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.
It was so she wouldn’t have to see me going out to play soccer with my friends, which she never really liked. She said she didn’t understand what we got out of kicking a ball and running around without stopping, which was fine for kids, but older people never understood it.
I think what she didn’t like in reality was that I came home with muddy clothes. On top of that, if she ever told me to do something after a match, I would always answer that I was very tired.
Italian turned out to be very easy for me to learn. I have to say in all honesty that I have always had an affinity for languages.
We had spoken Galician in our house ever since we were little, especially with my grandmother, who said that Castilian Spanish was for school. She never understood how Franco, in his Galician homeland, had allowed the speaking of Galician in the streets to be prohibited, why did he want us to speak something else? Having always only spoken Galician in her own town and having done so very well, she was always understood by all her neighbors and hadn’t ever needed to speak anything else.
One day, while I was still just a boy, I was going to the home of a school friend and when I passed by the door of the Cathedral, some men who spoke strangely were going inside. I was very surprised because I only half understood them,
