with three lowered shutters. The one on the left was raised about twenty centimetres. Leaves and earth carried by rainwater had accumulated in the gutter. By scrabbling like a dog, she opened a gap, then she took off the rucksack, and squeezed underneath, holding her breath to make herself thinner. Her legs went through, and so did her thorax, but her head wouldn’t. Pressing her cheek on the floor she made it inside, her face grazed on both cheeks. She reached out to retrieve the rucksack.
The workshop was in darkness. She tried to lower the shutter, but it wouldn’t budge. Holding her hands out in front of her, she advanced towards the end of the room. Her knee banged against a car and her shin hit some shelves full of metal objects, which fell down onto the floor with a crash. She swallowed the pain and with her fingers followed the shelves, touched the rough wall, found a door and opened it. Beyond, the darkness was even blacker, if that were possible. She ventured forward on her hands and knees until she felt the edge of a step.
Outside, some shots rang out.
She sat down, nursing her knee, and prayed they hadn’t seen her.
*
The first shot had made the small group turn round.
A fat boy was standing in the middle of the road holding a shotgun, and a figure was bent over, running towards a small block of flats, pushing a wheelbarrow.
The older girl had blown a whistle, pointing them out to the blue children. They had picked up some stones and charged at him, screaming.
Michelini, holding the weapon at hip level, had fired his three remaining shots into the group. The last shot had hit one of them, who’d collapsed in a cloud of ash. ‘Yes!’ Throwing the gun aside, he’d started galloping towards the block of flats, but the fever and all the kilos he was carrying made breathing difficult. He turned round to check where his pursuers were and a stone hit him on the head. He let out a yell and, as he was putting his hand to his temple, tripped over. He took three disjointed steps, wheeling his arms in an attempt to regain his balance, but crashed like a bulldozer into the fence at the side of the road and fell on his face, with his arms outspread, in a field. He didn’t even try to get up again. He clutched the grass in his fists, pushed his face into the warm earth and thought of his brother.
*
The children’s shouts echoed in the garage.
Anna stumbled up the last flight of stairs and slammed into a closed door. Opening it, she found herself in the entrance hall of the block of flats. Daylight came in through the frosted glass of the big front doors. To one side were the mailboxes, covered with dust, next to them a yellowed notice announcing the date of a residents’ meeting and another one decreeing that bicycles and pushchairs must not be left unattended.
She tried to open the small wicket door, but it wouldn’t move. Not knowing what else to do, she ran up the stairs. On the first floor all the flats were locked. Same thing on the second. On the top floor, too, everything was bolted shut.
The children were in the entrance hall.
She opened the landing window. Down below was the concrete ramp of the workshop; fifty metres further off, Michelini’s body. To the left, a metre away, a balcony jutted out from the wall.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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