The House on the Beach by JOAN FALLON

Author:JOAN FALLON
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JOAN FALLON
Published: 2022-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

PART 5

1967

CHAPTER 17

There were about twenty of them, mostly third year students, plus a few younger ones and at least half of the group were girls. They sat huddled together in the middle of the room in the half light. The shutters were down and the door was locked. No-one spoke. They all hoped that the police would assume that the lecture room was empty and pass by.

Only two days before, the catedrático had closed the Faculty of Social Studies and Economics and sent the students home for an indefinite period. Now their own campus was swarming with police, and according to one observant student there were at least thirty-five police vehicles stationed in the grounds. They were besieged. There had been talk of shutting down the Faculty of Philosophy as well. That was why they were here. It could be their turn next. This was supposed to be a protest meeting, but so far they'd been sitting in silence for almost an hour, too scared to speak. They'd arranged to meet at ten o’clock to discuss how they could make their demands known, but just after Inma arrived there was a warning that the police were making a raid. There was no time to get out, so they'd locked themselves in and now sat, like scared rabbits, waiting for the hunters to leave. They could hear the thump of heavy boots marching along the corridor and the sound of doors opening and slamming shut again. Someone tried the handle to their door. Fascinated, she watched the handle vibrate and the door shudder as someone tried to open it. The tension within the room was palpable; no-one dared breathe.

‘There’s no-one here,’ a male voice shouted and the sound of his heavy footsteps gradually grew distant.

‘I think they’ve gone,’ a boy said, getting up and peering out between the slats of the blind.

‘Shss,’ someone hissed. ‘Let’s wait a bit longer to be sure. Sometimes they just pretend that they’re leaving so that they can catch you off guard.’

The boy sat down again and they all waited. They heard the lorries start up and drive away. The faculty was clothed in silence; their pursuers gone.

‘Okay, I think it’s safe now.’

Inma stood up and stretched; her legs were stiff from sitting so still. She walked across to the windows and reached up for the blind.

‘No, don’t open the blinds. Just in case. We can manage like this,’ Geronimo instructed.

He was the chairman of the protest meeting, a tall, gangly youth with acne marked skin and dark rimmed glasses. He’d called them together to draw up a list of demands to present to the catedrático of their faculty.

‘Maybe we should just go home, while we can,’ suggested a girl, who was still in her first year at the university. She looked close to tears.

‘No, we’ll be alright now. Let’s do what we’ve come here to do,’ the chairman said, ‘but keep the noise down, just in case there are any Grises still hanging about.’

He took off his glasses and wiped them nervously.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.