Ring of Fire Read online

  “So what are we looking for, exactly?” asks Harvey.

  “Anything,” replies Elettra, unbuttoning her quilted jacket.

  “At last, someplace warm,” remarks Sheng, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder and brushing up dangerously close to a statue.

  “Be careful with that thing,” Elettra warns him. Before leaving the hotel, they put the entire contents of the briefcase into his backpack.

  The kids make their way along, dodging waiters and bundled-up customers. They look around curiously until they reach the back of the café. It’s a silent, peaceful room shut off by a red cord that keeps people from entering a little room farther on, one filled with antique furniture.

  “They say that was a salon where all sorts of important people used to meet,” explains Elettra, resting her hands on the cord. “Politicians, writers, artists, poets… They say lots of great ideas came about in this café.”

  “Why can’t we go in?” asks Sheng.

  “So we don’t ruin it,” replies Elettra. “It’s practically a museum now.”

  Harvey distractedly glances at the paintings on the walls. A hunting scene, the portrait of a pope, a romantic landscape, a newspaper article from two centuries ago … All very interesting, of course … but light-years from anything that might interest him. “Okay, why did we come here, again?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” Elettra admits. “We’ve just got this umbrella. And this umbrella told us to come here.”

  “Hot chocolate, anybody?” proposes Sheng, sniffing the air.

  * * *

  They sit down at the nearest free table, fighting over the most comfortable armchairs, and order four hot chocolates. Mistral pulls out her sketchbook and starts drawing furiously.

  “You’re good at that,” Elettra comments, watching the tip of her pencil gradually transform the blank sheet of paper into a perfect reproduction of the room around them.

  Concentrating on her sketch, Mistral doesn’t reply.

  Sheng rests the backpack under the table, keeping it firmly between his knees.

  “I say we ask someone,” Elettra suggests after a while. “Other wise, we’ll never find out anything.”

  “Sorry, but what is it you’re hoping to find out?” Harvey asks dryly. “This is a dead end.”

  “Excuse me …,” Elettra says to the waiter who brings them their hot chocolates.

  “Elettra, don’t …,” Harvey whispers, trying to stop her. But it’s too late.

  The girl holds the checkered umbrella out to him and asks, “A man gave this to us. Does it belong to you guys?”

  When he sees the umbrella, the waiter looks far from surprised. “Actually, it does,” he answers. “We call those our ‘emergency umbrellas.’ Did the man tell you his name?”

  “Actually, no,” Elettra admits. “I was hoping you’d know what it was.”

  “He was a strange guy,” Sheng breaks in, “with a white beard and wild eyes.”

  Mistral turns to a fresh page in her sketchbook and quickly starts on another drawing.

  The waiter tucks the umbrella under his arm. “When did you run into him?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “He was a tall man with a white beard, all dressed in gray, wearing a long raincoat,” Sheng goes on, outlining his shape in the air with his hands.

  “More or less … like this,” concludes Mistral, showing him her sketch.

  “Ah!” the waiter exclaims. “You mean the professor!”

  “The professor?”

  The waiter nods his head vigorously. “He’s one of our regular clients. Yesterday he got caught in the snowstorm and he didn’t know how he was going to get back home. He’s a really nice man, but really scatterbrained. I’m not surprised he asked you to bring the umbrella back for him. It’s already a miracle he didn’t lose it someplace. Is he your teacher or something?”

  “Not exactly …,” Sheng says softly.

  “So he came here yesterday?” asks Elettra.

  “Naturally. He comes here every day. In fact…” The waiter checks his watch. “No, it’s still too early. Let’s just hope nobody sits down at his table before four o’clock.”

  “Which table?”

  “The one over there, on the left, just before the cord.”

  The kids turn around to look at the table he’s pointing to while the waiter continues. “The professor comes in every afternoon and goes to sit down at his usual spot. If someone happens to be there … he’s capable of standing right there beside them without saying a word until the people who’ve stolen his spot can’t put up with it anymore and leave.”

  “What does he teach?”

  “I have no idea. In fact, I’m not even really sure he’s a professor. We just call him that because he always shows up with at least two books, one dustier than the next.”

  “And …?”

  “He sits there, all quiet, reading at his table for a couple of hours. If it’s too crowded, he gets huffy and makes a scene, trying to drive people away … unless there are kids here.”

  “Why? What does he do when there are kids?”

  “He tells them stories. Stories about ancient Rome and emperors. He tells them about Caesar and Nero. …”

  “Who’s Nero?” asks Sheng.

  “If you wait until four o’clock, you can ask the professor yourself,” the waiter tells him.

  “That’s unlikely,” Harvey sneers.

  “Nero was the cursed emperor of Rome,” Elettra explains. “He went down in history for setting fire to the city. … Although that might just be a legend.”

  “Sounds like a likeable guy,” Sheng remarks.

  “No, nobody liked him,” says Elettra. “In fact, after he died, his villa was destroyed, the statues of him were smashed up and his face was chiseled off all the monuments.”

  “That’s right. La damnatio memoriae, as the professor would say,” adds the waiter, who seems to be rather knowledgeable on the subject.

  “That’s Latin,” Elettra explains to her friends. “It means canceling all trace of him from memory … like he never existed.”

  “A bit like the professor,” Sheng says beneath his breath.

  * * *

  The waiter goes back to serving his other clients. The moment they see him disappear into another room, the kids rush over to the professor’s customary spot. It’s a little round table for two, a light-colored marble top resting on three wooden legs. Beside it are two red velvet armchairs.

  “You think there’s a reason he always sat here?” Harvey wonders, looking around.

  “Well, it gives you a full view of the café and the entrance …,” Elettra says.

  “Nobody can come up from behind you.”

  “And this is one of the quietest rooms. …”

  “But besides that, I can’t see anything in particular.”

  “There’s nothing useful on the walls …,” Elettra points out. “At least … it doesn’t seem like it.”

  Mistral looks around for clues.

  “Let me sit down in your place,” Sheng asks her, getting up awkwardly from his armchair. In doing so, he bumps the girl’s arm, knocking her sketchbook and pencil to the ground.

  “Oops, sorry!” Sheng bends over to pick them up but freezes halfway down. “Hao!” he cries. And then again, “Hao!”

  He hands Mistral her sketchbook and pencil, kneels down under the table and says, “Look! There’s writing down here and … What the heck is … is this?”

  “What?” asks Harvey, crouching down beside him. “Wow …”

  The wooden support on which the marble is resting is covered with rows of indecipherable numbers and letters, written so close together that there’s barely any free space left. In the middle of this delirium of signs, stuck on with two pieces of cellophane tape, is a strange, long object.

  Sheng detaches one piece of tape and then the other. “Here it is,” he declares with satisfaction. On the marble table-top he places a magnetized plast
ic badge, written on which is:

  BIBLIOTECA HERTZIANA

  VIA GREGORIANA 30

  INGRESSO RICERCATORI—SALA 4

  ALFRED VAN DER BERGER

  ROMA

  “It’s a badge for a research hall in a library,” explains Elettra.

  “Bingo …,” murmurs Harvey, amazed.

  Elettra runs her fingers over the plastic badge, as if to make sure it’s really there. “The professor’s name was Alfred Van Der Berger?” she muses.

  “Nice to meet you,” says Sheng.

  “Maybe we should tell this to the police.”

  “Or maybe … he left us another clue,” Elettra says, considering. “And we should follow it before someone else does.”

  “Before one of ‘them,’ you mean?” says Harvey with a hint of skepticism.

  Elettra looks at him. “Exactly.”

  “Do you know where this library is?”

  Elettra twirls a lock of hair in her fingers. “No. But I know where Via Gregoriana is.”

  “Is it far from here?” Sheng asks curiously.

  “Ten minutes away, if we run.”

  11

  THE LIBRARY

  AT VIA GREGORIANA 30, THEY’RE GREETED BY A FRIGHTENING-looking main door shaped like a monster’s face with open jaws. Beneath two enormous window eyes is a travertine nose, which acts as the keystone to the mouth-shaped archway.

  “Uh-oh,” murmurs Sheng the moment he sees it. “We’re supposed to go in through that?”

  “No way I’m doing it,” says Mistral. “If you guys really want to go in, I’ll wait for you out here.”

  Elettra, on the other hand, thinks the building and the monster are totally amusing. “It’s just a front door!” she cries out cheerfully.

  “It’s a hellish front door, you mean,” Harvey adds, running his fingers through his hair.

  “Just what we needed to boost our spirits: a nice, monstrous old building,” Elettra says, flashing the professor’s badge to the others and walking through the doorway. “After all, there’s a library in here.”

  Sheng peeks around the entranceway. “All I can see is a bunch of scaffolding.”

  Harvey slaps him on the back and walks in beside him.

  Mistral stays outside, staring at the building’s demoniacal sneer and the empty street beside it. It seems like people actually avoid passing by.

  “I don’t like you …,” she says, talking to the monster. “Wait up! I’m coming, too!” she calls out, following her friends inside.

  On the other side of the door, the building has been gutted. Walkways and scaffolding cover practically everything, and a tall, metal crane looms overhead. A shiny brass plaque marks the entrance to the library, but the door is locked and a sign hanging on it reads:

  CHIUSO

  CLOSED

  “And here’s where our search comes to an end,” Harvey remarks with sarcastic disappointment. “Whatever it is we were supposed to discover, we’re not going to discover it.”

  Inside of her, Elettra feels a sharp pang of disappointment. She tries knocking, but no one answers.

  “The place looks abandoned …,” Mistral comments, looking around at the scaffolding.

  “Let’s go home!” Harvey urges.

  Sheng tries pushing on the door and then notices a magnetic lock beside it. He takes the professor’s badge and swipes it through the slot. The door lets out a rather reassuring clack. Sheng pushes it open just enough to peek inside.

  A long, deserted corridor.

  “It’s open now, guys,” he whispers, handing the badge back to Elettra.

  * * *

  When they reach the first turn in the corridor, they hear the noise of a coffee vending machine. A little plastic cup, a humming noise, water trickling into the cup and the beep signaling that the process has been completed.

  Seconds later, a middle-aged woman holding a cup of espresso appears. She takes a sip, spots the four kids and stops halfway through her second sip. “How did you get in here?” she asks.

  Elettra steps out in front of the others and walks up to her without missing a beat. “With … with our uncle’s badge,” she replies.

  The woman glances distractedly at the professor’s card. She’s a thin, bony woman. “We’re closed. Didn’t you see the sign?”

  “Yeah, but … we thought we’d try to get in anyway.”

  “And … if you don’t mind my asking …” She takes another sip of coffee. “Why? In all my twenty years working here, not once have I ever seen kids your age so eager to get into a library.”

  Elettra begins, “We need to—”

  “And save me the typical excuse about having to write a school paper.”

  Elettra cuts herself off. The librarian has practically read her mind.

  In the moment of silence that follows, Mistral steps forward and points at her sketchbook. “We’re here to pick up our uncle’s notes,” she explains, tilting her head above her long, slender neck. “He’s going absolutely crazy without his notes and … he thought he might have left them on his desk. So we made a deal: we come get his notes and he buys us four hot chocolates.”

  The librarian looks the girl up and down as if she were choosing a fresh peach at an open market stand.

  “Well, four hot chocolates are four hot chocolates …,” she declares when she’s finished her analysis.

  “That’s right,” Mistral confirms.

  “It sounds like a fair deal to me,” the woman concludes, finishing off the last of her espresso. “Do you know where to go?”

  “Uncle Alfred tried to explain the way there to us…,” replies Mistral, whose cheeks are painted a rosy color. “But if you could tell us again, it would definitely save us a lot of time.”

  “I’ll take you there,” the woman offers.

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary …,” Mistral begins, until an alarmed Elettra nudges her as if to say, “We don’t even know what we’re looking for!”

  “After all, we’re closed today and there’s not much to do around here,” the librarian says, insisting. “Come along. I’ll take you to the research room.”

  As they cross through the large rooms with frescoed ceilings, which house labyrinthine rows of architectural books and codices, the librarian tells them about the endless restoration work that for years has shut off access to a good half of the collection stored in the building. Elettra feels her tension rise with every step. Frowning, Harvey walks to her left, lost in his own little world of troubled thoughts. It’s as though walking into the library has stirred up unpleasant memories in his mind. Sheng often trails behind, drawn by one unusual, ancient book after the other, the views from the windows, doors left ajar. The backpack with the tops, the tooth and the strange wooden object bounces against his back. Mistral walks beside their guide, taking in the woman’s explanations about the library’s dismal appearance.

  The large, frescoed halls now behind them, they reach a smaller room with a steep staircase. An elevator takes the little group upstairs to a sunny loft.

  The area beneath the wooden beams is divided into several small offices with plasterboard walls. The dormer windows offer a breathtaking view overlooking the rooftops and terraces of Rome, all sparkling in the snow. The wooden flooring creaks beneath their feet.

  “These are the offices we’ve just restructured,” the librarian explains. “And here we are. Room number four. Your uncle’s private reading room.”

  She gently pushes on the door and immediately stiffens, stunned by what she sees.

  It looks like a tornado has torn through it.

  “Uh-oh …,” Mistral whispers worriedly.

  Inside the room, a large wooden table is stacked high with books lying precariously one atop the other amid mountains of papers. Sticking out from between the yellowed pages are bookmarks, newspaper clippings and sticky notes full of scribbles. The floor is carpeted with papers. It looks as if someone has ripped them up and thrown them randomly down under the
chairs. Many of them are covered with bizarre drawings in ink: spirals, circles, stylized flames.

  “Whoa …” Sheng whistles.

  The window is wide open, revealing a gloomy, tea-colored sky.

  “I’ve never seen such a mess in here …,” the librarian murmurs, shaking her head.

  “Let’s go …,” Harvey whispers in Elettra’s ear. “Right now.”

  The girl nods and takes a step backward, refusing to set foot in the room.

  Mistral, on the other hand, walks into the study, trying not to tread on the papers scattered around on the floor. Without saying a word, she walks over to the window and shuts it.

  “It was left open,” she remarks. “Maybe the wind made all this mess. …”

  The librarian nods but clearly isn’t very convinced. “Something about this doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Would you wait here for a moment, please? I need to find a phone.”

  Mistral bends down to pick up a few sheets of paper from the floor.

  Harvey and Sheng walk up to her. “What are you doing?” the American boy says in a low voice. “Let’s get out of here. …”

  “Let’s just take a peek,” she suggests.

  On the professor’s table are stacks of all kinds of books. Old writings by Greek and Latin authors. Seneca, Plutarch, Apuleius, Pliny, Lucretius. And books about science, astronomy, all covered with sticky notes.

  Harvey walks around the table and picks up a book that’s been left open in front of the chair. “Okay, but let’s do it quick! What do you think? Could this be of any interest? It might be the last book the professor was reading.”

  It’s a book bound in dark leather, on which the professor had attached a sticky note with the words KORE KOSMOU—THE MAIDEN OF THE COSMOS. The book smells old. The paper is thin and yellowed. It’s written in Greek, with lettering in very dark ink. Harvey turns the pages until he reaches one marked with a piece of graph paper identical to the note they found in the briefcase. “And here’s another note,” he says.

  “So what’s it about?” Sheng asks with a sigh.

  “I don’t know,” he answers. “It looks like a sort of translation.”