Bayard gives him a slap. “What? That’s not very Communist! Come on, let’s go.”
And in the hot Bologna night a little troop sets off toward the old university. From a distance, the procession looks a bit like a Fellini film, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s La Dolce Vita or La Strada.
12:07 a.m.
Outside the entrance of the Archiginnasio is a small crowd and a bouncer who looks like all bouncers except that he wears Gucci sunglasses, a Prada watch, a Versace suit, and an Armani tie.
The man in gloves speaks to the bouncer, flanked by Simon and Bayard. He says: “Siamo qui per il Logos Club. Il codice è fifty cents.”
The bouncer, suspicious, asks: “Quanti siete?”
The man in gloves turns around and counts: “Uh … Dodici.”
The bouncer suppresses a smirk and says that won’t be possible.
So Enzo moves forward and says: “Ascolta amico, alcuni di noi sono venuti da lontano per la riunione di stasera. Alcuni di noi sono venuti dalla Francia, capisci?”
The bouncer doesn’t bat an eyelid. He does not seem overly impressed by the notion of a French branch of the Logos Club.
“Rischi di provocare un incidente diplomatico. Tra di noi ci sono persone di rango elevato.”
The bouncer gives the group the once-over and says all he sees is a bunch of losers. He says: “Basta!”
Enzo does not give up: “Sei cattolico?” The bouncer lifts up his sunglasses. “Dovresti sapere che l’abito non fa il Monaco. Che diresti tu di qualcuno che per ignoranza chiudesse la sua porta al Messia? Como lo giudicheresti?” How would he judge the man who, in ignorance, closed the door to Christ?
The bouncer pulls a face. Enzo can tell he’s on the fence. The man spends several seconds considering the matter, thinks about the rumor of the Great Protagoras arriving incognito, then, finally, points to the twelve of them: “Va bene. Voi dodici, venite.”
The group enters the palace and climbs a stone staircase decorated with coats of arms. The man in gloves leads them to the Teatro Anatomico. Simon asks him why the code word fifty cents? He explains that, in Latin, the initials of the Logos Club signify 50 and 100. Like that, it’s easy to remember.
They enter a magnificent room constructed entirely in wood, designed as a circular amphitheater, decorated with wooden statues of famous anatomists and doctors, with a white marble slab at its center where corpses used to be dissected. At the back of the room, two statues of flayed men, both in wood, support a tray holding a statue of a woman in a thick dress that Bayard supposes to be an allegory of medicine but who if she had her eyes blindfolded could also be justice incarnate.
The tiered seating is already mostly full; the judges preside beneath the flayed men; a vague murmur of conversation fills the room as the spectators continue to arrive. Bianca, excited, tugs at Simon’s sleeve: “Look! It’s Antonioni! Have you seen L’Avventura? It is so magnifico! Oh, he came with Monica Vitti! Che bella! And look over there, that man on the jury, the one in the middle? That’s ‘Bifo,’ the head of Radio Alice, an independent station that’s really popular in Bologna. It was his programs that sparked the civil war, three years ago, and he’s the one who introduced us to Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault. And look there! That’s Paolo Fabbri and Omar Calabrese, two of Eco’s colleagues, they’re semioticians like him, and they’re really famous too. And there! Verdiglione. Another semiotician, but he’s a psychoanalyst too. And there! That’s Romano Prodi, a former minister of industry, ditchi of course. What’s he doing here? Does he still believe in the historic compromise, quel buffone?”
Bayard says to Simon: “And there, look.” He points out Luciano, sitting on the benches with his old mother, chin resting on a crutch, smoking a cigarette. And, at the other end of the room, the three young guys in scarves who shot at him. All of them are acting as if nothing happened. The young guys don’t seem too worried. What a strange country, thinks Bayard.
It is gone midnight. The session begins: a voice rings out. It’s Bifo who speaks first, the man from Radio Alice who set Bologna ablaze in ’77. He quotes a Petrarch canzone that Machiavelli used in the conclusion of The Prince: “Vertú contra furore / prenderà l’arme, et fia ’l combatter corto: / ché l’antico valore / ne gli italici cor’ non è ancor morto.”
Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,
And it i’ th’ combat soon shall put to flight:
For the old Roman valor is not dead,
Nor in th’ Italians’ breasts extinguished.
Bianca’s eyes flame blackly. The man in gloves sticks out his chest, fists on hips. Enzo puts his arm around the waist of the young student he picked up at the Drogheria. Stefano whistles enthusiastically. The melody of a patriotic anthem rises inside the circular amphitheater. Bayard is searching the dark recesses for someone, but he doesn’t know who. Simon does not notice the man with the bag from the Drogheria amid the audience because he is absorbed by Bianca’s copper skin and the sight of her quivering breasts afforded by her low neckline.
Bifo draws the first subject, a line by Gramsci that Bianca translates for them:
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
Simon thinks about this phrase. Bayard scans the room indifferently. He observes Luciano with his crutch and his mother. He observes Antonioni and Monica Vitti. He does not see Sollers and BHL hidden in a nook. In his head, Simon problematizes: “precisely” what? His mind syllogizes: we are in crisis. We are blocked. The Giscards govern the world. Enzo kisses his student on the mouth. What to do?
The two candidates stand either side of the dissecting table, below the audience, as at the center of an arena. Standing, it is easier for them to turn around and address the whole room.
Surrounded by all the wood of the anatomical theater, the marble table glows supernaturally white.
Behind Bifo, framing the pulpit (a real pulpit, as in a church) that is usually reserved for the professor, the flayed men stand watch, guardians of an imaginary door.
The first candidate—a young man with an Apulian accent, open-shirted, big silver belt buckle—begins.
If the dominant class has lost consentement—in other words if it is no longer dirigeante but merely dominante and the only power it holds is of coercition—this signifies precisely that the great masses are detached from traditional ideologies, that they no longer believe in what they believed before …
Bifo looks around the room. His gaze lingers for a moment on Bianca.
And it is precisely this interregnum that encourages the birth of what Gramsci calls a great variety of morbid symptoms.
Bayard watches Bifo watching Bianca. In the shadows, Sollers points out Bayard to BHL. In order to pass incognito, BHL is wearing a black shirt.
The young duelist rotates slowly, declaiming to the whole room. We know exactly what morbid phenomenon Gramsci was alluding to. Don’t we? It is the same one that menaces us today. He leaves a pause. He shouts: “Fascismo!”
By leading his audience to conjure the idea before he pronounces the word, it is as if, at this instant, he delivers the thought of all his listeners telepathically, creating a sort of collective mental communion by the power of suggestion. The idea of fascism crosses the room like a silent wave. The young duelist has at least achieved one essential objective: setting the agenda of the debate. And, into the bargain, dramatizing it as intensely as possible: the fascist danger, the still fertile womb, etc.
The man with the bag holds it tight against his knees.