The Power of Five Oblivion

horrible. But then his fingers found the bottom of the metal barrier and he realized there was a little space underneath. An adult would never have been able to pass through. It would have been too narrow for most children. But he was half-starved. He could do it.
    He went feet first. He felt the metal rim rubbing against his thighs as he pulled himself under the grille. Now he was terrified of getting stuck. To be so close and yet to be pinned down here, to be forced to open his mouth and let the sewage flow into him. He couldn’t bear it. In his haste, he tried to rise up too soon and the metal struck his throat, almost making him cry out. It hit him a second time, just above his nose – but then he was free, on the other side. There was almost nothing left in his lungs. He had to breathe. He pushed himself up, not exactly swimming … more like burrowing with all his strength. His hands came free. The cool evening air hit him. He had reached the surface! For a moment he splashed around helplessly, then somehow he made it to the side and pulled himself onto the sand, sewage still streaming out of his hair, down his face, over his eyes and lips. He hardly dared breathe, afraid that he would swallow some of it. He was covered in filth and it could still kill him.
    “Ti aiuterò!”
    Giovanni had grabbed hold of him, smearing himself too, and the two of them staggered down the beach, arm in arm, as if they were drunk or had been fighting together for the past couple of hours. They were making for the sea but heading away from the outlet. The further they went, the cleaner the water would be. Pedro felt it lapping at his ankles and gratefully threw himself forward, allowing it to wash over him. Giovanni did the same. The water was black and polluted but after what Pedro had been through it felt and tasted delicious. He washed himself all over, particularly his hair and his face. For a long time he didn’t move.
    When he finally sat up, the sun had almost set. He could just make out the sprawl of a city, a port, a tangle of ships. In the middle of it there was a castle, a huge block with four massive towers and a scattering of tiny windows. This must have been where he had been held. It was from here that he had just escaped.
    But there was something else that drew his attention. It was far behind the city and over to one side and yet still it dominated the landscape, soaring into the sky. At first Pedro thought it was a mountain, but then he saw the smoke pouring out of the top and realized that this was why the sky was always black and everything smelled as if it had burned.
    Giovanni had followed his eyes. “Vesuvius,” he said simply. “ Il volcano .”
    The smoke wouldn’t stop coming.
    It was forming itself into the shape of a tree.

TWENTY
    Dripping wet and shivering, but no longer smelling quite as bad as he had a few minutes before, Pedro followed Giovanni through the darkening passages of the city, which he now knew to be Naples, Italy. It reminded him of Lima in some ways – particularly the cobbled streets and the palm trees, which somehow didn’t seem to belong together. A lot of the buildings were old and very grand but they stood just around the corner from modern flats and offices that were uglier and more run-down. From the harbour where they had begun, they followed a complicated network of interlocking roads and alleys, which led them ever deeper into the metropolis. And all the time Pedro felt the bulk of the castle where he had been kept prisoner looming over him, and wondered if they were still looking for him inside or if the search had been widened into the city itself. Either way, he was glad to put as much space between himself and it as he could.
    Naples was crowded. In fact, that wasn’t the word for it. Pedro soon saw that there was an impossible number of people out in the open – thousands and thousands of them filling the pavements, crouching in the doorways, queuing for food, for shelter, for work, for a bed for the night or simply because they had nothing else to do. There were whole families clustered together: wizened grandmothers in black, children in rags, blank-faced mothers carrying babies. Many of the people were carrying huge bundles which surely contained everything they owned. Others had their possessions piled up on carts or wheelbarrows. And they were wearing so many clothes that they didn’t even look human; they were just round masses of cloth – old jackets