Authors: Nanni Balestrini
they forced another one to put his hands against the wall they took his hands and they held them fixed there on the wall and they hit him on the hands with the bars they hit him an awful lot on the fingers and they smashed all his fingers here here here and here they smashed his hands and then his fingers here his fingers here and his fingers here and now when this comrade eats he loses hold of his spoon he drops his spoon because he can't keep it in his hand afterwards when this guy used a plastic spoon to eat with in prison he always dropped the spoon because his fingers could no longer keep hold of anything he could no longer feel a grip on anything and his hands were broken for ever
the guards mainly took it out on the ones they'd had aggravation from this fury this hatred this thing of theirs was mainly centred on all those earlier goings on in the prison things that had happened there before the revolt but also because they were convinced that one of them had died because they were convinced that in all the chaos there'd been during the revolt someone had got killed we'd killed some guards the news they'd had was that there'd been some guards injured but they'd mistakenly believed that they'd been injured by the prisoners and were now in danger of death while in fact they'd been injured by the
carabinieri
by the machine-gun fire of the
carabinieri
so these guys were saying you knifed the guards and now we're going to murder you they'd got it into their heads to kill us in earnest I mean to kill some of us with their bare hands and the absurd thing was that while the
carabinieri
were shooting and they'd been shooting like lunatics and I'd thought as I heard the shots they were firing I was thinking they're going to kill us all the absurd thing now was that it wasn't the
carabinieri
here it was the guards beating the life out of you not the
carabinieri
when they fired their machine guns and threw their grenades and now behind the wire you saw they were killing someone in earnest they were beating him to death you said Jesus Christ they're murdering that guy they won't stop hitting him he's been on the ground for I don't know how long and there are still ten of them on top of him laying into him the guy's going to die no mistake
then some guys came in who were in a terrible state they were all mangled up covered in blood all smashed up they had broken legs they had broken arms you saw them with their broken arms their broken legs they were screaming there in our yard there must have been thirty of us we counted ourselves in the end there were thirty of us but there were only three of us standing I mean standing meant just able to stand up not to run around but to manage just to stand up without falling there were three of us and it was by pure chance that we three weren't also in a state like all the rest who were there lying on the ground the rest were all on the ground with their bones broken with their bones really broken with broken legs with broken arms with broken faces with broken heads with blood all over the place
23
While I was listening to that threatening tirade from Judge Lince I tried desperately to concentrate my thoughts on what I should do I thought that if what he'd told me was true then Gelso had tried to put me in the clear by saying that I'd sublet the house but if it was a trap I couldn't see how I'd manage to extricate myself it was a real shambles and I realized how naive I'd been to think up to now that I'd be able to explain under questioning that I'd be able to explain that I had fuck all to do with that business and that they'd understand and let me go so I put my mind at rest that in any case they'd persist whatever I said the questioning was just another thing to screw you with and so it was better to put a stop to it at once because however it went on it would only make things worse
when Lince finished he paused then since I was silent he decided to go on with more detachment and in a more self-congratulatory tone I should tell you moreover that I've also taken evidence from Spinone the solicitor the owner of the house rented by you who states that he was quite clearly threatened physically among other things by you and other individuals to persuade him to draw up the contract what do you have to say about that then without me even thinking about it the words came out almost of their own accord I reserve the right to clarify these matters the next time I'm questioned and so the questioning came to an end I didn't give a fuck if Lince took those words as an admission of what he'd said I didn't give a fuck because it was obvious that in any case he was only there to put me in prison whatever happened
Lince had no objections he got me to read the statement and he got me to sign it the lawyer signed it too he wished everyone good evening and without even glancing in my direction he rushed off by this time the prison was closed they took no admissions at that time of night and so Lince told the police officers to take me down to the security cells inside headquarters I picked up my bag with the toothbrush and underpants in it for they'd taken off my handcuffs that were clearly only meant to stop me from strangling the judge everyone left and they made me go back the same way I'd come down the narrow stairs but when we got to the ground floor we kept on going further and further down
we go down between the damp walls lit by dirty light bulbs hanging from frayed electric wires when we got to the bottom they took me into a tiny room a lumber room where there was a young cop with a pistol in the holster under his armpit and this guy took my fingerprints every finger first one hand then the other hand he pressed them on a big pad of black ink and then pressed them on the page of a register and then underneath he wrote down my particulars he looked very fed up you could see he wasn't at all happy at having that work to do then he held out a filthy rag for me to clean my hands on but it was useless none of it came off and after persevering for a bit I gave up and made do with black hands
I lifted my bag again dangling it from two fingers we came out of there and went along the corridor a bit turning corners all the time then one of the cops escorting me knocks at a big wooden door all worm-eaten with peeling varnish no one comes to open it then he knocks louder and calls out officer open the door and there appears a giant of a man with a great beard as black as ink a mouth the width of an oven door and a pair of red eyes who was holding a big bunch of keys with which he closes the door noisily behind me and I find myself in a big room dimly lit by one light bulb hanging in the middle no windows the floor and walls filthy the walls flaking away with the dampness
the giant takes us in and we go up to a long table up against the wall the guy curses in a fit of temper for some reason from one of the corridors there comes confused shouting mingled with moans and howls then a louder scream and the giant swearing in a rage and uttering broken phrases in a southern dialect I don't understand rushes towards the corridor where there's a row of heavy grey doors he opens the spy-holes one after the other yelling threats and slamming them violently shut then he comes back to the table and yells at the two who brought me there pointing at me with the bunch of keys and what about him they explain that I have to spend the night there the giant takes them back to the door opens it and shuts it again then he hooks the bunch of keys on his belt again and comes back towards me still standing there with my bag dangling from my fingers
he rips the bag from my hand and throws it on the table then he yells at me aggressively to strip I don't even attempt to tell him that I've already been searched because I can tell from his face that he's only waiting for the slightest excuse to lift his hand to me his face is all sweaty and his uniform soiled and greasy with big dark stains all over it and so there's a complete re-run of the search routine only this time more violently because it's as if the guy wants to rip off my clothes by the avid way he handles them cursing all the time in a foul temper rolling his red eyes finally he makes me turn around naked two or three times he runs his filthy big hands two or three times through my hair which was on the long side and at last he tells me to take my stuff the clothes the bag and the stuff that was in it all scattered across the table and to follow him
I don't know whether I'm supposed to get dressed again first but I don't ask
him
he's at it again shouting and cursing I notice now that in that big smokey room there are three more of his kind hanging about obviously his subordinates and he's shouting things at them through that gaping oven of a mouth he's got and so naked as I am I tuck all my stuff under my arm and I follow him into the corridor past the row of grey doors from where there's still shouting and moaning he opens a door and pushes me into the darkness with a great shove at my back that nearly throws me to the ground then he slams the door shut with a clang I feel very cold and suddenly it occurs to me that there might be someone else there too who I can't see but who's seen me when the door opened I'm shivering with the cold but with fear too thinking that someone can jump on me at any minute somebody vile and monstrous because nobody there could be anything else but vile
I stay there for a few moments in a state of paralysis the fact that I'm naked makes me feel somehow the impossibility of protecting myself I stay there motionless waiting for the monster to jump on me unable to lift a finger it seems bound to happen until I hear the curses getting close again and without warning the spy-hole is opened I can see his head silhouetted against the light and a weak beam of light briefly illuminates the depths of the cell and I can see it's empty at the back there's only a kind of raised concrete platform I grope in the darkness I climb on to it until my hands can reach the back wall which is damp and cold taking my time I manage to get dressed again I roll up my jacket then I stretch out on the concrete and rest my head on it
I close my eyes my ears are filled with the muffled voices coming from the other cells the moaning the shouting the cursing I try to stop my ears but it's pointless but I'm tired out I'm exhausted the muscles in my legs hurt as if I'd been running all day and I fall asleep straight away but it isn't an undisturbed sleep every so often I'd wake up with the shouting and the slamming of doors and then I'd be plunged into sleep again and then again I'd wake up once I heard a woman singing in a loud voice everyone sleeps at night but I never sleep she was drunk then when they made her stop she started to cry even louder I fell asleep and woke up repeatedly and that's how the entire night went by
I realized it was morning when the fire eater opened my cell door and ordered me in his incomprehensible dialect to get outside at the double he was even dirtier greasier and sweatier and he was scratching his great black beard with both hands he took me up to the table against the wall where he gave me back my bag and handed me over to three new policemen who'd come for me two young ones and an older guy in plain clothes with white shirts and ties freshly shaved glossy hair all three with the same smell of aftershave they put the handcuffs on me behind my back one of them took my bag after looking inside it and feeling about a bit we went back up the stairs and when we got to the ground floor I had to screw up my eyes with the sunlight
24
Suddenly we're bathed in a strong bright light they'd brought in two big engine-generators a deafening hum started up and they set about shining giant searchlights onto the yards they were in shadow and you were totally exposed to the light surrounded by this scene of blood everywhere of people with their heads split open everything broken and moaning to themselves and these guys still masked in the shadow started hitting the wire fence with metal bars and clubs and shouting bastards queers we'll make you all pay for it on your knees beg for mercy cocksuckers motherfuckers this is only the start and this really scared us stiff fuck if these guys really come inside and just deal out a few more beatings to these guys lying here mangled on the ground that's it it's over for them
they did all this crap stuff and at the same time it happened that there was a comrade in my yard sitting there not moving I didn't speak to him because since I was able to stand up I was helping the ones that were more badly beaten and since I'd seen he was sitting up not moving and had no sign of blood or anything I thought he must be in a state of shock with it all but nothing really wrong then when the more serious cases the injured and the ones covered in blood pulled themselves together a bit people got themselves into a sitting position against the wall it was something anyway if not much and I said to him hey how are you he spoke slowly I feel something broken inside and the fact was that he had all his ribs broken later he was taken to the hospital during the night because he couldn't be left there he couldn't make the slightest movement without screaming from the pain of all his broken ribs
I was waiting for my cell-mate who I'd got separated from in the confusion when the
carabinieri
made their entrance I was very worried because he'd gone down to the first floor and I thought that downstairs there'd been a disaster that people had been killed because as the comrades were gradually turning up I was asking them all has somebody been killed then and somebody had answered I think more than one and so I was waiting for this cell-mate of mine then I saw him go by and I saw what a beating they'd given him they'd really given him a bad one then he came into the same exercise yard as me he walked in still hopping about without taking his hands away from the back of his head he was wearing woollen gloves and I asked him how are you and he told me OK but I must have all my fingers broken then I took off his gloves as gently as I could one finger at a time with him blaspheming every madonna you can think of but he hadn't broken them all just one or two
after the guards threatened to come back into the exercise yards they went away a fearful silence descended nobody was speaking to anyone else any more and this was something that struck me again later because at that point I believe everyone thought it was futile to speak to say anything at all there was a moment when everyone froze just as they were petrified like statues under the brilliant light of the generators and you could only hear the noise of the generators then the din started up again the guards had gone upstairs and they were breaking everything up they wrecked everything they destroyed everything smashing everything wrecking everything everything to be found there they were screaming like damned souls and they were taking it out on your stuff that was in the cells