Shape of things to come (ending)

After a rather troubled night, Stefano had a quick breakfast and went to school.
He couldn’t wait to have a chance to recharge his phone and try to call his contact from the past.
Even Anna ended up in the background: he met her in the corridor during the break and she accompanied him to buy the recharge, but then he greeted her with an excuse.
"I'm sorry, Anna, really..." he thought as he walked away.
First he dialled the telephone number he found on the service plate of the elevators, and then Marco’s one - the friend from that time in Superga: but in both cases he only got to talk to the two correct recipients.
He stood for a few minutes talking with him and his friend proposed to go and see the match on the following Sunday at a local TV site: it would have been an opportunity to continue the debate started on Saturday.
The sound of the bell forced him to interrupt the call. The two hours that followed were decidedly unbearable and, again, at the stroke of the bell Stefano rushed into the library ignoring practically all his friends; then, as he had foreseen, he had to continue his research in the public library.
Meanwhile he continued, in vain, to dial numbers on his phone in the hope of reaching for Eugenio.
"Here... here are the data from the hotel where they stayed... and nothing, damn, there's nothing on the airport. Not even at the intermediate stop."
"He could send a telegram..." he said to himself. But realistically he had no idea how long a telegram from Italy to Portugal could take in 1949.
Finally he found him.
- Hello! Tell me we still have time... - he said, coming out of the library and looking out in the park before his eyes.
The other answered him, a little sad: - if you mean to say that it hasn’t... happened yet, I answer yes. But here it is three o'clock in the afternoon...
Stefano felt a chill.
- ...were you able to communicate with someone?
- I talked again with that gentleman, and then he gave me the phone numbers of a couple of players' families...
- Well, I thought about it last night too...
- By the way, but was it you calling tonight? My father was mad at me this morning!
- Yes, I'm sorry... I can talk to you only once in twenty... as I said, and then I wasn’t sure it was night at your place... here it was more or less ten o'clock in the evening...
The other seemed to chuckle.
- Take it easy, no problem: my father is simply against the phone, since they installed it two years ago he does nothing but complain!
- Yeah...
- In short, in the end Gabetto’s wife and Bacigalupo’s father... well you know them only by their fame but here they’re real heroes...
- Oh, I fully believe you!
- ...they told me that they can point out the possibility of a problem in the return flight...
- But... what did you tell him exactly?
- What I told you: that there could be problems returning to Milan, as you told me, and that they have to focus on Genoa...
- But... with no explanation?
- No. And what explanations should I give him? Like am I talking on the phone with one who lives in 2003?
- But no! Rather you had to tell him that... I don’t know, there's a bomb on the plane, things like that!
- Bomb? Look, the war is over now since a few years and...
Stefano regretted the gaffe.
- Sorry, I didn’t want to mean that... it’s that, in short, in the movies you often watch... and then the terrorists, too often...
- Terrorists? And what would they be? People purposely placing bombs on planes?
Stefano went by his mind to the episodes of airplanes detonated by terrorists and... indeed he realized that it was a relatively recent phenomenon.
"In fact, who is it that in a phase of... reconstruction, the post-war period, would start blowing up civilian airplanes?"
- Sorry, it's something that... sadly, has taken hold in the future...
- What a bad thing!
- Oh yes... we haven’t had any more wars but... sometimes things like that happen...
- Complicated is the future, neh ? In any case, no, I don’t think I could talk about bombs with these people.
- How likely is it that your warning has arrived to those who... could take it into account? - Stefano asked.
- I don’t know... I don’t know. I hope it arrives: Mrs. Gabetto seemed to be worried, although obviously she doesn’t know me and therefore she wanted to know why and how I had this information...
- I get it. I've been looking for phone numbers from... your times’ Lisbon and Barcelona airports, where they seem to be making a stopover... that is, they've made it, but I haven’t found them. But...
As he said it, however, he realized another possibility.
- ...could you call all the airports in Turin and tell them to inform that... by the way, what's the weather like?
- The weather? It's raining, it's cloudy since this morning...
- Yes, as it should be. So, if you call...
- Stefano, there's no airport in Turin: after the war it was dismantled, it was practically destroyed...
- Caselle? - he asked.
- What, Caselle?
- The airport, I mean.
- I don’t know Caselle... I only know the Mirafiori airport, near the stadium, among other things...
- Damn, there are so many things I don’t know about my town. However, Caselle airport is the one we have today. Maybe it's more recent than I thought... this also explains why that damn plane didn’t focus on Turin, I had always been wondering about that...
- I get it...
- So, can you try calling Milan or Genoa? And tell them that they have to make it change its path, not to fly under any circumstances via Turin...
- Do you think they will listen to me? If I had more time, I would have taken a train or would have even gone on foot, damn it...
Stefano threw a fist against the wall.
- Damn! We have fifty... four years and we are twenty-four hours away...
- I know... listen, I’ll try to do...

The line dropped again.
Stefano redialled that number in a flash, and found Eugenio still on the other end, but he could only exchange a few words.
- Eugenio! Eugenio!
After another eight calls, Stefano resigned himself.
He returned to the library and took the two books he had borrowed and returned them to the librarian.
He came nervously out of the structure and headed for the bus stop. Then, actually, he decided he preferred to walk.
He felt angry and powerless.
"It's like today they died again..."
In some ways he also felt guilty, even if it was not that he had other possibilities.
"It happened... it took a while to understand and... when we understood, it was too late."
For a moment he thought of going back, going to the Orbassano square. Or maybe to Superga,
"I’d arrive in two hours, by public transportation... it's useless..."
But maybe there the phone would have "grabbed" immediately the wave from the past.
"I don’t know... I don’t know, I DON’T KNOW! What can I do?" he shouted to himself. Usually calm and measured, as his mother would have said, Stefano was amazed by that adrenaline rush.

Finally, after a quarter of an hour, he arrived home.
He hadn’t realized what was the time.
- Stefano, where have you been? It's twenty past two... his mother told him as soon as he entered the house.
He looked at his watch and winced.
- Oh... sorry, sorry mom... I stopped in the library and... I didn’t realize the time!
- Ah... well it's not serious, but you could’ve warned me. I tried to call you but you were unreachable...
- Strange... - Stefano answered, extracting his phone from the backpack.
It was all right: Stefano began to think that that phone was equipped with magical gifts...

 - Maybe there was no signal... even if it's weird...
- All right, come on and have your lunch, I've already warmed it up at least twice!
- Am coming mom!
After a few minutes he was eating, satisfied: he realised he had a good appetite, perhaps because of the time.
He spoke quickly with his mother about the morning spent at school and about possible Sunday programs.
- We decided to go to the Lanzo Valleys... if you want to join us, we take a long walk and then eat at the shelter!
- Beautiful! Yes, I must talk to...
- Anna? - asked her mother, almost anxiously.
- ...no - answered Stefano, almost astonished, something his mother noticed.
In fact, he hadn’t even thought about it, to invite her: despite the excellent memory of the evening spent with her and the... work left on hold, in those last thirty-six hours he had other things to think about.
- ...I meant Umberto, Enrico and the others, but for the moment we’ve not organized anything.
- All right... then as soon as your father comes back we'll discuss the details!

Stefano went to his room.
Sitting at his desk, he tried to call numbers with his cell phone, hoping to find Eugenio. But, as it often happened, without success.
He lay down on the bed. He stared at the players' poster... the heroes' poster, who were on his left, near the bedroom door.
The slightly altered colours, as always. The names, the signatures, which he knew almost by heart. And the high shorts, their haircut so... ancient.
For a moment Stefano stopped to think about what Eugenio could look like...
"Probably he looks like them, yes..."
Then, in a moment, his mind went to the news he had put (or had had to put aside), that is, the fact that that same person had then died two years... before.
And so, how would he look if he had had the chance to meet him.

He tried to think of something else.
"Anna... now, inviting her to go out tomorrow afternoon... I do not know if... meh, maybe yes... but now I told Mom that I was going to walk with them..."
But his mind returned there.
"Damn! We could’ve saved them! What stupid we were!"
He turned on his side and closed his eyes, trying to relax. Then, after a few minutes, he got up and went to turn on his radio receiver and turned the volume down to a background level.

He had fallen asleep, as he heard his father's voice.
- Stefano... may I come in? - he said, knocking on his door.
He turned around a couple of times in bed, astonished to have fallen asleep - in the afternoon he usually never did.
- Yes, yes... of course... Dad...
The man entered, slowly.
- Are you OK? - he asked him.
- Yes... yes, why? - Stefano answered.
- Mom said you arrived late and weren’t answering the phone and...
- I was in the library and I was late, but in fact I don’t understand why the phone didn’t ring - he said, rubbing his eyes.
His father, who had approached the bed, was now getting up.
- It's been a few days that you're strange... I would say since the first time you talked about that friend of yours... that Toro fan, that one from the butchery... - he said.
Stefano, a little astonished, tried to organize a plausible answer to the remarkable ability of intuition of his "old man".
- Well, yes... it was... a curious thing...
- Did you talk to him again, after the day before yesterday, when you went and see him in Orbassano?
- I... yes, that day we didn’t actually meet, I told you so. Then we chatted yesterday and...
- ...and?
Stefano looked at the ceiling of the room and then looked back at his father, who was now standing at the window.
- Oh nothing, dad, it's just an absurd story. We talked about... something out of the world...
- By chance, something that could have to do with that...? - his father asked, with a smile that he couldn’t remember having ever seen and with his finger pointed at the opposite wall.
Stefano turned around.
The wall, the bookcase, the basket, some things placed in a disordered way on the small cabinet...
The poster!
With his eyes wide open, Stefano got out of bed and headed for the poster.
- But what...?
Colours had changed. The "heroic boys" had disappeared, and in their place there were more "normal" footballers, similar to those from present times. Wearing Toro garnet shirt... and the shirt had a shield sewn on...
He turned for a moment to look at his father, who kept smiling.
- Did you do it? - asked the boy.
- No... but I have a vague idea that, I don’t know how, you did it...
- But I... I am not able to make photomontages! Come on, it's beautiful... it's a nice gift... thank you... let's hope it's a good omen...
Stefano's father approached his son and the wall on which stood the Torino soccer player poster.
- Stefano, you don’t understand: whatever you did... with whomever you spoke... you caused this.
- I... I am not following you, Dad...
- Then you have to come with me, I'll show you something...
- And where?
- Oh, near here: we can go walking...
- But where?
- At the Toro Stadium... the Filadelfia...

Stefano felt a chill.
- But you mean that...
The man looked at him, serious, and then returned to smile.
- It never happened... the Superga tragedy... the heroes did not die! - said his father.
Stefano burst out laughing, almost hysterical, then turned to hug his father. Who added, in a low voice "of course, now they’re a little less heroes, but better like that!"
- I'm not dreaming, am I?
- I would say no...
- And you? I mean, I don’t understand...
- Look, son... I can’t say anything for... sure. But out there I see no people exulting like us and then... So all I know is that, in the movies, if the past is... altered, some are aware of it and some others aren’t. It seems that we are the only ones who remember both... versions, I mean.
- And mum?
- We're going to ask her right away but I think... she’s with us!
- Quick! Let's run to the Fila! - Stefano shouted, putting on his shoes.

And after a few minutes the three of them were on the road, heading for the glorious stadium.
- And so... your friend succeeded! - exclaimed Stefano's mother.
- Yup! It seems so... I heard him a last time this morning... as I got out of the library and...
- How... crazy, Stefano! - she commented, thinking back to the few hints that her son had given in those minutes, and reserving the right to be told all the details later.

The show which presented itself in front of their eyes was beyond any possible amazement: objects moved, walls appeared out of nothing or were restructured as if by an invisible force... the grass of the lawn was being arranged neatly on the entire surface until shortly before worn and scarred.
At the sides of the camp, the disused steps were being arranged and repaired by the same invisible force, and small kiosks appeared outside.
- It's a miracle! - Stefano's mother commented.
- Maybe... it was just put back in place something that... inadvertently had been put out of place. You know, when it comes to entropy and... those things there, which I had studied over a quarter of a century ago! - added his father.
- Yeah! I should go talk to Anna... - Stefano said, and his parents smiled and they both put their arms on his shoulders.
- How many championships have we won? Is that from ‘76 still there? - he then asked his father.
- Look... there's a flag... let's go and check...

They approached the kiosk who was selling the garnet flags.
"They're... it's like twenty, I believe..." - Stefano said.
- Yes, it seems to me too. Look, there is also that one belonging to the hunchbacks, let's take a look...
The shields on Juventus flag were now eighteen.
- Well... it seems fair enough...
- Yes, it's never good to exaggerate... - Stefano's father said, smiling.

- Now you'll have to talk to your friend again... to thank him... - Stefano's mother said, coming home.
- Yeah! But who knows if I can call him again... as I mentioned, it was always very complicated!
- What a crazy circle of... waves, that must have been there - she said.
- And you said that... that guy is dead? Two years ago? asked his father.
- Yes, at least that’s what they told me when I asked to talk to "Eugenio"...
- I don’t remember this name, and you, Marina?
- No, not even me. I remember that there were the boys, young like him now - Stefano's mother said pointing at him - and then the two spouses, who could have been, say, as old as we’re now... the last time we went there, say ten years ago. And then sometimes I saw an old gentleman... and maybe even a lady: maybe that was Eugenio there...
- Yes... - Stefano commented.
- Did you tell him that... is he dead?
- No, no. But I told him... of course, that the shop is still there...
- And that he... had children, and grandchildren? - asked his father again.
- Yes: I didn’t say it explicitly, but he grasped that...
- You know, it's always said that people shouldn’t know their own future... - commented the man, becoming more serious.
- True, I know. We hope it didn’t... it wasn’t a problem. He looked like a good person... he was like a grandfather, but young! A difficult thing to explain...

The three returned to their home.
Stefano wanted to run and celebrate his team as if it had won the longed-for championship, but he realized he couldn’t do it: only for him everything had changed, because for everyone else in the world... Toro had always been one of the strongest teams in Italy.
He turned on the computer and connected to the internet and went looking for something regarding the "squadron" story, and so he discovered how the Invincibles had continued their cycle for another nine seasons, winning seven championships after 1948-49; then there were pauses and some Cups... and then another cycle of victories in the mid-70s, which included the 1975-76 championship; in one photo Stefano saw Valentino Mazzola alongside Orfeo Pianelli, and he was moved.
And in the mid-90s there had been a crisis, which had twice brought Torino to the brink of the B Series: but by now it was outdated, and the 2001-2002 shield was showing its newfound grit. With three days of matches before the end, the 2002-2003 championship was still within reach of Toro, together with Inter and Roma.
"No results found for... Superga's tragedy... good!" he noted.

Phone rang.
Stefano went to get the device and saw that the call was anonymous: hesitant, he answered.
- Hello? I just wanted to warn you that the plane landed on time at the Genoa airport...
- Eugenio! - Stefano shouted.
- It's me... I told myself who knows that it won’t work in the opposite way... for once...
- What number did you dial?
- I dialled my own number: I thought it was the most logical thing to... put my waves in circulation...!
- Good boy. So, you did it! How did you do?
- We are successful, let’s be honest. It was also thanks to you.
- Yes, but you had to...
- After the last call between you and me, I started to haunt the airports of Milan and Genoa... in fact I'm afraid that a phone bill will come not, exactly to laugh at...
Stefano smiled.
- ...and at one point one man started to pay attention to me. They told me "but it isn’t true, it turns out to us that the weather is cloudy but not to the point of precluding the air navigation" and I insisted "look that there are lightning on all sides, hailing like you've never seen!"
- Good boy! - Stefano commented again.
- I also called back Mrs. Gabetto begging her to insist at the airports... and she, even if a little surprised by my insistence, listened to me.
- A nice job...
- So... how are things going at your place?
- Oh well... where do we start from?
- From the Fila...
- Yeah! It’s gorgeous. I don’t remember much the old photos but... it's a miracle! Later I’ll go looking for some historical pictures... you have to know that now we all have a computer at home and...
- A what?
- Oh, it's true, we should talk about many things. In short, it is a kind of TV, with a keyboard like a typewriter... and it connects with other computers all over the world, with libraries and newspapers and...
- All right, all right, I think I understand!
- Or, maybe I go to an "old-fashioned" library, which still hold their charm, as always!
- I hope so!
- And we have twenty shields! The Great Torino cycle is over... that is, it will end, in 1958...
- Another nine years? Not bad, then...
- Yup! And then a bit of ups and downs, however, last year we won again!
- And the hunchbacks? - Eugenio asked.
- Eighteen. But as for consecutive wins and contributions to the National team, no one even approaches us by chance!
- Perfect! Are you happy?
- Me? Yes, very much. And you?
- It's been a couple of hours since I've been thinking about... how I would feel... if the news of that plane crashing had come to me. I believe that... I would have closed the shop for mourning...
- It's just what... happened, or rather it should have happened.
- Yeah. You told me about that... will they shoot movies about this kind of... events?
- On the Great Torino, you say? Yes, they had made many of them... now, though...
- No, I meant about time... time travel, things like these...
- Ah, yes... yes. It will take maybe a few more... decades, see...
- Maybe by then I'll be too old to understand them. But I will try it.
- Consider that... it’s just you and me, besides my father and mother... who know that... something has changed. It is hard to explain...
- What do you mean?
- That... In short, the rest of people are not celebrating... as I am doing. For them, the Great Torino never died... it had not, I mean. Hell, maybe I'm dreaming...
- And I would be your dream? Naah, I feel real!
They both laughed.

- You know, as my father rightly pointed out, now the "invincibles" from Great Torino are a bit less "heroic", since they aren’t dead.
- Is to your father heroic, to die against a mountain?
- No... I mean, you know, in these years there was a legend... a legend: a big team, the strongest in the world, that disappears this way... mocking and unjust... You know, it's like when you die young, like... James Dean... you automatically become a legend...
- Like who?
- James... oh, leave it alone. In fact, I didn’t even have to mention him... I shouldn't talk about the future... I think...
- Oh, that's great. However, I don’t know if I agree with your theory... yours and your father's. But I have got an idea: why don’t you write a story... you told me that you like literature, right?
- Yes... I'm taking English literature as my high school exam... which story?
- The story of a really strong football team, which unfortunately ends its epic in a bloody plane crash...
- You mean that...?
- It would be an idea. Above all, if I haven’t misunderstood, it is a rather simple undertaking: all you have to do is transcribe your memories till this morning...
Stefano smiled.
- Do you know, that it's not bad? Even if it feels a bit like... a scam. But maybe I could do it just for fun...
It was Eugenio's turn to laugh.
- Well... I hope to hear from you again even though... I don’t know, maybe it won’t happen again. Maybe in a day or maybe in one year or who knows: but, I thought, if you go to our store maybe you can come visit me... I should be, I made the math, eighty-two... I wonder if I'll still be alive...
Stefano swallowed but tried not to get noticed.
- Of course I'm going to look for you! Tomorrow I am on a trip with my parents, but on Monday or Tuesday I'll come down there and ask about you...
"A little lie. It's acceptable", Stefano told himself.
- I'll leave you a dedication, anyway. You should ask for a poster of the Great Turin left by Eugenio... I don’t know if I will have children or grandchildren but I will make sure that they keep it for you...
Stefano smiled, but didn’t leak anything out, about the other guy’s family’s future.
- You're very kind, Eugenio. So... see you or talk with you soon...
- Bye...

 Stefano had no way to get in touch with the person who had changed the history of the greatest Italian soccer team, if not by bringing him a flower from time to time on his grave.
And smiling every time he passed in front of the copy of the Invincibles' photo that Eugenio's nephews had given him:

"To Stefano from his friend from the past, with affection and esteem"

And then, with a slightly different calligraphy:
"They asked me how was it even possible that their grandfather had prepared that dedication with that name, decades before you were born. I replied that maybe it was just a coincidence... "