A bullet passed me by, almost grazing me. At that point I thought I couldn’t run any further, my legs were refusing to keep going, but it forced me to decide, I had to keep going, I could not let them reach me, my life depended on those moments.
But what was going on? Why would someone want to kill me? All I was doing was looking for information. If I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, who would be so upset with me? Besides, most of what I was looking at was already in the public domain. I had only gone somewhere to verify that this was true. Of course, if I’d done it quietly from home, without verifying all of this, no one would ever have known.
I kept going over the question in my head, who was I bothering so much that whoever it was had to stoop to this? This must be a last resort, to kill someone, because, although they hadn’t hit me, I don’t believe anyone shoots at people just for fun. Surely they wanted to get me out of the way, it’s insane how serious these Italians are, how easy it is for them to pull the trigger, because I don’t believe they’re all in the mafia.
I have only been moving among “good” people, people from the Vatican or in some religious bookstore and I don’t think there’s much chance that there are thugs moving in those circles. How then can this pursuit and this eagerness to get me out of the way be explained, to even go so far as to use weapons to do so?
What secrets lie behind all of this? Every time I make a move, to ask a question, even to a bookseller, it seems that the information reaches someone who does not want me to find the true answer. How else could they locate me so fast?
Running as I was, I saw a taxi, it had just stopped and a man was getting out. I immediately asked the driver:
“Is this taxi free?” and without waiting for an answer, as soon as I got inside, I instructed him, “Alla stazione Termini veloce.”
The taxi driver was somewhat taken aback, but he started the car and we left the area. I looked back, and right then I saw the two men who had been following me, watching the taxi drive away. They stood there with faces full of disappointment, but I could also see the menacing gesture that one of them was directing toward me, I think he was sure that I was watching them.
Because of how easy it had been for them to take out the gun and shoot at me, despite the fact that I had been in the middle of the street, even though there was no one else around, I deduced that they were unscrupulous thugs, and that they would not be satisfied with having lost me. If they were used to getting rid of someone on request, they would be getting paid for it, and they would not let their quarry escape, which in those moments was apparently me.
When I felt that my entire body was hurting, I shifted in the seat, a sure result of that unexpected chase I had just been given. I tried to reassure myself, and I started to look out the window. Then I thought, “The most logical thing to do, if I want to escape and leave Rome, is to head to that station, but with a little thought, they’ll also come to that same conclusion. I can’t make it so easy for them… What should do I do?” but nothing came to me, I was still too rattled to be able to come up with a clear solution.
Suddenly it came to me, I couldn’t go back to pick up my things from where I was staying either, because it was as I was leaving there that I noticed for the first time that they were following me. They would surely assume that I would have to return there, so I decided not to go back. All in, I had only left my toiletries and the shirt I’d brought on the trip, all wrinkled and sweaty, it wasn’t much of a loss. Well, there was the travel bag, but I didn’t have any special attachment to it, nor was it valuable, I could abandon it there.
I made a mental review to see if I had left anything else, but no, nothing that was worth putting my life on the line for. I remembered that there were also the pajamas, but I would abandon them there, I was certainly not willing to return to that place.
I’m sure they would go through all of my things. That’s what I think spies do, to pick up clues from everything they can, but I didn’t have anything else there. I decided not to go back and expose myself to danger for a few unimportant belongings.
When I saw the Pyramid in the distance, I asked the taxi driver to stop. I had regained my bearings, because with the chase I had lost my way and didn’t know where I was going, I had just tried to run as fast as I could.
It’s a good thing I’m in shape, soccer keeps me healthy and deep down I was grateful for it. I think it was thanks to that that I was saved by the skin of my teeth. When I heard the shot, I had turned in the same way we do during team training: a quick change of position to catch the ball and take a shot at goal with a header. That was what had saved me, because if I hadn’t, the bullet would have hit me. Having turned, it passed me, just grazing me.
My body was still consumed with fear when the taxi driver, vexed by my change of destination, stopped. I paid him and said:
“Keep the change and have a good day.”
Once I was back outside, the first thing I did was to take a very deep breath, it felt like my lungs were empty and like I had been drowning inside that vehicle. My legs were still trembling and I looked absently at the Pyramid and thought, “It’s incredible that there are secrets everywhere. No matter what you look at, we are surrounded by them. Who built the Pyramids of Egypt? What was their function? Why do they have the measurements that they have? Look at the fact that they have been studied for centuries and still no one knows the true reason for such a construction. How would it have occurred to them to build them in that shape, a shape that has enabled them to last for so many centuries? Okay, I’m going to find a place to sit down for a while and I’ll have a coffee,” I thought.
Looking in that direction, I couldn’t see any coffee shops anywhere. There was traffic and I wanted to cross to the other side, where there was a group of people, I did not want to be alone.
Being accompanied, even by strangers, would be safer, because if those guys who had chased me had taken another taxi, to follow me… With that terrifying thought in mind, I turned around and glanced all around me, wanting to identify some indication that would tell me if anyone else had arrived.
They were very conspicuous with their huge raincoats; it must have been part of their uniform. Of course the frightening thing is if they did take them off, I wouldn’t recognize them and they would go unnoticed by me, while they did know me, so they would have a clear advantage.
Nothing, my surroundings were empty, there was nowhere nearby where they could have hidden if they had followed me. More calmly, I could cross the road and head over to a bench that I saw in the distance in a small garden. When I arrived, I sat down the way a person collapses after a long race, letting my body slump as if it weighed a ton. At last, I was free from danger, I was almost certain that they hadn’t followed me, and that they couldn’t find me anymore.
Looking distracted at that Pyramid that I saw in the distance, I kept thinking about the secrets that things hide, and about how we are, the people, some of whom don’t care and get on with their lives, while others, for some reason that I don’t really understand, are compelled to discover these secrets in the search for explanations. Why? When? Who? And a whole heap of other questions that come up, and how sometimes there is a lot of adversity to overcome to get to the answers.
I was thinking now about the number of explorers who have had the idea of entering a Pyramid. Why? What did they hope to get out of it? I thought about how they don’t stop their efforts until they’ve achieved their goal, leaving their country, their family, facing a thousand setbacks until they see what they once possibly discovered in a book and which caught their attention.
Every search has its origin, like an internal voice that asks questions from deep within. What is it? Why don’t you find out? And the listener looks for answers, and not only that, but every time the listener finds an answer, it seems that the call only adds another question and another mystery that has to resolved.
As if only just becoming aware of where I was, sitting on a bench in a garden, I looked around. A very elderly gardener was beginning to prune some hedges there next to me. He gave me a signal that I understood, that I should move, because he was going to bother me, or rather that I had bothered him, because the branches that he had to cut would fall on the bench where I was sitting. I dare say, could he not have started at the other side? But surely he was thinking, “What is this guy doing here at this time, not letting me work in peace?”
Sensing that I was bothering him, and since I had already rested a little and had calmed down, I got up and gesturing with my hand, I said goodbye to the gardener, leaving him to get on with his work.
I looked both ways before crossing the road and as I saw that no cars were coming, I went back to the side of the Pyramid. I don’t know why, but being close to it made me feel at peace.
I felt at that moment as if this place was safe, and while I was there, nothing was going to happen to me. From what I had read about it, I know what it had been through, and still it remains defiant of time, as if saying, “If you want it, you can get it.” That internal affirmation that I had made to myself helped me to take the decision to continue investigating, to continue the work I had set out to do, to get to the bottom of the matter and see what was hidden.
Why was there so much zeal to keep whatever it was from being discovered? Who was behind all this? Because I was being increasingly pointed toward the upper echelons of the Church, and that I couldn’t quite believe. Why would they want to hide a message that was supposed to be from Heaven? At that moment, the question gave me strength.
I had to continue with all of it. It was as if the Pyramid instilled me with courage, and motivated me to continue researching.
Calmer, I turned and bid it farewell, until next time, because I was sure I would have to return to Rome another time, perhaps when the dust had settled and they forgot about me, and that way I wouldn’t have to gamble with my life for an answer.
I looked for an entrance to the metro and when I went down the stairs, I thought, “I’m not going to go to Termini Station, because surely they’ll be thinking that I’m going to escape and they’ll be waiting for me there.” When the train arrived, I took it in the opposite direction and decided to continue to the end of the line.
I hadn’t even paid any attention to where I was actually going, I didn’t care much, I just wanted to put some ground between us, so when we arrived I was surprised.
I had been gathering my thoughts and minding my own business for the entire journey, at first standing up, because all of the seats had been occupied when I got on, but when I saw that one was empty, I sat down and I became completely disconnected to everything, after all, I didn’t have to be aware of what stop we were passing through. I would get off when the train reached the end of the line and figure out where I was.
We passed through tunnels, we stopped at stations. I don’t know how many, I wasn’t counting them, but I thought we must be far enough away by now, and I said to myself, “I could get off,” but then I thought: “The further the better,” so I decided to follow the original plan: to not get off until the end of the line, wherever that might be.
I knew that the subway lines are very long in Rome, and they do go far. That was what I was looking for, to put some distance between us and to make it impossible for them to find me, because I was sure that those two would be good bloodhounds, that’s why they would have been hired in the first place. If I was even slightly careless, they would sniff me out, because they would not be willing to let their target escape. From what they told me the first time, they only wanted me to leave the country, but after the shooting, I wasn’t so sure that was their only order.
The train arrived. It stopped and I felt like I was waking from a dream, although I’m sure that I’d not slept. I realized that I was alone in the car. Where would the people have gotten off? I don’t know, nor had I noticed, but surely they would have gotten off gradually as they always do.
When the train arrives at a stop, some get on and others get off, everyone goes on to their destination, but it seems that I was the only one going here. What would this place be? And where would it be?
I looked out the window as I got up from the seat and quickly got out of the car, because at that moment I heard the beeping and I didn’t want to stay locked inside and be taken back to where I had gotten on it.
I saw through the windows that we were at a station, but not underground as would be normal for a subway station. The sunshine came streaming in, we were in the open air, I didn’t quite get why.
Outside the car, the first thing I did was to look all around me. Where was this? A small town, surely not, was I asleep? I rubbed my eyes and no, when I looked again I saw the sea in the distance, how was that possible? How had I gotten there if I took the subway in Rome? How could I be close to the sea? Well, not quite close, since the sea was down there and I was up on a mound, standing there at the station, but I was still astonished. “But the sea is very far from Rome,” I said to myself. “What a day I’m having! What weird things are happening to me!”
I read the sign, the name of the station was Ostia Antica, where would that be?
I sat on one of the three benches that were there, in the shadow of the canopy of that old place. I couldn’t believe it, I thought I had gotten onto a subway train.
Of course, I’m sure I had entered a subway station, but now looking all around me, I saw that it looked like a regular train station, a wooden building painted green, a little house typical of mountain villages. Inside, through the windows on the side of the building, I could see a room where there was a table with two chairs and a blackboard with something written on it. I could also see a man who was now heading toward the door.
When he came out and saw me sitting there, alone and surely with a look of confusion plastered across my face, the man approached me. I gathered that he must have been the station guard, because he was wearing blue overalls, which must have been his work clothes.
He looked at me very seriously, it seemed that he did not dare to speak to me and he moved away, then turning around he came back to where I was still sitting and said:
“Necessita qualcosa amico?” which I understood to mean, “Can I help you with anything friend?”
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In those moments, when I was listening to that man speak to me in Italian, I felt joy. I understood and, now more than ever, I appreciated the idea that my mother had that day for me to learn it. I had never studied Italian before, since I knew French and English.
