Involuntary Witness

“I do not remember and I cannot rule it out.”

It was the moment for me to stop, to overcome the temptation to ask another question. Which would have been one question too many.

“Thank you, Your Honour, I have finished with this witness. I request the attachment as documentary evidence of the photographs I have exhibited to the sergeant-major.”

I showed the photos to Cervellati and Cotugno. They raised no objection, though Cervellati gave me a look of palpable disgust. Then I put them back in their envelope and consigned them to the judge.

Lorusso departed after taking leave of the bench and the public prosecutor. He walked straight past me, ignoring me deliberately. I could scarcely blame him.

The judge said that we would take a ten-minute break, and only then did I realize that Margherita had been next to me all the time without saying a word.

I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee. She nodded. I would have liked to ask her what she thought of it. If she thought I had done well, and things of that kind, but then I thought it was a childish question so I didn’t ask it. Instead it was she who spoke, while we were entering the bar inside the Palace of Justice, notorious for serving the worst coffee in town.

It was very interesting – she said – even if I did seem to be a different person. I had done well, but I had not been, as it were, exactly charming. Had it really been necessary to humiliate the sergeant-major that way?

I was on the verge of saying that I didn’t think I had humiliated him, and in any case trials of this kind are bound to be brutal. This brutality was the cost of civil rights that we could not forgo, and in any case better a carabiniere humiliated than an innocent man convicted.

Luckily I said nothing of all this. Instead I stayed silent for a moment before replying. I then said I didn’t know if it had been really necessary. It was certainly necessary to elicit those facts, which were important, and that maybe there was another way and maybe not. However, in those situations, that is in trials, especially tricky ones, with the media focused on them and all that, it’s only too easy to show one’s worst side. It was even easy to acquire a taste for it, for torturing people, with the excuse that it’s sometimes a dirty job but someone has to do it.

We drank our coffee and lit cigarettes. This luckily interrupted the conversation on the ethics of lawyer-hood. I said that the coffee in the law courts was also used to poison the mice. She burst out laughing and said she was glad I was able to make her laugh. I was glad too.

Then we made our way back to the courtroom.

28

The judge told the bailiff to call the witness Antonio Renna.

The latter crossed the courtroom looking about him with a cocksure air. He had the look of a peasant. A stumpy figure, checked shirt with a 70s-style collar, swarthy complexion and crafty eyes. Not at all an engaging craftiness either, rather suggesting first chance I get, I’ll cheat you. He hoisted up his trousers by the belt with a gesture that seemed to me obscene, and took his time sitting down in the seat reserved for witnesses, shown him by the bailiff. With his back to the cage where Abdou was. He sat sprawling, filling the whole chair and relaxing against the back. He had an air of self-satisfaction, and I had a distinct urge to wipe it off his face.

Cervellati’s interrogation was nothing but a kind of repeat of the one during the preliminary inquiries. Renna said exactly the same things, in the same order and more or less in the same words.

When his turn came, Cotugno finally asked a few questions, totally insignificant. Just to show his clients, the child’s parents, that he existed and was earning his fee.

I was about to start my cross-examination when Margherita whispered something in my ear.

“I don’t know what makes me think so, but this man’s a turd.”

“I know.” Then I turned to the witness.

“Good morning, Signor Renna.”

“Good morning.”

“I am Avvocato Guerrieri, and I am defending Signor Thiam. I will now ask you a number of questions to which I ask you to reply briefly and without making comments.” My tone of voice was deliberately odious. I wanted to provoke him, to see if I could find an opening so as to get in my blow. As in boxing.

Renna regarded me with his piggy little eyes. Then he addressed the judge.

“Your Honour, do I also have to answer the questions of a lawyer?”

“You are obliged to answer, Signor Renna.” The judge’s face expressed the thought that, were it in his power, he would willingly have done without me, and most other defending counsel as well. Unfortunately it was not. I, however, had gained a tiny advantage. The barman had swallowed the bait and from now on was more vulnerable.

“Well, then, Signor Renna, you told the public prosecutor that on the afternoon of 5 August 1999 you saw Signor Thiam walking quickly from north to south. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember when it was you were heard by the public prosecutor during the inquiries?”

“He interrogated me a week later, I think.”

“When were you heard by the carabinieri?”

“Before, the day before.”

“Is your bar frequented by non-European citizens?”

“Quite a few. They come in for a coffee, they buy cigarettes.”

“Can you tell us their nationalities?”

“I don’t know. They’re all niggers…”

“Are you able to tell us more or less how many niggers frequent your bar?”

“Don’t know. They’re the lot that go round peddling stuff on the beaches, and even in the streets. Sometimes they even hang about right outside my bar.”

“Ah, they even hang about right outside your bar. But they don’t interfere with your custom, do they?”

“They interfere, they interfere, and how!”

“Forgive me for asking, but if they are a nuisance, why don’t you call the municipal police, or the carabinieri?”

“Why don’t I call them? I call them all right, but d’you think they come?” He was thoroughly indignant now. But meanwhile Cervellati had seen what I was leading up to. A bit late though.

“Your Honour, I notice that the defence is continuing to ask every witness questions without any pertinence to the object of these proceedings. I don’t see how it is possible to go ahead in this manner.”

I spoke before Zavoianni could get a word in.

“I have finished on this point, Your Honour. I am going on to another.”

“Taking great care, Avvocato Guerrieri. Very great care,” said the judge.

“Well then, Signor Renna, I had a few other questions for you… ah, yes, I wanted to show you some photographs.” Out of my briefcase I took a series of photocopies of colour photographs. I was deliberately clumsy about it.

“Your Honour, may I approach the witness and show him some photographs?”

“What photographs might they be, Avvocato?”

I was now about to start walking the tightrope. A wrong word on one side and I’d end up under disciplinary procedure. A wrong word on the other and I would have ruined everything I had accomplished up to that moment.

“They are photographs of non-European citizens, Your Honour. I wish to verify whether the witness recognizes any of them.” In a carefully colourless tone of voice.

The judge made his usual sign to tell me I could go ahead. I hoped that Cervellati wouldn’t ask to see the photos, or demand more precise information as to who were the persons represented, which was within his rights. He didn’t do it. I approached the witness, photos in hand.