Dominique Manotti: Escape

‘Vaguely. I wasn’t really interested. Milan was a long way north.’

‘After that, there were more bomb explosions. Brescia, the Italicus train. The Italian secret service was murdering its own people. They were using chaos and terror to fight us, to rebuild a major anti-Communist, anti-red front. Whenever we demonstrated, there were tens of thousands of us in the streets. We thought we were the people. We believed we were strong enough to follow them and fight them on the battleground they’d chosen, outside the factory, weapons in hand. And besides, we were the sons of the 1917 Russian revolution, of the Turin workers’ councils, of the Italian Communist Party and of the Italian Resistance. Memories of violent struggle were still so vivid, so close, in our families and in the factories.’

After a lengthy hesitation, Carlo said, ‘I’m going to tell you a childhood memory.’ Filippo was surprised, childhood memories were not part of Carlo’s usual repertoire, but he waited, in silence. ‘When I was a kid, I used to spend my holidays with my grandparents, farmers in the Bologna region. Once a year, on the 5th of August, always on the same date, probably some anniversary, my grandfather would take me down to the bottom of the vegetable garden, behind a hedge. We’d dig up a metal case and he’d open it. It contained two guns wrapped in rags. Each year, he would say solemnly, “Walther P38 pistols, captured from the Germans.” He’d take them apart on a blanket, oil them very carefully, making me touch the metal and inhale the smell of oil, then he’d reassemble them and pack them away, and we’d bury the case again, always in the same place. “So there’s no risk of making a mistake when we need to dig them up. Sometimes you have to act fast,” he’d say. “They’re my weapons from when I was in the Resistance. You never know.” When I went to look for them years later, my grandfather already long since dead, I couldn’t find them.’ Carlo had a lump in his throat. He was silent for a while. Then he continued in a hoarse voice. ‘So we took up arms. We risked our lives, we risked death each day, but that’s not what is so terrible, the terrible thing is killing. And we killed. I killed. And our fathers cursed us.’ There followed a long silence. In Carlo’s life, the intensity of conviction and the violence of hope had swept everything away, smashed everything. And Filippo contemplated the wreckage, fascinated.

Then Carlo would say, ‘Those were different times. My grandfather never knew about all that. Just as well. I couldn’t have stood it if he’d cursed me. Go to sleep, Filippo, we’ll still be here tomorrow and we can carry on talking.’ And Filippo would clamber into the top bunk and fall asleep, happy, his head full of confused dreams.

I listened, every night for six months. Thinking it over now, alone in the mountains, abandoned and betrayed, it just sounds weird .

Forget all that, otherwise I’m stuffed .

Filippo gets up, stretches, grabs the bag, slings it over his shoulder and begins the descent towards the lake. His mind is made up. It will be Milan.

10 February, Paris

Lisa Biaggi leads a well-ordered life. Every morning she leaves her little apartment in Rue de Belleville early, takes the Métro from Belleville and commutes to La Défense where she works as a medical secretary in an occupational health centre. On the way to l’Étoile, she stops to buy the previous day’s Italian newspapers from a kiosk that stocks a good range of international papers for the tourists. She doesn’t open them straight away but lingers for a moment, her mind free. Today it is sunny and bright, like a promise of spring. She sits on a café terrace at the top of the Champs-Élysées, the sun shining on her face, and orders a cappuccino and croissants. This is the best part of the day, and she relishes it. She has been a political refugee in France since 1980 and has found a steady job that enables her to live in relative comfort, but somehow she still cannot resign herself to making her life here. She has turned forty. She can feel her body, her face, and her mind wither as she waits to return, but there is nothing to be done, and each day the news from home reawakens the ache of exile. She contemplates the swelling crowds walking past and sighs. Her cappuccino drunk, nearly time to resume her commute, and she opens the Corriere della Sera and begins to flick through it. A shock. On the inside pages, a photo of Carlo. Carlo, her man, the love of her life. Headline: Spectacular jailbreak … Her heart thumping, blurred vision, her eyes jump from one line to the next.

In a refuse truck … with his cellmate, Filippo Zuliani, a small-time crook … accomplices among the truck drivers. The police are actively looking for the two fugitives … Photos of the two men. The small-time crook has the mug of a small-time crook. What the hell was Carlo doing with him? It is worrying.

She folds the newspaper and tries to convince herself that Carlo will be all right, that he isn’t dead, but it is no good, she can visualise him dead. She picks up her belongings and heads for the Métro, towards La Défense and her office. It is too soon or too late to cry.

At La Vielleuse, Rue de Belleville, Lisa is playing pool, seemingly absorbed in the game, her long, slim form leaning over the baize, her face masked by her shoulder-length black hair, her movements precise. A habit that goes back more than eight years, to the time of her first clandestine missions in Paris, when Carlo was the main contact for the organisation back in Milan. Playing pool occupies both hands and mind when you’re waiting for a phone call, night after night, at a set time. Lisa has come to enjoy the game, and she has carried on playing since Carlo’s arrest, even though there is no longer anything to wait for. She is even considered to be a good player by the little group of regulars who are very respectful of her. You don’t often find a woman who plays well. But today, as in the old days, she is playing to kill time. Carlo is free again … the old underground habits, why not? The phone rings for the third time that evening. Each time she jumps, just as before. The owner picks up the phone, looks over and signals to her, this time it is for her. She dashes over to the old phone booth, closed off, discreet, right at the back of the room, as before.

‘Lisa, it’s me.’

Despite the overwhelming emotion, hearing his voice live for the first time in seven years makes her want to laugh. Who else could it be? A telephone date that has been on hold for seven years…

‘I know.’

‘I knew I’d find you. I love you.’

‘I’m frightened, Carlo.’

‘Everything’s OK. I don’t have much time. Listen carefully. The leadership of our organisation has declared that they’re laying down their arms, they’ve admitted defeat.’

‘I know, I still read the papers.’

‘They’re doing the right thing, I agree, even though I would like to have been consulted. But this changes things. I continued the struggle for seven years in jail, without letting up, I carried out all my instructions. But now we’re laying down our arms, it makes no sense to stay banged up. I have no liking for long, drawn-out, tragic deaths.’

‘So?’

‘So I’m leaving.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes, just like that. You remember? We used to call that “practising the objective”. When we consider a demand to be right and necessary, we enact it, we don’t wait for it to be handed to us. I’ve seized my freedom.’

‘That’s crazy, now the Red Brigades are announcing they’re laying down their arms, you’ll be released within a few months. And perhaps the rest of us will be able to come back home.’