afternoon of cards. His girlfriend was back home in Germany visiting her parents, and he didn’t have one of his usual working weekends. He’d invited Angelo and me for lunch, and then a colleague of his was to join us for some poker.
My exemplary brother was excellent at everything, even cooking. A cum laude degree in engineering, a job as an executive for a multinational, good contacts in all the political parties, with the exception of the extreme far right, a beautiful apartment with a terrace, and a girlfriend who would be the perfect mother to his future children. I should have hated him, but I admired him instead. Not only had he gotten me out of trouble, but he’d never made a big deal out of it, and because his manner wasn’t my father’s utilitarian moderation, which was the acceptable side of arrogance. No, Alberto was a moderate in his soul; he believed compromise was the source of well-being and happiness for everyone.
Angelo was already there when I arrived; he and Alberto enjoyed cooking together, and their styles complemented each other. Alberto was a sophisticated chef, Angelo a down-to-earth cook. My job was to set the table, clear the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher.
We ate pasta salad and Caprese salad and sipped white wine. It was extremely hot, but the terrace had a little pergola roof.
“You look tired. Aren’t you sleeping well?”
There was no irony in my brother’s question. As usual, he was simply worried about me.
“It’s so hot and noisy at night. Thank God it’s Sunday and everybody’s at the beach. Last Sunday everyone stayed in town to see the game.”
“Italy’s win was so good for the country, though. Sales taxes alone were far above average.”
“A country whose citizens pay taxes on the basis of soccer results isn’t exactly a great civilization.”
Such a country deserves a police captain who drives around pedestrian zones in his Duetto to pick up female tourists.
We talked politics so that we could talk about ourselves without making personal judgments, because we are the way we see the world. And the way I saw it was still quite brutal. On the one hand there were the honest and innocent, usually the impoverished. On the other there were the criminals and cheats, including the many in suit and tie who sat on boards of directors, in government, in public administration, and in the Vatican.
In my younger years I had dreamed that this system would explode and drag the wheeler-dealers who infested Italy into the mud, shamed and ruined. But the only ruin was mine. I cooperated with the secret intelligence service as soon as I realized that my neo-fascist friends had become murderers, manipulated by special interests and attacking entire groups of innocent and defenseless people. They had dishonored our ideals. But the intelligence service was linked to those same special interests, as I came to understand during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in 1978. At that point, serving the state in an official capacity became the only way for me to avoid spiraling out of control.
“I’ll never let myself be caught up in that dirt, Alberto. I think I’ll relax for another couple of years and then go back to Africa and hunt lions and take idiot tourists on vacations.”
Alberto shook his head, somewhere between amusement and concern.
“Italy was a poor country ruined by the war. Now it’s risen up again. These politicians, Catholics and Communists, industrialists and the Church, also did a few good things, don’t you think?” my brother said.
“They’re the ones who advised Mussolini to go to war and then abandoned him. They were all over industry and in the Vatican. Then, suddenly, at the end of the war they all were anti-Fascists.”
“That’s just not true. It was Mussolini who declared war and decreed the racial laws. Anti-Fascists were persecuted and killed by Fascists, just like the Italian military killed members of the Libyan resistance.”
Only
My exemplary brother was excellent at everything, even cooking. A cum laude degree in engineering, a job as an executive for a multinational, good contacts in all the political parties, with the exception of the extreme far right, a beautiful apartment with a terrace, and a girlfriend who would be the perfect mother to his future children. I should have hated him, but I admired him instead. Not only had he gotten me out of trouble, but he’d never made a big deal out of it, and because his manner wasn’t my father’s utilitarian moderation, which was the acceptable side of arrogance. No, Alberto was a moderate in his soul; he believed compromise was the source of well-being and happiness for everyone.
Angelo was already there when I arrived; he and Alberto enjoyed cooking together, and their styles complemented each other. Alberto was a sophisticated chef, Angelo a down-to-earth cook. My job was to set the table, clear the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher.
We ate pasta salad and Caprese salad and sipped white wine. It was extremely hot, but the terrace had a little pergola roof.
“You look tired. Aren’t you sleeping well?”
There was no irony in my brother’s question. As usual, he was simply worried about me.
“It’s so hot and noisy at night. Thank God it’s Sunday and everybody’s at the beach. Last Sunday everyone stayed in town to see the game.”
“Italy’s win was so good for the country, though. Sales taxes alone were far above average.”
“A country whose citizens pay taxes on the basis of soccer results isn’t exactly a great civilization.”
Such a country deserves a police captain who drives around pedestrian zones in his Duetto to pick up female tourists.
We talked politics so that we could talk about ourselves without making personal judgments, because we are the way we see the world. And the way I saw it was still quite brutal. On the one hand there were the honest and innocent, usually the impoverished. On the other there were the criminals and cheats, including the many in suit and tie who sat on boards of directors, in government, in public administration, and in the Vatican.
In my younger years I had dreamed that this system would explode and drag the wheeler-dealers who infested Italy into the mud, shamed and ruined. But the only ruin was mine. I cooperated with the secret intelligence service as soon as I realized that my neo-fascist friends had become murderers, manipulated by special interests and attacking entire groups of innocent and defenseless people. They had dishonored our ideals. But the intelligence service was linked to those same special interests, as I came to understand during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in 1978. At that point, serving the state in an official capacity became the only way for me to avoid spiraling out of control.
“I’ll never let myself be caught up in that dirt, Alberto. I think I’ll relax for another couple of years and then go back to Africa and hunt lions and take idiot tourists on vacations.”
Alberto shook his head, somewhere between amusement and concern.
“Italy was a poor country ruined by the war. Now it’s risen up again. These politicians, Catholics and Communists, industrialists and the Church, also did a few good things, don’t you think?” my brother said.
“They’re the ones who advised Mussolini to go to war and then abandoned him. They were all over industry and in the Vatican. Then, suddenly, at the end of the war they all were anti-Fascists.”
“That’s just not true. It was Mussolini who declared war and decreed the racial laws. Anti-Fascists were persecuted and killed by Fascists, just like the Italian military killed members of the Libyan resistance.”
Only
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