Prisoners on a projecting platform. (1750-1751)
by Giovanni Batista Piranesi
The awakening was the rudest imaginable: there were lights in my face, there was shouting, and there were police all over the place. Fortunately, I didn’t see any weapons unholstered. Then I would have really freaked out. Or thought it was a bad dream. Could have been cheap wine.
Subconsciously, it took me a fraction of a second to connect this hullabaloo to Odessa’s midnight sortie. Someone must have spotted him picking something up and going back to our apartment. But what was I to do with this deduction? I really hadn’t seen enough thrillers I could fall back on for advice and my mindset was conflicted between no-snitching and survive-at-all-costs modes.
My memory doesn’t serve me well for details, which is perhaps for the better: at least I won’t hear comments like “this can’t have been like that” or “the cops shouldn’t have done this and that – enough to have the case dismissed”. Please. I don’t even remember if we were handcuffed – we must have been – but if we were, my wrists have no memory of it. They do have a memory of another handcuffing occasion, but that was way later, in a galaxy far far away.
The only detail I do remember clearly is passing through the courtyard crowded with neighbors and hearing “eh… bravi!” on the way. (accompanied with a series of woeful nods.)
Another was the sensation of waiting. Those familiar with the procedure solely from the TV perhaps expect the whole thing to fit in between two blocks of commercials; but in fact, every institution – hospital, Army, police – prides itself on taking its own sweet time to process you. Thus I do remember being led from room to room, searched, registered – and waiting and waiting.
I don’t think the original interrogation took more than two minutes. There was a remarkable state of balance between what I had to say – I was asleep. I didn’t see anything – and what I could say in my primitive Italian. But that caused me unbearable anxiety: dormivo or ho dormito? English suggested Simple Past, but my (only marginally better) French suggested Present Perfect as a more colloquial form.
“Io… dormivo? dormito?”
The hesitation woke up the interrogating cop who until then was on an autopilot. “Cosa? Che c’e? Non sei sicuri?” (“What, you are not sure?”)
“Non ho visto niente” (“Haven’t seen anything”), I muttered, and then it dawned on me that if somehow Present Perfect of “to see” easily rolled off my tongue, then “slept” should go the same route. “Ho dormito,” I breathed out.
He nodded. “Parli Italiano bene! Come mai?” (You speak Italian well? How come?)
For a moment, I was suspicious: is he suspecting me of something else, like being a KGB-trained spy?
But only for a moment; instinctively I knew that the remark was innocent. It is easier to get complimented on your command of native language in Italy than in any other country in the world.
About that night: I don’t remember the color of the walls or the lighting or the cops’ faces or even my own feelings, from head to stomach. For example, I would like to know to what extent the fear displaced the hangover. I don’t remember that. But I do remember a torment about a grammar form.
Another thing I remember was the full confidence that the whole thing a) was my fault – I should have stopped Odessa; b) would be over within 24 hours. My idealism was rising from every pore of my body.
I was wrong. That is, I came close to being right: once Odessa got some sleep, he tried to make things right by making a full confession. But in Italy that didn’t mean a thing.
There is no other place whose denizens refer to their country with such scorn. Bel casino is the favorite phrase they use; while most dictionaries translate it as “a mess”, many Italians told me it actually means “bordello”. (Sort of like in Russian they use the word “bardak” to combine both concepts.)
Much later I would learn in some amusement that in Turkish “bardak” means “glass”. I really can’t make anything of it, so let’s get back to Il Prigione.
***
I must have arrived in the cell just before dawn. I was in no shape to study my new habitat. I was fully prepared to go to sleep, regardless of bedding or lack thereof. The place was quiet except for sounds made by the inmate on the top bunk across the aisle. A young man in his early 20s, he appeared to be going through hell. He kept tossing and turning and scratching himself and covering his head with a pillow and folding himself in a fetal pose only to unfold himself two minutes later. And groaning and cursing and more groaning as he was fighting off hundreds of invisible devils who were alternately scratching and biting him.
I wondered if I should call the guard before the guy seriously hurt himself. But then again the guard who had brought me in had ample chance to do something – and didn’t. I realized there was another inmate in the bunk right below mine who was awake. Stumblingly, I put together a phrase about calling the guards.
“The guard won’t come,” he yawned. “But he isn’t sick. It’s –“
I didn’t understand the explanation except for one word – “la droga”.
Wow. So that’s what withdrawal really looked like. That was educational, to say the least. And it was the second time in a few hours that la droga came up. A most pertinent detail I omitted above – as part of the “settling in” I was subjected to a full body search. That included cavity search.
I bent over, and a firm hand spread my virginal cheeks. The lighting could only be described as “intimate”. In retrospect, it is pretty amazing how many paranoid fantasies can shoot through your head in a fraction of a second.
Ultimately, there was no penetration. The guard was satisfied with the general view. Maybe it was male sympathy in a supermacho culture; maybe it was the general Italian fuck-it attitude – what do I need with this guy’s asshole at 4 in the morning? Although I was too scared to ask, he murmured apologetically something about la droga that I could have been smuggling from the outside.
And that’s how I got away.