Multiversum (29 page)

Alex and Jenny came out of the tunnel as a burst of thunder echoed overhead and the rain started pouring down on the outskirts of Milan. All around them were rows of almost-identical industrial sheds, with huge gates leading into vast parking lots filled with trucks.

They left the industrial zone behind them as an icy wind whirled through the rain, then they ran towards the exit onto the highway leading out of the city. There was nothing around except for the sound of raindrops hitting the asphalt harder and faster, increasingly insistent. There were no cars. There were no people.

A few hundred metres away, the street ran under an overpass and then continued, lined with underbrush and expanses of frozen fields.

‘Where are we going?' Jenny shouted as she pushed back her dripping hair with one hand.

‘Away from the city. It's full of soldiers.'

Alex slowed down as they approached the overpass. Jenny let go of his hand and rummaged in her pockets, pulling out a purple elastic band for her hair. As she tied her hair back, her eyes filled with rain and tears. ‘Are we about to die, then?'

Alex coughed hard, then came closer. His drenched clothes were sticking to his skin, and he was starting to feel weak and exhausted.

‘I … don't know, Jenny. I can't figure it out. I'm here with you, something was supposed to happen.'

‘What do you mean by that?' she asked, looking at him in confusion.

‘Memoria, the magic place, you and me together … Something ought to change, something ought to happen … I don't know, damn it!'

Alex looked beyond the overpass, towards the fiery sky from which that foul-smelling acid rain was falling. The asteroid was still there, clearly visible, a mass of incandescent rock hurtling through its last spiralling orbit around the Earth before crashing into it. Nothing had changed. ‘Maybe it's not us … maybe Memoria isn't real.'

‘Let's try to find a place where we can be a little safer. A house, anything. We can't stay here.'

Alex nodded. He stepped closer to Jenny and kissed her softly on the forehead. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest for a few seconds, as the thunder pounded menacingly.

They went on walking, in silence. They continued down the highway at a brisk pace, passed through a roundabout, and went by a car wash, trying to clear their minds, until a few houses took shape in the distance, a little way behind a petrol station. There was a white sign with a phrase in black letters. That had to be the name of the town.

‘Let's go, Alex … down there,' said Jenny.

As soon as they'd walked a few metres along the road into town, they realised that the curfew must be in effect here, too, because the streets were deserted, the shops were closed, and the windows of the apartments had their wooden blinds shut tight. A newsstand appeared to be still open, but the vendor was nowhere in sight.

From the end of the street a light suddenly appeared.

‘What's that?' Jenny wrapped her arms around Alex's.

‘It looks like it's going round and round, like a lighthouse, or a spotlight … like … Damn it, it's a patrol! It's the army, even out here.'

There was no time to lose. The vehicle was pretty far away and the spotlight hadn't hit them yet. As the beam of light swung around, illuminating a row of two-storey apartment buildings on the right side of the street, Alex grabbed Jenny's arm and dragged her to the opposite side. A few metres away, a small alley ran into the heart of the little town. The two of them slipped into the narrow lane and ran without looking back. They emerged into another wide street. There was no sign of life there either, and the unnatural silence was broken only by the rumble of thunder and the falling rain.

‘What should we do?' Jenny shouted.

‘We have to find shelter somewhere.'

Jenny looked around. Across the street, there was a row of detached houses. The rain was drumming incessantly on their yards, front and back, beating on the letterboxes and bouncing off the roofs. All the shutters seemed to be closed tight. ‘That one down there, Alex …'

‘That what?'

‘That window! There's a light on inside. Can't you see it?'

Alex brushed his wet hair off his forehead, then he narrowed his eyes, trying to see into the distance, and managed to see the place that Jenny was pointing at.

‘At least the electricity is still working here,' he muttered under his breath.

‘Let's go!' Jenny said. Then she set off at a brisk pace.

‘There's a curfew, they won't open up for us!' Alex shouted as she headed for the front door of the house.

Seconds later he watched as she knocked vigorously on the wooden door, and then he walked towards her.

‘Who's there?' shouted a voice from inside after a few seconds of silence.

‘Signore,' Jenny replied, ‘we're just two kids. I beg you, it's pouring out here, please let us in.'

No answer.

‘Signore?'

‘Go back to wherever you come from! Leave us alone, we did what you wanted, we're locked up in our house!'

‘Signore, please,'
Alex insisted. ‘We're just two kids, we're lost, there are soldiers everywhere out here. I'm begging you, please help us.'

Suddenly, the door opened a crack and Alex caught a glimpse of the man's face. He had to be about eighty years old. When he saw that they really were two teenagers, he slowly opened the door all the way.

‘All right, get inside,' he said brusquely, stepping aside to let them through.

The minute he had slammed the front door shut, the old man swung around to look at them. Alex and Jenny saw him in all his imposing stature. He was tall, with a moustache and bushy eyebrows. He wore a sheepskin jacket, and strapped over one shoulder was a carbine rifle.

‘Now empty your pockets, right now!' the old man ordered, levelling the rifle in their direction.

Jenny froze in terror.

‘Do it!' the man insisted.

Alex turned to look at Jenny as he plunged his hands into his pockets and pulled out some small change, bus tickets, and his house keys. ‘Do as he says, don't worry.'

No matter what Alex said, Jenny was worried. She burst into tears and fell to her knees, hiding her face in her hands.

‘What the hell is going on here?' asked a woman's voice behind them.

Alex looked up. Behind the old man, he saw a woman in her fifties wearing a long, dark-green skirt and a heavy turtleneck sweater. Curly hair framed her melancholy face.

The woman laid her hand on the man's shoulder. ‘Cut it out, Papà … they're just two kids. You're scaring them to death.'

The man lowered the rifle, raised his eyebrows, and snorted. Then he took a step back, as his daughter kneeled down next to Jenny.

‘What happened to you, sweetheart? You're drenched. Come with me, let's get you to a bathroom.'

Jenny stood up and glanced at Alex, who was smiling at her.

‘My name is Agnese. Come on, I'll find you some dry clothes. If we can't help each other out in times like this …'

Alex and Jenny followed her upstairs and got changed. Agnese got them some trousers and sweaters that were a size or two too large, but right then the two of them couldn't ask for anything more. Then she led them downstairs, to a dining room in the basement.

Alex entered the room shyly. On the walls, there were a number of paintings of hunting scenes, while two crossed rifles hung over the fireplace.

In the middle of the room was a solid wood table with six chairs. At the head of the table sat the man who had let them in. Next to him, two little boys, about eight years old, stared at them in amazement.

On the other side of the room, sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, was an old lady.

‘This is our family,' Agnese said proudly. ‘Paolo and Stefano, Grandma Ada, and the boys' grandfather, Giovanni, whom you've already … had a chance to meet. But what are you doing out on the streets, kids? Why aren't you with your families?'

Alex stalled for time by scratching the back of his head, then he replied, with a cough: ‘We got lost. We just didn't manage to get home, and —'

‘You must be hungry, I imagine,' Agnese interrupted him, as if she weren't all that interested in his justifications.

Jenny shrugged and nodded timidly.

‘We're waiting for Papà,' one of the two children piped up.

‘He went to get something for us to eat,' joined in the other.

Their grandfather stared at Alex and Jenny with a weary expression. ‘If they catch him, none of us will eat a bite. I never thought I'd live to see another war … That's what's happening here, kids. You know that, right? We're at war.'

Agnese moved away while Alex and Jenny sat down on a sofa, next to the fireplace. When she came back, she was carrying two steaming mugs. ‘For now, I can give you this. It's tea, without much tea to it, to tell you the truth, but at least it'll warm you up.'

Jenny smiled, and Alex thanked her. They both grabbed a cup and wrapped their hands around it.

‘We've also used up all the firewood, or I would have lit a fire. Unfortunately, the radiators don't work anymore,' Agnese explained, as the two of them sipped their tea.

A few minutes of silence went by. No one dared to speak. Jenny and Alex looked each other in the eye for a moment.

There's no hope left for us, is there?
thought Jenny. No one could hear what she was thinking, except for Alex.

I don't know, I'm afraid there might not be. I have no idea how to find Memoria. I don't even know it if even exists at all
.

Just then, there was a series of knocks at the front door. One after another, increasingly violent.

The old man leaped to his feet, grabbed his rifle from a chair nearby, and slung the strap over his head. He hurried to the front door. A voice outside was shouting non-stop: ‘Open up, let me in … it's me, Carlo!'

When he walked into the house, an orange hardhat on his head, the man's chin and neck were spattered with blood.

He was hauling a black garbage bag behind him. He stepped into the front hall, and Agnese ran to throw her arms around him.

‘What happened to you?' she asked, sobbing.

‘Don't worry, it's just a little sharp glass, but I'm okay.'

The man went to sit down in the dining room, while Agnese quickly explained why there was a boy and a girl sitting on the sofa.

‘You two can sleep here tonight,' said the man calmly. ‘All hell has broken loose out there.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Alex.

‘I'm working on the excavation for the shopping centre, eighty kilometres along the highway. You know the one I mean?'

‘Yes, that new …' Alex started to reply, but his eye was caught by the symbol on the hardhat that the man had set down on the floor. A small black-and-white rectangle with a yellow lightning bolt across it. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't remember where he'd seen that image before.

‘Me and a couple of my co-workers went out there. Work has been on hold for days, but we know where the keys to the excavators are hidden. We took one and drove it over to the old supermarket two hundred metres or so from there and …'

Agnese looked at him anxiously.

‘We smashed through the front door. It was the only way to bring home some food.'

‘Wow!' shouted one of the children, without fully understanding the significance of that extreme act, the risks his father had just taken.

‘When I was loading the bag into my car,' the man went on, clearly shaken by the ordeal, ‘an army truck showed up. I managed to get away, but I'm not sure my friends were so lucky. God …'

Agnese went over to the man and hugged him, bending forward and clutching her husband's head to her breast. ‘Go and clean up those cuts, darling … I'll take care of the food. I'll make a meal worthy of this family's name, no matter what's going on outside.'

35

Why should these people have to die?
thought Alex as he sipped his tea from a chipped mug.

Agnese rummaged through the bag that her husband had brought and pulled out all sorts of things: tubes of tomato sauce, canned vegetables, sliced bread, bags of potato chips, trays of cold cuts, bottled fruit juices. Then she started setting the table as if for a banquet, to keep the little boys from understanding the gravity of the situation and to offer her guests a decent meal, even if it was made with food that had come by chance.

It's not fair for it to end like this
.

Jenny heard Alex's thought. She shared everything he thought. She had a hard time eating, even as hungry as she was. The tension never let up. She took a couple of slices of bread and spread tuna pâté over them. Every mouthful seemed to get stuck at the bottom of her throat, refusing to travel all the way into her stomach.