and everywhere people did nothing but move about they all did nothing but walk up and down the corridors inside and outside the cells they truly seemed to be measuring a larger physical space a bigger space for manoeuvre that they’d won and they kept on walking they went on up and down the corridors in and out of the cells all of them open that lined the corridors and everyone was shifting around all the time from one cell to another to such an extent that the cells looked quite different there was a continual movement of people and things shifted around carried from one cell to another a continual movement of objects of clothes of things it had all become a great bivouac a party
the atmosphere there was euphoric there was a festive atmosphere I can remember this great euphoria this excitement this festivity and what everyone was saying over and over again and what they were convinced of was that there could never ever be a military intervention by the guards by the carabinieri by the police by the forces of repression and this all because of there being nineteen guards held hostage and this made a break-in nearly impossible because it would have been very dangerous for the guards held hostage I can remember that there were no worries I can remember there was no anxiety whatsoever I can remember there was euphoria and excitement there was this mechanism triggered in everybody’s head to see this situation as holding no danger and making everybody feel they were at a party
10
Things were hectically busy at the Cantinone there was somebody doing electrical work and they’d run in an electric cable attached to the outside wiring of the old people’s home there was somebody doing plumbing and they’d fixed the pipes and so we had water too there were some doing building work they’d gone and got their tools and they’d started filling up the holes in the floor and fixing the tiles there were some doing carpentry and building wooden frames for the windows and then covering them with plastic sheets and at the far end of the big room with the planks and beams we’d found there we were building a big stage for the concerts and performances we wanted to put on the opening concert had already been announced with a poster and leaflets the comrades were giving out wherever they went
three or four old men from the home next door had also turned up and were recalling the days when the Cantinone had been an osterìa and had had huge casks tables and benches running the whole length of it because that was where the peasants met to drink wine and play cards and we promised them that we’d put back the casks and the benches and the wine like there used to be then a bunch of comrades who’d gone out to advertise the concert arrive back with the cars full of stuff to eat we think they’ve stolen it and we get mad but instead it had been some shopkeepers who’d given us packs of drinks and pasta and then some Neapolitan guys turn up who worked in a pizzerìa they arrived with a pile of pizzas so there was food for everybody
at the same time the first working groups had been formed and had moved into the rooms on the first floor Valeriana and a group of women were meeting to set up a collectively run clinic others were planning a counterinformation service on soft and hard drugs others were discussing food and the counterculture others music film theatre there’s a decision to get in touch with the youth circles in other towns that we’ve heard from to exchange news and experiences and to set up a resource centre with their newspapers and their documents and in another room on the first floor a press office was already in full-time operation with typewriters and duplicators parcels of leaflets of press releases announcements documents were piling up on the tables of the press office waiting to go out
the evening of the concert arrives and the bands arrive from the different surrounding villages the sound system is set up the lights are ready the lights cast bright-coloured stains on the whitewashed walls of the big hall and the bands begin turning up they play all at the same time and the intermingled sounds pour out into the street and fill the air people are arriving loads of people young people are arriving from all over and not so young too the street outside is transformed into a car park with all the cars jammed into it there’s a sea of heads everyone sitting on the benches and on the ground tapping their feet and all this echoing out as the bright-coloured lights turn faster and faster I look about to see where China is and I see her against the wall with Gelso whose head’s shaking with laughter his hair hanging right over his face when he lifts it he sees me and waves for me to go over there too
the party was at its height there was such euphoria such great excitement people coming in and out in and out indescribable confusion they all really liked the place we should stay there they said we should stay there whatever it took we’d do terrific things in the Cantinone the music was blaring out loud as can be in the thick of the crowd I meet Scilla carrying a 15-inch spanner saying there are too many phoneys here I spot one he gets his stuffing knocked out Scilla was the only glum face in the entire place they were all looking at the stage where somebody was singing I love to play pound out my music all day but I don’t earn my wages that way for I play like a mule I’m a wild boy I wanna win I’m kinda rough but believe me I’m cool and I went to be with China right under the stage and I stayed right there holding her close while the music blared out loud as can be
suddenly the music stops Scilla has gone up on to the stage and over the microphone he says the cultural assessore* is here outside with a message from the mayor and the council people roared with laughter saying bring him in here to us and we’ll eat him up the cultural assessore is young small and nervous with a little moustache and a white raincoat and he’d been a 68’er he waits patiently until the voices quieten down to let him speak and then he says I must tell you that the situation is urgent we’ve just had a telephone call from the chief constable telling us that you’ll be cleared out of here within twenty-four hours by order in the name of the council and the mayor I’m appealing once again to reasonableness and good sense evacuate the Cantinone and we promise you room in the new multi-purpose centre as soon as the work on it is finished
uproar and shouting come from every part of the hall then Nocciola begins speaking you’re conning us first you go and say that we’re provocateurs and fascists then that you want to find somewhere just for us the truth is that you’re shit-scared about your council majority because if it was up to you you’d be the first to call the police but we know very well that this story of the multi-purpose centre is a fairytale you only have to look at how little you’ve cared about our problems in the past no no the assessore bravely interrupts him I want to point out that this is a slander the problems of young people are problems of great concern to us in the next budget we’ve allowed for considerable expenditure on youth and culture but there are timetables that have to be respected however I assure you that a satisfactory solution will be found for your problems too
you should have talked to us about it first he says in a conciliatory tone you should have trusted us and together we’d have found a satisfactory solution I think the needs underlying what you’ve done here are valid what isn’t valid however is the way you imagine you’re going to satisfy them together we must find another way but meanwhile the Cantinone needs to be cleared before any irreparable damage is done people have had enough out out everyone’s shouting I’m waiting for an answer I’ll only leave here when I’ve got your answer whether it’s negative or affirmative he manages to add then from the stage Valeriana gets some silence and she says the decision is up to the floor and we must all discuss it but not while he’s here and if he wants he can wait outside and we’ll give him our decision later
Scilla escorts him outside and before leaving the stage he raises his arm holding up the spanner thunderous applause breaks out everyone’s shouting we in the collective don’t really know what to do we confer briefly then Cotogno takes the microphone comrades we can’t leave here under the threat of police intervention if we clear out of here voluntarily now letting ourselves be blackmailed by the mayor and the parties then we’ve lost we must decide wha
t’s the best thing to do whether to stay here and defend the occupation which means confrontation or not I think that for the time being confrontation isn’t in our interest I think it would split the movement whether we win or lose in military terms because whatever happens we’ll lose politically and even if we win in military terms we’ll be up against an unmanageable situation
we must decide what’s in our best interest for the growth and strengthening of this movement and so the most pressing problem for us is not to preserve the Cantinone at any price the problem is that we must preserve this strength that we’ve built and that’s why we must say no to the voluntary evacuation they’re suggesting but we must also say no to confrontation maybe just at the last moment but we must decide for ourselves autonomously when and how to evacuate if we evacuate as the result of our own autonomous decision we keep our political strength intact and tomorrow we’ll be able to carry on the renewed struggles of this movement for the conquest of a social space we’ll be able to carry on with other occupations and other struggles if instead we go for confrontation here today we risk everything I believe we lose everything
there were a lot of disgruntled faces even if the majority were in agreement with Cotogno but in that general euphoria it was like throwing cold water on a fire our position is agreed in the discussion and so we send word to the mayor that the mass meeting has decided to go on with the occupation to the bitter end but then we decide that we can’t just all hang on waiting for the break-in there must be 400 people there for us all to stay there and then all leave together at the last moment is impossible it’s better for just a few to do it because then it’s easier to leave it takes time to persuade everybody nobody wanted to leave nobody wanted to admit the party was all over but at last they went they dismantled and took away everything that didn’t have to be left behind and in the end only those of us in the collective were left about sixty in all
in the big hall candles are lit and the main lights are switched off the atmosphere of earlier evenings returns with sleeping bags being unrolled and people lying down only this time no one wants to talk or sing to tell stories and make plans to roll joints and make love this evening everyone has a stick or a bar besides their sleeping bag I see Valeriana sitting against a pillar smoking her eyes fixed on the angled shadows on the cross vaults I go up to her with China and I see her eyes are glistening what’s wrong Valeriana shit all this work for fuck all I liked this place we’ll never find a place as nice as this maybe if we occupy some broken-down hut right out in the wilds maybe then they could let us have it but a place like this that they don’t even know what to do with no way are those bastards going to let us have it
from time to time someone who’s on guard comes back inside for the changeover it’s bitterly cold outside it’s not too warm inside either any more we put the sleeping bag down and I slip inside just as I am the floor is hard but I’m tired and it feels comfortable enough all the same China takes off her man’s tweed jacket she rolls it up and puts it under my head we’ll be more comfortable like that she says and she slips in too China isn’t sleepy and she sings to herself I’m a wild boy hear what I say ain’t nobody better groovin’ tonight don’t you ever stand in my way or you’ll be in trouble alright eyes closed I say they’re already standing in our way we’ll be lucky now if we don’t get into trouble but China goes on sometimes it’s rough on me if I misbehave like you see but even in jail I could fight and I liked to go out on the town every night
11
After that first retaliatory sally was driven off with that charge of plastic explosive on the ground floor the guards outside the prison didn’t make another move also because there was a moment when a comrade at a high window displayed a lovely bright orange ball something like two kilos of plastic and that bright orange ball up there was enough to bring down the entire prison and so they understood that that first explosion was just a warning that a lot worse could happen if they persisted and then from time to time one of the captured guards was also displayed at the big corridor windows with a knife at his throat as proof that they were alive and to tell those down below not to try anything
the captured guards had been split into small groups and every half hour they were moved into different new cells there were precise shifts a whole system of half-hourly moves had been worked out in advance so that from outside no one could ever tell which cell there were guards in so that there was no chance of trying anything to free them the ones in charge of the negotiations kept us up to date minute by minute about how things were going they said that taking part in the negotiations on the other end of the ’phone as well as the prison administration and the guards’ commanding officers there were also politicians representing the ministry of justice and the government and that they seemed to be stymied by the seriousness of the situation they were taking time but they also seemed willing to negotiate
when it started getting dark shifts were set up to maintain a watch on what was happening outside to keep an eye on what was happening around the prison from the big windows with the armour-clad defences particularly the guards who were patrolling along the periphery walls that were only twenty or thirty yards from the prison or even closer the prison was all brightly illuminated in the yellow glare of the searchlights and from the second floor where we were you could see on the other side of the periphery wall a large number of jeeps cars armoured cars vans the cars with blue lights on their roofs going round and the jeeps with their headlights on going round the prison and in the shadows now and then confused movements groups of people in uniform shifting about here and there in the shadows around the prison lit up by the searchlights
nobody slept that night because there was massive tension over what had happened I remember there was this to-ing and fro-ing of people inside the cells the corridors a great procession of people there was an indescribable racket with the radios and televisions on all the time at top volume there were very heated discussions not everyone was in agreement there were comrades who maintained that this revolt would spell disaster for the prisoners’ movement but there was nothing they could do but accept the situation like everyone else because they were inside there was nothing for it they were inside in this situation too even if they made no bones that being in it went sorely against the grain and while the others maintained instead that it amounted to a great victory
but it turned out that while they were taking the guards hostage there was one who’d gone and got injured I mean this lance-corporal the only non-commissioned officer who was in the cell-wings who was a lance-corporal and who’d been injured stabbed with a skewer and this injured lance-corporal provoked a lot of anxieties he was kind of the flaw in the whole affair the only flaw everybody was aware that a death in those circumstances would change everything what had happened was that as they took the guards hostage this lance-corporal tried to resist and a comrade who was involved in the kidnap stuck a skewer in his side a skewer made out of the usual metal fittings of a camping-gas stove
this lance-corporal was clearly pretending to be worse than he really was well the comrades running the revolt had tried several times to release this wounded hostage two or three times they’d taken him down to the gates that were the start of the no-man’s-land that was in fact the ground floor rotunda to let him go saying we’ll open the gates and we’ll let him out to you but nobody caught on the fact was they didn’t want him they’d say no no keep him because all you want is to take the ground floor you want to open the gates to get the ground floor too this was the reason they gave nobody realized that it was a clue to what was going to happen
there were even others who suggested sawing the bars off a window and lowering down this lance-corporal in a sling because nobody wanted him there nobody wanted to run the risk of him dying there because it would have ruined the whole thing because everything up to then had really gone smoothly for instance it hadn’t occurred to anybody to wreck the prison not
hing had been touched nothing had been destroyed whereas in the revolt there’d been a short time before in that other special prison the prison had been completely wrecked there they’d literally demolished the lot they’d destroyed the electrics they’d destroyed the plumbing they’d pulled down the walls they’d made the prison totally inoperable
later on I went back to my cell there was no one there there was a heap of sweaters shirts trousers scattered on the bunk the little wardrobe had gone I flung the lot on the floor and I flung myself down on the bunk the television was turned on but the transmission had finished there was a blizzard of dots there was this guy playing the violin in the next cell he always played the same tune I thought of China and that I certainly wouldn’t see her tomorrow with all this crazy business I must write to her tomorrow as soon as I can I must my cell-mate looked in what are you doing there what’s wrong are you sick have you heard the news there’s news about the negotiations and maybe we’ve won maybe now we’ll win here
but look I told him I don’t know why but I sounded annoyed but you know I really can’t stand any more I really mean it that we’re still stuck here with this bullshit still with this bullshit about winning or losing and it seems to me that it’s always really been our big misfortune that every time we’ve thought the thing that mattered was basically just winning or losing when instead the things we’ve really done have never had anything to do with winning and losing because after all if it’s just a question of winning or losing it’s clear that here we’ve already lost everything and not just in the last five minutes but the fact is that I think and a lot like me think so too that deep down we’ve never had not only have we never had any notion or desire to win but not even any notion that there was anything to be won anywhere and then you know if I really think about it now to me the word winning seems exactly the same as dying
The Unseen Page 6
