1990/8/5
My dear Eugenio,
Max had me read his long 'letter' to you and has asked me to continue its narration about what happened in those days and how we got over them, and also to tell the rest of our story. I shall do this more than willingly.
I now remember those events with complete detachment, but also then, strangely, I felt absolutely calm and detached. I was sure that in the end I would have got what I desired. A year or so ago, whilst at the castle, Max said to me, 'At times dreams became true.' He also said that everything depends solely upon us. Well, if it depended only on me, I would have succeeded in realising my dream. For a few moments I had some doubts, some fears and felt defeated, but those were short and rare moments, because Max's love for me, and my love for him gave me an incredible force, a force I never thought I had inside me.
As Max has already written, I recognised that I was gay rather early on in life, around 12-13 years-old, just after puberty. At first I was confused, but then things became clearer to. Because of my family and of the ambient I could frequent, I never had the opportunity to experience those erotic games, or sexual explorations that usually other boys of that age have so easily, especially during the period of their puberty. But this didn't prevent me from thinking, pondering about what I was feeling, and rather it gave me even more time, and the will to analyse, to understand. So, a little for the situation I was living, a little for the education I received, I came rather soon to the conclusion that sex and love had a sense only if lived at the same time, with the same person. With a man, of course. I reached this conclusion when I was fifteen.
I remember this well because, a little after I decided inside myself that I would make love only with the man I seriously fell in love with, just a few weeks later, my family were guests of the duchess at San Salva. It is there that I met Max for the first time.
It was not really love at first sight, not the classical thunderbolt, but something that grew little by little as we spent time at the castle together. Max didn't consider me too much, at that time. To him I was just an awkward kid, the ugly duckling, and he was already a handsome young man in his nineteenth year... But he was kind and had a smile that seduced, he was also intelligent, cultivated, refined, elegant and, to my eyes, really beautiful and sexy. At first I felt for him a kind of instinctive liking that soon changed into admiration, and in the space of a few days, into love. But my shyness just increased purely because I was now aware I was in love with him. So, I did nothing to attract his attention, to try to become interesting in his eyes. Rather, when I was near him, I felt rather clumsy and ungainly. I did nothing but dream of having his strong arms around my body, to taste the sweetness of his sensual lips on mine, to read in his eyes the same sentiment that was developing and strengthening within me.
Later on, I met him on a few more occasions, but each time for a short while. But my love for him, my desire, was just increasing, growing, developing and strengthening more and more. Even if, with realism, I told myself that it would have been practically impossible he could notice me, he could become interested in me. And that, also because I was aware that nothing made me think that he might be gay, especially when I got the impression he was courting Margherita.
Evidently, I am born under a lucky star. I don't really know how it exactly happened, but one day my mother, after attending one of the duchess' salons, came back home and said that I had been invited to spend my summer holidays at San Salva castle. That was just after my final high school exams. My father had no objections, possibly because he always had a foible towards who was of a noble family, like the duchess. I think this was the only reason why he married my mother.
Anyway, one morning the duchess called in person, to invite me.
Consequently, that summer, as Max has already told you, I went to the castle to spend my holiday. You can guess how excited and happy I was at the idea of staying with Max, even if I knew well that it was absolutely unlikely that anything could happen. I also knew that I would be completely unable to unveil to him my love. A very nice surprise was that the duchess, this time, didn't assign me a room in the guests' wing like she did when I was fifteen, but in the tower, near my Max.
Then, you know what happened and how. It was possibly I was somewhat confused for the fever that had just left me. This was possibly because my love for him had become so strong that it was more and more difficult for me to control myself. Also possibly because when I opened my eyes and I saw him bent over me and thought that I'd read love in his eyes, I finally found the courage to make the first move, and we made love. I say courage because in the previous days, I read in him the pleasure to stay close to me, and also some affection, but still nothing that allowed me to think he was gay as I am.
The fact that he, initially, repeated and insisted that he was not in love, didn't scare me, for three reasons: firstly, at least he admitted to feeling physical desire for me. Secondly, I could finally make love with the person I was dreaming about, desired and loved for years. And finally, because inside me I felt that love had an incredible strength and that, sooner or later, Max would accept being loved by me and would even come to love me. I had just not to torment him, pretend nothing, and give him all my love and myself. At last, as you know, he too fell in love with me.
I was so happy. Everything seemed beautiful and simple, my life was finally blossoming in a wonderful way, in front of me. We spent that first year getting to know each other better, and I watched him fall more and more in love with me, so that even the sacrifice to see each other too little and hiding, became endurable. Then, during the following summer we decided that we would start to live together in the tiny attic, which we had found, I was literally in seventh heaven. I knew I had to face my family, but that didn't scare me at all - I was of age anyway and therefore free to live my life as I pleased. For sure my father would chase me from the house, he would also disinherit me, making everything all the simpler. The Egyptian slavery I had endured at home was about to end, and the Promised Land was waiting for me.
We went back to town on the afternoon of Tuesday, and made arrangements for the day after, to meet in our new abode at noon. I was happy, you can't guess how much, and my joy was such that it helped me even overcome the fear of facing my father. So, I decided I would communicate my decision at supper, in front of everybody, making my choice definitive. As soon as we sat at the table and the first course was served, I calmly and quietly commenced.
"I have something to tell you."
Everybody looked at me, so I continued: "Tomorrow morning I am leaving. I'm going to live with Massimiliano Faletti. We have rented an attic room in town. We love each other, we are in love and we are going to live together."
You should have seen their faces! Giovanni had his mouth and eyes wide open, his spoon full of soup suspended in mid air. Lucia brought her hand to her mouth, almost as if she wanted to block a yell, and appeared scared. My mother seemed as if she wanted reduce me to ashes with her stare, she had her lips tightly shut, and slowly shook her head. My father was dumbfounded and as cold as ice, his eyes devoured by an inner fury, but he didn't speak.
The first who seemed to recover control was my mother, and in an icy tone said: "Don't talk nonsense, Edoardo. This is a joke in very bad taste! What are you talking about?"
"No, maman, Max and I are gay, we love each other, we've decided to live together from tomorrow. It is not a joke at all."
My father didn't change his expression. He put his napkin on the table, calmly stood up, came towards me and looking me in my eyes, just said: "Stand up!"
I stood up. Then my father simply raised his arm and gave me a backhander on my cheek, then another, then another, with violence but with calm, with method, almost like a scene in slow motion. I didn't move, didn't protect myself and remained there, standing in front of him, still, staring into his eyes. His look expressed rage, contempt, possibly hate, disgust and an incredible ferocity. It was the first time in my life that my father raised his hand to me. I think that my eyes smiled, because inside me I was thinking; "Go on, beat me, hate me. Anyway this is the last time, from tomorrow I'm going to live with the man I love and who loves me, and his love protects me from your hate!" but I said nothing. My father continued to give me powerfully strong backhanders and I felt my cheeks aflame, and my eyes trembled at each blow so that I was starting to have difficulty to keep my eyes focused. Them suddenly, he stopped. He was panting.
In a normal tone that even surprised me, I repeated: "From tomorrow I go to live with the man I love and who loves me."
I didn't say these words with rage, nor in a challenging tone, but as a simple statement of reality that not he or any other person, could change.
At that moment I had the perception that in the room was present some of the staff.
So, I repeated: "From tomorrow I go to live with the man I love."
My mother commanded the staff to leave the room. My father and I were still standing face to face. His breathing was still slightly gasping and his eyes were two iced blocks.
Then my mother talked again: "Lucia, Giovanni, go in your rooms!"
I heard my brothers leaving the table, going out and the door closing. My mother was still sitting at her place. I could see her in the corner of my eye. I didn't want to divert my gaze from the eyes of my father - I wanted him to be clear that I had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide, that I was proud of the love that bound Max and me. I could feel Max' presence at my side.
My mother again broke the silence: "Edoardo, how can you do us such a terrible thing?"
"It is not terrible, it is wonderful - I am in love and he loves me."
At last my father burst out: "You are a monster! You are a monster!"
I don't know how it came to my mind, I hadn't prepared any speech, I hadn't thought anything like that, but I answered, always calm: "A monster, father? Never as much as you, he who has never gave one ounce of love to your wife or to your children. A monster? I? Never as much as you, who in order to become rich, turned so many families out of house and home and betrayed so many friends. A monster? I? And you, father?"
"Don't call me father!" he yelled.
"You are right, doctor De Turris. I am ashamed just at the idea of being your son."
Another, terrible backhander came. For a moment I couldn't see any more, but almost soon, even if confused, I recovered my sight.
My mother stood up and came near us: "But, what did we do to you? Why are you behaving so? Don't be ungrateful, Edoardo, please..."
"Tomorrow I go to live with Max." I repeated, always with calm.
"You are not going anywhere! You will not besmirch my name! I will make such fantasies pass away, you will see! You don't know me, but you will learn! I will break you!" my father yelled.
And my mother started a kind of Greek chorus: "Edoardo! You cannot give us such a pain! Edoardo! After all we did for you! Edoardo! Made your excuses to your father! Edoardo! Let's try to talk like civilized people! Edoardo!"
"Tomorrow I go to live..."
My father gave me the umpteenth violent backhander and I fell on the floor, almost losing my senses.
I barely heard my mother say, with an absurdly detached voice, without a hint of emotion: "Francesco, don't exceed, now! You risk killing him."
"No! That would be too easy, too easy for him. Help me."
I felt them bodily raise and drag me, then abandon me again on the floor. I couldn't understand where they had transported me, my sight was still completely dimmed.
"What do you mean to do, Francesco? Why are you tying him? What are you doing?" my mother asked, now slightly worried.
"He will remain here until he starts to reason again."
Then I heard the door closing, the key turning, the calm voices of my mother and my father fading away. Little by little I completely recovered my senses. I was in complete darkness, tied so that I couldn't free myself. I wasn't afraid. I was just worried because I understood that on the following day I could unlikely go to Max. But he would wait for me, for sure. My father was thinking to crush me, but it was he who didn't know me - he would never, ever succeed. I remained there for hours, I don't know how many. I could have shouted, but I didn't want to give him this pleasure of hearing me. Sooner or later he had to surrender.
I tried to sleep. I felt uncomfortable, the floor was hard and cold, the ropes tight. But I thought about Max and was not afraid. I don't know how many hours later, the door opened. My father had something in his hand. He bent over me, it was a syringe. He injected me with something.
"What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing me?" I asked, feeling now worried.
"It is just a tranquilizer. I'm just taking precautions."
"You are losing your time. As soon as I am free I will go to live with Max." I answered. The tranquilizer was starting to make effect, I felt strange.
"You will never go with your perverted friend, you have my word!" my father said and again closed the door.
A strange period began. My father came from time to time, gave me an injection, fed me, took me to the toilet. I don't know what he injected me with. It was something that, even without making me lose consciousness, and neither my ability to reason, even if with some difficulty, had practically taken away the use of my limbs, almost as if I was paralyzed. My father was a strong man, so he bodily carried me to the toilet with extreme ease, always during the night. I always and exclusively saw him.
I was no more tied up, it was not needed, I couldn't make the slightest move. My father had put a mattress on the floor. I don't know how many days it lasted, I had lost count. He never said a word, never asked questions. At my turn, I never asked him anything, said nothing. But inside me I knew that sooner or later I would go to Max, and the only thing that pained me was to think of my lover in pain for me.
Then, one day, my father took me out of the storeroom, and transported me to my room. Contrary to the other times, this time it was daytime. He lay me on my bed, took off my clothes and put on my pyjamas. Then he left the room and came back a little while later to give me another injection. He left. Some time passed, then two male nurses with a stretcher came in and moved me to an ambulance and we travelled for a long time. Where were they taking me?
A nurse was sitting near me inside the ambulance. I tried to ask him something, but I only was able to emit a blurred moaning - not even my mouth answered any more to my will...
I don't put myself to narrate you all I thought and felt on that journey, nor at my arrival in a kind of hospital, or other details. But when I was there for a couple of days, and was recovering from my induced paralysis, a doctor, whom I knew to be a friend of my father, entered the room. He explained everything. In short, my situation was this: my father had me transported to the private Nursing Home. He told me that he was the director and owner of it. My father had explained to him my "problem". I would remain secluded there until I was "healed", even if this required years of "care". The doctor also explained that I didn't have any chance to escape from there, in fact I was controlled at sight by two nurses (who seemed two gorillas) and if I got agitated, they would have me wear a strait-jacket.
Then, the doctor added, it was also completely useless I tried to play the part of the healed, because anyway "...you homosexual, we perfectly know, are incurably ill persons."
"But then, how do you plan to... cure me?" I asked him dumbfounded.
"Keeping you here." he unconcernedly replied.
My father had found the system to get rid of me - I was buried alive. And, the doctor added that only my father knew I was there, nobody else, I was not even registered as a patient. Therefore, nobody could find me and try to rescue me. While he was giving me this information, the doctor seemed neither sad or amused, rather bored.
Well, I must confess that for a moment I felt lost. I even thought it was better to kill myself. Possibly it was right what my father hoped... otherwise, why did his friend, the doctor, come to announce my 'sentence'? But I thought of Max, and inside I felt an incredible force and that I would succeed in seeing him again. Therefore, I had completely to recover my physical strength and become aware of my situation in that place. It was useless, or rather dangerous, to try to rebel. I had to remain calm, quiet, play their game. Sooner or later they would make an error, I would discover some leak in their plan. I had to show that I was resigned to my fate.
Days elapsed, several days. The surveillance didn't appear to slacken off, and I was always kept in isolation. My window had iron bars and looked over the roofs. I couldn't see a living soul, not even far away, apart from my two wardens and the doctor, that is. With them I behave normally, quiet, never talking first, but always answering to their possible questions.
At this point it is Max who would have to resume his narration, because I had no idea about what was happening out there, and I was informed just afterwards. But Max, who is now here at my side while I'm writing, tells me to go on with the narration, so I continue. If necessary, with his help.
Giovanni and Max were meeting at the tennis club three times each week. So one day my brother, really worried, warned him that I was no longer at home.
"Then where is he? Where have they taken him?" Max asked him.
"I don't know. When we asked mother yesterday evening, she told us that he is in a Care Centre in Switzerland, which specializes in the care of homosexuals. Yesterday our father gave all the house staff the day off. While Lucia and I were at school, Edo was moved, convinced to be cured. In fact when we were back home the storeroom door was no more locked, and he was no more there."
"No, he cannot have left of his own free will, don't you understand? Cure him from homosexuality! It simply is ridiculous. God, all is so incredible! I had to do something before that! I must have reported your father. Can't you try to discover where they took him, where he is now?"
"It would be useless to ask."
"OK! I... I'm going to the police to report his disappearance." Max declared.
"If you want my advice, before making any decision, look for the best lawyer. His lawyers have, for sure, sanctioned any move he has made. He never does a thing without their advice, always protects his back, especially if he does something dirty."
"So, you too think that..."
"Lucia and I know them very well. We know that our only chance is to keep silent until we both are of age, and then escape as far away as possible."
"But we are no more in the middle ages, there are laws, guarantees..."
"And the power to bend them and use them, or to avoid them... and our father is a real champion at that. You know only his appearance, but I grew up in that house. I still ask myself how Edoardo had been so naive as to declare what he intended to do..."
"But then, I can do nothing for Edoardo!?"
"I'm not saying do nothing. Look for a super lawyer, but be sure he has no relationship with my father. Lucia and I, if we can help you to find Edo, will be happy to, because we love Edoardo. He has always tried to protect us, and he is the only one who always loved us, but also because if we can oppose our dear parents, we will just enjoy it."
At this point Max decided to talk about the problem both with the duchess and with Margherita, the only two people who knew about us. He found them to be two precious allies. Even if the duchess had not yet accepted the relationship between her grandchild and me, in the face of Max' story was so much horrified that she at once sided him and me.
First, they found a very good lawyer. This one said to them that to start any action they needed sound proofs. It was not possible to successfully appeal to the intervention of the law basing everything on conjecture, how well-grounded they could be.
About a month after my disappearance, Lucia saw in the incoming mail, before the staff took it to my father, an envelope headed "Vallauri Nursing Home". She copied the address, at once suspecting I could be there, also if it was in the Novara province and not in Switzerland. Giovanni passed the address to Max. The lawyer said that suspicion was not sufficient, they had to be sure that I was really in that clinic, and against my will.
Who had the first genial idea was Margherita. She was part of the "Saint Vincent Conference". She proposed to her group to organize a Christmas party in a hospital, and when her suggestion was accepted, she easily suggested and made her friends accept the "Vallauri Nursing Home" as the venue. So, with this excuse, she went to the nursing home, asked to meet the director, and told him their plans. It was immediately welcomed, so she asked if she could have a list of the patients and some data about them, "to be able to prepare personalized Christmas presents, as is our custom". All went smoothly, she had the list without any difficulty... but of course I was not in it!
"He is not there, evidently, it was a false lead." Margherita sadly said to Max.
"Perhaps he is not there. But perhaps he was admitted under a fake name."
"I thought to that, but no twenty-year old men. The youngest is thirty six years old, it cannot be Edo."
Max seemed almost persuaded, but to my luck, Giovanni saw a second envelope with the same heading, fifteen days after the first, and more than that, Lucia overheard part of a telephone call of our father that, even if not giving new elements, confirmed the previous suspicion.
More or less the words she heard were these: "... no intention to see him again. But remember well, his name has not to appear anywhere, absolutely. Nobody has to have the slightest hint. Also with the personnel, use just his room number..."
It could be something different, but...
The second idea was that of the duchess. She went to meet a Franciscan father in whom she had great trust, and explained to him that she was afraid something bad was happening. Then asked him to inquire who was the Chaplain of the nursing home, and to see if he could discover anything. The good father willingly consented at once. He discovered that the Chaplain was the parson from the nearby village, so he went to see him and ask his help. The priest said he was surprised and unbelieving, but he promised he would prudently investigate.
The parson's answer was that he toured all the rooms of the patients, but that there was no young man of twenty-years. The priest, in fact, did not even suspect the existence of the room where I was kept and locked. But in the following week the parson called the Franciscan father telling him that he had noticed something strange. While he was talking with the cook in the kitchen, he saw she had prepared 18 trays with meals, but he knew and was sure that the patients were just 17. He noticed just by chance, just because he noticed that the trays on the wide kitchen table made a perfect rectangle of 6 on 3 trays... and 17 is a prime number. He said nothing to the cook, but he thought he had to tell the Franciscan father about this incongruence, and again promised that he would keep his eyes open.
Christmas came and I had been there for almost two months. I didn't yet have any idea of what to do, if not to free myself and escape, to least communicate with the outside world. Margherita came with her group for the Christmas party for the patients. I could not even guess she was so near. They held the party and distributed the presents, but they didn't notice anything strange, so they left.
The third clue my friends had, was the confirmation from the parson that he was sure the patients were only 17, but that again, two more times, he saw the kitchen prepare 18 trays. The old priest asked himself, if I was kept there, where would they keep me.
The duchess had another idea. She asked an agency to research the land and buildings registry office, and get the plans of all the floors of the villa of the nursing home. As soon as she had them in her hands, she sent her driver to take them to the parson, whom she asked to cross in colour all the rooms he was sure he knew about, and saw how were used. The parson willingly did it. A few places remained excluded - the storage rooms on the top floor, where also my room was, and the Vallauri family apartment. These two zones were also directly communicating through a short corridor....
"Well, if the poor boy is kept in this clinic, he must be in one of these two areas. Now we must find a way to enter there to control..." the duchess said.
Max proposed to set fire to the villa to make everybody evacuate, but of course the idea was rejected. I think he would have been ready to do it. In fact Max was more and more depressed and tense. When Margherita reminded him that I risked being a victim of any fire he stopped insisting. They discussed the different plans, adventurous and incredible, and rejected one after the other, mainly for the interventions of the lawyer.
"Until we are sure that the young De Turris is prisoner, we cannot proceed." the lawyer repeated constantly.
"Can't we find a way to provoke an inspection from the Public Health Office?" Margherita asked.
"It was a good idea. But how? We cannot just go to the PHO and ask them to carry out an inspection. They must have a good reason..." the lawyer objected.
The duchess smiled: "I could possibly do something. The Health Minister is a good friend of mine. I can ask him to order a random inspection at a certain number of private clinics, and ask him to include the Vallauri's one. I am almost sure he will grant me that..."
"Yes, but if the boy is kept in the doctor's apartment zone... the inspectors cannot enter into their private quarters." the lawyer said.
"It is true. But at least we can eliminate one possibility - if he is not in one of the clinic's rooms, he must be in the doctor's apartment." Margherita said.
The duchess shook her head: "No... I was thinking they can just and simply be able to move him, it is enough the have a friend in the Public Health Office, who will prevent them in time about the surprise inspection..."
They continued to discuss, and Max threw a new idea: "Tell me, mister lawyer, if we had the proof that Edoardo is kept there in the villa, we can ask the police to intervene, isn't it?"
"Certainly, but sound proof, not just vague suspicions."
"Well, and what if we 'make' sound proof?"
"Fake proof? What kind? If it is not true that the boy is being held prisoner there, we risk serious problems with the law. We cannot do such a thing."
"And if we forged proof that it was me being kept there against my will? Grandma can ask the police to intervene. And in the process of looking for me, they will found Edoardo."
"Yes, but if he really is there. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence, but... If we were sure he is really there, we have solved the problem. But if he is not there, they will ask why we accused them of detaining you, mister Faletti, and we will be in serious trouble - simulation of a crime, defamation, and more..."
Then Margherita intervened: "But if Edoardo is really there, besides the owner, at least some of the staff have to know about it, at least two or three more persons..."
"It is certainly so." the duchess answered.
"Cannot we try to bribe some of the staff, then?" Margherita asked.
"This works just in the movies, miss. In order to bribe someone you need several things - to know that the person is bribable, that the person can give us the information we need, and a lot of money..." the lawyer objected.
They seemed to be at a dead end. But...