“Apparently they were involved in the Porcu killing,” Giacomo is saying. “They claim to be the heirs of the Red Brigades, exactly what you’d expect them to say. I tried to read their statement in the car, the same old jargon-ridden nonsense that’s always churned out on these occasions. God knows what good anyone ever thought it would do, though, let’s face it, it used to convince us, didn’t it? Do you remember?”
Helen doesn’t answer; she’s barely listening. She wishes Yvonne would leave so that she could talk to Giacomo about something that matters. Oblivious, Giacomo sighs. “Class struggle. Hegemonic rule of global capitalism. Economic imperialism. It’s not that they’ve got it wrong, God knows. It’s just that it’s all so stale. The funny thing is they’ve used that typeface the old Olivettis used. What’s it called? Courier? For that touch of credibility, I imagine. If it
looks
like the kind of thing we banged out in Turin in the old days then it must
be
the kind of thing we banged out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been written by the secret services, to throw people off.” He pauses and looks around the room, as if for support. “Oh well,” he says. “Life goes on.”
“I think you are shocking and cruel,” says Yvonne, “to talk like this. We have come here to comfort Helen, not to talk about these wicked people who have...” She pauses, turns her head to Helen. “I don’t know how you can bear to listen to him,” she says. “It is all politics.”
“So, no one knows who they are,” murmurs Helen, not answering Yvonne, not knowing what else to say. Until she can bring herself to believe in it, with her heart as well as her brain, Federico’s death has still not happened. So how can anyone be responsible? How can there be a murderer with no murder, no victim?
“In France we had ’68 and then,
pouf
, everything was back to normal,” says Yvonne.
“Don’t make yourself sound any sillier than you are,” Giacomo says, so quietly Helen wonders if she is the only one supposed to hear. Certainly, Yvonne gives no sign of having noticed, drifting around the room with her back arched and one hand stroking the nape of her neck, the image of petulant boredom. Helen watches Giacomo walk across and silently replace the receiver on the telephone, and she thinks, with a surge of infantile rebellion,
Well, if it rings now, you can bloody well answer it yourself
. It strikes her for a second that he’s been told to do this, and she wonders by whom for a moment – Is there no one she can trust? – before the idea is forgotten. Yvonne collapses with a weary sigh on the sofa and picks up a newspaper, the top one on the pile, and glances at the photograph on the front page.
“You look so sad,” she says, pursing her lips in what might be sympathy, holding the paper out for Helen to see. But Helen doesn’t need to take the paper from Yvonne to see the photograph, which occupies the top third of the page. Against her will, she glances at this brutal, stolen image of herself. Of course I look sad, she thinks. My husband has just been murdered. But now, as she takes in the image with greater attention, she sees that Yvonne is wrong; the Helen in the picture doesn’t look sad so much as puzzled, as though she has been asked a question she can’t answer, or understand. She is standing beside a powerful blue car, one hand at her throat, her head turned from the camera, the image very slightly blurred. A man she doesn’t recognise is opening the door for her and as she steps over finally and takes the newspaper from Yvonne’s hand to examine the scene more closely, because her curiosity has got the better of her, she has a sense of estrangement from what she sees, as though the woman in the photograph is an actor who wears her clothes and has learnt her mannerisms, who moves as she does because she has been told to do so; she imagines for a moment that this is not her in the picture, but someone standing in. She drops the paper to the floor and picks up another and sees the same woman there, and what she feels is no longer shock, or violation, but a sort of envy she can’t understand, as though this woman, who looks so like her, despite her bewilderment, possesses some certainty she doesn’t. No, not certainty; its opposite perhaps – some leeway, some possibility that things could still be set right. The photograph was taken before she had seen Federico’s body, she’s sure of that, when there was still some chance, however faint, that a mistake had been made. What she would like to do now is to sit with these papers and these photographs and make some attempt to understand what has happened and what, even more, is expected of her, but she needs to be alone to do this. The nausea she has kept at bay all morning begins to rise. How odd that grief should affect the stomach, she hasn’t expected this. But she hasn’t expected grief.
“Aren’t you going to tell Helen that you met with the magistrate this morning?” says Yvonne.
Giacomo glances furiously at Yvonne, who gives him a little serves-you-right smirk before straightening her skirt, then at Helen, who is staring at him, open-mouthed, in what looks like a state of shock. Before anyone can speak, the landline rings. Helen shrinks back, then raises her hands as if in self-defence. Giacomo puts his hand on the receiver, avoiding her eyes. “No,” she cries, her voice breaking, but he has already picked it up. He turns his back on both Helen and Yvonne to answer, relieved to have something that might distract them, or distract Helen, and is told to wait, something he hates. Normally he would put the phone down, but today he does what he’s been told to do.
A moment later an instantly recognisable voice says “Signora Di Stasi.”
Impressed despite himself, he pulls a face, then covers the mouthpiece with his hand and turns back to look at Helen.
“It’s your beloved PM,” he says, holding the receiver out to her, unable to suppress a grin. “He seems to think I’m you.”
“Oh no,” says Helen, shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“I’m afraid she isn’t available,” Giacomo says, adding, with a sense of his own naughtiness: “Perhaps I can take a message. Who is that?”
The line falls dead for a moment. The first voice, a man, returns to ask when Signora Di Stasi can be found. He passes this question on to Helen, who gestures helplessly.
“I don’t know. Never,” she says.
“Can’t be done,” says Giacomo. “Sooner or later you’ll have to talk to him.” Helen stares at him wretchedly. Then, with a shudder, she walks across.
“Give it to me.” She grabs the receiver from him and swings away, visibly furious. Immediately, Giacomo regrets what he’s done.
“
Pronto
.”
Giacomo moves off. Helen is silent, her body clenched. She says
sì
and
no
and
grazie
; she could be talking to anyone at first, her tone polite but cautious. For a moment, Giacomo wonders if he’s misheard, if the man on the other end of the line isn’t the prime minister at all but a journalist, or someone playing some dark idea of a joke. But he’d know that voice from a thousand. Then Helen begins to shake her head.
“
Mi dispiace, è fuori discussione
.”
“She says it’s out of the question,” he whispers to Yvonne, who doesn’t seem to have understood what’s going on, and is still enjoying the discomfort she created a few minutes ago. “It’s the prime minister,” he says a second time.
This time
she nods, but looks bemused. She’s a child, he thinks, she’s lucky to know so little. What in God’s name am I going to do with her?
Helen is holding the receiver slightly away from her head.
“
Mi dispiace, ma lei non può decidere ciò che sarebbe piaciuto o non a mio marito
,” she says, her voice overloud, slightly tremulous.
“She’s saying he can’t decide what Federico would have wanted,” Giacomo tells Yvonne, who has shown no sign of wanting to know what Helen is saying. She’s got guts to talk to him like that, thinks Giacomo. He isn’t used to people saying “no”. I’d love to see his face.
Helen pivots on her heels and holds the receiver out to him, making an odd sound, almost a whimper. He steps forward to take it, listening to silence, followed by a click. As soon as he has put the receiver down, the phone rings again. After a moment’s hesitation, he picks it up. This time, a woman asks for Helen in a sharp, impatient voice that expects to be obeyed. Before Giacomo can answer, the woman says,
Le dica che sono Giulia
.
“It’s Giulia,” he says to Helen, who is standing beside him, beaten down by the brutality of what is happening.
“You don’t have to speak to her,” he says, and he’s about to make some sort of excuse. But Helen takes the receiver from him with startling brusqueness and begins to speak.
“You told him to call me, didn’t you?” she says. “You told him I was at home. You told him to call me here.” After a moment, during which she looks at Giacomo with an expression of horrified disbelief, she continues. “I don’t believe it. Federico doesn’t
belong
to anyone, Giulia. Hasn’t he done enough for this fucking country already?” Another silence. Helen’s knuckles are white. Then, “I don’t think you know what you’re saying, Giulia. How can you talk about his death like that?” She is shouting now. “Giulia! He didn’t
want
to die!” So, that’s it, thinks Giacomo, the old woman wants her son to be seen as a martyr, like one of those Roman matrons who’d give their own flesh and blood a dose of hemlock for the sake of the republic, who’d slit their own wrists in the bath. And then Helen sinks into the desk chair, grabbing the edge of the desk as the wheels skid under her weight. “He can do what he likes,” she cries. “I won’t listen to any more of this.” But she does listen, gripping the phone, tears streaming down her face. She’ll listen until the woman has said whatever it is she has to say, imagines Giacomo. He knows the type. She’s like the PM, she won’t take no for an answer. She’ll ring back and if the phone’s off the hook she’ll be round ten minutes later and banging on the door until it’s opened.
“I need to go now,” says Yvonne behind him.
“She’s always hated me,” says Helen, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.
“Not now,” he snaps.
“But I need to go now,” insists Yvonne.
“And I’ve hated her,” announces Helen.
Giacomo jerks his head towards the corridor. “There’s a bathroom down there.”
“I don’t mean that,” Yvonne says. “I mean leave this apartment.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Giacomo says. “Not yet.”
Helen puts the phone down. Giacomo can just hear the voice of her mother-in-law trapped within it.
“No,” she says, “I do want you to go. Please. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me.”
Giacomo shakes his head. He doesn’t try to stop Yvonne. When he hears the flat door slam behind his back, he’s relieved, and not only because he can’t leave Helen alone like this. They have been through so much together, whatever she might have said to Federico. And now here he is, in Federico’s flat, in Federico’s city, at Federico’s bidding, with Federico dead. Giacomo could so easily have refused to come to this conference; the last thing he needs is what Helen, typically insensitive to political nuance, has called an act of rehabilitation. On the contrary, it’s likely to do him more harm than good in some quarters. But he wasn’t thinking about his reputation when he agreed to come. Helen had been the main attraction, he’ll admit that. But there was also Federico, and their friendship, which was rivalry, of course, but not just that, which predated Helen and might have outlived her, if the chance had been given them. And now he finds himself here in the midst of this pointless anachronistic murder that reminds him of nothing so much as of one of those endless sequels,
Rocky VII
,
Superman III
, in which nothing is left of the original but an infinitesimal homeopathic dose.
“I’m glad you’re here,” says Helen. She’s crying again. When she reaches out for him, he takes her in his arms and holds her the way he might hold someone injured, some car crash victim, perhaps, the extent of whose wounds are still unclear, whispering words of comfort while waiting for more certain help to arrive.
5
Turin, 1978
Early in January, when the snow was still on the mountains that seemed to surround the city like a barricade, Helen was called to the office of Miriam’s lover, up on the executive floor. He offered her coffee, asked her how she was settling in; his English had taken on Miriam’s Scottish burr. She said she was happy, which was true; she’d begun to enjoy teaching, enjoy the company of her students, not only the secretaries she’d started out with, but all the others, from upper management to the shop floor. She said it had given her an insight into the real Italy. He was glad she felt that way, he said, she was much appreciated. He’d heard nothing but good of her. She blushed, she told him she was pleased to hear it. When she said this, his tone immediately changed. He became brisk, business-like, his almost flirtatious amiability shelved. He told her he had a favour he needed doing, and she was just the person. No one else would do, he said. She stared into her empty cup, too anxious to answer or look up; she didn’t trust the word “favour”. He asked if she’d be prepared to give individual lessons to a man that Fiat was moving to its South Africa branch. She’d be paid extra, naturally, at a higher rate than usual. Relieved, curious, needing the money, she said she would.
The following day, after her classes were finished, she was taken to a room in a part of the building she didn’t know, near enough to the factory itself for the muffled sound of machinery to be heard. It was empty of furniture, apart from a small wooden table, two chairs and a stool. The student was sitting on one of the chairs, his leg stretched out before him on the stool, the knee bandaged. Helen recognised him as someone she’d taught until a few weeks before Christmas, one of her best students, a trade union steward called Eduardo. She’d spoken to Federico about him with such enthusiasm that he’d seemed, unexpectedly, jealous, and then over-curious, as though he’d wanted to know what he might be up against. Helen was amused. He’s the kind of man you can’t help but admire, that’s all I mean, she’d protested when Federico asked her, half-teasing, how her favourite pupil was behaving. She’d tried to imply that admiration wasn’t love, although surely, it had occurred to her afterwards, it should be part of it at least. Could she have loved a man she couldn’t admire, she asked herself. Federico had let it drop in the end, when Eduardo left the group and she stopped mentioning him. She thought he’d been transferred; she hadn’t been told why – no one seemed to know. But now, with Eduardo before her, struggling to stand despite his bandaged leg, she could see what had happened; he’d been kneecapped. She was shocked, she said she was sorry. The man who had brought Helen backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. When they were alone, Eduardo raised his eyebrows and nodded, then tried to smile.