I stopped washing the dishes and I went right up to the television set I turned up the volume someone was talking about a terrorist killed in a gunfight with the carabinieri the terrorist was held to be responsible for the murder of a carabiniere that had taken place a few months before another familiar image came up on the screen the body of the carabiniere shot down beside a yellow petrol pump that I’d seen on television with China one evening not long before they arrested me the arrests of other accomplices were expected shortly then a huge black and white photograph came up on the screen it was Cotogno’s face an identity card photograph unsmiling and hair neatly combed but I recognized it at once it was Cotogno who was there now motionless under the sheet
36
The car stops in a dark courtyard surrounded by dilapidated old houses half-empty going by how few of the windows had lights on with me is China and Ortica and Nocciola right after that Scilla’s car turns up with Cotogno Valeriana and Gelso in it the ring of light from the electric torch skims over tufts of grass pieces of wood bits of broken bottles and tiles then we go up a steep wooden staircase with a shaky banister and treads that creak Scilla turns the key in the lock it’s stiff a shove with a shoulder and we’re inside there’s a musty smell Scilla turns on a light that’s hanging from the ceiling on a threadbare cable a few old bits of furniture damp patches on the wall and a poster with Humphrey Bogart over a bed with a big metal frame
we sit down around the table on the straw-bottomed chairs Cotogno and Valeriana sit on the bed there aren’t enough chairs for us all Scilla takes a bottle of whisky out of a crooked sideboard and puts it on the table with some glasses you know the purpose of this meeting says Ortica we’re here to weigh up the different organizational options that have developed inside the movement there are some people carrying out vanguard actions with the use of arms under the illusion that they on their own can influence the growth of the whole movement well we aren’t opposed in principal to these practices because we all know very well that you can’t claim to be consistent revolutionaries without tackling the problem of the exercise of force of the necessity of building a counter-power equivalent to and even more violent than that exercised daily by the state
but our criticism of these comrades comes from the fact that this creation and exercise of counter-power all has to happen inside the movement we’re now in a phase of mass consciousness you only have to look at the news reports the use of force is spreading rapidly wherever struggles are taking place mass disregard for the law is now common practice so it’s a question of debating the possibility of a further mass leap forward for the whole movement which must consist in organized force or if you prefer the question of armed struggle Cotogno gets up from the creaking bed he takes the bottle from the table and pours the whisky into the glasses Scilla too has got up and has gone to rummage in an old chest in one corner of the room
now there’s no point in me going over every single detail of all that happened in that meeting that went on until dawn and that turned out to be the last one because there was a split between us then and we never met again things got out of hand that time a row broke out that nearly ended in blows at one point Cotogno started shouting there are people now who refuse to see that we’re now objectively in a war situation refusing to see this is pure opportunism by those who don’t want to accept their ultimate responsibilities as revolutionaries which means that those who refuse to see that we’re now objectively in a war situation will be fought and marginalized
but what do you mean by war shouted Ortica the war you’re talking about and thinking about is the war they want and it has nothing nothing in the least to do with all we’ve been doing and all we’ve been thinking so far you believe you’re convinced that the goal is the conquest of power as it is and so now for you the whole thing has become a question of winning or losing Scilla has come back to the table and on it he has laid two pistols a big one with a cylinder and a smaller one why did you need to bring the pistols here China said Scilla scowled at her one’s a revolver the other’s a pistol he said he lifted one of them in his hand handling it with skill with ease he pressed the butt-end with his thumb and took out the magazine and then took out the bullets and put them one by one in a row on the table
the whisky poured in the glasses stayed on the table no one gave a thought to drinking as the tension mounted in the room the divisions were clear on one side Scilla Cotogno Valeriana on the other Ortica Nocciola China and me there was only Gelso who wasn’t clearly on one side or the other he was very nervous he didn’t speak at all he just kept cleaning the lenses of his glasses and biting his nails we maintained that it was madness to decide in the name of the movement on a leap into clandestinity with one stroke to wipe out everything that had been achieved so far to abandon a movement of thousands of people in struggle for a war waged by twenty or thirty
it ended at dawn with screams and abuse Scilla kept on playing with his guns and when at one point Nocciola told him to stop it in a flash Scilla grabbed the revolver and pointed it at him I’ll put a hole in your head he told him we all stopped you could have heard a pin drop the only sound was the tap dripping in the wash basin we all looked at Scilla his arms stiff held in the air the pistol aimed at Nocciola we all knew it wasn’t loaded but that wasn’t what mattered we got up and we left Ortica Nocciola China and me the others stayed there around the table Gelso too never stirring his head lowered biting his nails staring at the table where the guns were and the glasses of whisky that nobody had drunk
after that evening we never saw them again they’d certainly have moved to another town because with that big step they planned to take they couldn’t stay on in our area where they were too well known I never saw Valeriana Cotogno or Scilla again though once I ran into Gelso by chance but both of us avoided speaking about what had happened I thought Gelso looked pathetic he’d always been a real drop-out and now he was dressed in straight clothes with a jacket and a tie and hair cut short and his spectacle frames changed from round to square and then we never saw him again either and so our affinity group came to an end and what happened to them became another story that’s not up to me to tell here now
those of us in the collective set to work with even more enthusiasm than before it was as if behind us we felt something monstrous and destructive closing in on us more and more and maybe also because there was a kind of need to prove to ourselves that the choice we’d made to stay inside the movement was the right choice the repression grew with every day that passed armed actions were followed by indiscriminate mass arrests but the repression wasn’t only carabinieri and police it was also the press and media siege combined with the smashing of our communication network the difficulty and often impossibility of bringing out our newspapers because of arrests confiscations lack of money
a relentless campaign to criminalize the whole movement was set in motion every morning I’d read the newspaper any newspaper and there was no difference from the lowest hack journalist to the most distinguished intellectual sociologist philosopher psychologist historian novelist and so on they all wrote that the movement was nothing but a convulsive disturbance by displaced adventurers fascists schizophrenics criminals who should be locked up as quickly as possible in order to save democracy and civil harmony we felt a sense of powerlessness in the face of that systematic and total falsification but we believed that all the same we had no other option but to accept the challenge in the arena of media information and so we decided to set up a movement radio station
we dealt with the financial problem the way we’d always done before all the comrades set about finding money as best they could without being too choosy about how they did it and in this way we started getting hold of the stuff to set it up Nocciola borrowed a van and with two other comrades he went round the local building sites and helped himself to fibreglass polystyrene sheeting and other useful material and then we also got hold of several hundred pieces of c
ardboard packaging for egg boxes and with all this stuff we started soundproofing a room in the centre and then we partitioned it with chipboard panelling and sheets of perspex the recording studio on one side production on the other
now we had to get hold of equipment the mixer the amplifier the recording console and the stereo decks but the biggest problem was finding room in the frequency jungle either buying our way in or forcing our way in because either people had a lot of money and could buy a powerful transmitter that drowned out the other stations or else you had to make room for yourself simply by elbowing in shutting up the other stations and we had no scruples about doing this because our argument was what the hell are these commercial radio stations putting out besides advertising they put out shit music shit quizzes shit news bulletins and anyway who do these stations belong to in any case they’re enemy radio stations participants in the destruction of our communications being carried out by those in power
so we started making night-time visits to the aerials and the transmitters of the local commercial radio stations that bothered us and we sabotaged them we pulled down the little pylons supporting the aerials and if we could we took away the transmitters or any other apparatus that might be useful for our radio station it was easy to carry out these actions of expropriation and sabotage because in general these things are set up in more or less isolated spots the aerials were placed on small hills or the roofs of tall buildings even ten or fifteen of us would go along without taking any special precautions there were metal cases with the transmitters in them and we’d open the lock and the padlocks with an electric drill and if we couldn’t manage that we’d pour one or two litres of petrol under the door and toss a match at it and so gradually we cleared a space for ourselves in the frequency jungle where only the strongest could survive
37
The sergeant turned up it was eleven o’clock at night he called me through the spy-hole speaking the way they usually do as if he had a picture postcard for me instead it was a telegram from the ministry with the order for my transfer to a special prison we were laughing in the cell a bit tipsy then everyone went silent special prison those words scared us there were still six hours to go before it was five o’clock the time I was to leave the time to get my rucksacks ready and to exchange presents to stay awake and talk up until the last minute the news gets round the cells yells from the spy-holes people yell their good wishes because they’re putting me on the road at five and there’s not even the chance to give me a final hug in the exercise yard
at five sharp the guards arrive to collect me they’re in a hurry they’re sleepy and edgy because it’s their last detail before going off their shift I hug my cell-mates who help me to lift the packs onto my back well see you outside this is what people always say when they’re separated even guys who’ve got three life sentences still to do say it a lot of comrades are awake and I do the rounds of the armoured doors to shake the hands stuck through the spy-holes we have our last conversations give our last bits of advice I collect messages and good wishes to be taken to the comrades I’ll meet down there then the section gate closes behind me and I follow the guards through the silent corridors of the sleeping prison
in the registration office we go through the whole series of particulars to be passed on to my new destination this is the most critical moment for if they’ve got a beating to give you that’s when they do it it’s the time for settling scores if you had any set-tos with one of the guards they put the word around about who’s being transferred there are guards who even if they’re not on duty the morning of your transfer are capable of getting up at five o’clock just for the pleasure of giving you a beating if they’ve got any score to settle with you they wait for the transfer to give it to you particularly in cases when they’re not up to giving it to you on the spot in the heat of the moment in the cells but I’m lucky because they make do with a few provocative shoves and threatening reminders of some things I’ve done
once the registration business is over with they start the search the guards pull the stuff out of the rucksacks and they inspect it much more carefully than usual then I meekly put everything back in its place but then the carabinieri who’re to be my escort arrive and everything starts from scratch another search they do two of them when you’re leaving the guards do one and the carabinieri who’re to escort you do the other because neither lot trusts the other then they take me to the van the armoured van is parked outside ten yards away from the registry gate in the centre of the prison but all the same the carabinieri handcuff me with a long chain they put me in chains for the ten yards I have to go from the gate to the armoured vehicle
outside it’s still dark it’s cold and the fog is so thick the headlights of the armoured vehicle turn it yellow without managing to cut through it the leader of the escort walks in front of me holding up the chain with my handcuffs linked to it the others walk behind me we advance like this in procession towards the van that’s waiting shrouded in the yellow fog with the engine running and the doors open it’s the first time I’ve seen inside an armoured van it’s divided into three compartments in front the driving cabin in the middle the cell with two iron benches facing one another along the sides at the back seating for the escorts six men altogether they put me in the cell removing my chain but leaving on the handcuffs tight around my wrists then they close the grating with a padlock
on the first stretch as far as the entrance to the motorway they’re extra careful up to there I’m also escorted by two flying-squad cars one in front and one behind with which they’re also in radio contact Hare calling Kangaroo and that sort of thing the carabinieri are tense they turn out the inside light and peer intently through the port-holes to me all this deployment of forces seems absurd not to say ridiculous just for me but it’s the rules they take the rules seriously and this morning I became a special case I mean as far as the rules are concerned I’m an extremely dangerous individual I try peering at the road through the port-holes but I can only see the ends of buildings the windows and cornices of buildings I stand up between the two benches but I can’t manage to keep my balance because of the handcuffs maybe on the motorway where there are no bends I’ll be able to look at the road ahead through the glass behind the driving cabin
on the motorway the carabinieri relax they take off their hats loosen their ties unbutton their jackets make themselves comfortable three of them get down to playing cards they play sette e mezzo and they play for money ten lire a card putting the coins inside their upturned hats laughing and losing their tempers the escort leader stays aloof he just keeps an eye on his boys’ game they’re different from the guards they do a different kind of job and this also changes the kind of contact they have with you they’re merely transporting dangerous packages they do thousands of kilometres up and down the length of Italy continuously transporting prisoners up and down in their armoured vans for transfers from one prison to the other the goat path as we’re accustomed to call these transfer routes
from time to time out of his bag the kind of bag tram conductors have one of them will take a sandwich made in the barracks or made by his wife the night before great big sandwiches stuffed with mortadella with salami or cheese he eats it slowly with the paper it was wrapped up in over his knees so as to avoid messing up his trousers and then he sweeps up the crumbs with a shovel and a little brush that are part and parcel of the armoured vehicle’s equipment they seem more like commuters than warriors I sleep a little the handcuffs are hurting me and I’m hungry perhaps if I ask to have them taken off they’ll take them off but I don’t feel like asking them any favours as far as they’re concerned I don’t exist I’m only an object a package to be transported they take no notice of me but from time to time they take a quick look at me to check I’m jolted about up and down and from side to side I ache in every bone of my body
shortly after my arrival there at the special my father was taken into hospital and they t
ook me on the same journey in the armoured van in the opposite direction to go and visit my father for the last time for he was dying of cancer I did the trip in a ten-hour stretch all over again and when we arrived my hands were quite numb because of the tight handcuffs around my wrists we arrived in the morning and after a short stop in the carabinieri’s barracks they took me to the hospital they took me out of the van in the hospital courtyard and around me I saw a long line of carabinieri and a long line of police all carrying sub-machine guns and pistols there were the dogs there were the squad cars with the doors open and the blue lights on the roofs in one of them was Donnola giving orders through a walkie-talkie
they put a chain on my handcuffs and they dragged me towards the big glass door of the hospital entrance hall full of people in pyjamas people in white shirts with white overalls white shoes who stopped to watch in amazement and surprise to the right and the left the lines of carabinieri cleared the way pushing puzzled onlookers back against the walls I could feel the chain pulling on my wrists I couldn’t see where we were going then I stumbled the chain kept me from falling it was the first step on the stairs the procession started going up funnelling closer together I couldn’t see the steps in front of me I lifted my feet but I kept on stumbling on the edges of the steps I was being crushed by people around me the chain was pulling me at last we reached the landing
The Unseen Page 19