Valerio Manfredi - The Ancient Curse

When Fabrizio had put down the slab, Francesca took off her shoes and climbed on to his shoulders. She could easily reach the grate and gave it a big heave, but it didn’t budge a centimetre.

Fabrizio heard her sigh, ‘Oh, my God, no…’

‘It’s locked, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ she replied, dropping from his shoulders. ‘From the outside. What do we do now?’

‘We stay calm,’ said Fabrizio. He switched off the torch to save on the batteries and continued: ‘I really hate to look so stupid, but we have no choice. I’m calling Reggiani.’

He switched on his mobile phone but there was no signal.

‘This is not looking good,’ said Francesca in a tone that could not mask her rising panic.

‘All right. If we can’t get out from down here or from a side entrance, well get out from above. I’ll go up that damned spiral staircase to the attic. There’s got to be a skylight or dormer or something. We’ll get out on to the roof, call Reggiani and have him come to get us.’

‘That sounds good,’ said Francesca without much enthusiasm.

‘You and Angelo wait here. There’s no sense going together. But I’ll need the torch. You don’t mind being in the dark for a while, do you?’

Francesca replied that she wasn’t afraid, but he could see she was terrified. Fabrizio held her close and kissed her, then gave Angelo a pat and was off.

He made his way back to the main hall, looking carefully in every direction before starting up the spiral staircase. At each floor he was greeted by a spectacle similar to or worse than the one before: long rows of stuffed animals of every description – vultures and wide-winged condors, cats, skunks and weasels with sharp little teeth glinting in the pale beam of the torch, martens and wolves, dogs and foxes and even snakes, huge pythons, boas and anacondas, gape-jawed cobras immobilized in the act of pouncing on imaginary, unsuspecting victims.

He climbed the last ramp to the top-floor landing, opened the little door that led to the attic and shone the light inside. His heart jumped into his throat at the nightmare scene in front of his eyes: there were human beings in the attic, stuffed like the exotic animals downstairs. Tribal peoples from distant lands, nude males and females gripping spears, frozen in obscene expressions and wizened smirks. Fabrizio backed up and pulled the door shut, but then decided that he had to overcome his repugnance at that infernal vision and push on. He took a long, deep breath to restore a normal beat to the heart leaping about inside his chest, then opened the door and walked into that forest of mummies. Many had been gnawed at by rodents and their bones were showing. They all had glass eyes, like the foxes and vultures below.

He inspected the roof thoroughly without finding any exit – not a skylight, dormer or window of any sort. Between one beam and the next, the ceiling was completely lined with lead sheeting and he was unsurprised to realize that he couldn’t get a phone signal up there either. The place was sealed shut. The whole huge building was as airtight as an intact tomb. When he returned to the cellar to give them the bad news he was wheezing and covered with cobwebs.

‘You look terrible,’ said Francesca. ‘What else did you see up there?’

Fabrizio did not answer. He knelt next to the child and grasped him by the shoulders. ‘Listen carefully, Angelo. Are you sure there is no other way out? I remember clearly that I saw you going into that little door at the front.’

‘I watched where she put the key and when she didn’t leave it, I got in and out that way, like today,’ he said, pointing at the closed grating.

‘What can we do?’ asked Francesca. ‘Unfortunately, no one even knows we’re in here.’

‘We’ll wait until dawn and start yelling.’

‘If there’s anyone out there to hear us.’

‘Right. Someone has to hear us.’

‘Wait! Maybe I have a better idea.’ Francesca switched on her computer again and started hitting the keys.

‘What are you trying to do?’ asked Fabrizio.

‘I just remembered that there’s an email I downloaded a couple of days ago but never got around to reading. It might be the updated map of underground Volterra incorporating the eighteenth-century Malavolti survey information. The topographical centre has been working on it for some time and they usually send me an update at the end of the month. So, let’s take a look… See, here, if we’re lucky…’

Fabrizio had turned off the torch and the only light in the underground chamber came from the glow of the computer screen, where Francesca had found what she wanted and was now exploring patiently, searching for an escape route.

Fabrizio turned to the child, who was trembling with cold and fear. He chatted quietly in an attempt to distract him: ‘When I saw you slipping through that door the other day, I couldn’t help but wonder why you were here, what you could be doing in a big old empty place like this all on your own. So, will you tell me now?’

‘I come to see my father.’

‘Where is your father?’

The child motioned upwards with his eyes.

The painting?’

Angelo nodded.

‘You’re Jacopo Ghirardini’s son?’

The little boy nodded again.

‘Are you sure?’

Angelo began speaking in a strange little voice. ‘My father is in here, I know he is. I come to visit him whenever I can. Without letting my stepmother know, or she beats me.’

‘How do you get around in the dark?’

‘With a torch.’

‘A torch like this one?’

Another nod.

‘You’ve got one in here?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘So what were you waiting for to tell me? We need a torch badly.’

‘If I give it to you I can’t see my father any more. I’m out of candles and I don’t have money for batteries. I stole the ones I’m using.’

Fabrizio touched his cheek. ‘I’ll buy you all the batteries you want. But please, let us use the one you have now…’

Francesca’s voice interrupted him: ‘Found it!’

‘Found what?’

‘The way out. Look. Here in the cellar, in the south-west corner.’

‘We’ve already looked,’ objected Fabrizio. ‘There’s nothing there.’

‘Because the west wall shifts eastward in relation to the north wall and creates a kind of illusion so that it looks like a closed corner. In reality, there should be a passageway that leads to a tunnel that emerges above ground… in the Etruscan cistern on the Salvetti farm! Come on. Let’s go and look.’

‘If Angelo lets us use his torch,’ said Fabrizio.

The boy took a few steps, rummaged in the dark under some stones and came back with a torch in his hand.

Francesca switched off the computer, got up and followed Fabrizio, who was carrying the bronze slab and heading towards the south-west corner of the cellar. She’d been right: there was a gap between the two walls hiding the entrance to a narrow passageway.

‘So we walk out,’ commented Fabrizio, drawing a long breath. ‘If the tunnel is usable that is. If the walls haven’t collapsed and-’

‘We’ll never know if we don’t try,’ said Francesca. ‘Ready for an adventure, Angelo?’

The boy nodded and wordlessly handed Francesca the torch as she squeezed herself into the passage. They forged ahead without meeting any obstacles. The tunnel was cut into the tufa and after a narrow start opened up enough to allow all three of them to walk along comfortably. They would stop now and then so that Fabrizio could set down the slab a moment and rest his arms, before continuing again.

After a level stretch, the tunnel started to slope downwards, confirming what Francesca had seen on her computer map.

‘Do you suppose Malavolti explored the entire length of this tunnel, then?’ asked Fabrizio during one of their rest stops.