Escape

by Dominique Manotti

  The stuffy studio apartment is too hot. Sleep punctuated by jumbled and oppressive dreams in which the image of Cristina is mixed up with scenes from the prison. Guards and fellow prisoners are brushing against him, jostling him. Strangely, they are all somehow Cristina. They beat him. He runs and escapes. Then during the exercise period Cristina confronts him alone in the prison yard, and attacks him with a screwdriver. He feels nothing, but it is Carlo who falls into his arms, dead, the screwdriver through his heart. His hands are sticky with blood. Cristina shouts at him, ‘You killed Carlo.’ He is no longer certain that the body is that of Carlo, or that he is in the prison yard. Cristina leans over the corpse which could be Carlo’s, her chignon comes undone and her long, coppery hair brushes his bloody hands. Is she Cristina or the girl who kissed Carlo in the mountains? At this point, he prefers to wake up. The presence of the live Cristina alongside the dead Carlo in the same dream, the confusion between Cristina and the girl in the mountains is deeply disturbing. He waits, his eyes wide open, for the images to recede, to fade, and lose their oppressive intensity. He convinces himself that he will forget them, that he has already forgotten them, then gets up, takes a cold shower and makes himself a very strong coffee.

  27 June

  Adèle invites Filippo to lunch at a restaurant in Saint-Germain that is a favourite haunt of the Paris publishing world. She says she has something she needs to discuss. Filippo is delighted to accept her invitation. He sees her less frequently now, and he realises he misses her. She has become part of his lifestyle.

  He arrives at the restaurant where he is clearly expected. A maître d’hôtel holds the big swing door open for him and, without a word, shows him to his table. The restaurant’s interior has been carefully designed to meet the needs of its clientele. In the vast dining room, all the tables are hedged by antique mahogany partitions at half-height and topped with copper rails, so conversations can take place in complete privacy. But the partitions are just low enough for diners to see who comes in, with whom, and who goes to sit where.

  The table Adèle has reserved is at the very back of the restaurant, and so the maître d’hôtel has him cross the entire room. Conversations stop as he passes. And the same whispers can be heard from one table to the next.

  ‘Did you see who just came in? Filippo Zuliani.’

  ‘I can understand why Jeanne Champaud fell head-overheels for him. He’s such a cute and charming young man.’

  ‘Have you read Escape? Apparently it’s in the running for a prize.’

  ‘Overrated.’

  ‘First novel, let’s wait for the second.’

  ‘The gamble’s certainly paid off for the publisher.’

  They have reached the table. The maître d’hôtel pulls out the chair, Filippo sits down and orders a Perrier with a slice of lemon. Talk at the other tables has resumed.

  Adèle, pirouetting from table to table, greeting people, stopping for a word here, a smile there, waves at him across the room: ‘I’m here, I’m coming’. He nods and quietly digests what has just happened: nothing less than his entrance into the literary world. Recognition from readers, recognition from people in the industry, can he still have any doubts?

  Adèle puts off coming over to their table and starting a conversation that she knows will be tricky. The lawyer warned that Filippo might panic and run away or even disappear. What should she do in that case? She finally brings herself to sit down facing him, with a smile.

  ‘I’m working on your behalf.’ She contemplates the glass of Perrier. ‘You’re drinking water?’

  ‘I’ve only just woken up.’ Slight embarrassment.

  ‘Oh … true. Of course.’ She doesn’t look at the menu, she knows it by heart.

  ‘I recommend the veal chop with spinach. It’s one of their signature dishes.’ She signals to the waiter. ‘Two veal chops, Henri. And a Saumur-Champigny, as usual.’

  Slowly she unfolds her white napkin. Now to prepare him for the bad news. First of all, flatter the ego of the man and the writer. An age-old female ploy which, curiously, still works. She leans towards Filippo.

  ‘Let’s talk business. Did you hear the whispering when you came into the restaurant?’

  He laughs.

  ‘Yes. I felt as though I was being wafted to the table by the buzz.’

  Adèle glances at him covertly from beneath her fringe. Cleverer than he’d have me believe.

  ‘Your book is number two in this week’s bestseller list.’ A pause, no reaction from Filippo. ‘And it’s still on the up. I had a call from Pivot’s secretary. It looks as though you’ll be a guest on his September programme.’

  Filippo still says nothing, he has never heard of Bernard Pivot, and has no idea of the audience that a book programme like Apostrophes attracts. Adèle takes Filippo’s silence for an affectation of cool, which makes her task harder, and goes on, dropping her voice.

  ‘Are you aware that you’re now a bestselling author?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just realised that. Only one question: are you sure that there hasn’t been a mistake, that it really is me?’

  She stares at him, bemused. Too bad, she has to carry on – it’s what she came here to do.

  ‘I’ve also got to talk to you about Italy. It’s not such good news on that front. To be brutal, the Italian press is accusing you of being an accomplice – the word makes Filippo bristle – in the fatal Piemonte-Sardegna bank hold-up in Milan and of being a fugitive from the Italian justice system. You look surprised. Don’t you read the Italian press?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ He has regained his composure and is smiling blissfully. ‘They’re saying that I’m an accomplice. Are those the words they use?’

  She realises that in all the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him smile like that, with a sort of calm assurance. What had the lawyer said? Wasn’t he supposed to panic?

  ‘Yes, that’s what they’re saying. Aren’t you worried?’

  ‘Why should I be? I tell a story set in Italy, the Italians are interested in it, and what’s more, they fall for it. They find the story convincing, they even think and say it’s true. I think that’s brilliant, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe … well, I don’t know…’

  ‘As a writer I felt a fraud, I needed some sort of endorsement, and I’m getting it from Italy, I couldn’t dream of more.’

  Adèle is flummoxed by his reply. She clings to her role as hostess and refills their wine glasses. An oblivious guy, unpredictable. She is completely out of her depth in this situation, but she has delivered the message, so mission accomplished. Not long till the holidays. She relaxes, and hastens the end of the meal.

  The minute she has finished her coffee, Adèle makes her getaway. ‘Other urgent meetings … We’ll touch base soon. Are you staying in Paris over the summer? I’ll call you.’

  Filippo makes his way back to Neuilly on foot along the banks of the Seine and the Champs-Élysées, a glorious walk, which takes him nearly two hours. He is a writer, someone people talk about, who has flesh-and-blood readers – he’s met them. He feels light, walks rhythmically and smiles at passersby in summer dress who cross his path. He has told a simple story in his own words, a story in which he is neither betrayed nor abandoned, a story with friends and accomplices, one whose pace he controls. He gives a passing girl the eye, without slowing down. An accomplice of criminals, the words go round and round in his head. Accomplice, an echo of the press articles he’d read in Bologna, over a year ago. ‘Accessory to a jailbreak … Accessory to a bank robbery…’ At the time the word and the thing had felt too heavy to bear, and he fled Bologna in a panic, as he later fled the Café Pouchkine. But now, no more frantic running away. He has found his place, that of the accomplice, and he is recognised for what he says he is. He’s come to terms with it.

  He is relieved, relaxed. Elated, he walks faster past the Champs-Élysées gardens, walks with a dance in his step, humming to himself, on this wonderful June day, in this beautiful
city. He, Filippo Zuliani, has an extraordinary power. What he has written is real. Not the truth, much more than that: reality. Or its opposite. He becomes a little muddled, but it doesn’t matter, he is happy.

  On entering his building, he looks at himself in the mirrors in the lift, and smiles at his reflection. Attractive guy, the accomplice. Once inside his flat, Filippo showers, puts on a T-shirt and pours himself a large glass of cold water. His gaze lights on Cristina’s note, sitting on the bookshelf. Away until 26 July. So the apartment next door is empty. The apartment Cristina has never invited him to enter. He remembers their first meeting, in the hall, the polite handshake, her distant smile, and his disappointment then bitterness – the fleeting temptation to steal things from her, objects she’d left just within his reach, and to run away. Out of revenge. That was over a year ago. He’s moved on since, perhaps, but … Once he had dreamt of sitting beside her, in her apartment, at her desk. Then came the Café Pouchkine episode, the missed opportunity, his loss of control, running away. And today, ‘If you require access to the apartment…’ An invitation. A sudden urge to break in, to invade Cristina’s territory and leave his mark there. Accomplice. He not only has the urge, he has the ability.

  He rummages in the kitchen drawer for an instrument with which to force the lock, and finds a slim screwdriver. He picks it up, looks at it and toys with it. There’s no mistaking it, this is the screwdriver from his dream, the one Cristina used to attack him in the prison yard – the one that stabbed Carlo through the heart. Break open Cristina’s door with the weapon that killed Carlo. A flash of anxiety, a flash from his dream. Then he shakes himself and goes to the door of Cristina’s apartment. He hasn’t lost the knack, the door gives way within moments. He stands on the threshold of the vast living room, holding his breath. No alarm, a glance round the room, no sign of CCTV cameras, the feeling that his intrusion is accepted. Desired?

  As a reflex he closes the front door, jams the lock with the screwdriver for peace of mind, then takes two steps forward and looks slowly about him. Dark wooden flooring, silky smooth, designed to be walked on barefoot, white walls, two big bay windows that probably look out on to a veranda, closed off by blinds that allow minimal light to filter through the metallic slats. The dining room on the left, steel and glass furniture, sitting room on the right, bookshelves taking up an entire wall, black-and-white leather armchairs, and on a coffee table beside a ponyskin and steel chaise longue that is the ultimate in lightness and elegance, is a familiar-looking blob of colour. He goes over to it. Guidoriccio da Fogliano, the lone conqueror, features on the cover of a heavy tome. He had forgotten him ever since he began his new life, and here he is, grabbing him again. Filippo is completely shaken. There’s no such thing as coincidence, but the gods move in mysterious ways. Black letters spell out the book’s title: Siena. He leans over and opens it. On the flyleaf, a brief handwritten dedication: ‘To Cristina, so that during your exile in Paris you won’t forget the magical city where we met.’ A signature he doesn’t attempt to decipher. He tells himself that perhaps he’s jealous, and the thought amuses him. He flicks through a few pages, lots of photos of a red-and-brown brick city, which leave him with a taste of death in his mouth. A dozen photos of Guidoriccio and the surrounding landscape speak of conquests, in a language he knows well. He puts the book back on the coffee table, leaving it open at the double-page spread devoted to ‘Guidoriccio da Fogliano’, in all his majesty.

  On a trolley within his reach are bottles of spirits and glasses. He selects a brandy, because he has never had one before, fills a balloon glass to the brim and takes a large gulp. He hesitates. Too rough? Too sweet? Too strong. He leaves the glass three-quarters full beside the book, goes out of the sitting room, through a door and finds the bedroom and then the dressing room, lined with dark wood. A shelf houses a collection of hats on wooden stands. He takes one down and holds it, a weird bunch of pink and white flowers with a white tulle veil. He holds it at eye level and Cristina is there in front of him, her chignon half undone. He helps her adjust her hairpins, scoop up the coppery mass, place the flowers on her hair and lower the veil over her face, blotting it out. A smile behind the veil, charm he would sell his soul for, then she disappears.

  He drops the floral hat on to the floor and goes into the bathroom and switches on the light. Vast. To the left, a huge mirror lit by eight bulbs, like the ones he has sometimes seen in hair salons, a dressing table cluttered with pots, tubes and jars, and an armchair. He sits down, picks up a bottle and opens it. A fragrance. He remembers. In Rome, the stakeouts in front of the perfumeries of the Via Veneto where they used to select wealthy customers in the shops, await them at the exit, follow them in the street and snatch their bag at the first opportunity. He recalls the pleasure he felt watching them, on the other side of the window, in that luxurious, feminine world, their slow, restrained, balletic movements in tune with those of the sales assistants, the way they inclined their heads and closed their eyes to inhale the fragrance of a drop of perfume on the back of their hand, their smiles. They lived and moved in another world, and he dreamt that one day he would take the arm of one of those elegant women, instead of snatching her bag, that together they would walk up the Via Veneto, hips touching, steps chiming, that they would walk past an admiring gang of hooligans standing against the wall, Did you see how he picked up that rich bitch? and that she would introduce him to the luxury world of expensive women, the ones who smelt good.

  He spins out the dream. He toys with a bottle, knocks it over, rights it, removes the stopper and rubs it on the back of his left hand, as he’d seen the women doing inside the shop, and the subtle fragrance greets him. He says aloud, ‘Mitsouko, by Guerlain’, and closes his eyes. And now … He replaces the stopper and puts the scent bottle in his pocket, gets up, switches off the light, returns to his flat, lies down on the bed and slips the bottle of perfume under the pillow. The dream machine starts up, expensive women, war and conquest, the story is already there at his fingertips. Exhilaration. Above all, don’t lose the thread. Start writing again. He has no more doubts, no more anxiety. With words, everything is possible. Writing, the weapon of victory. He is no longer bored.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  END OF JUNE–JULY 1988, FRANCE–ITALY

  27 June

  Lisa stays up late every night, working at home, at her desk. She files the documents she has gathered on what is now the Filippo Zuliani affair, formerly the Carlo Fedeli affair. She discards articles that dwell on the two adorable Barbieri kids, children of the carabiniere shot during the hold-up on 3 March 1987, not to mention the little Gasparini girl, the security guard’s daughter killed in the same tragic circumstances – a sweet six-year-old child with golden curls. She retains everything on Daniele Luciani, the providential witness who belatedly came forward and accused Filippo. She keeps any articles or information she can glean from here and there, and through consulting numerous directories. In short, not much. This Daniele Luciani leaves no traces beyond an address in Milan that seems to be just a PO box and a telephone number that no one answers, no identifiable occupation, no photos, no direct contact with the press. She feels she has reached the same impasse as last year when she was trying to find out about Brigadier Renzi. It is an impenetrable ball of interwoven lies, from which she is unable to disentangle a single thread. For Lisa, there is absolutely no doubt – this morass is the hallmark of the Italian secret service, the most efficient institution in the entire country. It is now twenty years since it set itself the goal of smashing the communists’ influence. Something that back then was a matter of urgency, for the Communist Party was on the brink of being democratically elected to power, an intolerable prospect both for the Italian establishment and for America. And now they are achieving that goal through bomb attacks, massacres, and a whole array of dirty tricks. Faced with that, we on the far left, including prisoners, exiles, those turned informers, others who have dissociated themselves, or the desperate and the confused who
carry on killing without knowing why: we’re incapable of coming to terms with our defeat and of salvaging our past.

  She stands up, exhausted, tempted to give up. Leaning on the sill of the open window, she drinks a good, strong coffee in tiny sips to allow the flavour to explode in her mouth. I mustn’t let them crush me. What I need is method. First of all, one thing’s clear, I’m not the only person responsible for that entire history. And that’s something I need to tell myself over and over again, as often as necessary. Right now, my sole aim is to shed light on Carlo’s death. For myself first of all. With the publication of that novel, it’s become a personal matter. The weight of the past is already so heavy with recurrent nightmares, exile, suffering and defeat, I need at least to hang on to the conviction that the struggle was worth waging and that I went through it at the side of the man I loved. If my soulmate of nearly twenty years of impassioned and devastating political battles is to be deemed no better than a bandit, I’ll have nothing left of my past life or my personal history. But I’m not just fighting for myself and for Carlo. Nor was I fighting for abstract ideas. Life, each person’s memory, is a valuable treasure. Our collective destiny is woven from all our individual lives, and each one of us must be defended by all. Stay strong.

  She returns to her desk. Go back to square one. Initially, the chain of events is clear. January ’87, open letter from the Red Brigades saying, ‘We are defeated, we are laying down our arms, we need to take stock of the past collectively and accept ourselves for who we are, the protagonists of this history.’ Unacceptable in an Italy fragmenting amid the scandal of the P2 Masonic Lodge, the wholesale corruption of politicians, the mafia, the decline of the Communist Party. The entire edifice was so shaky that the Red Brigades, together with the entire far left of the ’60s and ’70s, had to remain the unifying scapegoat, or better, the external enemy. So something had to be done: the invention of the concept of ‘dissociation’ with the introduction of a special law, Carlo’s escape, and the entire sting operation that would result in Carlo being labelled a criminal and executed. During this sequence of events, the Red Brigades’ splinter group, the Union of Combative Communists – manipulated or not, it amounts to the same thing – kill Lando Conti, the former mayor of Florence shortly after the aborted robbery and Carlo’s death, both possible triggers. Any political debate about the Red Brigades’ declaration is well and truly nipped in the bud. Mission accomplished, according to police procedure.