The Twenty Days of Turin

by Giorgio de Maria

  “And you didn’t think that it could’ve been a loudspeaker?”

  “That’s a thing the journalists politely pointed out to me, but I didn’t get that impression at all.”

  “And what did you do when you heard it?”

  “Nothing right away. I stood there, thunderstruck . . . The glassware hadn’t stopped quivering when a second scream, coming from a different direction but still close by, rattled me even further. It was the same type of sound: there was no comparing it with anything else, no label that suited it. Only it seemed to me that the second scream had a lower volume, like it came from a weaker throat—and yet it was extremely bold.”

  “Can you show me the direction?” I asked.

  Segre got up, took me by the wrist and led me to the balcony. Evening was approaching; the motor traffic outside had gotten heavy. It was the side of itself the city displays in those hours: a flat, raucous daily grind.

  “After the second scream,” he said, “I finally decided to head out. The view from upstairs doesn’t give much more than what you see here. There were some drifters roving about on the street, perhaps the first insomnia victims. I was struck by the fact that none of them seemed frightened. The only signs of unease came from the palazzo across the road, from that villa there, where a window was wide open: a fleeting apparition of a woman who glanced left and right, then quickly vanished, pulling back the shutters. There was an unusual smell in the air . . . ”

  “Of vinegar?”

  “Yes, more or less . . . Anyway, I would say that the first scream came from over there, at the intersection.”

  “Near the monument to King Victor Emmanuel?”

  “Roughly. The second scream came from the opposite side, from the area around the cottages . . . Of course, I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly . . . Then a third scream, much farther away . . . farther away, and yet even more terrible. It seemed like they were relaying some kind of message. A few seconds went by, then other screams arose from the most disparate directions . . . From this neighborhood, and then from lower down, lower down towards the city center, like echoes . . . And there was always something gray and metallic deep behind it . . . I repeat: they had the intonation of war cries, not only bold as I said, but virulent and hostile. Here, it seemed to me—though now we enter the field of subjective hunches—that the cries were rising up against each other . . . That they were not, in fact, directed at us, but towards the same entity that emitted them . . . That they were expressing a hatred alien to our feelings, but somehow, within the being of that hatred, we could recognize ourselves.”

  “Can you explain this contradiction any better?”

  “Have you ever seen two animals fighting? Well, they do it for their own reasons, which don’t concern us. Yet, witnessing their struggle, we can’t help but feel implicated—by all the moments when we too, often as not, fight each other like dogs in the street.”

  “You mean, they seemed like premonitions of a battle that wouldn’t have men as its protagonists, but other things?”

  Segre gave a vague gesture, to make me appreciate that the query went outside the limits on which we had agreed. With a tender smile he invited me back into his study.

  “The phenomenon never repeated itself?” I asked as he was closing the window.

  “Nothing regarding it that I noticed.”

  “How many people, other than yourself, were aware of the screaming?”

  “I managed to collect roughly ten reliable observers, all people who lived in the historic center of the city. As far as I know, there haven’t been any reports from the outer neighborhoods.”

  It didn’t seem like our conversation would bring any further developments. I wanted to leave Segre my address but he turned it down. If, however, my investigation turned up any interesting results, he would be pleased to learn them. I was ready to say goodbye and thank him for his help when I saw him head toward his personal library and take out a slim little book. He handed it to me.

  “This is Robert Musil’s witty collection Posthumous Papers of a Living Author,” said my host. “It’s an old Einaudi edition from 1970, no longer in print . . . Keep it, and maybe you’ll find something that will intrigue you.”

  It wasn’t a book I knew. I assured him that I would read it with the utmost attention.

  “Until we meet again, Attorney Segre,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “Godspeed!” he answered, meeting my grip robustly.

  * English in the original text.

  III.

  THE LIBRARY

  THE REDNESS THAT LIT up Signorina Bergesio’s face, at any of my hinting toward the Library, was a giveaway sign of a very common discomfort among people who live in the city whenever that special topic is broached. There’s nobody anxious to remember the Library, except perhaps its creators—who nonetheless have managed to cover their tracks so carefully that interviewing them is close to impossible. But if you hope to paint an image of what Turin was like at the time of the Twenty Days, you cannot leave out the Library. How many regular clients did it see? Three hundred? Four hundred? Five hundred? Or even more than that? It’s useless searching for the figures: all the statistical data concerning that establishment has been destroyed, along with most of the materials it held. How fast, almost explosive, its growth was! And they dismantled it just as quickly, at the order of the local authorities, ten years ago in September. No official reason was given. They proceeded to seize the Library’s contents. This material was eventually thrown into the incinerators, and, as far as I know, nothing survived except for a few notebooks in a house basement next to the Town Hall.

  Still fortified by the encouragement Segre had given me, I decided to take the thrill of approaching some people old enough to have frequented the Library. I mixed in with a crowd at a market and, nearing the stall of a cheesemonger, I waited for the chance to strike up a conversation with someone. At random, I picked a woman who stood behind me with a huge shopping bag.

  “Sorry, madam! Were you in line before me?” I asked her.

  “Perhaps? I don’t know. I wasn’t watching,” she replied, visibly moved by my courtesy.

  “I think you were,” I added. “But that’s no worry. You can go ahead.” She let out a sigh of thanks, and in all the time it took to place her order she never stopped making crafty glances in my direction, full of gratitude.

  “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” I said suddenly with a roguish drawl, while the merchant was weighing a piece of Fontina for her.

  “We have?” she replied, startled.

  “Yes, don’t you remember? Quite a while ago!”

  She tweaked her chin with two fingers and frowned.

  “Well . . . maybe,” she said. “I’ve always lived around here.”

  “No, no, not around here. We’ve met somewhere else. I remember you very well, madam . . . I’d see you almost all the time, on Sunday mornings . . .”

  Her expression began to darken.

  “You mean, of course . . . at Sunday Mass?” she stammered.

  “At Mass, but not just there . . . You didn’t by any chance visit the Library often?”

  It was like I’d elbowed her in the gut. For a moment she looked at me, breathless, then promptly settled the bill and crammed the cheese in her bag, sidling away without even a ciao. Her reaction surprised me; it far outdid the blushing of Signorina Bergesio. Shooting in the dark, I must have hit one of her most nervous secrets. Other shoppers around us pretended they hadn’t heard, though we’d spoken loudly enough. They gazed out at thin air, and I was certain that even if I wrangled with the cheesemonger for a quarter of an hour, none of them would ask me to speed things up. I saw some people creeping out of the queue. In a hurry, I bought two pieces of Paglierina. I wasn’t going to increase the awkwardness.

  This, and other, similar experiences, convinced me that up-front queries weren’t the best way to approach my topic of interest. To make progress I needed a go-between, and so I was grateful when
a friend spoke on my behalf to the current mayor. Thanks to his efforts, I had permission to go and rummage through the Library’s remains. After that, I planned on questioning people who weren’t as heavily involved with the institution, in order to expand my inquiry.

  To reach the basement, with its stack of manuscripts that have survived incineration, one first has to clear the obstacle of two very suspicious watchmen who can hardly believe anyone would want to study such decrepit material. I don’t know who put them there or the reason why: whether their job is only to guard the vestiges of the Library, or if they’re charged with minding other things as well. I do know that when I rang the buzzer on the door, the figure who came to greet me seemed to rise from an ocean of torpor. The other watchman was glued to his chair, as if he and it were one substance. But as soon as they knew the purpose of my visit, oh, my! It was like an electric current had crossed them! Suddenly the unforeseen demand on their public function ignited them with a bureaucratic frenzy rarely found in those who fill such positions. They passed my permit around to each other at least five times, examined it against the light, split hairs over my documentation. (And why did I wish to go down to the storeroom? And what was I hoping to find? But this was the mayor’s real signature? Did I know that I was the first to have made this kind of request?)

  “Well, go through! Go through!” they jabbered, after assigning me a large rusty key that had been hanging on a nail. I took it, a bit overwhelmed by their sudden change of attitude.

  “Come along! What are you waiting for? It’s the first door downstairs . . .” With their thumbs they pointed to a spiral staircase not far from their desk. Then they fell back into their chairs and didn’t say another word.

  I’d had the foresight to bring along two old gloves. I’d also taken a pair of scissors and a flashlight, imagining plenty of strings to cut and lots of darkness. I didn’t encounter any darkness—the cellar was lit by neon—but the rest outdid my worst expectations. There was an unbearable stench of mildew and decay. The reference material was gathered in a single stack that occupied almost the entire room: it made me shudder to think this mass of wastepaper made up only the slightest portion of what the Library had once been. I recalled the library of Alexandria, whose conflagration had spared absolutely nothing. Here, fate had proven to be milder: But in the name of what? It was hard to tell where to start searching. There was also the danger that the whole lot would fall on me like an avalanche. I plunged a hand randomly into the mound and, trusting my left forearm to secure the treacherous, shaky side of that structure, pulled hard enough to dislodge a few odds and ends. It was a manuscript held together with string, plus a couple of notebooks. I beat them against my knees, drawing out a dust cloud that left me sneezing. I’d taken some occasions to visit the Library and nose around the year it had appeared, so I knew the spirit of these documents, but it pleased me just as well to refresh my memory. The manuscript was made up of hundreds of rolled foolscap sheets that I immediately unfastened with my scissors. The two notebooks were bound, one in green and one in black. Each still had the reference number attached, but the names and surnames of the authors were missing. Those were the rules of the game back then. Readers who wanted to know a diarist’s identity could request it after making a payment to the Library staff. Everyone’s name and address was carefully catalogued. The writer of the foolscap sheets asked to be called “Evelina” and insisted that she was still an attractive woman, even in her forties. Menopause had struck her too soon, she lamented. It had wreaked havoc on certain “bodily drives.” She was seeking an understanding individual who could assist her, since her husband didn’t want any part in satisfying her “new demands.” He’d fallen to chasing younger girls. Now what Evelina yearned for was a young man who could spare his hands to help her defecate . . .

  “I’ve become very constipated,” she wrote. “There are days when my belly seems close to rupturing and I cry because I remember how I suffered during my pregnancy: I felt as heavy as a cannonball! Then one day a man in white appeared with rubber gloves and helped me unburden myself and I was so thankful, even if the kid was stillborn. Well, if someone came to my rescue now there are lots of ways I could show my gratitude. I’d pay them in kisses and hard cash. I won big at the football pools a few months ago and there’s plenty of cheddar in the bank just springing to be taken out. I’m ready to give and give and give . . .” Page after page told of her torments and her need for liberation. One whole chapter was devoted to her bathroom reading: a hefty list of novels, newspapers and glossy magazines. Her appetites weren’t choosy. Certain titles, though, were underlined in red. Next to a pulp romance by Liala, I found a treatise on semiotics. And another chapter followed, filled with descriptions of cutlery and silverware . . .

  “If you really want to know,” she wrote, addressing her imaginary reader, “I’m not the materialist you think I am. Deep inside me there’s also a second desire, but it’s so sublime I wouldn’t be able to explain it unless we’re speaking face to face. You would be proud of me if you knew it: it’s the very purest of desires which shines like a soft light at the nethermost part of my being. Come and make it shine! You can do it!”

  Toward the end of the manuscript, which I read skimming here and there, Evelina spoke about the feelings that came after the writing was over: the totality of the confessions she’d poured out of herself had given her a feeling of being drained, empty, voided, like there was nothing more to scrape from the bottom of her barrel—like her riverbed had all dried out. Now she was thirsty—and really wanted to get some sleep: “But thirsty for what? And what dreams could I nod off to?”

  I remembered Bergesio’s sister and what she told me about her brother’s “dry lake,” about those bas-reliefs. I wondered if this woman had ended up smashed to death along some city avenue. This was a purely academic question: “Evelina,” for sure, was a nom de plume and the personal details in the Library’s register no longer existed. It was fair to assume that, venturing from her house one night due to insomnia, perhaps half naked, she too heard footsteps behind her, and turned without wonder to see who was approaching her. Perhaps she gave a faintly curious, “Oh!”—one last automatic spark of vitality before even that ember was extinguished. Then two hands grabbed her by her lower limbs, swung her through the air and slammed her over the asphalt, or a tree trunk, or the body of a parked car. Whether or not she was among the first to die, used like a truncheon, against . . .

  The revelations contained in the other two notebooks were more cautious. They spoke about satisfying some kind of poetic desire. This was a more elaborate language, trying dearly to package personal issues in metaphor. One work ended with a tirade against the despotism of the publishing industry; it seemed to have taken Vittorio Alfieri as its literary model. There were no references to parched lakes. Just a few allusions to the poverty of the human imagination and lack of initiative that was then plaguing the city. And on that point, the author wasn’t wrong. I can remember quite well the “stifling atmosphere” that held sway over Turin at that time. The collapse of its industries. The exodus of immigrants back to their native provinces, which were at least safe from the severe drought that struck the entire Alpine arch. The overcrowded trains that left Porta Nuova station direct for Southern Italy, only to return half empty. New loads, new ­departures . . . The situation of finding ourselves thrust back almost at once to our indigenous wholesomeness—an event many “purebred Turinese” had even longed for with a sour regionalism—had ended up producing a general sense of loss. “Ah! Look who’s returned! Now we’re all in this together again, fingers crossed!” Among those who arrived to that fanfare, it would’ve been hard to find anyone ready to share in its joy. More often, they looked shrunken, secretive, ashamed. As it happens when you bump into a friend you haven’t visited in decades, dressed by time in wrinkles and gray hair. Although the immigrants had left us holding on to their communal loose ends, so to speak, there weren’t nearly enough battalions of pi
ckpockets, pimps and hardened criminals to fill the vacancies that had formed.

  The city authorities, at least some of them, had an accurate sense of what was coming. But how could the goodwill of a few handle a phenomenon which couldn’t necessarily be fixed with superficial measures? It was vital (they said) to establish “community centers” at once! We had to stop new forms of “psychological alienation” from supplanting the old ones! The preventative action was extended to the whole district: It was urgent! It was essential! It was a must-do! How many papers were drafted, full of high-minded cultural intentions! How many mimeographed sheets were distributed among neighborhood committees! Yet the only “places of assembly” that were in any way functional were certain clubs mostly frequented by the elderly—ancient institutions like the Journalists’ Circle, the Artists’ Club, the Famiglia Torinese. Anyone who went inside, to view this anomaly in person, won’t easily forget the haze of smoke through which you could hardly see the pool tables, the bridge players sitting like statues at their benches, the huge chandeliers of crystal that had turned opaque and—hanging over everything—that indescribable, unutterable, tomblike quiet! By chance, one bridge player broke hours of silence by accusing his partner of taking so long he was fossilizing.

  “Fossilizing—me?” he answered.

  “Yes, fossilizing! You, my dear boy, are a fossil!”

  “So I’m a fossil now? Is that right?”