The Unseen (8 page)

you should have talked to us about it first he says in a conciliatory tone you should have trusted us and together we'd have found a satisfactory solution I think the needs underlying what you've done here are valid what isn't valid however is the way you imagine you're going to satisfy them together we must find another way but meanwhile the Cantinone needs to be cleared before any irreparable damage is done people have had enough out out everyone's shouting I'm waiting for an answer I'll only leave here when I've got your answer whether it's negative or affirmative he manages to add then from the stage Valeriana gets some silence and she says the decision is up to the floor and we must all discuss it but not while he's here and if he wants he can wait outside and we'll give him our decision later

Scilla escorts him outside and before leaving the stage he raises his arm holding up the spanner thunderous applause breaks out everyone's shouting we in the collective don't really know what to do we confer briefly then Cotogno takes the microphone comrades we can't leave here under the threat of police intervention if we clear out of here voluntarily now letting ourselves be blackmailed by the mayor and the parties then we've lost we must decide what's the best thing to do whether to stay here and defend the occupation which means confrontation or not I think that for the time being confrontation isn't in our interest I think it would split the movement whether we win or lose in military terms because whatever happens we'll lose politically and even if we win in military terms we'll be up against an unmanageable situation

we must decide what's in our best interest for the growth and strengthening of this movement and so the most pressing problem for us is not to preserve the Cantinone at any price the problem is that we must preserve this strength that we've built and that's why we must say no to the voluntary evacuation they're suggesting but we must also say no to confrontation maybe just at the last moment but we must decide for ourselves autonomously when and how to evacuate if we evacuate as the result of our own autonomous decision we keep our political strength intact and tomorrow we'll be able to carry on the renewed struggles of this movement for the conquest of a social space we'll be able to carry on with other occupations and other struggles if instead we go for confrontation here today we risk everything I believe we lose everything

there were a lot of disgruntled faces even if the majority were in agreement with Cotogno but in that general euphoria it was like throwing cold water on a fire our position is agreed in the discussion and so we send word to the mayor that the mass meeting has decided to go on with the occupation to the bitter end but then we decide that we can't just all hang on waiting for the break-in there must be 400 people there for us all to stay there and then all leave together at the last moment is impossible it's better for just a few to do it because then it's easier to leave it takes time to persuade everybody nobody wanted to leave nobody wanted to admit the party was all over but at last they went they dismantled and took away everything that didn't have to be left behind and in the end only those of us in the collective were left about sixty in all

in the big hall candles are lit and the main lights are switched off the atmosphere of earlier evenings returns with sleeping bags being unrolled and people lying down only this time no one wants to talk or sing to tell stories and make plans to roll joints and make love this evening everyone has a stick or a bar besides their sleeping bag I see Valeriana sitting against a pillar smoking her eyes fixed on the angled shadows on the cross vaults I go up to her with China and I see her eyes are glistening what's wrong Valeriana shit all this work for fuck all I liked this place we'll never find a place as nice as this maybe if we occupy some broken-down hut right out in the wilds maybe then they could let us have it but a place like this that they don't even know what to do with no way are those bastards going to let us have it

from time to time someone who's on guard comes back inside for the changeover it's bitterly cold outside it's not too warm inside either any more we put the sleeping bag down and I slip inside just as I am the floor is hard but I'm tired and it feels comfortable enough all the same China takes off her man's tweed jacket she rolls it up and puts it under my head we'll be more comfortable like that she says and she slips in too China isn't sleepy and she sings to herself I'm a wild boy hear what I say ain't nobody better groovin' tonight don't you ever stand in my way or you'll be in trouble alright eyes closed I say they're already standing in our way we'll be lucky now if we don't get into trouble but China goes on sometimes it's rough on me if I misbehave like you see but even in jail I could fight and I liked to go out on the town every night

11

After that first retaliatory sally was driven off with that charge of plastic explosive on the ground floor the guards outside the prison didn't make another move also because there was a moment when a comrade at a high window displayed a lovely bright orange ball something like two kilos of plastic and that bright orange ball up there was enough to bring down the entire prison and so they understood that that first explosion was just a warning that a lot worse could happen if they persisted and then from time to time one of the captured guards was also displayed at the big corridor windows with a knife at his throat as proof that they were alive and to tell those down below not to try anything

the captured guards had been split into small groups and every half hour they were moved into different new cells there were precise shifts a whole system of half-hourly moves had been worked out in advance so that from outside no one could ever tell which cell there were guards in so that there was no chance of trying anything to free them the ones in charge of the negotiations kept us up to date minute by minute about how things were going they said that taking part in the negotiations on the other end of the 'phone as well as the prison administration and the guards' commanding officers there were also politicians representing the ministry of justice and the government and that they seemed to be stymied by the seriousness of the situation they were taking time but they also seemed willing to negotiate

when it started getting dark shifts were set up to maintain a watch on what was happening outside to keep an eye on what was happening around the prison from the big windows with the armour-clad defences particularly the guards who were patrolling along the periphery walls that were only twenty or thirty yards from the prison or even closer the prison was all brightly illuminated in the yellow glare of the searchlights and from the second floor where we were you could see on the other side of the periphery wall a large number of jeeps cars armoured cars vans the cars with blue lights on their roofs going round and the jeeps with their headlights on going round the prison and in the shadows now and then confused movements groups of people in uniform shifting about here and there in the shadows around the prison lit up by the searchlights

nobody slept that night because there was massive tension over what had happened I remember there was this to-ing and fro-ing of people inside the cells the corridors a great procession of people there was an indescribable racket with the radios and televisions on all the time at top volume there were very heated discussions not everyone was in agreement there were comrades who maintained that this revolt would spell disaster for the prisoners' movement but there was nothing they could do but accept the situation like everyone else because they were inside there was nothing for it they were inside in this situation too even if they made no bones that being in it went sorely against the grain and while the others maintained instead that it amounted to a great victory

but it turned out that while they were taking the guards hostage there was one who'd gone and got injured I mean this lance-corporal the only non-commissioned officer who was in the cell-wings who was a lance-corporal and who'd been injured stabbed with a skewer and this injured lance-corporal provoked a lot of anxieties he was kind of the flaw in the whole affair the only flaw everybody was aware that a death in those circumstances would change everything what had happened was that as they took the guards hostage this lance-corporal tried to resist and a comrade who was involved in the kidnap stuck a skewer in his side a skewer made out of the usual metal fittings of a camping-gas stove

this lance-corporal was clearly pretending to be worse than he really was well the comrades running the revolt had tried several times to release this wounded hostage two or three times they'd taken him down to the gates that were the start of the no-man's-land that was in fact the ground floor rotunda to let him go saying we'll open the gates and we'll let him out to you but nobody caught on the fact was they didn't want him they'd say no no keep him because all you want is to take the ground floor you want to open the gates to get the ground floor too this was the reason they gave nobody realized that it was a clue to what was going to happen

there were even others who suggested sawing the bars off a window and lowering down this lance-corporal in a sling because nobody wanted him there nobody wanted to run the risk of him dying there because it would have ruined the whole thing because everything up to then had really gone smoothly for instance it hadn't occurred to anybody to wreck the prison nothing had been touched nothing had been destroyed whereas in the revolt there'd been a short time before in that other special prison the prison had been completely wrecked there they'd literally demolished the lot they'd destroyed the electrics they'd destroyed the plumbing they'd pulled down the walls they'd made the prison totally inoperable

later on I went back to my cell there was no one there there was a heap of sweaters shirts trousers scattered on the bunk the little wardrobe had gone I flung the lot on the floor and I flung myself down on the bunk the television was turned on but the transmission had finished there was a blizzard of dots there was this guy playing the violin in the next cell he always played the same tune I thought of China and that I certainly wouldn't see her tomorrow with all this crazy business I must write to her tomorrow as soon as I can I must my cell-mate looked in what are you doing there what's wrong are you sick have you heard the news there's news about the negotiations and maybe we've won maybe now we'll win here

but look I told him I don't know why but I sounded annoyed but you know I really can't stand any more I really mean it that we're still stuck here with this bullshit still with this bullshit about winning or losing and it seems to me that it's always really been our big misfortune that every time we've thought the thing that mattered was basically just winning or losing when instead the things we've really done have never had anything to do with winning and losing because after all if it's just a question of winning or losing it's clear that here we've already lost everything and not just in the last five minutes but the fact is that I think and a lot like me think so too that deep down we've never had not only have we never had any notion or desire to win but not even any notion that there was anything to be won anywhere and then you know if I really think about it now to me the word winning seems exactly the same as dying

that injured lance-corporal stayed there through the whole revolt because they didn't want him they didn't want us to hand him over to them this poor wretch no way did they want us to hand him over to them we did everything we could to hand him over but they didn't want him no way at all he stayed there lying on the floor the whole night moaning pretending to be worse than he was the night went by and we were at a loss as to what to do and then in the morning came tiredness and the fear that in the long run things wouldn't work out gradually as time passed you could hear in more voices the tiredness that was starting to get to us people were very tense and everyone was saying that a solution to the problem had to be found as soon as possible

let's stop dwelling on this stuff so long as we've got this positive feeling between us so long as there's a chance of things turning out all right the thing is the prison here is still standing we haven't wrecked it the guards haven't been touched there's no real damage been done we've done something really big but there hasn't even been one casualty there's one injured with a stab wound and we have to hand him over before he dies these were the things being said this was the kind of tension then towards evening the latest news of the negotiations got around one of the comrades conducting the negotiations came out of the guard post and announced that things were going well that things were in motion for dismantling the revolt that shortly preparations would begin for the release of the kidnapped guards and that in other words we'd won

after this news there was momentary relief there was momentary relaxation there was momentary fatigue but also relaxation everyone was asking but what will they do to us now will they beat us up maybe not comparisons were made with how other revolts had ended and there were some packing their kitbags because they thought there'd be immediate transfers and at the same time the surveillance of what was going on outside had slackened nobody bothered any more to keep a watch from the big windows the comrades were assuring the guards that it was all over that soon they'd release them there was this atmosphere of relaxation and fatigue when at five in the afternoon when by now this was the prevailing mood there was a deafening noise

12

After something like two or three hours we're woken by Nocciola's voice they've seen the
carabinieri
drive up in the second bus blocking off the road and they've got out of both the buses they're all carrying machine-guns and pistols they've closed the road off at both ends I struggle out of the sleeping bag it's five o'clock it's still pitch dark China says take it easy please let's sleep a little longer I stand up I'm shivering all over with cold and when I move I ache with stiffness I get dressed quickly gently I shake China who's sleeping with her face buried in her hair and I tell her to hurry and join me downstairs because they're coming I dash downstairs putting on my torn black leather gloves and winding the red scarf twice round my neck