Reasonable Doubts (2 page)

“I think so, yes.”

“Did you know the people on the other team?”

“Some of them, not all.”

“Would you please look at the photo again and tell me if you recognize anyone from the other team?”

He took the photo and examined it closely, running his index finger over the faces of the players. “I know this one, but I don’t know his name. I think this one is called Pasquale ... I don’t remember his surname. This one ...”

His expression changed. He looked at me in surprise, then looked at the photo again.

“Do you recognize anyone else?”

“This one ... looks like ...”

“Who does he look like?”

“He looks a bit like that photo ...”

“Do you mean the one you recognized in the album at police headquarters?”

“He looks a bit like him. It’s hard to—”

“It is in fact the same person. Do you remember him now?”

“Yes, it could be him.”

“Now that you’ve remembered him, can you state that the person who played football against your team that evening in August was the same person who took part in the robbery?”

“... I’m not so sure now ... It’s hard to say after so much time.”

“Of course, I realize that. Let me put it another way. When you were robbed and you saw the third man some twenty yards away, did you realize it might be the same person you’d played football against a month earlier?”

“No, how could I? ... It was a long way away ...”

“Precisely, it was a long way away. Thank you, Your Honour, I’ve finished.”

The presiding judge read out the date for the next hearing and as he was telling the bailiff to call another case I turned to look for the Oriental girl. It took a few seconds, because she was no longer where I had seen her at the beginning of the hearing. She was standing very close to the exit, about to leave.

Our eyes met for a few moments. Then she turned and disappeared into the corridors of the courthouse.

2

The telegram arrived two days later. The wording is always more or less the same.

The prisoner, Mr So-and-so, appoints you as his defence counsel, states the number assigned for his court appearance, and asks you to visit him in prison to discuss his situation.

In this case the prisoner’s name was Fabio Paolicelli, he stated the number assigned for his court appearance, and asked me to visit him in prison
urgently
.

Fabio Paolicelli. Who was he? The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. And that bothered me because I’d become convinced lately that I was getting worse at remembering names. I took it as a worrying sign that my mental faculties were deteriorating. Bullshit, of course - I’ve never been good at remembering names, and I had exactly the same problem when I was twenty. But once you’re past forty you start to think all kinds of stupid things, and quite insignificant phenomena become symptoms of impending old age.

Anyway, I racked my brains for a few minutes and then gave up. I’d find out if I really knew the guy soon enough, when I went to see him in prison.

I called Maria Teresa and asked her if we had any appointments for the afternoon. She told me we were waiting for Signor Abbaticchio, but that he’d be coming late, just before we closed.

So, seeing as it was four o’clock on a Thursday, and seeing as it’s possible to visit clients in prison until six o’clock on Thursdays, and especially seeing as I didn’t feel in the mood to start studying the files for the following day’s hearings, I decided to make the acquaintance of Signor Fabio Paolicelli, who wanted to see me
urgently
. That way, the afternoon wouldn’t be wasted. Not completely, anyway.

For some months now, I’d been riding a bicycle. Since Margherita had left I’d made a few changes in my life. I didn’t really know why, but making these changes had helped me. Among them was the purchase of a nice, old-fashioned black bicycle, without gears, which would have been no use in the streets of Bari anyway. To cut a long story short, I’d stopped using my car and I liked it. I’d started by cycling to the courthouse, then I’d taken to cycling to the prison, which is further, and in the end I’d even stopped using the car to go out in the evenings, seeing as usually, wherever I went, I went alone.

It can be dangerous going around Bari by bike: there are no bicycle lanes, and motorists regard you as nothing more than a nuisance. But you get everywhere much quicker than by car. And so, a quarter of an hour later, somewhat chilled, I was at the main gate of the prison.

The sergeant in charge of the checkpoint that afternoon was new and didn’t know me. So he did everything according to the book. He examined my papers, took away my mobile phone, cross-checked my name. In the end he let me in, and I went through the usual series of steel doors which opened and closed as I passed, until I got to the lawyers’ room. Which was the same as ever - as welcoming as the reception area of a provincial morgue.

They weren’t in any hurry, and by the time my new client
arrived - at least a quarter of an hour later-I was thinking of setting fire to the table or a couple of chairs, to warm myself up and draw attention to myself.

I recognized him as soon as he came in, even though I hadn’t seen him for more than twenty-five years.

Fabio Paolicelli, known as Fabio Rayban. We called him that because he always wore sunglasses, even at night. That was why I hadn’t immediately recognized the name. For me, for everyone, he had always been Fabio Rayban.

It was the Seventies, which I remember as one long black-and-white TV news broadcast. The first images I have of that time are of the Piazza Fontana just after the bomb. I was seven years old, but I remember it all very well: the photos in the newspapers, the filmed reports on television, the conversations at home between my parents and friends who came to see them.

One afternoon - it may have been the day after the attack - I asked my grandpa Guido why they’d planted that bomb, if we were at war, and with what country. He looked at me and said nothing. It was the only time he couldn’t answer one of my questions.

I remember almost all the important events of those years. I remember the faces of young men, the same age as us, gradually starting to appear on TV news broadcasts.

In those days I associated sporadically, without a great deal of conviction, with a number of far-left groups.

Fabio Rayban, on the other hand, was a Fascist thug.

Maybe more than just a thug. A lot of stories circulated about him, and others like him. Stories about armed robberies done for the sake of a daring gesture. About military camps in the remotest areas of the Murgia, attended by dubious characters from the armed forces and the secret services.
About so-called Aryan celebrations in luxurious villas on the outskirts of town. But the thing you heard most often about Rayban was that he had been part of the paramilitary squad that had stabbed to death an eighteen-year-old Communist who suffered from polio.

After a long trial, one of the Fascists was found guilty of the murder and then, very conveniently, killed himself in prison. Killing at the same time any possibility of identifying the others responsible.

In the days following the murder, Bari was filled with tear-gas smoke, the acrid smell of burnt cars, the sound of running footsteps on deserted pavements. Metal balls shattering windows. Sirens and blue flashing lights shattering the grey stillness of those late-November afternoons.

The Fascists were well organized. Just like criminals. They settled political arguments with iron rods, chains and knives. Sometimes guns, too. You just had to walk along the Via Sparano, in the vicinity of the church of San Ferdinando - an area considered a
black zone
- carrying the wrong newspaper or the wrong book, or even wearing the wrong clothes, and you ran the risk of beating beaten up.

And that’s what happened to me.

I was fourteen and always wore a green anorak that I was very proud of. One afternoon I was strolling in the middle of town with two of my friends - the three of us little more than children - when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded. They were only sixteen, seventeen, but to us they were men. At that age two years’ difference is a lifetime.

One of them was a tall, thin, fair-haired guy, with a face like David Bowie. He wore Ray-Bans, even though it was already dark. When he smiled, through thin lips, my blood ran cold.

A short, very sturdy-looking guy with a broken incisor approached me and told me I was a Red bastard and I should take off that fucking anorak immediately, or they might think of giving me what I deserved: the castor oil treatment.

In the mindless terror of that moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. Until then I’d never heard of the Fascist custom of pouring castor oil down their opponents’ throats.

My friend Roberto peed himself. And I don’t mean metaphorically. I saw the liquid stain spread over his discoloured jeans. In a thin voice, I asked why I had to take off my anorak. The short guy slapped me very hard between my cheek and my ear.

“Take it off,
comrade
.”

I was terrified and felt like crying, but I didn’t take off my anorak. Trying desperately to hold back my tears, I again asked why. The guy slapped me again, then punched me, then kicked me, then punched and slapped me some more. People passing by looked away.

I was on the ground, curled up to protect myself from the blows, when someone made them run away.

What happened next is clearer and more vivid in my memory.

A man helps me to my feet and asks me in a strong local accent if I want to go to casualty. I say no, I want to go home. I have my house keys, I add, as if he’d be interested, or as if it meant anything to him.

I walk away, and my friends aren’t there any more, and I don’t know when they disappeared. On the way home, I start crying. Not so much because of the pain I’m still feeling, but because of the humiliation and the fear. Few things leave such a strong impression as humiliation and fear.

Fucking Fascists.

And as I cry, and blow my nose, I say to myself out loud that despite everything I didn’t take off my anorak. This thought makes me stiffen my spine and stop crying. I didn’t take off my anorak, you fucking Fascists. And I remember your faces.

One day I’ll get my own back on you.

When Paolicelli entered the lawyers’ room, it all came back to me, in a rush. Like a sudden violent gust of wind that throws the windows wide open, causes the doors to slam, and scatters papers.

He held out his hand, and I hesitated for a moment before shaking it. I wondered if he noticed. Memories - vague things, noises, boys’ voices, girls’ voices, smells, cries of fear, songs by Inti-Illimani, the face of someone whose name I couldn’t remember and who’d died of an overdose in the school toilets at the age of seventeen - crowded into my head like creatures suddenly released from a spell that has been keeping them prisoner in the basements or the attics of memory.

It was obvious he didn’t remember me.

I waited a few moments, in order not to be too abrupt, before asking him why he had appointed me and why he was inside.

“They arrested me a year and a half ago for cross-border drug trafficking. I opted for the fast-track procedure in court and was given sixteen years, plus a fine so huge I can’t even remember what it was.”

You deserved it, you Fascist. You’re paying the price now for all the things you did then.

“I was on my way back from a holiday in Montenegro. At the harbour in Bari the customs police were doing random checks on cars. They had dogs with them to sniff out drugs. When they got to my car the dogs seemed to go crazy. The customs police took me to their barracks and dismantled the car, and under the bodyshell they found forty kilos of high-quality cocaine.”

Forty kilos of high-quality cocaine was certainly enough to justify the sentence he’d received, even with the fast-track procedure. But I didn’t believe that the customs police had been doing random checks. Someone had tipped them off that a courier was bringing in a consignment, and they’d acted by the book in making it look as if the check was random. In order not to blow their informant’s cover.

“The drugs weren’t mine.” Paolicelli’s words broke into my thoughts.

“What do you mean, they weren’t yours? Was there someone else in the car with you?”

“My wife and daughter were with me. We were on our way back from a week’s holiday by the sea. And the drugs weren’t mine. I don’t know who put them there.”

So that’s it, I thought. He’s ashamed that he was carrying the drugs in the same car where his wife and daughter were travelling. Typical of you Fascists: you’re not even capable of being criminals with any dignity.

“I’m sorry, Paolicelli, but how could someone have planted those drugs without you knowing? I mean, we’re talking about forty kilos, quite a lot to pack under the bodyshell of a car. I’m no expert on these things, but that must have taken time. Did you lend the car to anyone in Montenegro?”