I had already stood up and was recovering my raincoat when I thought of something I needed to know before I left.
“Why me? I mean, why did you choose me?”
He gave me a strange smile. He’d been expecting the question. “People talk a lot in prison. They talk a lot about judges, and about prosecutors. Which ones are good, which ones are stupid, which ones are clever, or dangerous, or corrupt. And they talk about defence lawyers.”
He broke off and looked at me. He could tell from my face that he had me hooked.
“Which ones are efficient but stupid. Which ones are honest but incompetent and never stand up to the judges. Which ones are arse lickers. Which ones can cut corners – or claim that they can – to get what they want. They say a lot of things about defence lawyers.”
Another pause, another look. My face hadn’t changed. He was searching for the right words.
“What they say about you is that you aren’t afraid.”
“In what way?”
“They say that if you believe in something, you don’t give up. They say you’re a good person.”
I felt a slight tingling in my scalp and down my back.
“And they say you’re very good at your job.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Get me out of here,” he went on, and his voice cracked, as if he no longer had the strength to control himself. “I’m innocent, I swear it. I have a daughter. She’s the only thing that matters in my life. I haven’t seen her since I was arrested. I didn’t want her to visit me in prison, so I haven’t seen her since that damned morning.”
The last words were halfway been a gasp and a whisper.
I had to go. I had to get out of there. I told him I would study the papers as soon as I got them, and then we would meet again and talk about them. We shook hands and I left.
3
I didn’t even have to look at the papers, I told myself that evening, at home.
I couldn’t defend Fabio Rayban. All the things that had gone through my head when I’d recognized him should have set alarm bells ringing. I couldn’t ignore them.
I had to act maturely and professionally.
Paolicelli was probably guilty and had been given the right sentence. But that was why he had a right to be defended professionally, by someone who didn’t have my inner reservations and didn’t have an old score to settle with him.
I had to turn down the case without even reading the papers. It would be better for everyone.
It would be right.
In a few days’ time, I’d go back to the prison and tell him I couldn’t defend him. I would either tell him the truth, or invent an excuse.
But one thing was certain. I couldn’t take the case.
4
Maria Teresa knocked at my door, put her head round it, and told me Signora Kawabata was here.
“Who?”
She came in, closed the door, and said that Signora Kawabata had come about the Paolicelli case.
“But Kawabata is a Japanese name.”
“I guess so. She looks Japanese, anyway.”
“And what has she got to do with Paolicelli?”
“Quite a lot, she’s his wife. She says she has copies of the documents.”
When she came in, I recognized her immediately.
She said good afternoon, shook hands with me, and sat down in front of the desk without taking off her coat or even undoing it. I could smell perfume, essence of amber, with a hint of something more pungent that I couldn’t quite identify. Close up, she looked a bit older and even more beautiful than she had a few days before in the courtroom.
“I’m Fabio Paolicelli’s wife. I’ve brought you all the papers relating to the trial and the sentence.”
Bizarrely, she had a slight Neapolitan accent. She emptied her bag, placed a bundle of photocopies on the desk and asked me if we could talk for a few minutes. Of course we could talk. That’s what I’m paid for, after all.
“I need to know if there’s any hope for Fabio’s appeal, and if so how much.”
She’d come straight to the point. The right thing to do, from her point of view. But I couldn’t come straight to the point, and not only because I wanted to sound professional.
“It’s impossible to say right now. I have to read all the papers on the case, including the original ruling.”
And I also have to decide if I’m going to take on the case. But I didn’t say that.
“Fabio told you what this is all about.”
I was getting impatient. Did she expect me to form an opinion on the basis of what the defendant had told me in prison?
“He told me the gist of it, but as I was saying…”
“I don’t suppose there’s much hope of an acquittal, even on appeal. But I’ve been told it may be possible to plea-bargain. Fabio could get as little as six or seven years. In three or four years he could be allowed home visits… or perhaps… what is it called?”
“It’s called day release.”
I found her tone a bit irritating. I don’t generally like clients – or worse still, the relatives of clients – who’ve swotted up on the law and tell you what you can and can’t do.
“You see, signora”-I hated the self-important tone in my own voice as soon as I opened my mouth – “as I was saying, I have to study all the papers before I can express a sound opinion. To think of alternatives, including plea-bargaining, I really need to have a clearer idea of the case. There may be procedural or technical questions that a lay person might be unaware of.”
In other words, I’m the lawyer here. You stick to flower arranging, or the tea ceremony, or whatever. And I haven’t even decided yet if I’m going to defend your husband – who’s a Fascist thug and probably also a drug trafficker – because I’ve had a score to settle with him and his friends for thirty years.
Those were the very words I had in my mind. I didn’t even realize that I’d moved quickly from being sure I’d refuse the case to being undecided about whether or not I’d accept it.
She grimaced, which only made her look even more beautiful.
It had been a lawyer’s answer, and she didn’t like it. She wanted me to calm her fears in some way. Even if it meant telling her there was no alternative to plea-bargaining. People want many things from a lawyer, but what they want more than anything is for him to take away the anguish of having to deal with policemen, prosecutors, judges and court proceedings. With all the apparatus of what’s called justice. They want the lawyer to take away the anguish of thinking.
“Going on what your husband told me, this isn’t an easy case. If things happened in the exact terms” – exact terms? Why the hell was I talking this way? – “in which he told them to me, then this isn’t going to be an easy appeal. In fact, it’s going to be very hard, which means that plea-bargaining is definitely a possibility we’d have to consider seriously. On the other hand…”
“On the other hand?”
“Your husband says he’s innocent. Obviously, if he’s innocent, the idea of plea-bargaining and ending up with seven or eight years, even supposing we could get it down as much as that, is a bit hard to take. Even if there is the prospect of home visits and day release.”
She hadn’t been expecting that answer. She realized that she had kept her coat on and she unbuttoned it nervously, as if she suddenly felt hot or stifled. I asked her if she wanted to take it off and give it to me to hang up. She said no, thanks. But then she took it off and placed it over her legs.
“Do you really think he might be innocent?”
There. I’d asked for it.
“Look, Signora Paolicelli, I really can’t answer that question. In most cases we lawyers don’t know the truth. We don’t know if our client is guilty or innocent. In many ways it’s better not to know, it’s easier to defend the client in a professional way…”
“You don’t believe his story, do you?”
I took a deep breath, resisting the impulse to talk more bullshit. “I’ll be able to get a clearer idea after I’ve read the papers. But I must admit, your husband’s story is very hard to believe.”