The Second Day of the Renaissance

by Timothy Williams

  The windshield was blown apart. At first, I thought something had happened to the car engine. But then I saw the red stains on Gracchi’s sweater—on the right upper arm. He was motionless. I asked him if he was all right. “Nothing to worry about,” he replied. “You’d better hide.” He believed his attackers were going to go away.

  I got down between the two seats and buried my head and face into the floor of the car. There was a long wait and all I could hear was Gracchi’s difficult breathing. I think he was choking on his blood. Then I heard two or three shots, this time a lot louder than before. I was terrified, I couldn’t move—they must’ve seen me, but I hadn’t seen them, so they knew they had nothing to be afraid of. Only later—a lot later, when I heard the sound of a car door being slammed—only then did I dare raise my head. I looked at Gracchi, I saw his head lolling against the headrest and his eyes were wide open. I knew he was dead. I got out of the car and went running off towards the entrance of BRAMAN.”

  The autopsy on Gracchi’s body, carried out at the hospital in Trapani, openly contradicts Fiorini’s sworn statement.

  According to the autopsy, Gracchi was killed with two firearms, a .38 pistol and a .12 rifle. He was shot eight times, in the head and in the back. There were bullet holes in his hands. After the first hail of bullets, Gracchi must have tried to protect his face with his hands.

  All the shots were fired from a distance of at least two meters. There were no signs of burns on the corpse. Nobody had got close to Gracchi to finish him off with a bullet to the head.

  Equally in conflict with Fiorini’s evidence is the evidence of another young girl.

  At the time, Carla Serra was thirteen years old. By midnight on the evening of Gracchi’s murder, she was at the Carabinieri barracks, giving evidence.

  “I was sitting on the steps of the church and I saw the car of Valerio Gracchi go past. I know Signor Gracchi well; he always wears a Panama hat and he has a big beard. Normally Signor Gracchi drives very slowly, but this time he was going exceptionally fast. He was being followed by a blue Fiat Uno. The blue car was about fifty meters behind Signor Gracchi’s vehicle. Because of the two bends, both cars had to slow down. As they got onto the unsurfaced road that leads to the entrance of the commune, I rose from where I was sitting to watch the cars disappear behind the double bend.

  I later heard the several short explosions. I thought it was a car backfiring. It later occurred to me that a car doesn’t backfire half a dozen times within the space of a few seconds. About five minutes later, I saw the Fiat Uno come back down from the double bend and disappear in the direction of Erice. It was traveling very fast. I saw just one person—the driver. A thin man with dark hair.

  If this young eyewitness is telling the truth, then Signorina Fiorini must be lying when she says that Gracchi was driving slowly.

  Why should a member of BRAMAN choose to lie about the founder’s death?

  It did not escape the attention of the Carabinieri that Signorina Luciana Fiorini was never hit by any bullet, although at least fifteen rounds were fired into the car. Furthermore, no trace of blood was found on her clothes, even though the interior of the Duna was liberally splattered with Gracchi’s blood and splintered bone.

  The day following Gracchi’s murder, officers from the Carabinieri barracks discovered the burnt-out carcass of a Fiat Uno in a cave a few kilometers from Erice. On the chassis, the construction number was still visible; the car had been stolen the previous day in Messina.

  This discovery alone tends to prove the veracity of the young Carla Serra’s statement. Likewise it suggests that Luciana Fiorini, inmate of BRAMAN, was lying when she made her statement.

  Why?

  On the backseat of Gracchi’s bloodstained Duna, the Carabinieri retrieved a sweater, some money in lire and dollars, a packet of cigarette papers, an empty videotape, and a copy of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il Principe.

  On the book’s flypaper, there was a dedication, handwritten in neat, blue ink.

  ‘Highly recommended reading, dearest Chicchi. With my fondest wishes, Bettino Craxi.’

  Chicchi is the nickname of Giovanni Verga, who along with Valerio Gracchi founded BRAMAN in the late seventies. He and Bettino Craxi were friends.

  82: Siam

  “Craxi.”

  Trotti put down Vissuto magazine on the seat beside him and stared absentmindedly through the window of the car. A few tourists—young people, mainly backpackers—were heading towards the entrance of the railway station. It was fast getting dark, and the pale streetlights were already turned on.

  There was no sign of surveillance, nobody lurking in a doorway and talking into a lapel—or a mobile phone. No sign of a Golf.

  Trotti’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  Bettino Craxi. The leader of the republic’s longest-lasting government, a government that managed to bring inflation down from 16 percent to 4 percent, a government that gave Italy four years of unprecedented political stability.

  Bettino Craxi, Italy’s first Socialist prime minister, now in Tunisia, disgraced and condemned in absentia to ten years’ imprisonment for fraud and the misappropriation of public funds.

  Trotti was not a political animal. Since the end of the war, he had followed politics from a wary distance. There had been times when the politicians had angered him with their indifference or their corruption, with their posturing and their verbosity, yet Trotti never got involved. As a functionary of the state for thirty-seven years, Piero Trotti had faithfully observed that allegiance. His own idiosyncratic allegiance to an absentee state.

  Like most Italians, Trotti had mixed feelings about Bettino Craxi. Craxi had ushered in an era of political stability, but Trotti disliked the man, possibly slightly more than he disliked most politicians.

  Bettino Craxi, with his bald head and jutting jaw and his arrogance, was reminiscent of Benito Mussolini. Like Mussolini, Craxi had run the country as if it belonged to him, run the country with the help of a few well-placed friends and relatives. Growth and stability were only part of the Craxi heritage; there was also a huge public deficit, there were all his refinements to a corrupt system when he made his alliance with the Christian Democrats.

  Bettino Craxi was eight years younger than Trotti. Born into a family of Sicilians, the young politician had first taken control of his local party in Milan. Then, in 1976, at a time when the Communists were edging uncomfortably close to power, when Aldo Moro was envisaging his ‘Converging Parallels,’ Craxi presented the Italian Socialist Party as a viable alternative to the sclerotic monotony of the Christian Democrats. A party on the left that espoused Europe and the free market. A party that promised reform, but that was totally free of Moscow and Marxist rhetoric. A party with its origins in the partisan war against the Nazi invader. A party of the left that the Italian people, Catholic and conservative, could trust.

  CAF—Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani.

  Throughout the eighties, three men ran Italy—two of them Christian Democrats, Arnaldo Forlani and Giulio Andreotti. Craxi was the late arrival, but in many ways, he surpassed the older men in both cunning and in his freedom of movement. Bettino Craxi had carefully studied Machiavelli. Craxi did not have to back down before the trade unions at home; he was unhindered by emotional ties to the Vatican. Craxi could speak to the Americans on equal footing. Craxi understood and controlled Italian politics.

  Bettino Craxi chose his friends carefully—not least, his businessman friend from Milan, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi and Craxi were the Siamese twins of the new regime, of the new Italy of the 1980s. Bettino helped Silvio build his media empire; in return Silvio used his television channels to bolster Bettino’s reign. A reign that should have lasted forever.

  Trotti smiled to himself.

  (“The classes controlled by the Christian Democrats and kept in power thanks to the covert support of the Americans. And of the M
afia.”

  “Not simplifying things, Spadano?”

  “Piero, all the north—with the exception of the Veneto—and all the center of the country were on the left. It was the South that kept Andreotti and Forlani and all the rest of the Christian Democrats in power. In power for forty-seven years while they pillaged our country.”

  “You sound like a Communist.”

  “Like a man who’s been taken to the cleaners.”

  “You’re not forgetting the Socialists, Spadano? Or perhaps they weren’t on the left?”

  “CAF—Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani. The Socialists were worse than the Christian Democrats. They tricked us. They gave us hope of something better—and in the end, they betrayed both our ideals and our innocence.”)

  It was almost night as Trotti turned on the interior light and picked up the magazine again.

  Now, with the new glasses perched on his narrow nose, he resumed reading the article.

  Siamese twins.

  The picture took up a full page—the same picture that Lakshmi had shown Trotti in the Bracciano hotel that morning.

  A group photograph taken at BRAMAN, but this time it had not been cropped.

  According to the magazine—Trotti had bought the copy fresh off the newsstand in the station—the photograph had been taken a year before Gracchi’s death, in June 1987. Men, women and a couple of children who stood or sat in the Sicilian sunshine, beneath an olive tree.

  Gracchi and his wife Chiara were on the left of the photograph, standing hand in hand, smiling at the camera. Gracchi was dressed in a white linen suit with a matching Panama hat. Behind the full beard, he was grinning happily.

  In the photograph, Chiara Gracchi was almost hidden beside her husband. She held a smoking cigarette in her hand. She was not looking at the camera but was smiling at Lakshmi who sat cross-legged on the ground in front of her. The little Lakshmi eyed the camera and the cameraman inquisitively, with her head to one side.

  Trotti nudged his new glasses, grateful that even in the poor light of the car, the picture was correctly focused.

  Lia Guerra’s dark eyes were looking at the camera. Her legs were crossed at the knee and one hand lay loosely on her lap. She was wearing tights and a black cardigan.

  The strong, regular features appeared devoid of emotion.

  Perhaps because it was a better enlargement or perhaps thanks to his new glasses, Trotti now recognized the small man standing behind Lia Guerra. Even out of Carabinieri uniform and a decade younger, there was no mistaking the short hair and Spadano’s grey, penetrating eyes.

  Egidio Spadano was smiling.

  83: Triestino

  He needed to know why he had been lied to.

  Trotti was angry and he discarded the unfinished article, throwing it onto the passenger seat beside him. The answer to his question was not in the magazine.

  Find General Egidio Spadano.

  Trotti took Pisanelli’s telephone from his trouser pocket and gingerly opened the protective flap. With his tongue between his teeth, he entered the Bologna code. Thanks to the glasses, everything was unusually bright and clear.

  (“Highly recommended reading, dearest Chicchi. With my fondest wishes, Bettino Craxi.”)

  The screen announced it was nearly eight o’clock; Trotti pressed the green button and the telephone began to ring in his ear.

  “Pronto?”

  As well as the glasses, with Pisanelli’s money, Trotti had purchased a pair of woolen socks in the farmacia. At least his feet were now warm, even if his body still hurt, even if there was still a sharp pain in his temple. Trotti needed to rest. Tomorrow was a public holiday, tomorrow he could sleep. If he took the superstrada now, there should not be too much traffic and Trotti would see if he was being followed.

  “Pronto?”

  Perhaps he should drink something before leaving Siena. There would be no stopping on the journey; many, many years before, Trotti had been hijacked on the road between Brescia and Milan.

  “It’s me, Pioppi.”

  “Where are you phoning from, Papa?”

  “How are you, Pioppi? How are my girls?”

  “Okay.”

  Trotti frowned, surprised by the unexpected terseness. “You don’t sound okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay.”

  Trotti pressed the receiver against his ear. “How are my granddaughters?”

  “In bed.” She asked, “Where are you, Papa?”

  “Siena,” Trotti replied. “I should be leaving in a few minutes and with a bit of luck, I could be home before midnight.”

  “Pomagaj!”

  “What?”

  “I can expect you for midnight, Papa?”

  “You don’t sound very keen to see me.”

  “How was the wedding?” his daughter asked in a flat voice.

  “Everybody enjoyed it. Anna was marvelous.” Trotti laughed. “Poor old Pisanelli, he looked just like a bald penguin.”

  “I seem to remember Pierangelo used to have a soft spot for me.”

  “He couldn’t take his eyes off the beautiful bride.”

  “That’s how all marriages start out, Papa.”

  Again Trotti frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “Tata, ljubim te.”

  “I love you, too, Pioppi.”

  “You’ll be careful?”

  “You’re a wonderful daughter and I’m proud of you. And proud of my beautiful girls. Are they asleep?”

  “I’m about to read to them.”

  “Tuck them in and give them a big hug from their grandfather. I’ll see them in the morning. Tomorrow evening, it’s me who gets to read them a story.”

  His daughter spoke more softly, almost in a whisper. “Pazi.”

  “Of course I’ll drive carefully. You haven’t been talking to your mother again, have you?”

  “No.”

  “How’s Nando?”

  “I’m alone with the children.”

  “Where’s Nando?”

  “My husband left for Munich this morning.”

  Trotti was surprised. “You never said Nando was leaving.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I thought we were all going to the restaurant tomorrow.” Trotti added, “I thought you were taking me.”

  “Something came up.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Pioppi? You sound very strange.”

  “Pazi.”

  “You sound like the nonna. D’you want me to give you my phone number? I’m using Pisanelli’s mobile.”

  “The number’s on the screen in front of me.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right, papa. Pazi.”

  “Why’s Nando left?”

  “I can expect you about midnight?”

  “Why are you talking like your grandmother?”

  “Pomagaj!”

  Puzzled, Trotti repeated, “Pomagaj?”

  “Tata, ljubim te.” His daughter hung up.

  Trotti frowned unhappily at the receiver.

  84: Axis

  “An ugly little child you were then, Piero Trotti—Italo and I used to joke about you. Thin as a rake—with your long, sharp nose and those awful ears of yours. And your darned trousers and wooden shoes that were two sizes too big for you. You were not a very attractive child.”

  Trotti could hear the woman’s rasping voice.

  The smell of war came back to him: the smell and the taste of the coarse maize bread that had been Trotti’s staple diet through the long winter of 1944, through the long winter while the allies were stuck behind the Gothic Line.

  Italo had always been his hero. In his uniform, Trotti’s older brother was handsome, and Piero had looked up to him. In those days, Trotti was
still a boy and he believed all the propaganda. Everybody in Santa Maria did—they believed in Fascism just as they believed in Mussolini.

  Then Italo went off to fight. First to Abyssinia, then Spain and then to Greece. Instead of a wooden rifle, he was given a gun and he was sent to kill the enemies of Fascism.

  Trotti never saw his brother for seven years. There were just the letters that Italo would write—funny, reassuring letters or an exotic postcard of a black face, of a dark-eyed Spanish beauty. Then one day Mother received a letter telling her that Italo had been sent to Russia.

  Mother—who had never been particularly devout—went every morning to the village church to pray and in the end, her prayers were answered: Italo was coming home.

  Trotti knew when he accompanied his mother to the station in Voghera that his brother had been wounded. But seeing Italo again came as a terrible shock. Gone the smart uniform of the Alpini, gone the smooth, untroubled complexion, gone the self-assurance and the optimism of youth. Italo Trotti looked like an old man. He had lost his front teeth and all the toes on his left foot. He could hardly speak. The intelligent eyes had lost their focus.

  For more than forty years, Trotti was often to wonder whether the Fascist had not done a favor when he put the gun to the back of Italo’s head and pulled the trigger.

  Inside the Fiat, the dashboard clock ticked softly. The superstrada was almost empty and Trotti drove fast, without dipping the main beams that lit up the surface of the tarmac before him.

  Mother had taken risks that winter, had taken foolish risks to save her son’s life. She needed to keep Italo away from the wagging tongues and the spies in the village. With the sour-faced English taking their time to push north and with the Germans counting more and more on the Repubblichini to do the dirty work, you could not trust anyone. Mother lived in fear of Italo’s being recruited into the Repubblichini. Although Italo was wounded, she knew she had no choice but to hide him. Mother gave him plenty of warm clothes and then one day the priest delivered her elder son to the partisans in the hills.

  The smell of war came back to Trotti: the smell of wet clothes, the smell of the cold earth, the smell of fear. The smell of rotting flesh.