“No, I don’t remember a specific occasion. I’m sure he said things like that to me. He said a lot of other things too. For example-”
Delissanti interrupted her, in the curt, arrogant tone of someone addressing a subordinate who isn’t carrying out his orders correctly. “I’m not interested in the other things, Signorina. My question is whether you remember that particular quarrel, not-”
“Your Honour, can we at least let the witness finish her answers? If counsel for the defence asks a question to understand the context in which certain words – extremely offensive words, by the way – were used, he cannot then arbitrarily limit this context to what he wants to hear, and censor the rest of the witness’s story. Apart from anything else, using an unacceptably intimidating tone.”
Alesssandra was still on her feet when Delissanti rose in his turn, almost shouting.
“Take care what you’re saying. I won’t allow a public prosecutor to address me in that tone and with such objections.”
I don’t know how Alessandra managed to get a word in edgeways with all that ranting and raving, but she came out with a single sentence, as short, quick and deadly as a knife thrust.
“No, Avvocato, you take care.” She said it in a tone that froze the blood. There was a violence in those hissed words that left everyone present dumbfounded, including me.
At this point, Caldarola remembered he was the judge and that maybe he ought to intervene.
“Please calm down, all of you. I don’t see the reason for this animosity and I’m asking you to stop it now. Let each person do his job and try to respect that of others. Have you any other questions, Avvocato Delissanti?”
“No, Your Honour. I take note that the witness either can’t or won’t recall the episode to which I refer. Professor Scianatico can tell us the story, and so, above all, can the witnesses we have indicated on our list. That is all.”
“Does the public prosecutor have anything to add to her previous examination?”
“Yes, I have a couple of questions, the necessity for which has emerged as a result of the cross-examination.”
Technically, it wasn’t necessary for her to say that. But it was a way of underlining that this extension of the plaintiff’s testimony – which was sure to be unfavourable to the defendant – was due to a mistake on the part of counsel for the defence. In other words, it wasn’t a gesture of reconciliation.
“Dottoressa Fumai, would you like to tell us the other things the defendant said to you? To be more precise, the things you were about to tell us when you were interrupted.”
Martina spoke about them, these other things. She spoke about the other humiliations, apart from the blows and the mental cruelty she had talked about before. Scianatico had told her she was a failure. Only one good thing had ever happened to her: she’d met him and he’d decided to take care of her. She was incapable of making decisions about her own life, and so she had to carry out his orders and his instructions on how to behave. She had to be disciplined, and to know her place.
He’d told her she was a bitch, and bitches had to obey their masters.
She told it all, and her voice wasn’t cracked or weak. But maybe it was worse. It was neutral, toneless, colourless. As if something had broken inside her again.
Caldarola adjourned for three weeks and set out a kind of schedule for the trial. At the following hearing, we would have the other witnesses for the prosecution. Then the defendant would be examined. Finally, over the course of two hearings, we would have the witnesses for the defence, including the expert witness.
I said goodbye to Alessandra Mantovani, and turned to the exit of the courtroom to follow Martina, who had left the witness stand and was just a few steps ahead of me. It was at that moment that I saw Sister Claudia. She was standing, leaning on the rail. She seemed lost in thought. Then I realized she was looking at Scianatico and Delissanti. She was looking at them in a way I’ll never forget, and catching that look I thought, without having any real control over my thoughts, that this was a woman who was capable of murder. It may seem incredible, but in the months before that afternoon, I’d found a kind of absurd equilibrium. He’d do – and make me do – those things. All I wanted was for it to end as quickly as possible. Then I’d leave the room and hide what had happened. I was a sad girl, I didn’t have friends, but I had Snoopy, and my little sister, and the books I got from school and read whenever I had a free moment. I don’t think my mother ever really noticed anything, until that day. After that rainy afternoon, I don’t know how, but I spoke to her. No, that’s not quite right. I tried to speak to her. I don’t remember what I said exactly. I’m sure I didn’t tell her everything that had happened. I think I was trying to see if I could speak to her, if she was prepared to listen to me – if she was prepared to help me. She wasn’t. As soon as she realized what I was talking about she got ver y angry. I was making up horrible things. I was a bad girl. Did I want to ruin our family, after all the sacrifices she’d made to keep it going? That was more or less what she said, and I didn’t say any more. A few days later, I came back from school and Snoopy wasn’t there. I looked for him in the yard, I looked for him outside, in the street. I asked everyone I met if they’d seen him, but nobody knew anything. If pain exists in its purest, most desperate form, I felt it that morning. If I think again about that moment, I see a silent, washed-out scene in black and white. That afternoon he called me into his bedroom and I didn’t go. He called me again, and I didn’t go. I was in the kitchen, on a chair, my arms around my knees. With my eyes wide open, not seeing anything. I don’t think there are many feelings or emotions that go together as strongly as hate and fear. Then you act one way or the other depending on which is stronger. Fear. Or hate. He came to get me in the kitchen and dragged me to the bedroom. For the first time, I tried to resist. I don’t really know what I did. Maybe I tried to kick him or punch him. Or maybe I didn’t just freeze and let him do it. He was surprised, and furious. He hit me hard, as he raped me. Slaps and punches, in the face, on the head, in the ribs. And yet – strangely – when he’d finished I didn’t feel worse than the other times. Sure, I hurt all over, but I also felt a strange, fierce joy. I’d rebelled. Things would never be the same as before. He understood too, in his way. When my mother came home she saw the bruises on my face. I looked at her without saying anything, thinking she would ask me what had happened. Thinking that now, faced with the evidence, she would believe me and help. She turned away. She said something about making dinner, or something else she had to do. He opened a big bottle of beer and drank it all. At the end he gave a silent, obscene belch.
27
I was lying sprawled on the sofa in my apartment, waiting for Margherita to come home and call me upstairs for dinner. I liked the fact that, even though we were more or less living together, going up to her place in the evening was like being invited out. Even though it just meant walking up two floors. It made things less obvious. Not predictable.
I was listening to Transformer by Lou Reed. The album that includes “Walk on the Wild Side”.
Not a CD, but a genuine, original vinyl LP. With lots of crackles and pops.
I’d bought it that afternoon, in my so-called lunch break. Whenever I had a lot to do, for example when I had an appointment early in the afternoon, I didn’t go back home for lunch. I’d go to one of the bars in the centre, where the bank clerks eat, and have a roll and a beer standing up. Then I’d take advantage of the break to visit a bookshop or record shop that didn’t close for lunch.
That afternoon I’d ended up in a little shop run by a young man who played bass in a band: they played a kind of jazz rock, and were actually quite good. I’d heard them play several times, in the kinds of places I went to at night. The kinds of places where, in the last few years, I’d started to get the nasty feeling I was out of place.