Dario Fo - NADIA PASINI - translated by Ed Emery

NADA PASINI

by Dario Fo

translated by Ed Emery

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NADA PASINI

by Dario Fo

translated by Ed Emery

Introduction:

"And afterwards? After we've chased out the fascists... What will we do then? Are we going to manage to make this revolution?" How many times do we find that question repeated in the accounts that the partisans have left us. That anxiety; that sense of desperation, almost. Afterwards, what are we going to do afterwards?

It's this same question that we find in the following account by Nada Pasini, a courier for the Seventh GAP of Bologna. Here is her story:

At Porta Lame on 7 November 1944, there was a big battle, and thousands of Germans and Fascists were attacked by the partisan forces of Bologna, en masse. The Nazi-Fascists took a heavy beating. On the partisan side too there were people killed, and a number of wounded... Seventeen of them, the most seriously wounded, were taken off to a well-concealed infirmary over towards via Duca d'Aosta. But the Fascist police, using spies and informers, managed to discover the hideaway, and they staged a surprise raid on it. Some of the wounded were killed immediately by the SS. They were tied to the bars of the windows and beaten to death. The others, attendants and nurses included, were brutally tortured.

ACTRESS: Then it came to my turn... Two militiamen took me up into a big room where there were some of the Fascists, dressed in civilian clothes. There was one man, with glasses, wearing a pinstripe suit... and leather gloves... And everyone was talking to him in German. There was also a man they kept calling "Doctor".

First of all they gave me a cigarette, one of those with the filter tip, which I don't like too much, because they taste of straw, but I said thank you just the same, and no sooner had they lit it for me than they gave me a great slap, which sent the cigarette flying, and I started choking on the smoke. And I remembered my poor husband; at least before they shot him, they let him smoke his last cigarette almost down to the end.

"Now, talk, because it'll be best for you," they told me.

I said: "But I really don't know anything..." I should add that I was speaking in the dialect of my village, which none of them could understand, but there was an Italian Fascist there from Bagnacavallo, who began to translate for them what I was saying... And then I was also making out that I couldn't understand what the "Doctor" was saying to me... because he was a Southerner (and I really was having a bit of difficulty...) So they ended up having to translate for me too... Anyway, they already knew everything about what I had been up to, and they spelled it all out: that I was a courier for Mario's Partisan Action Group, as well as being a nurse for the partisans, and that I had been here... and there...

"But no," I told them, still in dialect, "I'm Dr Mario Bonora's housekeeper. Ask him, if you don't believe me." The fact was that first they would have to catch Mario, if they wanted to ask him...!

Anyway, then the man with the glasses and the pinstripe suit and the leather gloves got angry, and he punched me right in the face, on the nose, and started me bleeding... I suppose he'd understood right away, without needing a translation, that time! Then they opened a door, and brought in one of the fellows who had been wounded, from the Seventh Brigade infirmary where I had been working. They had ripped off all his bandages, and he was black and blue, with his face all swollen, and you couldn't see his eyes for the swelling, and they asked him: "Do you know this woman?" And they opened his eyes with their fingers... and he shook his head, to indicate that he didn't know me... They took him away, pushing him and kicking him, and he didn't let out so much as a murmur!

Then they put a rope around my neck, and started hauling on it as if they were intending to hang me. "Tell us the names of the doctors who work for the infirmary, and where they are," they shouted. And as soon as they loosened the rope, I said: "But I didn't know that those people who came to the doctor's house were partisans. If I had known, I would have reported them."

At this point they pulled up my petticoat, and my dress, over my head, and with a knout they began to beat me on the belly, on the backside, and here, on my breasts, over and over again, as if I was an animal...

By this time it was about seven o'clock, and they had all taken off their jackets, because they were sweating. They tipped a bucket of icy water over me... I was lying in a heap on the floor, and blood was coming out of my mouth... I was afraid that it was from my lungs, but it turned out it was because they had broken two of my teeth... these ones here, you see... They're false...

They pulled me up, and they sat me on a chair. I was completely naked, because they had torn all my clothes off me. They kept asking me questions, and there was a fellow there with a typewriter. I answered them, still in dialect, and with this business with the interpreter it was getting a bit drawn-out. So then the Doctor said: "We're wasting our time here. Don't you see - the woman is plainly insane. She's crazy... If she had known anything, she would have talked by now." And he pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and ripped it up.

"Take her away."

And they called: "Antonietta". A huge fat woman came in, who must have been this Antonietta, and she lifted me up bodily and carried me off to a windowless room, where there was a bed. The bed was completely filthy, but at that moment it felt like heaven on earth for me.

Anyway, half an hour passed, and all of a sudden the man with the pinstripe suit came in... Now he wanted to be with me... Yes, that's right, after all the beatings he'd given me, he wanted... you know what I mean.

"But I cannot even give you a kiss," I said, politely. "My whole mouth is broken up, with two teeth smashed out..."

But he came over close to me, to touch my body and kiss me... I couldn't even move. I was all broken up... And I asked him: "But have you no pity...? Imagine, if I was one of your daughters, in this condition." But it was like talking to an animal...!

When he went away, I started crying my heart out... crying more than I'd even cried when I thought they were about to hang me... This time I really did want to die... and how I wept... Then I heard somebody calling me. Calling me with my real name. "Luisa, Luisa." I turn my head upwards, and there was a little window, and I saw the head of that young lad whose bandages they had ripped off, and who had said that he didn't recognise me... "What are you doing there?"

"Well, they've locked me away," he said...

"You been here long?"

"Yes, from before... But if the reason that you're crying is because of what that pig did to you... don't get upset... They'll pay for that too!"

I made a big effort, and I hauled myself up, so that I could get close to him, and I saw the state of his face... His eyes were swollen up like eggs... and there was blood coming out of them.

There was a wash basin in there... I got down off the bed... I walked across, clinging to the wall... There was a little towel hanging there too... I put it under the tap... He realised that I wanted to bathe his eyes, and he said: "Don't worry about me, look after yourself. You're half dead yourself...

Then, as I washed away his blood, he said: "Thanks a lot, that feels good... And now I can even see a bit."

Then it suddenly struck me that I was completely naked. But it really didn't matter at all; I didn't even move my hands to cover myself.

"I'm up for the firing squad tomorrow," he said, "But don't worry, you'll be alright... My only regret is that I won't be there, on the day of the Liberation, to see it... It will be a wonderful day... But the best will be still to come. Afterwards..."

"Afterwards? When?" I asked... And then he said, as if he was angry: "But Luisa, why do you think that we're here, getting ourselves killed, and letting ourselves be beaten like dogs? It's for afterwards, don't you see...? For what happens afterwards, when we'll really be free! Then we'll have communism for real... just like in Russia... We'll build it ourselves... But it's not going to be easy at all... Hey, how I'd love to be around to see it... And there's still going to be battles that'll have to be fought, because the boss class is hardly going to say: 'Come on in, make yourselves at home'... They'll move heaven and earth to stop us... But this time, Luisa, we shall have guns. Our guns... And we'll be playing another tune... This time 'Revolution, Revolution is going to win...'."

And he began to sing... Then, the morning after, while it was still dark, they shot him.

As for me, they put me in the San Giovanni-in-Monte mental hospital, because they decided that I really was mad... Then, when the day of the Liberation came, I was released... What a wonderful day that was! But that young lad they had executed was right... I didn't even know his name... It's not at all easy to build communism, because the bosses don't tell us: 'Please, make yourselves at home...' But I'm still hopeful, because otherwise, otherwise why would I still be a communist?"

Ends

[Transcribed from a first-hand account by Pasini herself.]

[This text is taken from Vorrei Morire Anche Stasera Se Dovessi Sapere Che Non è Servito a Niente ("I Would Rather Die Tonight, If I Had to Think it Was All In Vain"), performed at Capannone di Via Colletta, Milano, 20th October 1970.]