In fact, this particular heating tunnel had an illustrious history, according to Luigi Scarpa, whom we met in Alice’s office two days later. During the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, nineteen students died of the contagion, but the fierce winter made it impossible to dig graves from the icy ground. Their bodies were therefore stored in the heating tunnel until spring, when they could be properly buried. Luigi said the removal and burial proved grisly, because by spring the bodies had turned into beef jerky.
…
Removing the manhole cover, we made our descent into university history. My back pocket held a small stainless-steel chisel. As our flashlights cut sharp lines through the darkness, we crept through the low-ceilinged tunnel. Casting a beam on the walls, I could see where graffiti, for no good reason that I could fathom, had been covered with paint. We did, however, come to one place in which the graffiti had been left intact. It prophetically read: “The earth said no to all those lying here; / No better reason for us all to fear.”
Cross-Cultural Communications Press
publishing company est. 1971