The Goodbye Kiss (2 page)

    That's
how I spent seven years. Almost without realizing it. Everything ended when
Elsa unexpectedly came behind the bar and found me in the arms of a German
broad. I don't remember her name, not even her face, but she was a very important
pussy in my life. That fuck suddenly took away everything I had. The next
morning I hightailed it from the hotel, bag in hand, and did a quick
disappearing act. All through the night Elsa played the role of the betrayed
benefactress; one way or another she was going to take revenge. A hell of a
woman, but when she got pissed off, she lost her head. I had just enough time
to steal the passport of a guest from Alicante who bore a faint resemblance to
me. I dropped by a forger who used to hang out at the bar, had him substitute
my photo and grabbed a direct flight to Paris. When I arrived at the airport, I
thought of going to live in Mexico. It struck me as the most logical move. Then
a trio of Air France stewardesses crossed my path. I stopped to check them out.
And as I was admiring their asses, I decided to give my life a new twist. It
was just a hunch, but enough to make me change my escape route despite the
warrant that dogged my trail for more than ten years now. On the flight the
hunch took shape, turned into a rock-solid decision, then into a well-defined
plan, and when I sailed through customs, I hit the nearest pay phone. It wasn't
easy to track down the person I was looking for, but in the end I got hold of
him. He was surprised to hear from me after so long, and he wasted no time to
ask if I was in a jam. I sighed and answered I had to see him on the double.

    We
met around lunchtime in a brasserie near the Gobelins metro stop. I got there
early and passed the time watching people come and go.

    "Enrico,
why d'you come back? What happened? Where's Luca?" he blurted, even before
taking off his jacket. My immediate supervisor during the Parisian exile, he
was using our noms de guerre. His real name was Gianni, but in the organization
he was known as Sergio. He'd always been an intermediate cadre, carving out a
career in France only because the bigwigs all got jailed in Italy. I looked him
over. He had a peasant's face, and his hands were dirty with grease. Worked in
some sort of factory. His life was waking at five in the morning to drag his
class consciousness to the plant.

    "Luca
died a few years ago," I announced. "They caught him playing hide the
salami with a captured official and laid him out."

    "Are
you shittin' me?"

    I did
nothing but stare at him.

    "What
about you?" he asked in a whisper.

    "I
fucking got fed up and came back."

    Sergio
bit into his sandwich, taking a moment to think. He chewed slowly and gulped
down half a glass of red wine. To him I was nothing more than a pain in the
ass, and it was his job to take care of the problem.

    "What
do you figure you'll do?"

    The
time had come to play my hand. "I'm heading back to Italy. I'm going to
cooperate with the authorities and turn a new leaf."

    He
went white as a ghost. "You can't. We've already been wiped out by the
turncoats. We shut down years ago, Enrico. The organization doesn't exist
anymore, it's finito. The armed struggle is over."

    "Then
there's no problem," I cut him short.

    "No,
you know about too many comrades who were never ID'd. People who lead normal
lives today. They don't deserve to end up in the slammer."

    I
shrugged. If I was in his shoes, I would've snarled and hissed a death threat.
But he just winced. "What's happened to you?" he asked, running a
hand over his face.

    "I'm
fed up with this shitty business," I shot back. "I don't have the
slightest intention of spending the rest of my life in exile, every day risking
jail for a stupid fucking night watchman and a few flyers."

    Sergio
tried one last appeal-to values and ideals. I waved him off. "Find a
solution, Gianni," I said, shifting to his real name. "Otherwise I'll
fuck over all the survivors. Your sister too, even if she didn't have shit to
do with it. I'll add her name to the others. I'll say she brought me the
explosive and the cops swallowed her story too fast."

    I got
up and left without even looking at him, leaving behind my beer and sandwich.
The whole thing was a ball-buster. I didn't have much money, and that day I
couldn't spend any more. Started knocking on doors, methodically, looking up
people I knew during my first Parisian sojourn. I chose the ones who didn't
have direct ties with the Italians. I knew there was nothing to fear from
retired guerrillas, but you can never be too cautious. I had a fake passport
and a conviction in Italy. A tip-off and they'd lock me up in La Sante with the
Basques and the Muslims. A Uruguayan couple put me up, expatriates from a
previous generation. He was an engineer, she a psychiatrist. The woman gave me
a sympathetic ear. "One week," she finally said, jerking her thumb to
make herself perfectly understood.

    If
you're up shit creek in a big European city and you're looking for a place to
sleep with three squares a day, you need a system for tracking down a single
woman. And if, like yours truly, you're not a bad-looking guy and have
extensive experience with women past their prime, the chances for success
increase appreciably. I plunked myself into an armchair and started poring over
the personals in Saturday's
Liberation.
Naturally, I had to focus on
staunchly progressive neighborhoods where I could pass myself off as a
combatant for Third World freedom. Rejecting women under forty and with
children, I responded to about fifteen ads with voice mail boxes. Couldn't wait
for the mail. A week later I brought my few rags to Regine's apartment near the
Place de la Republique. Our first date happened at a photography exhibit in a
private gallery. One of her friends was showing, and Regine was intrigued by
the idea of meeting among a bunch of people she knew. I arrived determined to
get somewhere. The other encounters were flops, and I swore not to be choosy,
to turn on all my charm. But Regine was a real dog, and I had to force myself
not to beat a retreat and vanish into the crowd on the Champs Elysees.
Forty-seven, decent job, separated for ages, she had the face and body of a
woman who'd let herself go and decided to give it up to lonely hearts.
Somewhere along the way she registered it was too late to get back to even a
vague facsimile of the woman she once was. At first she found it strange a man
ten years her junior would date her. But she was horny, and the sex convinced
her to take advantage of the opportunity. It was easier to make her believe she
was living out some wonderful love affair than it was to screw her. But in the
end she was the one who suggested we try shacking up, on the pretext that I
needed a place and finding one in Paris wouldn't be a snap. She turned out to
be an attentive lover, and my accommodations were definitely comfortable. Fact
is, she was a petty woman, as ugly as her life. I couldn't believe that deep
down she didn't suspect the mountain of lies I constantly unloaded on her. But
loneliness made her vulnerable, if not simply deaf and blind. The little good
sense she still had persuaded her to keep her cash and jewelry under lock and
key.

    This
agony lasted a couple months. Finally Sergio found a remedy. He arranged to
meet me in the same brasserie as before. I found him already seated, staring
intently at a quarter liter of red wine. He looked like some caricature of a
tavern scene. Maybe he was dreaming of the one near his home in Italy, where
he'd spend some time after work, rinsing the taste of the foundry from his
mouth and talking politics, cursing the owners and the party leaders who
betrayed the cause.

    I sat
down without saying hello. "So what's up?"

    "We've
conferred and decided to make you a proposition," he began. "Your conviction
is a done deal, and the only hope of getting it thrown out is a retrial. We've
convinced a comrade with a life sentence to confess to your role in the
bombing. He'll say his conscience got to him, he was with Luca that day, and
he'll provide some credible details. The lawyers say it should work. But you
have to get used to the idea of doing some time."

    "How
much?"

    "Two,
three years, however long it takes to get through the courts. And then to make
the conscience thing believable the comrade has to confess once you've turned
yourself in. They'll also pin some related crimes on you, but you'll pay for
those while you're awaiting retrial."

    This
isn't what I wanted. I lit a cigarette. "It's too much," I hissed.

    Sergio
shook his head. "Even if you cooperate and spill everything, they'll make
you do some time. The lawyers say this is the best deal going on the bad rep
market."

    "Don't
push me," I said calmly. "I'm resigning from the firm, and I'm just
negotiating the settlement."

    I ordered
a beer and took a drag on my cigarette, weighing the proposition. "OK.
I'll turn myself in at the border."

    Sergio
heaved a sigh of relief. From his pocket he took out a notebook and a pen.
"Write down what you remember about that night, details especially. The
confession has to be precise."

    While
I was writing, he asked me if I wanted to know what my old friends and comrades
said about my sellout.

    I
smiled. "I already know. I know them inside out. They called me a piece of
shit and made noise about getting revenge: a shot in the head, or an axe, just
like Trotsky. A lot of hot air. The same old story."

    "Don't
you even want to know which comrade is going to pay for your crime?"

    "No.
I'll read about it in the newspapers. Besides, if he's doing it, he doesn't
have a choice. Among the names I could finger I bet there's somebody who's dear
to his heart."

    I
closed the book and threw some cash on the table.

    "You
really deserve to die." He was serious.

    "Don't
be pathetic." I left, certain I'd never see him again.

    A
couple weeks later I forced open Regine's desk drawer with a screwdriver, took
her cash and jewelry and exited her life forever. The next day I'd surrender to
the Italian police, and I planned to have a little fun before going to jail. I
unloaded the jewelry on an Algerian fence from Barbes for some chump change.
From the Gare de Lyon I took the train to Nice. I picked a deluxe hotel, a
high-priced whore and a fine restaurant. When I woke the next morning, my
pockets were empty. Thumbed it to the border.

    Before
taking me to San Vittore, the cops made a stop at the headquarters of the Digos
in Milano, the division of general investigations and special operations. Also
known as the anti-terrorist squad. They locked me in a room used for
interrogations. Cigarette butts were heaped on the floor; blood and coffee
spattered the pale green walls. The bulls liked to throw coffee at suspects,
paper cups filled with disgusting shit, just to show they were pissed off and
didn't drink what they tried to palm off on you. I felt calm, all things
considered. I'd surrendered, delivering myself into the hands of the law. They
couldn't break my balls any more than this. Some cop came in with a file under
his arm. He was tall, huge, with a face like a pig. He wore a swanky suit. I
lowered my eyes to his shoes. Unmistakably pricey. Either he came from money or
was on the take. I opted for the second hypothesis and relaxed.

    He
slammed the file on the table and sat down. "My name is Ferruccio Anedda,
and I am a very important person."

    I
limited myself to a slavish nod. Didn't want any trouble. Cops like to have the
situation under control.

    "Who
made you come back from Central America?" he asked, letting me know
straight off they had much more information than I imagined.

    "I
just got out. I want to pay my debt to society-"

    He
kicked me under the table. "We know everything. You blackmailed those
shits who're holed up in Paris, and you're planning to act out a little farce
for the judges."

    I
stared at him, amazed. "You've got an informer in Paris?"

    He
cocked his head. "Only one?" he said ironically.

    "What
do you want?"

    "Here's
what I would like," he said, satisfied. Then he changed his tone: "We
want the names of everybody who has never been identified. Especially the
collaborators. Otherwise, at the proper moment, I'll have a little chat with
the chief justice and you'll pay in full for the night watchman."