As soon as the closing bell let him escape, he headed for the Galleria del Popolo. It had started to drizzle by then, but the glassed-over roof held the rain at bay. He bought a couple oi biseotti and a Fanta to keep his own engine steaming while he played at The Gladiator.
Only one thing wrong-the shop was closed. When he tried the door, it was locked. Looking inside, he didn't see anybody. He went to the leather-goods shop next door. "Where is everybody?" he asked a man setting out wallets.
"Beats me," the fellow answered. "They never opened up today."
"It sure looks empty in there." Gianfranco remembered what had happened to people who played at The Conductor's Cap down in Rome. Worry in his voice, he said, "They aren't in trouble, are they? I mean, the Security Police didn't come for them or anything?"
"Not that I know of. What would the Security Police want with a game shop, for heaven's sake?" The man laughed to show how silly he thought that was. Gianfranco wished he thought it was silly, too. The man went on, "Scusi, per piacere, but I have to put these out." He reached for more wallets.
Get lost, kid. That was what he meant, even if he made it sound more polite. "Grazie" Gianfranco said, and mooched out of the shop, his hands in his pockets. He stood there on the sidewalk, staring at The Gladiator. It was as if the place would magically open up if he just stared hard enough.
No matter how hard he stared, The Gladiator stayed dark and quiet. Plenty of people walked past Gianfranco, but nobody paid too much attention to him. Under the roof of the Galleria del Popolo, you didn't have to go anywhere fast-or at all. You could amble along, or you could just stand still.
A couple of minutes later, Carlo came up to him. "What are you doing hanging around out here?" the other gamer asked. "Why aren't you in there playing?"
"Because it's closed," Gianfranco answered mournfully.
"What? You're crazy. The Gladiator's never closed this time of day." Carlo walked over to the shop and tried the latch. It didn't open, of course. He looked very surprised and very foolish.
"You were saying?" Gianfranco rubbed it in.
"Why are they closed? Do you know? Is somebody sick? Is somebody short of money? Can we do anything to help?" Carlo could spit questions faster than Gianfranco could possibly hope to answer them.
But he did have an answer: "I think they're in trouble."
"Of course, they're in trouble. If they weren't in trouble, ragazzo, the place would be open," Carlo said. "But what kind?"
"You call me kid again and you'll be in trouble," Gian-franco growled. "And I know what kind of trouble they're in and you don't, so don't you think maybe you ought to keep your big mouth shut and your ears open?"
He didn't impress Carlo. He might have known he wouldn't. "So what kind of trouble are they in, if you're so smart?" the university student asked.
"Political trouble," Gianfranco said softly.
He wondered if he would have to spell that out for Carlo, but he didn't. The other gamer got it right away. "What happened?" he demanded. "Did some jerk decide he wanted to be a capitalist for real and not just on the game board?"
"Not here. Down in Rome. Guys who play at a place called The Conductor's Cap," Gianfranco answered.
"Ah, si. I've heard of it," Carlo said.
Gianfranco hadn't, not till Annarita told him about it, but he didn't let on. "There must be a connection between that place and The Gladiator," he said. "I hear it was empty when the Security Police came, and now The Gladiator's closed down, too."
"That's not good," Carlo said. "You think the Security Police are going to come after us?"
"I don't know." Gianfranco shrugged. "I don't know what we can do about it if they decide to, either. Do you?"
"Not much you can do," Carlo said gloomily. "You can't even disappear. They'll run you down and catch you. But we haven't done anything wrong."
"No, of course not." Gianfranco would have said the same thing even if he had done something. He didn't think Carlo was an informer, but you never knew. He did add, "Will they care, though?"
"Not likely!" Carlo said. That was true, but it also left him vulnerable to Gianfranco. Even if some things were true, you weren't supposed to say them out loud. Carlo went on, "Where are we going to play now?"
There was an important question! "Well, I've got my own copy of Rails across Europe," Gianfranco said.
"Sure. Me, too. But so what?" Carlo said. "How many people do you know who play? I mean, know away from The Gladiator?"
"A couple," Gianfranco answered. "Guys who go to my school. Even one teacher."
"Same here," Carlo said. "1 know a couple, maybe three, at the university. We can still play, but it won't be the same-not even close. All the tournaments, the fools at the next table going nuts when something exciting happens in their game… Won't be the same, trying to have a game in your kitchen."
"Tell me about it!" Gianfranco said. "We share ours with another family."
"Who doesn't? I can't wait to get my own apartment-but even then, I'll be sharing the kitchen and the bathroom." Carlo sighed. "What can you do? That's how they build 'em. That's how they've built 'em for the last hundred years and then some."
Ever since Italy went Communist, probably, Gianfranco thought. Maybe it had to do with keeping people in groups, not letting them be individuals. Or maybe it wasn't that complicated. Maybe the Italians just started imitating the Russians, who'd been building apartments that way ever since the glorious October Revolution.
"You're right. It won't be the same. Better than nothing, though." Gianfranco knew he sounded like someone whistling in the dark. He felt that way. He'd just had a big chunk of his life yanked out by the roots.
"Maybe the people from The Gladiator will turn up somewhere else. We can hope, anyhow." Carlo sounded like someone whistling in the dark.
Another gamer strolled up then, and looked horrified to discover The Gladiator was closed and dark. He and Gian-franco and Carlo went through a conversation a lot like the one Gianfranco and Carlo had just had. Then they all went away unhappy.
Annarita was doing Russian homework at the kitchen table when Gianfranco came in. "Why aren't you at The Gladiator, if you were going to go there?" she asked in surprise. Then she took a real look at him. "And why do you look like somebody just ran over your cat with a tank?"
"Remember what you told me about The Conductor's Cap?" he said. "Well, The Gladiator is closed, too."
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't say I'm too surprised," Annarita said. Gianfranco didn't look consoled. "What are you going to do now?" she asked him.
"I don't know!" he burst out, fiercely enough to startle her. "I'll probably go out of my mind."
"Is it really as bad as that?" Annarita said.
"No. It's worse." Gianfranco couldn't have sounded any sadder if he tried for a year. If he was acting, he should have gone out for drama, because he would have grabbed leading roles with the greatest of ease. "How would you like it if somebody took away your favorite thing in all the world?"
"Not very much, I'm sure," Annarita answered. "But can't you still play somewhere else?"
"Si, but it won't be the same." Gianfranco explained why not. He brought everything out so pat, it was as if he'd said it before. "No tournaments or anything like that. I'll be lucky to get a game in every once in a while." He stopped-something new seemed to have occurred to him. "You wouldn't be interested in learning to play, would you? We could have games easier than people who don't live here could come over. It's a good game. It really is. You'd like it, I think."
He was pathetically eager to have her want to play. No- she changed her mind. He was pathetically eager to have anybody to play against, and she seemed handy. She almost told him no, which was her first impulse. Then she remembered all the things her folks said about the need to get along with the Mazzillis. Gianfranco would be very unhappy if she turned him down… and Rails across Europe had looked interesting.