The Unseen

by Nanni Balestrini

  as soon as Spinone sees us coming in he goes bananas well how dare you but Cotogno doesn’t let him speak listen sweetie you are now going to let the house to us and none of that nonsense about it he threatens to call the police if we don’t leave at once then Cotogno says that he’d better not because otherwise it’ll come out that he has eight vacant houses that he’s moreover not even paying taxes on Spinone gets madder and madder he looks as if he’s going to explode any minute and he erupts hurling himself with a scream at China who looking as if the whole thing had nothing to do with her had casually lifted a gold fountain pen from the desk and was unscrewing the cap with a scream Spinone hurls himself at her and grabs the fountain pen from her hand and puts it back in its place

  Cotogno has gone to the window come over here instead of yelling and the guy goes towards him at a loss to understand but so as to keep his distance from Cotogno he opens the window next to his and looks down into the street below all the comrades were standing there looking up at the open windows and as is the way of it the passers-by had also stopped to look up within a few minutes there was a small crowd looking up without any idea what was going on at that point one comrade unrolls a big sheet of paper which has written on it Spinone do the decent thing give us the house Spinone turns back inside his face pale and whispers through his teeth mafiosi criminals Cotogno goes up to him and staring him in the face says it’s you that’s the criminal it’s you that’s the stinking speculator we’ll pay for your house we want a fair rent give us a contract otherwise we’ll call the police and report you do you want me to call them right now I mean it I’ll call the police says Cotogno with his hand on the telephone receiver

  reeling Spinone goes back to his desk he drops into the armchair and sits in silence for a minute or two biting his lips while through the open windows you could hear the chorus of comrades Spinone give us the house Spinone give us the house Spinone’s goose was cooked now he made a try at saying all right but I have to think it over come back in a few days it takes time to draw up a contract no way said Cotogno adamant sitting down on the desk you’re going to do us the contract now at once otherwise we’re not leaving and we’ll even get our friends downstairs to come up and so in the end seeing as there was no other way Spinone gave in and so we got that house that became however the source of all my troubles

  22

  I’d fainted then the first thing I felt was that a comrade took me and dragged me right outside at that moment there was complete darkness in this courtyard and there were still only a few comrades there and I remember that this comrade who was able to stand up because he must have come off a bit lighter in the guards’ brutality session that was still in progress I could still hear the screams and the blows the guards’ insults this comrade carried me to the fountain there was a tap he splashed some water on my face until I began to come to then I remember that I hurt all over everything crushed but I managed to stand up to walk everything hurting but I could still manage to walk

  and at the same time all this is continuing and from there outside the gate of the fence I could see that the comrades were still going past the bloodbath was still in progress they went on beating people up I remember that there inside it was dark you couldn’t see what was there in the yard I found myself in but I remember seeing one comrade who was sitting on this concrete bench there leaning with his back against the wall he was on this bench not moving and his face was completely covered in blood my first thought was that this comrade’s face had been smashed up he was no longer recognizable I recognized him by his clothes you could no longer see his face it was a mask of blood then I took a handkerchief and we started to wipe his face a bit

  the ghastly thing was this what was absurd was having to stand by powerless and witness this massacre that was going on right in front of your eyes behind this wire fence and you could see the whole spectacle you could see this ghastly spectacle and the ghastly thing was not only that you felt powerless because you were mangled up but doubly powerless because not only could you do nothing about what was happening but if you even gave any sign of retaliation maybe even verbal retaliation because what else could you do these guys would have come in and you were absolutely in no state to make the slightest resistance after having taken all those beatings and it would only have been worse

  now this brought you down quite unbelievably it brought you down worse than the beatings you could only stand by powerless instinct told you to keep quiet but how could you manage to keep quiet in front of that spectacle and then you were forced to watch how these guys beat up your comrades and they were dishing out different kinds of beatings because they weren’t giving them all the same treatment there were some comrades they were really taking it out on and they were clearly the comrades they hated most because with them there’d been rows set-tos threats and so on and also because there were the ones who in the internal scheme of prison relationships were thought to be the leaders but through the whole thing the guards were like fiends out of hell and really determined to beat the life out of us all

  an incredible degree of hatred was being unleashed and the proceedings were noisy there was a dreadful noise it was noisy because of the blows you could hear being struck it was noisy because of the moans but it was noisy most of all because of the screams of hatred because of the abuse scum bastard and when a comrade they particularly hated came along a whole lot of them would throw themselves on him screaming abuse and dealing him terrible blows there was one of these comrades who was greatly hated by the guards he was barely five feet tall they really pulverized him because they hated him and you watched this scene powerless and you thought to yourself there’s no way this guy’s going to stay alive with the beating they’re giving him it was a pounding that went on too long to be just a pounding they were hitting out with truncheons with sticks with iron bars and this comrade who was small they really pulverized him then another scene I watched was a guy they took by the hair after having trampled him to the ground they dragged him up by the hair and stuck him up against the wall and then one of them hit him in the face with an iron bar just like this a blow with the iron bar like this across the face and they smashed his nose and his forehead and then there was another horrible scene with another comrade that they hit in the mouth with an iron bar while he was lying on the ground and they smashed all his teeth here at the front these were the things to be seen while we were there in the dark powerless behind the wire fence

  they forced another one to put his hands against the wall they took his hands and they held them fixed there on the wall and they hit him on the hands with the bars they hit him an awful lot on the fingers and they smashed all his fingers here here here and here they smashed his hands and then his fingers here his fingers here and his fingers here and now when this comrade eats he loses hold of his spoon he drops his spoon because he can’t keep it in his hand afterwards when this guy used a plastic spoon to eat with in prison he always dropped the spoon because his fingers could no longer keep hold of anything he could no longer feel a grip on anything and his hands were broken for ever

  the guards mainly took it out on the ones they’d had aggravation from this fury this hatred this thing of theirs was mainly centred on all those earlier goings on in the prison things that had happened there before the revolt but also because they were convinced that one of them had died because they were convinced that in all the chaos there’d been during the revolt someone had got killed we’d killed some guards the news they’d had was that there’d been some guards injured but they’d mistakenly believed that they’d been injured by the prisoners and were now in danger of death while in fact they’d been injured by the carabinieri by the machine-gun fire of the carabinieri

  so these guys were saying you knifed the guards and now we’re going to murder you they’d got it into their heads to kill us in earnest I mean to kill some of us with their bare hands and the absurd thing was that while the carabinier
i were shooting and they’d been shooting like lunatics and I’d thought as I heard the shots they were firing I was thinking they’re going to kill us all the absurd thing now was that it wasn’t the carabinieri here it was the guards beating the life out of you not the carabinieri when they fired their machine guns and threw their grenades and now behind the wire you saw they were killing someone in earnest they were beating him to death you said Jesus Christ they’re murdering that guy they won’t stop hitting him he’s been on the ground for I don’t know how long and there are still ten of them on top of him laying into him the guy’s going to die no mistake

  then some guys came in who were in a terrible state they were all mangled up covered in blood all smashed up they had broken legs they had broken arms you saw them with their broken arms their broken legs they were screaming there in our yard there must have been thirty of us we counted ourselves in the end there were thirty of us but there were only three of us standing I mean standing meant just able to stand up not to run around but to manage just to stand up without falling there were three of us and it was by pure chance that we three weren’t also in a state like all the rest who were there lying on the ground the rest were all on the ground with their bones broken with their bones really broken with broken legs with broken arms with broken faces with broken heads with blood all over the place

  23

  While I was listening to that threatening tirade from Judge Lince I tried desperately to concentrate my thoughts on what I should do I thought that if what he’d told me was true then Gelso had tried to put me in the clear by saying that I’d sublet the house but if it was a trap I couldn’t see how I’d manage to extricate myself it was a real shambles and I realized how naive I’d been to think up to now that I’d be able to explain under questioning that I’d be able to explain that I had fuck all to do with that business and that they’d understand and let me go so I put my mind at rest that in any case they’d persist whatever I said the questioning was just another thing to screw you with and so it was better to put a stop to it at once because however it went on it would only make things worse

  when Lince finished he paused then since I was silent he decided to go on with more detachment and in a more self-congratulatory tone I should tell you moreover that I’ve also taken evidence from Spinone the solicitor the owner of the house rented by you who states that he was quite clearly threatened physically among other things by you and other individuals to persuade him to draw up the contract what do you have to say about that then without me even thinking about it the words came out almost of their own accord I reserve the right to clarify these matters the next time I’m questioned and so the questioning came to an end I didn’t give a fuck if Lince took those words as an admission of what he’d said I didn’t give a fuck because it was obvious that in any case he was only there to put me in prison whatever happened

  Lince had no objections he got me to read the statement and he got me to sign it the lawyer signed it too he wished everyone good evening and without even glancing in my direction he rushed off by this time the prison was closed they took no admissions at that time of night and so Lince told the police officers to take me down to the security cells inside headquarters I picked up my bag with the toothbrush and underpants in it for they’d taken off my handcuffs that were clearly only meant to stop me from strangling the judge everyone left and they made me go back the same way I’d come down the narrow stairs but when we got to the ground floor we kept on going further and further down

  we go down between the damp walls lit by dirty light bulbs hanging from frayed electric wires when we got to the bottom they took me into a tiny room a lumber room where there was a young cop with a pistol in the holster under his armpit and this guy took my fingerprints every finger first one hand then the other hand he pressed them on a big pad of black ink and then pressed them on the page of a register and then underneath he wrote down my particulars he looked very fed up you could see he wasn’t at all happy at having that work to do then he held out a filthy rag for me to clean my hands on but it was useless none of it came off and after persevering for a bit I gave up and made do with black hands

  I lifted my bag again dangling it from two fingers we came out of there and went along the corridor a bit turning corners all the time then one of the cops escorting me knocks at a big wooden door all worm-eaten with peeling varnish no one comes to open it then he knocks louder and calls out officer open the door and there appears a giant of a man with a great beard as black as ink a mouth the width of an oven door and a pair of red eyes who was holding a big bunch of keys with which he closes the door noisily behind me and I find myself in a big room dimly lit by one light bulb hanging in the middle no windows the floor and walls filthy the walls flaking away with the dampness

  the giant takes us in and we go up to a long table up against the wall the guy curses in a fit of temper for some reason from one of the corridors there comes confused shouting mingled with moans and howls then a louder scream and the giant swearing in a rage and uttering broken phrases in a southern dialect I don’t understand rushes towards the corridor where there’s a row of heavy grey doors he opens the spy-holes one after the other yelling threats and slamming them violently shut then he comes back to the table and yells at the two who brought me there pointing at me with the bunch of keys and what about him they explain that I have to spend the night there the giant takes them back to the door opens it and shuts it again then he hooks the bunch of keys on his belt again and comes back towards me still standing there with my bag dangling from my fingers

  he rips the bag from my hand and throws it on the table then he yells at me aggressively to strip I don’t even attempt to tell him that I’ve already been searched because I can tell from his face that he’s only waiting for the slightest excuse to lift his hand to me his face is all sweaty and his uniform soiled and greasy with big dark stains all over it and so there’s a complete re-run of the search routine only this time more violently because it’s as if the guy wants to rip off my clothes by the avid way he handles them cursing all the time in a foul temper rolling his red eyes finally he makes me turn around naked two or three times he runs his filthy big hands two or three times through my hair which was on the long side and at last he tells me to take my stuff the clothes the bag and the stuff that was in it all scattered across the table and to follow him

  I don’t know whether I’m supposed to get dressed again first but I don’t ask him he’s at it again shouting and cursing I notice now that in that big smokey room there are three more of his kind hanging about obviously his subordinates and he’s shouting things at them through that gaping oven of a mouth he’s got and so naked as I am I tuck all my stuff under my arm and I follow him into the corridor past the row of grey doors from where there’s still shouting and moaning he opens a door and pushes me into the darkness with a great shove at my back that nearly throws me to the ground then he slams the door shut with a clang I feel very cold and suddenly it occurs to me that there might be someone else there too who I can’t see but who’s seen me when the door opened I’m shivering with the cold but with fear too thinking that someone can jump on me at any minute somebody vile and monstrous because nobody there could be anything else but vile

  I stay there for a few moments in a state of paralysis the fact that I’m naked makes me feel somehow the impossibility of protecting myself I stay there motionless waiting for the monster to jump on me unable to lift a finger it seems bound to happen until I hear the curses getting close again and without warning the spy-hole is opened I can see his head silhouetted against the light and a weak beam of light briefly illuminates the depths of the cell and I can see it’s empty at the back there’s only a kind of raised concrete platform I grope in the darkness I climb on to it until my hands can reach the back wall which is damp and cold taking my time I manage to get dressed again I roll up my jacket then I stretch out on the concrete and rest my he
ad on it

  I close my eyes my ears are filled with the muffled voices coming from the other cells the moaning the shouting the cursing I try to stop my ears but it’s pointless but I’m tired out I’m exhausted the muscles in my legs hurt as if I’d been running all day and I fall asleep straight away but it isn’t an undisturbed sleep every so often I’d wake up with the shouting and the slamming of doors and then I’d be plunged into sleep again and then again I’d wake up once I heard a woman singing in a loud voice everyone sleeps at night but I never sleep she was drunk then when they made her stop she started to cry even louder I fell asleep and woke up repeatedly and that’s how the entire night went by

  I realized it was morning when the fire eater opened my cell door and ordered me in his incomprehensible dialect to get outside at the double he was even dirtier greasier and sweatier and he was scratching his great black beard with both hands he took me up to the table against the wall where he gave me back my bag and handed me over to three new policemen who’d come for me two young ones and an older guy in plain clothes with white shirts and ties freshly shaved glossy hair all three with the same smell of aftershave they put the handcuffs on me behind my back one of them took my bag after looking inside it and feeling about a bit we went back up the stairs and when we got to the ground floor I had to screw up my eyes with the sunlight