The Past is a Foreign Country (2 page)

THERE’S A SONG by Eugenio Finardi about a guy called
Samson.
An ace on the pitch, and really handsome. Skin like bronze and eyes of jade. Looks like someone who’s never been afraid.

Francesco Carducci to a T.

He had a reputation, both as a footballer – top goal scorer in the university championships – and as the idol of all the girls. Even, if truth be told, of a few bored mothers. That’s what people said, anyway. He was two years older than me and was studying
philosophy,
but had fallen behind. I never knew how many exams he still had to take, whether he had chosen a dissertation topic, that kind of thing.

There was a lot I never knew about him.

Until one night during the Christmas break of 1988, we’d been merely casual acquaintances. A few friends in common, a few football matches, a quick hello if we met by chance in the street.

Until that night, during the Christmas break of 1988, our paths had barely crossed.

There was a party at the home of a girl called Alessandra, a
lawyer’s
daughter. Her parents were away at a ski resort, and the big, elegant apartment was all hers. People were drinking, others
chatting
, a few were rolling joints in the corners. But most were playing cards. For a lot of people, the Christmas holidays meant an endless round of card games. For money.

There was a baccarat table in the big drawing room, while in the living room they were playing
chemin de fer
. In the rest of the
apartment
, like I said, people were smoking and drinking. No different from hundreds of similar occasions. All perfectly normal.

Then the world, or mine at least, suddenly speeded up. Like a spaceship in a cartoon or a sci-fi film that shoots up into the sky and disappears amongst the stars.

I’d blown a bit of cash at baccarat and then gone into the room where they were playing
chemin de fer
. Francesco was at the table. I’d have liked to join in, but I didn’t have enough money. There were kids who came to these parties with rolls of banknotes and even chequebooks. But I only got three hundred thousand lire a month from my parents and earned a bit more by giving private Latin lessons. I was attracted to the idea of playing for high stakes – and winning, of course – but I couldn’t afford it. Or didn’t have the guts. Or probably both. So, more often than not, I just watched.

There were at least sixty people wandering around the
apartment.
Every now and again the doorbell would ring and more
people
would arrive, sometimes one by one, but more often in groups. Some were complete strangers, even to Alessandra. These parties worked by word of mouth. It was a common form of night-time entertainment over the Christmas break to go from party to party, sometimes gatecrashing ones you hadn’t been invited to, eat and drink something, and then leave without a hello or goodbye. That was the way it worked and there was usually no problem. I’d done it quite a few times myself.

So that evening no one paid much attention to the three guys who were roaming through the apartment without even taking off their leather jackets. One of them came into the room where people were playing
chemin de fer
. He was short and stocky, with
close-cropped
hair and a mean, stolid expression.

He rapidly eyed me and the others who weren’t in the game but
were just standing around. He wasn’t interested in any of us. He went closer to the table to get a better look at the players. He
immediately
spotted the object of his search, quickly left the room, and returned less than a minute later with the other two.

One of them looked like a copy of the first, on a larger scale: quite tall and solid, with the same close-cropped hair. Not the kind of guy you’d pick a fight with. The third was tall, thin and blond, quite good-looking but with something sick about his features or his expression. He was the one who opened the conversation. So to speak.

‘You piece of shit!’

Everyone turned round. Including Francesco, who had his back to the door and hadn’t noticed the three guys until that moment. We all looked at each other for a few seconds, trying to figure out who they were after.

Then Francesco stood up and said calmly to the blond guy, ‘Don’t do anything stupid. There are lots of people here.’

‘You piece of shit. Come outside or we’ll wreck the place.’

‘Fine. Just let me get my jacket.’

Everyone was frozen, paralyzed with shock and fear. The
people
in the room, and others you could see standing in the corridor, behind the three guys. I was frozen too, thinking they were going to take him outside and beat him to a pulp. Maybe before they’d even got down the stairs. I felt humiliated. I remember thinking, in a bizarre flash of lucidity, that this was how it must feel when you were about to be raped.

Francesco had gone over to a sofa where all the coats were piled. I heard my voice emerging from my mouth of its own volition, as if it belonged to someone else.

‘Hey, you, mind telling us what your fucking problem is?’

I don’t know why I spoke. Francesco wasn’t a friend of mine and for all I knew he could well have done something to deserve what
these guys had in store for him. Maybe the feeling of humiliation was just too much to bear. Or maybe there was some other reason. Over the years I’ve given it different names. One of them is fate.

Everyone turned to look at me. The short, stolid-looking guy came closer. He came really close, stretching his neck and shoving his face up at mine. He came
too
close. I could smell the
mint-flavoured
gum on his breath.

‘Mind your own fucking business, asshole, or we’ll beat the shit out of you, too.’

He really had a way with words.

I moved the way I’d spoken. Somehow, it wasn’t me doing it. I brought my head down hard, as if smacking a ball into a goal, and broke his nose.

He instantly started bleeding, so stunned that when I kneed him in the balls he didn’t even react.

What happened next I only remember as a series of still pictures, with a few slow-motion clips thrown in. Francesco hitting the tallest guy with a chair. Cards flying round the room. A few people coming in from the corridor and launching themselves into the fray.

The strange thing is that I remember all this without sound, like some kind of surreal silent film. One of the images in this film is a lamp falling off a little table and smashing. Without a sound.

We threw the three of them out, and then a strange feeling of
embarrassment
fell over the apartment. Some people knew, or thought they knew, the reason for this ill-fated punitive expedition. In other words, they knew, or thought they knew, what Francesco had been up to.

What they didn’t know, and couldn’t begin to imagine, was where I fitted in. And especially how I could possibly have done what I did. They stood in little groups, talking about it, and lowered their voices or stopped speaking when I came near. I wandered from room to room, feeling ill at ease, but trying to put a brave face on it.
I thought I’d wait a while longer, and then leave.

Even I couldn’t understand what I’d done or why I’d done it.

I broke his nose, I was thinking. Damn it, I broke his nose. One part of me was astounded by the violence I’d been capable of, while another part felt a strange, shameful elation.

People started to disperse, silently. Obviously, the game hadn’t started up again after the interruption. I could leave now, too, I thought. After all, I’d come alone.

I put my jacket on and looked for Alessandra, to say goodbye.

What to say? I wondered. Thanks for the lovely party, I
particularly
liked the unscheduled part, it gave me a chance to let off steam and satisfy my baser instincts. But maybe she wouldn’t see the joke. Maybe she’d headbutt me herself.

‘Shall we go?’ It was Francesco, standing behind me. He also had his jacket on. He was smiling somewhat ironically, but there was something like admiration in his eyes, too.

I nodded. It was as simple as that. At that moment it seemed natural, even though we barely knew each other.

Maybe he’ll tell me what it was I just stuck my nose in, I thought.

We both went to say goodbye to Alessandra, who looked at us strangely. Her eyes were saying a lot of things. I didn’t know the two of you were friends. I knew you were trouble, Francesco – everyone knows that – but you, Giorgio, I never imagined you were just as much of an animal as he is. Jesus, there’s blood on the floor. The blood of the man you headbutted like a hooligan.

What her eyes were saying above all was: get out of here, both of you, and don’t show your faces here again until the next millennium.

So we left together. When we were out in the street, we looked round cautiously. Just in case the three guys were stubborn and vindictive enough to try and attack us after the thrashing they’d received.

‘Thanks. It took guts to do what you did.’

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that I wanted to seem like a hard man. I really didn’t know what to say.

We’d started walking.

‘Are you on foot?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I don’t live far.’

‘I have a car. Maybe we could go for a drive, have a drink, and I’ll tell you all about it. I think I owe you that.’

‘OK.’

He had an old cream-coloured Citroën DS with a burgundy roof.

‘So, what do you think that was all about? In your opinion, what did those assholes want?’

‘I don’t know. Obviously the blond guy was the one who was after you. The other two were his minders. Was it over a woman?’

‘Yes. That blond guy’s a bad loser. But I’d never have expected him to do something as stupid as that.’ He paused, as if he’d just thought of something annoying. ‘Do you mind if we go somewhere,just for half an hour?’

‘No. Where?’

‘I think I ought to make sure they don’t do anything else stupid. I need to talk to a friend of mine. This place we’re going, you can get a drink as well, if you’re not worried about the time.’

I nodded, as if I knew what was going on and felt comfortable with it.

In fact, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I had a vague idea, just as I was vaguely aware that I was about to cross a threshold that night. Or maybe I’d already crossed it.

I took a deep breath, settled in my seat in the DS as it glided silently through the deserted streets, and half closed my eyes. Damn it, I thought, I didn’t care. I wanted to go.

Wherever we were going, I was ready.

THE FORECOURT OF an old municipal housing estate.

We got out of the car and walked into one of the big blocks.

There was no lift. A thin guy was standing on the stairs between the first and second floor, leaning against the wall, smoking a
cigarette.
Francesco greeted him, and he replied with a nod and then jerked his head towards me, questioningly. Who was I?

‘He’s a friend.’

That seemed to be enough. We passed and climbed two more broad flights of stairs. We knocked at a door, and after a few
seconds
– someone was looking at us through the spyhole – the door was opened by a guy who looked like the older brother of the man on the stairs.

The interior of the apartment was really strange. A little hall on the right led to a very large room. In it, there was a bar counter, the kind you find sometimes in small hotels, a few tables and a few people sitting drinking and smoking. They seemed to be waiting for something. A record player was playing, at low volume, a scratchy copy of the soundtrack from the film
Cabaret.

There was a small room on the left, leading to another one on the far side. Green baize tables and people playing cards.

Francesco led me into the room with the bar. ‘Sit down, have a drink, I’ll be right back.’ And without waiting for a reply he went into the other room, walked across it, and disappeared from view. I sat down at the only free table. No one came to take my order, and
there was no one behind the bar. So I sat there, doing nothing, sure that everyone was looking at me and wondering who I was and what I was doing there.

In actual fact, no one was taking the slightest notice of me. They were all talking among themselves, and every now and again one of them turned round to look towards the other room. They were almost all men. Surreptitiously, I started observing the only two women in the room. One was short and fat, with narrow eyes close together and a brutish expression. She was sitting with two
nondescript-looking
men, and she was the one doing all the talking, in a low voice and a tone of barely contained anger.

The other woman was a very attractive brunette – though she must have been at least fifteen years older than me. A woollen
V-necked
sweater gave a glimpse of cleavage. She was the only person in the room I’d have liked to notice me. But she seemed completely smitten with the guy next to her, who was wearing a jacket and tie and a solid gold watch.

I was fantasising about the brunette – not the kind of thoughts I could have discussed with my maiden aunts – when Francesco materialised on the chair opposite me.

‘Emma.’

I jumped slightly. ‘Sorry?’

‘Her name is Emma. She’s married to C.M., but they’re
separated.
You know who C.M. is, don’t you? The frozen food guy. Five million a month in alimony and a house on the Piazza Umberto. A bit touched up here and there, but quite a dish all the same. Didn’t you get a drink?’

‘I didn’t see anyone–’

Francesco stood up, went behind the bar, and poured two glasses of whisky. He came back to the table and handed me one. Then we lit cigarettes.

‘So, why did you do what you did tonight?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never headbutted anyone in my life.’

‘That’s odd, then. The way you broke his nose looked very
professional
. Did someone teach you?’

Yes, someone had taught me.

When I was fourteen or fifteen my friends and I often hung out in a billiard hall close to where I lived. Most of the time, we played ping pong, or sometimes pocket billiards. The place didn’t exactly attract a high class clientele, and once I said something I shouldn’t to this guy who was already a criminal at the age of sixteen. I mean a professional criminal. Dealing drugs, stealing cars, that kind of thing. I never found out his name, but everyone called him – when he wasn’t around – Stinky. Personal hygiene wasn’t really his thing.

Naturally, he played me like a bongo, while my friends did
nothing
. I almost expected them to look away and whistle. Anyway, while I was taking the beating and trying to limit the damage, another man stepped in. He was a criminal too, and all of eighteen years old. He was bigger than the other guy and, what’s more, he was well known for being a lot more dangerous.

His name was Feluccio. Feluccio the Big Man. He was into all sorts of dodgy business and kept order in the whole of the block where the billiard hall was located. Of course, his idea of order was a very personal one, but that’s another subject. For some reason, he liked me.

He bought me a beer and gave me a dishcloth with ice in it for the bruises. He told me I couldn’t just take the blows like that. I replied that I could, and I was still here to prove it, but he didn’t catch my subtle humour. He was worried about what was going to happen to me out in the urban jungle and decided I should be his pupil. He’d developed his own system of unarmed combat. If he’d been born in the Far East, he might have become a great master. Instead, he was here, in Bari, and he was Feluccio the Big Man, the street brawl and football stadium bust-up champion of the Libertà neighbourhood.

In the little yard at the back of the billiard hall, Feluccio the Big Man taught me how to headbutt my opponent, how to knee him in the balls, how to slap him on the ear to deafen him, how to elbow him in the chin. He taught me how to bring down someone bigger than me, by simultaneously pulling him by the hair and kicking him on the inside of the knee.

I don’t know how far we’d have gone if my teacher hadn’t been arrested one day by the carabinieri for a robbery. That was the end of my apprenticeship in the art of street fighting.

‘That’s how I learned to headbutt. At least now I know it works.’

‘It’s a nice story,’ Francesco said when I’d finished telling it.

‘You’re right, it’s a nice story. What is this place?’

‘Can’t you see? It’s a kind of casino. Illegal, obviously. This room is where people wait to play. The first room is for the smaller games. The other rooms,’ he made a vague gesture with his hand, ‘are where they play for serious money.’

He drank some of his whisky and rubbed his eyes.

‘I talked to that friend of mine,’ he said, making the same gesture with his hand. ‘We can breathe easily now. Someone will pay a visit to our friends from tonight and explain that it’s not a good idea to cause any more trouble. And that’ll be it.’

‘How is it that you know…these people?’

‘I come here to play sometimes.’

At that moment, another group of people arrived. Three girls, more or less my age, and two men, much older. About forty at least, with Rolexes, expensive suits and faces to match. One of the girls looked long and hard at Francesco, as if trying to meet his eyes. It didn’t work.

‘I think it’s time to go – unless you’d like to sit in on a few games.’

‘No, no. Let’s go.’

So we stood up and walked to the main door. Francesco made no move to pay for the whisky. I was about to say something, worried
that some roughneck would follow us down the stairs and shoot us in the legs, as punishment. Then it occurred to me that Francesco knew what he was doing. Maybe he had an open tab in this dive – pardon, casino – and in the end I said nothing. The girl kept looking at Francesco as we left the room. We said goodbye to the guy at the door, and the one on the stairs, and walked back outside.

When we drew up outside my building, Francesco asked me if I fancied a game of poker one of these evenings. At the home of some friends, he hastened to add, noticing the look of
hesitation
in my eyes. I told him my phone number – he didn’t write it down, just committed it to memory – and we shook hands and said goodnight.

He owed me one, he said through the lowered car window when I was already out of the car and fiddling with my key in the defective lock. By the time I turned, he’d gone.

I went straight to bed, and stayed awake until the dawn light started to filter through the cracks in the shutters.