Chapter I
Chapter I
It was July 1, 1969, a Tuesday. As I arrived home in the late afternoon, I had taken a large envelope from the letterbox. The only thing I had noticed then was that it had arrived by airmail from an unknown Alfio Valente Cultural Foundation - New York. I had not paid particular importance to that package, and in no hurry I had gone upstairs to my modest apartment on the top floor of an old building in the historic center. After changing my clothes I had finally sat down at the desk in the bedroom that I used as a study, and had opened the envelope and discovered an exciting surprise. I had been awarded the Brooklyn Alfio Valente Poetry Award for my poetic work translated and published in the United States: a prize of 5,000 dollars cash, a sizeable amount at that time, with accommodation costs included.
Those Americans must have an enormous faith in the postal services, seeing that they had not sent the letter by international registered mail. In a letter signed by the president Albert Valente who I had imagined was a relative and later learned was the son of the deceased man that the foundation was named for, they asked me telephone them to confirm my acceptance of the award and my presence at the award ceremony. I had glanced at the clock and subtracting six hours for the different time zone in New York from 5:38 pm that it showed, I decided it was still morning there. I had called the switchboard of the only Italian telephone company in those days, SIP, asking them to connect me to the foundation. When it came to the speed of intercontinental calls, we were in the era of mammoths. The subscriber had to contact one of the SIP switchboard operators and wait until she finally connected with the long-distance number, something which could take several minutes, and was performed manually on a communication circuit.
I had hung up and as I waited for the phone to ring telling me that I was connected, I basked in the idea of the unexpected windfall that was about to come to me, really providential because the art of poetry, as is its nature, earned me almost nothing. I lived thanks to discontinuous collaborations with a newspaper in Turin, La Gazzetta del Popolo, and the precarious position of translator and editor of a publishing house, paid a flat fee for each book. To tell the truth, I had also written a novel, potentially much more marketable than the works in verse, and I had even managed to have it published by the Turin publisher for which I worked, though not without the stress and strain of several approaches to the Khan of Khans, as amongst ourselves we used to call the haughty and sometimes bizarre owner. I’d received a lot of praise for it from the critics that had not inflated my wallet, nor had it been a commercial success as it was "a work of poetic prose rather than a novel" as the publisher, already hesitant to have it printed, had finally told me, with emphasis on the last word.
It is best that I reveal too, not only since it is a case linked to my miserable economic condition of those times but because, as we will see, it would prove to be dramatic for me and even fatal for many citizens of the United States and Italy, that six months before receiving the Brooklyn Alfio Valente award, and in need of more money, I had seized the unexpected opportunity offered me by a powerful man to compose about twenty sonnets in honor of his beloved, and sell them to him for a significant amount. He had declared that he intended to pass the poems off with the lady friend as fruits of his own talent. I must say right away that I am still sorry today for having sold my talent and, due to a series of circumstances that derived from it, my dignity and freedom too, even though I would be punished morally and physically as I will describe in due course.
While I was waiting to be connected to the foundation, my joy had suddenly dwindled: rereading the letter more carefully, I had noticed that the date of the award ceremony was close, not even twenty days away, and immediately after that I had realized that my passport had expired. A shiver went down my spine, literally, then an outburst of anger: Why had they let me know at the last moment?! But when I looked at the date it had been posted, I realized that the foundation was not responsible for the tardiness, the letter had left New York over two weeks earlier. Okay, but you’re at least guilty of not having sent it by registered mail, I had accused them in any case; and immediately afterwards I had blamed whoever, unknown to me, was at fault – the post office? an airport? – responsible for the subsequent complication. In the end, I wondered if I could get my passport renewed by the Police Headquarters in time, despite everything, and considering that a consular visa was also required by the prudent United States, I had told myself: Almost certainly not; but then a glimmer of hope had struck me ... of course, I’ll ask Vittorio for help!
Deputy Police Commissioner Vittorio D'Aiazzo served at Police Headquarters in Turin, where I had worked too as his subordinate before taking my leave a few years earlier. He was a very dear friend, indeed the only one I had; and I knew from him that I too, both of us shy by nature, was his only true friend.
Come on, I had then comforted myself, as if he won’t do all he can given how important the thing is!
Yes, but how come a quiet individual like me, far from being ideal for an armed profession, had entered the Police force? A person who had dedicated himself to the art of poetry and who had been an avid reader since middle school, inspired by the translations of Monti's Iliad and Pindemonte's Odyssey – high school then – a man wanting to earn a degree in literature? Easy to explain: the family environment in the 40s of last century was very different from today's. Back then a child had to respect their parents’ will, and my parents had absolutely not allowed me to dedicate myself to the classical studies I desired and, with their great sacrifice and enormous lack of understanding, they had sent me to the Liceo Scientifico (t/n scientific high school), in the mirage of turning me into an engineer and getting a job in the car industry in that very city where they themselves were employed. I hated mathematics and science subjects and had neglected them, to the point that I had to repeat the first and third years. So towards the middle of that third year repeated, it was 1952 and I was almost nineteen years old, not wanting to be a burden on my parents who were making useless sacrifices, I had left school and entered Public Security as the Police was called back then, completing my military service first and then continuing.
Only many years later, banishing the fear of running out of money and not held back by having reached the rank and higher salary of deputy sergeant, I had finally resigned. It continued to be an activity, in fact, which with its danger and disorderly timetables, was hindering my passion for literature. I had been driven by the fact that I had been fairly successful.
In December 1957 my first book of poems was published by a major publisher – I will later reveal the mystery of such an unlikely event – with critical acclaim and appointment in the sylloge of the famous Versilia Prize, first work section, thanks to which a good three hundred and twenty-five copies had been sold. More importantly, following the award I had obtained literary collaborations as a journalist with the Gazzetta del Popolo in Turin and a couple of well-known weeklies, which increased my notoriety. My resignation had borne further fruit for me. Thanks to the full-time and more frequent collaborations, a poem and two more collections of verses had been printed. They had been composed during the previous years following my discharge, and my poems had been translated into English and French and published in English- and French-speaking European countries, in the United States and Canada. If I hadn’t left the service, the life of Ranieri Velli, my life, would probably have run its course doing one investigation after another under the command of my friend, commissioner back then, Vittorio D'Aiazzo, with few moments of literary joy, and I would not have achieved true fame. On the other hand, however, I would not have found myself in the last months of 1969, as we will see, among the sad protagonists of an international criminal case, because of which Italy would once again have risked falling under a dictatorial regime.
My phone rang. It was the connection with New York. I knew the English language well, thanks not only to school but to an intensive learning course in London, full of judicial terminology, where Vittorio had sent me in an exchange with non-commissioned officers of Scotland Yard. I had no difficulty in making myself understood by the American interlocutor: I had asked to speak with Mr. Valente explaining the reason for the call. He was not in the office and I had been put on to one of the managers. I had confirmed the acceptance of the award and my presence at the award ceremony; and this at least had been done.
Now to the passport.
