Involuntary Witness

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  I got up too, mechanically. I watched them disappear one by one through the door and only then did I turn to Margherita.

  “How long did I speak for?”

  “Two and a half hours, more or less.”

  I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past six. It seemed to me I had spoken for no more than forty minutes.

  We stood for a while in silence. Then she asked me why I didn’t take off my robe. I did so and laid it on the desk, while she regarded me with the expression of one who wants to say something and is searching for the way, for the words.

  “I’m not very good at paying compliments. I’ve never really liked doing it, and I think I know why. In any case, that doesn’t matter now. What I wanted to say was that ... well, listening to you was ... extraordinary. I’d like to give you a kiss, but I don’t think this is the time and place for it.”

  I said nothing, because I was at a loss for words, and what’s more I had a lump in my throat.

  A journalist came up and complimented me. Then another, and then the girl who had asked me what I thought of the prosecutor’s request for a verdict of guilty. I felt a pang of remorse at not having been kinder to her earlier.

  While the journalists jabbered on at me without my listening, Margherita gave a gentle tug at my sleeve.

  “I must dash. Good luck.” She raised her left fist to her brow and briefly bowed her head.

  Then she turned and made off, and I felt lonely.

  37

  The first defence I conducted on my own, shortly after qualifying, had to do with a series of frauds. The defendant was a large, jolly fellow with a black moustache and a nose laced with broken veins. I had a feeling he was not a teetotaller.

  The prosecutor made a very short speech and asked for two years’ imprisonment. I made a long harangue. While I was speaking the judge kept nodding, and this gave me confidence. My arguments seemed to me cogent and unanswerably persuasive.

  When I finished I was convinced that in a matter of minutes my client would be acquitted.

  The judge was out for about twenty minutes, and when he returned he pronounced exactly the sentence the prosecution had asked for. Two years’ imprisonment without remission, because my client was a habitual criminal.

  I didn’t sleep that night, and for days afterwards I asked myself where I had gone wrong. I felt humiliated, and persuaded myself that the judge for some unknown reason had it in for me. I lost faith in justice.

  It never occurred to me for one moment that there was an obvious explanation for the matter: that my client was guilty and the judge had been right to convict him. This was a brilliant intuition that only came to me long afterwards.

  However, that experience taught me to treat my trials with due detachment. Without getting emotional and above all without nursing any expectations.

  Getting emotional and nursing expectations are both dangerous things. They can do harm, even great harm. And not only in trials.

  I thought about this now while the courtroom was emptying. I thought I had done my job well. I had done everything possible. Now I had to feel unconcerned about the result.

  I ought to go out, go to the office or take a stroll, even go home. When the court was ready the clerk of the court would call me on my mobile – he had asked for my number before he left the courtroom himself – and I would return to hear the reading of the verdict.

  This is the usual practice in trials of this kind, when the court is expected to remain in camera for many hours, or even for days. When they are ready, they call the clerk and tell him what time they will re-enter the courtroom to pronounce the verdict. The clerk in turn calls the public prosecutor and the counsels and at the established hour there they all are, ready for the final scene.

  In short, according to practice I should have left.

  But instead I stayed put, and after gazing around the empty courtroom for a while I approached the cage. Abdou rose from his bench and came towards me.

  I took hold of the bars and he gave me a nod of greeting and the ghost of a smile. I nodded and smiled back before I spoke.

  “Did you manage to follow my speech?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think?”

  He didn’t answer at once. As on other occasions, I had the feeling that he was concentrating on finding the right words.

  “I have one question, Avvocato.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Why have you done all this?”

  If he hadn’t done so, sooner or later I would have had to ask myself that question.

  I was searching for an answer, but I realized I didn’t want to talk through the bars. There was no question of them letting Abdou out for a chat in the courtroom. Against all regulations.

  So I asked the head of his escort if I could go into the cage.

  He stared at me in disbelief, then turned to his men, shrugged as if abandoning all hope of understanding, and ordered the warder with the keys to let me in.

  I sat on the bench near Abdou, and felt an absurd sense of relief as I heard the bolt slide home in the door of the cage.

  I was about to offer him a cigarette when he pulled out a packet and insisted on my taking one of his. Diana Red. The prisoners’ Marlboro.

  I took one, and after smoking half I told him I had no answer to his question.

  I told him that I thought it was for a good motive, but I didn’t know exactly what that motive was.

  Abdou gave a nod, as if satisfied with my answer.

  Then he said, “I’m frightened.”

  “So am I.”

  And so it was we began to talk. We talked of many things and went on smoking his cigarettes. At a certain point we both felt thirsty and I called up the bar on my mobile to place an order. Ten minutes later in came the boy with the tray, and passed two glasses of iced tea through the bars. Abdou paid.

  We drank beneath the bewildered gaze of the warders.

  At about eight o’clock I told him I was going for a walk to stretch my legs.

  I had no wish to go home or to the office. Or into the centre of town among the shops and the crowds. So I ventured into the district round the law courts, towards the cemetery. Among working-class tenements which emitted the smell of rather unsavoury food, rundown shops, streets I’d never been along in all my thirty-nine years of living in Bari.

  I walked for a long time, without an aim or a thought in my head. It seemed to me I was somewhere else entirely, and the whole place was so ugly that it had a strange, seedy allure to it.

  Darkness had fallen and my mind was completely distracted when I became aware of the vibration in my back trouser pocket.

  I pulled out the mobile and on the other end heard the voice of the clerk of the court. He was pretty agitated.

  Had he already called once and got no answer? So sorry, I hadn’t registered. They’d been ready for ten minutes? I’d be there at once. At once. Just a minute or two.

  I glanced around and it took me a while to realize where I was. Not at all close. I would have to run, and I did.

  I entered the courtroom about ten minutes later, forcing myself to breathe through my nose and not my mouth, feeling my shirt stuck to my back with sweat, and trying to look dignified.

  They were all there, ready in their places. Counsel for the civil party, public prosecutor, clerk of the court, journalists and, despite the late hour, even some members of the public. I noticed that there were a number of Africans, never seen at the other hearings.

  As soon as he saw me, the clerk of the court went through to inform the court that I had arrived at last.

  I threw on my robe and glanced at my watch. Nine fifty-five.

  The clerk returned to his seat and then, in rapid succession, the bell rang and the court entered.

  The judge hurried to his place, with the air of a man who wants to get some disagreeable duty quickly over and done with. He looked first right, then left. He assured himself that the members of the court were all in p
osition. He put on his glasses to read the verdict.

  Eyes lowered, half closed, I listened to my thudding heart.

  “In the name of the Italian people, the Court of Assizes at Bari, in accordance with Article 530, Paragraph One, of the code of criminal procedure ...”

  I felt a charge throughout my body and my legs turned to jelly.

  Acquitted.

  Article 530 of the code of criminal procedure is entitled “Verdict of acquittal”.

  “... finds Abdou Thiam not guilty on the grounds that the accused has not committed the offences with which he is charged. In accordance with Article 300 of the code of criminal procedure it decrees the cessation of the precautionary measure of detention in prison at present in force against the defendant and orders the immediate discharge of the aforesaid unless detained on other counts. The court is dismissed.”

  It is hard to explain what one feels at such a moment. Because it’s really hard to understand it.

  I stayed where I was, gazing towards the empty bench where the court had sat. All around were excited voices, while people patted me on the back and others grasped my hand and wrung it. I wondered what so many people were doing in a courtroom of the Bari Assizes on 3 July at ten o’clock at night.

  I don’t know how long it was until I moved.

  Until among the babble of voices I distinguished that of Abdou. I took off my robe and went to the cage. In theory, he should have been released at once. In practice, though, they had to take him back to the prison to go through the formalities. In any case, he was still inside there.

  We found ourselves face to face, very close, the bars between us. His eyes were moist, his jaw set, the corners of his mouth trembling.

  My own face was not very different, I think.

  It was a long handshake, through the bars. Not in the usual way, like businessmen or when you are introduced, but gripping thumbs with elbows crooked.

  He said only a few words, in his own language. I didn’t need an interpreter to tell me what they meant.

  38

  I left Margherita a message on her mobile the very evening of the verdict, but we didn’t manage to meet until the next afternoon.

  She called by my office, and we went and sat in a bar. We talked very little about the trial. I had no wish to, and she realized that and soon stopped asking questions. We were both of us in a strange state of mild embarrassment.

  When we got back to the street door of my office I made an effort to say what I had in mind.

  “I really rather wanted to ask you out to dinner. Please don’t say no, even if it’s not much of an invitation. I’m out of practice.”

  She looked at me as if she wanted to laugh, but she didn’t say a thing.

  “What about it?” I asked after a moment.

  “As a matter of fact it was a pretty rottenly put invitation, but I’d like to reward your good intentions.”

  “You mean you accept?”

  “I mean I accept. This evening?”

  “Not this evening. Tomorrow if you don’t mind.”

  She narrowed her eyes and gave me a rather puzzled look, so I felt bound to say more.

  “There’s something I have to do this evening. Something important. I can’t put it off. I can’t go out with you unless I’ve done it first.”

  Still the same puzzled look for a moment. Then she nodded and said that was fine.

  Till tomorrow then.

  Till tomorrow.

  I got home from the office, had a shower, put on some shorts and made a smoothie. I wandered for a while from room to room. Every so often I stopped to look at the telephone. I scrutinized it from a distance.

  After a little of this I sat down in an armchair. The telephone was in front of me and I had only to reach out and pick up the receiver. Instead I simply sat staring at the instrument.

  No need to rush, I thought.

  In any case, before you phone you have to run through the number in your head. The number is 080 ... 5219 ... that is 080 ... 52198 ... No, it’s 52196 ... No it isn’t.

  I couldn’t remember it! Ridiculous. It wasn’t even two years and I couldn’t remember the number. Yet a few months before I’d known it by heart. So really it was only a few months, and I’d forgotten it.

  All right, no use fretting. Such things happen.

  I looked up Sara’s name in the phone book but it wasn’t there.

  For a moment I didn’t know what to do. Then inspiration struck and I looked up my name. There it was. At the old address, I mean. Where I lived now the phone was in the landlord’s name.

  I went on staring at the phone for a bit longer, but I knew that time was running out.

  I hope she’ll be the one to answer. If it’s the same man as last time, what shall I say? Good evening, I’m the ex-husband or, rather, still the husband though separated. Yes, you’ve understood rightly, that little shit. I would like to speak to Sara, please. My dear sir, don’t be so crude. You’ll bust my face in if I ring again? Be careful how you talk, I am a boxer. Ah, you are a master of full-contact karate? Well, I only said it for a lark.

  I punched the number hard, quickly, without thinking. Only way to do it.

  After three rings she answered.

  She didn’t seem surprised to hear my voice. In fact, she seemed pleased. Yes, she was well. I was well too. Yes, I was sure, I was as fit as a fiddle. No, it was just that I seemed to her a trifle strange. Meet this evening? That is, in a couple of hours, after a couple of years? She complimented me for still being able to surprise her, which she said wasn’t easy. I was glad about this – no, really glad – so, apart from that, could we meet? For dinner, or for a drink afterwards. Very well. Would she like me to come and fetch her or might that create some embarrassment? Laughter. OK, I’d come for her at ten. Should I call her on the intercom or would she meet me downstairs? No, better on the intercom ... Another laugh. All right, I’ll buzz from downstairs. See you then. Ciao. Ciao.

  I dressed quickly and quickly left the house. The shops shut at eight.

  I made good time, and was back home by half-past. It remained to fill up the time until ten. I read a little. Zen in the Art of Archery. But it wasn’t the right book for the occasion. So I thought I’d listen to a little music. I was about to put on Rimmel, but then thought that even though quite alone I ought to avoid pathos. Better to go out at once.

  I changed, just to while away a few more minutes, then went downstairs, little shopping bag in hand.

  I wandered about the streets until dead on ten, when I pressed the bell at Sara’s place. She answered, in the way I knew so well.

  I’ll be right down.

  Down she came and gave me a kiss on the cheek and I gave her a kiss on hers. If she saw my little shopping bag she gave no sign of it. We walked as far as the car and I drove to a restaurant by the sea, near Polignano.

  We didn’t exchange many words while we were in the car, nor did we exchange many during dinner.

  She was waiting for me to say why I’d wanted to see her. I was waiting until we’d finished eating, because one has to be patient and do everything at the right time. It seemed to me I’d understood this fact, among other things.

  So we shared a big lobster dressed with olive oil and lemon, and drank chilled white wine. Every so often we caught each other’s eye, said something of no consequence and went on eating. And every so often she gave me a mildly questioning look.

  When we had finished I paid and asked her if she’d like to go for a stroll. She would.

  As we walked I began to speak.

  “I’ve been through a very ... a very singular experience. A number of things have happened to me ...”

  I paused. It wasn’t a great start. In fact it was a lousy one. She said nothing. She was waiting.

  We walked, both staring straight ahead, among the boats of a little harbour.

  “Do you remember saying that sooner or later one has to pay up?”

  “I remember. And you said th
at before that you’d get out from under. If they wanted, they could sue you.”

  Smiles, both of us. That’s exactly what I’d said. If they wanted, they could sue me. I expected Sara to say I had always been a dab hand at wriggling out of paying. She would have been absolutely right, but she didn’t say it. And I went on.

  “One of the things that has happened to me is that I haven’t managed to wriggle out of it this time, not as quickly as before. So they caught me and made me pay up all the arrears. It hasn’t been a lot of fun.”

  I sat on the side of a boat, very near the water. She sat on another, facing me. I had reached the most difficult part and I couldn’t find the words.

  “So in all this at a certain point I realized that ... well, if I was settling all my debts, there was one that I absolutely couldn’t leave unpaid.”

  She watched me with her head tilted slightly to one side, her eyes fixed on mine. I felt the urge for a cigarette, lit one, and waited for the smoke to hit my lungs before I spoke again.

  Then, in the first words that came into my head, I said everything I had to say. She listened without a single interruption, and even when I had finished she didn’t speak at once. To be certain I had really and truly finished. I wasn’t sure, because of the darkness, but it looked to me as if her eyes were moist. Mine were, and I needed no light to tell me so. When she did speak, I knew that I had done the right thing, that evening.

  “Today you have given me back every day, every single minute we were together. So many times, before we separated and since, I’ve thought that with you I’d thrown away nearly ten years of my life. Then I rebelled against this idea and banished it from my mind. Then it came back. It seemed as if it would never end, this anguish. But this evening you have set me free. You’ve given me back my memories.”

  There was a kind of smile on her face now.

  I tried to smile too, but instead I felt tears coming. I made some effort to hold them back, but then felt it didn’t matter a damn. So my eyes filled with tears and then overflowed, all the tears I had, in silence.

  She let me get over it, then passed two fingers gently beneath my eyes.