He came back undercover, like a thief, hiding for two nights in the cellar of an old friend.
He risked serious punishment in Italy: charges of insubordination and homicide. Furthermore, he was a member of the Yugoslavian Communist Party, there was a country to build, a socialist country, a revolution to take to its conclusion. He couldn’t pull out.
Pierre listened in as Vittorio and Iolanda discussed his future. If they had asked him he wouldn’t have been able to decide whether to go with his father or stay in Imola. For that reason alone he let them choose on his behalf. Nicola chose to stay.
Pierre stayed too. Yugoslavia was too risky. His father promised to see him at least once a year. He never came back: too dangerous. They went on writing to each other, in the rhythm that the post allowed: a letter every five or six months.
Pierre and Nicola clung to those letters, which brought them news of their father in the broadest terms: he had been given an important job, he had remarried, this time to a Yugoslav partisan, and he had opted to stay with Tito even after 1948 and the break with Stalin.
The last two choices poisoned Nicola’s blood. The world could clear off as far as he was concerned, and he never wanted to hear his father mentioned again.
In the meantime he had been offered the job of manager of a bar in Bologna. Nicola Capponi was a war invalid and a hero of the Resistance, and the Party had put pressure on comrade Benassi to let him manage the Bar Aurora. So Pierre, too, was able to leave his workshop, say goodbye to Aunt Iolanda, and move to the city.
Pierre sat down at the table. Gas was savouring his vermouth, lost in his thoughts. He stared quizzically at the boy. Then he worked out that he wanted something. His businessman’s sixth sense allowed him to read other people’s minds. At least, so he thought. He stretched out on his chair and snapped his American lighter a few times. The smoke from his cigarette twirled over his gleaming bald head.
Pierre remained serious, he hadn’t come to buy lighters.
He said, ‘If you talk to anyone about it, I’ll track you down and break your legs.’
Gas smiled and puffed out a series of smoke rings.
‘I am bound by the rules of professional secrecy, you should know that. Without discretion, no trust. Without trust, no business. I would shut up shop before you knew where you were.’
He was always satisfied when he was able to rattle off his maxims of business philosophy.
They stared at each other again for a long while.
Then Pierre said, ‘How would you go about getting into Yugoslavia?’
Gas nodded to himself thoughtfully, taking another few puffs, as though he had been asked an existential question.
‘As an entrepreneur I can point you towards the right people. But I would have to warn you that these characters don’t stand any nonsense. Not the sort of people you want to get on the wrong side of, if you catch my drift.’
‘I mean it.’
The man’s bald pate shone beneath the neon.
‘Cavicchi’s fighting the day after tomorrow. In the Sala Borsa. Go there and ask for Ettore. Tell them I sent you. If there’s anyone who can give you a hand then he’s your man, but I can’t guarantee anything.
Pierre got to his feet. ‘This vermouth’s on me. And let’s hope something comes of it.’
Chapter 24
From the statement of Salvatore Pagano to counsel appointed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Naples High Court, Dr Carlo Ercolino, dated 10 March 1954
Thank God, Mr Lawyer! Thank God you’ve come, I thought I was going to snuff it in this hell-hole!
And what am I supposed to do, Mr Lawyer, how can I stay calm, it’s hell in here, it’s been more than two months now, you can’t have any idea what life’s like in this place. Mr Lawyer, there are more bugs on my arm than there are whores in the whole of La Sanità, and you know how many whores there are in La Sanità, mamma mia! And the stuff they give us to eat, don’t even get me started on that, with all due respect, they give us shit, Mr Lawyer, the dogs in the street wouldn’t eat it, and neither would the whores of La Sanità if you ask me, what a situation!
And me as innocent as an altar boy, Mr Lawyer, can you imagine?
Yes, yes, it’s fine, forgive me, I know, I know, I’ll calm down, but in here you can forget how to live, then the cold, fucking cold in here it is, with a threadbare blanket and half eaten up by bugs, mamma mia, what a situation, but I’m calmer now, I’m sorry, but let me tell you one more thing. You must be a great man, yes, a great man, don’t run yourself down, because only a great man could take on the case of a poor wretch without a lira like Salvatore Pagano. Because let’s be clear about this, Mr Lawyer, I haven’t got a lira, you must have worked that out.
Your duty, you say? You were appointed by an office? Well, what of it, doesn’t matter a damn, you’re a great man anyway, people like you must live for a hundred years, accidents permitting.
You say we’ve got to get a move on, what have you got to do with it? Of course, sure, you must forgive me, but I don’t understand anything any more, because in here time is the only thing I’m not short of, in fact I’ve got far too much of it, it just won’t pass.
Yes, fine, you tell me that you’re aware of this nonsense about the television set, I’d like to know why me of all people, what have I got to do with anything like this, believe me, I’ve explained it to him, I’ve fallen on my knees and bawled my eyes out, Mr Lawyer, but he doesn’t believe me, not a word of it.
Who? What d’you mean who?
Mr Lawyer, Commissioner Cinquegrana, who else, the one who’s decided it’s got to be me, who’s made up his mind that I’m going to end my days in here, on the word of some bastard or other, some great son of a bitch, with the greatest respect, of some cackhead who’s decided to get on my case. Because I’m ruined now, that much is clear. I’ve explained, I’ve told the commissioner everything, absolutely everything, including the story of the Madonna in 1948, no, don’t put your head in your hands, Mr Lawyer, I’m not going to tell it to you, don’t worry. I told him I was with the nuns in Santa Teresa, giving some little presents to creatures less fortunate than myself, then just a few hours with my Lisetta, I’m mad about my Lisetta, even if she does drive me round the bend every now and again, and now I don’t even know where she is, she came to see me a month ago, and there’s an end to it. But there you go, my words mean nothing to him, they go in one ear and out the other, that’s what I say. Commissioner Cinquegrana, I mean.
What did I want with a television? If it was just that, you’d be better off asking Don Luciano, with the greatest respect, and that other guy, never heard of him, the one who was killed stone dead, what do I know?
You say we’re supposed to be thinking about the television, well, fine, let’s think about it. You say down at the station they’re insisting that they saw me that day near the American base in Agnano, that they’re sure of it? Damn and blast it, Mr Lawyer, damn and blast it, I’m nothing but a poor wretch!
Why? Well, how can I put it, bad luck follows bad luck, as they say, the dog bites the beggarman.
You say I have to speak more clearly, that you don’t know where I’m taking this? Well, ok, then, damn it to hell!
My misfortune is that on that day round about there I actually did go to bring my Lisetta. No, no, Mr Lawyer, don’t put your head in your hands, don’t lose your rag. I was going to tell you, wasn’t I? I walked her to Vergini all the way with the pedal cart, bloody hard work it was, Mr Lawyer, you’d never believe it, but I’d do anything for Lisetta, and maybe that’s my downfall. Lisetta had to get to the American base, and I went with her, with the cart, and there’s an end to it.