The Italian Divide (6 page)

It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault that she had to answer her phone. She had even tried to help him by giving him information about Federico. Craig had been unfair. Apparently all of his racing success had gone to his head. He wasn’t the same person she found so appealing in the past. He was no longer the man she wanted.

To hell with Craig. She thought wryly of the lyrics to an old song, “Got along without ya before I met you, gonna get along without ya now.”

She took out her phone and called Jean Louis, the reporter she had assigned to Federico’s robbery and killing.

“No information,” he told her. “The police have no leads.”

Good, she thought. We’ll see if that self-important, big-shot celebrity Craig Page can find out anything.

Ten minutes before the start of Parelli’s speech, all of the seats were taken. Crowds were standing in the back and on the sides of the square. They were both the old and the young, Elizabeth noticed. Men with children on their shoulders. Hundreds carried placards and chanted Parelli! Parelli! Parelli!”

It was a loud boisterous crowd. Dusk was approaching. Incandescent flood lights were turned on.

Parelli made his appearance to a loud, tumultuous, cheering crowd promptly at nine o’clock. The mayor of Venice introduced those on the platform, local politicians who had taken a place on the New Italy Party slate of candidates. Then he began a long laudatory introduction of Roberto Parelli.

Elizabeth studied Parelli, sitting on the platform, smiling and looking calm and relaxed, his hands folded neatly on his lap. His thick hair, still brown with only a sprinkling of gray at the temples despite his age of 71, spilled onto his forehead. He was wearing a gray suit that looked expensive. It was perfectly tailored to his body. To Elizabeth, who had covered lots of politicians over the years, the word charisma seemed apt.

Moments later, Parelli began speaking. Elizabeth was taking notes on her computer.

“Thank you all for coming.” The title for my speech this evening is “History is Change.”

“In 1861 Garibaldi and his followers created the present Italy. In a remarkable political feat, they fused together disparate people with little in common into a powerful nation state. In fact, prior to then, southern Italy had been a united kingdom by itself from the time the Normans seized the land from the Arabs in 1061.

“I have great admiration for Garibaldi. What he did was right for the time. But history is change. And political entities are constantly in flux.

“We recall with pride the Roman Empire. That was a glorious time with all of Europe joined under the banner of Rome. But it didn’t last forever.”

Elizabeth observed that the crowd was deathly still. People were hanging onto every word.

Elizabeth was, as well.

Suddenly she heard a commotion at one entrance to the square. About twenty protestors carrying signs that read: “No Parelli—Yes Italy” were trying to force their way into the square. They were shouting through bullhorns, “No Parelli! No Parelli!”

Parelli stopped speaking. Elizabeth saw him looking in the direction of the protestors. About two-dozen policemen swinging truncheons converged on the protestors. The scene exploded into violence. Policemen were pounding protestors in the head. Police vans roared into the area. The police were trying to overcome the protestors to get them into the van, but it was proving difficult. The protestors were throwing rocks.

Elizabeth thought about what she should do. Stay and hear the rest of Parelli’s speech, or race over to cover the scuffle between the police and the protestors. Where was the better story?

Her reporter’s instinct told her she’d gotten the drift of what Parelli had to say; if she could interview a couple of protestors and learn what was motivating them, they might enhance her story.

But the problem was that she found Parelli mesmerizing. She felt like Parelli was talking directly to her. And she imagined that others in the crowd felt that same way. She couldn’t leave.

A few minutes later, protestors were taken away and silence reigned again in San Marco Square. Parelli resumed talking. “Here in Italy, democracy is a wonderful thing. But sometimes people misuse the democratic process. So my friends, let me return to my speech.

“In the year 410, barbarians from the north conquered and looted Rome. From that point until the unification in 1861, the land we know as Italy went through an enormous number of changes as one group and then another took control of different portions. These included Arabs, Lombards, French, and Austrians.

“However, through fourteen centuries there was one constant. Southern Italy was part of a separate political entity from the north. The border between the north and the south shifted from time to time, but it was not until 1861 when Italy was unified that north and south were joined.

“This is critical. Our history and our heritage in the north are different from that of people in the south.

“Now let’s turn to our current situation in Italy. Geographically, our boundaries are essentially the same as they were in 1861. However, politically, our system is dysfunctional. Economically, we are a disaster.

“The world is changing. We have to change also.

“Globalization is killing us in Italy. Our small companies operated by skilled artisans, the makers of shoes, bags, clothing, pianos, and hundreds of other high quality items, can no longer compete because of prices on the world market. So they are going out of business.

“As a nation, we are hugely in debt. Last year it was over 130 percent of GDP, gross domestic product. And our current GDP is what it was in 1997. In other words, our economy refuses to grow.

“In northern Italy, we have so many talented and energetic people. We should be rivaling Germany as an economic powerhouse in Europe. Yet we are barely able to pay our bills.

“The reason is simple. Southern Italy is a drain on the north.

“I have thought long and hard about our economic and political situation and decided it is now time for another change in the map.

“It is time to divide Italy into one nation in the northern part of the present country. And another in the south.”

The crowd was on its feet cheering wildly. This was Parelli’s platform. What they came to hear. What they wanted.

Raising his voice over the crowd, Parelli shouted, “Our two economies have vast differences. Together we are not operating effectively. Divided into two, I believe we will each be able to capitalize on our respective strengths.

“We can achieve this result through the election in September. I promise that if you vote for my New Italy Party and we achieve a dominant position in parliament and in the government, I will divide Italy into two nations of the North and the South.”

He stopped talking. The crowd was on its feet again giving him a standing ovation and chanting his name.

Elizabeth tuned out the noise and thought about what Parelli had said. She had been following separatist movements in Spain, one by the Basques and the other in Catalonia. There had been others in Europe as well—in Scotland and, historically, Norway and Sweden had split. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia had divided into three and two parts respectively. She wondered if Parelli had gotten his idea from them.

Regardless of the source of his views, although she wasn’t Italian, and indeed she was still a US citizen, she found Parelli’s proposal abhorrent. To be sure, the Italian economy was going through a rough patch, but so were the economies of lots of other countries. As for its dysfunctional political system, the same could be said about the United States.

With all of that, Italy was a great country. Dividing it was absurd. There was also a practical question of where to make the split.

Then she thought about the demographics of the country and the vote in the upcoming election. She would have expected all southerners to hate Parelli’s program and vote against it. They would lose the support of the national government. Surprisingly, Carlo had told her that the mafia and the church were giving Parelli support. In addition, more northerners than southerners voted, and the vast majority supported Parelli. If he won, Parelli could achieve his aim.

As a journalist, she knew she should be unbiased. That was the theory of her profession. In reality, she was so opposed to Parelli’s program that she’d love to find a way to stop him with her pen.

After his speech, Parelli was mobbed by supporters and the media. Elizabeth hung back and watched him bask in the glow of adoration.

*     *     *

It was almost midnight when she entered the Palace Hotel, rode up in the elevator to the fourth floor, and knocked on the door to 401.

She heard a man shout, “Come in,” through the closed door.

She twisted the brass knob and pushed the wooden door in. She found herself in the large living room of a suite, furnished tastefully in heavy wooden furniture.

The scene was somewhat between disarray and chaos. Elizabeth counted ten people in the room: six men, jackets off, and four women, most with shoes off. Some were talking on the phone. Others were reading papers. Televisions were blasting with different stations. Food and bottles of wine, soda, and scotch were on the tables. Clothes, plates, glasses, and papers were strewn around.

On either side of the living room were closed doors. They must have led to bedrooms, Elizabeth guessed. It all reminded her of political campaigns in the United States that she had covered when she was working for the
New York Tribune
.

As she stood looking around, trying to decide which of the men was Luciano, no one paid any attention to her.

She noticed the door to one of the bedrooms opening. A tall Chinese man dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and tie came out and closed the door behind him. Elizabeth had no idea who he was, but her reporter’s instinct told her he might be important.

She whipped out her phone and pretended to make a call. It was a good cover while she took his picture.

Without glancing at her, he walked past and left the suite.

She waited until the door closed to approach the oldest looking man in the living room. He was seated at a table sipping water, she guessed, judging from the bottle of Pellegrino on the table and the clear liquid in his glass.

He had on a short sleeved, dark blue shirt, open at the neck and half unbuttoned to reveal curly gray hair. His eyes had a tired and sad look. His thick head of gray hair was ruffled, his face pale. He’s not a well man, Elizabeth guessed.

“Are you Luciano?” she asked.

“What do you want?” he replied in a hoarse voice.

“I’m Elizabeth Crowder, Foreign News Editor of the
International Herald
. My friend Carlo Fanti from
Italy Today
suggested I talk to you. I want to interview Mr. Parelli.”

She took a card from her bag and handed it to Luciano.

He studied it and stood up, looking angry and annoyed. He raised his hand, which Elizabeth noticed was shaking. “It’s too late for journalists to come knocking on doors. Besides, you should call first. Perhaps in France you people have no sense about these things. Here we do.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m doing an article on Mr. Parelli’s speech tonight, which I attended. We have influential international readers. The exposure will be good for him.”

“It’s too late for an interview. I told you that.”

“How about tomorrow morning?”

“Impossible. He’s committed.”

“Then when?”

Luciano was scowling. He was angry about something, Elizabeth thought. It can’t be me. Maybe it had to do with the Chinese man. Luciano hadn’t stood up or made an effort to see him to the door. It didn’t make sense for Parelli’s top advisor to behave this way with a foreign visitor.

Luciano took a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “It has my cell and office number at campaign headquarters. Call me sometime. I’ll try to arrange an interview.”

At that moment, the front door to the suite opened, and a man in his twenties entered. He was accompanied by a young woman about the same age with long black hair, a low cut magenta dress that revealed a generous bosom, and a black lace shawl over bare shoulders. Her face was heavily made up.

Luciano had a furious look on his face. He grabbed the man by the arm. “I told you no, Nene. Don’t you understand anything?”

Elizabeth glanced at the woman who looked flustered.

“Mr. Parelli is the boss,” Nene replied defiantly.

Nene pulled his arm away from Luciano. With the woman in tow, he pushed past the gray haired political advisor toward the closed door through which the Chinese man had come.

The young man knocked on the door. It opened. Elizabeth saw Parelli standing inside the bedroom in a shirt and slacks. He was looking at the woman.

“Thanks, Nene,” Parelli said.

Nene gave the woman a shove into the bedroom. Parelli closed the door behind her, and Nene retreated to a corner of the living room where he poured a glass of wine and ignored the glowering Luciano.

Elizabeth left the suite, rode down in the elevator, and exited through the lobby. In the building next door along the Grand Canal, she saw a bar. She sat down at a table that gave her a view of the front of the Palace Hotel and ordered a bottle of Pellegrino.

After an hour, when the black haired woman hadn’t left the hotel, Elizabeth was beginning to believe that she was wasting her time. It seemed the woman would be spending the night with Parelli.

Elizabeth was on the verge of paying the bill and leaving when she saw the woman come through the revolving door of the hotel. She placed twenty euros on the table, sprang up, and confronted the woman in front of the hotel.

“Excuse me, Signora,” Elizabeth said. “I’m staying at the Grand Hotel next door. Perhaps you can spend a little time with me.”