Dominique Manotti: Escape

January

Marco has just died, during a fairly confusing turf war between Milanese and Romans, shot perhaps by Pepe. Or Filippo. The story ends there. For the author, it is a visceral certainty — it’s over. Full stop, no prisoners. He doesn’t want to know why, and he puts down his pen. So, he has come to the end of his endeavour. It isn’t going to be easy. He thought he would jump for joy, or do a dance — it’s done, it’s finished, I’ve got to the end, success. But not at all. After ten months of a lone undertaking verging on madness, ten months of it consuming all of his energy and of living intensely day and night through Carlo and Filippo, who are him and not him, the last line written, his characters abandon him, disintegrate, and he crumbles, the lifeblood sucked out of him. His brain is exhausted and empty, his body gives way like elastic slackening. For a few days he relishes this state of emptiness, and replenishes his energy.

And then, inevitably, the machine for churning out ideas and emotions starts up again, softly at first. The satisfaction of having managed to explain why and how he’s ended up in this windowless room in the Tour Albassur. Nothing either mediocre or risky, but a path of flesh and blood, of violence and freedom which fulfils him. But very soon, the sense of frustration inevitably returns with a vengeance.

I know very well why I’m here. But if I stay stuck in this windowless office in the bowels of a tower in La Défense as a night watchman, I’ll be giving Filippo a pathetic end. Who’s going to read my amazing tale? No one, not even Antoine, who doesn’t understand Italian. So what’s the point of all this effort? I didn’t just write it for myself, did I? I wrote it so that Lisa could read it, and be hurt by it. To make her understand that I exist, as much as Carlo, and alongside him. Will I have the guts to take my pile of paper to her and put the pages in her hands? I haven’t seen that woman in the ten months I’ve been living in France, but I’ve felt her burning hatred, like an animal lurking between the two of us. Of course not. And if I did, since she’s clever enough to realise that I’m stealing Carlo from her, she’s strong and determined enough to burn the manuscript. If I want her to read it, to be forced to read it, there’s only one way, and that is to publish it as a book. An object, that will live through its readers and so become indestructible. Like those piles of books at Lisa’s place, at Cristina’s, in the studio apartment that’s my home, all around me. A book, written by me, who’s hardly ever read anything. One hell of a revenge. Becoming a writer. ‘You are a writer,’ Antoine said, seeing me scribbling. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. A way of giving my Filippo a life worthy of him, in the world of cultured people, not hoodlums? And in the world of women like Lisa and Cristina, beautiful, desirable, unattainable. It was seeing their faces emerge from my doodling that made me decide to write, wasn’t it? See it through to the end. Now that the story is written, I’ve got to publish it. But how the hell do I go about that?

The question goes round and round in his head for a few days, a few nights. One thing is clear — he won’t be able to manage it on his own. He needs a friend in the book world, the world of other people, to act as go-between and introduce him. Who could do that? In Paris, the choice is limited, and it doesn’t take long to run through the list of people he knows who may be able to help. Go through Lisa? Don’t even think about it. The Italian refugees’ lawyers? Only met them once. The memory still smarts — they were so stuck-up and condescending. ‘Let us know if you have any problems. We act on behalf of political refugees, not criminals like you, but since Lisa sent you, we’ll see what we can do .’ No point. Cristina? He recalls how she’d dazzled him on their first meeting, her beauty, her elegance, her smile. And then his hopes shattered. The impersonal handshake, ‘I arranged everything with Lisa ,’ and Filippo, anonymous, no surname, just a first name, who had no say in the matter, the rent in cash in an envelope left on a shelf in the hall wardrobe, a few rare, fleeting encounters on the landing. ‘ Hello’, ‘Good evening ’, and then nothing. He had always put her in the same camp as Lisa. But he recalls her mass of copper hair and her smile, the same as the girl on the mountain. A sign? Filippo wonders whether he’s missed something. Cristina had said, ‘I’ve lived alone in this huge apartment … since Giorgio, my partner left … my phone number’s on the kitchen table…’ Was that a come-on? Not sure. Did he have any other options? No. Besides, to exist in Cristina’s eyes, revenge … So, he’ll have to try his luck. Tomorrow, he’ll buy a nice cardboard cover, write on it ‘ESCAPE, a story by Filippo Zuliani’, slip the pages inside and put the whole thing in Cristina Pirozzi’s letter-box, without a word of explanation. He wouldn’t know what to say.

3 February

Filippo is wearing a clean white shirt when he walks into the bar, his breath tight, his mind numb. Yesterday, Cristina slid a note under his door. ‘Meet me tomorrow, 7.30 p.m. at the Café Pouchkine, the Russian bar two streets away. We’ll be able to have a quiet chat about your manuscript.’ He has been in a semi-comatose state of waiting ever since, feeling as though he has stopped breathing. The interior is very dark; he blinks, hesitates, spots a shape waving at him from the back of the room and makes his way over. Cristina is sitting at a table, a glass of lager in front of her.

‘Have a seat. Same?’

‘No, I’ll have a coffee.’

‘Bad idea, the coffee’s dreadful here.’ She signals to the barman, then leans towards him, amused and curious.

‘So tell me, this story, is it your story?’ Filippo feels himself blushing, and hangs his head.

‘It’s a story that I’ve written.’

‘I understand. It’s a novel. But the main character, Filippo, is that you? The same name, is that a coincidence? Filippo, head bowed, avoids her gaze for a while, then takes the plunge.

‘I could change the name.’

‘What about Carlo? I think I’ve identified him, he’s a former Red Brigades leader, isn’t he? Did you know him personally?’

‘Yes, I knew him.’ Filippo smiles. ‘You could put it like that. I knew him well. I was in jail with him — we were cellmates for six months. He was my friend. We escaped together, and now he’s dead.’

‘Like in the novel?’

‘Like in the novel.’

‘Was he Lisa’s boyfriend?’

‘I don’t know. He never talked to me about her.’

‘Have you told Lisa that?’

‘Yes … I think she was angry with me because of that…’

‘Understandably. When did you write all this?’

Filippo is taken aback by the question. The answer seems obvious.

‘At night. I’m a night watchman, as you know, in a tower, right near here. There’s not much to do — you have to stare at a wall of CCTV monitors and nothing ever happens. In eight months we haven’t had more than a dozen incidents, none of them serious. I’ve been writing every night since I’ve had the job, and I finished a few days ago. I didn’t know what to do with it, that’s why…’

He clears his throat and looks up, meeting her eye at last. This is the decisive moment.

‘I’m no expert, but I can tell you that I read your novel in one go. It’s good, maybe very good.’

Cristina stops, watches him. He gets his breath back, like a deep-sea diver surfacing. He relaxes, glances around the room, takes in the panelling, the banquettes and the heavy wooden armchairs with red leather cushions. He is on the verge of smiling. He really is charming, this young man whom she had taken for an almost completely tongue-tied illiterate. Author of a rather dazzling novel, or a small-time crook trying to pull off a scam? We’ll see. But a good-looking lad in any case, and touching. Cristina takes a sip of beer, finds it has a delicious slight aftertaste of adventure, a feeling that has been cruelly lacking since the departure of Giorgio, her partner, the brilliant journalist.