I met four angels - 12 april 2009
At the Brecciarola autogrill, the cashier recognizes me and not from the patches in my head (my friend the newsagent gave me a beautiful red cap): "But are you going to L'Aquila every day?". And how could I not go to my dying city. Also the man at the highway toll exit at Bussi "recognizes" me, "Sign here so you save the toll." One euro and 90 cents: it was just that, just a little time ago.
From Navelli, where the first tent camp is, my wife loses her speech. Astonished, she watches collapsed Castelnuovo, the other camp at the Barisciano junction, the disaster along the State road at the junction of Onna. For me, now, the landscape is well-known and digested. In the Martini area, a checkpoint of the Forestale stops us. I explain that I would like to get close to my house and I have an appointment with the fire brigade. A half lie, since I do have an appointment, in front of the church of Cristo Re, but with my neighbor, engineer Francesco, who has (had) his study above my apartment. I am convincing and they let me pass. We leave the car before Porta Napoli, which is half collapsed. Francesco, who is with his son, is on time. We embrace in a long silence. "Guess what, - he says to me - my mother is 90 years old today. But now back to work: let's go home. " We need to book at one of the service cars of the firefighters who are hyper-organized. A document is needed: in the queue before me someone does not have one and a carabiniere is trying to solve the problem. I am resigned to the wait, but much earlier than expected, my name is called: "De Nicolaaaa." It's me. I am assigned a four-men team of fire brigades from Saf Liguria. But maybe they are angels. We come to my gutted palace that is (was) in Via Cola dell'Amatrice, twenty meters from Via Sant'Andrea (a lateral street of Via XX Settembre) where two apartment buildings collapsed, through a passage that only engineer Francesco knows from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. All around is destruction and an absurd silence. A Silence of Death.
"Let me get in - I ask once we are in the courtyard of my building - I'll wear a helmet." "No way. We get in and see." The angels disappear behind the door. One is back, desolate: "Scavengers were here already - some drawers are on the bed." No, no: it was me, I threw them there the first day. "But how could you get in: it's a disaster there. It's a miracle that you could get out safely." I knew, I knew that I had risked too much for a wallet and a cell phone ... I call Camilla: Sweetheart, what can you possibly need? "Dad, my gym shoes and a pair of earrings on the bedside table." The other three brigaders come out with bedsheets, pillowcases and blankets full of stuff. They even opened the safe (Raffaella, with her usual foresight, had written the combination on a piece of paper for them). In a sack there are only women's footwear: "Madam, but how many shoes do you have?". Forget about it: she is (was) worse than Imelda Marcos. In another sack, where my hard disk is with all my archive, we notice the corner of a silver frame. Raffaella clutches it. Turns it. Bursts into tears: it's the picture of her sister Brunella, who died in 1993 at only 33 years of age: only an angel could reach out to take just that picture. The last of the team comes out with a pair of shoes and Camilla's earrings. They were angels, I was right. Thank you!