A Season With Verona

by Tim Parks

  But if it often seems that the brigate are vocally racist mainly in order to prolong a quarrel with the pieties-that-be, the press are hardly more consistent. They are fervently anti-racist, of course, but they don’t seem to have any desire that a racist attack should not have taken place. What would they rave about otherwise? If the Marsiglia incident had happened in Rome, they might have stopped a moment to wonder. But in Verona, it must be Nazi violence. Verona is unlivable.

  Still, to anybody reading between the lines, I reflect, mulling things over on the coach in the hour before dawn, to anyone weighing up the details that have emerged over the last week, it is now pretty clear that there is something not quite right with the R.I. teacher’s story. The Jewish community in Verona have declared that they have no knowledge of Marsiglia. They didn’t know he was there, or that he was Jewish. Explaining his presence in the street where he was attacked, Marsiglia says he was going to see a friend, unnamed, whose address he couldn’t quite remember. The hospital report on the wounds the man suffered has not been made public. Marsiglia has found a lawyer to sue all those who doubt that he is telling the truth. In a dramatic press conference, he declares, ‘Do I have to show you my wounds?’ as if he were Christ speaking to Thomas. But Christ did at least then show his wounds and that was that.

  Also Marsiglia misses no chance to insist that the church bureaucracy which is taking him away from the Maffei is more guilty than his aggressors. Removing him from his post they legitimised the Nazi attack. In his most recent announcement he has declared that since they won’t reinstate him at school, he is abjuring the faith. He is giving up on Christianity. He will have nothing to do with Catholicism. The move is applauded by Il Manifesto, which speaks rather of the teacher having suffered the trauma of having his family massacred in the camps. Marsiglia was born in 1956. He is younger than I am.

  Then at last I remember who Papalia is: Guido Papalia is Verona’s chief prosecuting magistrate, the man leading the investigation into the assault against Marsiglia. And he also led the investigation, I remember reading, that brought about the interminable trial, still going on, of forty so-called Nazi skins, charged with having stirred up racial hatred and accused in particular of ‘studying similar groups in England’ in order to ‘borrow their methods’. Does Albe imagine I am some kind of English policeman come to verify that the methods the brigate used were indeed borrowed from the home of all hooliganism? Surely not. But now I am a little concerned. I came to watch the football.

  The brigate, I reflect, are not a savoury bunch, but in so far as they define themselves by being against somebody, it is the liberal press they are against, the perennial p.c. of contemporary society. That’s why I feel a certain sympathy with them. Every public statement is so predictably pious, the stadium offers the only place where you can stand up and yell something excitingly foul. In any event, it’s clear that the two antagonists are actually in complicity with each other. The brigate chant their racist chants and then are outraged by the hypocrisy of the press. The press are delighted to have such an easy target.

  Albe has sat down beside me now. ‘Want some Montenegro?’ He’s switched to Montenegro now, a bitter liqueur. ‘I’ll swap it for a swig of water.’ ‘Sure.’ Then, to try him out, I say, ‘You know there was a black in the curva for the friendly against Inter.’ This was in early September. ‘Really?’ He doesn’t seem overly surprised. ‘In the curva, OK at the edge, where I hang out, but still in the curva.’ Albe sighs. ‘Well, he must have balls.’ ‘Nobody touched him,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t,’ Albe tells me. As if to say, Why on earth would anybody touch him? ‘Sooner or later there are bound to be blacks at the stadium,’ I insist. ‘It’s happened everywhere else.’ ‘For sure,’ Albe agrees, with apparent equanimity. ‘Meantime they pour shit on us of course.’ Merely because they begin grunting like monkeys every time a black touches the ball.

  ‘Dio boia, I need paper,’ a voice cries. ‘Paper, Dio bon.’

  It’s Glass-eye; we’re at a service station again. I must have slept a few minutes. He needs a shit. There’s no paper.

  ‘Has anybody got some paper? Porco dio, I’m going to shit myself.’

  I hand over my tissues. Water and tissues seem to be my special gifts to the ragazzi gialloblù. I feel like a helpful, unobtrusive parent on a rather deviant Sunday school outing.

  To stretch my legs I go into the station, grab a coffee at the bar, pick up another bottle of water and head back to the coach. Only a few are left inside. In the seat in front of me the only other man feasibly in his forties is chatting quietly to Albe. Disturbingly, his nickname appears to be Cain.

  ‘It’s all very well’, he’s saying, ‘talking about blood on the terraces, but tomorrow’s another day, and Monday another and Tuesday another. And then the time will come when I’ll have to pack it in, it’s inevitable, I’ll be too old, won’t I? They only have to wait. They don’t have to fight us. So I said, if you like, let’s sort it out between us. We can meet under the railway bridge and have it out. No weapons, I said. I know I can take a beating from him, the same way he could take one from me. I’m not afraid.’

  It’s a moment or two before I appreciate why this speech seems so strange. They are the first words I have heard for six or seven hours that have not been constantly punctuated by the words Dio boia. Is there a struggle under way, I wonder, for control of the Curva Sud? And what do I care if there is? Nothing. But on this trip the violence, when finally it happens, has nothing to do with rival fans, or journalists, or blacks or Jews …

  Most of the boys are back on the coach, freshly supplied with beer and cigarettes and limoncello and whisky and Amaro Montenegro and, in one or two cases I notice, water. But Glass-eye is not back. The driver remarks that despite setting out with ample time, we should now get a move on. ‘He must be shitting a football, Dio boia,’ someone says. ‘Una bomba,’ Fondo begins. ‘He’s shitting a bomba.’ Then someone says they saw him come out of the loo ages ago.

  Everybody is getting seriously irritated by the delay when we catch the sound of approaching yells: ‘Drive, driver, Dio boia! Drive! Move!’ Glass-eye comes racing across the dark car park with another figure, one of the maddest, a tall, dark, deeply flushed young man in a long black coat. He seems to be called Pista, which is what a cyclist or skier or runner shouts when someone is in his way: Pista! Clear off, I’m coming through. Now he screams, ‘Drive, Dio boia.’

  The two explode on to the bus. The young driver is one of those who become calmer and slower the more others are excited. In no hurry at all he reaches down and turns the key, waits for the engine to steady.

  Glass-eye is wild. Pista is shrieking, a bottle in his hand. ‘Get out of the station. Porco Dio!’

  Just as the driver pulls away, with exemplary caution, because to our left a German coach is just spilling its pensioners out on to the tarmac, I suddenly become aware of the lorry. A big articulated truck is roaring towards us across the two hundred yards of parking space and link road. It’s accelerating, flashing its headlights. It’s going far too fast for the car park. And as our coach pulls away, the truck lurches in front of us, brakes violently, shudders, stops. Our driver likewise hits the brake. The whole floor seems to shift as scores of cans and bottles slide forward. Then we’re stopped, blocked.

  Everybody is on their feet. ‘Bastardo! Dio boia!’ Operating the door himself, Glass-eye and the wildest lads all rush out to confront the trucker who has effectively trapped us in our parking bay. The older contingent and soberer kids stay put. The phocomelia case hesitates on the steps. Albe is shouting for everybody to get back in the coach. Outside I can see the bewildered German folk huddling round the luggage bay of their luxury vehicle. To a man they seem old enough to have been here fifty-five years ago.

  Somebody throws a can. Perhaps two. I can’t see. Something rattles off the trailer. ‘What’s happened?’ I ask Cain. We’ve both kept our seats. He seems unimpressed, shrugs his shoulders. Then in a move wo
rthy of Hollywood the truck driver abruptly reverses, jack-knifing his vehicle toward the neon lights of the petrol station. Throwing the cab round, he hits the accelerator and seems to want to mow down the kids waving their arms at his windscreen, shouting obscenities, throwing cans.

  Judging by how fast the truck moves, it must be unloaded. The kids jump aside, but the truck driver again throws his vehicle into a violent manoeuvre, twisting sharply to the right, so that for one moment I was sure someone must have been caught in the closing angle between cab and trailer. Frankly, I have never seen a truck behave like this, yet what struck me was how predictable it seemed, how exactly like the drama we have all seen in films. Perhaps my relative security in the coach seat reinforces the feeling.

  Then the brigate are all piling back on board, breathless. ‘Drive, autista di merrrrrda! Drive!’ This time the boy doesn’t hang around. He stands on the accelerator. The Germans scatter. Alè Verona alè! We get past the petrol station, but now the truck has managed to turn round again and is chasing us. Why is it so much faster than we are? It pulls up along our left side, so that it’s only inches from our window, trying to force us off the slip road. Despite insults, the driver keeps his nerve and a moment later both vehicles burst out on to the autostrada together.

  Fortunately, the road is empty. It’s the last half-hour before dawn. The truck drops back and hangs threateningly on our tail, less than two yards behind. Pista opens one of the small upper slide windows and throws a bottle, but I can see it’s only plastic. Then he finds a glass bottle. ‘Stop!’ Cain shouts. No, he doesn’t even have to shout. His voice is loud, but calm. ‘Not the glass,’ he says. ‘We don’t throw glass.’ Surprisingly, certain rules exist and are obeyed. Pista stands there with the bottle half out of the window, we’re already travelling at sixty odd, then he pulls it back in.

  ‘On the truck there’s a bomba,’ Fondo is chanting, delighted with developments. ‘The truck is a bomba. We’ve got to defuse a bomba.’

  ‘Attacked me,’ I swear, Glass-eye is insisting. ‘Christ, don’t we have the right to exist? I was minding my own business. Don’t we have the right to walk across a service station?’

  Nobody’s convinced.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask Cain.

  ‘Five minutes and the police will be here,’ he says.

  In the event, it was more like two minutes.

  With just a short burst of its sirens a police car overtakes and pulls us over. The truck stops behind. Glass-eye and Pista are fighting to get out and confront the driver, but the others now drag them back from the door and trap them in the middle of the coach, where I am, while a man with a completely shaved and glistening scalp gets out of the coach with a couple of others to deal with the situation.

  The facts, or at least some kind of story, drift back from seat to seat. Glass-eye got into a fight with the truck driver. The truck driver sent him flying against a promotional display covered with a big sheet of glass beside the petrol station. The display shattered. The petrol station want damages. The truck driver claims it was he who was first insulted, then assaulted. ‘It’s a lie, Dio boia, a lie!’ Glass-eye wants to get out there and give his version to the police. He kicks and pushes and shrieks that it’s a basic human liberty to be able to speak for yourself.

  But the interesting thing, as Glass-eye thrashes madly about and, outside, the supporter with shaved scalp talks to the police, is the protective way the others are embracing him and trying to quiet him down. There’s a real affection being expressed, not just a pragmatic response to the fear of escalation. They are looking after their drugged friend. They are holding him still, keeping him away from the kind of violence their songs all celebrate. If he speaks to the police now he will doubtless be banned from attending football games for at least a season.

  The police tell us we’ll have to go to the police station. Apparently there’s one at the next exit beside the toll booths. Everybody is furious. We’re going to miss the game. They’ll take us in the station and spend hours looking at all our ID cards and deliberately make us miss the game. What story can we tell them? Everyone must agree on the same story. Glass-eye and Pista were attacked by three truck drivers swinging spanners. ‘Exaggerate. If we all tell the same story what can they do?’ ‘Clear up the beer cans. Stick the cans in bags under the seats. They’ll have a dog, dope out of the window, Dio boia. Coke out of the window.’

  The shaven-headed guy seems to be called Forza. He has a fine, strong bright face, with thick, well-moulded lips and gleaming eyes. You can see at once that he could be violent, or he could be witty, he could be terrifying or he could be well-spoken and polite. At the police station, after a brief parley with Cain, he tells us to behave and gets out with the extremely sober drivers. While they talk to the police, Glass-eye again mills his arms and screams and tries to force his way down the aisle. He wants to show the bastards. His friends cling on to him, embrace him. Someone even has a hand round his neck, stroking his hair. The bus stinks of sweat and beer and cigarettes.

  Day is dawning. Are we going to miss the game? I had promised myself I would see every game Verona played this season and now I am about to miss the first. The truck driver has arrived too now. He is thickset, squat and glowering, evidently a southerner, wearing his trucker’s cap. There are two very smart policemen and an attractive young woman officer. The driver is remonstrating, shouting. I can’t hear what’s being said, but Forza certainly looks extremely civilised beside him, almost, despite the skinhead image, a gentleman. Finally, he climbs back on the bus.

  ‘They’ll let us go to the game if we pay damages. Three hundred thousand lire. Ten thousand each.’

  It’s about three pounds a head. Nothing.

  Glass-eye refuses to pay. ‘It’s against my human rights, Dio boia. I haven’t done anything wrong. I won’t pay.’

  For the first time I get involved. ‘We’re fucking well paying,’ I tell him. I’m furious. ‘I’m not missing the first game for ten fucking thousand lire.’

  Despite my strangeness and doubtless English accent – I can’t say Dio boia, it would sound ridiculous in my mouth – everybody agrees. ‘Pay, Dio boia.’ Someone is already whipping round a hat. Hellas for ever, the badge says, upside-down. But not everybody has the cash, or is ready to come out with it. ‘I’ll pay twice,’ I offer, ‘if necessary. Let’s pay and go.’ Sitting down, I realise that, quite unintentionally, I’ve established my credentials. I want to see the game. I am not a policeman.

  The Stadio San Nicola sits like a huge flying saucer in the vast area of barren scrub to the north of the industrial port of Bari. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of Bari and his bones are laid in the thousand-year-old Basilica San Nicola in the centre of the city. But the Brigate Gialloblù will not be allowed to pray to those sacred bones, nor will they see the fine twelth-century Romanesque cathedral, or climb the ramparts of the remarkable Norman castle rebuilt by Frederick II. The Brigate Gialloblù will not be able to visit the old town centre, or even penetrate the grim suburbs for a pizza. For the last three hundred kilometres, from Pescara to Bari, we’ve been under strict police escort.

  In fact it’s all the brigate can now do to get out of their bus and relieve themselves. Again and again the driver indicates that he wants to enter a service station. Again and again the police cars back and front hit their sirens and flash their lights. Finally the driver turns in anyway and immediately we are confronted by more police. They have surrounded the bus. One has a machine gun.

  ‘It’s a basic human right, Dio boia,’ Glass-eye is screaming. ‘In my bladder there’s a bomba!’ Fondo yells. Barely out of the door, he starts pissing where he stands. Then he tries to cadge a cigarette off a watching Frenchman. Glass-eye meantime is yelling at the police. ‘Are we doing anything wrong?’ He’s put his Verona cap on. Italian champions 1985, it says. The year of the miracle. Verona won the scudetto. ‘Have we done anything wrong, Dio boia. Have we?’

  A few kids make a br
eak for it, slip between the police, and dash to the service station with the police chasing after. I follow, desperate for another coffee. And as I do so, I can’t help realising that the mechanism is exactly the same as with the Marsiglia case. The brigate engage in deviant, provocative behaviour, but without really doing much. Then they’re furious when the police behave as if they really were going to get engaged in urban warfare.

  ‘Why do you hate us, Dio boia, what have we done?’ The sentiment is genuine. In the service station everybody picks up their stuff and pays like perfectly reasonable citizens. Back in the coach, Forza announces that we will have to alter the song that runs ‘Delia questura non abbiam’ paura’ – of the police we’re not afraid. We’ll have to add the line: ‘Since we’ve always got ten thousand lire to pay.’ Everybody cheers.

  But has everybody got the thirty thousand lire to pay for the admission ticket to the game? As the stadium finally comes into view, a certain hush comes over the group. San Nicola is impressive. It’s the temple of today’s opposition. The brigate, like all fans, are knowledgeable about stadiums and respect them. Built for the 1990 World Cup, inevitably the object of years of investigation for illegal financing and kickbacks, San Nicola is special in that it is broken up into huge cement segments with gaps between them, like a great fist unclenching, or some fantastic space vehicle landed in the wilderness and opening up for the first contact between indigenous and alien life.

  Southerners and northerners.

  ‘Meridionali di merda,’ someone is shouting out of a window at a group of kids by the road. ‘Terroni figli di puttana.’ The liturgy of standard insults begins as soon as we leave the autostrada, though since the stadium is so isolated, so utterly split off from any community or urban fabric, and since we’ve arrived more than an hour and a half before the game, there is almost no one around to insult. ‘Terroni Terroni!’ the kids chant. For ‘terrone’ my dictionary just gives ‘Southern Italian (derogatory).’ But the idea is of someone close to the earth, terra, someone crude and uncultivated. Unlike us cultured northerners, that is. The comedy of this is that about half Verona’s team are southern Italians. And the fans are aware of that comedy. Most of them have southern friends themselves.