Il Resto del Carlino, 17.2.1954
Incidents in Rome and Milan during demonstrations dispersed by the police
Six hundred far-left activists arrested in the capital where the mounted police broke up communist demonstrations
Two commissioners injured by rocks and many police officers injured — One demonstrator killed
Il Resto del Carlino, 18.2.1954
The Scelba cabinet appears today in Parliament
Under way: the Communist manoeuvre to stir up the masses against the government
The left plan to undermine the new Prime Minister despite his moves to combat poverty
Speculating on the incidents they themselves provoked they are trying to create schisms in the governing body
Serious incidents in the province of Caltanissetta
Four people killed by the crowd escaping a police charge
In Mussomeli the forces of law and order are forced to use tear-gas
Il Resto del Carlino, 20.2.1954
After the four-party conference
A common declaration by the three Western ministers
The governments reaffirm that an attack on West Berlin will be considered as an act of war against the Allies
L’Unità, official organ of the Italian Communist Party, 28.2.1954
After the capitulation of the Armed Forced Minister
The Americans are becoming ashamed of ‘traders in fear and blackmail’
Bitter attack by Gen. Lehman on the ‘inquisitors’ of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies
L’Unità, 7.3.1954
Grave courtroom accusations from Anna Maria Caglio
Sensational revelations of connections between Ugo Montagna, Piccioni and the chief of police
After the death of Wilma Montesi Miss Caglio went to the Ministry of the Interior with Montagna and Piccioni
After their discussion Montagna said: ‘I have sorted everything out’
L’Unità, 7.3.1954
Sensational document on the corruption of the clerical regime
The police confirm the accusations against Montagna, his sordid past and his relations with other figures
Il Resto del Carlino, 11.3.1954
Montagna is a previous offender former spy for Ovra and the Nazis
L’Unità, 12.3.1954
McCarthy to bring charges against the scientist Einstein?
L’Unità, 14.3.1954
Einstein calls on the Americans to refuse to cooperate with the tribunals of the inquisitor McCarthy
Thomas Mann and Bertrand Russell applaud the great scientist’s courage
Chapter 23
Bologna, 9 March
Pierre often dreamed of his mother. She spoke to him in those dreams, but her words vanished the moment he woke up. When that happened, he was in a bad mood all day, irritated at having lost an important detail. Her face was not the one in the family photograph that showed him as a little baby with an arrogant expression. His memories were not enough to give her a proper shape; she looked blurred, in black and white, against a sepia background. And yet she was telling him something, he was sure of that. But what?
Pierre was six years old when his mother died of tuberculosis. Her second pregnancy, the one that had led to his birth, had tested her beyond endurance. Perhaps, as Fanti said, a secret sense of guilt gave form to the memory, based on the little that had stayed in his mind. An extreme attempt to make her survive.
He remembered her smiling, a modest and angelic smile, watching down over him, murmuring a phrase, something to calm the impetuosity of a precocious and agitated child. Nothing but a sensation.
Rosa Montanari was a slim and very beautiful woman. She came from a poor family in Solarolo. She had married Vittorio Capponi in 1920, when she was only eighteen. Pierre’s father, first a daylabourer and then a worker from Lugo, born in 1901, was a veteran of the 1919–20 riots, the ‘Two Red Years’, and bore carved into his flesh the marks of the destiny that he had chosen for himself: the blows of the agrarians, membership of the newly born Communist Party, the name of his first son, who had arrived a few days after the death of Lenin and been called Nicola in honour of the great revolutionary. Except, Pierre reflected, Nikolai hadn’t been Lenin’s real name. That was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. And Joseph Stalin also had a very long and complicated name that no one could remember. To pass into history your name has to be simple, short and incisive.
Robespierre was born in 1932, registered as ‘Piero’ on the fascist register. It was a bad time for the family. His father hadn’t taken the Fascist Party membership card, and he would pay for his choice to the bitter end. Poverty persecuted the Capponis for a decade, with few moments of respite.
Rosa had died in 1938. Pierre remembered very little of those times; his father with his head in his hands and Nicola running upstairs. That was all.
From time to time that memory came back in Pierre’s dreams. When he awoke he fantasised, wondering how his life would have been if his mother had survived. From that day onwards, Nicola had locked himself away in a funereal silence. His character had changed, he had become confrontational, with a terrifying temper. Vittorio had wept for days, cursing God and swearing at the heavens, crazed with grief. That much he remembered clearly.
During that same period, one evening a drunk had sung the praises of Stalin in the village square. The fascists pounced on him, seven against one. Vittorio hurled himself into the scrum and knocked someone out, but he was overcome and beaten till he bled.
So Pierre learned to hate them.
A few days later, Vittorio took Pierre and Nicola aside and, with his black eye still half closed, he outlined the most categorical and incisive teaching of his life, something that would always be associated with the figure of Vittorio Capponi. He pierced them with his eyes: ‘Never stand and watch.’
Then the Capponis moved to Imola, to the apartment that Aunt Iolanda had found directly opposite her own. It was thanks to her that the family managed to keep its head above water. She took care of everything, without poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. She dedicated herself heart and soul to her nephews, without confusing them with the children she didn’t have. She supported her brother without acting as his wife.
Father and sons treated her with great affection, and she treated them with attentiveness and pride. She was the only person Nicola ever confided in. Vittorio involved her in all important decisions, and Pierre did everything he could think of just to please her.
When, in April 1941, Vittorio Capponi was called up as a reservist to fight on the Yugoslav front, the presence of Iolanda ruled out any chance of exemption; it was true that his sons had lost their mother, but the elder boy was working, and their aunt ‘catered to their every need’.
The nephews’ needs did not keep Iolanda from doing her part in the fight against fascism. On 29 April ’44 she went down into the square with the women of Imola; on 13 May she tended to those who had been injured in the bombing; a few months later she hid two partisans and let Nicola follow them into the mountains.
He was twenty years old. He had endured the abuses of power for too long. He could no longer stand and watch.
Pierre didn’t see him again until the war was over, limping, thin as a rake, a steely glint in his eye.
One day in 1945 a letter arrived from Yugoslavia, and Pierre discovered that his father was a war hero. Shortly after arriving in Croatia, Vittorio Capponi had killed the vice-commander of his unit, and joined the Yugoslav Resistance. After 8 September 1943, he had recruited hundreds of Italian soldiers to the the ranks of Tito’s army. He had taken part in the liberation of Zagreb, and received a medal for military valour from the Marshal in person.
Shortly afterwards, Pierre, Nicola and Iolanda hugged him for the last time.