Involuntary Witness

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “Then we decided – he decided – that it was time to get married. I was working with my father and would soon be a lawyer, he was a notary and, let’s face it, he wasn’t badly off. There was no point in going on being engaged. He spoke the word and I went along with him.

  “After that decision I began to drink even before going out. He would come to pick me up and on the intercom I’d tell him I’d need five minutes to get ready. Then I knocked back whatever I could find – beer, wine, spirits, whatever there was. I brushed my teeth to take the smell away, put on some perfume and went downstairs. We met friends and I was always so charming. And I drank. I drank the aperitif, the wine or beer with meals, and then a drop – or two, or three – afterwards. I was very fond of tequila gold, the very brand you are drinking now. But I wasn’t choosy. I drank everything that came to hand. Sometimes I had the unpleasant feeling of being out of control. Sometimes I thought that maybe I ought to cut down, but for the most part I was convinced that when I decided to stop it would be no problem. Would you let me have another cigarette, please?”

  I gave her the cigarette and lit one for myself. She took a couple of strong drags and went to put on a CD.

  Making Movies. Dire Straits.

  She took another couple of puffs before starting to speak again.

  “With this jolly state of affairs we arrived at the wedding day. In my few lucid moments I was plunged into indescribable desperation. I didn’t want to get married, I didn’t have anything in common with that notary. I didn’t want to be a lawyer, I wanted to go back to San Francisco or escape to anywhere else on earth. But there I was on a moving train and wasn’t capable of pulling the emergency cord. Two or three times I thought I had plucked up the courage to tell my parents I didn’t want to get married – my greatest fear was their reaction, not Pierluigi’s – and that I was sorry but I thought it was better to make a decision of that kind before marriage, rather than six months or a year later.

  “Then my mother would poke her head in at my door and tell me to hurry up, we had to go and choose whatever it was, the menu for the reception or the flowers for the church. So I said ‘Yes, mum’, knocked back a miniature bottle of liquor, brushed my teeth – I brushed my teeth the whole time – and went out. I remember that during one of these outings I left my mother in whatever shop it was and dashed off to have a quick beer in the nearest bar. Then all afternoon I was scared she might smell it on my breath.

  “Can you guess how I arrived at the wedding? Drunk. I drank the evening before. To get to sleep I mixed alcohol and anxiolytics. The next morning I drank. A few beers, just to relax. Also a tot – or two – of whisky. But I brushed my teeth very, very well. On the way into church I tripped up because I was plastered. Everyone thought it was nerves. All through the ceremony I longed for the reception. To go on drinking.”

  She took the last puff, right down to the filter, and then stubbed it out in the mortar, hard. I had an urge to touch her hand, or her shoulder, or her face. To let her know that I was there. I wasn’t brave enough, and she went on.

  “To this day I still wonder how they managed, all of them, not to notice anything. Until the marriage and for some months afterwards. Things got worse when I passed my law exams. I had sat the written papers before the wedding and a few months after it I did the orals. I came second in the final class-list. Not bad for an alcoholic, eh? I celebrated in my own fashion. When I got home I felt ill. My husband found me in bed. I had been sick several times and was stinking to high heaven. Not just of alcohol, but certainly of that also. That was the beginning of the worst phase. It began to dawn on him. Not all at once, but in the course of a few months he latched on to the fact that he had an alcoholic wife. In his way he didn’t behave badly, he tried to help me. He removed all alcohol from the house and took me to a specialist in another town. To avoid scandal, of course. I promised to give up and began drinking on the sly. It’s impossible to keep tabs on an alcoholic. Alcoholics are crafty liars, like drug addicts, in fact worse, because it’s easier to get booze than it is ‘the stuff’. One day someone saw me at ten in the morning downing a draught beer in one gulp, and they told Pierluigi. I swore I’d give up and half an hour later I was back to secret drinking. He spoke to my parents, who didn’t believe it at first. Then they were forced to. We all went together to another specialist, in yet another town. Result: the same as before. Let me cut this short. This story dragged on for another year after I was found out. Then my husband left home. And who can blame him? I was going around with great bruises on my face, or grazes, because I would get up in the night to have a pee, having put myself to sleep with a fine mixture of tequila or vodka and anxiolytics, and walk right into doors. Or I just collapsed on the ground. Sex, on the rare occasions we had any, wasn’t a lot of fun for him, I bet. It certainly wasn’t for me. All I wanted was to cry and to drink. In short, in the end he left and he was quite right.

  “After he went my memories become really confused. I don’t know how long it was before they grew clearer. I was in a clinic in Piedmont that specialized in addictions of every kind. There were people hooked on drugs, on pills, on gambling, and then there were us alcoholics. The majority.

  “That was the toughest time of my life. In that place they were merciless, but they did help me to struggle out of the shit I’d fallen into. It’s nearly five years now that I haven’t had a drink. For the first two I kept count of the days. Then I stopped doing that and here I am. A lot of things have happened in these five years, but they’re a different story.”

  I looked her in the face and didn’t know what to say or do. I thought that whatever I said would be wrong, so I said nothing. So she spoke again.

  “Maybe you think I tell this story to everyone I meet, right off the bat. If you come to think of it, I’ve practically only met you today. Is that what you think?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. But I like to think that you don’t tell it to everyone.”

  For once I hadn’t said the wrong thing. She gave a nod, as if to say: Good.

  Then we sat there talking on, deep into the night.

  22

  The weeks I had to wait for the trial passed swiftly.

  On 12 June, around ten in the morning, the air was still cool. On my way to the law courts I saw that the liquid crystal thermometer in a computer shop read 73 degrees. Lower than the seasonal average, I thought.

  The temperature seemed the only good thing to be said about that day.

  The night before I had gone to bed and hadn’t managed to get to sleep. At past two I had tried with pills, but they hadn’t helped at all. It wasn’t until about four-thirty that I nodded off, only to wake a couple of hours later. As in the worst period.

  I stopped at a bar to have a coffee – a real coffee – and smoke a cigarette. I felt ghastly.

  For some days I had been tortured by the thought that things were going to end in tears, for myself and, above all, for Abdou.

  As the trial drew nearer I thought more and more persistently that I had made a stupid blunder in letting myself be carried away by emotion. I got to thinking that I’d behaved like a character in a second-rate novel. A kind of inferior Uncle Tom’s Cabin set in Bari in the year 2000.

  Take courage, my black friend, I, the white liberal-minded lawyer will fight in the Court of Assizes to get you acquitted. It will be hard, but in the end justice will triumph and your innocence will be proved.

  Innocence? Doubts had assailed me and entrenched themselves in my mind during those last days before the hearing began. What did I really know about Abdou? Apart from a questionable personal intuition, what was there to tell me that my client really had nothing to do with the kidnapping and death of that boy?

  I now think that I was perhaps looking for an alibi for a possible – in fact probable – defeat. At that time I was not sufficiently lucid to make a hypothesis of the kind, and so my mind was simply freewheeling.

&nbs
p; It is not a good thing for a lawyer to have these qualms before such a trial. Above all, it is not a good thing for that lawyer’s client. The lawyer is in danger of cutting a sorry figure. The client is in danger of getting the chop.

  In the previous few days I had talked twice with Abdou to prepare the defence. I was looking for evidence in his favour, for the hint of an alibi, something. But we found not a thing.

  One morning I even made a tour of the places where the boy had disappeared and where his body was subsequently found. A rather pathetic idea, worthy of the movies; I was hoping for some intuition that would resolve everything. Needless to say, I didn’t get it.

  So the day of the hearing had come, the trial was about to start, and I didn’t have a single witness, no scrap of evidence for the defence: nothing.

  The public prosecutor would bring his witnesses, his material evidence, and would almost certainly overwhelm us. All I could hope for was to get one of those witnesses in trouble when my turn came to cross-examine.

  Even if I succeeded, I would still not be sure of positive results, but I could at least play my hand.

  If I did not succeed – as was more probable – in the prison registers, beside Abdou’s name and highlighted, would be stamped the words Term of detention: permanent.

  Having smoked my cigarette right down to the filter, I crushed it underfoot and continued on my way towards the law courts.

  Outside the door of the courtroom, journalists and television cameras were in waiting. A reporter from the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno was the first to spot me and come up. How was I intending to conduct the defence? Did I have witnesses to call? Did I think the trial would be a long one?

  I had a sick feeling but managed to control it fairly well, I think. The public prosecutor – I said – did not have proofs but only conjectures. Plausible ones, but still conjectures. In the course of the trial we would demonstrate the fact, and for this purpose, at the moment, there was no need for witnesses for the defence.

  While I was saying this, the other journalists gathered round. They made a few notes and the television cameras took a quick shot of my face. Then they let me enter the courtroom.

  Inside there were only a few carabinieri, the clerk of the court and the bailiff. I sat down at my place on the defence bench, on the right for those facing the court. I didn’t know what to do and didn’t even feel inclined to make a show of being busy. I heard the humming of the air-conditioning, which that day wasn’t even necessary. A minute or two later a few members of the public began dribbling in.

  Then, from the back of the courtroom, emerged the escort of warders in their blue uniforms. In their midst, Abdou. When I saw him, I felt a little better. Less alone, with less of a void around me.

  They ushered him into the cage and removed his handcuffs. I went over to talk to him. More for my sake than for his, I think now.

  “So, Abdou, how are things?”

  “All right. I’m glad the trial has come, that the waiting is over.”

  “We must decide whether to ask to put you on the stand. It’s something that depends largely on you.”

  “Is there any reason why not?”

  “It can be a risk. However, if we don’t ask for it, the prosecution almost certainly will, so what we have to decide is whether you want to answer questions. If you so wish you can say you don’t intend to answer, and in that case they will read out your interrogation before the public prosecutor.”

  “I want to answer.”

  “Very good. Now, the judge will tell you that you can make spontaneous declarations at any time during the trial. You must thank him and then make no such declarations. Even if you have the urge to shout, don’t say anything at any time without having spoken to me first. If there is something you want to say, call me, tell me what it is, and I will tell you whether it is a good thing to speak or not, and if so when. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  At that moment the bell rang to announce the entry of the court.

  “Right, Abdou, we’re off.”

  I had turned away and was starting back to my seat, the footsteps of the judges and jurors already audible.

  “Avvocato.”

  I turned back, several steps away from the cage. The judges were already in, the jurors following.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  I stood there motionless for a moment, not knowing what to say or do. The members of the court had already taken their places behind the big raised bench.

  I gave a nod and went to my place.

  23

  The opening formalities of the hearing were quickly dispatched. The judge ordered the clerk of the court to read out the counts of indictment and then gave the floor to the public prosecutor.

  Cervellati got to his feet, adjusted his robe with its gold cordons, put on his glasses and began to read from his notes.

  “On 5 August 1999 at 19.50 hours the carabinieri of Monopoli received a telephone call reporting the disappearance of Francesco Rubino, a minor nine years old. The telephone call was made by the boy’s grandfather on his mother’s side, Domenico Abbrescia, who had ascertained the disappearance of the boy, who, until a short time before, had been playing in front of the villa in Contrada Capitolo, the property of the said grandparents. A search for the boy was put in hand at once, including the use of dog teams, and continued without success throughout the night. At the same time preliminary investigatory activities were set in motion, with the examination of persons in possession of the facts, of subjects resident, holidaying or pursuing commercial activities in the zone in which the disappearance took place.

  “Searches continued throughout the following day and night, again without results. On 7 August the carabinieri of Polignano received an anonymous communication to the effect that in the zone lying between State Road No. 16 and the zone of San Vito, the body of a child was to be found in a well. Search promptly put in hand in that area unfortunately led to positive results, in the sense that the corpse of little Francesco was discovered. The body showed no obvious signs of violence.

  “The autopsy subsequently carried out showed that death had been due to suffocation.

  “The investigations carried out immediately after the finding of the body led to the acquisition of decisive evidence against the Senegalese citizen Abdou Thiam, who today stands accused.

  “In the briefest of summaries, and with a view to bringing out the points on which the hearing will be based, the evidence is as follows.

  “A number of witnesses have declared that on several occasions they saw the accused stop and talk to little Francesco at the Duna Beach bathing establishment.

  “The proprietor of a bar in the immediate vicinity of the house belonging to the boy’s grandparents – and therefore the place in which the boy was last seen alive – has reported having seen the accused pass by a few minutes before the child’s disappearance. Thiam was walking in the direction of the house owned by the boy’s grandparents.

  “Two of Thiam’s compatriots have reported, respectively, that the aforesaid did not appear on the beach – we still refer to the Duna Beach establishment – on the day subsequent to the boy’s disappearance, and that in the course of those days he took the trouble to have his car washed. Clearly to get rid of all incriminating traces.

  “A search of the accused’s lodgings brought to light a Polaroid photograph of the boy. The importance of this evidence requires no comment. Also in the course of the search were found numerous books for children, the possession of which, in itself suspect in the case of an adult living alone, becomes a disturbing and significant element in the probative context of the matter in hand.

  “Of particular significance, finally, are the results of the interrogation to which the accused was subjected during the inquiries. In view of the fact that the prosecution applies herewith to examine Thiam in the course of the hearing, I only wish to point out that the aforesaid, when asked if he knew little Rubino, denied i
t. Except that he provided ludicrous explanations when shown the photograph of the child found at his lodgings.”

  Cervellati spoke – or rather read – in his usual nasal, monotonous voice. I was expecting no surprises from his report, so I set about observing the court, one by one.

  His Honour Judge Nicola Zavoianni was a personage well known in Bari society. A handsome man, nearing seventy but well preserved, an habitué of the sailing club, a great poker player and, it was rumoured, a great whoremonger. He was one of those who had never killed himself with overwork but had presided over the Assizes for a number of years and more or less knew his job. I had never taken a liking to him and had always had the impression that the feeling was reciprocated.

  The associate judge was a grey, bald, short-sighted man with a shiny complexion. He came from the civil courts and it was the first time I had come across him at a trial. He hugged his gown around him in front, as if protecting himself from something. I didn’t manage to get a good look at his eyes, shielded as they were behind thick lenses.

  The jury was composed of four women and two men. They all had the lost air typical of jurors at their first hearing. Two women of about fifty or sixty were seated at opposite ends of the bench. One of them reminded me obsessively of a great-aunt of mine, a cousin of my mother. I expected her at any moment to call me up to the bench and offer me sugared almonds made by the nuns.

  The two men sat on the associate judge’s side. One was about sixty or a bit over, with very short white hair, an old-fashioned jacket with two buttons, a black tie, slits for eyes and the look of a retired military man. He didn’t look like good news. The other was a youngster, thirty at the outside. He was gazing around him with an intelligent air.