Victims and Executioners

By Simone Malacrida

"Victims and Executioners" sketches the tale of two generations that witnessed the inexorable change of Italy and the World.
Starting from the end of World War II and the Resistance movement, the Borgonovo family participates in the post-war reconstruction, the economic boom, and the turbulent and wonderful events of the 1960s, until their conclusion in the following decade, increasingly sharpening the clash between the different generations and the different social parties.
An unspeakable secret will mark the development of their affairs, going on to profoundly alter their existences.
It will be up to the next generation to take provisional stock, having brought to the surface a part of the past truths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Malacrida
• Release date: Dec 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215738351

Simone Malacrida

Simone Malacrida (1977) Ha lavorato nel settore della ricerca (ottica e nanotecnologie) e, in seguito, in quello industriale-impiantistico, in particolare nel Power, nell'Oil&Gas e nelle infrastrutture. E' interessato a problematiche finanziarie ed energetiche. Ha pubblicato un primo ciclo di 21 libri principali (10 divulgativi e didattici e 11 romanzi) + 91 manuali didattici derivati. Un secondo ciclo, sempre di 21 libri, è in corso di elaborazione e sviluppo.

Book preview

SIMONE MALACRIDA

Victims and Executioners

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, has worked on research, finance, energy policy and industrial plants.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

In the book there are very specific historical references to facts, events and people. These events and characters really happened and existed.

On the other hand, the main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

Victims and Executioners sketches the tale of two generations that witnessed the inexorable change of Italy and the World.

Starting from the end of World War II and the Resistance movement, the Borgonovo family participates in the post-war reconstruction, the economic boom, and the turbulent and wonderful events of the 1960s, until their conclusion in the following decade, increasingly sharpening the clash between the different generations and the different social parties.

An unspeakable secret will mark the development of their affairs, going on to profoundly alter their existences.

It will be up to the next generation to take provisional stock, having brought to the surface a part of the past truths.

" The waste of life is found in the love that has not been able to give,

in the power that has not known how to use,

in the selfish prudence that prevented us from taking risks

and which, by avoiding a displeasure, made us miss happiness.

––––––––

Oscar Wilde

I

Milan, July 1948

––––––––

The open air, so heavy and hot as to give the impression of setting fire to the lungs more than the cigarette he had just lit, brought no benefit to Giulio.

He had just left a Milan branch of the Communist Party and was on his way home, an apartment located on Corso Buenos Aires, just above the shop owned by his wife's family.

He had never gotten used to the summer heat of Milan.

Since he was a child, he had been accustomed to that breeze that blows constantly on the Lario, the great lake of his childhood.

Nestled between the end of the eastern arm of that lake and the small bumps that make up the border between Italy and Switzerland, Como, his hometown, was certainly more livable, not only in summer and not only for the climate.

The lake provided a sort of buffer against the seasonal changes.

In summer it wasn't so hot and in winter you could enjoy the days with a certain warmth.

He clearly remembered his adolescence, spent with friends hanging around on a bicycle, shuttling between the different beaches near Como.

In some points, you could dive without any problem, in others you could fish, in still others you could perform acrobatic dives.

The inhabitants of the area, the laghée , had more or less learned to swim as self-taught people by exploiting that body of water.

The Borgonovo family resided in a suburban area of Como, the one intended for workers' homes.

Giulio's mother had worked for years in the textile industry, which flourished around the city.

An embroiderer and seamstress, her skills were recognized locally and she had made a name for herself.

His father, a mechanical worker in charge of bolts and nuts, was one of those men of other times, silent and withdrawn like the elderly who had seen the unification of Italy and who, during the Great War, sat in bars or at crossroads admiring the landscape and scrutinizing the people.

That world had completely ended when Giulio, a worker in the same company as his father, had been transferred to Milan for business strategy issues.

Thirteen years had now passed since, in 1935, he had moved to the urban area in Gorla, a very peripheral fraction of Milan, in the middle of wheat fields and orchards, squeezed between the industrial district of Sesto San Giovanni and the big city.

In less than a year, he had met Maria Elena Piatti, his future wife.

Only in Milan could such a thing have happened, given the enormous difference in social class and wealth.

Maria Elena was part of that group of the Milanese middle class, the one that had always frowned upon both revolutionary movements and too many new things coming from foreign countries.

Maria Elena's father was a well-known textile merchant and knew almost obsessively the properties of each of them.

Despite the heat, Giulio made that trip from the Party section all the way home.

He was one of the section's most frequent visitors, even after the defeat of the Popular Front in the spring of 1948.

The electoral campaign had been truly heated.

After the end of the war and the victory of the Republic, it was the turn of the Constituent Assembly, in which the Communists had played a leading role.

On January 1, 1948, the new Constitution came into force which definitively sanctioned the unity of Italy, the Republic as a form of representation and the centrality of Parliament, the legislative body that Fascism had done so much to destroy.

A copy of the Constitution had been given to every comrade in the section and Giulio had dutifully taken it home, reading a series of articles every day.

He had formed the idea of something grandiose, a document in which the fundamental principles of the new society were enshrined.

The elections that spring would mark the history of Italy, for better or for worse.

The great mass forces, those that had been most capable of attracting the votes of the social classes, were essentially two.

The Christian Democrats led by Alcide De Gasperi and the Communist Party, under the direction of Palmiro Togliatti.

The latter's ingenious move was the alliance with the Socialist Party, overcoming the atavistic division that arose in 1921 with the division of Livorno and, much earlier, with interventionism in the First World War.

There had never been so much fervor in the various sections of the Party.

Rallies, posters, pounding electoral campaign.

There had been no settlement attempted.

The future of the country depended on it.

The disappointment for the defeat was enormous.

Many comrades did not resign themselves to the outcome of the polls:

It's not possible, the Christian Democrats will end up delivering us into the hands of America they said, shifting the concept of adversary from the political to the social field.

The partisan formations, of which Giulio had been an active member, had always wanted to claim their autonomy in the war of liberation.

Milan, Turin and Genoa had been taken by the partisans before the arrival of the Allies.

But in Rome, Naples and Florence it didn't happen like this. We can't tear the country apart... someone else had pointed out.

Absorbed in those considerations about the recent and remote past, Giulio, totally drenched in sweat, crossed the threshold of the building on Corso Buenos Aires.

On the first floor was the apartment where he lived with his wife and his four-year-old son Edoardo.

Until that moment, the greatest regret in Giulio's life had been that of not having been able to attend the birth of his wife.

During August 1944, when Maria Elena had given birth to the baby in her in-laws' house in Como, Giulio was a prisoner of the Nazis.

He was not present, not even on Edoardo's first birthday.

That initial lack marked him very deeply.

As if to make amends for some fault, he had decided to spend much more time with his son than was customary in families.

Since the end of the war, Giulio had never resumed his work as a worker and had pledged to lend a hand in his wife's shop.

I always remain a proletarian, a worker and a comrade... he was keen to clarify.

How did it go today?

Maria Elena recognized from a distance the cadenced sound of Giulio's footsteps as he climbed the stairs.

The man sighed as soon as he closed the front door.

"How do you think it went? The usual. The press is all lined up against us and against Togliatti.

There is a targeted campaign underway. All because of those cursed elections we lost..."

His wife paid no more attention to the political implications of the events.

Come on, there's some cold rice with some vegetables...

The postwar period had not been too benevolent in terms of prosperity.

It was certainly better than in the times of fascism and the war, but there weren't many people willing to buy fabrics, so that the shop's business languished.

Edoardo, hurrying to the kitchen for lunchtime, ran to Giulio's.

Daddy daddy , where have you been?

The little one denoted a strong curiosity for the surrounding world.

It was as if he was inclined to live among people and always visit new spaces.

When his parents took him for a walk around Milan, if Edoardo realized that the place was already known to him, he used to express his disappointment:

We've been here before...

Giulio took the child in his arms and gave him a piece of bread.

Edoardo devoured it voraciously and sat down in his place.

The man accompanied the lunch with a couple of glasses of white wine, specially kept cool in the cellar.

This afternoon we need to take stock... Maria Elena always tried to involve her husband in the business of the shop.

Her family was not very happy with that marriage.

Her parents, from the top of their wealthy life, had thought of something better for their only daughter.

There were several scions of the Milanese bourgeoisie, but Maria Elena had discarded them all.

Up to the age of nineteen, the girl had remained very reserved, alternating classical studies with family presence.

She was not attracted to the various Fascist bureaucrats who frequented her father's shop and who, quite blatantly, wooed her.

Still less did he consider those high-profile bourgeois who only filled their mouths with stupidities and nonsense.

Some high school professors had introduced her to the intellectual circles of men of letters and artists, but even that world had left her completely indifferent.

In short, my daughter, don't you want to look for love? her mother asked annoyed.

It was exactly what Maria Elena had in mind.

At the age of twenty, during an outing with her friends, most of whom were engaged and about to get married, she noticed a group of young workers, probably in town for a Sunday outing.

Horrified by their ways, her friends turned away.

These brutes, maybe some are even revolutionary.

Maria Elena had never paid attention to the affected ways of a certain society.

In his opinion, the worst souls and the lowest instincts of humanity were hidden behind those gallantries.

Among that group of workers, certainly from Milan or from the surrounding area given the constant use of the dialect, he noticed one in particular.

The thick hair adorned the head of the young man who, with his collar turned up to protect himself from the cold, was lighting a cigarette.

His eyes were so dark that he could not tell if the pupil was present.

He had powerful arms and a slender physique.

In those few seconds in which she stared at him, Maria Elena realized that the boy had met her gaze and nodded to her, as if to say he was struck by her presence.

With some excuse, she broke away from the group of her friends.

Wait for me a minute, I'm going to see that shop.

She crossed the street and stood in front of a showcase of musical instruments.

She hoped that young man would come forward, but she had to wait longer than expected.

Are you interested in any particular instrument?

No, I was just watching.

Up close, she could have seen it better.

He was just a nice boy.

Before returning to her friends, the young man asked her name and how he was going to find her.

From that moment they began to see each other more and more frequently, until, having overcome the initial hesitations, Maria Elena decided to introduce him to the family.

Her parents' reaction was dismay and stormy months followed.

Gradually, Maria Elena convinced her mother of the goodness of her choice.

Your father will never agree to marry that...

Proletarian? Worker? she ended the sentence with the word her mother hadn't been able to pronounce.

It was a hard work of attrition, but in the end Maria Elena's parents gave in to their daughter's convictions and Giulio was able to boast the title of boyfriend.

They would have married in 1940 if not for the war.

That event made everyone wait for better times.

Okay, Maria. I'm going through the paperwork with you this afternoon. I will go to the warehouse and I will take everything present, I will bring it to the counter for you so that you can register everything.

Little Edoardo, raising his head from his plate, protested:

And I? What I do?

His desire to make himself useful was constant.

You Edo, will you give dad a hand in the warehouse...

The boy smiled as if he had been given the most precious gift in the world.

Maria Elena used to keep the radio on in the shop.

So he could hear the radio news and listen to some music to distract his mind.

I wonder if today they are talking about Bartali...

In the all-Italian division between the cycling aces Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, Maria Elena sided with the first, while Giulio for the second.

Her husband did not like Gino Bartali's stance for the 1948 elections.

A fervent Catholic, he had sided with the Christian Democrats.

For the same reason, Maria Elena saw in him a great champion.

As in many post-war families, the split between the center and the left could be reflected in the different positions of the spouses.

The Christian Democrats had won so many votes among women.

They are more than the Church and there are few female workers... this is how Giulio commented in the Party section, commenting on the negative outcome of the elections.

Getting up from the table, he reproached his wife:

That is old now. What do you want me to do? Bobet has an unbridgeable advantage...

Soon after he added:

Tomorrow is July 14, the French national holiday. Imagine if they let such an opportunity slip away.

The afternoon passed quietly.

Around that shop, the Borgonovo family tried to rebuild a unity of purpose and a future of prosperity for Edoardo.

It was a personal dream of a second chance, of a revival after the dark years of dictatorship and war.

Hard work was reserved for Giulio, while customer relations for his wife.

However, the latter had understood how a change in the management of the shop was needed.

The sale of fabrics no longer gave so many economic certainties.

Why don't you bring your mother here?

It was an unusual request for a daughter-in-law, but Maria Elena was aware of her mother-in-law's enormous talents.

She had come to know Anna Molteni during her period of residence in Como, from 1943 until the end of the war.

Now that she had stopped working in the textile company, she could teach Maria Elena the secrets of sewing and tailoring.

In fact, the woman had in mind to transform the family shop, opening it to the work of embroidery and finishing of the garments.

From this point of view, Maria Elena's foresight was much greater than her husband's vision.

You know how my mother is. Don't take it off the lake to come here to breathe this heavy air...

In reality, Anna remained in Como mainly to assist her husband who was not in good health.

After the death of his youngest son on the Russian front, Giulio's father had no longer had any incentive to live and had literally let himself go.

Not even the end of the war and the advent of the Republic had been able to arouse the spirit of that elderly worker.

The war had left behind a trail of continuous death and infinite pain.

Keeping those thoughts to himself, Giulio had convinced himself that, once his father died, his mother would move to Milan without any problems.

Maria Elena's parents, on the other hand, continued to live in their apartment in Corso Venezia, in one of those stately buildings of good Milan.

They had maintained a certain royalty in their behavior and didn't let their daughter see them too much, despite the birth of their only grandchild.

Relations between them and Giulio had remained suspicious and sanctioned by a formal and physical detachment.

"Tomorrow morning remember to stop by Giovanni to pick up the latest catalogues.

We must already think about the autumn and winter season..."

In moments of family quiet, both spouses took care of little Edoardo.

His mother was the main guardian of his upbringing.

She was more cultured than her husband and, surely, she would have played the best role in stimulating the child towards knowledge.

Talking to Giulio, she had established a precise school curriculum.

Edoardo should certainly have obtained a diploma, preferably in classical studies.

As for university education, it was all deferred to the inclinations and wills of that little one, when he would grow up and demonstrate his aptitudes.

On the other hand, Giulio had resolved to involve his son in all manual activities.

He would have taught him to work wood and iron, to fix every type of mechanism and to assist in the work in the fields.

At least once every two months, they went to Como using the bus.

The view of the countryside awakened in Edoardo his natural playfulness.

With his paternal grandparents he had the opportunity to go to the farmhouses, located immediately outside the city on Lake Como, and have direct contact with the cattle breeders.

Cows, hens, geese, pigs were very common animals and Edoardo stayed whole afternoons to admire them.

Furthermore, there was no shortage of running through the wheat fields and looking for fruit.

Giulio had done his utmost to make him savor the different fragrances of nature directly from the trees.

A joy that the children of Milan hardly have... he had whispered to his wife.

Punctual as only workers accustomed to clocking in for the work shift know how to be, Giulio went to the studio of Giovanni Beretta, the main sales agent in Milan in terms of fabrics.

It was he who guaranteed the sale to individual shopkeepers and the novelties on the market.

Although it was morning, the heat was already oppressive.

Hey, Giovanni so, what are we doing?

Let's go drink a grey-green...

Neither of them minded a drink from time to time.

They talked about business in general.

Your wife has a big head... listen to her, suggested Giovanni.

Giulio took the catalogs and went to the Party section.

It was now a habit for him to pass by that place, immediately after running his morning errands.

The section consisted of only three small rooms, located on the ground floor of a building in Viale Monza, near Piazzale Loreto.

Giulio moved around Milan mostly by bicycle, except for some days when he moved on foot.

Much more rarely he used public transport, such as the tram or the bus.

There was no mention of a private car, the costs were still too high for his family.

At most, he could have bought a small-engine motorcycle, a fifty for example, but he wasn't very convinced of that.

If he ever bought anything motorized, it would be a Gilera.

That brand had always seemed to him the best among the Italian ones.

Usually, the section was manned by two, maximum three people, while that morning Giulio found around ten.

More are coming... someone told him.

What happened? Giulio asked in astonishment.

Don't you know?, and they looked at him in amazement.

Half an hour ago they shot in Togliatti. The news is spreading like wildfire. Someone is already announcing the general mobilization.

Each person who flocked to the section brought some news.

The unions will call a general strike, you can bet on it.

There was no further news regarding the Secretary's health.

But is he dead? Who shot him? How many were there? Where did they hit him?

Few really knew anything.

Giulio took his bicycle and ran towards the house at full speed.

Seeing what had happened, he had to warn his wife.

It was no more than a mile away, but the heat of the moment combined with the heat meant that he arrived home soaked in perspiration.

He knew that his wife had a habit of keeping the radio on in the shop and assumed he knew more details.

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the house, Maria Elena ran to him:

They shot...

Giulio nodded:

I know, that's why I came here in a rush. I eat something on the fly and then return to the section. They won't get away with it, these fascists.

Maria Elena ran into the kitchen.

Cursed. The press campaign was successful. They aimed to kill him, but they don't know our power.

His wife feared the worst.

She had always been aware that her husband had lacked the joy of deliverance.

Having been arrested by the Nazis had prevented him from participating in the last stages of the partisan struggle and the immense satisfaction of seeing Milan revolted and covered with red flags.

He was afraid that, now, Giulio wanted to take his revenge against the course of events.

What will you do?

"I don't know, but they won't expect us to stand like this without reacting.

You know how much we contested Scelba's designation as Minister of the Interior. Due to his past, he will give orders to the Police to repress any possible demonstrations."

He said goodbye to little Edoardo and, after having swallowed a salami sandwich, an apple and a pear, he set off again towards the section.

Only two and a half hours had passed since the attack, but already the ferment was high.

"The comrades from Genoa are in the square. They are doing the same in Naples, Livorno and Taranto.

They are getting organized in Rome.

What do we do?"

New dispatches were constantly arriving.

He was a fascist! Two shots, one to the back of the head and one to the back.

The Secretary is not dead, but he is hospitalized. They're operating on it.

Although they were all Communists, someone prayed that, up there, someone would have an eye for Togliatti.

The fascists, theirs again, but this time the government was in the hands of the Christian Democrats, it would not have been possible to witness another unpunished crime like Matteotti's.

The workers are on our side. The general strike has been called.

Someone, coming from the suburban districts of Bicocca and Ghisolfa, added:

The trains are already stopped. Public telephones are out of order.

The section chief glimpsed something unclear.

"This thing stinks to me, they want to isolate us. Scelba will have ordered the prefects to repress any demonstrations.

We must take to the streets peacefully. At the Duomo, with the red flags!"

Other comrades on bicycles shuttled between the different sections.

Almost all of them decided to gather a small group of protests in Piazza Duomo.

The police will be deployed or they will be deployed shortly.

But they can't beat defenseless people. Workers and proletarians... someone replied, but others didn't think that way.

The memories of the Portella della Ginestra massacre were too vivid.

"What did the police and the state do there? Did he defend the workers, the communist comrades or that bandit, that mafioso by the name of Salvatore Giuliano?

Don't put too much trust in the institutions," the section chief reminded.

The majority of them had served in the ranks of the partisans, some had not accepted the outcome of the spring elections, speaking openly of fraud.

If they charge us and the dead run away, we will be ready with weapons.

The incandescent souls had brought back something that had never died down during those three years.

The desire to rebuild a new Italy had always clashed with another tendency, that of settling accounts with the past.

There were too many change-makers, too many who got on the bandwagon only at the last moment.

Thousands of petty officials who, having discarded the black shirt and the photo of the Duce, had re-proposed themselves the following day as champions of democracy and parliamentarianism.

Faced with those vulgar figures, the post-war state had not investigated thoroughly.

There hadn't been widespread trials, as had happened in Germany with the Nazis, against the crimes of the fascists and republicans.

Yet there had been heinous massacres, but those crimes had remained unpunished.

The few culprits investigated had been sentenced to ridiculous sentences, the majority of which were amnestied.

To those who had fought against that regime for years, to those who had lost loved ones, all this had never seemed right or respectful.

The attack on Togliatti would have been the reason to settle those scores.

A general uprising of all Italian proletarians against this fascist state masquerading as democracy. Against the occupation of the Americans and against the usual suspects who have recycled themselves in the ranks of the Christian Democrats!

In Piazza Duomo there were more people than expected.

Fiat fellow workers have kidnapped CEO Valletta.

It was an all-out battle.

A fundamental game was being played and you had to be in the front row.

The police, in riot gear, charged first, without any kind of provocation.

They got the order from Scelba. Disperse the demonstration.

Giulio, together with others, put up a fierce resistance.

Armed with only a few stones, they began hurling them at the officers.

A companion, exactly in front of him, fell under the blows of a truncheon and the next one nearly struck Giulio himself in the face.

He hurried away, going to pick up the bicycle he had left beyond the Galleria, towards via Manzoni.

The news that came from other cities was not comforting.

Fourteen dead and an unspecified number injured and arrested.

They were civil war numbers.

Italy was on fire during that very hot day.

July 14 would no longer be just the symbolic date of the French Revolution, but would remind everyone of the cowardly attack of a fascist student, a fanatic who had plunged the country back into a social clash of unheard-of violence.

"We have machine guns, we have hidden them in the countryside, from fellow partisans, waiting for events like this.

Tomorrow we can put Milan on fire and give a general assault on the Police."

Someone, in the section, had hypothesized this strategy.

They were all certain that these were not hypotheses that were far-fetched.

Those weapons really existed, everyone knew about them.

At the time of the disarmament of the partisan brigades, few had trusted the Allies and the King.

The monarchy had been directly responsible for the rise to power of fascism.

If in 1924, the King had given military powers to the Facta government , the march on Rome would have been repressed.

That puppet, who had even called himself Emperor, had supported the Duce to the last, approving the racial laws and every other shame that had fallen on the country.

He had been in agreement with the abolition of parties and trade unions.

Only in the end, with a total about-face, had he dumped the Duce and fled into the arms of the Allies, leaving the country in the throes of civil war.

After the republicans, the greatest responsibilities fell on the royal family and it was for this reason that not all the weapons were returned.

There would have been a first partisan uprising if the referendum had sanctioned the victory of the monarchy, but fortunately the common sense of Northern Italy had prevailed.

But an attack on Togliatti was an outrage to millions of workers and proletarians.

Giulio returned home only late in the evening.

"My God, where have you been? I heard that news and I was scared.

Aren't you going to get into trouble right now?"

Maria Elena, more apprehensive than usual, had literally assaulted him with kindness in the living room of the house.

Let me rinse, is there clean water?

Yes, in the tub.

Only then did he realize that he was hungry.

In the excitement of the day, he had totally forgotten to fill his stomach.

There's still some bread with some tomatoes and a piece of cheese.

That would have been fine.

Tomorrow, don't leave the house and don't open the shop. Keep the shutter down, were Giulio's instructions.

What will happen? Will there still be fights?

The husband nodded and pointed to the weapons.

No, you can't. You have to be stronger.

Maria Elena had joined her hands in prayer, but her husband immediately retorted:

I know it's crazy, but they almost killed Togliatti.

His wife, lying down on the bed, begged him:

That's not what your Secretary would like. You must convince others to avoid all bloodshed and needless violence.

Giulio mumbled something without providing a definitive answer.

The night would bring advice, or at least that was what he believed.

Gone were the days when the fascists or the Germans would stealthily break into homes to find partisans and arrest them.

Now, everyone could sleep peacefully as the Liberation and the Republic had brought back a minimum rule of law.

The following day was truly spooky.

Milan was pervaded by a strange silence, unreal and sinister.

The well-known industriousness of the city had stopped and this did not bode well.

The oppressive heat and emptiness heralded social storms.

At Borgonovo home, not much was known about the latest news on Togliatti.

Was the operation successful?

How had the previous day gone in the other cities?

Giulio left early and went to the newsstand:

Unity, he asked.

The newspaper would be sold out in a short time.

Before going to the section, read the main articles.

He wasn't very educated and was quite difficult to read, and he didn't understand many technical terms.

Maria Elena intervened to explain them to him.

He had always appreciated this gift of his wife who, from the height of her culture, had never placed herself on a pedestal.

It was one of the traits that fascinated him most about that woman.

My schoolteacher, he used to call her when they were engaged.

He got a rough idea about the general situation.

Togliatti was not in danger of life. The third blow, the one that would have been fatal, had only grazed him.

The operation had gone well and conditions would improve.

There were no doubts about the fascist origin of the attack and this had been the spring that had unleashed the reaction of the people.

What are you going to say in section? the woman asked, as her husband was getting ready to leave.

I will say to stay calm while awaiting official directives from the Party. We are always in time to unleash a civil war...

Maria Elena smiled forcibly.

After returning from captivity, Giulio had never been the same.

Time had healed many wounds and the attention given to little Edoardo had helped him in that slow recovery to normality, but Giulio's joyful and hopeful character had disappeared.

It hadn't been the war in Africa, not the defeats of the fascist army, not the loss of many friends, not the arrest of many partisans, but it was that imprisonment that changed him permanently.

She had tried to understand her husband's situation, but Giulio had erected a wall against that past.

Let's act as if I had never left, as if I had spent that time in Como with you and Edo, so he closed the argument definitively.

At the Party branch, the atmosphere was even hotter than the previous day.

Many had been busy organizing a real armed revolt.

"Elsewhere it will be the same. Genoa is the epicenter of the revolt.

Today we will make them pay dearly."

Giulio did not share that vision and tried to externalize his position:

"Comrades, many of us have known each other since the days of the Resistance and the partisan struggle.

We took up arms against the Nazi invader and the fascist traitor, to defend our homes and families and to give a future to our children and our people.

A future made of hope.

We have freed Italy, bringing it into the tracks of a parliamentary democracy.

Our Party has lined up in the front row for the Republic and it was a Republic.

We sent many representatives to the Constituent Assembly who put our battles and our ideas on paper.

Out of the Savoy, no more fascism, work and workers at the center of everything.

We lost the elections a few months ago, but I am sure we will make up for it in the future.

But if we take up arms now, if we now assault the police with machine guns, no one knows where we'll end up.

Democracy, we know, is still fragile and reactionary forces lurk everywhere.

Don't you understand that they can't wait to outlaw us and crush us?

Do you think Americans are comfortable seeing that the Italian Communist Party is so strong in percentage terms?

We are the strongest Communist Party in the West."

The majority complimented that speech, but others disagreed on the principles:

"You speak well Giulio, but now we need to act.

What will happen if they outlaw us like they did in the past?"

Giulio shook his head.

At least we are waiting for directives from the central committee. If the Party says to lift us up, we will and I will be first in line.

Although demonstrations and clashes continued in other cities, they decided to wait for some news on the matter.

Togliatti will speak on the radio...

They all stood with pricked ears.

" Stop, don't do crazy things ."

The Secretary urged for calm and peaceful coexistence.

The section breathed a sigh of relief, but it didn't take much to rekindle spirits.

The news from Italy was of a completely different kind.

Many factories had been devastated and many offices of the Christian Democrats had been attacked.

In retaliation, some right-wing militants had done the same about some sections of the Communist Party.

Everywhere there had been bloody clashes, above all in Genoa and Naples.

There was talk of dozens more victims.

Who will stop this wave of violence if not even the Secretary's own voice has succeeded?

It was the question Giulio had been asking himself for hours.

Togliatti was out of danger and invited calm, so there was no need to expose the side to the police.

Scelba would not have backed down from anything, perhaps going so far as to order a state of general alert.

The Party branch was a safer place than the squares and streets, but it was best to stay at home.

Giulio thought of taking his bicycle and going to his wife and son, but then he reflected:

I'm doing all this for Edoardo's future. It is my duty to stay here and fight.

Beppe's son, an experienced partisan leader who had spent two winters in Valsassina, arrived in a hurry.

His fifteen-year-old voice had not yet changed into that of an adult man, denoting some accents typical of being a child.

What? asked the father, as if annoyed by that little boy's improvisation.

Bartali! He broke everyone on the Izoard. He gave Bobet nearly twenty minutes, he's close to the yellow jersey.

The men present immediately looked away from the papers and leaflets in front of them to rush towards the boy.

Are you sure?

Yes yes, all the radios are announcing it. Great miracle of the old lion of Bartali.

Some tossed their hats in celebration, others hugged each other.

Giulio stood to one side.

That tuscan Catholic friend of the priests worked a miracle...

He came home before dinner.

Maria Elena was less apprehensive than the previous day.

She had learned that in Milan the situation had not degenerated.

There are clashes everywhere, how do you think we will get out of it?

She was visibly worried about those events.

In the meantime, keep the shop closed tomorrow as well. I think things will settle down, but it will take some time. Togliatti said to stay calm, but new orders will have to arrive from the Party, perhaps from Longo, and the unions will have to cool the spirits of the workers.

He embraced his wife.

He had fallen in love with her from the first time he had noticed her, in the midst of a group of typically bourgeois Milanese girls and with an attitude of manifest arrogance.

Maria Elena immediately wanted to distinguish herself from the others, overcoming the social difference between them.

Since then, his love had only grown although life had presented them with trials of a certain suffering.

War and distance, bombing and civil strife. Then, again another period of distance due to the arrest by the Germans and finally the awareness of not being able to have more children.

Maria Elena kissed him.

And if your Bartali continues to win like today, no one will want to start a civil war in a country that will rediscover national pride after years of harassment!

The next day the situation calmed down further and Bartali won again.

The yellow jersey was on his shoulders and the dead stopped at an altitude of thirty-two.

However, the police had not waned their attention.

You'll see that they'll hit us once we stop protesting, the section head said to Giulio.

That premonition led him to propose to his wife that they close the shop for the entire month of August.

"Anyway, we don't sell much in that month and we will be able to spend time in Como, with my family. We will stay quiet and in a calmer place.

Then it will be good for Edoardo. He will see his grandparents and will be able to play in the meadows and with the animals."

It was a way of distracting oneself from those events that were too close and dangerous.

Maria Elena, who grew up in the city, didn't disdain that proposal, but wanted to set a couple of conditions.

Okay, husband. But you won't take Edoardo to swim in the lake. It's still too small.

Giulio agreed.

He would have had time to teach him to swim.

His wife, not entirely satisfied, returned to the task:

"And you will help me convince your mother to move her to Milan.

I need your help if I want to transform the shop from a simple resale of fabrics to a tailor's shop."

As usual, Giulio had to agree with his wife, although he was aware that it would have been difficult to complete the mission.

Her mother would hardly have left her husband alone in those conditions and a transfer of the same was to be excluded.

If there was one thing that the head of the Borgonovo family hated more than fascism, it was the chaos of a city like Milan.

It is enough for us to leave here temporarily, leaving this month of July behind us were his words.

Edoardo, intrigued by those speeches, turned to his father:

Where do we go?

Giulio took him in his arms:

To my grandparents, in Como. With animals and the countryside. You will see Edo, it will be a beautiful summer.

The child burst