Harry Turtledove: The Gladiator

Stalin had been general secretary, loo. He'd used thai innocent-sounding post to run the Soviet Union. Isabella Saba-tini didn't have ambitions like that-or if she did, she hid them where Filippo couldn't see them. She was in Annarita's year, so maybe she'd show her true colors once he was gone. For now, she just read the minutes. They were boring, and got approved without amendment. They always did.

"Continuing business," Filippo said importantly.

"First item is preparation for the May Day holiday at the school," Isabella said. "The chairman of the May Day celebration committee will make his report."

He did. There would be a celebration. They had money taken from the Young Socialists' League dues. They would spend some of it on ornaments and propaganda posters, and some more on a dance. The school administration had given them a list of approved bands. They would choose one.

Annarita looked at her watch and tried not to yawn where people could see her do it. The May Day celebration was the same every year. Preparations for the celebration were the same every year, too. Only the band at the dance- sometimes-changed. Everything would go more smoothly if the people in charge didn't take it so seriously.

"The celebration of the victory over Fascism will be the next piece of business," Isabella said.

That was the same almost every year. Two years earlier, in Annarita's first year at Hoxha Polytechnic, it had been bigger than usual. That was the 150th anniversary of the end of the Second World War-the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union called it. But it got back to normal last year, and would be normal again this May.

After the committee for the celebration of victory over Fascism reported, Filippo asked, "Any new business?" There hardly ever was. Annarita hoped there wouldn't be. Then they could get on with talking about the curriculum. They were going to send the administration a report. The administration wouldn't read it-the administration never read student reports. But it would go on file, and show the Young Socialists' League was doing its job.

To Annarita's surprise and dismay, Marco Furillo raised his hand. "I move we investigate a shop that may be selling students subversive literature."

"What's this?" Filippo said.

"It's true," Marco said. "Have you ever been to the place they call The Gladiator?"

"That's the gaming shop, isn't it?" Filippo said, and Marco nodded. Filippo went on, "I know where it is, but I haven't been inside. Why?"

"Because they skate close to the edge, if they don't go over it," Marco answered, his face and voice full of sour disapproval.

That name… Annarita had heard somebody mention it before. Gianfranco, that was who. Did he realize the place might be dangerous to him? Filippo did the proper bureaucratic thing: he appointed a committee to look into what was going on. And Annarita surprised both him and herself by volunteering to join it.

Two

The dismissal bell. Gianfranco exploded out of the seat in his biology class. If Comrade Pastrano thought he cared about the differences between a frog's circulatory system and a mouse's, the teacher needed to think again.

Gianfranco wished he didn't have to lug so many books home. His old man would come down on him like a landslide if he didn't at least make a show of doing his homework, though.

But before he went home… Before he went home, he went to the Galleria del Popolo-the People's Gallery. Once upon a time, it had been named for a King of Italy, not for the people. Once upon a time, too, it had been the most stylish and expensive shopping center in Milan. A glass roof covered a crossed-shaped district of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings crammed with shops and restaurants of all sorts.

Fashion had long since moved on, as fashion has a way of doing. The expensive shops and the first-rate restaurants went elsewhere. The places that took over were the ones that didn't pretend to be up-to-the-minute or first-rate. That didn't mean you couldn't have a good time at the Galleria del Popolo. It did mean the good time you had wasn't the same as it would have been a hundred years earlier.

Now the Galleria del Popolo was where the people gathered-the strange people, that is. Old men looking for older books prowled the secondhand stalls. People who played music that wasn't in favor with the cultural authorities played it in little clubs there. Gianfranco wouldn't have been surprised if the men and women at those clubs who smoked cigarettes and drank espresso or wine while they listened were political unre-liables. If the Security Police needed to make a roundup, they would start there.

He walked past a shop selling clothes that only people who didn't care about getting ahead would wear. Flared trousers and tight-fitting shirts for men, short skirts and gaudy stockings for women… They seemed more like costumes than real clothes to Gianfranco. He imagined what his father would say if he came home in an outfit like that. Slowly, he smiled. The look on his father's face would almost be worth the price of the clothes and the price of the trouble he'd get in.

And there was The Gladiator. It had a license in the front window, the way any shop had to. Somebody in the Ministry of Commerce had decided the place could do business. As Gianfranco walked up to the door, he made money-counting motions. He couldn't believe The Gladiator ever opened up without bribes of some sort. Communism should have made corruption a thing of the past. He was only sixteen, but he knew better.

A guy coming out of the shop nodded to Gianfranco as he went in. The other guy looked to be two or three years older than Gianfranco was-he really needed a shave. But he looked to be the same kind of person: somebody who couldn't get excited about most of the life he was living. The knowing grin on his face said he got excited about The Gladiator.

So did Gianfranco. So did all the people who came in here, looked around, and decided they liked what they saw. There were others. Gianfranco had seen them. They'd walk in, go to the back room and stare at the people playing games, eye the games and the stuff that went with them, and walk out shaking their heads. They were fools. They proved they were fools by not getting what was going on right in front of their noses.

"Ciao, Gianfranco," called the fellow behind the counter.

"Ciao, Eduardo. Come sta?" Gianfranco said.

"I'm fine," Eduardo answered. "How are you?"

"I'll live. I made it through another day of school," Gianfranco said. Eduardo thought that was funny. Gianfranco wished he did. He went on, "Is Carlo here yet?"

"Si. He just got here a couple of minutes ago," Eduardo told him. "He thinks he's going to clean your clock-he said so."

"In his dreams!" Gianfranco exclaimed. That touched his honor-or he imagined it did, anyhow. A lot of people called honor an outdated, aristocratic idea. Maybe it was, but plenty of Italians still took it seriously anyhow. Gianfranco set ten lire on the counter: two hours' worth of gaming time. "I'll show him!"

"Go on into the back room," Eduardo said. "I may have to give you some of your money back-I don't know if Carlo can stay till six."

"I'll worry about that later," Gianfranco said. He had money-more money than he knew what to do with. Even if his father wasn't a big Party wheel, he was a Party member. That all by itself just about guaranteed you wouldn't come close to being broke. The trouble was finding anything worth buying for your lire. Cars and apartments had waiting lists years long. TV sets kept you waiting for months. So did halfway decent sound systems. You could get cheap junk right away-but you got what you paid for if you spent your money like that.

A couple of hours of fun? Cheap at the price.