The Unseen (26 page)

and then his comrades discussed what's to be done and if the guy really does come to the exercise yard tomorrow they really do have to kill him otherwise he'll stay there and it'll blow over and besides in the end word would get round all the prisons and it would get known that this guy that they regard as a bastard is having exercise with them in their yard quite undisturbed and so the next day this guy does in fact turn up in the exercise yard the comrades had a blade but they decided not to knife him but to strangle him with knotted shoelaces they'd woven a cord from shoelaces and then right on time he turned up in the exercise yard as on the day before he'd had himself taken into the section where the comrades were and he knew that they were going to kill him and he was there waiting for them to kill him

and in fact they put him against the wall and they put this cord of shoelaces around his neck and he didn't put up the slightest resistance he didn't say a thing he didn't struggle at all he didn't move he let them go ahead he let them put the cord around his throat when one comrade started pulling the cord around his neck the last thing he said was no not like this the guy who was pulling it was a friend of his he said no not like this I beg you use the blade do it with the blade and the guy kept on pulling the cord and by now the other one was turning blue he was purple he was quite purple his eyes popping out of their sockets he was gradually suffocating because the whole thing was taking a long time then slowly he fell to his knees

then suddenly the cord broke the cord made of shoelaces broke all of a sudden and the guy pulling it was left standing there with the broken cord in his hand and by then the guards who'd followed everything from their booth on the closed circuit cameras had rushed up and this guy on his knees stayed there huddled there on the ground they could have gone ahead and killed him with their bare hands he wouldn't have put up a fight but they left him there they all looked horrified the guards arrived with their dogs with their helmets pulled down their truncheons their shields this guy was there huddled on the ground half-conscious but his body was jerking I don't know he was coughing he was trying to get his breath there was froth coming out of his mouth then he vomited I don't know but what a fucking shitty business I was watching what a shitty business I'm telling you about

only the story wasn't over there because after the guards took him away and as soon as he recovered this guy was talking from the window of his cell to the guys in the next cell saying tomorrow I'm going down again tomorrow I'm going down and they were saying but the guards won't put you with us again and he was saying I've tried to kill myself but I can't kill myself you have to kill me and so in the end he went down to the exercise yard the next day too but the next day that friend of his had arrived the one he denounced along with the others the guy went down to the exercise yard and the guards naturally put him on his own the guards were very tense for these weren't nice things to see and when they see scenes like this they tell themselves they're dealing with murderers people who'll kill at the drop of a hat they become even surer of this

his friend arrived he'd heard about what had happened in the exercise yard and then the first thing he did was he went up to the gate the other guy was at the next gate and by wriggling their heads through they were able to speak face to face the first one went over there wriggled his head outside and started talking to the other one and this action led to a certain amount of embarrassment among their comrades however the last thing they could do was set upon that guy who was much too impeccable a comrade much too blameless just for having said something to him and the guy didn't just make this gesture but then he also took off a ring he took a ring off his finger and gave it to him through the gate the guy had denounced him but they were friends they'd been friends since childhood

then the next day this guy still talking through the cell window told his comrades that he planned to call the investigating judge and attack him and so he asked them to give him a primus stove so that he could make a skewer and then the comrades told him okay but don't imagine that if you do this your problems are over if you want to do this do it but it doesn't change a thing the blood of a judge won't wash away your problems this is exactly what they said the blood of a judge won't wash away your problems however at the same time they gave him the primus stove and he'd made the skewer he sent for the judge to whom he'd made the statements and the judge came probably thinking that he had more statements to make and in the visiting room he managed to stab him in the arm after which the guards intervened and put a stop to it

44

A few days before the start of the trial Gelso and Ortica arrived in this block too I was very excited about them coming because it had been so long since I'd seen them Gelso had been arrested at the same time as I'd been arrested but right away he'd been put in a special even further south and in all this time I'd had no more news of him whereas Ortica had only been arrested a few months before and he'd ended up in the same special as Gelso I was very excited and emotional about seeing my comrades again through the spy-hole I saw them arrive at the end of the corridor surrounded by guards Ortica was loaded down with rucksacks Gelso carried nothing at first I didn't even recognize him he was very thin short hair no glasses he looked straight ahead without returning the greetings from the spy-holes of the cells

then I called to them and Ortica heard immediately he knew who I was even though he couldn't see me because the guards were putting them in a cell quite far from mine I heard Ortica's voice calling to me saying where are you then pressing my face to the spy-hole I saw him for an instant in the middle of the corridor waving to me in greeting as a guard was pulling him back by the other arm as soon as they'd locked them in I called the sergeant and told him they were my co-defendants and that they were there for the same trial as me and I immediately put in a written request to have them come into the cell where I was on my own the sergeant told me that he would take it to the administration and that maybe the cell transfer could be made that same evening

meanwhile right away I set about preparing supper for Gelso and Ortica I didn't have much stuff in my cell I called the working prisoner and sent him to other cells to get things for me wine in particular meanwhile I swept the floor and I also washed it with a rag I lifted the mattress off its base because were was no table in the cell just a bit of metal shelving fixed to the wall when the working prisoner came back he brought me three plastic mineral water bottles with a quarter of red wine in them which is the way they sell them to us and other food which didn't amount to much so I was at a bit of a loss because I wanted to make a nice supper for my friends

and then I thought of making a dessert in my cell I had two packets of instant pudding I made two puddings a chocolate one and a vanilla one heating the milk in a saucepan on the stove and then I put them on the window sill to cool down in two plastic bowls I made coffee and mashed up some dry biscuits in it and then I layered the pudding and the biscuits on a plate I beat up the white of an egg with some castor sugar to whip it into a white cream that I put on top and on the bed base I put a clean white sheet then I unscrewed the gas stove and round it I wound a cone of tin foil so that the flame came out like a candle

I put out the light and I was setting the table when the guard opened the armoured door and let in Ortica but Gelso wasn't there and Ortica told me he'd explain later we hugged one another and as soon as the guards had left he told me that Gelso was sick he was sick in the head he'd been ill for a good while already prison was too much for him to begin with all he talked about was escaping and then he stopped talking altogether he no longer seemed to recognize people he no longer wanted to talk to anybody and then during exercise time he also started going around the courtyard on all fours growling and making faces like a crazy man muttering that if he was a dog they'd let him out

to start with I'd cut some bread with slices of salami and some mayonnaise we started eating and Ortica started telling me about Scilla I'd already heard the story a rumour was going round but I hadn't believed it what they were saying seemed impossible that Scilla had become a spy a police informer who'd betrayed his comrades even though I'd never liked him but Ortica told me that by now all the comrades outside were convinced that Scilla had turned informer to the
carabinieri
that he'd had a whole lot of comrades arrested it had all started when the
carabinieri
had carried out a search on him and maybe because they found arms on him or whatever nobody's sure exactly how the fact is that they took him to the barracks and he stayed in the barracks for a whole day and then they released him during the night

Scilla had explained this business telling his comrades that the
carabinieri
had spent the whole day threatening him but had to let him go because they had no evidence the comrades had believed this they were even pleased because nothing had come of it but nobody had even the slightest suspicion it didn't occur to them that that was the start of a collaboration with the
carabinieri
Scilla was quite above suspicion everybody would have staked their lives on his honesty yet the fact was that when the
carabinieri
asked him to collaborate he agreed and they released him and shortly after this there was the ambush and death of Cotogno and then once he'd denounced all his comrades Scilla disappears nobody knows maybe they gave him a passport and money and he's vanished abroad

Ortica brought direct proof that Scilla was to blame for Cotogno's death from Valeriana who he'd met shortly before being arrested he'd run into Valeriana outside a chemist's shop it was a while since he'd seen her and hardly recognized her he'd heard that she'd become a junkie but he was really shocked when he saw what a state she was in clearly that day she was going through withdrawal because she couldn't get her hands on any stuff I can't tell you what a mess she was in Ortica told me she was crying and screaming she was outside the chemist's screaming help me nobody will give me any methadone I've gone round all the chemists in all the villages nobody will give me any methadone none of these bastards these shit pharmacists I'll kill the lot of them I feel rotten I'm going crazy

it was another week before I saw her again then one day she was waiting for me in the street outside my house she was dressed like the time before with the same black woollen cap pulled down over her forehead she asked me if I could find her some money because she owed Nocciola a million lire Nocciola had become the local pusher this was something else I found out from Ortica Valeriana had been selling heroin for him but she'd spent all the money on her own habit in short she was in real trouble and there was nobody else to turn to any more she was in debt all over the place she talked without stopping saying that she wanted to kick it that now she was taking methadone because she wanted to kick it but first she had to sort out the debt with Nocciola

she wasn't afraid of him so much as of his crowd of friends who were the sort to come down hard on people who didn't pay they'd already threatened her and Nocciola had kept out of it he'd washed his hands of it and he'd no doubt let his friends go ahead we went into a bar she took off her anorak but she kept on the woollen cap it seemed stuck to her head to her hair do you remember what nice hair she had long and blond now it was falling over her shoulders in sticky dirty clumps her face was sweating and yellowish her eyes sunken and circled with shadows so deep that they looked like furrows she talked non-stop all the time running her nails up and down the sides of her velvet trousers

it was that time in the bar that Valeriana told Ortica about Cotogno's death they'd arranged to meet in the flat where we'd had that famous meeting Cotogno had told Valeriana before going that he had an appointment with Scilla but Scilla didn't go to the appointment the
carabinieri
went instead they came into the flat shooting obviously they wanted revenge for the
carabiniere
who'd recently been killed and it was just then that Scilla went out of circulation and there was a series of arrests all comrades who'd been connected with Scilla and finally Ortica too he'd never had anything to do with Scilla's affairs but it was probably because Scilla hated him

we ate the rice salad that I'd scraped together and some tinned sardines Ortica told me that nobody had had any news of China for some time now she'd completely vanished into thin air the last time he'd seen her was at the centre when they were doing test runs on the radio I preferred not to talk about China we ate the pudding it was disgusting then Ortica grinned and from his jeans pockets he pulled out a pellet of dope he looked at it against the light saying can you imagine the lengths I had to go to to get it in here we sat down on the mattress and we made a joint the dope was really good and we both started laughing Ortica's laughter got louder and louder he was laughing like a madman tears came into his eyes

tomorrow we've got the trial do you realize tomorrow they'll take us over there and they'll give us a nice trial I haven't got the least idea do you have any idea what we're going to say to them he stopped laughing though without altering his expression his face was set in a grimace I said whatever it is they'll give us all a heavy sentence all the same whatever we go there and tell them or don't tell them the candle flame from the stove was going down gradually the little gas cylinder for the stove got weaker until it went out completely now I could hardly see Ortica there in the darkness I spoke to him I ask myself sometimes now that it's all over I ask myself what did it all mean this story of ours what was the meaning of all we did what did we achieve with everything we did he said I don't believe it matters that it's all over but I believe what matters is that we did what we did and that we think it was right to do it I believe this is the only thing that matters