You could go there at any hour of the night and you’d always find customers. To me, it was like a kind of outpost where you could escape the normal rhythms of everyday life. Day/work/going out/people. Night/ home/rest/solitude.
The cinema in particular was fantastic. My ideal kind of cinema.
There were about fifty seats, you were allowed to talk, you could move around, you could drink. Sometimes, between one film and the next, they served spaghetti, or, just before dawn, caffe latte in big cups without handles, and Nutella croissants.
I didn’t have to be in court the next morning, which meant I could take things a bit easier. Margherita worked the hours she chose. So we got dressed and went out, both in a good mood.
The place was called Magazzini d’Oltremare. We got there just after eleven, and as usual there were people there, even though it was the middle of the week. Many of those sitting at the tables I knew by sight. Pretty much the kind of people you see in particular venues, at particular concerts or parties. Pretty much like me.
I tried to maintain a stance of ironic detachment from the people who went to these places – more or less on the left, more or less intellectual, more or less comfortably off, more or less over thirty and under fifty (actually, there were also a few over fifty) – but I continued to go there myself. Just like everyone else.
That night the first film on the programme was House of Games. One of my ten favourite films. A fantastic story, dark and haunting, about psychiatrists and con men.
There was still at least three quarters of an hour to go before the film started. Margherita saw two women friends of hers at a table, she went up to them and said hello, and they asked us to sit down. Margherita’s friends were a couple and were both called Giovanna. They even looked alike. They both dressed in a masculine way, and both moved in a masculine way. It made me wonder who took which role – if indeed there were roles – in the couple. They attended the same martial arts gym as Margherita.
“Are you staying for the film?” Margherita asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Giovanna said. “Giovanna has to get up early tomorrow.”
“Yes, we’re just going to finish this rum and go,” Giovanna added.
They were ignoring me a bit. I mean they’d both turned to Margherita, were talking just to her, and I could have sworn the way they looked at her wasn’t exactly innocent.
At a certain point, Giovanna asked Margherita if she had decided to enrol with them on the parachute course.
What parachute course?
“I’m thinking about it. I’d really like to. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try for years. But I’m not sure I’ve got the time.”
I managed to cut into the conversation. “Sorry, what’s all this about a parachute course?”
“Oh, a friend of Giovanna’s teaches parachuting. He keeps asking them to join his course. You can get a licence, you know. They’ve asked me too.”
They’ve asked you because they want to fuck you. The lesbian licence, that’s what they want you to take. That’s it – the flying lesbian licence.
I didn’t say that. Obviously. We men of the left don’t say things like that, though we might think them. Besides, the two Giovannas looked as if they could easily have ripped my balls off and played pinball with them for a lot less.
I kept quiet, while they talked about their parachute course and how great it would be, how it didn’t really take up much time – two hours a week, divided between theory and physical preparation – and the fact that you could get a licence after just three jumps.
I felt like making a few acid comments, about how a parachute licence was an essential accessory for a young urban professional woman at the start of the new millennium. And how great it was that you could get that licence after just three jumps. Think of it, guys, just three jumps.
I kept quiet, which was just as well. Because having the courage to throw myself out a plane, into the empty sky, without being afraid, was one of my most secret, most forbidden dreams. A dream I’d never had the courage to reveal to anyone, and which I knew perfectly well I’d never have the courage to realize once I’d passed forty.
A dream that lay deep in my childhood fears and fantasies and was still there to remind me that time was passing. And that there were many other things – large and small – that I’d have liked to do and had never found the courage to do. That I would never find the courage to do.
They managed to convince her that she could find the time to do the course. They agreed to meet two days later at the premises of the parachute club, where they would all enrol together, with a discount, thanks to the friend of the two Giovannas.
“I’m going to see the film,” I said. “It’s starting in a few minutes. But don’t worry, you can stay and talk.” My tone was dignified.
“No, no. I’m coming too. They’re leaving.”
The two Giovannas nodded. One of them knocked back what was left in her glass, like a real tough guy. They said goodbye to us – well, to Margherita, really – and left.
When we entered the little screening room, the lights were already out and the film was starting. Before abandoning myself to David Mamet’s dark, surreal atmosphere, I thought, just for a second, how much I’d like to throw myself into the empty sky, from a plane or somewhere else very high up.
Into the empty sky. Without being afraid.
4
“Do you want to know where I got the money, Avvocato?”
I didn’t want to know where Signor Filippo Abbrescia, known as Pupuccio il Nero, had got the money. He was an old client of mine, and his trade was defrauding insurance companies – although whenever he was questioned by the judges he gave his occupation as bricklayer.
The following day, his case – he was accused of criminal conspiracy and fraud – was due to be heard in the court of appeal. He’d come to pay, and I had no desire to know where he’d got the money he was about to give me. He told me all the same.
“Avvocato, I hit the jackpot. On the Bari lottery. First time in my life.”
He had a curious expression on his face, Pupuccio il Nero. I told myself he looked like someone who’d spent all his life making money by stealing and now couldn’t believe he’d actually won something. I told myself that, like so many others, he’d become a thief and a con man because of a lack of opportunity. I told myself that I was losing my grip and becoming an incorrigible bleeding heart.
So I called Maria Teresa and gave her the money he’d placed on the desk. Then Pupuccio and I talked about what was going to happen the following day.
We had two alternatives, I told him. One was to plead the appeal. At his first trial, he’d been sentenced to four years – not a lot, I thought, for all the cons he’d pulled – and I could try to get him acquitted, but if they decided to uphold the sentence, he’d go straight back inside. The other alternative was to plea bargain with the assistant public prosecutor. Assistant public prosecutors – and even appeal court judges – usually like plea bargaining. Things go nice and quickly, the hearing is over by mid-morning, and everyone goes happily home, or wherever it is they want to go.
To tell the truth, even lawyers like plea bargaining in the appeal court. Things go nice and quickly, and everyone goes happily back to their offices, or wherever it is they want to go. But I didn’t say that to Pupuccio.
“And if we plea bargain, how long will I get, Avvocato?”
“Well, I think we can try and get it down to two and a half years. It won’t be easy, because the public prosecutor is a tough nut, but we can try.”
I was lying. I knew the assistant public prosecutor who’d be in court the next day. He’d plea bargain down to two months if it meant he could get away quickly and not have to do a fucking thing. He wasn’t what you’d call a hard worker. But I couldn’t say that to Pupuccio il Nero, or people like him.