Escape

by Dominique Manotti

  The three of us embraced and thumped the roof of her car – we’d pulled off our escape. Then we got into the car, I took the wheel, she sat next to me, half-turned towards Carlo sitting like a king on the back seat, and we headed off in the direction of the mountains.

  Filippo is absorbed in his work. He is laboriously copying out on to a pad of lined paper, in a careful, legible hand, a text extracted from twenty or so sheets of rough paper covered in crossings-out and corrections, without stopping to glance at the bank of CCTV monitors in front of him. His old colleague is so intrigued that he forgets to watch his television, craning his neck to try and see what Filippo is up to that is so engrossing. When Filippo finally sits up and carefully slips the sheets of paper inside an orange binder, he can no longer contain himself and asks, jerking his thumb in the direction of the binder:

  ‘What are you doing? What’s that thing?’

  The very question that Filippo has been asking himself since he starting copying out his notes. ‘I’m writing.’

  ‘So I can see, but what are you writing?’

  Filippo pauses, searches for the words in French, and blurts out an answer that he has clearly been rehearsing: ‘I’m writing my story.’

  ‘So you’re a writer?’

  The bank raid was planned for 3 p.m. on the 3rd of March. On the first of March, Carlo, Pepe and I held a vigil back at camp. Luciana had departed early in the morning, leaving us her car. She had to walk alone for a good three hours over the mountains before finding a car to take her back to Rome, but we men wanted to be on our own. I caressed her mass of copper hair one last time, feeling very emotional, then I went into the barn with Pepe, to allow Carlo to say goodbye to her in private, surrounded by nature.

  When he came back, we got out the guns, three Walther P38 pistols. Our final shooting practice, four cartridges each, we didn’t have enough ammunition for more. I’d never used firearms in my Rome days, I was wary of them, I didn’t like the alternately icy or burning feel of them, they scared me. They were like wild animals that I couldn’t tame, but I kept quiet and joined in the shooting, same as the other two. I was no worse, either, once I was over the initial shock. Then we cleaned and greased our weapons, lying disassembled on a table in front of us. Carlo lingered, with a faraway look in his eyes. It was plain that he derived a physical thrill from touching the metal, greasing it, breathing in the special smell of mingled grease and powder. We put the guns away. Then, on the same table we spread out a map of Milan and the surrounding area, a map of the neighbourhood and a sketch showing the bank entrance and the interior.

  We didn’t plan to go further inside the building. The three of us stood poring over the maps, our shoulders and heads brushing, and sometimes our hands touched. Pepe and I listened while Carlo explained to us in detail, a pencil in his hand, who would do what, and the precise timing of the operation. ‘Precision is crucial,’ Carlo said. ‘Our organisation must be flawless.’ We were attentive, very solemn. We exchanged a word, a look, our movements were coordinated, we were experiencing an intense moment of comradeship. Then, when the maps were put away, we decided that the fine-tuning was done, and we broke bread. ‘Last meal before the battle,’ Carlo said, and we shivered with anticipation, fear and pleasure. Afterwards, we found it difficult to chat idly so we sat in silence, and the time dragged. We went to bed early, and took sleeping pills.

  Next day, on the second of March, the three of us drove up to Milan in the car that Luciana had left us, the guns hidden under the seats. When we got there, we staked out the area around the bank, to get a clear picture in our minds, then Carlo took the bag with the guns. We dumped the car in a car park, as planned, so that Luciana could pick it up that evening, and we hid in an empty apartment that belonged to friends of Carlo’s. For the sake of having something to do, something to say, we went over the next day’s schedule twice. Carlo emphasised that as long as we followed the plan to the letter, as long as there were no cock-ups, everything would be fine, they’d be waiting for us – those were his words. And he didn’t elaborate any further. The day dragged by very slowly.

  The third of March. At last. The day that was to decide our fates. Things started speeding up. We split up. Pepe went to hire two vans and parked them near the bank. My job was to check the condition of the two motorbikes in the garage. I lavished attention on them and drove them to the two positions identified the previous day, so that we could make our getaway in two different directions after the robbery. And then there was more hanging around. I wasn’t able to eat the sandwich I’d bought.

  We met up in a café a few hundred metres from the bank. Carlo had brought the guns in a sports holdall, we took one each. At 14.30, we got into our vans, Carlo alone in one, Pepe and me in the other. At 14.50, Pepe started up the van and parked it over a driveway to the left of the bank, obstructing the entire pavement. The bike was there, shielded by the van, and I was relieved to see it. At 14.57, the security van drew up in front of the bank and two guards got out, one of them was carrying two bags, the other kept his hand on his hip, on his open holster, and they went into the bank. Just then, Carlo’s van pulled up on the driveway to the right of the bank, facing ours. I was very focused, but not frantic, not even anxious; we simply needed to stick to the plan. Carlo opened his door, I opened mine. I didn’t take my eyes off him, he was our chief, we took our cue from him. He had his gun in his hand, I picked up mine, but then everything went wrong, and I don’t understand how or why. I saw Carlo collapse in slow motion, like in a film. It was impossible, unthinkable, and I lost all sense of reality. I was in another dimension. I’d gone deaf, I couldn’t hear a sound, I didn’t hear the shots. I turned towards the entrance to the bank, still in slow motion, and I saw a carabiniere aiming his gun at me, and one of the security guards taking his gun out extremely slowly. I didn’t have the sense that I was in danger, I shot without making the decision to do so, without grasping what was happening. I saw two cops stagger and fall in a muffled silence. I existed only through the gun I was holding with both hands, through my fingers squeezing the trigger. Pepe grabbed me by the arm, brutally, and dragged me from the scene. He shoved me behind the van and started up the bike. I clambered on behind him, clung on to his shoulders, and within a few seconds we were out of sight. I could feel the bike throbbing, I could hear the sound of the engine, I put my gun in my pocket and I could feel the barrel burning my thigh. Gradually I came back down to earth. I replayed the whole scene in my mind, much more clearly than I had experienced it. Three things were certain: Carlo was dead. Dead. I would never hear him talking about his former battles again, inventing his future and mine. Dead without a goodbye, a last outburst, a last caress. Another certainty: I had killed, I’d become a killer, without yet comprehending the full import of those words, the consequences of those actions. And finally: yes, Carlo was right, they’d been waiting for us.

  Filippo adds these sheets to those in the orange binder sitting on the desk in front of him. He is concentrating, his elbows on the desk, his face cupped in his hands. The two key sections of his story, the opening and the closing scenes, are written, they exist. His task now is to fill in the bits in between, bring alive the entire story by fleshing it out. How to go about it?

  He draws a box in the top left-hand corner of a blank sheet of paper, and writes ‘Escape’ in it. In the bottom right-hand corner, a box with ‘Bank raid’. Three weeks to get from one to the other. Three characters, Carlo, Marco, Luciana, and a fourth, Filippo, the chronicler, slightly in the background, an observer until the final shootout. He scribbles and he thinks. When he feels that he has a scene where something is really happening between the four of them, he gives it a name, a number, and hangs it on the line between the breakout and the bank robbery. Sometimes, he moves a box up or down the line, inserts another. At first, the game amuses him, but soon he is hooked. It is not long before he has the bare bones of his entire story:

  After the breakout, the two fugitives and Luciana m
ade it to a ruined farmhouse in the mountains. Marco, the small-time boss from Rome, was waiting for them there. He’d thought of everything, organised everything to enable them to hide out and survive – clothes, food and a few books for Carlo, who appreciated his thoughtfulness. But Marco never did anything for free. He immediately informed them that he had big plans. He wanted to expand his gang and consolidate his territory in Rome. To do that, he’d already done a deal with the local mafia bosses. He needed competent, reliable men, men he could count on, like Carlo and Filippo. Carlo was hesitant and asked for some time to think about it before making a decision. Marco reluctantly agreed, gave Carlo a week and went back to Rome. Luciana stayed at the barn and became Carlo’s mistress. Filippo accepted this situation, which he’d known was inevitable ever since they’d first met in the car park. If he was annoyed with Luciana, it was for depriving him of precious moments of intimacy with Carlo rather than for being unfaithful to him. Carlo got back in contact with his Milan friends, those who weren’t dead or in jail. To survive, they formed a little band of thieves and lived off run-of-the-mill burglaries, while cultivating the memory of ‘the years of fire’.

  Carlo trusted former comrades rather than anyone else. He was keen to hold on to his independence, and was instinctively wary of Marco. He suggested that the Milanese should build a solid team, that they should stop being amateurs and move up a gear – first of all, do a bank robbery, in the style of the best of them in the old days. Then, they’d see, they’d have money, the means to plan for the future. The idea soon took shape. The bank was selected, the plans for the raid drawn up. All the logistics were entrusted to the Milan crew. Carlo would head the action group. He came back to the farmhouse with Pepe, one of the Milanese. Filippo, who’d been a pickpocket and bag-snatcher, let himself be sucked in, fascinated by Carlo’s eloquent tales of past exploits and his future plans. He would be the third man. Preparations for the robbery were steaming ahead. Marco felt he was losing control of the group and his grand plans were compromised. However, he did seem willing to make a deal: in exchange for his past help, he insisted that the first bank raid take place in Rome, on his turf, so that he could control the share-out. Carlo refused; he insisted on Milan, his home town, on his turf. Neither trusted the other. Besides, claimed Carlo, plans were too far advanced in the north now to change targets. Conflict.

  Filippo delights in imagining the clash between the two men, he knows he’ll enjoy writing it even more. Carlo, tall, slim, elegant, classy, icily polite, with perfect self-control. Then Marco, squat, burly, a square mug, deep-set eyes and very black, bushy eyebrows in a slash across his forehead, a scar down his left cheek that disfigures his face slightly – a souvenir of knife fights in the turf wars around Termini station – his thuggish manner and brutal gestures. A persistent memory – the mug of the getaway car driver. Filippo counts on writing to help him purge the fear he felt on meeting his gaze, back in the mountains.

  Class won out over violence. At least for the time being. Marco seemed to give in. Bank robbery, fiasco. Certainty: Marco grassed on Carlo. Who informed him, day by day, of Carlo’s plans, who gave him the means to betray him? Luciana, of course.

  The friend more faithful than the woman. Posthumous revenge. Can’t let that betrayal go unpunished. Filippo adds another box after the bank robbery, by way of an epilogue.

  Filippo, aided by Pepe, kills Marco. The end.

  It feels as if his story will hold up and, as to the question ‘why has he ended up as night watchman in a tower at La Défense?’ he also has an answer that will hold water. Assuming he manages to unravel the yarn right to the end, that is. All he has to do is to write.

  As of now, Filippo’s days, asleep and awake, are peopled with intrusive characters and snatches of dialogue, all of which never leave him alone for a moment. And his nights, between security rounds, are entirely devoted to writing. He works relentlessly, revises, edits and deletes until he is satisfied he has found the right word, the one that pins down a fleeting thought. Right now, he feels something akin to happiness.

  January

  Marco has just died, during a fairly confusing turf war between Milanese and Romans, shot perhaps by Pepe. Or Filippo. The story ends there. For the author, it is a visceral certainty – it’s over. Full stop, no prisoners. He doesn’t want to know why, and he puts down his pen. So, he has come to the end of his endeavour. It isn’t going to be easy. He thought he would jump for joy, or do a dance – it’s done, it’s finished, I’ve got to the end, success. But not at all. After ten months of a lone undertaking verging on madness, ten months of it consuming all of his energy and of living intensely day and night through Carlo and Filippo, who are him and not him, the last line written, his characters abandon him, disintegrate, and he crumbles, the lifeblood sucked out of him. His brain is exhausted and empty, his body gives way like elastic slackening. For a few days he relishes this state of emptiness, and replenishes his energy.

  And then, inevitably, the machine for churning out ideas and emotions starts up again, softly at first. The satisfaction of having managed to explain why and how he’s ended up in this windowless room in the Tour Albassur. Nothing either mediocre or risky, but a path of flesh and blood, of violence and freedom which fulfils him. But very soon, the sense of frustration inevitably returns with a vengeance.

  I know very well why I’m here. But if I stay stuck in this windowless office in the bowels of a tower in La Défense as a night watchman, I’ll be giving Filippo a pathetic end. Who’s going to read my amazing tale? No one, not even Antoine, who doesn’t understand Italian. So what’s the point of all this effort? I didn’t just write it for myself, did I? I wrote it so that Lisa could read it, and be hurt by it. To make her understand that I exist, as much as Carlo, and alongside him. Will I have the guts to take my pile of paper to her and put the pages in her hands? I haven’t seen that woman in the ten months I’ve been living in France, but I’ve felt her burning hatred, like an animal lurking between the two of us. Of course not. And if I did, since she’s clever enough to realise that I’m stealing Carlo from her, she’s strong and determined enough to burn the manuscript. If I want her to read it, to be forced to read it, there’s only one way, and that is to publish it as a book. An object, that will live through its readers and so become indestructible. Like those piles of books at Lisa’s place, at Cristina’s, in the studio apartment that’s my home, all around me. A book, written by me, who’s hardly ever read anything. One hell of a revenge. Becoming a writer. ‘You are a writer,’ Antoine said, seeing me scribbling. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. A way of giving my Filippo a life worthy of him, in the world of cultured people, not hoodlums? And in the world of women like Lisa and Cristina, beautiful, desirable, unattainable. It was seeing their faces emerge from my doodling that made me decide to write, wasn’t it? See it through to the end. Now that the story is written, I’ve got to publish it. But how the hell do I go about that?

  The question goes round and round in his head for a few days, a few nights. One thing is clear – he won’t be able to manage it on his own. He needs a friend in the book world, the world of other people, to act as go-between and introduce him. Who could do that? In Paris, the choice is limited, and it doesn’t take long to run through the list of people he knows who may be able to help. Go through Lisa? Don’t even think about it. The Italian refugees’ lawyers? Only met them once. The memory still smarts – they were so stuck-up and condescending. ‘Let us know if you have any problems. We act on behalf of political refugees, not criminals like you, but since Lisa sent you, we’ll see what we can do.’ No point. Cristina? He recalls how she’d dazzled him on their first meeting, her beauty, her elegance, her smile. And then his hopes shattered. The impersonal handshake, ‘I arranged everything with Lisa,’ and Filippo, anonymous, no surname, just a first name, who had no say in the matter, the rent in cash in an envelope left on a shelf in the hall wardrobe, a few rare, fleeting encounters on the l
anding. ‘Hello’, ‘Good evening’, and then nothing. He had always put her in the same camp as Lisa. But he recalls her mass of copper hair and her smile, the same as the girl on the mountain. A sign? Filippo wonders whether he’s missed something. Cristina had said, ‘I’ve lived alone in this huge apartment … since Giorgio, my partner left … my phone number’s on the kitchen table…’ Was that a come-on? Not sure. Did he have any other options? No. Besides, to exist in Cristina’s eyes, revenge … So, he’ll have to try his luck. Tomorrow, he’ll buy a nice cardboard cover, write on it ‘ESCAPE, a story by Filippo Zuliani’, slip the pages inside and put the whole thing in Cristina Pirozzi’s letter-box, without a word of explanation. He wouldn’t know what to say.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FEBRUARY–MARCH 1988, PARIS

  3 February

  Filippo is wearing a clean white shirt when he walks into the bar, his breath tight, his mind numb. Yesterday, Cristina slid a note under his door. ‘Meet me tomorrow, 7.30 p.m. at the Café Pouchkine, the Russian bar two streets away. We’ll be able to have a quiet chat about your manuscript.’ He has been in a semi-comatose state of waiting ever since, feeling as though he has stopped breathing. The interior is very dark; he blinks, hesitates, spots a shape waving at him from the back of the room and makes his way over. Cristina is sitting at a table, a glass of lager in front of her.