“It was for her own good.”
“In other words, for Dottoressa Fumai’s good, you were prepared to do things without her knowing it, invading her private space without permission.”
“Objection, Your Honour,” Delissanti said. “That isn’t a question, it’s a conclusion. Inadmissible.”
“Avvocato Guerrieri,” Caldarola said, “please keep your conclusions for your closing speech.”
“With all due respect, Your Honour, I consider this a genuine question, regarding what the defendant was prepared to do according to his own quite subjective idea of what was for Dottoressa Fumai’s good. But I’ll happily withdraw and move on to another question. Did Dottoressa Fumai tell you herself where she kept her medical records?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Did Dottoressa Fumai tell you, ‘Look, the copy of my medical records is in such and such a place’?”
“No. At any rate, I don’t remember.”
“So you had to search for these records in order to photocopy them? You were forced to rifle through Dottoressa Fumai’s private effects. Is that correct?”
“I didn’t rifle through anything. I was worried about her, so I searched for those papers to show them to a doctor.”
Scianatico no longer seemed so at ease. He was losing his cool, and his image of manly, serene patience. Exactly what I wanted.
“Yes, you’ve already said that. Could you tell us the name of the psychiatrist to whom you showed these papers, after you had photocopied them clandestinely?”
“Objection, objection. Counsel for the plaintiff must avoid comments, and the word clandestinely is a comment.”
That was Delissanti again. He was perfectly well aware that things weren’t going very well. For them. I spoke before Caldarola could intervene.
“Your Honour, in my opinion the word clandestinely exactly describes the way in which these records were obtained by the defendant. However, I’m quite happy to rephrase the question because I’m not interested in getting into an argument.” And because I got the result I wanted anyway, I thought.
“So, could you tell us the name of the psychiatrist?”
“In the end I didn’t use the records. Our relationship quickly deteriorated and then she left. So in the end I didn’t do anything with them.”
“But you kept the photocopies?”
“I put them away and forgot all about them, until this… this business started.”
There was rather a long pause. I unwrapped the package Martina had given me, and took out the video cassette and a couple of sheets of paper. For almost a minute I pretended to read what was written on these sheets. It was just a sideshow, and had nothing to do with the trial. The sheets of paper were photocopies of old notes of mine, but Scianatico didn’t know that. When I thought the tension had risen enough, I looked up from the papers and resumed my questioning.
“Did you ever force Dottoressa Fumai to make a video recording of your sexual relations?”
Exactly what I had expected happened. Delissanti rose to his feet, shouting. It was inadmissible, outrageous, unprecedented, to ask such questions. What did the things that happened between consenting adults in the privacy of the bedroom have to do with this case? And so on, and so forth.
“Your Honour, will you allow me to clarify the question and its relevance?”
Caldarola nodded. For the first time since the start of the trial, he seemed annoyed with Delissanti. He’d pried into the most intimate and painful aspects of Martina’s life. In order to ascertain the plaintiff’s reliability, he’d said. And now he’d suddenly remembered that a couple’s private life was sacrosanct.
That, more or less, was what I said. I said that if it was necessary to evaluate the plaintiff’s personality, in order to be sure she was reliable, then the same requirement existed with regard to the defendant, given that he had agreed to be examined and, among other things, had made a series of defamatory and offensive statements about my client.
Caldarola allowed the question, and told Scianatico to answer. He looked at his lawyer, searching for help. He didn’t find it. He shifted on his chair, which seemed to have become very uncomfortable. He was desperately wondering how I could have come into possession of that cassette. Which, he was convinced, contained an embarrassing record of his most private habits. In the end he asked me.
“Who… who gave you that cassette?”
“Could you please answer my question? If it isn’t clear, or if you didn’t hear it properly, I can repeat it.”
“It was a game, something private. What has it got to do with this trial?”
“Is that an affirmative answer? You videotaped sexual relations with-”
“Yes.”
“On one occasion? On several occasions?”
“It was a game. We both agreed to do it.”
“On one occasion or on several occasions?”
“A few times.”
I picked up the video cassette and looked at it for a few seconds, as if reading something on the label.
“Did you ever videotape sexual practices of a sado-masochistic nature?”
There was silence in the courtroom. Several seconds passed before Scianatico answered.
“I… I don’t remember.”
“I’ll rephrase the question. Did you ever request or indeed perform sexual practices of a sado-masochistic nature?”
“I… we played games. Just games.”
“Did you ever demand that Dottoressa Fumai submit to being tied up, or other practices involving sexual restraint?”
“I didn’t demand. We agreed.”
“So it’s correct to say that the sexual practices I’ve mentioned did in fact occur, but you can’t remember if you videotaped them or not.”
“Yes.”
“Your Honour, I’ve finished cross-examining the defendant. But I have a request to make…”
Delissanti leaped to his feet, in so far as his bulk allowed him.
“I object very strongly in advance to the admission of cassettes relating to the sexual practices of the defendant and the plaintiff. I still have strong reservations about the relevance of the questions put by the counsel for the plaintiff, but, be that as it may, the fact that certain practices occurred has now been admitted. So there is no need for pornographic material to be admitted in evidence.”
Exactly what I wanted to hear him say. It had been admitted that certain practices had occurred. Precisely. They had swallowed the bait, both of them.
“Your Honour, the objection is unnecessary. I had no intention of asking for this or any other cassette to be admitted in evidence. As counsel for the defence has rightly said, the fact that certain practices occurred has been admitted. My request is quite different. In the introductory phase of the trial, counsel for the defence requested – and you, Your Honour, granted the request – that an expert witness be allowed to give evidence of a psychiatric nature about the plaintiff, with the purpose of ascertaining her reliability in relation to an overall picture of her mental state. Applying the same principle, what has emerged from the cross-examination makes it necessary to perform a similar evaluation on the person of the defendant. The psychiatrist you appoint to examine the defendant will be able to tell us if the compulsive need for sexual practices of a sado-masochistic nature, and particularly those which involve restraint, are habitually connected to impulses and actions of a persecutory nature, involving the invasion of another person’s private life. In other words, if both phenomena are – or can be – expressions of a compulsive need for control. Of course, I wish to make it clear that I am not suggesting any evaluation or hypothesis at the moment as to the possible psychopathological nature of these propensities.”
Scianatico’s face was grey. His tan had drained away, as if the blood had stopped flowing beneath the skin. Marinella Something-or-other was paralysed.
Delisssanti took a few seconds to recover and object to my request. With pretty much the same arguments I had used to object to his. You certainly couldn’t say we were inconsistent.