Dominique Manotti: Escape

Roberto looked out of the window, a big square of blue sky, so blue, so calm. He speaks without turning round.

‘I admire you for your ability to think and rationalise. I have to say that I’m not able to. Not yet. Right now I’m too stunned by Carlo’s death. I feel as though I’m at the bottom of a hole.’

‘Don’t you know the Roma saying? When you’re at the bottom of a hole and sinking, stop digging.’

10 March

It is dark by the time Lisa arrives home, exhausted after a stressful day at work. She had to make up her four days’ absence, four days in mourning. Piles of reports to type, appointments to rearrange, telephone ringing nonstop, no time to think about Carlo, even during the lunch hour. Now, all she wants is a hot shower, a coffee with buttered bread, and bed. She climbs the four flights of stairs puffing, rummages in her bag for her keys, and stumbles over a young man sitting outside her front door, asleep, his head on his arms resting on his knees. Intrigued, she wakes him. He looks up. A shock. In the wan light of the staircase, the photo from the newspaper, the adolescent face of the young hoodlum. She feels her legs buckle. Pushing him aside, she hurriedly puts her key in the lock, opens the door and says to him in Italian: ‘Come in, I need to sit down.’

Lisa sinks into a chair leaving him standing there awkwardly, his eyes widening at the sight of so many books. Two walls are lined with bookshelves, and piles of books are scattered everywhere — on the floor, by the bed, on the furniture. Her eyes closed, her hands covering her face, Lisa takes a moment to regain her composure. To his credit, the boy waits, keeping quiet and showing no sign of impatience. When she opens her eyes again, she looks at him. He looks very young, with tattered clothes, a mobile, elusive face, tousled dark hair. She motions to him to sit in the other armchair facing her. When he is settled, his body rigid and his hands crossed, he says to her: ‘My name is Filippo Zuliani and I’m a friend of Carlo’s.’

‘I know who you are. I’ve read the papers. What are you doing here?’ He takes an envelope from a side pocket on his bag and holds it out to her. She reads her own name, Lisa Biaggi, and her address in Rue de Belleville. With a pang, she recognises Carlo’s handwriting. She does not touch the envelope.

‘So what are you trying to prove to me?’

The kid — because he is a kid — looks disconcerted. He has not anticipated this kind of a reaction. He hesitates and puts the envelope down on the coffee table.

‘You’d better begin at the beginning. Your escape. Why did the two of you escape?’

‘Why?’ His surprise wasn’t an act. ‘Because in prison you’re always trying to escape.’

‘Let’s keep this simple: how? Give me the details, please.’

Filippo pauses. He has been expecting this moment. Carlo had said, ‘Tell Lisa’. Since making the decision to head for Paris, he has replayed the scenes from his story, prepared himself to tell Lisa everything. And now, she is there in front of him. Not the warm, welcoming woman he had imagined. With her fine features, she is beautiful, for sure, but glacial. There is no going back now. He embarks on his story without looking at her, keeping his mind focused on what he is saying.

‘I was Carlo’s cellmate from the day I arrived in prison, seven months ago. I liked him from the start. I don’t know how he felt. Over time, he probably grew to like me. You always end up liking the people who admire you, I think. We used to talk every night, him about Milan, the seventies. I didn’t have much to talk about since I hadn’t had much of a life before prison. In any case, not a life I’m proud of. But he was proud. He refused to join any of the workshops, and he hardly ever came out of our cell. I told him about my work, the day-to-day life of the prison, all the goings-on — it gave me something to talk about, and it entertained him. I was part of the cleaning team, and one of my jobs was to clean the bin room where a big rubbish chute emptied the waste from the whole wing into two big skips. The full skips were collected at the same time every day by a truck. Half an hour after the truck had come by, it was my job to pick up any rubbish that had fallen on the ground while the skips were being hoisted up, then wash down the area. I would tell Carlo about the filth, the heat, the stench. The bin room was tiny, completely closed in by a metal shutter. When the sun beat down on it the waste fermented, and it really stank. But he didn’t give a shit about my working conditions, he was only interested in the width of the rubbish chute. Could a man fit into it? I told him that in my opinion, a man could easily slide down it. From that moment on, the pair of us began to dream. He asked me to find the entrance to the chute, which I located behind the canteen kitchen, on the first floor. Then Carlo signed up for the canteen dishwashing team. I put out feelers to find out what time the trucks came by, but the timing didn’t fit. My shift needed to be half an hour later to coincide with when Carlo was on the dishwashing detail and I was in the bin room. But he told me not to worry, that he’d find a solution on the day. I trusted him, I didn’t ask any questions. My job was to find out the procedure for searching the skips leaving the prison, and I got that information easily. The searches were perfunctory to say the least. Two guards lifted the tarpaulin covering the skip and gave it a quick once-over, and that was it. So we decided to go for it. Carlo set the date. That day, when I went into the bin room, I saw the skips were still full and I knew we were really going to do it. My heart was racing until I heard the trucks turning into the yard, half an hour later than usual. I checked that the chute was in the right position, and before the big main gate opened, I gave the signal by banging five times on the side. Carlo was in the canteen on the first floor, he must have been waiting by the mouth of the chute, and at the signal he dived down it. He shot out into the skip like a cannon ball. The main gate opened, the trucks were about to drive in. I grabbed the top of the skip, did an acrobatic flipover and dived in, landing next to him. We swam down to the bottom of the skip through the rubbish bags. Then, we waited, listened, breathing as shallowly as possible so as not to suffocate. For how long, it’s impossible to say. But not all that long. Then we were tipped out of the skip on to a rubbish dump. That’s it.’ He stopped, apparently exhausted, and finally looked at Lisa. Told like that, it sounded incredibly easy. Another pause. ‘It’s our story, and now I’m telling it for the first time.’

Lisa is moved, exasperated, and suspicious. First of all, she must calm down. She rises, turning her back on Filippo and potters about in the galley kitchen. She never cooks — no room, no time, no desire. But she does have a cupboard with a few emergency supplies. Right now, busying herself affords her a degree of composure and the time to think things through. His story is too polished. Well, he’s had the time to replay the film over and over again, it’s true. She returns with a dish of tortellini in broth, which she sets down on the coffee table in front of him. He pounces on it. Lisa watches him then, when he has finished eating, she says aggressively: ‘Nothing you’ve told me explains how you ended up on my doorstep.’

‘As soon as we were tipped out with all the rubbish, we stood up.’

He pauses for a second, recalling the sudden feeling of panic at finding himself standing on top of that mound of refuse. What the fuck am I doing here? I should never have jumped into that skip . He had felt like crying. He clears his throat: ‘There was a ladder against the wall. On the other side, a car was waiting for us. We lay down side by side on the floor in the back, and the car drove off at speed, over very bumpy roads. I got banged around, and I’m sure Carlo did too. I think I blacked out at times, it’s a bit hazy.’