AUXERRE

Until that evening I had never seen death. I was 10 years old, a happy and carefree child. On a hot and humid evening in late August, everything changed. In a matter of minutes, I discovered how ephemeral and fragile life is, how the world is constantly struggling between good and evil. I realized that a human being could decide on the life and death of another human being in just a second, for no reason. I felt fear tighten in its grip and paralyze my body. I saw death in the face.

It was the summer of 1983. Dad surprised me with a trip to Paris. A week in the city of lights, the three of us, dad, mom and me, out to discover one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, the city of Lady Oscar and the Black Tulip, my two favorite cartoons. Despite my young age, I was already fascinated by France, its incredible history, the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. The thrill of being able to walk along the boulevards, to enter the royal palaces where the great men and women of French history had walked, almost took my breath away, as much as the thought of being able to walk along the river Seine, where Gene Kelly had danced and cross its majestic bridges, visit the spectacular Notre Dame and of course climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I couldn’t wait, I had meticulously prepared everything I needed, paying particular attention to the guidebook of the city, a pocketbook full of photographs and descriptions and my little camera, a yellow and black Kodak bought just for that trip.

We spent a perfect week, immersed in the city of my dreams. The discovery of the delicious niçoise salad, one-meter-long baguettes to be carried strictly pinched under one arm, not to mention the butter brioches for breakfast. A tour of the largest flea market in Europe, a visit to the Sacre Coeur Basilica, a walk among the artists in Montparnasse.  And, a long afternoon immersed in the art of the Louvre Museum. Every evening, exhausted from excitement, I fell asleep happily fantasizing about the places I had visited and about those I would see the next day. We did not fail to visit the Chateau de Versailles with its elegant gardens in their colorful geometric perfection, and to dine at sunset in the panoramic restaurant of the Eiffel Tower, where I remember eating a huge steak accompanied by a plate full of fried pommes de terre. I couldn’t ask for more from life, I wanted to stop time there, in Paris, forever.

As with all beautiful things, the day of our return home came too quickly, bringing along an abundant dose of sadness. As soon as we got on the highway that took us away from Paris, I began to feel a dense melancholy filling my heart. We stopped in Fontainebleau to visit one of the most fascinating palaces in the world. Strolling in its immense park, with its lakes and streams, took me back to the magical world of fairy tales that populated my imagination. That late afternoon, after consulting the motorway map and the tour guide, we left for a small town, nestled in the heart of France, where we would stop for the night. So, we left for Auxerre.

We arrived at dusk. The city welcomed us coldly; the guidebook described it as a historic town of some importance for its medieval and gothic architecture. Seeing it from the car window it seemed to me austere, sad, a lifeless city, as gray as its imposing stone walls. It looked like it was clinging onto a small hill, but not in gracefully rather, desperately. And, it was dark. We parked the car at the foot of the hill, in a large square in front of a supermarket with neon lights that worked intermittently, and we set out in search of a restaurant and a hotel. We were exhausted and hungry. I still remember the humidity and the heat, the sweat running down my temples. I felt my wet clothes sticking to my skin at every step I took. Mom held my hand and tugged at it when fatigue slowed my pace. We began to walk down the narrow and dark streets that twisted and crossed, overlapping on each other, like tangled wires. The windows of the houses looking bleak and unwelcoming, had half-closed shutters. It was a sultry evening and the kitchen lights, the smells of food and noises of cutlery and pots filtered through the barely ajar doors and windows, mingling with the faint voices of television and radio programs. Everything was so different, so far away from the cosmopolitan, elegant, and lively Parisian environment we had just left.

We wandered disoriented for I do not know how long, passing from one street to another. There was not a soul around. The few shops were closed, no bars or restaurants in sight, the few streetlamps gave off a pale light that stretched our shadows, making us look like three giants with thin heads and exceptionally long legs.

Suddenly we heard loud noises and voices that echoed, bouncing off the walls of the buildings around us and then screams and engines that scraped the air thick with humidity. Dad told us to stay where we were while he went to check what was happening. He walked down a steep road, downhill in the direction of that confused shouting. Mom and I stood there, immobile, waiting and leaning against a peeling wall, in that narrow alley, barely lit by a single and lonely streetlamp. It was hot, the air was still, and my mouth was parched with thirst. I kept staring at the irregular pebbles that created a disordered mosaic on the ground, I wondered how old they were, how many people had walked on them, they were so smooth and shiny. I started counting them one by one, to keep my mind occupied trying to distract myself from the gurgles coming from my empty stomach. From time to time I would look up and stare at the stone arch in front of me that opened into a tiny square, a small courtyard so dark it gave me a strange claustrophobic discomfort which, reaching the pit of my stomach would mix with the languor of hunger, creating a feeling of nausea that made me dizzy and almost stagger.

Suddenly, we heard popping sounds, like firecrackers. The blasts continued for a few seconds and then silence fell. Mom and I looked around, we were alone, and a strange silence loomed as heavy as the heat of that late August evening. Suddenly a man appeared running in our direction. Behind him, another man in uniform was chasing him, waving a club, and shouting in French, “arretez vous, arretez vous”. With a quick but serious look, he motioned for us to stand still exactly where we were.

Both men slid under the stone arch and entered the tiny square in front of me. There was an almost palpable silence, and then again that same sound – pop, pop pop, but this time it was closer, too close. I saw one of the two men stagger on his legs and fall to the ground, without making any sound apart from the dull thud of the impact of his body on the cobblestones, the club still clutched in one hand.  A few seconds later, the other man came out of the half-light from under the arch, appearing in the pale light of that lonely streetlamp. He was out of breath, sweaty, his shirt was open on his chest, a big golden chain hung from his neck.  His pants were baggy and held up by a faded, peeled leather belt. I remember his dark eyes, his face framed by a mustache, and the few hairs of an unkempt beard neglected for who knows how many days. His thin black hair stuck on his half bald head. He looked us straight in the eyes and pointed the gun at our hearts.  Mom slowly moved me behind her legs, squeezing me with both her hands, tightly against her body. Leaning against her I could feel her slow breathing:  she did not tremble, she was still, motionless, mute. Peering, I could see the man’s eyes fixed on those of my mother, his gun, with a silver metal barrel, still aimed at her heart.  I do not know how many minutes passed, for me it was like an eternity. I was not afraid, behind my mother I felt safe, her strength, her calm gave me a strange sense of protection. In the silence, I could feel my mother’s breathing and that of the man two steps away from me, the bittersweet smell of his sweat mixed with a spicy aftershave irritated my nostrils and I could almost feel the rhythmic pounding of his heart, or maybe it was mine, everything was so confused. The man continued to stand still in front of us, the gun pointed at mom’s heart.

Silence. An eternity. Silence. Then, without saying anything, the man, with a slow gesture, always keeping his eyes fixed on us, put the gun in his pants, adjusting his belt and then turned and ran away, down into the darkness of that alley, disappeared as if sucked into the darkness. Mom asked me to stay where I was, and she went to check the condition of the other man, the one in uniform. But I followed her. We found him supine, on the ground, his clear eyes wide open staring into the void of the night with a look of amazement and dismay. He was no longer breathing, he was dead, killed by a bullet that pierced right the core of his heart. There was no blood, just a small hole in the fabric of his gendarme uniform. He had died like this, one night in late August, he looked young.  He had red hair and freckles.  He was dead.

Within minutes a small group of men and women appeared; mom left me with a couple who kindly offered to help us and, giving me a kiss, she walked towards the dark square accompanied by another woman. Someone from a window yelled something, in French, maybe they had called the “police”. I did not know what was going on, what to do, what to feel, what to think. I was petrified, I simply could not move. All I could do was breathe and stare at the darkness of the alley that had swallowed that man and his gun just a few minutes before. I was so thirsty; my mouth was dry.

“Where will that man be now? Will he still be hiding there in some dark hallway watching us? Or will he be far away by now? ” – I kept wondering. “Why hadn’t he shot us too? Why didn’t he kill us? We were the only two witnesses. What did he have to lose? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Why didn’t he shoot us? ” I’ve been wondering about this for the past 38 years and still haven’t found the answer. Maybe it was the calm, the coolness, and the strong and sure look of my mother, maybe he too had a wife and a daughter. Or maybe our time had not yet come. I do not know. It is incomprehensible to me that he did not pull that trigger. It would have been easy, right? Two shots, just two. But he did not. He escaped into the night, swallowed by the darkness.

The police arrived with blaring sirens along with an ambulance. Dad finally caught up with us and after a brief interrogation, in his rudimentary French with a non-Italian speaking police officer, we were allowed to leave with the promise that the next morning we would go to the police district for a deposition. We wandered frightened for hours, in the dark night, overwhelmed by exhaustion, anxiety and fear with our hearts pounding in our chest and sweat dripping onto our skin. The few traffic lights and pale shop signs burned my eyes and the distant, dull noises made me flinch. We walked the same alleys I do not know how many times, only to find ourselves back where we started. I felt like I was in a huge maze, a scary labyrinth. We were looking for the square with flashing lights, but with our minds invaded by the one and only thought fearful of being chased, we could not find a way out.  It was like living in a nightmare. The shadows, I do remember the shadows, ours, those of the traffic lights, and of the cars parked on the side of the road. Every shadow was for me that man with the gun in his hand. I walked tightly between mom and dad, one foot after the other, in a state of panic. I never cried, neither that evening, nor that night, not even the following days. But something inside me had changed. Fear and anxiety took root within me, arousing a visceral vulnerability.

I often relive that night. Over the years the memory has fallen asleep, but it doesn’t take much to wake it up. Firearms terrify me, and so does the popping of firecrackers and fireworks, I get nervous every time a bottle of sparkling wine is uncorked. I am uncomfortable in dark places, in narrow alleys and when I hear the roar of engines in the distance, a spicy aftershave smell mixed with the musky one of damp and sweat, invades my nostrils, as in that sultry night. The shadows of the night often frighten me.

When I think back to that traumatic episode of my childhood, it is as if I were thinking of something that does not belong to me. Every time I tell about that evening it seems to me like  a foreign event, experienced by others, like seen in a film or read in a novel.

About one month later, on a cool Sunday in early autumn of 1983, while I was browsing through the local news section of the Torino newspaper La Stampa, opened on the kitchen table, my gaze fell on a photo, on a face, on …that face. It was him, the man with the gun. I stood up from my chair, staring at that page, incredulous. The title of the article read “Gang of criminals who had terrorized the central valley of France for several weeks, committing robberies, thefts and murders, had finally been arrested on the outskirts of Turin, thanks to the strategic collaboration of the Interpol, with the support of the Italian and French Police.”

Arrested? In Turin? My city? And I began to shiver. Dad explained to me that the man was not looking for me. The arrest that took place a stone’s throw from our house was just, well, just a bizarre coincidence. A bizarre coincidence, like us stopping in that town that night of late August, like mom and I waiting alone, in that alley at that precise moment.

A bizarre coincidence, an evening in late August in 1983 in Auxerre.

– Fine –

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