The Ancient Curse

and I’m not connecting. If you don’t help me, I’m afraid I won’t work my way out of this. But if you can’t, that’s all right. I’ll survive, you know.’

‘All right, I get it. You don’t want to tell me anything, even though I’m an old friend. OK, don’t worry about it. Tell me what the problem is. Although without seeing what we’re talking about, I don’t know-’

‘Is your computer on? I’ll send the parts I’m having trouble with and give you a few minutes to look at them. Then I’ll call you back and we can go through them together. All right?’

‘Sure. Send it right away, then.’

Fabrizio sent the file, waited nearly an hour and then called back.

‘Got it!’ said Prada.

‘Well? What do you think?’

‘Good God! This stuff is incredible.’

‘It is.’

A few moments of silence, then his friend’s voice rang out: ‘Know something? You’re pretty close. It’s only that you haven’t considered…’

What?’

‘Several variations in the formulation of diphthongs in the archaic form of the genitive, and a morpheme which I would classify as an apax because-’

Aldo, please. I have no time for theory. Just correct whatever is wrong with my fucking translation before I faint or have a heart attack because I’m so exhausted I can’t think straight any more. Is that clear?’

‘Clear as can be. Hold on, though, yeah, I think I’m right about that, there’s a diphthong formulation here that…’

Fabrizio let him run on because he knew that Aldo Prada’s mind was the most powerful machine in the world as far as phonetic and morphologic processing was concerned. If he couldn’t manage it, no one could. Even Balestra must have had a lot of problems, if he’d been holed up in his office so long without ever appealing to anyone for assistance or collaboration.

‘Give me a couple of hours,’ Prada said suddenly. ‘You’ve taken me by surprise here. I don’t want to make a mistake. No one’s ever seen a bilingual text before. What’s strange is that the Etruscan is so clear and the Latin is so fuzzy. It looks more like spots than letters. But better than nothing, that’s for sure. Good heavens, I can only imagine the clamour this will create when it’s announced. If only I knew a little more about the context…’

‘Don’t even think about it. I can’t tell you where it was found. You’ll have to manage with what you have. Do it as a favour to me. You won’t be sorry, I promise you.’

‘OK. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve finished.’

Fabrizio closed the shutters and lay down on the couch to try to recover some lucidity. He was light-headed with hunger. The strain of working through the night, along with the pill he’d swallowed, made him feel wide awake but sluggish. He felt like he was moving in slow motion, and his muscles were cramping up, along with his stomach. The sounds of early morning wafted in from outside: the rumble of cars on the regional road and the chirping of sparrows. The roosters saluted the dim light of another dreary day from farmhouses scattered around the countryside.

Fabrizio couldn’t have said how much time had passed since he’d concluded his conversation when the phone rang. He started and grabbed the receiver.

‘It’s an ara,’ said Aldo Prada on the other end of the line. His tone was a mix of irony and uneasy awe. ‘An imprecation… a curse that is… But that’s not all…’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought, but I wanted your verdict.’

‘I have no doubts. It involves the ritual of a Phersu if I’m interpreting correctly. Crazy stuff.’

Deeply unnerved, Fabrizio fell silent.

‘You’re already on to this, aren’t you?’ insisted Prada.

‘Yeah, I am,’ admitted Fabrizio. ‘I excavated the tomb.’

‘Of a Phersu? Holy Christ. I can’t believe you’re telling me this.’

‘It’s complicated. Very complicated.’

‘If I weren’t so far away I would rush over there and force you to explain the whole story. If you let me read the entire inscription I could be of much more help to you. I give you my word of honour that I won’t tell a soul.’

‘I am sorry, Aldo, I can’t take any risks. Consider that Balestra has been locked up in his office for weeks. If it comes out that I’m working on the same stuff…’

‘Right. Got you. That’s what I thought.’

‘You’d end up confiding in someone you trust blindly, I know you – and then he would turn round and talk to someone he trusts blindly. In two days’ time, everyone and their mother would know about it and that would mean big trouble. Bigger trouble than you can even imagine. Please, just send me your conclusions and don’t ask me any more questions. You’ll understand why soon enough.’

Prada stopped insisting and sent Fabrizio the passages that he had interpreted with the acumen and brilliance that made him one of the top scholars in his field.

As Fabrizio began to insert the phrases interpreted by his colleague in the gaps still scattered throughout his translation, he realized that his energy levels were totally depleted. He knew he couldn’t stop yet and he swallowed another amphetamine to force his exhausted brain to bear up under the strain and get the job done. Thus, little by little, an hour at a time, a story began to emerge from the shadows of millennia. A cruel, delirious story that projected a desire for revenge so burning and intense that it could span the centuries. A story that cut him to the quick and filled him with fear and despair. He looked up from his work to contemplate the image of the lad of Volterra and it was like seeing him for the first time, as if, finally, he had met up with him on a deserted road after a long, strenuous journey, or as if he had recognized a son or a younger brother he never knew he had, and Fabrizio’s bloodshot eyes were dimmed with tears.

He was certain of having concluded his work and he got to his feet with the intention of having a shower and then calling Lieutenant Reggiani or trying to locate him wherever he was. He took a few steps but his legs gave way and he slowly collapsed on to the mat that covered the floor. He couldn’t have known that evening was falling again, an early, chalky dusk shot through with shudders of wind.

His body was completely motionless and the flickering reflection of the computer screen cast a spectral light on to his face. He would have looked like a dead man, were it not for the continuous rapid movements behind his closed eyelids, as in the most intense, most visionary phase of a dream…

The room was vast, rectangular in shape and adorned with frescoes that depicted scenes from a symposium, with guests laughing, drinking, leaning forward in conversation. A double row of candelabra with hanging lamps of bronze and translucent onyx lit up the room, so numerous that they filled the hall with an intense, golden light, like that of the sunset just passed. The dinner guests – men and women, young and old – were reclining on couches alongside tables filled with trays of food and cups brimming with wine, chatting amiably in low voices.

In the middle of the room lithe maidens danced gracefully to the sound of flutes and string instruments played by a little group of musicians. The atmosphere spoke of pleasure and celebration, of the refined amusements of an aristocratic gathering, similar, perhaps, to an assembly of immortal divinities.

Next to each one of the noble ladies participating in the banquet was an alabaster perfume jar hanging on a thin cord from the ceiling, filled with rare scents imported from the Orient. Every so often one of them dipped in her hand to spread the fragrance on her soft, white skin, her round shoulders, her breasts. The perfume saturated the air, along with the light, musky scent of the men’s sweat.

At the head of the triclinium hall, at the centre of the short wall, against a curtain the colour of the night sky, reclined lauchme Lars Thyrrens, lord of Velathri, the red city of the huge gates and resplendent multi- hued temples. His full head of black hair, shining with bluish reflections, brushed the collar of golden plates adorning his neck and shoulders. He wore an embroidered chlamys open at the sides of his sculpted torso, covering only his groin. His massive build, wide shoulders and brawny arms were those of a mighty warrior, of a man accustomed to conquering by force anything that aroused his desire. Any woman would have yearned to lie in his arms and often, during a banquet, when the lights had burned low, one of the ladies present would go to stretch out beside him, covered by the same mantle, ignoring her fat and tolerant husband to become acquainted with his fierce, powerful virility. Many had done so, or perhaps all of them. Except one.