by Peter Byrne
(Swans - April 24, 2006) It was 02:00 a.m. I watched the Italian election returns on TV. Eight or nine tired men sat around as if they'd just finished a poker game in a deadlock, all their craft wasted. Talk had dried up. A man on his feet seemed to be in charge. He stooped over loose sheets handed him from off camera. But he'd gone butterfingers over the hours. When he made a mistake, like confusing the Senate with the Lower House, he'd take his glasses out of his vest pocket and put them on for a moment. That corrected his error like an eraser.
Every so often, one of the haggard men would sit up straight and fire off a political judgment. It stunned the company for a second and then everybody jumped on it, all talking at the same time, nobody listening. The man on his feet looked relieved: the pundits still had that small gem-like flame in them. He stepped back, his glasses stowed, and encouraged the noise.
I missed the more formal election nights of northern latitudes with their wall maps as big as billboards that lit up in half a dozen colors as urgent numbers flowed in. A straight-faced anchor with a brush mustache always bobbed in front of them, sometimes wielding a pointing device, sometimes not. Invariably his cheeks throbbed with objectivity. He performed best when aided by a pair of those do-dads that revolved like glass eyes. They set their numbers in baby blue or Chinese red. Life still held joy if a carefree spin could end the career of a politician.
We jumped for more results to a round housewifely woman who was somewhere else. She seemed nice enough but couldn't help us out with the final count that would shut down the broadcast. That's when I dropped off.
In my dream there were results right off. Silvio Berlusconi had been swept right out of Italy, or rather down to his billionaire's compound on the island of Sardinia. A friend -- one who always turned her face away when Berlusconi appeared on the screen -- told me he was condemned down there to watch his own TV channels night and day forever. Another friend -- one who had always shied away from foreigners with shame when Berlusconi visited their country -- assured me that the ex-Premier had been stripped of his crass smile, elevator shoes, pancake make-up and hairpiece. His sentence was to look into a mirror.
Then more friends arrived to celebrate. They went through the full five-year repertory of Berlusconi -- inspired sneers, moues, curses, gasps of disbelief, twisted-lip disgust, the lot -- but as a joke, because the nightmare was over. Did I ever meet anyone who liked this guy? No one who admitted it, but I'd seen plenty of sycophants in his newspapers and on his TV channels.
When I woke the box was still droning. But it had perked up after the small hours and the results were displayed loud and clear. Clean sweep it was not. The Left coalition had edged out the Right by a mere percentage point or so in both houses of parliament. This meant that 49% of the voters in a particularly high turnout preferred Berlusconi.
Saul Bellow used to talk about reality lessons. This one dazed me. I stumbled out of doors on to the national crime scene. I was going to make Italians tell me why they'd changed their minds. I'd poll them. In the corner bar I spotted a likely average citizen. He shook his espresso around carefully, getting a current going that would dissolve the sugar. Was he thinking over his sneaky switch of parties? As I opened my mouth to speak, he downed his coffee with decision, gave me a pained smile, said buongiorno and took the door. That was one for the no-opinion column.
I saw another customer along the bar who was definitely average plus. He'd clearly given more thought to selecting his shirt for the day than to what he ate for breakfast. I began boldly.
- Are you happy over the election?
- No.
- Are you unhappy?
- No.
- Were you happy with the government of the last five years?
- No.
- Then you voted for the Left?
- No.
- You didn't want change?
- No.
- Did you watch the candidates debate on TV?
- No.
- So there are evenings you turn the TV off?
- No.
- You have no interest in politics at all?
- No.
- Do you think Berlusconi is a criminal?
- No.
- Do you think he's innocent of the cases against him before the courts?
- No.
- That wouldn't stop you from voting for him?
- No.
- Have you heard that he intends to form a People's Party?
- No.
- Would you join?
- No.
- You don't consider yourself one of the people?
- No.
- Doesn't it give you some pause for thought that Berlusconi is the richest man in Italy and owns a good part of the country?
- No.
- Doesn't the fact that he started his business career on Mafia money disturb you?
- No.
- Don't you find it strange that with a businessman in power for five years, business has been so bad in Italy?
- No.
- You weren't surprised when he said women had a special gift for staying home and out of the way?
- No.
- His opponent Romano Prodi is a Catholic. Did you wonder when Berlusconi insisted Prodi was in the line of Stalin, Lenin and Mao?
- No.
- Do you think that Berlusconi is the Mussolini of the European Union years?
- No.
- Do you approve of Mussolini?
- No.
- You condemn Mussolini?
- No.
- Did you believe Berlusconi when he told a priest he'd lay off sex till the election?
- No.
- Did you think it was a stupid thing to say?
- No.
- Were the Chinese right to be miffed when he said their grandfathers boiled babies for lunch?
- No.
- Berlusconi wasn't overstepping in telling a German official in the European Parliament to get a job as Kapo in a concentration camp?
- No.
- He said he suffered for Italy like Jesus and labored for it like Napoleon. Do you see Berlusconi more in one role than the other?
- No.
- When on the day after, he explains these enormities as irony, do you buy it?
- No.
- Do you know what irony is?
- No.
- Thank you. By the way, that's a sharp shirt you're wearing.
- You like it, do you?
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