The Measure of Time

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “Yes.”

  “Then you went out again, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long after getting back?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  I paused for a long time. I pretended to look for something in the papers I had in front of me, but in reality I wanted to take a look at the faces of the jurors. They seemed attentive, the young woman especially; the tic of the man who looked like a sacristan was particularly frenetic.

  “Have you ever fired a gun, Signor Cardace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once? Several times?”

  “Several times.”

  “Why?”

  “I used to go shooting with a friend in a quarry, we’d do target practice with bottles.”

  “With what kind of gun?”

  “A 7.65 calibre pistol.”

  “Was it yours?”

  “No.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “A friend of mine’s.”

  “Can you tell us his name?”

  “I prefer not to, I don’t want to accuse a friend of a crime.”

  “Why a crime? Was the pistol being kept illegally?”

  “Yes.”

  “So this friend committed the crime of unauthorized possession and carrying?”

  “Yes. Plus, the pistol had its serial number rubbed away.”

  “How many times did you go shooting?”

  “Several times.”

  “You mean you went regularly?”

  “Not really. But we did go quite a few times.”

  “Where is this quarry?”

  “Between Molfetta and Trani. It’s abandoned, so it’s safe to shoot there, you’re not likely to hit anyone or be seen by anyone.”

  “When was the last time you went shooting with your friend?”

  “A few days before Gaglione’s murder.”

  “What were you wearing on that occasion?”

  “The jacket I had on when I was arrested.”

  “You were wearing it when you fired the pistol?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour, I’ve finished.”

  Marinelli asked Gastoni if she wanted to cross-examine.

  “Just a few questions, Your Honour.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Signor Cardace, you’ve just told us you were frequently involved in dealing drugs. Can you confirm that?”

  “I dealt for a while, yes.”

  “Can you tell us when you started?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Did you deal every day? Did you have a lot of customers?”

  “Not every day. I sold banned substances in gyms and sometimes pills in discos.”

  “Would you describe yourself as a professional drug dealer?”

  At this point, an objection was inevitable.

  “Your Honour, the question isn’t —”

  “I withdraw the question,” Gastoni said before I could continue. She had wanted to be provocative and she’d succeeded perfectly. When she resumed she changed the subject.

  “So you’re familiar with firearms?”

  “I know how to shoot.”

  “Have you ever committed any crimes using firearms?”

  Cardace hesitated. I hoped he wouldn’t look at me in search of help. That would be worse than an admission.

  “You mean a robbery?”

  “Have you committed robberies?”

  “Once, when I was a minor. But I wasn’t armed. I had a legal pardon.”

  “And so you went to practise regularly in a quarry, with a person whose name you don’t want to tell us, but you’ve never committed any violent crimes using firearms. Is that what you want us to believe?”

  “Objection,” I said, getting to my feet.

  Gastoni raised a hand; I thought I also caught an ironic smile. She said she had no further questions.

  Lorenza

  As I already said, there’s no order to my memories of those months. The events overlap and I don’t know what happened first and what later.

  What’s certain is that we went to the cinema a lot, Lorenza and I. Almost always to see films she chose, first in cinemas – there were lots of them in Bari in those days – then in arenas. Often we were alone, but sometimes friends of hers came with us.

  Together we saw things like Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, Margarethe von Trotta’s Rosa Luxemburg, Liliana Cavani’s The Berlin Affair. Enough said.

  We even went to the cinema on our last evening together. Although I had no idea it would be the last. The film was Runaway Train by Andrei Konchalovsky. The story was actually by Akira Kurosawa. Konchalovsky was the director of Uncle Vanya, Lorenza told me, communicating the programme for the evening.

  I was a little worried because of my prejudice against Soviet cinema. I was afraid it would be like Solaris, which I’d hated. Instead of which, in a half-deserted arena (I assume many of the usual customers had a similar prejudice to mine and had stayed away) we found ourselves unexpectedly watching an action movie, completely American in style and pace. The main actress was the beautiful Rebecca De Mornay; the only thing Russian about the film, in fact, was the name of the director.

  It was the story of a prison break. A drama with a grand finale of the kind I liked a lot back them – and even now, to be honest.

  By the time it was over I was surprised and satisfied; Lorenza surprised and less satisfied. It wasn’t her kind of film, but she couldn’t complain because the film was by the great Konchalovsky and, above all, it had been her choice.

  It was set on a moving train, which, as far as I recall, was why Lorenza started telling me a story. I say “as far as I recall”, because I don’t remember how we got there. We were walking along the deserted streets of the city and all at once she came out with those words. In my memory, it’s as if she said them without warning, without any connection to what we’d been talking about.

  “I was at the station in Bologna on 2 August.”

  “You mean that 2 August?”

  “Yes.”

  At 10.25 on the morning of 2 August 1980 a timed device had exploded in the second-class waiting room of the station in Bologna. Eighty-five people died, and two hundred were wounded. It was the worst terrorist attack in the history of the Italian Republic. The investigations and trials led to the conviction of the perpetrators: a group of right-wing terrorists. The instigators were never identified. I was eighteen when it happened, I was by the sea, bathing, and after that event many things changed for ever. For me and for lots of people.

  “You were in the station when the bomb went off?” I said incredulously.

  “I was in Bologna on the night of 1 to 2 August. I was travelling with a friend, we were supposed to catch a train early in the morning. We got to the station the night before and decided to sleep there. In the second-class waiting room. We had no money, that’s how we travelled. Around dawn I felt bad – we’d been smoking and drinking the previous night – and my friend took me to Emergency. When they discharged me, we tried to get back to the station, but the streets were cordoned off – there were police cars everywhere and ambulances with sirens, and nobody knew what was going on. Some people said there’d been a gas leak that had caused an explosion and there were probably victims. It wasn’t until a few hours later that it was clear what had really happened. I think the bomb was about six feet from where we’d lain down to sleep.”

  While Lorenza was telling this story, I was thinking something very distinctly, something I’d thought before but never with such clarity. This woman belonged to a dimension of existence that was different from mine. She had brushed against History, she led a life filled with experiences and mystery and fascinating prospects. A life about which, by the way, I knew almost nothing. She would become a famous writer, she would travel, she would live through all sorts of adventures. I had no part in any of that. I was just passing through. Sooner or later that little
piece of road we’d walked along together would come to an end and she would zoom off, far away, like a meteor.

  We didn’t even go for a pizza. Lorenza said she was tired, and we went home to sleep.

  The next day she didn’t get in touch, nor the day after. That was quite normal, so I didn’t pay too much attention. We’d see each other, then she’d disappear and then reappear. She always decided, but with a kind of regularity, a kind of rhythm in a way.

  Five or six days went by with no word from her and I started to worry. I thought something had happened to her and went looking for her at her building. I went back there several times, ringing her bell afternoon, evening and night, even early in the morning. I never got an answer. I realized I had no idea how to track her down. I didn’t really know her friends, I didn’t know where her family lived, I had no number to call. I was seized with panic. I looked up all the Delle Foglies in the phone book and called them one after the other, asking for Lorenza. Those who answered told me, more or less kindly, that I had the wrong number and there was no Lorenza there. I even considered calling the police or the hospitals, in case she’d had an accident, or had fallen ill and been admitted. Immediately, the idea struck me as absurd. But I did go to the library and carefully read the local news in the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, starting from the day after we’d been to the cinema. I looked for news of accidents or other similar events, but didn’t find anything.

  I was in a state of genuine anxiety – the fear that something had happened to her was equal to the fear that she’d simply decided to leave me without even telling me – when one evening I saw someone I’d met during those months I’d gone out with her. I couldn’t remember his name, but that didn’t matter. I went up to him and without too much preamble – actually, without any preamble – asked him if he’d heard from Lorenza. The guy looked at me a little bewildered; I’m not sure he even knew who I was. Anyway he replied that as far as he knew she’d left for a Greek island. Also as far as he knew, she would be there for several weeks. And no, he didn’t know which island, he concluded, looking me up and down and walking away.

  There followed a period of great confusion.

  I was relieved that nothing had happened to her, but hurt and sad about how she’d disappeared. I thought seriously of leaving for Othonoi, joining her there and making a terrible scene. Then I forced myself to think. It was only speculation on my part that she was on Othonoi, because of the story she’d told me in Santa Maria di Leuca.

  Gradually, as the days passed, I regained a modicum of self-control. It was a help to me to think – to convince myself – that when she came back she would come looking for me. Then, with all the necessary firmness, I would tell her that she had behaved in an unacceptable way and that I didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. On the basis of her apologies and her entreaties, I would evaluate whether or not to back down from that intention.

  It wasn’t the best August of my life.

  24

  Easter came and went, and now we were back in court for the closing statements. They had all come for this last act: Consuelo, Tancredi, Annapaola. And of course Lorenza, sitting with her bag in her lap, looking unusually composed.

  Judge Marinelli indicated the documents that could be used in the ruling and handed over to the assistant prosecutor for her statement.

  Gastoni got to her feet, wrapping herself in her robe. Once again her overpowering perfume filled the air. I didn’t like her, so my thoughts weren’t objective, but it seemed to me that putting on so much perfume in order to go into court and ask for somebody to be sentenced to many years in prison wasn’t exactly in the best of taste.

  “Your Honours, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I shan’t speak for too long because in legal proceedings where things are clear-cut the most important thing is to avoid the risk of complicating them. The job of the defence, on the other hand – and it’s a perfectly legitimate one – is to make them complicated in order to conceal a truth that in some cases, like this one, is obvious and irrefutable.

  “I’m reminded of a famous passage in Manzoni’s The Betrothed, the one in which Azzecca-garbugli says to Renzo: ‘You need to tell your lawyer clear things: it is then up to us to confuse them.’ I don’t quote this to cause any offence, only to point to a common defensive procedure. A legitimate one, I repeat, because a defence counsel has to do his job: to try to get his client acquitted even when that client’s guilt is obvious. Even when, I’m sure, he himself is convinced of that guilt.”

  Here I felt the impulse to stand up and object. Gastoni, while simulating respect, was suggesting to the jurors that the defence was only a pedantic obstacle on the road to the punishment of criminals; and that defence lawyers, starting with yours truly, were all more or less acting in bad faith.

  I decided to let it go. Where necessary I would be able to criticize the argument in my closing statement, but objecting – and the squabbling that would ensue – risked only adding emphasis to that improper move of hers.

  “Is it conceivable that such an impressive amount of evidence is the result of a chain of incredible coincidences? Is it possible that it’s all a question of chance conspiring against the accused? Of course, if one considers every single piece of evidence, every single outcome of the process separately, it is conceivable that there may be alternative explanations, in terms of probability. But the more the evidence mounts up, the more drastically is the probability of an alternative reduced.

  “Let us examine the mountain of evidence produced first by the investigation and then by the trial. We observe that such a mountain wasn’t even dented by the efforts exerted by the defence during this hearing.

  “The first piece of evidence comprises the two telephone conversations intercepted on the morning of the crime. As you will all remember, Gaglione’s telephone was being tapped within the context of an investigation into criminal association for the purpose of trafficking in narcotics, in particular synthetic drugs.

  “On the afternoon of 13 October 2011, members of the Flying Squad involved in the telephone-tapping record two calls between the accused and the victim. The subject isn’t clear, but the tone is animated and it’s quite obvious that there is some bone of contention between the two men. It isn’t irrelevant to underline that both calls come from the telephone of the accused. It is he, in other words, who has an incentive, a specific motive, a reason, let’s say, a claim on Gaglione. The second telephone call quickly degenerates into a quarrel and concludes with the decision, laden with threat, to meet in order to resolve the dispute.

  “The threatening tone is already commented upon in the police notes appended to the transcript of the intercept operations, although nothing led anyone to suppose that the harsh conclusion of the conversation was the premise, the portent, of a lethal outcome.

  “Be that as it may, and here we come to the second point, the accused soon afterwards proceeds to the home of the victim. It’s possible to say that on the basis of the testimony of Antonia Sassanelli, who was questioned by the police in the hours immediately following the murder. The accused himself has admitted his presence in the vicinity, although giving it a different explanation during his testimony. A testimony, it’s hardly worth recalling, given only during this appeal hearing. Up until then Cardace had availed himself of the right to remain silent. A right granted him by the law, but the exercise of which should be evaluated within the overall framework of the evidence.”

  *

  She continued by listing in a somewhat fussy way all the evidence against Iacopo as described and commented on in the ruling by the original judges.

  This went on for at least an hour. The faces of the jurors showed the first signs of fatigue. The only one who seemed focused was the young woman with the penetrating eyes. I would have liked to know if she was listening with such visible attention because she agreed with the assistant prosecutor or, on the contrary, because she wanted to be prepared to refute her arguments.

 
At last my attention was reawakened by a passage that wasn’t a mere recap.

  “There are still a few things to say. Notably, I must comment on the attempt by the defence to impress the court with elements that have no relevance to the matter of this hearing. Elements presented in order to distract your attention from the substantial grounds on which you must base your deliberations and come to a decision.

  “I refer in particular to two circumstances evoked in a suggestive way and devoid of any, I repeat any, basis in evidence.

  “The first is the assertion that Cardace fired a gun, wearing that jacket as chance would have it, a few days before the murder. This circumstance took place in an unspecified quarry, with an unspecified and obviously unidentifiable individual. A suggestion constructed deliberately to prevent any attempt to check it procedurally.”

  She paused for quite a long time, a pause that was somewhat bombastic but put there at just the right moment to grab the court’s attention.

  *

  “I think the defence needs to respect the intelligence of the judges and in general of all the participants in these proceedings. Do you know how much this imaginary evocation is worth from an evidential point of view? Nothing, in fact worse than nothing. It is a fairy story told simply to impress. A fairy story which you can’t and mustn’t take into account.

  “The second circumstance is the vague reference to a hypothetical motive for the murder linked to a phantom fight in a disco and to the desire for revenge on the part of an even more phantom group of criminals; this is what they’ve tried to imply.

  “I shouldn’t even have to deal with this grotesque suggestion because the judges have very conveniently, very correctly, already cleared the field of any stretching of the rules. I refer to the prohibition on testimony based on common rumour. But I would like to devote a few words to it, in the eventuality – and I hope I’m wrong – that counsel for the defence chooses to pick up on this topic in his closing statement.