Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life

by Sophia Loren

  The result of this was that charges were brought against me.

  The first guilty verdict was appealed, and in 1980 the Court of Cassation sentenced me to thirty days in prison, because my lawyers had forgotten to declare mitigating circumstances. In a comedy of errors, I now had to choose between exile (in other words, never being able to come back to Italy, which meant never seeing my mother again) or going to prison.

  We had been living in Paris for a while and I wasn’t sure what to do. In the end I chose to go back to Italy and face prison. It was a decision I made slowly, by myself, following my instinct, listening to that voice inside me that has always pointed me in the direction of the straightest and narrowest path, refusing to take shortcuts or accept easy compromises.

  I felt weary and confused and I fooled myself into thinking that, by handing myself over to the magistrates, I would find justice and be able to prove the truth of the matter. I have never wanted to cheat my country, and I felt oppressed by the shadow of accusations over me. I had already tasted the bitter flavor of exile during the years when Carlo and I were struggling just to get married. Now, close to my forty-eighth birthday, I couldn’t stand the thought of it anymore. I wanted to be free to go back home, to embrace my family, my friends, to be able to gaze at the sea next to the town I had grown up in. A bureaucratic mess had smeared my name and my reputation in the eyes of my fellow citizens. And yet I still felt Italian, just as I do today, and I wanted to be at peace with my conscience, with my people, and to prove that my record was clean.

  The Sunday before returning to Italy, on May 16, 1982, Carlo Jr. and Edoardo, at ages fourteen and nine, received their first Holy Communion. The four of us celebrated. It was a special moment of warmth and intimacy before I would take the great leap. On Tuesday night, before I packed my bags, the boys came into my room to say good-bye. As I looked at them with all my love and tenderness and tried to memorize their expressions, I finally understood what had driven me to take this difficult step. The fact is, I could never have allowed my sons to have an equivocal image of their mother, an image veiled with dishonesty and cowardice. I had always tried to teach them, ever since they were very small, the value of responsibility, the power of bravery. I couldn’t disappoint them now that they were growing up and getting ready to head out into the world.

  So the following day I left for Italy with my head held high, although I was worried sick and my heart throbbed with sadness. I didn’t know exactly what lay in store for me, and perhaps, yes, I admit it, I hid my fear behind my big dark sunglasses. When my plane landed in Rome, a white police car, an Alfetta, was waiting to take me to the prison in Caserta, just a stone’s throw away from where I’d grown up. The police car zigzagged in and out of the sea of reporters and photographers lying in wait for me, and took me to the small prison—twenty-three female inmates, I was the twenty-fourth—located in a small building in the historic part of the city, which was soon to become famous across the world. Crowding around the entrance was a flock of people who greeted me warmly, almost as though it were some kind of celebration. In spite of everything, the people still loved me, and their applause gave me the strength to face my difficult fate.

  Despite the flowers, the letters, the telegrams, the visits from Zia Dora and the affectionate presence of my sister, Maria, who stayed in Caserta the whole time I was in custody, spending every night under my window to keep me company, I experienced the pain of solitude and isolation. Nothing is more humiliating than the denial of freedom. Nothing is more painful than not being seen.

  I will never forget the morning they called me in for questioning.

  “Where’s inmate Scicolone?” the officer asked from behind his desk.

  I was standing right there in front of him, and had been for five minutes.

  I had been given a single cell—which even had the luxury of a TV, as the president of the Republic, Sandro Pertini, was careful to point out—and I was advised not to fraternize with the other inmates. It was in fact a delicate situation that could get out of hand. Nevertheless, I tried to transmit some affection, kindness, and hope to those unfortunate young women, and when I left I said good-bye to each and every one of them. I had experienced firsthand, albeit not for long, what some of them would be forced to experience for years and, with the help of the nine marvelous nuns who took care of us, I wanted them to know that I would never forget them. And I haven’t.

  In prison I learned that time has a different pace. It swells up with gloomy thoughts. It becomes bitter. I tried to tame it by reading, observing, sometimes cooking. And, above all, writing.

  In my treasure trove of memories I find a plain red notebook of the kind Swiss children use at school. It’s the diary of my short yet traumatic prison experience. It contains my thoughts, reflections, and intense, fragmentary notes. It contains my deep anger, a feeling that is unusual for me to have. And it also contains a letter to Sandro Pertini, president of Italy, whom I had asked for a pardon, and who denied my request. Much better than many subsequent reconstructions of my imprisonment, my diary expresses the sense of my experience there.

  I want to make this diary known to others, just as I wrote it during those days filled with darkness. Because prison changed—for good and for bad—my way of living in this world.

  NOTES

  Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures—character.

  —Harry Truman

  My diary begins about halfway through the time I spent in custody. After the first days of settling in, I began to attempt to put things in order, to control my emotions, to take heart. I also tried to resist the attacks of the press that, as always, seemed to enjoy seeing its popular subjects fall to the ground, people who just before had been up on pedestals. Rereading these pages, which emerge from so far away, I feel a shiver of fear, of despair, and a sense of vulnerability that nothing will ever be able to erase again.

  I try to react to the sadness with a rage and a fury that keep me watchful and active.

  Saturday

  I’m in prison. My cheerfulness is hollow and even my sadness mechanical.

  Sunday

  Eleven days have gone by, I’m very sad, melancholy, completely cut off from the world. It seems hard to believe that all this has actually happened. It’s grotesque, and it truly lends itself to philosophical considerations on just how low human beings can go, on vanity, on the frustration of the common man. . . . The so-called reporters who’ve gone wild these past few days: their envy, moral poverty, constant frustration. None of them has sought the source to explain to their readers where the truth lies, and how grotesque the situation is . . . Well, it’s best if I don’t think about it anymore, actually, I’ll try to learn something from it for the future.

  Fortunately, every situation, however difficult, can provide special encounters with people who have the strength to look beyond appearances and shun easy, superficial judgments. These people can make a difference and enrich even the worst situations. They arrive like manna from heaven to nourish you. They recognize your humanity behind the prejudice and the commonplace beliefs about you.

  The Mother Superior is caring and affectionate, like a real mother, in the moments of pain. God Bless her for the goodness she knows how to offer.

  What would this terrible experience have been like without her?

  Surrounded by so much sadness it’s the only precious experience I’ll take away with me, an experience that has enriched me, and that will no longer make me despair about whether or not human kindness exists.

  Prison should not be a hell without hope. In the heart of the person carrying out her sentence, however grave it may be, there’s always a spark that can become a flame of redemption. I have spoken to my dear Mother Superior at length, I have watched her, I have admired her. She harbors great wisdom in her soul.

  Reliving those terrible days moment after moment, thirty years later, I ponder
the meaning of freedom. Real freedom does not consist in doing what you want to, but in being able to share your thoughts and reasons with others. As I reread the diary now I realize that my suffering was caused by a feeling of abandonment, of being cut off from others, of a lack of acknowledgment of my point of view. Under the spotlights, I felt invisible, completely transparent. It was as if the world could see nothing behind my image of a star fallen from grace.

  The absence of freedom is hell. All you can think of are the things you’ll do when you get out. You become more selfish.

  At this very moment my imprisonment might be to someone else’s advantage.

  You need to be strong, humble . . . Those who might have helped me promised me the world, but after the initial fervor they didn’t follow through—like so many of the things that happen in Italy (it’s almost normal for me to be an innocent person in prison). They’ve all disappeared—some of them, scattered here and there, do speak up to comment on the matter with indifference and irony . . . I hope that when I get out and get my freedom back they’ll all vanish from my heart.

  Without freedom I feel useless. I’m a piece of driftwood, my only purpose is to be discarded.

  They’re all there staring at me, they can’t wait to condemn me for even the smallest gesture. It’s so hard to make them understand that I’m capable of having real feelings.

  I try to muster some strength inside me, but I can’t count on the law. I have to try to get past this terrible experience, this scene . . .

  I’ve never enjoyed writing, but I’m writing like crazy now. It’s the only thing that keeps me busy for a few minutes, the only comfort in this moment of blackout. It’s also a way for me to keep myself company, I feel less alone, it’s like talking to myself and, with a bit of imagination, I feel better.

  My days spent in prison were broken up by reading, talking to the nuns, sometimes around the comforting warmth of the stove in the kitchen. And by the awareness of being in a place where the level of pain is inversely proportional to the level of hope. It was a passing pain for me, but for many of the inmates it could be permanent.

  Tuesday

  I spent the morning in the kitchen today.

  Basilio hasn’t written to me at all. They’ve all forgotten me. Here, justice is slow and the paperwork very laborious. I can’t see the end of it all. I hope Basilio writes to me soon.

  Meanwhile, here in prison the heavy atmosphere has been made worse by the attempted suicide of one of the women, and another one cutting her arm.

  At last, at 6:30 p.m. I receive a letter from Basilio.

  Tragic evening. Another inmate cut herself and was taken to the hospital. I can’t sleep. So many thoughts crowd my mind.

  Wednesday

  I think, I read, I write, I observe. I console myself thinking that every experience should be put to good use and in a few days freedom perhaps? I also think about those who will remain in prison. Who knows for how many years, and maybe even unfairly.

  I’m feeling very blue, my dominant color. I have to appeal to all my resources of vitality and irony to avoid falling into despair—which is so easy when you aren’t free.

  I wasn’t sure of anything, and when the end of the nightmare was close at hand, I wasn’t told the day or time I’d be released from prison. Nothing depended on me, except for the strength to withstand this test with dignity.

  Thursday

  I didn’t sleep a wink. Last night, as I carried out those routine, everyday gestures I said to myself: I’m closing the windows for the last time, I’m hearing the key in the lock and the metallic sound it makes when it shuts for the last time, I’m sleeping in this bed for the last time, and this morning I started over again: I’m sleeping in this bed for the last time . . . I’m beginning to look around carefully so that I won’t forget any of this. The orange closet, the two beds with military blankets, a very small washbasin and a square they call the balcony surrounded by tall glass panes with iron bars. If I lift my head I can see a tiny patch of sky that’s always blue where the sun comes out for about two hours each day.

  The room is light colored, a table covered with checkered plastic, a basket filled with violets and fruit and lots and lots of flowers. Messages, fruit that arrives each day. This is the first time I mention my room. Could it be because the end is drawing near?

  In the diary, I also wrote in French and English. Using a different language probably helped me to overcome my feeling of claustrophobia, to see things from a different point of view, which made me feel less compressed, paralyzed, less of a prisoner.

  Friday

  It’s very tough, naturally. I am facing a world that I have never been acquainted with. The pain, the suffering, the frustration. I think that being locked away is the worst form of punishment that any human being can ever be forced to bear.

  And here finally is my farewell and a special thought for the Mother Superior, to whom I will forever be grateful.

  Saturday

  The last looks, the last gestures in this cell which has been my torment for 17 days.

  A last farewell to the nuns who are emotional, the last embraces for the guard. In the farthest corner of the corridor a tiny, sad figure, that of the Mother Superior. She is waiting for me, she avoids my gaze, she is the only one who doesn’t accompany me downstairs, leaving me, instead, at the elevator, the corners of her mouth trembling. I turn quickly and go, leaving behind a world filled with pain and human misery.

  LETTERS

  At the back of the diary I find, written in my handwriting, a “letter from a friend,” an anonymous and very precious gift that comforted me in my darkest moments.

  If I had been one of your advisers or friends I would have prevented you from making such a difficult decision. A single day in prison in Italy is a terrible and useless experience. More than out of a feeling of solidarity, I’m writing to you out of a sense of gratitude for what you have represented and continue to represent in world cinema, and for your great courage, which sets an example for us in each of the choices you make . . .

  But now be careful. You will have to cope with emptiness and solitude. Face them by finding within yourself the huge pool of humanity and reaction that you no doubt have. Alienate yourself and let this violence slip past you without harming you.

  With great friendship.

  I also find a letter I wrote to a Neapolitan journalist who understood perfectly, while many others passed judgment on me and turned the events into a show.

  Letter to a Neapolitan journalist

  Thank you, and allow me to use the ‘tu’ form. How could I possibly, from a place such as this, consider using the ceremonial ‘lei’ form . . . Thank you, you can’t imagine what balm, what blessing your words have brought to my heart. And that flavor of truth when you say “one reaches the depths of the bowels of the earth . . . of humanity wiped out and tinted with madness, that cannot find peace, that cannot sleep at night . . .”

  You have understood and been brave enough to write it down, refusing the facile arabesques of those hack writers who have attached themselves to my case simply to show off their decidedly questionable morality. But you are a real writer, and the others will vanish, as do fashions, vanity, exhibitions “whichever way the wind blows.”

  I want to thank you for your honest, civil voice, which echoes not in the circles where pseudo-intellectuals meet, but in the places of the ordinary people, the ones who love me and know that injustice and mortification are right around the corner at every moment in their lives.

  Please forgive my outburst, but the hours, minutes here are long, eternal. Your heart beats faster, but your mind slows down. You lose any sense of rhythm and sometimes you have a hard time putting your thoughts in order. When I at last succeeded in rearranging my thoughts, the first thing I wanted to do was write to you, who, with Neapolitan simplicity and passion, managed to bring so much sweetness to my bitter experience. Perhaps being understood, while intolerance and bad faith spread out all a
round you, is one of the most beautiful gifts that a human being can receive. You gave me this gift, a sincere and real one, in Neapolitan style, and for this I am grateful to you.

  Lastly, my letter to Sandro Pertini, which perhaps better than anything else sums up my thoughts and my feelings.

  Dear Mr. President,

  The solitude of prison forces the mind to grapple with many things, to seek out many whys and wherefores, and to try to get to the heart of certain truths.

  When the journalists reported to you about my case and my imprisonment, you received the news by recalling your own incarceration, and I felt tiny, almost ashamed of the comparison. I envied your great faith, the ideal passion that supported you in that dark, anxiety-ridden tunnel that is life in prison. But in my case there cannot be any moral support. I entered prison almost innocent, embroiled through no fault of my own in the meanderings of legal bureaucracy. My only impetus was my invincible nostalgia for Italy, I couldn’t give in to the idea of not being able to take my place among the free citizens of my country.

  Prison, Mr. President, is not just an individual cell, or the work that’s done there, or a television. You have personally experienced this same pain, so you should know that it is total isolation, being shut up in a place where the locks and keys are in someone else’s hands. It is the cries of anger, the outbursts of rage of the other unfortunate people also locked inside. The sleepless nights, the soul reduced to a primitive state.

  One’s mind is muddled, one’s heart beats madly on its own.

  Mr. President, is it really true that I deserve all this? And do I deserve it because I am who I am? My career, my fame, are these things I am to blame for? Shouldn’t the idle gossip, the sadistic frenzy to stone idols be seen as aberrations to be judged and condemned when they are carried out solely for the purpose of character assassination?

  Do forgive me, Mr. President, I’ve wasted a few minutes of your precious time which you know how to spend so well for our country, and for which you are beloved by all like an affectionate and loyal father. But the minutes and hours I have spent inside this place have helped me to overcome my shyness, and I wanted you to participate in this moment of deep emotion and personal unhappiness, which I am sure you will understand.