Freedom for all
"Nino don’t be afraid of missing a penalty kick, it’s not from these details that a player is recognized, you see a player from his courage, altruism, imagination."
("La leva calcistica della classe '68", Francesco De Gregori)
Months later, the wound still burned like the first day. Sara had become even taller, one inch, which made her feel close to heaven, and at the same time one step from hell. But she had stopped rebelling against her body that wanted to grow taller and taller, against her breath that still stopped in her throat. Now she rebelled against life as a whole. She kept feeling guilty. She had tried to explain that to inspector Pascucci when he called her once again, soon after the funeral.
"Maybe you know something more than the others... a particular, a detail, something that could help me with the investigation", he had told her, looking at her with a paternal expression, at the same time full of resentment.
He looked tired, his hair was dishevelled on his forehead beaded with sweat. Sara thought she should help him, for Eleonora and everyone else, but she didn’t know how.
"Silvia told me one day", she muttered eventually in one breath, plucking up courage but avoiding to look into his eyes.
"What did she say exactly? She told you about the slaughter? She said she had the gun? Did she say any names? Try to remember exactly. Did she say a name? I need just one."
"No, no, she said nothing. The truth is that she wanted to tell me, she hinted it, but I didn’t believe her, Mr. inspector. It seemed impossible, I thought she was joking... it's as if I were to tell you now, well, no, not you, I wouldn’t tell it to you, you are an inspector... as if I told to someone that I want to kill a person who is hateful to me. Would you believe me?"
Renato Pascucci nodded. He was starting to understand. Not even Sara could help him. He would not be able to bring to justice the hidden perpetrators of that slaughter.
"What did she say exactly?"
"That she was going to kill Eleonora, that she would rid us from her presence. I thought she was joking, that it was a relief. I laughed. You know, I just laughed. If I had asked, if I'd listened... why didn’t I?"
Sara was crying. She was always crying since when it had happened. And she could not sleep. If she closed her eyes she heard the shooting, she saw again Eleonora, Alessia, Luca and Alessandro on the floor, she felt again that absurd fear of death, that terror. But she had been graced. She was alive, free and accomplice.
"I feel guilty, inspector. All of us who were in that class are guilty, we always agreed to everything, we laughed with Silvia and Deborah, joked with them... we allowed Eleonora to become their victim, we left her in their hands. We made fun of her because she studied, because the teachers loved her, and she was so beautiful, the most beautiful. You see... we allowed it, and it’s no good saying that we're too young. We knew that Eleonora was suffering, but we didn’t care... we laughed behind her back."
The father-looking inspector had widened his eyes with an incredulous expression. Sara liked his way of participating to that event, of intensely living their history. She felt him closer than any other adult she had known until then. She stood listening to him, paying attention even to his breathing.
"The most beautiful? Girl, are you telling me the tale of Snow White and her stepmother? Killed because she was the most beautiful, do you really think it was for this?!"
"I think so, Dr. Pascucci. I think it was just for that. Their idea was exactly that. Silvia was about to tell me everything that day. She trusted me, and I loved her, she knew that. But it seemed like a crazy idea... I did what you are doing now with me. I didn’t believe her, I didn’t attach any importance to it. If I had been less blind, less dumb... I don’t know, I could have told Eleonora, my parents, the principal. I might have saved them all. I didn’t, and now, even today I can’t do anything. I don’t know how to help you with the investigations. I'm sorry."
She had stopped crying. She had looked at him serenely, and patiently repeated that she did not know the circle of friends of Silvia, she didn’t know who had given the guns to the two girls, she didn’t smoke joints – actually she didn’t even smoke cigarettes – and didn’t know any pusher.
"Maybe there’s someone at school who knows where to find weed", she said hopefully.
"Surely there will be, I will question them, and anyway stop tormenting yourself. You have not shot, girl, don’t worry, it's not your fault. You didn’t even support them morally, if that's what you think. Silvia and Deborah are the sole responsible of their actions."
Sara knew that, she had not taken a gun. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, she hadn’t killed. She hadn’t ever even remotely thought about a slaughter. She could not be guilty. She had left the police station dejected, her hand in the hand of her mother, who had been waiting outside the room, eyes shiny.
"I will get taller, and this will be the punishment God has decided for me, for having been the unwilling accomplice of a series of murders. I will become a giant." So she repeated every evening before the mirror, and she measured herself, complaining with her parents.
"I'll never find someone as tall as me", she whimpered.
"You too will find a nice toad, don’t worry", her mother answered, laughing.
Sara did not answer and lied on the bed. Sometimes looking at the ceiling, other times read the paper. If Mrs. Boschi had known, she would have fallen from her chair in excitement. She had taken to buy newspapers right after the slaughter. She leafed them anxiously to see if there was any news, if anyone mentioned Pascucci’s investigations, if the name of the damn pusher had come up. There was never a single line about the story that had changed her life. Only the dramatic end of Silvia had won back the headlines; "The mind of the girls slaughter, Silvia Giardini, seventeen years old, died yesterday morning at 10.25 in the intensive care ward of the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome. In that moment with her was her mother, Giovanna, just arrived from London where she lives with her new partner and her infant son. The woman, locked in her grief, declined to comment. Her father, the architect Mario Giardini, immediately rushed to see his daughter one last time. He asked the reporters who were waiting outside the entrance for a news blackout, inviting them to understand his grief. For an absurd twist of fate, the girl died at the same time when the slaughter began on that tragic November 21st..."
Sara closed the newspaper with an angry gesture. She had asked her parents several times the permission to visit Silvia at the hospital, but they had looked at her as if she were crazy.
"Don’t even talk about it. You visiting that killer? Do you remember that you're alive by a miracle, you could have died that day, too!"
"She was a friend of mine. She was a friend of mine", she had said, crying.
She wanted to see her and even talk to her, she did not know what about, nor why, but she was sure she had to say goodbye to her one last time, look for an answer, look at her after all that horror.
Newspapers had devoted much space to the mother of Eleonora, disappeared from the Santo Spirito hospital the morning of the slaughter. According to what had emerged from the investigations, the woman had suddenly dressed and left the hospital with no one stopping her, and she had never come back. A couple of nurses had gone on trial for lack of supervision. Her husband, the father of Eleonora, had circulated leaflets complete with mug shots, participated in a couple of episodes of "Chi l’ha visto?" on TV, launched a series of appeals, but his desperate search had been unsuccessful.
"Poor fellow", Sara thought, and she fantasized about the good-looking woman she had seen throwing herself on the pavement, outside the school, the day, that day.
Maybe it had been her, Mrs. Cremaschi. Maybe she had heard the news from someone, or maybe had had a premonition. Sara imagined her wandering around Rome in search of her beautiful daughter, victim of a momentary madness. She wanted to tell that to inspector Pascucci, but she tried to keep a safe distance from the investigations, from the s
chool, from any event that could remind her of the slaughter. Besides, who and what would have benefited from knowing that Mrs. Cremaschi had been there that day? No one and nothing, she thought.
Over the weeks she noticed with surprise that the slaughter had been forgotten, like the proposal of a fancy minister who wanted to put metal detectors at the entrance of every school. Even the political debate around the story of the Marco Polo high had been deleted by new events and by the oblivion that covers the victims, wraps them, transforms them into martyrs who don’t even have the right to be sorry for themselves.
"Understand, forgive, forget" had been written on a memorial plaque in the square of the school. Someone regularly brought fresh flowers and put them elegantly on the ground, near the entrance of the institute. Students had gone back to school as if nothing had happened. They sat in the classrooms and even opened notebooks and books, talking, talking, dreaming, like all students of the world. Lavinia had closed the shop next door to the Marco Polo high and moved to live in the countryside, in the tourist farm of a friend, a stone's throw from Vico lake. There was no trace of the parents of the murdered children. They had darkened in their sorrows, no one had sought them anymore. Claudia's sister, Alessia, had stopped eating and had been admitted to a centre specializing in the treatment of anorexic girls. Inspector Pascucci’s shoulders were increasingly curved. He felt the defeat of not having been able – not even with the help of eager informants – to put an end to the investigations. Everything was apparently in order, everything was still as before. A huge ring-a-ring-o’roses of pain and thoughts that didn’t seem to end.
In mid June, the girls slaughter regained the front pages of newspapers. The principal and teachers board of the Marco Polo high, upon suggestion of the Ministry of Education, had decided to award the diploma to the memory to the killed students – Eleonora, Luca, Alessandro and Alessia – and promote the survivors of the fifth E, whatever it was their academic performance during the school year. Sara was invited like everyone else to participate to the official ceremony. They sent an elegant note to her house, with a request to confirm her presence by telephone. She had begged her parents not to go with her, for once. They had agreed, although mumbling vigorously and with some fear. After the day of the slaughter, her mother had become neurotic, following her step by step as if she were afraid to leave her alone. And now Sara was walking alone, thoughtful, toward the school, pulled by an imaginary rope. She had conquered a political report, softened by an average mark of seven, without having opened a book from the day of the slaughter. Without having gone back to the classroom. And now she was presented with the bill. She had to go and collect it at school, sitting in the theatre, see again Marco, Mrs. Boschi, Andrea, Maria, and all those who had lived with her on that bloody Monday. She would need to see again the cameras and reporters, listen to speeches, shake hands, exchange kisses on the cheeks, pretend to be healed, to have overcome the horror. Maybe she would also meet the parents of the dead students, Alessia's sister, with whom she had exchanged a few words at the funeral, the father of Eleonora, whom she had only seen on television. She wondered what had become of Mrs. Cremaschi? And who knew what Silvia had felt, dying in the hospital, alone?
Sara didn’t know which side to choose, whether that of adults and their legislation, or that of teenagers – frightened, without a clear answer. No absolution, no condemnation, that was her motto.
The official ceremony was scheduled for ten o'clock in the morning and it was hot in Rome. A let’s-go-to-the-sea kind of heat.
Sara was sweating, walking unhurriedly on the cobblestones that would lead her to the Marco Polo high. She was wearing a white linen dress, lightweight and very chastened. A red scarf over her hair, a bracelet of the same colour at her wrist. In some ways she seemed to her to be reliving the day of the funeral. She was treading the same path, with the same state of mind, with her breath becoming increasingly laboured and the knowledge that she had to control it before it got stuck in her throat, like that sense of death she had not yet get used to had got stuck in her heart. The psychologist who had assisted her during all those months, an elderly and meticulous lady wearing thick lenses, had been explicit, yet determined, when she had considered refusing to go to the delivery of fictitious reports and useless diplomas. She had seriously looked at her from behind her glasses, a look that Sarah had learned to recognize and fear, then she had said, distinctly pronouncing her words, "It will definitely hurt you to go to that school again. Perhaps you will suffer more than you think, seeing your classmates again and remembering that day. But I think it will also benefit you greatly. You cannot remove the grief forever. You have to deal with what happened. Only this way you can feel better."
Sara hadn’t answered. From her five feet ten of height, now conquered and consolidated, she had remained silent, like a sad giraffe observing the world around her. She had nodded resignedly.
"If you really want, if you think it is necessary, I will go."
She felt anguish at the idea of going back into that building. In September, according to the agreement she had reached with her parents, she would go back to school, but not to the Marco Polo high. She was going to have other classmates, other teachers. The third year of high school meant starting over. She had asked for the new teachers to be informed in advance that she was a survivor of the fifth E, and that she would not welcome any question or comment about the past. That was the deal. She had to remain a survivor in the shadows. Immediately after the slaughter, she had even been invited to participate in some television programs. Significant sums of money had been offered to her parents in order to be allowed to interview her. Sara had always said no, she didn’t want to hear about that.
She wanted to tiptoe out of that story.
She caught her breath before crossing the entrance of the Marco Polo high with her burden on her shoulders. The room was dripping with sweat and people, teenagers and adults with forcedly appropriate expressions. She immediately saw inspector Pascucci, easily noticeable for his white polo, discreetly worn over a pair of jeans. He was standing close to the front door, with an absent expression. Sara restrained the impulse to run to him, greet him with enthusiasm and ask him about the investigations. Certainly they had been closed long ago, with no results, she thought, and there was no point rubbing salt in the wound of that kind man’s failure. Then she noticed Mrs. Boschi, not far away, slightly fatter than usual and with her hair and a little fairer than she remembered. She deliberately avoided her, averting her gaze. If the teacher had noticed her she would have had to go and talk to her, and she still didn’t feel ready for that conversation. Finally she saw Mrs. Maresco, dominating the room and the scene, standing upright. The lady of the house. She was just perfect, dressed as if she were in a box at the opera. She was shaking hands and trading smiles. It was her triumph, Sara thought with a touch of sarcasm, while everyone was moving about without taking a seat, looking like disbanded extras in search of a director.
She stood a minute to look at the scene, and she already felt like she was suffocating. Air wasn’t coming into her lungs. She put her hands to her throat and ran out, convinced that even if she hadn’t attended the official ceremony, she would still have her undeserved promotion.
The square in which the Marco Polo high stood was populated as usual. A discreet coming and going of students, but also of casual passersby, tourists and onlookers. She resignedly sat down on a bench, watching the old school as it if were an old movie, while her breathing was gradually returning to normal. She was out again, safe for the second time.
"Hello Sara... you’re here too."
Sara recognized the voice and turned in surprise to look at her classmate who had sit beside her. Discreetly, quietly. A ghost appeared out of nowhere.
"Marina! I haven’t seen you for so long. How are you? I'm glad you're here with me. I feel like a zombie."
"Me too", the other girl said.
To Sara it seemed that she was thinner
and more haggard, shrouded by a sadness that made her look strange, distant, dejected. She was no longer the cute and batty girl of the fifth E, she no longer was the flashy girl who went to all the raves in the area, with a bold look and a will to be noticed. Her hair had grown back and now caressed her face, just below the ears, discreetly. She was sweet, that’s what Marina had become. A sweet and even helpless sixteen-year-old girl. She had always been aggressive and determined, ready to fight. Sara looked away in anguish. The slaughter had made early adults of them all. She was speechless.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, looking at the school, without looking at each other. They had never been close friends, they had never looked for each other in those months of oblivion that had followed the slaughter. They had never had anything in common.
"Do you still think about it?" Marina asked eventually, swinging her feet as if she had been sitting on the edge of a swimming pool. Apparently distracted.
Sara weighed her words. She might have suffered, but Marina must have been devastated in witnessing the murder of Alessandro, executed just like that, in front of everyone, in the middle of the classroom.
"I think about it constantly. Always. How could it be otherwise? We are two survivors, Marina", she said at last, resigned. "Everybody knows, this is why they are promoting us even though we didn’t study at all. But I, you know, can’t bring myself to go in there, talk to the teachers, get on stage and take a report that was paid with the lives of our friends."
"Me neither. I left my mother in there. She can take the report herself, since she minds so much. She will be glad that I didn’t fail, you don’t know how much she got on my nerves... do you realize? They will give the diploma to Alessandro’s parents. I can’t stay there. Can’t watch this. I loved him, I can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it happened. I miss him so much."
Marina kept her eyes down and tormented her watchband with anger, tears slowly falling down her face. Her jeans were stuck to her from the heat, as well as her short white shirt. She looked like a little girl. Unrecognizable from the girl she had been just a few months before.
"I miss Alessandro. I miss him so much. He was my life."
Sara stood silent. She, too, missed everything; the old class, getting up early in the morning to go to school, her friends, Silvia and her carefree, rebellious attitude, the home works to be done as soon as possible, even Mrs. Boschi and her constant sermons. She missed – she thought with surprise – the life of a normal student, with deadlines and rules, commitments and holidays. Days had become so sadly empty, useless, identical, moaning. She wanted the old life back, the one she had before the slaughter.
"I miss him so much", Marina repeated. "Even his roller skates, his hugs, his kisses, his love... Alessandro was everything to me. I still can’t believe it. It can’t have happened. Not to us..."
She was crying harder now, sobbing, with her back folded in, her hands on her face.
"But it happened. It happened. We were in that classroom, that day. We'll stay there forever Marina. We'll bring all this in our hearts... I'm still in there, I dream that mess every night. I still hear the gunshots. I see the expression of Silvia, of Alessandro, you, Eleonora. Sometimes I wake up soaked in sweat and I think that I'm alive by a miracle", Sara eventually muttered, putting an arm around her.
Marina stood motionless, almost rigid. Frightened. She kept crying. She had lost faith in human contact.
Sara wanted to comfort her and could not find the words. She started humming a song that had been in her head since she had listened to it on the radio, just before leaving, "Nino don’t be afraid of missing a penalty kick, is not from these details that a player is recognized..."
"Why did they do that, Sara? I mean Silvia and Deborah. Why did they do this mess? Why kill Alessandro that way? They were friends. What did they want to prove? We were so happy, we had everything. And we didn’t even know."
Sara was still silent.
"Maybe they just wanted to dictate their rules, their law. Being the coolest, the strongest. More than boys, more than Mrs. Boschi, more than anyone."
The shock hit her almost like lightning. That had to be the answer to the question she had been asking herself since that day. The other girl remained motionless, as if she had not even heard her words. Motionless.
"Listen, Marina, what if we do something?", Sara continued abruptly.
"What do you want to do?" the other answered, breaking away from the embrace with an abrupt gesture. She looked scared.
"Nothing, I want to get as far away as possible. Let's go get an ice cream, take a walk. I can’t stay here. After all, in September I must go back to school anyway. You too, don’t you?" Sara suggested firmly. "We have never been close friends, but together maybe we can do it."
"I don’t know... sometimes I would kill myself. I don’t know if I'll stand going back to school. My mother has enrolled me in another school."
Marina had stood up and was looking at her. She looked like a frightened refugee, with sweat-soaked hair and the wild eyes of those who have met death and feel it all over them.
"Listen Marina, we will not forget today, we won’t restart today. Maybe not even tomorrow. But we can do it. We have to."
Sara too had stood up from the bench. She suddenly felt resolute, as if having to protect the other girl gave her the strength that until then she hadn’t been able to find.
"All right, a walk will be. Maybe even ice cream. It’s a hell of a heat", Marina eventually whispered, resigned.
"Do you want to tell your parents that we’re going? I came alone. I can’t stand them anymore. My mother has become a leech. She’s always afraid that something will happen to me."
"Not at all. They brought me here forcefully. I knew that I would not be able to go in there. When they get out, be sure, they will phone me. Come on, come on, I can’t stay here any longer as well."
They walked together. Side by side. The tall one – trying to keep her breath in check – and the girl who had lost love. The former thinking about a pain that must be faced in order to grow, the latter about the pains that life brings you without asking for permission. They held hands to give strength to each other. They walked standing close, kissed by the sun. In silence. Inspector Pascucci saw them from afar, as he was leaving the school. He understood with no need for words and smiling, as the good loving father he was, he hoped he would never meet them again.
The author
Carla Cucchiarelli, Roman, is a journalist of the regional newscast of the RAI. She has published "Why mothers suffer. True stories in the Mother-saving Universe," written with Vincenzo Mastronardi and Maria Grazia Passeri (Armando Editore 2009). In September 2012 she published her first novel, "I killed Bambi" (Zerounoundici Edizioni), a puzzling thriller about juvenile crime.
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