Dominique Manotti: Escape

If I were a journalist, in Italy, in my real life … I’d investigate. The security guards change their route and their schedule every day. Who informed Carlo, who decided on the date and the place of the assassination? I’d want to know about the two carabinieri , that has to be the easiest starting point. Talk to the bank staff, they go for coffee in a nearby café in their lunch break, and they like to talk. Especially about sensational events of this kind, in which they have been directly involved. Yes, they would well remember the two carabinieri on that day; no, the men would not have paid in a cheque, and actually no, they would not recall ever seeing them before the day of the shooting.

I’d want to talk to Carabiniere Lucio Renzi. He is supposed to have come out of the bank and walked straight into an armed robbery, and killed Carlo with a single bullet in the chest. He is notorious for being trigger-happy. What is his career history? Between the infamous P2 Masonic Lodge veterans filled with resentment and the enemies of the P2 Lodge veterans, you can always get the information you need from the Italian police. And if Renzi had worked with the secret service for a while, it would all add up. This was no aborted bank robbery, it was an assassination.

Lisa stares out at the courtyard and the trees bending in the wind. The air is turning chilly. She closes the window. But I’m not a journalist, I’m not in my real life, I’m here, in exile, in France. I left my entire life behind in Italy. I know who those people are over there. I know them, I understand them, I’m cut from the same cloth, I know the networks. From here, I watch that whole world growing restless, but I can’t reach out to it. It’s as if I’m shut up in a glass cage. I stretch out my hand, I touch the glass, but I can’t get a grip on anything. I am an exile .

A few discreet taps at the door. Lisa hesitates, then opens it. Roberto. He hugs her.

‘I came as soon as I heard. As quickly as I could.’

She rests her head on his shoulder and cries silently, not for long. No point in talking. They have too many shared memories — they both know what Carlo’s death means. Then she pulls away.

‘Shall I make you a tea, or a coffee?’

‘Coffee, please.’

She goes over to the kitchenette, splashes some water on her face, and fills the cafetière. He sinks into one of the two armchairs in the sitting-room area, without taking his eyes off her. Her tall, erect, slightly stiff outline, immaculate grey sweatshirt and trousers, her carefully brushed mass of black hair, her smooth face, her eyes only slightly puffy — why does she need to keep up appearances?

‘You’re coping … better than I am, I’d say…’ She shrugs. ‘Are you coming to the meeting between the Italian refugees and the lawyers tomorrow?’

‘No.’

She sets two cups of coffee and a packet of dry biscuits down on the coffee table, and seats herself in the other armchair.

‘I don’t want to have to listen to people I don’t know very well — people who didn’t know or love Carlo — talking to me about his death. I don’t want to have to answer questions. But I’m glad you’re here, Roberto, because when I’m with you I feel like talking, and it helps. I am carrying a huge burden. I felt his death coming, I was living with it for the last six months, without saying a word, not even to you…’

Roberto leans towards her, listening attentively.

‘…ever since he was transferred to that prison for common criminals. He was set up, Roberto, his escape and his assassination were planned.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘First of all, his transfer. No reason, other than that it’s impossible to escape from high-security prisons. Then, the articles in the papers — they’re all the same, as if they were publishing an official press release. And no mention of their source. Because that source is the same for all of them, it’s the police. That ridiculous claim that the two carabinieri went to the bank to pay in some cheques, that one of them had an account there, that he was a regular customer. A bit over-the-top, don’t you think? And no one went to sniff around, check the facts, interview witnesses. It’s as if they’re scared to touch it because it stinks.’

Roberto drinks his coffee, gingerly sets his cup down and frowns. He remains sceptical.

‘Not convincing. Journalists nearly always work that way, regurgitating police sources without checking them. What else?’

‘The small-time crook who broke out with him. Does that sound like Carlo, teaming up with a common criminal?’

‘He spent seven years inside, Lisa. That changes a man.’

‘What about the two carabinieri who “happened” to be coming out of the bank at that precise moment. I don’t buy that.’

‘Who would have engineered the whole show? The people who helped him escape? With three dead, that’s a bit much, don’t you think? But more importantly, why?’

‘To kill the declaration that the original Red Brigades leaders have just published.’

‘That’s a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, isn’t it?’

‘The stakes are high for us, Roberto. Don’t underestimate them. That open letter could be the starting point for a collective analysis. We need to read it and discuss it, together and with other left-wing organisations. So we need time, and we need calm. If we don’t analyse our defeat, each of us will be left to our own individual solitude and despair. Our generation will be airbrushed out, our history will be erased, and the traitors and scumbags will triumph.’

‘Nobody wants that debate, neither the left — or what remains of it — nor the right. Definitely not with us. We’re terrorists, outcasts.’

‘Exactly. A few days after the publication of the Red Brigades’ open letter, one of their former leaders raids a bank and kills a carabiniere . On the front page of all the papers, “Red terrorism from left-wing extremists, still a threat, is now pure gangsterism. Why should we open a dialogue with these people?” Don’t you find it too much of a coincidence that this sabotages all our chances of entering into a political dialogue?’

‘Carlo could very well have lost his head all by himself. And I think we can be certain that some of our former comrades will continue to attack and murder without really knowing why, and kill off the Red Brigades’ declaration without the need for dirty tricks to push them into crime.’

‘The right can’t just blame the violence on a bunch of gun-toting individuals as they always do. They’re bound to try, I grant you, but it could well be too late. There are good reasons to hurry.’

‘What reasons?’

‘Two months ago, in January, the ultra-right extremists who planted the bomb in Piazza Fontana were cleared. Seventeen dead. No culprits. Insufficient evidence.’

‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘The Piazza Fontana massacre was the first in a long series, carried out with the backing of the secret service, whose aim was clearly to destabilise the country.’

‘I know it, you know it, everyone knows it.’

‘That’s all very well. But when they start clearing the names of known killers, authors of such a historically significant massacre, twenty years after the event, the right needs to divert attention while it gets its house in order.’

‘Operation whitewash has been underway for a while. Nothing new there.’

‘Yes, but it’s very much in the news because, after the Piazza Fontana killers in January, it’ll be the turn of the Italicus train killers in September, then those of the Brescia massacre before the year’s out. Same protagonists, the Ordine Nuovo fascists, same victims, same aims. And the same outcomes to the trials: they’ll all be whitewashed. If the farce is repeated too often, it’ll end up by not being funny any more. A distraction has to be found, and immediately. Give the press and public opinion something else to think about.’