INTO A DARK ROOM

INTO A DARK ROOM

It was a great party that Paul had given to celebrate his forty second birthday. Doing the honors with him was his sixth wife, Catherine, a beautiful girl of twenty years. But to his birthday party Paul had also invited all his ex-wives, with their respective husbands and children, not only those who they had had with him, as Paul had had children with each of his previous five wives. He had not yet had any child with Catherine, with whom he had been married only since two months.

He, Paul, had eleven children, born of his previous marriages, and two of them had already made him the grandfather of two beautiful children. Yes, because (since) Paul first had got married when he wasn’t twenty yet. At his birthday party, in addition to his parents and a lot of relatives____there was a large number of uncles, aunts, cousins, also his maternal grandmother, ninety years old, was present____he had invited friends and acquaintances.  

Paul, at Catherine’s suggestion, had even launched a poetry competition___ called BIRTHADY____to which they were invited to participate, not only those invited to the party ( the guests of the party), which thus also became a literary festival.

Peter, a friend of Paul since the days of school, had been happy to be invited to that kind of big event that  would have been his birthday party. Paul had decided to go big, not only regards the guests, who were more than a hundred, but also with regard to the setting up of the party.  In fact, he had decided that his great party would have taken place (would take place) in more than one room, indeed even in more than one space. It  would have taken place not only in his house, not only on all three floors of his house___even the cellar in the underground would have been a place for his great party____but he had even set up platforms in the garden for the orchestra, for the dancers, and even water plays, and he had decided that there would be ( would have been) horses racings, too. But that was not all yet. Paul had wanted even the street in front of his house became a space for his party, with the participation of all his neighbors , but also of people who happened to pass by on the street.

When Peter arrived to Paul’s house, the street that passed in front of the house had been cordoned off for a long stretch to prohibit traffic of cars and other vehicles. For the duration of the party, which, from five in the afternoon, would go on ( would have gone on) until the next morning, that stretch of street could have been transited only on foot and by bicycle . So when Peter arrived in the street there were already people dancing and singing, accompanied by music that the orchestra, settled in the garden, was playing. Most of the guests had arrived, indeed it seemed they all had arrived. All the guests seemed cheerful, all they seemed to be having a lot of fun, there was a festive atmosphere of joy, but also confusion. Paul and his young wife were very busy  to check that everything was fine and, first of all, to make the guests feel at ease. However, despite this, Peter had been very warmly welcomed by Paul , who had jokingly reproached him for not having arrived sooner, so that he had had to wait so long for him. “ Oh, my dearest friend Paul! Here he is at last!” Paul exclaimed, welcoming him. “ You know, to me Peter is a brother, as well as a friend” he claimed.

As soon as he arrived, Peter had made his first toast with Paul, then he had toasted with Paul’s parents, whom he also knew since a life, then he had toasted again with Paul’s friends. In short, everyone had invited him to drink, as well as enjoying the delicacies displayed on the tables. Dinner would be later, not before ten in the evening.

Peter, despite the fact that he knew him, and had frequented him rather assiduously since many years, despite being, undoubtedly, his friend, he was very different from Paul, indeed he could be considered the opposite of him. He was certainly not exuberant, not outgoing as Paul was. And certainly he did not frequent the tide of people who Paul had always frequented. Oh, he, Paul, was at his sixty marriage, while Peter, of his same age, had never married. Even with regard to job(work) and success, they were the polar opposite. Paul was a brilliant lawyer, and he taught law in a prestigious university, while Peter had a modest job as an accountant in a carpentry . Certainly, even with such different lives, they had passions in common. They both loved football, not only seeing it play, but also playing it. They both loved to travel, and they both loved detective stories.

Peter, among all those people who took part at the great party to celebrate Paul’s birthday, since he had accepted all their invitation to drink, soon he felt rather tipsy, if not completely drunk.

Without being able to realize how it had been happened, he found himself in the cellar, which was in the underground. Even the cellar, stocked with exquisite wines, had been set up as a room for the party. In fact several guests were partying in the cellar, draining the best bottles of wine. Peter was invited to join them , and, since he didn’t feel like refusing , he drank again. So that soon he was completely drunk, so drunk that he couldn’t stand up.

He didn’t want to be seen in that state by Paul, so he sat in a corner of the cellar, keeping his distance from the other people who were there , who, even if they continued to drink, never seemed to get drunk.

Peter seated , almost hidden, in a corner of the fresh room. When he , shrugging, leaned his back against the wall to which the stone seat he was sitting on, was attached, the wall seemed to move under the thrust of his shoulders. At first he thought it was just an impression, since he was drunk. But then, when he felt that the wall moved again, every time he leaned his back on it_____he was not to able, however, to remain with his back leaned on the wall, since, for his drunken condition, his torso bent again forwards____he stood up, staggering, and, kneeling in front of the wall, holding his arms outstretched, he pushed it ( the wall) hard  with both hands. Oh, maybe he had visions ( a vision), but that wall had opened like a door. And beyond the wall that had opened there was a large room. Peter had called Julia, a friend of Paul, who was there in the cellar, and he had shown her that incredible wall. Julia, who even if she didn’t seem to be, was quite drunk she too, had said to him, chirping. “ But how? Possible? Do you not know? This is a refuge which Paul has wanted to be built. Oh, it is not only a refuge, it is also an escape route, since, yeah, inside this shelter there is a passage, a kind of alley that leads kilometers away from here. Look, I think….oh, but I’m not sure, it leads to Paris.Oh, but look, gosh! You made a great mess, Peter” Julia said, .looking at him with crooked eyes.” Me? And what mess would I have made?” Peter complained. “ Ah, you see, this wall , which you have opened, cannot be closed from the outside. You have to go into the shelter to be able to close it….Ah, but here is a problem. If you go inside the refuge and close the wall, oh, here…now I don’t remember what you have to do ( how you have to do) to get out….Listen, wait here, that I’m going to ask Paul what to do. Oh, I pray you, ( I recommend ): don’t enter the shelter before I come back” Julia said, almost worried. She too was beginning to stagger. Oh, he didn’t really think to enter the shelter to close the wall. He didn’t want to have to walk up to Paristo get out, Peter reassured her. But when Julia, who was wobbling more and more, and she also begun to see double, had come back to the cellar, not long after, Peter had disappeared, and that wall was closed again. God, the poor wretch , drunk as he was, had to have ended up in the shelter, where he probably had remained imprisoned. Julia had started screaming, asking for help, without thinking at all about what she should have done(about the most reasonable thing to do): to open the wall again. Drunk as she was, it hadn’t come in her mind in slightest. When that wall was opened again , there was no trace of Peter, neither into the shelter, nor in the tunnel which started from the shelter and which led hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away from where the shelter was located. Julia had said the tunnel’s exit was in Paris.

Could he, Peter,have walked along the tunnel until he reached Paris in a few minutes? But Peter hadn’t gotten to Paris, and he would never get there. He had disappeared.