relationship, the weeks, the months, the first year, and then a year and a half, starting from the night when, in the house in Florence, I had gone to Nino in his room. It was then that—we said to each other—our true life had begun. And what we called
true life
was that impression of miraculous splendor that never abandoned us even when everyday horrors took the stage.
We were in Rome in the days following the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. I had joined Nino, who was to discuss a book by a Neapolitan colleague on southern politics and geography. Very little was said about the volume, while there was a lot of argument about Moro, the head of the Christian Democrats. Part of the audience rose up, scaring me, when Nino said it was Moro himself who threw mud at the state, who embodied its worst aspects, who created the conditions for the birth of the Red Brigades, and thus obscured uncomfortable truths about his corrupt party, and indeed identified it with the state to avoid every accusation and every punishment. Even when he concluded that defending the institutions meant not hiding their misdeeds but making them transparent, without omissions, efficient, capable of justice in every nerve center, the people didn’t calm down, and insults flew. I saw Nino turn pale, and I dragged him away as soon as possible. We took refuge in us as if in shining armor.
The times had that rhythm. Things went badly for me, too, one evening, in Ferrara. Moro’s body had been found a little more than a month earlier and I let slip a description of his kidnappers as murderers. It was always difficult with words, my audience required that I calibrate them according to the current usage of the radical left, and I was very careful. But often I would get excited and then I made pronouncements with no filter. “Murderers” did not sit well with that audience—
the fascists are the murderers
—and I was attacked, criticized, jeered. I was silent. How I suffered in situations where approval suddenly vanished: I lost confidence, I felt dragged down to my origins, I felt politically incapable, I felt I was a woman who would have been better off not opening her mouth, and for a while I avoided every occasion of public confrontation.
If one murders someone, is one not a murderer?
The evening ended unpleasantly, Nino nearly came to blows with someone at the back of the room. But even in that situation only the return to the two of us counted. That’s how it was: if we were together, there was no critic who could truly touch us; in fact we became arrogant, nothing else made sense except our opinions. We hurried to dinner, to good food, wine, sex. We wanted only to hold each other, cling to each other.
21.
The first cold shower arrived at the end of 1978, from Lila, naturally. It was the end of a series of unpleasant events that began in mid-October, when Pietro, returning from the university, was openly attacked by a couple of kids—reds, blackshirts, who knew anymore—armed with clubs. I hurried to the hospital, convinced that I would find him more depressed than ever. Instead, in spite of his bandaged head and a black eye, he was cheerful. He greeted me with a conciliatory tone, then he forgot about me and talked the whole time with some of his students, among whom a very pretty girl was conspicuous. When most of them left, she sat next to him, on the edge of the bed, and took one of his hands. She wore a white turtleneck sweater and a blue miniskirt, and her brown hair hung down her back. I was polite, I asked her about her studies. She said she had two more exams before getting her degree, but she was already working on her thesis, on Catullus. She’s very good, Pietro praised her. Her name was Doriana and the whole time we were in the ward she only let go of his hand to rearrange the pillows.
That night, in the house in Florence, my mother-in-law appeared with Dede and Elsa. I talked to her about the girl, she smiled with satisfaction, she knew
true life
was that impression of miraculous splendor that never abandoned us even when everyday horrors took the stage.
We were in Rome in the days following the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. I had joined Nino, who was to discuss a book by a Neapolitan colleague on southern politics and geography. Very little was said about the volume, while there was a lot of argument about Moro, the head of the Christian Democrats. Part of the audience rose up, scaring me, when Nino said it was Moro himself who threw mud at the state, who embodied its worst aspects, who created the conditions for the birth of the Red Brigades, and thus obscured uncomfortable truths about his corrupt party, and indeed identified it with the state to avoid every accusation and every punishment. Even when he concluded that defending the institutions meant not hiding their misdeeds but making them transparent, without omissions, efficient, capable of justice in every nerve center, the people didn’t calm down, and insults flew. I saw Nino turn pale, and I dragged him away as soon as possible. We took refuge in us as if in shining armor.
The times had that rhythm. Things went badly for me, too, one evening, in Ferrara. Moro’s body had been found a little more than a month earlier and I let slip a description of his kidnappers as murderers. It was always difficult with words, my audience required that I calibrate them according to the current usage of the radical left, and I was very careful. But often I would get excited and then I made pronouncements with no filter. “Murderers” did not sit well with that audience—
the fascists are the murderers
—and I was attacked, criticized, jeered. I was silent. How I suffered in situations where approval suddenly vanished: I lost confidence, I felt dragged down to my origins, I felt politically incapable, I felt I was a woman who would have been better off not opening her mouth, and for a while I avoided every occasion of public confrontation.
If one murders someone, is one not a murderer?
The evening ended unpleasantly, Nino nearly came to blows with someone at the back of the room. But even in that situation only the return to the two of us counted. That’s how it was: if we were together, there was no critic who could truly touch us; in fact we became arrogant, nothing else made sense except our opinions. We hurried to dinner, to good food, wine, sex. We wanted only to hold each other, cling to each other.
21.
The first cold shower arrived at the end of 1978, from Lila, naturally. It was the end of a series of unpleasant events that began in mid-October, when Pietro, returning from the university, was openly attacked by a couple of kids—reds, blackshirts, who knew anymore—armed with clubs. I hurried to the hospital, convinced that I would find him more depressed than ever. Instead, in spite of his bandaged head and a black eye, he was cheerful. He greeted me with a conciliatory tone, then he forgot about me and talked the whole time with some of his students, among whom a very pretty girl was conspicuous. When most of them left, she sat next to him, on the edge of the bed, and took one of his hands. She wore a white turtleneck sweater and a blue miniskirt, and her brown hair hung down her back. I was polite, I asked her about her studies. She said she had two more exams before getting her degree, but she was already working on her thesis, on Catullus. She’s very good, Pietro praised her. Her name was Doriana and the whole time we were in the ward she only let go of his hand to rearrange the pillows.
That night, in the house in Florence, my mother-in-law appeared with Dede and Elsa. I talked to her about the girl, she smiled with satisfaction, she knew
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