“Do you recognize anyone in this photograph?”
“Of course. That’s me, and these are the others in my team…”
“Could you tell us when it was taken?”
“Last summer, at the championship finals.”
“Do you remember the date?”
“I think it was the twentieth or twenty-first of August.”
“About a month before the robbery?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Did you know the people on the other team?”
“Some of them, not all.”
“Would you please look at the photo again and tell me if you recognize anyone from the other team?”
He took the photo and examined it closely, running his index finger over the faces of the players. “I know this one, but I don’t know his name. I think this one is called Pasquale… I don’t remember his surname. This one…”
His expression changed. He looked at me in surprise, then looked at the photo again.
“Do you recognize anyone else?”
“This one… looks like…”
“Who does he look like?”
“He looks a bit like that photo…”
“Do you mean the one you recognized in the album at police headquarters?”
“He looks a bit like him. It’s hard to-”
“It is in fact the same person. Do you remember him now?”
“Yes, it could be him.”
“Now that you’ve remembered him, can you state that the person who played football against your team that evening in August was the same person who took part in the robbery?”
“… I’m not so sure now… It’s hard to say after so much time.”
“Of course, I realize that. Let me put it another way. When you were robbed and you saw the third man some twenty yards away, did you realize it might be the same person you’d played football against a month earlier?”
“No, how could I?… It was a long way away…”
“Precisely, it was a long way away. Thank you, Your Honour, I’ve finished.”
The presiding judge read out the date for the next hearing and as he was telling the bailiff to call another case I turned to look for the Oriental girl. It took a few seconds, because she was no longer where I had seen her at the beginning of the hearing. She was standing very close to the exit, about to leave.
Our eyes met for a few moments. Then she turned and disappeared into the corridors of the courthouse.
2
The telegram arrived two days later. The wording is always more or less the same.
The prisoner, Mr So-and-so, appoints you as his defence counsel, states the number assigned for his court appearance, and asks you to visit him in prison to discuss his situation.
In this case the prisoner’s name was Fabio Paolicelli, he stated the number assigned for his court appearance, and asked me to visit him in prison urgently.
Fabio Paolicelli. Who was he? The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. And that bothered me because I’d become convinced lately that I was getting worse at remembering names. I took it as a worrying sign that my mental faculties were deteriorating. Bullshit, of course – I’ve never been good at remembering names, and I had exactly the same problem when I was twenty. But once you’re past forty you start to think all kinds of stupid things, and quite insignificant phenomena become symptoms of impending old age.
Anyway, I racked my brains for a few minutes and then gave up. I’d find out if I really knew the guy soon enough, when I went to see him in prison.
I called Maria Teresa and asked her if we had any appointments for the afternoon. She told me we were waiting for Signor Abbaticchio, but that he’d be coming late, just before we closed.
So, seeing as it was four o’clock on a Thursday, and seeing as it’s possible to visit clients in prison until six o’clock on Thursdays, and especially seeing as I didn’t feel in the mood to start studying the files for the following day’s hearings, I decided to make the acquaintance of Signor Fabio Paolicelli, who wanted to see me urgently. That way, the afternoon wouldn’t be wasted. Not completely, anyway.
For some months now, I’d been riding a bicycle. Since Margherita had left I’d made a few changes in my life. I didn’t really know why, but making these changes had helped me. Among them was the purchase of a nice, old-fashioned black bicycle, without gears, which would have been no use in the streets of Bari anyway. To cut a long story short, I’d stopped using my car and I liked it. I’d started by cycling to the courthouse, then I’d taken to cycling to the prison, which is further, and in the end I’d even stopped using the car to go out in the evenings, seeing as usually, wherever I went, I went alone.
It can be dangerous going around Bari by bike: there are no bicycle lanes, and motorists regard you as nothing more than a nuisance. But you get everywhere much quicker than by car. And so, a quarter of an hour later, somewhat chilled, I was at the main gate of the prison.
The sergeant in charge of the checkpoint that afternoon was new and didn’t know me. So he did everything according to the book. He examined my papers, took away my mobile phone, cross-checked my name. In the end he let me in, and I went through the usual series of steel doors which opened and closed as I passed, until I got to the lawyers’ room. Which was the same as ever – as welcoming as the reception area of a provincial morgue.
They weren’t in any hurry, and by the time my new client arrived – at least a quarter of an hour later-I was thinking of setting fire to the table or a couple of chairs, to warm myself up and draw attention to myself.
I recognized him as soon as he came in, even though I hadn’t seen him for more than twenty-five years.
Fabio Paolicelli, known as Fabio Rayban. We called him that because he always wore sunglasses, even at night. That was why I hadn’t immediately recognized the name. For me, for everyone, he had always been Fabio Rayban.
It was the Seventies, which I remember as one long black-and-white TV news broadcast. The first images I have of that time are of the Piazza Fontana just after the bomb. I was seven years old, but I remember it all very welclass="underline" the photos in the newspapers, the filmed reports on television, the conversations at home between my parents and friends who came to see them.
One afternoon – it may have been the day after the attack – I asked my grandpa Guido why they’d planted that bomb, if we were at war, and with what country. He looked at me and said nothing. It was the only time he couldn’t answer one of my questions.
I remember almost all the important events of those years. I remember the faces of young men, the same age as us, gradually starting to appear on TV news broadcasts.
In those days I associated sporadically, without a great deal of conviction, with a number of far-left groups.
Fabio Rayban, on the other hand, was a Fascist thug.
Maybe more than just a thug. A lot of stories circulated about him, and others like him. Stories about armed robberies done for the sake of a daring gesture. About military camps in the remotest areas of the Murgia, attended by dubious characters from the armed forces and the secret services. About so-called Aryan celebrations in luxurious villas on the outskirts of town. But the thing you heard most often about Rayban was that he had been part of the paramilitary squad that had stabbed to death an eighteen-year-old Communist who suffered from polio.
After a long trial, one of the Fascists was found guilty of the murder and then, very conveniently, killed himself in prison. Killing at the same time any possibility of identifying the others responsible.
In the days following the murder, Bari was filled with tear-gas smoke, the acrid smell of burnt cars, the sound of running footsteps on deserted pavements. Metal balls shattering windows. Sirens and blue flashing lights shattering the grey stillness of those late-November afternoons.
The Fascists were well organized. Just like criminals. They settled political arguments with iron rods, chains and knives. Sometimes guns, too. You just had to walk along the Via Sparano, in the vicinity of the church of San Ferdinando – an area considered a black zone – carrying the wrong newspaper or the wrong book, or even wearing the wrong clothes, and you ran the risk of beating beaten up.