Dario Fo - My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)

‘In any case, my advice is not to send this letter by mail: it’s better to hand it over in person.’

‘Why?’

‘What’s wrong with you? Do you trust the mail? In this situation, in the state we’re in, the application might get to Tradate on the day the war ends. And anyway, once you’re actually at the training school, they might take you on there and then!’

At that moment, the trumpet call for grub sounded, and Marco and I went off to the canteen. We managed to find a table in a quiet spot. He confided: ‘You know, ever since they packed us off here to Monza, I’ve been thinking of hightailing it: first, I was thinking of heading for Switzerland, of slipping over the border even if it means getting shot at by the Krauts. But then I discovered that for the last six months the Swiss frontier guards have been tossing people out like old brooms: they won’t let anyone in any more. I even thought of joining the partisans, but after the last round-up, nearly all the groups have retreated above inaccessible peaks, like Alta Val Sesia, beyond the Scopello pass.

‘So we’re like rats in a trap, where the only exit opens on to a void. We’ve no option but to jump and hope that at least the parachute opens!’

‘Our friend Bellosguardo says we should get moving at once.’

‘Yes, and all things considered, it’d be better to post our enlistment applications and take a copy with us, duly stamped by our regiment.’

‘Come on, do you really think the officers are going to endorse our applications?’

‘Well, we have devious ways of making them do what we want.’

‘But the whole thing would be thrown out by the Germans. They’re the real bosses in the camp now, and if everything is not signed and sealed by them, we’re done for.’

‘Exactly, so what then?’

Bellosguardo appeared behind us, and interrupted in his no-nonsense way: ‘Relax, you’re going to get your passes.’

‘But how?’

‘Forge them!’

‘So who’s going to do it?’

The miracle worker gave me a slap on the back: ‘No time for false modesty. I’ve seen how you churn out forged seals and stamps, you’re a real master.’

‘I’ve seen them too. You did some for me!’ Bianchi testified.

‘Not so fast! What you’re talking about were stamps printed on passes for evening leave. No sergeant on guard duty was going to stand there poring over them. But in this case, in addition to our own official ones, I’d also need to forge Wehrmacht stamps, as well as the Krauts’ signatures.’

Marco took me by the shoulder and gave me a shake: ‘My dear boy, look me in the eye. It’s true that if they find we’re hopping it with forged documents, they’ll throw us in jail and put us on trial for attempted desertion. And the chances are that at the next round of reprisals, they’ll put us up against a wall with the other folk they’re going to shoot. So do you think for one moment that if I were not more than certain you could do it, I’d be betting my skin on your abilities as a forger?’

He had me cornered. Bellosguardo got hold of pre-printed forms with our applications already typed out: ‘The undersigned requests transfer to the Parachute School at Tradate…’ etc.

‘Hold on one moment! If I am to reproduce the concentric circles you need for the stamps, I need some metal tops from small and medium-sized jars. Then, obviously, I’m going to need a few original documents, even if they’re out of date, with all the various headings and signatures.’ I set to work, crushed the lead of a copying pencil to a fine dust, added a few drops of alcohol, mixed them together and … hey presto! an excellent forger’s dye.

I took a couple of very fine sable brushes from my box of water colours, and set to work. The first stamp that came out was a mess: my fingers were sweating … I put my hands under cold water and tried again. The second stamp might have done, but it was not yet perfect. At the fifth attempt, I pulled it off: a masterpiece! ‘Better than the original!’ my two satisfied admirers commented.

I could not sleep that night. When finally I managed to drop off, I found myself playing the lead role in a terrifying nightmare. The German guards had uncovered the fraud, had collared us and were dragging us over to a wall. They fired at us with a twenty-bore machine gun, then took us to hospital. We were covered with bullet holes, but still alive. They extracted the bullets, took care of us, gave us treatment and then put us back against the wall and turned the guns on us once again.

The following morning, accompanied by Sergeant Bellosguardo, we turned up at the exit gate where there were both Italian and German guards on duty. Each of the two of us had a light bag. We handed over the documents and the passes. Our guard scarcely gave them a glance before giving the two sheets of paper to his German colleague. At that moment, a car horn started hooting violently: the car belonged to the Komandant, who wanted out. The German guard needed his hands free of the documents, so he handed them back to our duty officer, and rushed to open the gates. The sergeant gave the documents back to us and ran to give him a hand. Bellosguardo pushed us bodily away from the checkpoint. Proceeding like two stupefied robots, we walked on I don’t know for how long, holding the passes tightly between our fingers. When the station was in sight, we were able to relax and look each other in the face. We burst into loud, liberating laughter, exclaiming at the same time: ‘My God, talk about brass neck!’

Then we started to run. It seemed as though we were in a sequence of a comic film by Max Linder: there were never any dead moments. Everything went hell for leather, without a pause. We arrived at the platform, the train for Milan was standing there, we got on and it set off. There was a great crush of passengers, but we found two seats next to two girls who immediately smiled at us as though we were a pair of dandies on holiday instead of a couple of scruffy simpletons. A conversation was struck up, we offered them cigarettes, they took out of their bag a loaf of bread made with flour so dark it looked like rye, and offered us a piece each.

At the Sesto San Giovanni station, we had to change train. There was half an hour to wait. ‘Listen, Marco, I’ll go and post our letters to the Tradate headquarters.’

‘Oh yes, our requests to enlist … they had completely slipped my mind!’

The post boxes were outside the station, on the other side of the piazza. I went out … crossed over … in the middle of the piazza I bumped into a crowd of people. There, in an avenue of plane trees, they were gathered in a circle around a man lying full length on a small grassy patch. He had a sign on his chest: ‘Bandit’. I asked for information and a woman in tears replied: ‘They killed him half an hour ago. They said they surprised him as he was distributing subversive leaflets.’

Someone else added: ‘It seems he was a worker from Breda, a partisan.’ I stood there petrified, observing that dead man with his arms outstretched. His mouth was open as though he were about to cry out.

‘Move, move. On your way!’ A group of the Black Brigades pushed us away from the avenue. I made my way back to the station, sick at heart, my face grey. I found Marco. It took a terrible effort to tell him about the shot partisan. I could not do it. I had continual bouts of vomiting.

Early in the afternoon, we arrived at Tradate. We went up to the castle where both the squadron HQ and the training school were billeted. We handed over our documents to a young officer, who ushered us into a large room.

‘Come forward,’ we were ordered by a medical officer behind a desk, ‘take off your rags and throw them on that bench.’ I found it hard to move: I was still stunned and could not get the image of that appalling act of violence out of my mind. We stood to attention, totally naked, in front of the desk.