Pushing Past the Night by Mario Calabresi

massacre in Brescia. All of them were angry. Some wept with rage. There was also a call from Rosa Calipari, who had lost her husband in Baghdadwhen he was killed by an American soldier while accompanying the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena to freedom.
    The next day Giorgio Napolitano telephoned—early in the morning, after reading the newspapers, which had drawn attention to the fact that the family had not been notified. He explained that the presidential palace had been convinced that communications were being handled by the Ministry of the Interior. The phone call was long, clear, and direct, and helped to forge a relationship of mutual esteem and respect.
    In early June 2006, Sergio D’Elia was appointed secretary to the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. A newly elected deputy, he had run on the slate of Rosa nel Pugno (Rose in the Fist), a coalition of the Radical and Socialist parties. Before entering the political arena, he founded the human rights organization Hands Off Cain, which advocates the abolition of the death penalty. But in the 1970s he had also been a militant in the armed struggle, as a member of the terrorist group Prima Linea. For his role in the January 20, 1978, murder of Fausto Dionisi—a police officer killed during the attempted escape of a group of terrorists from a Florentine prison—D’Elia was sentenced to thirty years in prison, which was reduced to twenty-five on appeal. After serving twelve years, his sentence was commuted by the Rome Tribunal in 2000. His civil rights were restored, despite the objections of Dionisi’s widow and his daughter, Jessica, who was two and a half at the time of her father’s death.
    They bristled with indignation: how could a former terrorist be seated in Parliament? And promoted to the position of secretary to the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies? Politicians were split over the issue: some rode the wave of political indignation, while others defended the decision with heartless arguments. Once again the debate quickly dispensed with the victims and shifted to the rights of former terrorists: the right to build a newlife, to be reinserted into society, to freedom of speech. They had paid for their crimes—this was the most popular expression—and now they had the right to live like other people.
    â€œI took it very badly. This time I was absolutely sick over it: I already had to struggle to digest the fact that he had been elected to Parliament. Then when I found out that the same man who had been convicted as an accessory to the murder of my husband had become the secretary to the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, I was mortified: this was really impossible.” Mariella Magi Dionisi was twenty-two when her husband, Fausto, who was a year older, was killed. Her voice is lively, with a strong Tuscan accent. She is not the type of person who lives withdrawn from the world. She founded Memoria, one of the most active associations representing the victims of terrorism. For years she has been fighting for laws to remember the victims and to grant damages and assistance to their families.
    â€œThere are things that are intolerable, that go beyond the pale. I don’t question the laws or allowing terrorists to rebuild their lives, but the least I would expect from the terrorists and from the government is respect and some sense of decorum. From the former terrorists, I also expect silence and a refusal to take part in public debates, if for no other reason than to avoid opening old wounds. Because the truth is that they gave us a life sentence. They have a second chance at life while we, and the persons whose lives they took, have had this possibility taken away from us forever. I was a young woman and my life was stolen from me.”
    She pauses for a minute and then begins to explain her thinking more precisely, to avoid being misunderstood. “I wasn’t offended by the fact that Sergio D’Elia was