I didn’t watch television any more. Not that I’d ever watched it much, but now I just didn’t put it on at all. I could have sold the TV set and I’d never have noticed the difference.
I would read for a straight two hours, and make notes on what I was reading. I’d started to do it after the night I’d gone to Natsu’s apartment and after reading the book on the manumission of words, with the idea that maybe, further down the line, I could try to write. Maybe.
When I finished reading and taking notes I sometimes went to bed, and fell asleep immediately.
At other times – when I felt sure I wouldn’t get to sleep – I’d go out for a walk and a drink. I went to places where no one knew me and avoided those I’d been to with Margherita. Like the Magazzini d’Oltremare, where I might meet someone who asked me what I was doing, where I’d been all this time, why Margherita wasn’t with me, and so on.
Sometimes I’d meet people and spend a few hours listening to strangers telling their stories. I was in a strange place, an unknown area of my consciousness. A black-and-white film, with a dramatic, melancholy soundtrack, in which ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day stood out. I often listened to that song, and it echoed almost obsessively in my head during my nocturnal walks.
Once, in a little bar in the old city, I met a girl named Lara. She was twenty-five, short, with a pretty, irregular face, and insolent, occasionally restless eyes. She was doing a research doctorate in German literature, she spoke four languages, her boyfriend had just left her, and she was getting drunk, determinedly, methodically, downing straight vodkas one after another. She told me about her boyfriend, herself, her childhood, her mother’s death. The atmosphere in the bar was slightly unreal. There weren’t many people, the few there were were talking almost in whispers, the stereo was playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony at low volume, and there was a slight smell of cinnamon in the air, though I had no idea where it was coming from.
After a while, Lara asked me to take her home. I said OK and paid the bill: one vodka for me, five for her. We walked through the city to her place, which was in Madonnella.
Madonnella is a strange neighbourhood. There are beautiful houses there and horrible municipal housing blocks, millionaires’ residences and shacks inhabited by pushers and other members of the underclass, all cheek by jowl. In some parts of Madonnella you have the impression you’re somewhere else entirely.
In Tangier, for example, or Marseilles, or Casablanca.
Outside her front door, Lara asked me if I wanted to come up. I said no, thanks. Another time, maybe, I added. In another life, I thought. She stood there looking at me for a few moments, surprised, and then burst into tears. She wasn’t crying over my polite refusal, obviously. I felt a kind of distant tenderness towards her. I hugged her, and she hugged me and cried louder, sobbing.
“Bye,” she said hurriedly, detaching herself from me and going inside. “Goodbye,” I said a few seconds later, to the old wooden door and the deserted street.
26
Ever since Margherita had gone away, the hardest day had been Sunday. I’d go out, read, or drive out of the city, and then eat alone in some restaurant where no one knew me. In the afternoon I’d go to the cinema and then wander around Feltrinelli’s bookshop. Then back home in the evening to read. At night I’d often wander the streets again, or take another trip to the cinema.
It was on a Sunday morning-a cold, beautiful day, lit by a blinding sun, three days before the start of the appeal hearing – that I finally couldn’t help myself and phoned Natsu.
“Guido!”
“Hi. I wanted to-”
“I’m pleased you called me. I’d like to see you.”
I’ve always envied the naturalness of some people – some women mostly – who can openly say what they think and what they want. I’ve never been able to do that. I’ve always felt inadequate. Like an intruder at a feast where everyone else knows how to behave.
“So would I. Very much.”
There followed a few moments’ silence. She was probably thinking, quite rightly, that if I wanted to see her, and had actually called her, I could at least make an effort and suggest something. In the end, she yielded. She must have concluded that I was an incurable case.
“Listen, seeing as it’s such a beautiful day, I’m taking Midori to the park. If you like, you could meet us there.”
“The Largo Due Giugno park?”
“Yes. See you in half an hour at the little lake, is that OK?”
Fine, in half an hour at the little lake. Bye, see you soon. Bye.
I dressed like someone about to go for a walk in the park on his own. That is, according to my idea of someone about to go for a walk in the park on his own. Jeans, trainers, sweatshirt, worn leather jacket.
I cycled over there and arrived early. I chained my bike to a bicycle rack and went through one of the gates into the park. It was eleven and there were a lot of people. Families, young boys on rollerblades, adults on rollerblades, people jogging and others doing fitness walking. All wearing jumpsuits, expensive shoes and very serious expressions, as if to say, let’s be clear about this, we’re doing sport, we’re not just out for a stroll.
The basketball courts were all full. On a level stretch of grass, a group of girls in kimonos, all black belts in karate, were performing a kata. It was a beautiful sight.
I went all round the park three times, to kill time. Then at last I saw Natsu, dressed much the same way I was. Her daughter was near her, in a pink down jacket, puffing away on a bike.
I waved at her and she waved back, cheerfully.
“You remember Guido, Anna?”
I wondered if she remembered that night. Then I realized how stupid that was. She hadn’t even woken up. How could she remember anything?
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Anna, how are you?”
“I’m fine. Do you like my bike? Mummy bought it for me and I can already do without the stabilizers.”
“You’re very good. At your age I didn’t even try to take off the stabilizers.”
She looked at me closely for a few seconds, to see if I was pulling her leg. Then she must have decided that I did in fact look like the kind of person who would have had difficulties removing the stabilizers from his bicycle.
“And why did you come to the park? Did you bring your children?”
“No, I don’t have children.”
“Why?”
Because I was too much of a coward to have them, when I had the chance.
“Guido isn’t married, sweetheart. When he decides to get married, he’ll have children, too.”
That’s right. Guaranteed.
The girl set off on her bicycle again. Natsu and I walked slowly after her.
We passed a little stand selling ice cream and drinks.
“Mummy, will you buy me an ice cream?”
“Sweetheart, if I buy you an ice cream you won’t eat it.”
“Please, mummy. A little ice cream. The littlest one they have. Please.”
Natsu was about to say something. She looked as if she was giving in. So I asked her if I could buy Midori an ice cream. She shrugged. “Just a little one.”
“OK. A little one.”
I told the little girl to come with me and she followed me docilely. Natsu didn’t come after us.
For a few seconds – the time it took for us to go together to the little stand, for her to choose the ice cream, and for me to pay for it, take it, and give it to her-I felt an absurd, commonplace, perfect emotion.
I was that little girl’s father. We had come here together – the girl, her mother and her father – for a walk in the park. I was buying her an ice cream.
I was going mad, I told myself. And I didn’t give a damn. I was happy to be there, happy that we were there, and I didn’t give a damn.
The little girl took the ice cream and asked me to carry her bicycle for her, and so we resumed walking along the avenues, all three of
us. Like a family.
“Anna has a party this afternoon,” Natsu said.
“Uh-huh,” I said, with the most stolid of my expressions.
“If you don’t have anything else to do, I could come and pick you up after I drop her at her friend’s house. What do you think?”
What I thought was that the appeal hearing was in three days’ time.
I told her I didn’t have anything else to do.
27
I visited Paolicelli the day before the hearing. When he came into the interview room I noticed that he looked particularly depressed.
“I’ve come to go over things with you. Before anything else, we have to decide once and for all what we’re going to do. We can still choose to plea-bargain tomorrow morning.”
“I’m being stupid, right? I should plea-bargain and limit the damage, shouldn’t I? Otherwise the sentence will be upheld, and then God knows when I’ll be out of here.”
“Not necessarily. But as I’ve already said many times, if we plea-bargain you can be certain you’ll be out in a few years, or at least on day release.”
“For weeks I couldn’t wait for the hearing to start and I felt really confident. Now I don’t know what to do and I’m fucking afraid. What should I do?”
Don’t ask me, I can’t tell you that. I’m just a professional, I’m here to suggest alternatives, in a detached way, from a technical point of view. I have to present you with the likely outcome of each option. Then the choice has to be yours. I can’t take that responsibility.
I didn’t say any of that shit. I was silent for just a few seconds, before replying. And when I did reply, neither my voice nor the words I was saying seemed to be coming from me.
“I say: let’s go ahead and appeal. If the drugs weren’t yours – and I believe they weren’t – it isn’t right for you to be in prison and we have to get you out. We have to try every possible way. If the drugs were yours, this is the very last moment for you to tell me. I’m not here to judge you. Tell me and tomorrow we’ll do the best plea bargain possible.”
He looked me in the eyes. I returned his gaze and it seemed to me that his eyes had become watery.
“Let’s appeal.”
That was all.
I gave him a brief rundown on what would happen the next day and told him his examination would take place during the following hearing. Then I asked him if he had any questions, and fortunately he didn’t. So I said goodbye – see you tomorrow in court – and left.
As I left the prison I was about to switch my mobile on again. Then I had second thoughts. Better to avoid any risk, any temptation, at least tonight. For what it was worth.
28
I didn’t even feel like the punchball and so, when I got home, I made myself a roll, ate it, and went straight out without bothering to change.
I soon found myself in the streets of the Liberta neighbourhood. Places full of memories of a period of my life, around twenty years ago, when things seemed simpler.
Lost in thought, I stopped in front of the entrance to a kind of private club. From inside came a voice speaking dialect. Seven or eight men were sitting around a table. They were talking loudly, interrupting each other, waving their arms. To the side, two crates of Peroni beer.
They were playing for beer. It was an old game, halfway between a game and a tribal ritual, involving a pack of Neapolitan cards and several bottles of beer. The winner of each round had to drink a bottle of beer.
“Avvocato Guerrieri!”
Tonino Lopez, a fence well known in the Liberta, with a police record as long as your arm. My client for about ten years.
Officially, in the intervals between one arrest and another, he was a greengrocer, and – since for some reason he was particularly fond of me – every two or three months he’d send a crate of fruit to my office, or artichokes, or a jar of olives in brine, or two bottles of rustic wine. Every time, I would phone him at his shop to thank him, and every time, without fail, he would reply in the same way.
“At your service, Avvocato. Always at your service.”
Tonino stood up from his folding wooden stool, came up to me and gave me his hand.
“We’re playing for beer, Avvocato. Why don’t you come in and sit down?”
I didn’t even think twice. I said thank you and went in. The air was thick with the smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke and men. Lopez introduced me to the others. I recognized most of them by sight. I’d seen them either on the streets of the neighbourhood or in the corridors of the courthouse. Some said good evening, others nodded. None of them seemed surprised that I was there, in my grey lawyer’s suit and tie.
Tonino took another folding stool from where it was propped against the wall, opened it and put it down next to me.
“Take a seat, Avvocato. Have a beer?”
I took a beer and drank half of it in one go. Tonino liked that, I could see it in his face. I had drunk like a man. I thought it would be better to remove my tie. I did so, and looked around.
It was a dirty little room with a single little door of flaking wood, on the side facing the street. The grimy walls were bare apart from two football posters: one showing the Bari team in the good old days, another with Roberto Baggio in a blue shirt, in the middle of a game.
I finished my beer in another two swigs. Tonino opened another and gave it to me. “Do you know how to play for beer, Avvocato?”
I took a long swig of the second beer. I noticed a packet of red Marlboros on the table and had the impulse to take one. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, I didn’t. To be honest, I’ve never really known why I quit smoking.
I turned to Tonino. “A little. I played it in the army, with guys from Iapigia and San Pasquale.”
“So play with us. It’s not too late to join in.”
A great idea. We were practically in the street. Someone I knew could easily pass and see me, without a tie, surrounded by some of the biggest crooks in the area. Getting drunk on beer, belching and arguing and quarrelling about the strategy of the game. It might end up in a brawl, there’d be knives involved, and with a bit of luck I’d spend the night in a police holding cell. A perfect trajectory.
“Let’s play,” I replied, feeling a thrill go through me, and thinking, what the hell.
I played with them for a couple of hours, drank a lot of beers, and left when everyone else did. I was drunk, like all the others, and I felt light-headed and free.
When we said goodbye, everyone was very friendly to me. Almost affectionate. It was as if I had got through some kind of initiation ritual with flying colours. A guy with a belly so big it looked fake actually embraced me and kissed me on the cheeks. I felt the rubbery touch of his belly against me. He smelled of beer, cigarette smoke and sweat.
“You’re a great guy, Avvocato,” he said before turning and staggering away.
I also staggered away and somewhere on the way home I started to sing. I sang old songs from the Seventies. There must be a meaning to everything that was happening to me, I thought.
Fortunately I was too drunk to figure out what it was.
29
I entered the courtroom after a glance at the sheet of paper fixed to the door, with the list of cases that would be heard that morning.
There was the usual menu – petty thefts, building violations, receiving stolen goods – which would be dealt with at the rate of one case a minute, with the presiding judge giving black looks to the defence counsels and even the prosecutor if they dared utter one word more than was strictly necessary. Which was two or three words more than silence.
Mine was apparently the only case where the defendant was in prison, so it should have had precedence. Should have, but in fact they took them as they came.
It was nine-thirty, in other words, the time when the session was supposed to begin. Obviously there was no one there yet. I’d tried to get there on time because I like deserted courtrooms, and sitting there without doing anything helps me to concen
trate. I like the sense of anticipation. It’s like the way you feel when you leave home early in the morning and there’s nobody about yet. When you sit down in a bar near the sea, have your coffee and wait, and the streets gradually fill and you’re very aware of everything and you feel as if you’re part of something fleeting yet eternal.
Sitting down on the bench in a deserted courtroom gives me a similar feeling. You feel you’re part of something. Something important, something pure and ordered.
Not to worry, though. The feeling quickly vanishes – about a quarter to ten, if I have to specify a time – when the courtroom starts to fill up.
“Hey, Guerrieri. What did you do, sleep here?”
See what I mean?
The voice, wavering between a dubious Italian and Bari dialect, belonged to Castellano. I could never remember his first name. His clients were exclusively thieves – all kinds: car thieves, burglars, pickpockets, bag snatchers – and small-time drug dealers. He had been a colleague of mine at university, which didn’t mean that we’d been anything remotely resembling friends, since there were more than a thousand students registered on the course.
Short and stocky, with a neck like a bull, almost completely bald apart from the wisps of hair tumbling over his ears. There were more wisps of hair visible above his shirt collar, which was always unbuttoned, just as his tie was always askew.
He wasn’t exactly the kind of person you could chat to about Emily Dickinson or the aesthetic question in Thomas Aquinas. Every other word he spoke was “fuck” and during the pauses between cases – and even while the cases were being heard – he liked to advertise his erotic fantasies about whichever member of the opposite sex was within his field of vision. He wasn’t exactly discriminating: trainees, secretaries, magistrates and defendants could all be the objects of his not very romantic dreams. It didn’t matter if they were beautiful or ugly, young or old.
I replied with a vague smile, hoping he would be content with that and praying that he didn’t decide to sit next to me and start a conversation. My prayers weren’t granted. He put his briefcase down on the bench and sat down, panting.
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