AND SO IT IS: so many and so great are the limitations self-imposed on the freedom of our behavior and our speech, that we are practically only able to express ourselves in angry outbursts, in drunken binges, in nervous breakdowns: that is, by revealing ourselves, once and for all, not the way we really are, but as caricatures of ourselves. And so we weep, we foam at the mouth, we throw punches, we complain bitterly. In some cases, we lash out, we even kill. If we release our grip for even a fleeting instant, which happens only rarely, then we collapse, we plunge straight down in a power dive, losing all the self-restraint so laboriously constructed over time, its profoundly contrived nature revealed all at once. We are thus condemned to appear in one of two extreme figures, the one ordinary and imperturbable, the other exceptional and aggressive. Neither one is authentic, let’s be clear about that, not even the image of the troublemaker, a reactive image, likewise created as a sudden crack in the effort at self-control. In other words, forced never to act naturally, never to experience a single instant of truth. He lives immersed in the exterior, extraneous reality like a fragment of shrapnel deep in the flesh. Although he’s a champion of introspection, occasionally assisted by expensive sessions of psychoanalysis, he doesn’t have the faintest idea of who he really is and, above all, what he’s capable of. Since it is not really him acting in those fits of rage, even those outbursts tell us nothing significant. If he hasn’t committed too much mayhem during this vacation from his own image of respectability, then he can return home on tiptoe, like an adulterous husband sneaking home in the shadows, slipping into his conjugal bed and turning affectionate, caressing his sleeping wife, gazing at her with something approaching tenderness.
INCAPABLE THEN of letting loose entirely in the throes of vendetta, of being evil in a continuous, ongoing manner, we concentrate that evil and choose targets symbolic in their random haphazardness against which to vent, or else we ask for their execution, turning to professionals or idiot brothers.
IN MANY OF THOSE who have practiced violence in a systematic fashion, even after they have renounced it and desisted, or simply ceased practicing it, there survives a sort of hidden pride; sometimes they shake their heads sagely as if they were far too wise by now to delve back into truths long since buried, but which still remain obvious to them; even if they almost always take great care not to do so explicitly, they offer the impression that they are still laying claim to the authenticity of their past actions and choices, their sincerity in the face of a legal world that generally tends either to stigmatize or camouflage violence, even though in point of fact its very foundations rest upon that same violence. Upon domination, bullying, and the abuse of the weak by the powerful. Everyone knows it, right?
With the murderous simplification of their actions (beatings, kidnappings, terror attacks, murders), they would be doing nothing other than to reveal the violent substance of human and social interactions, turning them inside out, revealing their hidden side. Like all prophets, they’re guilty of having announced an excessive, embarrassing truth, and were banished for having put it into practice. Instead of the usual hypocritical chitchat, instead of mortifying compromises, they’ve brusquely put an end to the conversation and let the concrete facts speak for themselves. And there can be nothing more concrete than a Walther sidearm. When you face the barrel of one of those, when it winks at you, chitchat is over. And after all, the pistols they used so ruthlessly are in no way different from the ones that on a daily basis defend the great power structures founded on arrogant abuse. If viewed solely from this point of view, then bandits and security guards are really no different. In short, a paradoxical logical consistency is heralded in those who engage in crime, a more authentic, more intense way of life. Violence is a powerful existential accelerator. And intensity remains the sole antidote to the dull flatness of bourgeois life, intensity is what everyone yearns for, and if evil is the only way to get your hands on it, if evil is the only option to keep you from feeling defeated by and complicit with this machine . . . at the risk of being annihilated, what does it really matter . . . annihilate the scruple, stop lingering over scruples . . .
They would have done anything to roil the placid waters of the pond that was the QT.
Those who practice the clarifying virtue of violence believe that they are breathing a purer air. A blow with a metal bar or a gunshot can put an end to useless chatter, and finally it becomes clear who has a pair of balls and who does not, whose hand is trembling, who is brave only at spouting words. Automatic weapons bring a whole philosophy with them . . .
Only those who have killed understand the meaning of an irrevocable act.
“IT IS AS IF THE VERY LIFE of the species, immortal because nourished by the continuous dying of the individual specimens that make it up, emerged especially powerfully due to the use of violence.”
IF, THEN, THE MIDDLE CLASS is by its nature prudent and moderate, silent and reserved, occasionally it explodes. It uses violent methods to gain an audience, to tell the world, “I exist.” And it’s an announcement seething with rage. It’s a mistake to underestimate its ferocity, as the brutal and boastful Cornishmen know all too well after being methodically eliminated one after another by the mild-mannered Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs (in Italian, Cane di paglia, a case in which a misleading translation actually creates an extraordinary title).
This must be the third or fourth time during the writing of this book that I’ve been reminded of the movies of Sam Peckinpah, and in particular, of Straw Dogs, 1971. Like a background buzz, an obsession. Which is due primarily to a notorious and controversial scene: when the Cornishman, who was a youthful lover of the petite blonde, now married to Dustin Hoffman (Susan George, how she lit my fire!), finds her alone in the house, buzzes around her, then tears her clothes off her, literally, dressing gown, T-shirt, torn cotton panties, then gives her a good hard smack because she’s objecting, and then fucks her on the sofa, in a way that is undoubtedly brutal, but remains unclear whether it’s actually a rape, seeing that after her initial resistance, she seems to enjoy the roughhousing of her intercourse with that hunk of man, in comparison with whom her little American nerd of a husband seems like a complete wimp (or, that is, until the epic finale . . .), and so she gives in, sobbing in pleasure and gratitude, until we wonder whether what we’ve just witnessed is a rape, or rather a confirmation of the theory that first women kick up a fuss and raise objections, but in the end they like it. Or else, perhaps, the reason is that, after all, that man is her ex-sweetheart, and she is his ex-lover, which means that if you’ve been with a woman once, you’ll always be able to fuck her again, even years later, by a right acquired once and for all, and if she says no, it’s only a contrived resistance that can be dissuaded with the back of your hand, and you have every right to beat her because in the end she’ll enjoy it even more than you will, or at least, so it would seem in the movie.
Whereas there can be no doubt that what ensues shortly thereafter is a rape, while the mathematician’s wife is still lying there, her eyes liquid with pleasure, and the friend of the first rapist comes in carrying a shotgun. This one, aside from being armed, is much cruder and more sinister, as well as armed. Threatening both the ex-boyfriend and the wife, he waves his friend to one side, then turns the young woman onto her belly and, while she screams and the other man does nothing, sodomizes her.
This is what I saw at the movie theater; when the film is shown on TV, the scene is cut because it’s too upsetting; there’s a break immediately prior to the sodomy scene.
In the meantime, the incompetent mathematician has been left out on the moor, shooting at pheasants, unable to hit even one of them.
SOME OF THE MOST RESPECTED SCHOLARS of violence maintain that there is no violence more bloodthirsty than bourgeois violence. No revolution has ever been as ferocious as the ones led by intellectuals of bourgeois extraction and education (such as Pol Pot). The bourgeois inflicts cruelty. Savagely. He applies his utmost zeal to mete out as much
pain and harm as possible. A proponent of boundaries, but look out if he steps across them. A bourgeois with bloodshot, enraged eyes is the most dangerous kind of wild beast, a stuffed dog who suddenly morphs into a Doberman. He suddenly springs to life. And he attacks. Being attacked by a bourgeois is like being ripped limb from limb by a plush dog. I’ve always tried to imagine the astonishment of the two girls when, all at once, these new friends of theirs, so well spoken and courteous, suddenly changed their tone of voice, the light in their eyes.
TO WHAT (HALLUCINATORY) EXTENT, and in what (symbolic) way did that crime and others committed by the gang display the distinctive traits of a vendetta? What were they avenging by kidnapping and torturing? In whose name were they unleashing these reprisals? Had someone hired them, appointed them, legitimized them? Or had they believed that someone was hiring them, so that they felt they were his henchmen, his paladins? Can you hire someone to commit a crime or incite them to commit many crimes without ever showing your hand? Are there orders that never even have to be given and yet are faithfully carried out? And why did they feel such a powerful impulse to demean, to degrade their victims? To profane them, the way men do in ethnic wars, to destroy the enemy’s identity? In what sense were those girls “the enemy”?
THEY TOOK THE WOMEN’S VIRGINITY. At the time when these events took place, that was still a priceless possession, although in those years also the subject of fierce debate. With that penetration, a brusque act especially if performed with brutality (more or less like wringing a chicken’s neck), a place in the female body considered rightly or wrongly to be sacred is suddenly violated, turning into the filthiest and most contaminated thing. What was intact is now lacerated, what was pure is now heaped with filth.
FOR YEARS THE ITALIAN LEFT WING has done nothing but parody or mock the fear and resentment of a population of helpless citizens who are, literally, at the mercy of their attackers, displaying only contempt for the little old lady who has an armored door installed and hides behind it, closing all three locks and dead bolts, for fear of the Albanian immigrants in the street . . . Assigned to this systematic campaign of denigration are numerous satirical writers and authors of op-eds and think pieces. As if the real social problem, in the final analysis, was the little old lady, to be pilloried and scorned, rather than the Albanians, to be thrown behind bars. Certainly, the first solution is cheaper and easier to implement.
After all, is it so deplorable that what matters most to the members of our bourgeoisie is to live and die in peace? What is so disgusting about this desire, not especially romantic but, in the end, understandable? Why should an honest person not have the right to expect that his legitimate interests have a prior claim over those of a criminal?
To borrow a phrase from the most famous theorist of violence, the honest man has every right to prefer not to let himself be killed just because he is honest . . .
I’ve said it before: “bourgeois” is a word that nearly all authors, myself included, struggle not to utter or write without a subtle hint of scorn, a faint smirk of contempt.
THE EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY to construct stark and dramatic scenarios in the mind, elaborating on the slimmest evidence of danger, is paid for with a permanent state of anxiety. The laughable aspect of this nightmare is that there is absolutely no need for it to come true in order for it to throw us into a state of panic: the source of terror is the expectation itself. Human beings are probably the most fearful creatures in all Creation, and the bourgeois is the most fearful of all men. Fear keeps him company every minute that marks the passing of both day and night. In the face of a limited prospect of physical suffering, caused by material necessities that are by and large well taken care of, the bourgeois possesses a virtually bottomless capacity for mental suffering. He adds to whatever real threats face him those mass-produced by his tireless intellect, and it is these latter fears that pain him like so many stabbing knives, indeed, even worse, because the hypothetical blade never once stops being brandished over him, brought down to stab, stab, stab, just like in Psycho. The incalculable stab wounds of fear, the apprehension of suffering makes us suffer even more than the actual suffering when it arrives. Apprehension, sorrow, distress, alarm, uneasiness, suspicion: the image of the comfortable life of the middle class like some placidly flowing river is the purest myth. The bourgeois is worried about himself, his family, his possessions, and his savings, which he fears are not safely and permanently secure against harm, about the social order and his own moral and psychic equilibrium, that is, the two symmetrical faces of security, which however rests on too many varied factors, none of which can be said to be warranted in perpetuity. He feels threatened from without and within, by those who are worse off than him but also by those who are better off. The powerful and the miserable are using every weapon known, treacherous and outright, to assault the safety, the respectability, the property, and even the life of the helpless specimen of the middle class: the state robs him every bit as effectively as do burglars and thieves and the phone company and insurance companies. High consumer prices and the churnings up and down of the stock market, illegal immigrants and dope peddlers, even the members of his own class conspire against all the other members of the class—and likewise lawyers, doctors, dentists, and notaries do nothing but conspire to embitter the life of the bourgeois man. Court orders and tax bills poison that life, at the hand of the postman. The bourgeois fears solitude every bit as much as overcrowding, he has every bit as much fear of being abandoned as he does of being intruded upon, in his thoughts as well as in his possessions, indeed, perhaps this last-named fear remains the most powerful and the oldest, one is afraid of strangers as one fears the snakes and wild animals that our ancestors fought against, as they defended their caverns. This fear must be exorcized at all costs. Perhaps the most effective option to be wielded against that fear is neither fight nor flight, but rather to play dead. To change into a stone, blend in with the cement, cancel oneself entirely. Suppress all emotional reactions until you have the heart of a fakir. It had always worked. There were people who lived perfectly well as if they were dead, they walked, they signed checks, they watched TV, they drove their Fiat 1100s, they went to the movies or the soccer stadium, and they even died, even though they had already been deceased for some time. Only an early death made a decent life possible. That, after all, is what philosophies and religions tell us.
But after the CR/M, things were suddenly different, a new feeling spread through the QT, a generic anxiety about the meaning of one’s presence in the world, the thread of anguish that binds and squeezes the life of the middle class was transformed into terror, an all-consuming sentiment that refuses to be deciphered or neutralized. Previously, death had poked its head up in the quarter in the guise of old age and disease, or else in infrequent car crashes: now it was turning into a widespread possibility, palpable even as it remained abstract, a constant daily topic, something you could never feel didn’t concern you because there was never any specific reason either way. A violent fate no longer limited to the narrative of individuals, but rather looming over one and all. Once it had slithered its way into the quarter, that shadow never went away again. In a setting that was by definition “peaceful,” it was impossible to calculate the risks. What elements could one use in making such predictions? Which streets were dangerous, which people should we avoid, what behaviors were now inadvisable? Apparently, none. Everything looked innocuous and deadly at the same time. Everything lent itself to a twofold interpretation. Nerves shot by false alarms. All it required was the creaking of a rusty weather vane, the flat report of a motorcycle starting, a backfiring exhaust pipe, to sow panic. As a result of that unprecedented crime, they had learned that under the outer semblance of a respectable young man, a murderer might be lurking, and there was no way to identify him ahead of time. In other words, they “are among us,” they “are just like us.” So what do people do, instinctively? They lock themselves up in their homes, turning the lock and the dea
d bolt, but instead of basking in that safety, they wind up falling prey to the violent propaganda from the TV. Barricading yourself indoors only makes your fear grow exponentially. That’s what happened to a great many residents of the QT, especially the ones who were middle aged. Taking a stroll after dinner down little streets like Via Gradisca or Via delle Isole had become more frightening than venturing into a deep dark forest. Heaven forfend you should run into a gang of kids. They might shoot you, or they might just walk past, talking about their Latin test, paying you no mind, because after all, they really were harmless little kids on their way to the pizzeria, not out to commit a crime. Who could know for sure? The most unnerving aspect was the fact that you were always and inevitably at the mercy of what other people chose to do. You were in their power, in thrall to their inclinations and moods. No longer could even the tried-and-tested bourgeois therapy of “doing” be brought to bear: in order to leave less room for anxious thoughts, one overwhelms one’s consciousness with practical pursuits, one stuns oneself with hard work. Work has always been the wheel to which the bourgeois nailed himself, in a martyrdom to the eyes of his neighbor, thus earning their respect, while at the same time keeping them safely at bay.
A curfew settled over the QT, that is to say, an extraordinary state in which the simplest and most harmless actions were prohibited while those that were horrible became quite routine. A curfew is first and foremost a state of mind.
THE STUPIDEST THING I did in those years was this: my girlfriend and I would ride around the quarter on a Vespa, her driving and me in back, carrying a water pistol.
The water pistol was shaped like the baby elephant Dumbo and it sprayed the water out of its trunk. We’d zip along the sidewalks at low speeds and if we saw someone walking along with their back to us, we’d slow down even more, come even with them, and fire. I’d aim with my arm held straight and I’d hit them in the face with a jet of water. The trigger would release quite a substantial spray. If the target was too far away to allow for precision fire, then I’d just fire volleys recklessly. There were those who weren’t fast enough to notice our incursion and were drenched before they realized it. There were others who instead had a presentiment of the shadow at their back, turned their head, realized they were in the crosshairs, and for the fraction of a second before I pulled the trigger, an expression was painted on their faces that was a blend of astonishment and disbelief, perfectly idiotic, in part because they weren’t able to realize immediately that it was only a water pistol. All right, a water pistol with the ears and trunk of Dumbo; but the act was still the same, straight-armed, aiming a weapon, like the black-and-white pictures everyone had seen, starting with the oldest and most famous photograph of them all, taken in Genoa at the turn of that decade, on March 26, 1971, during an armed robbery carried out by the revolutionary Gruppo XXII Ottobre, in which you can see two militants aboard a Lambretta, and the one riding in back shoots a courier (his name was Alessandro Floris) and kills him for having resisted their attempt to steal his bag full of money.
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