Authors: Nanni Balestrini
the guards triple-lock the door and they stand behind a window on the relatives' side to make sure there are no serious irregularities there were always too many people and despite the controls things always went on notes and letters were passed no doubt that's something they take for granted that you'll pass stuff across for them the main thing is that you don't pass weapons visiting time is a fun-fair a market whole families with grannies and children all shouting to make themselves heard and I too had to shout to make myself heard but I was unnerved by it while I could see that the others were perfectly at their ease the marble table was four and a half feet wide to prevent contact but sometimes children were passed for a minute or two from one side of the table to the other
the surveillance wasn't very strict I happened to witness some amorous encounters that went pretty far there were people virtually managing to fuck during the visit there were all kinds of special contrivances big overcoats even in the summer that could be opened in a special way then maybe the guy next to them gets mad because there's the kid or the granny there who can see everything in other words a real mess people insulting one another hitting one another everyone shouting the situation is such that in the three quarters of an hour spent like this you can't have a conversation about anything the time passes in an instant you hear a bell like in school and visiting time is over and then they take you into an adjoining cell where they search you all over again
after a while we were transferred to another wing where the difference between us and the non-politicals wasn't enforced so we had our exercise time along with them the non-politicals in this new wing were different from the ones before who were pretty dubious characters I don't mean outright bastards but pretty shady though they were the lowest criminal class pimps and people of that kind in short whereas in the new wing the non-politicals were of a different kind all very young gangs of small-time thieves people who got on very well together and so we came in touch with these non-politicals grouped together in gangs every gang had its leader and when you had to talk it was the leader who talked for his whole gang during exercise we were given a very good welcome just as if we were another gang and there were no problems in our contacts with them
then there was also the fact that we started playing football and volleyball together and we started making friends and we saw that contact with these non-politicals was of a different kind because these guys weren't always asking you for little favours like the others these guys seemed very proud they acted very self-assured just the opposite they never asked us for anything instead it was them who kept on offering things to us right away they started asking us if we needed this or that with the implication that they had a network of connections inside and outside the prison through which things could be had messages got out and contacts made with other wings and so on
gradually we understood that between these gangs there were kinds of equilibrium based on whatever they dealt in on their zones of influence from their traffickings inside the prison for example pushing cocaine and heroin there's no doubt that some of the guards were no strangers to this trafficking because stuff comes into prison mainly through the guards these guards who do this job of bringing stuff inside to sell it to the prisoners are called mules they'll bring anything inside for payment especially drugs and knives and in fact we saw that among these non-politicals a lot of them were using drugs especially cocaine they used cocaine in a big way and the higher-ranking guards were no doubt aware of it they offered cocaine to us too but we refused it whereas we accepted a smoke and for them giving us a smoke was a sign of friendship
on one occasion there was a rumpus with these guys from the gangs down in the exercise yard one afternoon it was an exercise period apparently like any other some were playing football some were talking as they walked along or sat on the benches however you could see that there was a bit of unease in the air and at one moment two little gang leaders pulled out sticks from under their dressing gowns these must have been made from stools or the legs of tables in the cells and they started hitting one of the working prisoners in the wing and this in full view of everyone with no warning it was the first brutality I saw in the prison even though I knew it was a normal thing in prison that it was a daily thing that it was part of the law of prison part of its normal mechanism
and so they hit this working prisoner pretty hard while everybody stood there watching without a move and then they told him to go up and get his things together and to go to the isolation cells for you could make a request to go there by choice because otherwise the next time they'd kill him we politicals didn't react in any way we didn't ask any questions but they must have realized that we'd been surprised that we didn't expect this particularly since this working prisoner that they'd clubbed seemed to us to be somebody who just minded his own business but there's no doubt that since they'd clubbed him he couldn't have been somebody who just minded his own business then the next day they told us that this working prisoner was a bastard he was one of those who gave information to the administration about what went on in the wing
a bit later something else like this happened what happened was that a very young boy arrived he never spoke he was very shy he must have been a bit backward he was always there on his own and he never spoke this kid came out of isolation and he came into our wing where he was put in a cell with four others and what happened was that one of these four cellmates of his raped him but we found out about this later on after this shit who did this vile thing was beaten to a pulp what happened was that the other three hadn't realized at the time because it happened in the toilet that's separated from the cell by a curtain and while this shit was doing it he was threatening him with a knife at his throat
afterwards he made it clear to him that he wasn't to say a word about it otherwise he'd kill him so this kid got scared and he said nothing but the other three were suspicious and they started putting the rumour about the wing that they had these suspicions and so a decision was made to test them out and one of the gang leaders went up to the shit during exercise time and with an air of complicity said to him so you had the kid then and so this shit who also happened to be an idiot told him boastfully that he had then all hell broke loose because they took this guy and they literally beat him to a pulp so that even his own mother wouldn't have recognized him they smashed in his whole face and his head stamping on him and clubbing him till his nose was flattened they totally pulverized him
it was during this period that one day I was washing dishes in the cell and every so often glancing at the news on television but I could hardly hear anything at all because of the water running suddenly I thought I saw something familiar on the screen an image that reminded me of something but I wasn't sure what the television camera was going round a room that was all messed up chairs overturned an unmade bed with a big metal bedstead then on one wall I saw a poster with Humphrey Bogart and immediately it dawned on me immediately I recognized that flat where we'd had that famous meeting with Scilla and the others then in the middle of the room you could see a sheet covering something up a motionless body you could see a leg sticking out a naked foot without shoes motionless
I stopped washing the dishes and I went right up to the television set I turned up the volume someone was talking about a terrorist killed in a gunfight with the
carabinieri
the terrorist was held to be responsible for the murder of a
carabiniere
that had taken place a few months before another familiar image came up on the screen the body of the
carabiniere
shot down beside a yellow petrol pump that I'd seen on television with China one evening not long before they arrested me the arrests of other accomplices were expected shortly then a huge black and white photograph came up on the screen it was Cotogno's face an identity card photograph unsmiling and hair neatly combed but I recognized it at once it was Cotogno who was there now motionless under the sheet
36
The car stops in a dark courtyard surrounded by dilapidated old houses half-empty going by how few of the windows had lights on with me is China and Ortica and Nocciola right after that Scilla's car turns up with Cotogno Valeriana and Gelso in it the ring of light from the electric torch skims over tufts of grass pieces of wood bits of broken bottles and tiles then we go up a steep wooden staircase with a shaky banister and treads that creak Scilla turns the key in the lock it's stiff a shove with a shoulder and we're inside there's a musty smell Scilla turns on a light that's hanging from the ceiling on a threadbare cable a few old bits of furniture damp patches on the wall and a poster with Humphrey Bogart over a bed with a big metal frame
we sit down around the table on the straw-bottomed chairs Cotogno and Valeriana sit on the bed there aren't enough chairs for us all Scilla takes a bottle of whisky out of a crooked sideboard and puts it on the table with some glasses you know the purpose of this meeting says Ortica we're here to weigh up the different organizational options that have developed inside the movement there are some people carrying out vanguard actions with the use of arms under the illusion that they on their own can influence the growth of the whole movement well we aren't opposed in principal to these practices because we all know very well that you can't claim to be consistent revolutionaries without tackling the problem of the exercise of force of the necessity of building a counter-power equivalent to and even more violent than that exercised daily by the state
but our criticism of these comrades comes from the fact that this creation and exercise of counter-power all has to happen inside the movement we're now in a phase of mass consciousness you only have to look at the news reports the use of force is spreading rapidly wherever struggles are taking place mass disregard for the law is now common practice so it's a question of debating the possibility of a further mass leap forward for the whole movement which must consist in organized force or if you prefer the question of armed struggle Cotogno gets up from the creaking bed he takes the bottle from the table and pours the whisky into the glasses Scilla too has got up and has gone to rummage in an old chest in one corner of the room
now there's no point in me going over every single detail of all that happened in that meeting that went on until dawn and that turned out to be the last one because there was a split between us then and we never met again things got out of hand that time a row broke out that nearly ended in blows at one point Cotogno started shouting there are people now who refuse to see that we're now objectively in a war situation refusing to see this is pure opportunism by those who don't want to accept their ultimate responsibilities as revolutionaries which means that those who refuse to see that we're now objectively in a war situation will be fought and marginalized
but what do you mean by war shouted Ortica the war you're talking about and thinking about is the war they want and it has nothing nothing in the least to do with all we've been doing and all we've been thinking so far you believe you're convinced that the goal is the conquest of power as it is and so now for you the whole thing has become a question of winning or losing Scilla has come back to the table and on it he has laid two pistols a big one with a cylinder and a smaller one why did you need to bring the pistols here China said Scilla scowled at her one's a revolver the other's a pistol he said he lifted one of them in his hand handling it with skill with ease he pressed the butt-end with his thumb and took out the magazine and then took out the bullets and put them one by one in a row on the table
the whisky poured in the glasses stayed on the table no one gave a thought to drinking as the tension mounted in the room the divisions were clear on one side Scilla Cotogno Valeriana on the other Ortica Nocciola China and me there was only Gelso who wasn't clearly on one side or the other he was very nervous he didn't speak at all he just kept cleaning the lenses of his glasses and biting his nails we maintained that it was madness to decide in the name of the movement on a leap into clandestinity with one stroke to wipe out everything that had been achieved so far to abandon a movement of thousands of people in struggle for a war waged by twenty or thirty
it ended at dawn with screams and abuse Scilla kept on playing with his guns and when at one point Nocciola told him to stop it in a flash Scilla grabbed the revolver and pointed it at him I'll put a hole in your head he told him we all stopped you could have heard a pin drop the only sound was the tap dripping in the wash basin we all looked at Scilla his arms stiff held in the air the pistol aimed at Nocciola we all knew it wasn't loaded but that wasn't what mattered we got up and we left Ortica Nocciola China and me the others stayed there around the table Gelso too never stirring his head lowered biting his nails staring at the table where the guns were and the glasses of whisky that nobody had drunk
after that evening we never saw them again they'd certainly have moved to another town because with that big step they planned to take they couldn't stay on in our area where they were too well known I never saw Valeriana Cotogno or Scilla again though once I ran into Gelso by chance but both of us avoided speaking about what had happened I thought Gelso looked pathetic he'd always been a real drop-out and now he was dressed in straight clothes with a jacket and a tie and hair cut short and his spectacle frames changed from round to square and then we never saw him again either and so our affinity group came to an end and what happened to them became another story that's not up to me to tell here now
those of us in the collective set to work with even more enthusiasm than before it was as if behind us we felt something monstrous and destructive closing in on us more and more and maybe also because there was a kind of need to prove to ourselves that the choice we'd made to stay inside the movement was the right choice the repression grew with every day that passed armed actions were followed by indiscriminate mass arrests but the repression wasn't only
carabinieri
and police it was also the press and media siege combined with the smashing of our communication network the difficulty and often impossibility of bringing out our newspapers because of arrests confiscations lack of money