The novel’s author, Filippo Zuliani, is clearly the young hoodlum who broke out of jail with Carlo Fedeli. Could he also be the accomplice in the robbery, as the novel implies? If he has information on these events, and from reading his novel it would seem that he does, then Filippo Zuliani should return and disclose it before an Italian court, and not in a novel, in which he plays on every possible form of ambiguity.
The matter also presents a political problem, and a sizeable one. Just when things are so precarious here in Italy, President Mitterrand feels that France should offer asylum to certain Italian political refugees. That is his choice, not ours. But how can he justify the fact that this asylum extends to a petty crook, a criminal on the run, who, we are told, has apparently been granted refugee status as well? But perhaps our information is wrong, for we have received no official notification on this matter.
In any case, Filippo Zuliani’s place, novelist or otherwise, is not in the salons of Paris. Instead it is plainly here in Italy, where he must come and face the courts over his escape, and in addition hand over any information he has on the robbery of the Piemonte-Sardegna bank and on the relations that have been forged between the ultra-leftist groups and the gangsterism now rife in Italy.
11 June
The boss of the publishing house has read La Repubblica, which the publicist passed on to him, and is worried. He asks the in-house lawyer and the publicist to come and confer with him in his office.
‘Are we not allowing ourselves to get drawn into a very nasty business?’ he demands to know.
The lawyer seeks to temper the discussion.
‘It is true that in Italy Romano Sebastiani is an influential public prosecutor, with close ties to the Italian Communist Party, or what’s left of it, and we certainly shouldn’t take his words lightly. At the same time, like all communist sympathisers, he’s innately hostile to the Red Brigades, one of whose former leaders apparently appears and is treated sympathetically in the novel, Escape. This perhaps explains his annoyance. But what is clear from this opinion piece is that the Italian courts have no evidence against our author. Filippo Zuliani’s jailbreak is the one established fact, but it’s not a big deal when set against the bank robbery and the assassinations. And when it comes to the shootings, Sebastiani clearly has nothing to go on. A novel is not proof that can be used as evidence in court. As long as it is nothing but a moralising diatribe, no one’s in any real danger.’
The boss remains cautious.
‘I’d like to think this is the case, but as I see it, someone in Italy is firing a warning shot. Public prosecutors don’t, on the whole, amuse themselves by writing gratuitous opinion pieces, and they don’t tend to open hostilities unless armed. I fear what is in store.’
Adèle is much more upbeat: ‘The book’s doing well, very well. Sales are still growing and I’ve been assured that it will be shortlisted for the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes this autumn. The literary establishment’s recognition of a book that is controversial is a real tour de force. It gives us the opportunity to launch an autumn sales drive and get it back into all the bookshops. This was undreamt-of — it’s a title we published too close to summer, a bit haphazardly, and we’ve already sold 70,000 copies. If we win a prize, we’ll top 200,000. Now is not the time to stop pushing. If our lawyer gives us the green light, I can circulate Sebastiani’s piece, very discreetly, of course, invoking the defence of freedom of artistic expression, that sort of thing…’
‘How is your author responding? Can you rely on him? Can he cope with the pressure? No danger of him slipping up?’
‘Filippo? I don’t think he keeps up with it all.’
‘Doesn’t he read the Italian papers? All the refugees do.’
‘No.’ Adèle shakes her head in a ripple of bleached blond hair. ‘Not him. He’s perfectly happy in his bubble and that’s where he wants to stay. I get the impression that he’s not interested in Italy, and he tells me he’s starting a new book. He hasn’t said what it’s about but it will be very different from his first novel. I’m not convinced he’s got a second novel in him, but we’ll see…’
‘So let Sebastiani stew. I repeat: there’s no need to panic.’
The publisher allows himself to be persuaded.
‘All right, we’ll carry on.’
But he is still worried. He thinks for a moment then places a hand on Adèle’s arm.
‘Don’t leave your protégé in complete ignorance of his success. I think the best policy is to give him a bit of an ego boost. You know what writers are like … And you’re so good at doing what’s needed.’
He rises and the meeting is over. By way of a conclusion, he says, ‘I’m going to take a few precautions, just in case — hang around the corridors of power a bit and say hello to some old friends before everyone goes off on holiday, test the water, put out feelers. After all, we have a president who’s a man of letters. May as well make the most of it.’
Second fortnight in June
Somehow, the news of Escape’s growing success and of its chances in the scramble for a book prize reach the ears of the Italian cognoscenti, where it causes a stir. It is picked up by all the media, and the press goes on the warpath. Journalists throw caution to the winds. Their main gripe is inspired by Romano Sebastiani’s point, which they reiterate: the French are showing appalling judgement in mistaking something that is no more than a shameless commercial exploitation of a heinous event for a sign of literary talent, without any consideration for the suffering of the victims’ families. The freedom of expression argument is a pathetic smokescreen that does not conceal the moral bankruptcy of a criminal (because the author is a criminal beyond all doubt, even though his crime is not specified) attempting to flee justice at home. Police mug shots of Filippo Zuliani, full face and in profile, have conveniently found their way into the editorial office, and appear alongside those of the widows of the carabiniere and the security guard with their children, shown leaving the church after Sunday mass. The effect is compelling. This is the perfect opportunity for the Italians, so often annoyed and wounded by the intellectual arrogance of the French, to claim the moral high ground, and they have no compunction in exploiting it. The publishing house starts to receive hate mail, mainly written in Italian.
On 22 June, a thunderbolt. A new witness has spontaneously presented himself at a Milan police station. He states that he saw Filippo Zuliani in the company of two men at 14.15 in La Tazza d’Oro, a bar two hundred metres from the Piemonte-Sardegna bank in Via Del Battifolle, on the day of the hold-up by Carlo and his gang. After checking up on the story, the police consider this testimony to be valid. So the status of Filippo Zuliani, seemingly present at the scene of the heist after all, changes from that of indiscreet writer to potential accomplice.
24 June