24
Suddenly we’re bathed in a strong bright light they’d brought in two big engine-generators a deafening hum started up and they set about shining giant searchlights onto the yards they were in shadow and you were totally exposed to the light surrounded by this scene of blood everywhere of people with their heads split open everything broken and moaning to themselves and these guys still masked in the shadow started hitting the wire fence with metal bars and clubs and shouting bastards queers we’ll make you all pay for it on your knees beg for mercy cocksuckers motherfuckers this is only the start and this really scared us stiff fuck if these guys really come inside and just deal out a few more beatings to these guys lying here mangled on the ground that’s it it’s over for them
they did all this crap stuff and at the same time it happened that there was a comrade in my yard sitting there not moving I didn’t speak to him because since I was able to stand up I was helping the ones that were more badly beaten and since I’d seen he was sitting up not moving and had no sign of blood or anything I thought he must be in a state of shock with it all but nothing really wrong then when the more serious cases the injured and the ones covered in blood pulled themselves together a bit people got themselves into a sitting position against the wall it was something anyway if not much and I said to him hey how are you he spoke slowly I feel something broken inside and the fact was that he had all his ribs broken later he was taken to the hospital during the night because he couldn’t be left there he couldn’t make the slightest movement without screaming from the pain of all his broken ribs
I was waiting for my cell-mate who I’d got separated from in the confusion when the carabinieri made their entrance I was very worried because he’d gone down to the first floor and I thought that downstairs there’d been a disaster that people had been killed because as the comrades were gradually turning up I was asking them all has somebody been killed then and somebody had answered I think more than one and so I was waiting for this cell-mate of mine then I saw him go by and I saw what a beating they’d given him they’d really given him a bad one then he came into the same exercise yard as me he walked in still hopping about without taking his hands away from the back of his head he was wearing woollen gloves and I asked him how are you and he told me OK but I must have all my fingers broken then I took off his gloves as gently as I could one finger at a time with him blaspheming every madonna you can think of but he hadn’t broken them all just one or two
after the guards threatened to come back into the exercise yards they went away a fearful silence descended nobody was speaking to anyone else any more and this was something that struck me again later because at that point I believe everyone thought it was futile to speak to say anything at all there was a moment when everyone froze just as they were petrified like statues under the brilliant light of the generators and you could only hear the noise of the generators then the din started up again the guards had gone upstairs and they were breaking everything up they wrecked everything they destroyed everything smashing everything wrecking everything everything to be found there they were screaming like damned souls and they were taking it out on your stuff that was in the cells
they took the television sets and hurled them to the ground they took all the objects all the boxes all the bottles and smashed them to smithereens and trampled them underfoot they broke up stools and tables they broke up everything they tore the books to shreds they took the clothes and pulled them apart and threw them on the ground and pissed on them they yanked out the radiators and the water flooded out over the entire floor they wrecked the entire prison they made it unusable they were the ones who wrecked it not us for half an hour they took it out on our belongings on the prison shouting screaming they were in a frenzy then they calmed down also because probably some news had reached them the kidnapped guards had talked about how things had been that they hadn’t been injured by the prisoners that it had been the carabinieri who’d injured them
while those guys were demolishing the prison people had calmed down a bit because as long as they were destroying things it meant they were leaving us alone then it was clear that the worst was over when the guards came back down and they weren’t masked any more they weren’t wearing the balaclavas any more and that was when we realized they wouldn’t be beating people up any more because their faces were uncovered and the sergeants started saying if anyone’s sick we’ll take him to hospital but nobody wanted to leave the yards because they didn’t trust them not even the worst cases not even the ones who were really in a bad way and had broken bones and the sergeants started giving reassurances no we won’t do a thing to you we’ll take you to hospital and we’ll take the ones who’re not so bad into the infirmary here
well there was a comrade who was in a particularly bad way because they’d hit him in the throat and he couldn’t breathe this guy kept fainting he was wheezing as if he was going to suffocate so we’d had to take turns at putting a finger in his mouth because this guy’s tongue kept twisting backwards and into his throat he wasn’t breathing and he was going blue in the face he was close to suffocating so we had to keep him sitting up with his back against the wall and put our fingers in his mouth me and another comrade took turns at it we took turns at putting our fingers in his throat we held his tongue with our fingers trying to flatten his tongue to keep it still so that some air could get into his throat but it was hard because the guy wouldn’t keep his head still
it went on like this for an hour and whenever we managed to get him breathing a bit easier the guy would say his voice really faint I don’t want to go to the hospital because I heard a guard who was beating me up say that they want to kill me then we had to reassure him because the way he was he was really in danger of dying meanwhile other comrades started going out to be taken to hospital then there was a stream of people all through the night going to hospital or to the infirmary and the ones with broken bones had plaster-casts put on the ones with cuts had them sewn up had stitches and so on but this guy who couldn’t breathe was still there half the night not wanting to go out and we thought he was dying then around four or five in the morning we made up our minds and we took him to the gate because he really couldn’t stay there like that any longer
from that point when they started taking people to hospital and to the infirmary the guards no longer made threats and they stopped being violent this freezing cold night passed maybe it was Christmas night I don’t remember now just imagine if it mattered at all to anyone there that it was Christmas the temperature was below zero and we didn’t have a thing at dawn the guards turned up with milk we couldn’t believe it with bread and hot milk and blankets people were still there in a lot of pain but with plaster-casts on now fear had subsided and so there was the first sound of voices people started to talk to one another inside each of the yards and then there was the first sound of voices resounding from yard to yard because there were walls between them and you couldn’t see either side how’s x how’s y we were glad that no one had died and then the main thing was that they weren’t beating us any more
for the whole day we all lay there stretched out on the blankets on the ground because all the pains the bruises the blows were coming out now at noon they brought us sausages cooked food bread as well then the darkness came down again and that night was splendid because the sky was clear as can be and there were oh so many stars the air was extremely cold and then very slowly one by one they started taking us out of the yard and they took us into the ground floor cells they’d taken everything away and they’d only left the beds the ground floor hadn’t been involved in the revolt they couldn’t put us upstairs because everything had been wrecked and so they’d taken the working prisoners and they’d put them somewhere else for the time being
they’d taken everything away from inside the cells they’d taken away the little wardrobes the tables the stools anything there was nothing left in the cells there were on
ly the bed frames attached to the floor and the usual foam rubber mattresses which were plain blocks of foam rubber and nothing more and they started taking us out one at a time and they put us in groups in these cells they put me in a small dormitory cell with five beds there were ten of us and by the time we’d all stretched out there was no room to walk about and we were there like that ten of us with no belongings with blankets with the clothes we’d been wearing because there was no way we could change our things were upstairs on the floor that was wrecked we still had on the same torn dirty bloodstained clothes and we stayed there in these conditions for three weeks
25
It was a lovely day and the weather was mild in the courtyard at police headquarters there was a great to-ing and fro-ing of people in uniform and in plain clothes blue and white cars driving in and out very fast they made me get into an unmarked car me in the back seat with the guy carrying my bag next to me the other young one was driving and in the passenger seat the oldest guy with the fatherly look about him we drove off and as soon as we were outside I looked at myself in the rearview mirror my face looked dreadful my eyes red and swollen my hair dishevelled and lank my hands so blackened that I couldn’t even touch myself but more than anything I felt as if I had a layer of filthy slippery grease all over me on my skin on my clothes on my hair like the guards in that sewer down there I’d just come from
now I’m going to prison I wonder what prison is like I have no clear idea I ransack my memory for whatever I’ve read in the movement literature or the stories I’ve heard from those who’d been there but nothing much came back to me to help me imagine what was in store we came up to a red light the driver brakes through the window I can see a girl on a bicycle alongside the car one foot on a pedal the other resting on the ground I’d like to be riding around on a bicycle now too if I’d thought about it yesterday I wouldn’t have cared less I’d have thought that riding a bicycle isn’t that much fun in fact it’s extra work for nothing whereas now I was thinking it’s a lovely thing to do
then the light changes to green and the car drives straight on while the girl is still there stationary with one foot on a pedal and the other resting on the ground I’d have liked to turn round but I don’t I’m stuck between two policemen and my role is to be someone who’s going to gaol I can hardly turn to look at girls riding bicycles the oldest guy turns and asks me in a fatherly tone of voice if it’s the first time I’m going inside yes I tell him and he makes an apologetic face and asks me how old I am you’re young it’s a nasty thing to go through and shakes his head they’re always like that the older ones the younger ones are hard tight-lipped they don’t say a word to you if they talk to you at all it’s to give you orders you can sense the hatred and contempt but the old ones too they’re all the same thing they’re all the same at heart they all do the same things the same job
my role is to be someone who’s going to gaol now I was thinking about the comrades and this consoled me because I was thinking that now they would all be rallying round busy making efforts on my behalf they wouldn’t leave me to fend for myself and I was proud of the fact that I had all these comrades this big family that was taking responsibility for my situation and my problems that would think of everything a lawyer money all the other things that for now I couldn’t imagine I felt that I wasn’t on my own I was part of a collective strength and this made me feel very strong I would bravely bear everything that lay ahead of me and I was thinking that now I had to behave as if the comrades could see me I wasn’t on my own they were with me always there whatever happened
we reach the prison for a bit the car drives round the outer wall with the guard towers then it stops in front of a big gateway that’s closed in front of it there’s a stationary squad car and round it are four policemen in uniform with submachine guns under their arms and bullet-proof vests on they’re looking about anxiously and they’re looking inside the cars that go by slowly the gateway inches open and a grey uniform leans halfway out also wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a sub-machine gun with the barrel pointing up a bit the oldest guy in my escort gets out of the car goes up to him speaks to him and hands him some sheets of paper the grey uniform takes them studies them for a moment then goes back inside the gateway and the gate is closed again
after a while the gateway opens again just enough to let our car through it comes to a halt in front of a second gateway just as the first gate is being shut inside it’s dark in the entrance yard there’s only the light from two dim bulbs on the right there’s a guard-room with bullet-proof glass its door closed and more armed grey uniforms inside the police escort gets out of the car and they hand over their pistols then they get back in meanwhile I stay put in the back seat the second gate is opened and the car slowly drives on thirty or forty yards along an asphalt path and stops again we all get out and another grey figure opens a gate for us that leads to a long narrow corridor then on the left a door with the notice registration office
we go into a big room full of shelves stacked higgledy-piggledy with registers and big tables in cracked green formica and grey uniforms that look as if they’re working as clerks among the papers that are scattered about there’s a high counter dividing the whole length of the room in two the escort trio take off my handcuffs they have a hurried word with the one that looks like the office supervisor there they hand him some papers and my bag and they leave without even a look at me the office supervisor motions me to sit down on a bench and goes back to the work he was doing when we came in he takes a pile of papers from one table and moves them on to another table then he takes another pile of papers from another table and moves it on to the first table but he doesn’t seem satisfied and shaking his head he shifts it all back the way it was before
after a while he waves me forward to the counter he brings out a big register and an inking pad and he takes my fingerprints all over again my hands get even dirtier from the ink by now they’re quite black by now I know how it’s done and I try to impress my fingers on the sheet all by myself for I don’t want that guy to take hold of my hands but he does it just the same obviously because he’s used to doing it then he takes down my particulars too he writes them down underneath the fingerprints and he adds the charge and I can read subversive association armed band and possession of arms then he measures my height with a rickety old ruler like the ones they use in a military-service medical and he writes that in the register too and puts it away
finally he makes me hand over my wallet with my money and my identity card and he makes me hand over my watch and my belt and everything I had in my pocket my lighter and my keys and he puts them on the counter beside my bag he summons two guards and says take him to the cells he’s in judicial isolation they don’t call you by your name here among themselves the guards always call you him and I go with the two guards we go through an awful lot of gates always with a guard at each one to open and shut it in the corridors we meet other guards who go past singly or in groups or escorting prisoners then eventually we reach a small door that a guard opens for us and we go down the stairs that lead underground to the isolation cells
at the bottom of the stairs there’s another small door that’s opened for us from inside there’s a wide corridor thirty or forty yards long and on each side of the corridor every two or three yards there’s a locked grey metal door with a closed spy-hole and at the end of the corridor there’s a wall with no windows and a small locked door everything is lit with fluorescent strip-lights the two guards accompanying me go up to one of the guards in the corridor addressing him as sergeant of the guard the sergeant has a big bunch of keys attached to his belt he takes one of them and opens the armoured door of cell number twenty-seven then with the same key he opens a gate that’s behind the armoured door
before taking me inside one of the guards escorting me pins a card with my name and number on the wall beside the door a five-figure number then they wave me in I go inside they
come in behind me and they tell me to undress naked one more time I undress naked one more time and they go through a whole new search looking thoroughly through all my clothes where by now there’s nothing left at all then they go out and the sergeant closes the gate he turns the key in the lock then takes two steps back and pushes the door and the door closes with a dull thud I can hear the key turning and I’m left standing there naked with my hands all black in isolation cell number twenty-seven
Part Three
26
And now here I’ve lost track of where I left off with this whole story also because there are loads of things I can’t remember that I’ve no clear memory of how they happened and there are also loads of things that can’t be remembered but can only be forgotten it’s not as if I want to tell the whole story of my life nor do I want to tell everything that happened during this time when so many different contradictory things of all kinds happened that to put them all together and try to make sense of them seems to me quite impossible but what concerns me right now is just to speak about those things that happened to me but from my point of view of course just because maybe now it’s worthwhile speaking about it
at school what happened was that after we’d got him on the run the headmaster Mastino left and the teachers had had to adjust their power had crumbled we’d won the right to mass meetings we’d got everything no more oral tests no more registers suspensions excuses and so on the school had erupted in a short time it had become an open school people of all kinds came friends and students from other schools workers who weren’t at work unemployed people came instead of hanging around the bars and assorted marginals came instead of just wandering about we called all these people non-residents and so the school became a fair a bazaar where we played chess and we played cards and we brought things to drink and joints and the teachers stood by powerless without daring to lift a finger as everything went to rack and ruin
The Unseen Page 13