Persecution (9781609458744) (30 page)

And Leo had made it. The triumph of self-denial. He had come out alive and triumphant from an unequal contest. That time he had made it. And from then on he had passed every exam he faced, always relying on force of will and betting on the efficacy of sacrifice.

But what would have happened if he hadn't passed the chemistry exam? What would have happened if, by some chance, betrayed by emotion or ineptitude, he had said something foolish? What would have happened if the bastard had suddenly, with a characteristic gesture, thrown the book in his face, saying, “We'll see you in six months”?

Nothing would have happened. Nothing more serious that what had happened a few years earlier when he had to retake the mathematics exam. He would have had an extra ration of study. He would have had to put off getting his degree by a few months, and hence his emancipation from the family. He would have had to face his parents' anxiety. Their disappointment. Their anger. That's it? That's it.

And now, on the other hand? Now what would happen if, during the interrogation he was about to undergo, he didn't give the right answers?

Well, Leo was about to find out.

 

So this was the enemy. This his face, this his body. Or rather what Leo had tried to imagine for all those months and, to judge from the individual standing on the other side of the desk, had in no way succeeded in portraying with any verisim­ilitude.

So this was the persecutor. The Grand Inquisitor. The Torquemada on duty.

By a series of coincidences (not random at all?), the man who opened the door and invited them to come in, the polite but not in the least formal man who told them to sit on the other side of the desk, had been assigned the majority of the numerous investigations involving Leo. It meant that, for almost six months now, a great part of his working life had been devoted to gathering evidence capable of proving that Leo Pontecorvo was a thief, a malefactor, a pervert. It also meant that it was he who had signed the piece of paper that was responsible for the five most ludicrous (certainly not the most horrific) days of Leo's existence: the piece of paper that Leo still had in his pocket and whose contents he insisted on ignoring.

Herrera had presented a petition to ask for a formal preliminary hearing after his first meeting with Leo. The prosecutor had rejected the petition, but before Herrera was able to present his appeal, the public prosecutor had arrested Leo.

“That shit got in there before me!” were the words that Herrera kept muttering, growling.

Why such passion? Why get angry at him like that? Why should he be obsessed with a human adventure that was basically not so different from that of other fathers of families, other eminent doctors, other professors? Leo had wondered innumerable times.

But now that he was in front of him, now that he could have had an answer, he didn't wonder anything of the sort. Now it seemed to him that everything was perfectly linear and logical. That was the job of the investigator. Which he carried out with no less commitment and no less dedication than Leo, in his time, had put into his.

Leo thought again of all the speculating he had done with Herrera, who, like many lawyers of his generation, was convinced that everything came from a political prejudice.

“That man hates you,” Herrera repeated.

“Why do you say that?”

“You can tell from the way he writes the orders that he hates you. He hates what you are. He hates what you do. He hates your damn column in the
Corriere
. He hates your Jaguar. He hates the doll's house that you shut yourself up in. He hates Craxi and your pathetic Craxian idealism.”

“But why? Can you tell me why?”

“Because he does!”

The investigator's wholesome appearance spoke of his perfect good faith. He acted like that because he couldn't act otherwise. If a judge learns of some crimes it is his duty to be concerned with them and to pursue whoever committed them. The penal code says so but also common sense. And, even if you knew, as Leo knew, that a considerable number of the charges lodged against him were unfounded, you couldn't help appreciating the diligence with which this man performed the tasks that society had entrusted to him.

Leo remembered the time when he had asked Herrera if he had ever had anything to do with that man.

“Of course. Besides, I had to meet with him several times for your case. But I already knew him by reputation, everyone knows him. He was just transferred, or had himself transferred, I don't know.”

“From where?”

“Calabria. Aspromonte, to be more precise. He was in the trenches. They don't joke around there. And it seems that our friend stood out there, too, for a certain stubbornness, let's say. And there, too, he pissed off quite a few people. That's why they gave him a team of bodyguards. Threats, intimidations, letters with unexploded shells. In short, the usual grotesque means by which mobsters let you know you're a pain in the ass. Maybe that's why they transferred him. Or he had himself transferred. You remember those Piedmontese idealists, rock-solid, whose dream, from the time of university, consists of going to the South to restore, at last, the rule of law? That's it, something like that. Good books. Loves music. In short, the classic type to watch out for.”

“But aside from that, what type is he? As a judge, I mean.”

“What type is he? A type like Adolf Hitler: harsh but fair.”

Thus, with one of his cynical and hyperbolic digs, Herrera had let his client understand that it was a taboo subject. This was a matter that Leo should absolutely not get mixed up in. Stuff for lawyers and not for clients. Even though that sarcastic remark had had the effect of further transforming in Leo's eyes the essence of the man who was now facing him. The name of Hitler had vanished. The pair of adjectives endured: harsh but fair.

If he really was like that—harsh but fair—well, Leo had nothing to fear.

 

Except for some muttered greetings, the investigator had still not addressed a word to Leo or to Herrera. For now he was involved in giving instructions, in a low voice, to those who must be his colleagues, assistants, or underlings. One, little more than a boy, sitting in front of a typewriter, would probably be responsible for the report. The other, getting on in years, would be making sure that the tape recorder, with its large reels, which was placed on a small table beside the desk, functioned properly. They must be from the investigative police. Two assistants. He sensed in them a great but at the same time affectionate respect for the investigator. Leo got the idea that, being in a government office, one breathed an air of cooperation and understanding. As if it were a fine family held together by a father who was
harsh but fair
.

Finally there was a woman. Also rather young. Whose lack of attractiveness and irritating thinness were remarkably summarized by her hair, pulled back in a stiff dark-brown bun. Maybe the magistrate's assistant. Now the two were talking. Probably she would take part in the interrogation.

In that atmosphere heavy with concentration and expectations Leo recognized the same emotion that preceded a surgery. Although he wasn't a surgeon, he liked to be present at the operations that, all too often, his small patients had to undergo. If only to be sure that those butchers didn't get out of hand. So that's how a child must feel a moment before the anesthesia, amid all those adults who were talking to each other, organizing, giving one another orders. Those adults got up like astronauts, who would soon be laying their hands on him.

Even the light, so bright and artificial, evoked an operating room.

Leo, noticing the way the young woman looked at the public prosecutor, was sure that she must be in love with him. Of course, madly in love! More in love than that and you'd die. Yet how could it be otherwise? Who wouldn't be in love with a man like that? Finally Leo allowed himself to look at the man attentively. To grasp the elements of such an unmistakable fascination. He was still turned toward the woman.

There are men whose pants, because of their meager backsides, hang with an impeccable and therefore unsustainable precision. Those men who have no ass are for the most part lacking in compassion and insufficiently provided with emotional resources, and above all they are cold, precise, and without mystery, like solved puzzles. That's what the flat ferocious ass of the investigator said: it said everything about the severity of this young man, but very little about his temperament.

When at last the man turned toward him, Leo was struck by his radiant virility. No more than five feet seven, lean if not exactly athletic, the investigator wore a sky-blue shirt open discreetly at the collar, the sleeves clumsily rolled up to the elbows. His summer pants of custard-colored cotton were part of a suit whose jacket drooped over a chair. His perfectly spherical head, which was perfectly shaved and shining, reminded Leo of that actor Rachel liked so much, what was his name? Ah yes, Yul Brynner. Then, there were the eyes, whose blue displayed a Flemish clarity.

A terribly painful nostalgia for life. For his life. Leo felt overwhelmed by this. Seeing a man so at his ease in his own pants, with no a belt. Seeing a man who was allowed to do his own job freely. Seeing a man at the height of his energy, at the peak of efficiency and power, Leo felt such envy. For a second he found himself longing for—yearning, with ardor—the purloined goods: all that they had stolen from under his nose. He thought, at random, of his wardrobe, his students, emergencies at the hospital; he thought of successes and failures, of conferences and the coffee breaks between one session and the next; he thought of Rachel, of Filippo, of Samuel, and even of Flavio and Rita; he thought of the fragrance of Telma's
torta caprese
just coming out of the oven; he thought of vacations, of the lagoon, of the snow, of Saturdays, of Sundays but also of Tuesdays; he thought of the great Ray Charles, the voice of the great Ray Charles, he thought above all of that . . . In an instant everything returned. Everything he had lost. Along with fear. Fear of the sinister ritual that was about to be performed, in which he had been assigned the difficult role of lead actor. Goodbye stoicism. Goodbye fatalism. This was life. In its densest and most unequivocal form. Here fatalism had no usefulness, philosophy was a pointless waste of time.

 

What had happened to Herrera?

Having vented all his anger outside the door, once he was inside he seemed to calm down. Which Leo didn't mind. What distressed him was that, compared to the judge, his lawyer seemed an impotent, derelict creature, without authority.

“Signor Del Monte,” the judge said, in a voice that was disappointing, not the equal of his appearance: not equally firm, not so warm, not at all that of a great man. With too any irritating high notes. And languid in a way that was unmistakably Turinese.

“Signor Del Monte, if you have no objection I will begin.”

“All right, but first I would like . . . ” Herrera replied with a calm and a severity that Leo both liked and disliked at the same time.

The judge immediately interrupted, as if he hadn't heard him: “If you have no objections, we can take as read the indictment and the state's evidence. I imagine that both you and Professor Pontecorvo have had time to . . . And as for time we have already wasted enough.”

We can take as read the indictment and the state's evidence
? What a bizarre expression. Leo guessed that probably they would skip the preliminaries and the courtesies, that they would get straight to the point. To the interrogation. Without passing through the reading of the indictment. Which would only delay further the moment when he would learn the nature of the crime that they were accusing him of and for which they had thrown him in jail. Leo went back to tenderly patting the pants pocket where he kept the pieces of paper.

“No, no objection, Dottore.”

“Professor, as your lawyer must surely have told you, some days ago I myself went to your house for another search . . . ”

“On that subject . . . ” Herrera interrupted again, “you must understand that Professor Pontecorvo and I have not had time to talk about anything . . . In short, I would expect . . . ”

Again Herrera's tone alarmed Leo. It seemed resentful, like that of someone who is about to explode but can't afford to. The exact opposite of what it should be, not to mention the exact opposite of the judge's, which displayed a seraphic calm.

Leo was content, nevertheless, that they both referred to him as “professor.” It seemed to him that it was a thing among gentlemen. Among people who belonged to the same rank. The Judge, the Lawyer, and the Professor. A fine trio. The longer he was there, the more Leo felt he ought to trust that man. And answer to the point. Because he was a trustworthy type. Remember? Harsh but fair. The kind of person Leo wanted to deal with. Not an enemy but an antagonist. Not the wrinkled mathematics teacher who, in her time, had made him repeat the exam. Not the bastard who taught chemistry at the university. Not Camilla, and not even the wretched father of that wretched girl. Not the anonymous, obsessive dispenser of telephone threats. Not all the hack journalists who stubbornly insulted his integrity. In short, not all the people who wished him harm and who suddenly seemed to be crowding this vast world. A harsh but fair man. In search of the truth.

And so Leo would have liked to tug on his lawyer's sleeve and say to him: come on, that's enough now, stop it, don't go on quibbling, let the judge speak. Let's clear up this situation and go home.

“Dottore, you must realize that since the professor and I haven't been able to talk to or see each other in the past few days . . . ” Herrera began, as if alluding to an ordinary impediment and not to the court injunction that had forbidden him to have contact with his client for five days and five nights.

“And so what shall we do, professor? Would you like to avail yourself of the opportunity not to answer? Admit to the allegation? Or do you want to clear yourself?” the judge asked. And Leo couldn't tell if his tone was sarcastic or meant just what it said. Or if it concealed some threat. The only thing he knew was that he didn't like it and that again it had been triggered by Herrera's quibbling.