Malacqua

by Nicola Pugliese

  And it was the third day of rain, 25 October.

  At about 7pm, in the courtyard of the Maschio Angioino, the cars began to arrive. They came with that faint sound of windscreen wipers, tic tac tic tac tic tac, and as they passed the police cordon the police brought their hands to their berets and saluted. Nothing survived in the courtyard but that arrangement of cars parked at an angle so that the exit could be reached. But: would there ever be an exit?, would this session ever end? Would the Baronial Hall not be turned, that evening, into an enormous trap?

  Perhaps columns of peasants with scythes and pitchforks would come running from the countryside. They would invade the courtyard, disrupting the police cordon. Shouting they would climb the stone stairs and would burst into the reddish electric light of the hall, with big boots on their feet, kerchiefs around the necks, their arms brawny, and they would begin a cruel manhunt. The municipal councillors would attempt an impossible escape across the wooden benches, with those shouts and that heavy breathing behind them, and they would feel themselves being gripped by the legs and the arms, and they would open their mouths as they attempted to speak. Shut up!, the others would yell at them instead, traitor to the people! Two three four pitchforks would run through their chests, and they would feel the blades in their flesh and they would scream, scream, and streams of blood would gush from their flabby flesh and spill down they would in the end lie lifeless on the ground. The peasants would work doggedly with their scythes. Get the head, get the head!, they would hear them cry. Five six seven arms would get to work with the scythes to part their heads from their necks. It isn’t as easy as you think to detach a head from the neck, it doesn’t just come off like that, oh no. It remains attached with muscles and bones and there’s just that flowing blood on all sides. You have to strike resolutely and with full force. After twenty blows at last the head really comes off. The heads would be slipped on to long poles and, then, exposed on the crenellated bastions in that flaming night. Cries of jubilation would rise into the night, and everything would be destroyed, and the benches of the council building would go up in an enormous bonfire, and high the flames would rise to illuminate from a distance that tormented city. And gone in the end would be the crowds of peasants, swarming through the deserted rain-thrashed city. The fire would last until the first light of dawn with the acrid smell of smoke, and that silent crackle. And that rain falling, interminably.

  When the hall was full enough, and quiet confabulations could be heard in the corridors, it was decided that it was time to begin the session. The Mayor said I declare the session of the municipal council open, first of all the agenda: extraordinary interventions for childcare facilities. And Mr Mayor, said a councillor, I think that the foremost task of the council is to deal with the tragic event of Aniello Falcone and the tragic event of Via Tasso, it is unimaginable on the part of anyone etcetera etcetera. And then it became immediately clear to the gentlemen of the majority party that they would not have an easy ride of it that evening, and that even the most probing eyes were watching with concern: the space reserved for the public was fast being filled, and other people were still bound to arrive, and there would be protests. The Mayor said certainly certainly, and called over Antonino Sale, not yet a councillor, he hadn’t quite made it that time, but he was still a capable pair of hands, and in short when it came to the crunch there was no one more suited than he. He said come and gauge the mood on that side. Because we are very much disposed to deal with the tragic event and we also realise: the opposition will inevitably cause trouble, if only to show all those people that the opposition’s hands are clean and that they are performing their acknowledged functions of criticism and crack-papering, and all of those fine things. We are very well aware. So let them cause as much trouble as they wish, but take care not to overstate their case. Because if they come down too hard, the agreement on the professional course to be taken is blown away, blown away once and for all. In short, my dear Antonino Sale, off you go on a reconnaissance mission and see how we’re going to get these issues across. Antonino Sale casually went to chat to this person and that. Meanwhile, the council member for the opposition said: it certainly isn’t the first time that our wretched city has had to record such tragic events, just as it isn’t the first time that adverse atmospheric conditions have determined situations of alarm or at least of alert, but we must obviously continue to ask ourselves, fellow councillors, what were, technically speaking, the causes of these upheavals, and whether those causes might be attributable to chance, to accident, to the whims of fate, or whether they should not rather be attributed to neglect, to slothfulness and incompetence, as well as to fact that works and repairs and the reconstruction of the sewerage system which everyone had identified for years as urgent and pressing had been put off indefinitely. We may obviously wonder, gentlemen, whether the tragic events with which the council at present has a civil and above all a moral obligation to address constitute the extreme conclusion of exceptional and therefore unpredictable events, or whether those events are not in fact that logical conclusion of a series of administrative shortcomings all of which may be traced back to the incompleteness and inadequacy of a governance of the public good whose role it is to address uniquely illuminating events, such as that of the gold incinerator, to take one example, and which instead disregards that possibly awkward and perhaps not well-remunerated administrative sector which holds responsibilities with regard to road conditions, the clearing of rain water, the channelling of the same, and to get to the nub, gentlemen, let it be pointed out straight away that the relevant councillor, or indeed the Mayor himself if he considers it appropriate, will be doing something most welcome if he explains to the council how it is possible that after an impressive amount of works, which amongst other things for a good two years have kept entirely closed and blocked that important urban artery which goes by the name of Via Tasso, three days of not particularly violent rain were enough to cause a sinkhole of the dimensions of the one that has just appeared. While this councillor was delivering his speech, a murmur rose up among the crowd. They were asking the name of the councillor in question, and which party he belonged to. Meanwhile, his leader had already gestured to him to come forward, to continue the speech, and in fact the councillor, who knew how to speak discreetly, came forward straight away, listing the faults and shortcomings of the civic administration, not only and not so much with regard to the tragic event of recent days, but not least and above all with regard to the general state of neglect and uncertainty which afflicts, and not only since today, all of the city’s structures and substructures. And in fact the councillor, for the sake of coming forward, came forward, except that a mounting sense of embarrassment took hold of him as he followed with his eyes the secret discussion that was at that very moment going on between the head of the Majority and the head of the Opposition. And bearing in mind that point of visible reference the councillor continued with his speech, stressing how the tragic event had once again provided dramatic evidence of the inadequacy and superficiality of the public intervention in the area, etcetera etcetera. And the head of the Opposition, having concluded his lengthy secret discussion with the head of the Majority, approached him discreetly and, still with extreme discretion, whispered: we are requesting a commission of inquiry. Then the councillor went on saying it is precisely with a view to overcoming such shortcomings, such confusions, such reprehensible defects, Mr Mayor, that we are putting forward an operational proposal: that is the formation and appointment of a commission of inquiry with the precise mandate to make every useful attempt to ascertain responsibility, should such responsibilities exist, and establish why and in what way Naples must pay such a high annual tribute in terms of human lives because of adverse atmospheric conditions which cannot be described as unpredictable or to be on the scale of an exceptional event or a cataclysm, because let it be quite clear to everyone that, if the dead cannot do it, the living demand justice, and we must not in any way excuse ourselves f
rom that precise civil and above all moral obligation. When the councillor had concluded his speech, followed distractedly in the hall but carefully savoured by the public, the journalists exchanged meaningful glances from the press benches. In short, it was clear that the Opposition had made this speech solely and exclusively for reasons of honour, that in fact they had been careful not to cause too much trouble. And on the other hand that was largely predictable, if one were to bear in mind that there had been that morning a joint meeting concerning the use of the new funds made available by the Region for the maintenance of professional training courses, and if we bear in mind that those funds amounted to one billion eight hundred million lire. Now that the speech was completed, the Mayor said that the Majority adopted the proposal put forward by the Opposition and then decided to proceed to the constitution and to the appointment of a commission of inquiry in which all parties would be represented, with the purpose and the declared objective of casting a full light on the tragic events of Via Aniello Falcone and Via Tasso and to ascertain who might or might not bear responsibility, and if necessary the commission itself would be able to seek advice from a shortlist of officially appointed experts. The Municipality of Naples paid dutiful homage to the victims of the disaster. Everyone rose to their feet, and even among the public the murmurs stopped immediately, and everyone stood silently like that, and some people began to wonder how long a minute’s silence really was and in fact only fifteen seconds had passed when murmuring to himself the Mayor sat down again. Then everyone sat down again, and even the public resumed its conversation. In short, it was possible to trace everything back to an orderly pursuance of roadworks. The subsequent speeches had the same calm and reasonable tone as usual. A council meeting is not a rally, a street demonstration, and its purpose is certainly not to satisfy the base instincts of the so-called masses. The council is in fact the worthy seat, both worthy and opportune, for the peaceful debate of the problems of the city, for the solution of which, for the best possible solution of which, both sides must make their own effective contribution. And in short it was now more than clear to the public that there was nothing amusing going on here, far from it. Because there was no fascinating, riveting rhetorical duel in the offing, no argument about to set the session alight, and no one going to strike the bench with his fist and shout that’s enough now! The speeches had been so calm and reasonable that the sound in the hall was not only and not so much one of composed voices as it was the cold and in many respects cruel hiss of the rain outside, leaving greyish vertical stripes on the black of the night. In the courtyard, the waiting cars waited with waiting drivers waiting. And the police had taken shelter under the portico, because in the end a police cordon is a great bore, which you can man without getting soaked to the skin. In the darkness of that night, which was the third night of uninterrupted rain, the glow of cigarettes shone from time to time with puffs of smoke fringed by the rain. And it was as if during those hours an incomplete and distorted question had risen over the silent city, just a hypothesis, the idea of a question. A question that refused to emerge, that refused to emerge at all, which everyone sensed deep in the tissue between rib and rib. As they breathed, they became aware of its concrete presence in the diaphragm. Over the city that dark presence, and with it fear, and foreboding as well: now perhaps the perspective on life would change, oh, yes, be changed and disrupted for ever. There would be an adjustment, a strange conversion. Inside the chasm that had appeared on Via Aniello Falcone the rain was now coming down with an unusually determined violence. Just as it was thundering ruthlessly down on the overflowing sewers on Via Tasso. That water was fleeing quickly towards the sea along the other different ancient streets of the city, and alarms were going off increasingly, and those voices in the thick night were made of magma, harsh and concerned. During the night of that third day of rain, reliable witnesses state that they saw cars slipping silently on the grey of the tarmac with white lights, with red lights, with blue lights, and without sirens, without breaking the silence, and those cars slipped silently along the streets of the promenade. From the red brick pyramid where they climbed to dispute one another’s right of way, and sprays of spume, and that salty smell, that moving water, moving lightly in some ways, which was rising up against the black of night to meet the rain coming down, and that darkness around it. Black darkness, still and silent. One wondered if it would be wise to leave, oh yes, to leave. And why not?, for what specific reason? To gather things together in silence, to close everything up, close it up and lock it up and protect and gauge and assess with a swift glance, and climb inside one’s car, and set it in motion, turn on the lights, reach the motorway. From the motorway off you went forever, of course, as definitively as a full stop, a decision both irrevocable and unamenable to reassessment in the cold light of day. Away from the city in the depths of night, as far away as a separation, scorched earth, that’s it, a clean break. And it also needed to be borne in mind that the rising of the sea level at Montedidio had occurred that summer. Not without reason, certainly. In fact it was all clear. As a harbinger, a warning. And even though in that moment they might have thought and conjectured about who-knows-what unusual tidal phenomenon, now, in the light of that rain and that difficult question, everything was clear, yes. Everyone remembered the morning of Sunday 5 August, and as they remembered it was like touching revealed truth, and illumination dilated the pupil. Born of a flash of inspiration it now proceeded along the road to consciousness.

  Because in fact on the morning of Sunday 5 August not only had the police and their vehicles taken up strategic positions on the promenade, there had also been reinforcements and senior officers from the Carabinieri, as well as the regular police. The patrols had taken solid possession of the beach at Mergellina, the Diaz Memorial, the Broken Column on Piazza Vittoria, Molosiglio, Santa Lucia, and at each point a patrol had launched the operation which would go down in the annals of the city as Operation Sea Watch. In fact they had been talking about it for some time that summer, about the operation hastily drawn up by the forces of law and order. The episode had filled the pages of the newspapers and had passed from mouth to mouth and story to story until it had been completely distorted, but in any case on this occasion the news pages were still the most reliable sections of the daily newspapers. In short, on the morning of Sunday 5 August, it had been clear, extremely clear, to all the ragged boys on the promenade, and it had been equally clear to their big sisters and to their fat, shuffling mothers, that it would be impossible to reach the rocks that day, and it would therefore be impossible for them to throw themselves into the sea, and bask in the sun. And whatever ingenious schemes the ragged children came up with on the spot, really on the spot, the situation appeared tactically impossible. Because of the fact that the deployment of the forces of law and order was genuinely impressive: hundreds and hundreds of men all firmly guarding the key points and keeping the surviving points under surveillance with regular patrols. At the first signs, darting away in one direction and then switching back to another at great speed, the ragged boys of the promenade tried to penetrate the lines of the guards. But penetration was impossible. Two or three large hands would inevitably grab them by the hair, it was painful to be pulled by the hair like that, and there were these cries from the boys every now and again. But after a few minutes they were released into the most pointless freedom, after a few minutes, having learned that from that day forward in Naples they could not go swimming, and they could not go on the rocks, or take the sun, or dive into the water. So groups formed in the shadow of the Villa Comunale, and on the pavement in front of it. It was ten o’clock in the morning on the morning of Sunday 5 August. The boys thought it was just a matter of waiting, that sooner or later the guards would leave, the promenade would be clear again, if they waited briefly and patiently everything would be resolved. Then they began that slight invisible siege on the shadow of the Villa Comunale. And their eyes darted every now and again in the direction of the sea. Th
e sea was under guard, truly under guard. Along the horizon, those dark uniforms, the jeeps, the blue cars of the police with the white letters Comune di Napoli. The minutes filtered through the leaves of the trees. That presence of the sun. Completely white, in the distance. The blue of the sea also blurred into white. And how hard and long was that slight and invisible siege. At about 1pm it was clear to everyone, even to those who had left temporarily to return to the battlefield: the blue uniforms would not be moving from there all day, no, they weren’t about to move for anything. And besides, never had the instructions of their superiors been more precise and categorical than they were on this occasion. Precise and categorical both as regards the places – the whole promenade of the city, from Mergellina to Molosiglio, was to be placed under guard – and the period during which it was to be effective – the guard was to last until half an hour after sunset, and while sunset might in itself be an arguable concept, the precise intention of the arrangements was clear to all those deployed to enforce it. At about 1pm the boys of Naples were obliged to accept, with some bitterness, that the blue uniforms were going to stay in place, and that they would not be moving for the rest of the day. Then that barrier became a barrier of hatred, and of mute rancour. Because the sea belongs to everyone without distinction. It is beyond imagining that one day the authorities will wake up and arrange themselves here and here, depriving the boys of the sea, and there was no point trying to explain to the shuffling and bundled mothers that the Municipality had permitted free bathing in some establishments in Posillipo, because in fact the boys of Montedidio really had no desire to go to Posillipo. For years and for generations the boys had bathed, always for the whole of those long, long Neapolitan summers, in those waters right in front of them, in that sea which was their sea, on those rocks which were their rocks, and why change all of a sudden the prospect of something rooted in the natural order of things?, for what unfamiliar reason?, for what capricious whim? It was at around one o’clock that a painful awareness made itself felt, and the ragged children climbed back up towards the city abandoning the Villa Comunale and abandoning the Gardens of Molosiglio. It would have to be said that there was a great deal of sadness, in that grim slog homewards, really a great deal of sadness. For a day the whole city had that veil over its eyes, the mild and melancholy air.