Free Two Friends by Alberto Moravia Page B

be said to be running but had accelerated his pace. He leaned forward, his face masked by large sunglasses. Sergio, who had been left behind when he paused to caress the cat, came last. Farther down the street he could see other people running in the same direction in the blinding August sun. The antiaircraft guns were firing consistently, with quick, angry
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    bursts. When he had looked up at the sky before passing through the front gate of the villa, he had seen the white tufts of shells exploding in a straight line, then expanding slowly in the wind while others exploded, forming darker and denser areas here and there in the sky. They ran down an avenue, rapidly approaching the large whitish building of the museum. A littlebit toward the right he could see the small door of the shelter, marked by a sign. The people ahead of them passed through the door and disappeared. Now the antiaircraft fire and siren stopped, and in the silence that ensued it was suddenly unclear why all these people were running. But just as Sergio was about to pass through the little door, he heard something that made him stop in his tracks and gaze up into the sky: a metallic, vibrating whir, surrounded by a duller, more insistent hum which grew louder and louder, threatening to fill the entire sky. “The planes,” he thought as he went inside.
    The shelter was simply the crypt, or basement, of the museum. The small group of fugitives was now precipitously descending a spiral staircase with marble steps and a low, vaulted ceiling, rushing between thick walls. Finally they entered a semi-dark cellar, seemingly vast, with low, unfinished, vaulted ceilings made out of a material that looked like concrete, supported by enormous, rough-hewn pilasters. The cellar seemed to be only partly occupied by a small multitude. Sergio noticed the presence of many women and children, and quite a few men. The arches and pilasters formed shadowy alcoves, corners in which it was impossible for the eyes to penetrate the darkness. He could see dark archways which seemed to open onto hallways leading into other areas. Sergio and Maurizio could no longer see the others in their group and began to walk around the dim basement, amid the anxious, frightened people. Far from reassuring, the heavy, muffled silence which seemed to emanate from the enormous arches augmented the
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    sense of imminent danger: those arches, howevermassive, did not appear at all solid, since they were built out of a crumbly material. He couldn’t help thinking that a single bomb would send the whole thing crashing down on their heads. Maurizio, as if guessing Sergio’s thoughts, pointed to one of the arches and said: “They call it a shelter … This stuff will collapse at the first impact … We’ll be crushed, like mice … It’s safer outside …”
    “Do you come here every time the alarm goes off?”
    “My mother comes, and when I’m at home, I come too to reassure her.”
    “What is that case she carries under her arm?”
    Maurizio answered lightly: “Her jewels … She has several million liras’ worth in there.”
    Sergio said no more. He saw that the rest of the family—father, mother, sister, and governess—were approaching. The mother, who had always treated him with a slight haughtiness, as if she felt that this son of a government employee was her inferior, anxiously asked: “What do you think, Maltese? Will the war ever end? Will it be over soon? What do you think?”
    There beneath the arches, Sergio noted that her voice did not sound exactly terrified, but rather like the echo of words pronounced in some other dimension. Being in that place was like walking in the circles of hell, as if they had already died and their souls lived on, speaking in earthly tones. “It’s impossible to know,” he answered, “but of course, one day it will end.”
    With utter conviction, Maurizio’s rosy, conciliating, discreet, well-mannered father mumbled—more to