Renna was not mistaken? Can you say that at the end of this trial you are left with no reasonable doubt?
“If you can say all this, then convict Abdou Thiam.”
I had raised my voice and I became aware that this time I was not play-acting.
“Sentence him to life imprisonment and nothing less. If you can say that there is not a single doubt, that you are absolutely certain, then it is your
For an indefinable time everything hung in the air. Until I heard my voice once more. Low now, and with a crack in it.
“If, however, you do not have this certainty, then you require even more courage.
“In order not to suppress your doubts in the name of summary justice, and therefore to acquit, you will need enormous courage. I am confident that you will have it.
“Thank you for hearing me out.”
I sat down, scarcely able to believe that I had really finished. From behind me on the public benches came a murmur of voices. I sat with lips compressed and head slightly bowed, staring dumbly to my left at the grain of the wood on my desk.
I heard the judge speaking and his voice seemed to come from far away. He asked the prosecution and the civil party if they had any responses. They said no.
Then he asked Abdou if he wished to make a concluding statement, before the court retired in camera. As was his right by law. The murmur died and there were a few seconds of silence. Then came Abdou’s voice speaking into a microphone inserted between the bars of the cage. It was quiet but firm.
“I want to say one thing. I want to thank my lawyer because he has believed I am innocent. I want to tell him he did right, because it is true.”
The president gave an imperceptible nod. “The court will retire,” he said.
He got to his feet, and almost at once the others did likewise.
I got up too, mechanically. I watched them disappear one by one through the door and only then did I turn to Margherita.
“How long did I speak for?”
“Two and a half hours, more or less.”
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past six. It seemed to me I had spoken for no more than forty minutes.
We stood for a while in silence. Then she asked me why I didn’t take off my robe. I did so and laid it on the desk, while she regarded me with the expression of one who wants to say something and is searching for the way, for the words.
“I’m not very good at paying compliments. I’ve never really liked doing it, and I think I know why. In any case, that doesn’t matter now. What I wanted to say was that… well, listening to you was… extraordinary. I’d like to give you a kiss, but I don’t think this is the time and place for it.”
I said nothing, because I was at a loss for words, and what’s more I had a lump in my throat.
A journalist came up and complimented me. Then another, and then the girl who had asked me what I thought of the prosecutor’s request for a verdict of guilty. I felt a pang of remorse at not having been kinder to her earlier.
While the journalists jabbered on at me without my listening, Margherita gave a gentle tug at my sleeve.
“I must dash. Good luck.” She raised her left fist to her brow and briefly bowed her head.
Then she turned and made off, and I felt lonely.
37
The first defence I conducted on my own, shortly after qualifying, had to do with a series of frauds. The defendant was a large, jolly fellow with a black moustache and a nose laced with broken veins. I had a feeling he was not a teetotaller.
The prosecutor made a very short speech and asked for two years’ imprisonment. I made a long harangue. While I was speaking the judge kept nodding, and this gave me confidence. My arguments seemed to me cogent and unanswerably persuasive.
When I finished I was convinced that in a matter of minutes my client would be acquitted.
The judge was out for about twenty minutes, and when he returned he pronounced exactly the sentence the prosecution had asked for. Two years’ imprisonment without remission, because my client was a habitual criminal.
I didn’t sleep that night, and for days afterwards I asked myself where I had gone wrong. I felt humiliated, and persuaded myself that the judge for some unknown reason had it in for me. I lost faith in justice.
It never occurred to me for one moment that there was an obvious explanation for the matter: that my client was guilty and the judge had been right to convict him. This was a brilliant intuition that only came to me long afterwards.
However, that experience taught me to treat my trials with due detachment. Without getting emotional and above all without nursing any expectations.
Getting emotional and nursing expectations are both dangerous things. They can do harm, even great harm. And not only in trials.
I thought about this now while the courtroom was emptying. I thought I had done my job well. I had done everything possible. Now I had to feel unconcerned about the result.
I ought to go out, go to the office or take a stroll, even go home. When the court was ready the clerk of the court would call me on my mobile – he had asked for my number before he left the courtroom himself – and I would return to hear the reading of the verdict.
This is the usual practice in trials of this kind, when the court is expected to remain in camera for many hours, or even for days. When they are ready, they call the clerk and tell him what time they will re-enter the courtroom to pronounce the verdict. The clerk in turn calls the public prosecutor and the counsels and at the established hour there they all are, ready for the final scene.
In short, according to practice I should have left.
But instead I stayed put, and after gazing around the empty courtroom for a while I approached the cage. Abdou rose from his bench and came towards me.
I took hold of the bars and he gave me a nod of greeting and the ghost of a smile. I nodded and smiled back before I spoke.
“Did you manage to follow my speech?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
He didn’t answer at once. As on other occasions, I had the feeling that he was concentrating on finding the right words.
“I have one question, Avvocato.”
“Tell me.”
“Why have you done all this?”
If he hadn’t done so, sooner or later I would have had to ask myself that question.
I was searching for an answer, but I realized I didn’t want to talk through the bars. There was no question of them letting Abdou out for a chat in the courtroom. Against all regulations.
So I asked the head of his escort if I could go into the cage.
He stared at me in disbelief, then turned to his men, shrugged as if abandoning all hope of understanding, and ordered the warder with the keys to let me in.
I sat on the bench near Abdou, and felt an absurd sense of relief as I heard the bolt slide home in the door of the cage.
I was about to offer him a cigarette when he pulled out a packet and insisted on my taking one of his. Diana Red. The prisoners’ Marlboro.
