then we thought that maybe we could attract more attention by making torches but it was more complicated to make torches there were greater problems because there were the grids on the windows there were the iron grids they’d put outside the bars to prevent anything being passed from one floor to another and so we had to make holes in the grids we broke the stools and we made pieces of wood with sharp points and with these pieces of wood slowly and with difficulty we managed to widen the mesh and make holes in it and then make the hole bigger until we could pass the torches through the hole
we made holes in all the wire mesh grilles and then we made the torches the torches were made with bits of sheets tied tightly together and then soaked in oil and for this too we agreed a time in the middle of the night we all lit the oil of the torches and we pushed these brands through the holes in the grilles but there was no one there to see this either the torches burned for a long time it must have been a beautiful sight from outside all those torches flickering against the black wall of the prison in the middle of that boundless plain but the only ones who could see the torchlight were those few people driving their cars that sped like tiny darts in the distance on that black ribbon of the motorway several kilometres from the prison or maybe an aeroplane flying above but they fly very high up there in the silent black sky and they see nothing
* The ‘metropolitan indians’: a term used to describe groups of young people who staged a form of anarcho-theatre through disruptive public happenings, mainly in Bologna and Rome during the period of violent demonstrations in the spring of 1977.
* The municipal or provincial council member with chief responsibility for a particular department.
* the principle of the decreti delegati, giving a representative group including parents and students some say in the administration of individual schools, was introduced in 1974. In many cases elections were opposed and boycotted on the grounds that it amounted to a paltry and inadequate reform.
* Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana the Italian Communist Party’s offical youth organization.
* The pact between the Italian Communist Party and the ruling parties of the right after the 1976 election.
* Partito Comunista Italiano the Italian Communist Party.
* Brigate Rosse, the Red Brigades.
* Pentiti (literally penitents) was the term used to describe those in prison who collaborated with the judiciary, giving evidence against comrades or associates, simultaneously rejecting their former allegiances.
The Unseen Page 25