The Unseen (6 page)

if one day during a search you told him no don't you lay a hand on me he'd even stop searching you and if while they were searching the cells they found knives they didn't even say a word they didn't even give you a hard time about it any more they'd got used to finding knives in the cells they confiscated them and that was all that was the atmosphere there was there before the revolt there were visits without glass screens the rules said they were to be an hour but they were always two hours to the minute and sometimes even longer if you pushed it and you could have four visits a month plus a special visit that you could have on top and if you didn't have a visit you could make a ten-minute phone call instead

the non-politicals in the specials aren't the non-politicals of the normal prisons they're people who in prison have tried at least once to escape they're all people from the world of big-time crime or important gangs and there you could associate with the non-politicals too you could exercise with them and go and eat with them too all you had to do was apply to go and see them so this amounted to a situation of progressive extension of areas inside the prison there was a state of permanent protest that had its effects on the regulatory structure because the prison is this it's a structure that elaborates the regulation of the body to the maximum and so the fact that this regulation is rearranged corresponds to a shift in the balance of power between prisoners and custody

I soon became aware of the strained and tense atmosphere arising from this situation and underlying the fairground appearance that had been my first impression there'd been a whole series of protests there were protests to stop the guards doing searches every time cells were left for exercise or demands about going to eat in another cell or demands about visits or meetings with lawyers and so on when you mount a protest and for instance when you refuse to be searched there are two outcomes either the administration gives way and as a result you wind up in a much stronger position and that's that or else the administration reacts and then the struggle goes on and the tension rises until there's a confrontation

so there were constant disruptions at exercise people would refuse to go back to the cells and there'd be concerted hammering on the bars of the cell gates and things like that there's always a ceiling when a protest begins if the administration doesn't give in right away you trigger the mechanism of mounting conflict but then there's a ceiling and this ceiling measures the balance of power for example if the prisoners are in the position of power to threaten to take guards hostage then of course the administration yields first because it knows that the prisoners can go as far as taking hostages and the administration usually always yielded there because it was afraid of this that the prisoners would take guards hostage of course you couldn't ask the impossible you couldn't ask them to unlock the cells for you and let you go home but you could push all the time to extend social spaces

and the protests succeeded because they were solid everybody joined in right away without even thinking about it by now the guards no longer took any responsibility the guards reacted on every occasion by passing on decisions to their superior who in turn dumped them on his superior and so on up to the prison governor and he'd take it to the minister which meant whatever you did inside the prison you were never confronting the guards but the strength of your position was such that you ended up dealing directly with the minister with every protest you made and since by now what was at stake was by now always the trigger for a sequence of events leading to taking guards hostage perhaps proceeding merely from the fact that you wanted a blue felt tip pen it was their policy to give way over everything

also because the minister's strategy centred as always on the distinction making that special prison a cooling-down prison let's say at the positive end of the special spectrum while at the other end was a maximum security prison the prison regime is entirely based on this strategy of differentiation with its potential to blackmail you with the threat of a worsening of your conditions with its potential to warn you if you protest watch out or I'll send you to a prison worse than the one you're in now and so the comrades' argument was just because we're well off here it doesn't mean we don't have to make demands but we have to make demands just the same here as well so as to break this blackmail situation that threatens us all with ending up in a prison where we're worse off

8

The first time I met China was during the Cantinone occupation that's where I first saw her China had come round there I'm not sure when and she was helping Gelso with the mural that Gelso had decided to do on the biggest wall she had a big brush and she was dipping it in a bucket of white paint but she was dipping it in too much and the paint was spattering all over the place and it was running down on to the floor I saw what a mess it was and I went over to show her how it should be done but also because I thought she was very pretty and I remember that there's where she gave me that scarf it was that time when I first met her because when I went up to her of course I got a good splash here on my front and she made up for it then by putting her red scarf round my neck it was a really long scarf ankle-length and she told me keep it I'm giving it to you it'll hide the stain

to see how little need there was you only had to look at how I dressed in those days the battle-dress shirt with baggy sweater threadbare at the elbows riddled with holes and with loose unravelled ends the jeans frayed at the hem with a safety pin in place of the zip broken months ago one shoe split at the seams that let the water in when it rained the other had no lace but it held with a permanent knot odd socks one black and one grey and most of all the off-white raincoat that's my second skin all scruffy and dirty so many buttons missing that I always leave it open a tear under the armpit holes in the pockets but stuff always ending up in the lining newspapers leaflets felt-tip pens always the same old rags until they fall apart because it's part of the gamble because we're staking everything and how do you think about clothes when you're betting everything you've got

the morning we occupied the Cantinone we'd got there very early we'd got there very early in the morning it was Saturday morning and the night before while Valeriana and Nocciola were keeping an eye on both ends of the street Cotogno Ortica and I used a hand drill to drill through the big padlock from underneath where the lock is we sprang the chambers and the padlock fell open so that by the following morning it would be all ready and we'd only need to undo the chain then all along the ditch on the other side of the road we placed plastic bags hidden in the brushwood with stones ballbearings and catapults in them not too much because inside the Cantinone there was all kinds of stuff we could use to defend ourselves in case of immediate attack

in the morning at seven prompt as can be we five met at the station and with Ortica's car we drove round the streets where the groups of comrades who were to do the break-in were to be ready and waiting they were all there as planned all armed to the teeth like for demonstrations where you know trouble might flare up scarves gloves berets and everything we undid the chain and we went inside and right behind us came groups of comrades we made a quick inspection inside it was still nearly pitch dark there was no electricity shining a torch inside we saw piles of timber of every size piles of planks and beams it was so big an area the torchlight couldn't reach the far wall but we thought it was lovely

the Cantinone was one wing of an old castle belonging to the Curia the other bits of the castle were occupied by a nursery school run by nuns and an old people's home also run by nuns the wing we were interested in was used at the time by a construction firm to store materials it was a big rectangular building on the ground floor was a single vast hall that was now full of beams and timber on the upper floor there were rooms on the ground floor two rows of columns ran its whole length supporting two high crossed vaults in the centre there was a big main door between two rows of big windows running right along the facade protected by grilles but with no glass and no frames

since everything had gone according to plan one comrade went out to go and give the signal to another group waiting outside that went off to put up posters and hand out the leaflets we'd done to announce the occupation while we inside started forming a chain to clear the Cantinone of the building lumber we carried out everything through the door leading to the yard and we heaped it up there outside the nuns and the old people from the home started looking out of the windows more and more of them they were looking at us in amazement and disbelief perhaps at first they thought we were building workers but they must have doubted it for they saw that there were girls at work there too

nearly an hour goes by then those on guard outside sound the alarm that they're on their way and we all rush out into the street the
carabinieri
are driving up in their two minibuses in no hurry at all and once they pull up opposite the door they stop and get out there would have been ten or so in no hurry and empty-handed the
maresciallo
comes towards us he looks puzzled and Valeriana takes a few steps towards him and tells him it's an occupation and she gives him the leaflet and tells him it's all explained here the
maresciallo
glances at it quickly but then he says he wants to come in and see and he points to the door and makes a move in that direction but at once all the comrades who'd gone outside spontaneously form a tight human barrier we form a wall between him and the main door of the Cantinone

the
maresciallo
looks at us in astonishment more than anything else then he says but you know what you're doing is illegal Cotogno answers yes but there's a lot of us doing it and we're not the only ones occupying round here the
maresciallo
shakes his head and asks and who's in charge here and we answer all of us all of us are in charge here rather abashed the
maresciallo
waves his men away but we don't budge we stay there waiting for them to leave in earnest they all get back on their minibuses they go into reverse and pull away slowly but when they get to the junction one of the two minibuses stays there while the other vanishes then we go back inside and Scilla gets busy setting up a defence team it's sickening what we need is petrol bombs because those guys can come back any moment now and there'd be a slaughter

all this time new people were starting to turn up they came in groups the students who knew all about it already and then the first ones to come out of curiosity workers and unemployed people came who'd seen our posters and the leaflets word had got round and people turned up came in and hung about the place taking a good look round we were explaining why we'd occupied what we wanted to do now and people were talking asking questions more and more people were turning up people I'd never seen before there were children running about the hall and going into the rooms upstairs it was total chaos everywhere then standing to one side we notice three well-dressed guys we hadn't seen coming in grim-faced looking around anxiously and keeping their voices down the word gets round at once the mayor's here

the three come towards us the mayor in the lead a big tall heavy man with a long camel coat nearly down to his ankles and when the mayor opens his mouth the deafening racket stops only the children go on running about the room he comes straight out and asks abruptly who's in charge here you know what you're doing is illegal immediately we all burst out laughing they look around at a loss to understand then the vice-mayor a thin old man with a red face who's also the party secretary lays into us you're provocateurs you've done this tomfoolery to undermine the new left administration this is a provocation there's a whole crowd of people who're not from round here who've come from outside it's a deliberate provocation I've been in politics for forty years and I know provocateurs when I see them

but the mayor takes over again listen kids we've come here to tell you that charges have already been filed against you and legal proceedings are already under way to have you forcibly evicted we promise you we'll withdraw the charge but you must clear out right now and put everything back just as it was and we guarantee that there won't be any legal consequences everybody's jeering and Nocciola steps forward turning to the three of them look there's no question of us leaving here not for a minute the only thing we want here is to go on with this occupation and to achieve what we set out to do which is something you aren't even bothering to find out I don't know if you've got the point the mayor makes a gesture of annoyance he turns round and leaves followed by his retinue

then I don't remember what else happened in the afternoon we also had a visit from the extra-parliamentarians who'd just founded their own party and so had stopped wearing their jeans and anoraks they turned up with the party newspaper sticking out of the pockets of their grey lodens they came up to Cotogno and me their leader got straight to the point what you need to do right away is call a mass meeting to discuss what's to be done this spontaneous movement has to have political leadership first of all we'll have a closed meeting between us and the occupation leaders to decide on the programme we'll get the mass meeting to approve and so on finally they left none too happy but their leader threatened us all mass struggles are doomed if there's no vanguard to lead them you've got no political line and you're dragging the masses to defeat and blablabla and blablabla

9

Well right at the start of the revolt there was pandemonium in the sense that the first word going round was that there are nineteen guards taken hostage and this provoked outright amazement there was incredulity fear and amazement but then at once the general mood rapidly became a mood of great excitement probably because what everyone felt most of all at that moment was the fact of being in control of this space the fact of freedom of movement all over this space and just the simple fact of free movement in a space bigger than the cell you were confined to released this whole general excitement