The Fugitive (18 page)

“If it happened to you, you'd ask me the same thing. You're over fifty, you're starting to be the right age for that sort of thing.” Superstitiously grabbing his nuts, he answered: “You're right, I've spent too much time in jail to become a paralytic. But would you do the same for me?”

“Not a chance!”

“Nice friend you turn out to be. So why should I do it for you?”

“Because you owe me a lot of favors. Want me to refresh your memory?”

“Don't remind me. Okay, you have a deal. How do you want it done? I can't just walk into the hospital and shoot you in the head.”

“No, I've already thought it through,” I answered. “You get yourself some LSD and slip a few tabs under my tongue. That'll take care of it.”

“Acid? That's for druggies, you know I never got involved in that stuff. Listen, here's a better idea, I'll slip a plastic bag over your head . . . ”

“For Christ's sake,” I interrupted him, “are you looking to go to prison? Acid is the best way, they'll just think I had a heart attack. I read about this in a book about forensic medicine.”

“Okay, if you say so, acid it is.”

We shook hands and I kissed his cheek in the standard Italian convict ceremony of a binding promise: “Thanks, you're a pal. Now don't worry about it, I can almost guarantee you that you won't have to do this thing.”

“Let's hope not.” And then he added, “No offense, but you seemed less out-of-your-mind when you were in jail.”

*

I decided to finish my planning for the “event” and end my involvement in the campaign for the pardon at the end of March. I wanted to have at least a month (for the first time in many years) just for myself.

In just three months, over eighteen thousand signatures had been gathered (with a great number of illustrious names), panel discussions had been organized, along with concerts, shows, and television and radio programs. The media, in general, were rooting for the pardon. In brief, things looked good, but everyone also realized that the odds of obtaining an answer before May 13th were slender at best.

In a generally demoralized meeting, the Committees agreed to organize a national moblilization day on March 26th, with the slogan “Forty-Eight Days to Pardon Massimo Carlotto,” a continuation of the campaign even after my imminent arrest, and a general effort to convince me to prepare for another stretch in prison.

At the same time, a campaign to urge me to escape sprang back into life. Among those who came to see me was a group of friends I hadn't seen for years. They begged me to run.

The smart money was on me staying. In Padua, the official odds were against my escaping, and bets were being taken at a good clip. Every so often, I would get a phone call from a stranger asking how things were going with request for a pardon, and advising me not to do anything hasty.

I chose the date of March 26th for my last public appearance. Among the many scheduled gatherings, I chose to attend a performance/happening in a theater in Padua. The main reason I went was so that I could say goodbye to many dear friends, including most of the artists on the bill that night.

Before the actual show, there were a series of speeches. One speech, by a woman named Kissi, of the Milan Committee, gave an eloquent presentation of the anguish experienced by all those who were fighting for my pardon, and who feared that pardon wouldn't come before May. She said:

“I've spent a lot of time thinking about the things that make me feel angry, helpless, and indignant. We are all victims of the government to some degree. I have been waiting for payments from the state for three years now. I no longer seem to have a right to my own health care. And a terrible rage begins to build up. The people who are supposed to look out for you are busy picking your pockets. But these are all marginal issues in my life, or at least I can set them aside. I can ‘tune them out,' if I try. But Carlotto can't ignore his. With any understanding of the terrible things that have happened to him, none of us can feel safe. Who will protect us? To my mind, we can only depend on ourselves, on the ‘voice of the public.'

“Let's band together. Let's step out of the silence of our homes. Let's all raise our voices as one. If you can speak, speak in public. If you can write, you must write. If you can paint, then paint.

“Remember: there are only forty-eight days left to win this pardon. Write, even if you only write letters of outrage to the newspapers. And another thing: Massimo is an unusual convict: no tears, no yelling, no complaints. He is restrained, but most of all, he is intelligent and tenacious, and they hate that. Only if the voice of the public becomes a mighty avalanche will Massimo be safe.

“If he is pardoned, an innocent Massimo Carlotto will nevertheless be considered by the state a guilty man set free, regardless of the facts of his case. This too is a source of outrage for us. The state owes Massimo Carlotto seventeen years of human and civil rights; at least let's try to save his life.”

 

When it was over, I hugged everyone and said goodbye. The next day, I boarded a plane for Cagliari. I intended to stay in Sardinia for about a month, and then come home to spend my last few days with my family.

I had chosen Sardinia because there I would be able to enjoy the company of the sea, the sun, and so many close friends. I still remember my sense of euphoria at the idea that I would finally be able to devote some time to myself, free of court-imposed deadlines. The tension was still palpable, of course, and the days ticked off inexorably, but I had made my decision. I was ready. Let fate take its course. I felt a great wave of peace sweep over me: for the first time, I could look at the world around me. For all those years, I had been witness, suspect, detainee, defendant; and then acquitted, convicted, hunted, imprisoned and released on grounds of illness, re-accused, re-acquitted, re-convicted, re-imprisoned and re-released on grounds of illness. Now I was going to try to get away from all that, try to be something else, perhaps not quite myself but something similar, a little less dehumanized, a little less “Carlotto case.”

I drew up a short list of the books, records, and movies that would keep me company for that month. During the day, I was always alone, but solitude was no longer an enemy; now it was a space within me through which I moved with an unaccustomed lightness, enjoying even the most insignificant things. I spent the nights with my friends, feasting and drinking, rediscovering the fun of laughter, the idle excitement of reckless gossip. I slipped into bed moderately drunk; sleep hurried in and embraced me faithfully till morning.

But I couldn't stave off my past. The dialogue in a book, a scene in a movie, the melody of a song kept taking me back. At first, I tried to resist, but then I let my mind roam free, and it would dig up and fetch even the tiniest, most insignificant memories back to me. I was tired of feeling emotions, and I wandered the paths of memory with a sense of detachment. I no longer even felt like asking questions, seeking answers. From time to time, I wondered if it had been worth suffering for almost half my life.

Dead or pardoned, the Carlotto case was about to come to an end, once and for all, and I decided to celebrate the event appropriately by selecting and honoring the funniest comment on the trial. Not an easy task, considering the number of excellent candidates. In the end, however, the award went to the mother of a friend who said to me, with great empathy and in all seriousness: “Let's hope they let you off . . . at least with a reserved prognosis.”

I sent her a bouquet, with my anonymous gratitude. It was the only thing worth remembering out of the whole affair.

In some ways, I couldn't wait for the moment of truth to arrive; there was something asinine and annoying about the ostensible detachment with which I was approaching the wait that made it unbearable. I found myself mulling over saccharine anecdotes and embroidering on the way certain events had turned out, and how they had influenced my life. All things that had no meaning for me now. But I couldn't resist the temptation to attribute a ritual significance to the wait. I started to hate myself. I told myself that I had never been so obscenely tiresome and quarrelsome, and then I'd try not to be so hard on myself . . . After all, I did have some justification.

 

Wednesday, April 7, 1993. It was a little after eleven when I woke up. The chemical imbalance in my metabolism immediately demanded a shot of nicotine; I dragged myself, dressed in boxer shorts, to the living room, hunting for my cigarettes and my lighter, using my hands, more than my eyes. “Thirty-four days to go,” I thought, but it meant nothing to me, and I shoved the idea aside. I put on my sunglasses and went out onto the balcony to smoke a second cigarette. My elbows propped on the railing, my gaze ranged out, focusing first on the almond grove, then the pond, and then the sea. Every so often, a flock of pink flamingoes would flap into the air. “Looking for food,” I thought, and my appetite awoke. I got dressed and headed downstairs to the pastry shop at a leisurely pace. A glass of iced tea to soothe my throat, scorched from too many cigarettes and too much grappa the night before, then a cappuccino and a few sweet buns. The crumbs dribbled onto the local newspaper spread out on the café table; slowly, to keep from losing my place as I read, I swept them to the edge of the page, letting them fall to the floor.

With the bundle of newspapers under my arm, I walked over to the wine shop, where the proprietor welcomed me with the greeting he reserved for those special customers who appreciated his selection of wines and liquors. The metallic taste in my mouth called for a full-bodied white, with a pungent herby nose, so I chose a sauvignon and a gewürztraminer.

It was warming up; walking in the hot sunshine made me want to head home, but I still needed to drop by the video store to rent a couple of movies for the long afternoon that lay ahead of me.

It was almost one o'clock when I hurriedly opened the front door and rushed to answer the insistently ringing phone. As I grabbed the receiver, I heard the answering machine click on and, before I could say hello, I had to wait for the recorded outgoing message to end.

“This is a message for Massimo Carlotto, this is his lawyer . . .”

I broke in: “Ciao, this is Massimo, is there news?”

“It's done!” he yelled into the phone. “You've been pardoned.”

I hung up after mumbling a few incomprehensible words and sat down on the sofa, trying to feel some emotion, anything. I felt nothing: only my body seemed to have been affected by the news, developing a slight tremor, especially my hands and right leg.

I walked back out onto the balcony and propped my elbows on the railing again, lighting my thousandth cigarette. The almond grove, the pond, the pink flamingoes, and the sea, motionless in the hottest hour of the day, were all testifying their absolute indifference to the positive conclusion of the longest legal proceeding in Italian history.

I stood staring until the cigarette burned down to the end, scorching my fingers. “Maybe I should stop smoking,” I thought to myself, sucking on them to soothe the pain.

It'll snow again this year

in my mind, it's already freezing

autumn used to be good and cozy and warm, but not anymore

all told, this biting cold just makes me feel old . . .

 

 

 

 

The pardon was a sterling development. Now it's all over. I no longer have to defend myself from anyone, and my delirious encounters with persecution and death are safely in the past.

If I want to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes, I no longer have to make sure that I am accompanied by two witnesses and a lawyer to keep from being framed. I just give them a quick phone call to let them know I'm going out.

I never sleep alone. I take a Ray-Ban-wearing plush duck to bed with me. I bought it so Ramón would have company when he comes to see me in my dreams.

In order finally to occupy my time in some socially useful fashion, I planned to found the Society for Veteran Accidental Fugitives (the S.V.A.F.), with a walk-in clinic to help members in trouble. My lawyers paternally advised against the idea; they tell me it would be illegal.

This is a strange country we live in. Veterans of Gladio—Italy's secret, subversive, NATO-sponsored, post-WWII, anti-Communist “stay-behind” army—founded an association and no one put them in prison. Don't try to tell me that an accidental fugitive is capable of more mischief than a deranged patriot who hides assault weapons and TNT in his grandmother's burial vault.

I am struggling with a nasty, obnoxious diet, and the pounds are melting away, perhaps for good.

I must have missed something over the past few years, because everything seems different. Even the borders have changed. Last summer, with my brand new (and most important, authentic) passport, I crossed the borders of half of Europe. I would pull up to the customs station, my body half out of the car window, frantically waving the passport to catch a guard's attention. No one even looked at it; at some of the border crossings, there weren't even guards anymore. I guess I'll have to resign myself to the idea that I did my living on the run during the most difficult part of the postwar years.

People tell me I can finally start a new life. I don't know about that. I look around and I don't like what I see. In fact, it fills me with a healthy dose of anxiety, which inevitably turns into cosmic laziness.

I think I'll wait for Silvia Baraldini to come home from her imprisonment in the United States before dedicating myself to the future.

By the way, we do what we can to help Silvia
2
, sweet unsinkable rebel that she is, but it's never enough. Indignation swells, but it hasn't worked yet. Maybe if we shut down the bakeries of Italy, that would force the government to put its foot down and “demand” that she be brought back home. I can't stop thinking about it. Every day.