In 1976, when I received the draft card, I was working as a teacher in a small village in the south of Apulia. It was a temporary post, the school year would end in a few days, my contract with the school would come to an end, and the draft would no longer be deferrable. At that time, military duty was compulsory for all males and lasted a year. I had already put it off. So on June 6, I kissed my parents and Anna, my fiancée, goodbye, and took the night train to Asti, in Piedmont.
Asti was the home of the eighteenth century poet Vittorio Alfieri, famous for his line, “I willed, always willed, and strongly willed.” Asti is also celebrated for its cheese, good wines, and salami. I was assigned to the 28th Infantry Regiment “Como” for training. We marched under the sun in the parade ground of the barracks; we were instructed in the use of weapons, how to disassemble, clean, oil, and reassemble a Garand rifle and a 9 mm. automatic Beretta; we had drills in the mountains and learned how to throw a grenade correctly. At the end of the training, while my brothers-in-arms were posted to regiments of Bersaglieri, Alpini, gunners, tankmen, and other units of the Army, I was selected, for inscrutable reasons, for a training course as a medical orderly, a sort of military nurse, at the military hospital of Turin. The hospital was named after Alessandro Riberi, the father of the modern Italian medical corps.
I was in a hurry and it was hot, so I rushed out, leaving my regulation hat and other personal belongings on the table in the reading room.
I liked Turin and enjoyed my time there. At the hospital, in the surgery ward, they taught me how to disinfect and dress a wound, how to give an injection and a few other basic medical procedures. Whenever I was off duty, I would explore the city and its surroundings. The castles, the parks, the museums, the river Po, the sumptuous architecture, and the elegant avenues enthralled me. I particularly loved the area around Piazza San Carlo, with the equestrian monument to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, the cafés under the arcade, the Egyptian Museum nearby, and the Museo del Risorgimento in the Palazzo Carignano. In 1821, from the central monumental balcony of that palace, Carlo Alberto, at the time prince regent for his uncle Carlo Felice, momentarily absent, had granted the Constitution to the Kingdom of Sardinia (and Piedmont), the first Constitution to be enacted in Italy. It was later abrogated by Carlo Felice, on his return to Turin, and restored again by Carlo Alberto when he succeeded Carlo Felice as king in 1848.
The author as a young conscript.
I would often spend the afternoon at the Biblioteca Nazionale (the National Library), just behind Palazzo Carignano. I was writing my dissertation on Robert Louis Stevenson in my free time, but I also took the opportunity to research material for my fiancée’s dissertation. Anna was writing hers on an Italian novelist, Lucio Mastronardi, whose novels were set in the town of Vigevano, in the Province of Pavia.
One afternoon, in the newspapers section of the library, I found an interesting article about Mastronardi in a literary review. I asked to have it photocopied, but the only photocopier at the library was broken. I begged the head librarian to allow me to take the review out with me for a few minutes to reach a photocopy shop. They never lent journals, but made an exception in my case. They asked for my ID and I gave them my military card. I was in a hurry and it was hot, so I rushed out, leaving my regulation hat and other personal belongings on the table in the reading room. At the time, soldiers on a leave had to wear the uniform.
The nearest photocopy shop that I could think of was my favorite bookshop, Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg. I often bought books in English there.
There were books piled on tables and on the counter. I had a look at the latest releases, browsing through the freshly printed volumes, while a salesclerk photocopied the article. Then, from of the corner of my eye I saw beside me the uniform of a high officer, a zig-zag braid and a star on the shoulder loop. A brigadier general — of the Carabinieri, to cap it — and there I was, without my regulation hat and ID, an unidentifiable hatless rookie! I could not play dead and ignore him. I turned toward the general and snapped to attention. The general turned to face me, looked at my collar badges and said, “Riposo. Sanità militare, uhm?” That is, “At ease. Medical corps, uhm?”
I immediately recognized him. I had seen pictures of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa in the papers and I had seen him on TV, with the black rimmed glasses he wore at that time and his gray moustache. The general had been the head of the Nucleo Speciale Antiterrorismo, the antiterrorist special group of the Carabinieri. The unit had been dissolved by the General Commander in Chief of the Carabinieri the year before, probably because the success of General Dalla Chiesa in the fight against the Red Brigades had caused considerable envy (he had arrested, among others, Renato Curcio, who was considered the head of that terrorist organization). The General was also criticized for his unorthodox investigative methods. Nevertheless, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa successfully continued his investigations on the Red Brigades and other terrorist groups.
The General asked me where I came from and what I was doing there. I told him I came from Lecce, was based at the military hospital in Turin, and that, in my free time I was researching material for my dissertation and for my fiancée’s. He wanted to know what my dissertation was about. He had read of course Stevenson in his teens. At this point I was rescued by the arrival of the salesclerk who gave me my photocopies and the review.
“With your permission, General.”
He smiled, nodded and turned to look at some of the books on the counter.
I paid, took the papers, and snapped to attention again, “At your orders, General!”
The General raised his right hand in response to my salutation, and then, unexpectedly he reached out his hand and patted me on the cheek.
“Good luck with your dissertation,” he smiled.
“Thank you, General!”
I took one step back, snapped to attention once more, did an about-face and marched out of the shop.
Outside, next to the door there were two Carabinieri. In front of the shop, at the curb, two cars were parked, with other Carabinieri, a couple in uniform and others in plain clothes.
And then, unexpectedly he reached out his hand and patted me on the cheek. “Good luck with your dissertation,” he smiled.
Six years later, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was appointed Prefect of Palermo, with the specific task of fighting Mafia. He never received the human and material resources the government promised him. In an interview with journalist Giorgio Bocca, he complained that he had received no support in Palermo. A few days later, on the evening of September 3, 1982, four Mafia gunmen riddled General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, his young wife Emanuela Setti Carraro, and Police Officer Domenico Russo with a hail of Kalashnikof AK-47 bullets while they were riding along Via Carini, in the heart of Palermo.
Some are of the opinion that the Mafia killed the General, but the order came from outside Sicily. Many are still convinced that General Dalla Chiesa was the repository of unmentionable truths about some of the bloodiest and most obscure Italian mysteries, such as the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro and the connections between Mafia and the Sicilian political world, and therefore had to be reduced to silence. That massacre added another mystery to an already too long chain. And, alas, it would not be the last.
