The Unseen. Nanni Balestrini
we going to do with a rifle
another time one evening in mid-April on television there’s the news of a comrade’s murder a fascist shot him he was seventeen and there’s an immediate spontaneous reaction in the morning we all meet on the train for the city the same faces the same tennis shoes the jackets the shoulder bags the scarves the kerchiefs the gloves the berets the carriages are packed people are standing in the corridors nobody’s talking and at each station more get on on the walls of the villages we pass through you can see the fresh graffiti the same words that can be read on the silent faces of the comrades at the last stations in the suburbs a tide of people gets on pressing on the platforms they’ve got plastic bags with helmets in them and under their jackets spanners bars iron rods in their pockets slings ball-bearings bolts
when we arrive there’s a long procession filling the platform and it’s moving up the stairs of the metro no one’s bothering with tickets and in the carriages there are flags and the long poles for the banners someone has a go at singing but the mood is grim threatening we reach the university in the square in front of the university there’s a tide of people but not just students not just young people all ages are there old people too there are workers in overalls with red kerchiefs round their necks the demonstration is already there drawn up ready to go the stewards in front kerchiefs masking half their faces and the heavy sticks with small red flags tied on there’s a dull rumbling sound then a shout and a slogan launched murdered comrade you’ll be avenged everyone together a roar and the demonstration sets off
in front of the law courts in front of the steps there are ranks of riot police poised for battle with teargas canisters stuck onto the muzzles of their guns and helmet visors down the demonstration comes to a sudden halt and slogans are launched against the police the tension mounts seriously the demonstration moves on again and then stops once more in a square hoisted up on the base of the obelisk that’s in the middle of the square I see an old man with a red kerchief at his neck lifting a bugle to his lips and sounding the call for silence and at once there’s a fearful silence you can only hear the bugle’s high notes when the bugle stops there’s a roar a great roar all around thousands of fists are raised all armed with bars and spanners
in the streets we cross all the shops are closed the shutters are all rolled down and then suddenly all the helmets go on I can see row after row an expanse of coloured helmets like a sea of billiard balls coloured red white blue green black the demonstration stops in the avenue at a crossroads there ahead just a few yards past the crossroads is a roadblock cars jeeps super-jeeps lock up vans of the police and carabinieri protecting the fascists’ headquarters that’s a few yards behind the roadblock the front of the march with the stewards is at a halt a few yards away from the roadblock the spanners and the bars are raised threateningly police and carabinieri close ranks and take cover behind the shields stones are thrown in a hail that seems never-ending you can hear the thud of the stones as they hit the shields and the policemen’s helmets
dozens of petrol bombs fly through the air then come the blasts loud as can be yellow red blue they make a high wall of flames ahead of us some jeeps have caught fire the police break ranks they all turn and run tripping and stumbling in their flight one more volley of petrol bombs and other cars are catching fire a cloud of black smoke you can’t see a thing any more then you hear the dull thumps of the teargas canisters that hail down on us by the dozen a downpour of teargas that rains on us from all sides in a single moment the air becomes impossible to breathe the stewards’ lines move back and get to the road junction they stop at the junction behind in the avenue the march has crumbled and suddenly from the end of the avenue we hear the piercing sirens of a column of super-jeeps
the sirens get closer louder and louder I hear shouting all around then suddenly everyone’s running towards the sides of the avenue towards the pavement and all at once as the crowd parts there appears a huge grey-green super-jeep driven at top speed brushing right past us I’m running on the pavement as well more super-jeeps arrive from the column the sirens really close ear splitting stones and a few petrol bombs are thrown at the super-jeeps whose windows are guarded by iron grilles flames rise up from the side of one so many of them that they seem never-ending from the pavements the comrades are still throwing stones and petrol bombs they’re shooting ball-bearings and screw bolts with slings I see a super-jeep zigzagging in the middle of the avenue and then aiming straight for the pavement
people fling themselves against the walls of the houses they scramble up the grilles the shutters of the shops onto the first-floor windowsills the super-jeeps mount the pavement they graze the walls they brush against us I scramble up the grille of a shutter everyone is trying to scramble up but there isn’t room for everyone people hang on to one another the super-jeeps come on to the pavement scraping against the walls of the houses brushing against us one two three I hold my breath and close my eyes someone near me is screaming in terror I keep holding on to the grille even when the column has gone by and I can see the last super-jeep that has brushed against us and then kind of jolts and suddenly turns towards the middle of the road I can hear a lot of screaming all coming from the place where the super-jeep turned round
very loud screaming shouting I see a lot of comrades running in that direction I can’t see a thing there’s smoke and confusion they all have red eyes crying with the teargas I get down from the shutter and head over there running with others we collide with others coming from the opposite direction anguished faces staring eyes some lower their kerchiefs one’s running his hands through his hair I can’t see what’s happened there’s a group of comrades standing in a semi-circle some are weeping it’s not with the teargas some are sobbing one girl shouts something I don’t understand then further on I see the bloody body on the ground I see the long trail of dark blood and further on I see the reddish mass of brains the wheels of the super-jeep have spattered out of it out of the head spattered out
4
Then suddenly a puzzling still image that I couldn’t quite make sense of it wasn’t a photograph because inside the frame were hints of movement there was the intense glare of a floodlight it must have been filmed at night something shot very close up so close that you could make out nothing in any detail there was no commentary there was only that mute puzzling image I could hear only the rustle of China’s fingers rolling the joint then the camera lens zoomed back to focus on a head a man’s head the head lay on a stain a broad red stain and there was a red stripe coming out of one ear and running down along the cheek as far as the white collar of the shirt
the camera zoomed back again to show the body of the carabiniere shot down beside the yellow column of a petrol pump beside the body you could see a pistol I don’t know whether it belonged to him or the person who’d killed him I turned up the volume on the television which was down low the newsreader was saying someone had waited for the carabiniere outside his house and killed him with two shots in the head from a nine calibre no one had claimed responsibility yet then there was a review of casualties in the security forces since the beginning of the year pictures of carabinieri and policemen killed in the street or through the windows of cars a long list of names and dates
the images of the casualties were intercut with other images there was commentary on mug-shots of fugitives scenes of terrorists being arrested of gun battles with terrorists of killings of terrorists scenes of terrorists on trial lined up in the cages with fists in the air and threatening faces the tone of the commentary was like a war dispatch China who had by now lit the joint passed it to me and took the remote control and cut out the sound now you can see two carabinieri in full dress uniform stiff young men carrying a vast wreath of flowers with a big purple ribbon across it with The Government in big gold lettering on it then China changed channels she started changing backwards and forwards from one channel to another
at that time I had just stopped working in the dye factory and China and I didn’t have a permanent place to live any more we were moving around here and there for a bit with comrades who could let us stay with them we weren’t the only ones for sure to live like that not at all at that time we were all more or less compelled to be nomads because of the oppressive atmosphere at the time there were strings of arrests and house searches nearly every day and carried out quite at random on just anybody in the movement on anyone who in some sense was a comrade or had dealings with comrades so it was usual not to stay too long