Involuntary Witness gg-1

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  We drank our coffee and lit cigarettes. This luckily interrupted the conversation on the ethics of lawyer-hood. I said that the coffee in the law courts was also used to poison the mice. She burst out laughing and said she was glad I was able to make her laugh. I was glad too.

  Then we made our way back to the courtroom.

  28

  The judge told the bailiff to call the witness Antonio Renna.

  The latter crossed the courtroom looking about him with a cocksure air. He had the look of a peasant. A stumpy figure, checked shirt with a 70s-style collar, swarthy complexion and crafty eyes. Not at all an engaging craftiness either, rather suggesting first chance I get, I’ll cheat you. He hoisted up his trousers by the belt with a gesture that seemed to me obscene, and took his time sitting down in the seat reserved for witnesses, shown him by the bailiff. With his back to the cage where Abdou was. He sat sprawling, filling the whole chair and relaxing against the back. He had an air of self-satisfaction, and I had a distinct urge to wipe it off his face.

  Cervellati’s interrogation was nothing but a kind of repeat of the one during the preliminary inquiries. Renna said exactly the same things, in the same order and more or less in the same words.

  When his turn came, Cotugno finally asked a few questions, totally insignificant. Just to show his clients, the child’s parents, that he existed and was earning his fee.

  I was about to start my cross-examination when Margherita whispered something in my ear.

  “I don’t know what makes me think so, but this man’s a turd.”

  “I know.” Then I turned to the witness.

  “Good morning, Signor Renna.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I am Avvocato Guerrieri, and I am defending Signor Thiam. I will now ask you a number of questions to which I ask you to reply briefly and without making comments.” My tone of voice was deliberately odious. I wanted to provoke him, to see if I could find an opening so as to get in my blow. As in boxing.

  Renna regarded me with his piggy little eyes. Then he addressed the judge.

  “Your Honour, do I also have to answer the questions of a lawyer ?”

  “You are obliged to answer, Signor Renna.” The judge’s face expressed the thought that, were it in his power, he would willingly have done without me, and most other defending counsel as well. Unfortunately it was not. I, however, had gained a tiny advantage. The barman had swallowed the bait and from now on was more vulnerable.

  “Well, then, Signor Renna, you told the public prosecutor that on the afternoon of 5 August 1999 you saw Signor Thiam walking quickly from north to south. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember when it was you were heard by the public prosecutor during the inquiries?”

  “He interrogated me a week later, I think.”

  “When were you heard by the carabinieri?”

  “Before, the day before.”

  “Is your bar frequented by non-European citizens?”

  “Quite a few. They come in for a coffee, they buy cigarettes.”

  “Can you tell us their nationalities?”

  “I don’t know. They’re all niggers…”

  “Are you able to tell us more or less how many niggers frequent your bar?”

  “Don’t know. They’re the lot that go round peddling stuff on the beaches, and even in the streets. Sometimes they even hang about right outside my bar.”

  “Ah, they even hang about right outside your bar. But they don’t interfere with your custom, do they?”

  “They interfere, they interfere, and how!”

  “Forgive me for asking, but if they are a nuisance, why don’t you call the municipal police, or the carabinieri?”

  “Why don’t I call them? I call them all right, but d’you think they come?” He was thoroughly indignant now. But meanwhile Cervellati had seen what I was leading up to. A bit late though.

  “Your Honour, I notice that the defence is continuing to ask every witness questions without any pertinence to the object of these proceedings. I don’t see how it is possible to go ahead in this manner.”

  I spoke before Zavoianni could get a word in.

  “I have finished on this point, Your Honour. I am going on to another.”

  “Taking great care, Avvocato Guerrieri. Very great care,” said the judge.

  “Well then, Signor Renna, I had a few other questions for you… ah, yes, I wanted to show you some photographs.” Out of my briefcase I took a series of photocopies of colour photographs. I was deliberately clumsy about it.

  “Your Honour, may I approach the witness and show him some photographs?”

  “What photographs might they be, Avvocato?”

  I was now about to start walking the tightrope. A wrong word on one side and I’d end up under disciplinary procedure. A wrong word on the other and I would have ruined everything I had accomplished up to that moment.

  “They are photographs of non-European citizens, Your Honour. I wish to verify whether the witness recognizes any of them.” In a carefully colourless tone of voice.

  The judge made his usual sign to tell me I could go ahead. I hoped that Cervellati wouldn’t ask to see the photos, or demand more precise information as to who were the persons represented, which was within his rights. He didn’t do it. I approached the witness, photos in hand.

  “Signor Renna, may I ask you to look at these ten photographs?” I felt my heartbeat accelerating wildly.

  Renna looked at the photographs. He was no longer so relaxed as at the beginning. He had shifted towards the edge of his chair. Flight position, the psychologists call it.

  “Do you recognize anyone in these photographs?”

  “I don’t think I do. There are so many of them who come by my bar, I can’t remember them all.”

  I took the photos back and returned to my place before putting the next question.

  “Nevertheless, and correct me if I am wrong, you remembered Signor Thiam perfectly well, did you not?”

  “Certainly I did. He was always coming by.”

  “If you saw him, in person or in a photograph, you would recognize him, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, yes. He’s the one in the cage.”

  Only at that moment did he turn round. I remained silent for a second or two before rounding it off.

  “You know, Signor Renna, I put that last question to you because, of the ten photographs you looked at, two show the face of Signor Thiam, the defendant. But you said you didn’t think you recognized any of them. How do you explain this fact?”

  A coup of this order is very rare in a trial, as indeed in life. But when it comes off, the feeling it gives is almost indescribable. I felt time slow down, and the tension in the air and on my skin. I felt Margherita’s eyes on me, and I knew there was no need to ask her if I’d done well. I had.

  “You just let me see those photos again…” Renna addressed me as tu, and not because we had suddenly become friends. It sometimes happens like that.

  “Don’t worry about the photos. I assure you that two of these photos represent the defendant, as the court will be able to verify shortly, when I produce them. From you I wish to know how you explain – if you can explain – the fact that you were not able to recognize Signor Thiam.”

  Renna replied angrily, almost lapsing into dialect.

  “Explain, explain. Why they’re all the same, these niggers. How can I tell, after a year… I’d like to see you, Avvocato, I’d just like to see you…”

  Stop there, stop there, I told myself, feeling an almost overwhelming urge to ask another question and triumph. Or else blunder. Stop there.

  “Thank you, Your Honour, I have finished with this witness. I ask to produce the photographs, or rather the photocopies, used during the cross-examination. The two showing the defendant have a note on the back. The others are of subjects quite extraneous to the proceedings and are taken from various periodicals.”

  Cervellati wanted to
ask a few additional questions, as was his right by law. However, the very fact that he made use of that right meant he was showing signs of weakening.

  He made Renna repeat his account, made him clarify the fact that a year ago it had all been fresh in his memory, and that since then he had not seen the accused, either in person or in a photograph. He patched together a few fragments, but we both knew it would not be easy to rid the minds of the jury of the impression they had received that morning.

  29

  The next hearing – on Wednesday, 21 June – Margherita did not attend because she had a job to finish. She had told me she would try to be there for Abdou’s interrogation the following week.

  That morning the boy’s parents and grandparents were heard. Cervellati and Cotugno questioned them at length about insignificant details. They could have done without it.

  I put only a few questions, to the grandfather. Did he have a Polaroid? He did, and he remembered taking shots on the beach last summer. It was possible – though he didn’t remember it – that the boy had kept some. In any case, he couldn’t say where those photos had got to.

  Of the parents I asked nothing, and while I was watching them during Cervellati’s examination I grew ashamed of having put those questions about the separation to the carabinieri lieutenant.

  They were more or less my age. He was an engineer and she a physical education teacher. They answered the questions identically, behaved in the same way. Lifeless, not even angry. Nothing.

  Abdou spent the whole hearing clutching the bars of the cage, his face pressed between them, his eyes riveted on those witnesses, as if longing to attract their attention and tell them something.

  But those two didn’t look anyone in the face, and when their deposition was over, they went away without so much as a glance at the cage in which Abdou was locked.

  They no longer cared about anything, not even that the presumed author of all that destruction was punished.

  The thought occurred me that if we had had a child when Sara had brought the matter up, it would now have been about six years old.

  The trial was adjourned until the following Monday, for the examination of the defendant and any possible applications for additional evidence before the closing argument.

  I left the courtroom, cool as it was with its air-conditioning, and was enveloped in the damp and deadly heat of June. It had arrived, even though late. I loosened my tie and unbuttoned my collar on my way down the broad central steps of the law courts.

  I walked homewards with a strange buzzing in my head. I feared a return of my trouble a year before, and it occurred to me that since that time I had never used a lift.

  My thoughts began to get muddled, fear was encroaching. I might have been in a scene of one of those disaster movies where the hero is fleeing desperately before the waters flooding an underground tunnel.

  In a strange way this idea helped me. I told myself I no longer wanted to run away. I would stop, I would hold my breath and let the wave sweep over me. Come what may.

  I did exactly that. I mean I really stopped in the street, took a deep breath and stood there holding it for several seconds.

  Nothing happened, and when I let it go I felt better. Much better, with a brain that was functioning again, lucidly, as if it had been cleansed of old incrustations and piles of rubbish all in one go.

  It was then that I had the idea of passing by the office before going home. I had decided to try something.

  On my way to the office I began breathing by forcing my diaphragm down, as I used to before a boxing match. Trying to empty my mind and to concentrate on what I had to do.

  I reached the street door, got my keys from my briefcase, opened the door and dropped the keys back in. I rebuttoned my collar and reknotted my tie. Then, instead of heading for the stairs as I had done for about a year, I pushed the button and called the lift. While it was on its way down I felt my heartbeat quicken and heat surge to my face.

  When the lift arrived I told myself that I mustn’t think and I mustn’t hesitate. I opened the metal outer door, then the two inner flaps. I entered, closed the metal door, closed the inner ones, looked at the panel of buttons, placed the first finger of my right hand on number eight, shut my eyes and pressed.

  I felt the lift jerk upwards and thought the test wouldn’t work if I kept my eyes shut. I opened them wide as I felt my breath coming short, my arms and legs weaken.

  When the lift reached the eighth floor I remained motionless for a short while. I told myself that it was no good if I couldn’t stay there another ten seconds without moving, even at the risk of someone calling the lift.

  I counted. A hundred and one. A hundred and two. A hundred and three. A hundred and four. A hundred and five. A hundred and six. A hundred and seven. A hundred and eight. A hundred and nine. There I stopped, my hand hovering near the knob of one of the inner doors. I had pins and needles all over my body, but really fiercely in that hand and arm.

  I had stopped time in its tracks.

  A hundred and ten.

  Slowly I opened one flap. Then the other. Then I opened the metal door. Without leaving the lift I looked out at the broad slabs of marble paving the landing. I knew I mustn’t put a foot on the cracks between them. I must be careful to tread from one slab to the next. I remembered that was exactly what I had always thought coming out of that lift ever since I had used it.

  I thought: what the hell.

  And I put the first foot right between two slabs. I was not concerned about the second, but turned to close the lift doors with intense concentration. First the two inner flaps, then the metal door, which I pushed to gently until I heard it click.

  I stayed there leaning against the wall of the landing for maybe ten minutes. I held my briefcase in front of me with both hands, my arms stiff. From time to time I swung it to and fro. I looked into space with half-closed eyes and, I think, a slight smile on my lips.

  When enough time had passed I pushed myself away from the wall. I recalled how a year before I had met Signor Strisciuglio, and thought now of knocking at his door. To tell him how it had all ended.

  But I didn’t. I stepped back into the lift, which no one had summoned in the meantime, and left the building.

  High time to get home.

  30

  When I was a child and they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I always said “a sheriff”. My idol was Gary Cooper in High Noon. When they told me there weren’t any sheriffs in Italy, but only policemen, I promptly replied that I would be a policeman sheriff. I was a good child and wanted to hunt down wrongdoers one way or another.

  Then – I must have been about eight or nine – I witnessed the arrest of a bag snatcher in the street. As a matter of fact I don’t know if he was a bag snatcher or a pickpocket or some other kind of petty crook. My memories are slightly vague. They only become clear for one short sequence.

  I am with my father walking along the street. There is a rumpus behind us and then a skinny youngster rushes past us like greased lightning, it seems to me. My father clasps me to him, just in time to prevent me being knocked over by another man, also running. He is wearing a black sweater and yelling out as he runs. Yelling in dialect. He is yelling to the boy to stop or else he’ll kill him. The boy doesn’t stop of his own accord, but perhaps twenty yards further on he crashes into a pedestrian. He falls. The man in the black sweater is on top of him and now a third man is coming up, bigger and slower on his feet. I wriggle free from my father and get near them. The man in the black sweater strikes the boy, who from close up looks little more than a child. He hits him in the face with his fists, and when the other tries to protect himself, he tears his hands away and starts hitting him again, yelling in dialect, “You son of a whore. Go fuck your mother. Damn you, you fucking bastard.” And another smash on the head with his clenched fist. The boy cries out, “Stop it, stop it”, also in dialect. Then he stops shouting and bursts into tears.

  I watch the scen
e, hypnotized. I feel physically sick and also ashamed at the sight of it. But I can’t tear my eyes away.

  Now the other man, the big one, comes up. He has a placid look and I think he’s going to intervene, to put an end to that horror. He stops running five or six yards from the boy, who is now huddled on the ground. He covers that distance at a walk, panting hard. When he is standing right over the boy, he takes a deep breath and kicks him in the stomach. Only one kick, but really hard. The boy stops weeping even. He opens his mouth and stays that way, unable to breathe. My father, who until then has also been petrified with horror, steps forward to intervene, says something. Of all the people around, he is the only one to make a move. The man in the black sweater tells him to mind his own bloody business. “Police!” he barks. But they both stop hitting the boy. The big man lifts him, grasping him by the jacket from behind, and forces him onto his knees. Hands behind his back, held by the hair, handcuffed. This is the most obscene memory in the whole sequence: a helpless boy at the mercy of two men.

  My father pulls me away and the scene fades.

  From then on I gave up saying I wanted to be a sheriff.

  That episode had occasionally come to mind over the years. Sometimes I told myself I had become a lawyer as a sort of reaction to the disgust I had felt. Sometimes, in moments of self-glorification, I had even believed it.

  The truth, however, was quite different. I had become a lawyer by sheer chance, because I had found nothing better to do or wasn’t up to looking for it. Which comes to the same thing of course.

  I had enrolled in law school because I hoped to gain time, because my ideas were none too clear. When I graduated, I sought to gain more time by parking myself in a law firm while waiting for my ideas to clarify.