The Unseen (13 page)

after this I thought that the worst that could happen had passed I naively thought that the worst was over they made us all put our hands up and since we were on the second floor they started making us go downstairs everyone in single file down the stairs of course it wasn't a case of walking down they kicked you down kicking you hitting you in the back with the guns and you reeled down each flight of stairs caught in the thick of the beatings they came at you from every direction but the fact is that I personally didn't feel those blows much I felt nothing as I reeled down the stairs lit by flashlight we could see nothing we were knocking into everything I felt nothing probably because the only reaction I had was the thought that they hadn't killed me

they didn't kill me now I thought they didn't kill any of us only I didn't understand where they were taking us what they were doing what are these guys doing now what are they going to do now now that it's all over now what are they doing where are they taking us I couldn't make out what they were doing where they would take us and then when I finally reeled to the bottom in the ground floor rotunda at the end of the stairs and I went through the gate leading to the ground floor rotunda there the scene was very brightly lit there was plenty of light while where we'd come from upstairs was all in darkness there were only the bulbs of the flashlights while there when we arrived downstairs all the lights were on it was all dazzlingly bright

and there but in a flash a split second the time it took to cross the rotunda in all that light there I glimpsed a lot of people in uniform and plain clothes there were the guards' commanding officers sergeants and warrant-officers there were people who'd come in from outside and there they kicked me shoved me struck me and punched me in the direction of the open corridor leading to the exercise yards I saw they were herding us into the yards only the problem was as soon as I started down the three steps into this open corridor I realized I saw that that was where the punishment was because there lined up on both sides were all the guards masked in balaclavas they were there in two rows in these big overcoats and with clubs and iron bars in their hands

well since these guys were making us run down the open corridor with our hands behind our heads and you couldn't shield yourself then clearly we were glad enough to have to keep our hands on our heads because the blows were being struck mainly at the head they were terrible blows these guys were striking with all their strength with the clubs and with the iron bars I'd hardly got down the first two steps when there was a guard trying to trip me up to make me fall right away because the thing there was to make you fall down and then hit you while you were on the ground but they didn't manage to make me fall this corridor was very brightly lit on one side it was bounded by the dividing wall and on the other side there was a big wire mesh fence enclosing the exercise yards

and then I saw ahead of me there was a comrade and I saw him take a terrible blow with an iron bar he took a terrible blow on his side and he doubled up and two or three guards jumped on him to give him a savage beating I managed to get clear of them to go forward still with my hands on my head with the blows coming from every direction it came into my mind that we had to go along the whole length of the corridor that would have been about thirty or forty yards it came to me that there was this whole long way to go where these two ranks of guards were lined up hitting out and I went all the way along running the gauntlet of the blows but without falling thinking if I get right to the end it'll be over

and I managed to get as far as the end without falling taking blows from every direction because the main thing was not to fall for I realized that if you fell it was all over because if you fell it was clear they would pulverize you they could hit you any way they wanted and so I took the blows but I kept going and I got there to the end but the awful thing was that when I got to the end I realized then that that wasn't where I had to go because I saw that they were making people go into the first yard which meant I'd done half a corridor's length for nothing then I turned round and had to go back the same way and for a second time go through the blows I went back the same way and I got as far as the exercise gate where we had to go in because I saw that there was a masked guard opening the gate

however the gates leading to the exercise yards precisely for fear of kidnappings this gate never opens out at right-angles it doesn't open like an ordinary door on the ground there's fixed on the ground there's a peg that ensures the door only opens at an angle of forty-five degrees in other words it opens very little so that only one person at a time can get through and sideways at that the one opening the gate was an NCO and it was up to him to judge whether someone had taken enough of a beating or not and he judged by whether the guy could still stand up or not which meant if he saw that someone could still stand up and wasn't dragging himself along on his knees then when you reached the gate he closed it in your face

well I remember that I reached the gate and I managed to get myself inside this gate but since the gate opened in the way I've mentioned it only just opened it meant I didn't manage to get right inside while these guys on the outside kept on hitting me and so they managed to pull me back out from the gate to pull me away from the gate as I was going through and hit me even more and the last thing I remember about this beating was as one of them was pulling me by the hair and then there was a piece of luck because I had a very long scarf of very thick red wool that China had given me and I always wore it and when the
carabinieri
had arrived up there I couldn't decide whether to keep it on or take it off

it was a very long scarf it could have been a noose and I started thinking they're going to strangle me now right here with this scarf it was the first thought I had I thought of taking it off but then I said no I'm not taking it off and instead of taking it off I wrapped it right round my neck and so then when this guy grabbed me by the hair while at the same time another one was pulling at my jacket the thing I remember is that I got hit really hard I'm not sure if it was with a truncheon or an iron bar a terrible blow on the neck here on the neck and the result was that I fainted only that by good luck there was this layer of wool scarf that softened the blow in fact later there was no sign of it only at the time I fainted but since I was already half-way inside the gate someone inside pulled me through into the exercise yard at last

20

Once we're in the city the car turns on the siren it goes through a red light the driver is enjoying himself going fast you can see that in the city he enjoys accelerating sharply suddenly putting on the brakes overtaking all the other cars then suddenly after a mass of bends that seem to me like one long bend that goes on forever it comes to a halt in front of a big doorway in a building all ablaze with yellow lights with squad cars going in and out of it with the blue light turning on the roof and I can read Police Headquarters on a plaque opposite me on the wall the police officers at the door wave our car in and the guy goes through the doorway with the usual sharp acceleration and then stops with the brakes screeching among a row of blue and white squad cars

before getting out I ask but weren't we supposed to go to the courthouse for questioning the one who's in front who's the one in charge tells me that at this hour the courthouse has been closed for a while and that I'll be questioned there at police headquarters that the magistrates are already there waiting for me we get out and they take me through a small door off the courtyard leading to a stair so very narrow that it can only be climbed in single file and we start going up these stairs me in front and all the others following the stair twists after every ten or fifteen steps I can hear the shuffling tread of our feet echoing in that narrow space and we keep on climbing the stairs endless stairs and landings I get out of breath every so often I stop on a landing but the one behind me always says get a move on

we reach what's clearly the top floor because there are no more stairs and at the end of a short corridor we come out into a little room with two small armchairs and a small sofa upholstered in rather grimy green plastic they motion me to sit down the NCO goes out of another door and comes back right away and tells me to go through I go into another small room that's full of people all in plain clothes most of them young wearing jeans and duffle jackets beards and even long hair I'd never seen police disguised as comrades before and I was a bit astonished by it all I didn't understand why all these people were there waiting for me then I realized that it was the culmination of a police operation in which they'd obviously taken part and which ended with me

behind the long narrow desk there's a long thin guy who gives me a single stern look as soon as I come in and then goes back to reading from a pile of papers he has in front of him they sit me down on a broken-down wooden chair that looks as if it's going to collapse at any moment and that creaks with my slightest movement I'm sitting in front of the long thin guy whose head is still bent over the papers and I recognize that face because I've seen it before in the newspapers that guy is Judge Lince the others are all standing leaning against the wall there's very little space between them and the desk and when somebody new has to come in there's a general movement to make way for him and they all press back against the wall

one door of the room is open and outside it there are more people walking backwards and forwards they put the handcuffs back on me with my hands in front of me and the NCO who'd brought me there says that they're leaving that they're going home that they've done their report and they've put it in that there's a pile of material they've confiscated and that they've left it downstairs the judge looks up briefly and nods approval and says goodbye then suddenly he turns to me looking me straight in the face and he asks me if I've got myself a lawyer I say no he says it's late and that at that hour it's virtually impossible to find a lawyer willing to come there but that all the same they already have one they've notified there and if I accept him as a lawyer appointed by the Court then tomorrow I can name another of my choosing

at once the lawyer appears through the open door he's so much like the rest of the people there that I think he must surely be a policeman too and that they're playing a dirty trick on me but when Lince has my particulars typed up by a fat uniformed guy behind a massive ancient typewriter and he dictates first my particulars and then the lawyer's which I can't even remember any more and he names him lawyer so and so I'm somewhat reassured and I look at the lawyer in the hope of some shared understanding he looks at me impassively sitting there on his creaking chair fiddling with a big bunch of keys and getting on my nerves with the noise he's making Judge Lince then starts speaking to me his tone of voice is hard hostile and aggressive and he uses the formal
lei

do you intend to answer you can choose not to answer if you prefer no I say I intend to answer and I try to be as steady as I can and I'm thinking that that atmosphere is worse than all the question and answer situations I've ever been in in my life all the teachers from primary school and secondary school and so on you're aware what you're charged with aren't you no not exactly but was nothing said to you when you were arrested no nothing clear-cut Dottor Donnola only referred to weapons that were supposed to have been found in a house that I rented three years ago and all the while the guy behind the big typewriter is typing with a diabolical racket that interferes with the words I'm speaking and gets on my nerves so when he stops from fear of not having been understood I repeat everything from scratch

then I get very anxious thinking that I must be even more careful about everything I say and I realize that I'm not prepared for this business that I don't know the procedure that just a single word out of place can land me in a mess but I'm thinking that I have to keep answering because I'm sure I can cope with it explaining how things are even if I feel that I'm there alone against all those around me and who I can't see and who are listening to me in silence and my thoughts turn again to beatings I think of how they can beat me up and instinctively I look at my lawyer to make sure that he at least is on my side but I realize at once that I'm fooling myself that this guy couldn't care less he isn't even looking at me his only concern is with cleaning his nails with the point of a key

precisely goes Lince you admit to it then admit to what I say that the house was rented by me yes I admit to it there's even a contract no what I meant by my question was if you admit that the arms found there are yours no what do you mean arms I know nothing at all about these arms I don't know who could have brought them there what do you mean you don't know there were arms in your house no no wait I don't live in my house any more that house I mean I've never said I live in that house and while this is happening I'm looking anxiously at the guy who's bashing it out at the rate of machine gun fire without pausing to look up for a second Lince notices and he tells me not to worry because afterwards he'll have me read the statement and if I don't agree with it I don't have to sign it but that everything that's said has to be written down

at any rate I start talking again and I say it's more than two months since I stopped living in that house and that I sublet it and right away Lince asks who to as if that was just what he'd been waiting for and he jerks forward staring right at me and I feel shitty and I'm thinking what a mess what do I do now I can hardly come out with the name but as if reading my mind Lince starts right back at me and says if you're not going to answer you know you can always refuse to answer the questions it's up to you I'm standing there still with my mouth shut like an idiot with no idea what to say then Lince smiling ironically says very well you don't answer we'll have it recorded that you don't answer and before I can say a thing but what could I say I don't know anyway that guy sets off his diabolical racket and a split second later he's stopped it