perugia shock

Hellmann was even funny and entertaining during the trial, but his best joke he made during the reading of the verdict…

The night to be loved, as we called it, didn’t exactly come as easy as one may think.

Hellmann and Zanetti, even the jurors, had given a clear sign during the trial… We were all sure the verdict would be of absolution, but… Hellmann kept us waiting that night…

He had said he would have come out “Not before 8 pm” but it was already 9, then it was 10…

THE VERDICT

Now it’s 10:30, maybe… What is going on? The mind almost starts fantasizing about a conflict going on in that chamber… I almost start to be worried. And you? Definitely, it seems: you enter the courtroom and you look in agony. And you keep agonizing while waiting for la corte to enter. Long, long minutes…

Then la corte, the destiny of your life –Hellmann, Zanetti and those faces with no voice, those sphinxes with their secret thoughts, who only stared at you from the top of the bench– enter.

There is nothing to pray, or to hope, by now. Your fate has already been decided. It just has to be read.
You just have to know it. And knowing, this time, waiting for knowing, is the hardest thing.

Hellmann starts reading your fate… “This court… in partial reform of the previous sentence…” –So, it’s not “in reform of the previous sentence”. It’s “in partial reform”, we already know you haven’t been fully acquitted. And it could still be anything, maybe 21 years instead of 26– “…declares: Knox Amanda Marie colpevole…”

Damn, GUILTY AGAIN.

The curse is still on. The four year-long series of  “no”… “rejects”… “condemns”, continues.

But his speech goes on. “…of the crime of calunnia, and condemns her to the penalty of three years…”

Ah okay, he said  “la condanna”, “condemns her”, but just for the calunnia against Patrick, no big deal.

By the way, he had condemned you to three years, not to one year, as it was in the previous sentence, where that penalty was reduced due “continuation” with the main crime. So, he had considered the slander as an autonomous crime! That meant they had acquitted you for the murder!
Easy to say now. But this simple deduction was impossible to be done in those moments, when the words explode like bombs, or fireworks… when the time is dilated, when the mind is frozen, and only awaits the words that will mean either way: freedom or jail, life or no-life.

You have to suffer more, and we with you. A few seconds but, in truth… infinite moments in which you are set on the rack, suspended in a limbo.
Now he will speak about the main charge, now you will know.

It should be now. But Hellmann, cruel, keeps you waiting. While life seems to abandon your face, palest than ever, he starts reading all technicalities about the conviction for calunnia.
Even the technicalities! The calculation of how he got to three years!

When he’s over with that long reading he finally resumes: “….E la condanna….”.

Damn, he resumed and said LA CONDANNA, again! This time is for the murder, then!

It looks like that’s what you think now: that the curse is still on, that it will still be no-life.

Only for a fraction of second, though, because Hellmann continues: “…al pagamento delle spese…”. Ah okay. He was still speaking about the calunnia! Condemned again, yes, but to pay now, for Patrick’s compensation… The rollercaster of emotions sent you to the bottom rock and now pushes you up again. Damn hell man, he really wanted to give you a heart attack…

At this point finally Hellman has done with the calunnia and all its useless appendixes. And with his sadistic reading…

The jokes are over, now. Now he can only declare about the charge of homicide: Hellmann continues: “…Assolve entrambi gli imputati….” — “absolves both defendants”.
ASSOLVE, he said that! It’s the freedom! The end of the nightmare!

You can finally collapse in a big crying fit. Almost. You retain yourself, you want to listen, as Hellmann continues  “...per i  reati di…”, “…for the crimes of…”, and he lists all the charges: homicide: acquitted. Rape: acquitted….

It’s all a descent now. Just when you seemed to be lost, suddenly the series of “no”, the sequence of “condemns”, resounded for four years until a few seconds ago, is interrupted. Those ugly words, suddenly turned into their opposite, they became “yes”, they became, “acquits”, their meaning became “life”.

Words are no bombs this time, devastating the courtroom. Words are fireworks, are drops of honey, are the first swallow of fresh water after you’ve just crossed the desert.

Better crying in silence, as you are doing now, so that you can listen to every one of those words, just to be sure you are not in your cell, dreaming. Your mind couldn’t have invented those words in a dream. You are really hearing them, they are real!

And the fireworks continue: Theft: acquitted. Transportation of knife: acquitted. “For not having committed the fact”. Simulation of crime: acquitted. “Because the fact doesn’t exist”.

And the sweet words continue, up to the end, the sweetest end: “… e  ne ordina l’immediata liberazione se non detenuti per altra causa”. “…and it orders their immediate release if not detained for other reason”.

It’s certain now, you are free.

Your crying can explode now. Carlo and Maria are consoling you, but there’s nothing to console. It only looks like you are desperate, but you are not (never trust appearances…): it’s happiness this time!

“I’m safe”, you look like thinking. You crossed the most dangerous battlefield, full of traps, snipers and traitors. After all those bullets, mines and bombs, exploding all around, the fire is over. It’s unbelievable, but you are alive!

The reading is over. La corte slowly trots away, and life returns to fulfill your face…
The ride is over on the nightmarish rollercoaster. Time to step on the ground, and return to real life.

Your amanda nox, your night to be loved, arrived for real, and it’s beautiful. Just as you, and someone else with you, dreamt it.

The moon stopped in the middle of the sky to shine it, the wind swept all clouds away to let the stars salute you, the summer has been waiting for you, to push you with a warm, soft breeze, on your way home.

He wasn’t the man of hell, he was really “the predestined”, der heller mann, who came to shed light on a big nonsense.
Four years, one life. It was just a big joke, a trip to middle ages, a bit long, but with return. A descent into the misery and the superstition of poor, sad, small people.
Your victory, on those people with a mask, those people with no power, no knowledge, was unavoidable. You should have seen the four of them, escaping in the night, like thieves, right after that he said “Assolve”. I had that privilege. Priceless…

SALVO. You didn’t know this…

And, since you are there, enjoy this too, Signorina…