The interpreter stayed with the prisoners, translating the Germans’ orders. Then he followed Meyer and the marines into the ravine. He stumbled, grazed the side of his hand on the rock, grabbed hold of the damp moss on the stones. After going round a bend, they stopped at the bottom of the narrow valley. Thin mist clung to the walls of the ravine. A pit lay ahead of them; other prisoners must have dug it, its sides were reinforced with boards. The interpreter couldn’t help it, he had to look down.
Suddenly everything happened very fast. Ten marines took up their positions in a row five or six metres from the pit. Five prisoners were led to the pit until they were standing on a wooden plank. They looked into the muzzles of the guns, their eyes were not blindfolded. No explanation, no priest – no one spoke. The officer gave the commands: ‘Release safety catch.’ ‘Take aim.’ ‘Fire.’ Ten shots immediately rang out. The rocks threw back the echo. The men fell backwards into the pit. After that the marines led five more partisans up. In the meantime an older NCO with a pistol climbed down a small ladder into the pit. He was wearing gumboots so as not to soil his leather boots. Down in the pit, he shot two men through the head. The coup de grâce. As if there were still any mercy, thought the interpreter.
The partisans on the wooden boards saw their own death coming. Those who had gone before them lay in the dirt below, one on top of another, legs and arms grotesquely distorted, heads split open, blood on their jackets, blood in the muddy puddles. All the same, they didn’t resist. The daily bulletin would report, later: ‘Reprisal Operation carried out successfully. No incident of note.’ Only one of the prisoners did not stick to the prescribed order of events; the man did not look at the soldiers, he looked at the sky and flung his arms high in the air. ‘Viva Italia!’ he cried. And then again: ‘Viva Italia!’ His voice sounded unreal. Naked, thought the interpreter. One soldier lost his nerve and fired too soon, a single shot fired into a scream. The interpreter saw the projectile strike the man in the chest, knock him down with his arms still outstretched. Saw the face of the soldier who had shot too soon: very young, little more than a child, his mouth open, the gun still levelled to take aim. That young man would never tell anyone about this day. It wasn’t war now, it wasn’t battle, contact with the enemy. It was human beings killing other human beings, that was all. The interpreter saw the young man’s eyes; maybe he’d still been sitting, until only recently, in school or in a lecture hall. As long as the interpreter lived he would remember it – a moment of truth, but the interpreter didn’t know what truth that was.
At last it was over. The marines shovelled earth over the pit where the dead men lay. Finally they heaved a large rock over to mark the spot. No one in the jeep talked on the way back. By the time the interpreter got on his bicycle back in Genoa, the sun was well up. He didn’t want to go home, he didn’t want to look at his wife and children. He went down to the sea, lay on the beach and looked out at the waves.
In the evening the interpreter got drunk. When he came home he told his wife about that morning in the ravine. They were sitting in the kitchen; his wife stared at him until he had finished his story. Then she stood up and struck him in the face, again and again, until she was exhausted and couldn’t hit him any more. They stood like that in the dark for a long time. After a while he switched the light on and gave her the list with the names of the prisoners that he had brought away from the prison with him. His wife read it out loud. The first name was Nicola Collini.
Four days later the news reached the village where the Collinis lived. Uncle Mauro bent over the boy that night and kissed him on the eyes.
‘Fabrizio,’ he told the sleeping child, ‘from now on you are my son.’
17
‘The interpreter,’ said Leinen, ‘was condemned to death by the Extraordinary Court in Genoa in 1945.’ Then he sat down.
The silence in the courtroom was unbearable. Even the presiding judge watched, motionless, as Leinen put his papers together. At last she turned to Reimers, the senior public prosecutor.
‘Would the public prosecutor’s office like to express any opinion?’
At this question the tension in the courtroom was broken. Reimers waved it away, saying that he would give an opinion only after checking the papers. His voice was barely audible.
The presiding judge looked at Mattinger. ‘Counsel for the accessory prosecution, would you like to say anything?’
Mattinger stood up. ‘The events described by counsel for the defence are so terrible that I need time. I doubt whether anyone in this courtroom feels differently,’ he said. ‘But there’s one thing I simply don’t understand: why did the defendant wait so long before killing Hans Meyer?’
Leinen was about to say that his client would answer that question in writing later. He hadn’t noticed Collini moving beside him. The big man got to his feet and looked at Mattinger steadily. Then he said, ‘My aunt…’ It was the first time his deep, soft voice had been heard in the courtroom. Leinen looked round at him. ‘Please leave this to me,’ Collini told him quietly. Then he turned to Mattinger again. ‘My uncle died a long time ago. My Aunt Giulia died on 1 May 2001. She could hardly bear it when I went to the country of the German murderers to find work. But to think of me in a German prison as well would have killed her. I had to wait for her death. Only then could I kill Meyer. That is the whole story.’ Collini sat down. He was careful about it, he didn’t want to make any noise. Mattinger looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
‘Your honour,’ he said to the presiding judge, ‘I would like to wait for the next day of the trial before I make any further statement.’
The presiding judge adjourned the court.
Leinen went to the courthouse car park and collected his car. He drove around the city for a long time. A homeless man was sitting at a crossroads with a paper cup. In Unter den Linden a teacher was showing his class of school students the monument to Frederick the Great, and then the monument recording the Nazi burning of books in May 1933. A poster of a politician promised economic growth and low taxes. Leinen would have liked to talk to someone, but there was no one around he could have spoken to. He drove to the flea market on the Strasse des 17 Juni and wandered past the stalls. This was where everything ended up when a dead person’s apartment was cleared: cutlery, lamps, prints of works of art, combs, glasses, furniture. A young woman was trying on a fur coat; she posed in front of her boyfriend, pouting. A man was selling old magazines, praising their merits as if they were hot off the press. Leinen listened to him for a while, then he went back to his car.
18
On the next day of the trial, Mattinger rose to his feet as soon as the presiding judge had greeted them all. He did not look the same as on the two preceding days. The vertical and horizontal lines on his forehead appeared deeper, he seemed to be full of energy and concentrating hard. The presiding judge called on him to speak.
‘Ladies and gentlemen on the judges’ bench,’ he began, ‘last time we met to continue this trial, counsel for the defence supplied the motive for the defendant’s actions. The defendant’s father was shot on the orders of Hans Meyer. Fifty-seven years later, Fabrizio Collini avenges him. Of course it may well be that a motive for killing is honourable. But if the shooting of Fabrizio Collini’s father was legally permissible according to the law in force at the time, the motive appears in an entirely different light. For in that case Collini killed a man who did only what was correct in the eyes of the law.’