One year after his arrest, Ilaria Salis he recounts these 12 months in cell in a diary. Notes, memories, tears, hopes that Republic is able to publish. Waiting for that moment when she will “see the stars again”.
AFTER ONE YEAR WE ARE STILL HERE
It is a warm morning at the beginning of February: the air is almost spring-like and the sky is clear. On days like this, going for a walk in the fresh air can be a very healthy exercise. As you walk up and down your head sometimes begins to travel, far away, out of the cages, you risk taking flight and experiencing sensations that taste like freedom. Inebriated by this oxygen, while my soul floats suspended in mid-air, I concentrate on trying to remember and retain sensations that are now distant to me: the scent of grass, the light touch of a caress. Back in the cell, I pick up a stack of paperwork. They are notes, scattered memories, letters that I have never been able to send dating back to about a year ago, i.e. the days in which my descent into this underworld began. After a year I try to read, write, break down and piece together these materials.
February 11, 2023. Teve Utca. When the van stops in the police headquarters parking lot, the evening begins to envelop the buildings. “Antifa? Duce! Mussolini!” – this is the welcome I receive in the hall and they are also the last words I manage to understand before being overwhelmed by the Finno-Ugric Babel. In the office no one seems to care that I’m still handcuffed tightly behind my back, but on the other hand they keep repeating one word: “Anya? Anya?” and they stare at me as if they expected an answer from me. Who could imagine that in Hungarian “anya” means “mother” and that the mother’s name in Hungary is a fundamental element for identifying people like the date of birth?
Then the memories become agitated. Three days of detention and repeated movements: Cegléd and then back to Budapest. The court and they send me to jail. Really, ga-le-ra.
14 febbraio 2023. Nagy Ignac Street. The city, the buildings, the river, the sky…soon all this will disappear and another hellish and forgotten world will materialize before our eyes. The roar of the carriageway slowly opening
“For me we go to the painful city”
and we enter on foot. We stop for a long time in the entrance hall: the escort guards have to put down their weapons and the interpreters have to put their cell phones down. An overwhelming void invades me and time begins to expand. The gloomy and faded colours, the dim light, the stale air, the barking of the jailers, the entrance rituals: all this spectacle will remain imprinted with sinister hues inside me. I look at the eyes, the face of those who find themselves crossing the unfortunate threshold at my side: they are the mirror of my restlessness, of my confusion, of my fears.
The ritual of depositing personal objects is carried out and the wrists are finally free from the cold of the handcuffs. Through a courtyard where a large group of male prisoners stand, lined up as they wait to board a bus: their gazes are lost and empty and their bodies seem to sway like fragile leaves in the wind. Each step, which pushes me deeper into this tartar, is a step I would never like to take. The infirmary is in an almost ghostly darkness. They give me a mattress rolled up and tied with a sheet (I will later discover that this is the shape that the mattress will have to take during the numerous cell changes). We pause for a long time in a corridor, while the final rituals are carried out for each of us in the offices. The deafening scream of a siren marks the change of shift. The offices close and for interminable minutes we still stand motionless, at attention, in the corridor. Here too, as in the morning in court, guards are wandering around with their faces covered by balaclavas. I later discovered that there is a special penitentiary force here, wearing a paramilitary uniform and a black balaclava.
Finally I remain alone in that corridor and wait to be placed in a cell. Instead they take me to a courtyard and put handcuffs on me again. A van maneuvers and they say they have to transfer me to another prison about ten minutes away. It’s pitch dark, I’m exhausted and confused and it all seems absurd. You look like what you look like, I don’t have many options and I have to stay in that damn van.
Mid February 2023. Gyorskocsi utca. In the dark you can hardly see anything from that damned van, but after a short journey into the city we stop and we hear the sound of a carriageway opening. I breathe a sigh of relief: I’ve arrived. A few months later I will discover that the prison I am in is the same building as the court and that from there they took me to another prison across the river only to perform the entrance rituals, and then brought me back. I lose count of the flights of stairs, as I go up I wearily drag the rolled up mattress: it is not clear to me which circle of hell I have been destined for. Finally the door of a cell opens in front of me.
For days I understand absolutely nothing of what is happening around me. I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep all the time and when I try to eat something I vomit everything instantly. I dream a lot and they are truly engaging dreams: I am always free and around the mountains, seas and cities. Every time I wake up in my cot, I look around and find myself sadly coming to terms with reality: unfortunately it was just a dream! It also happens that, when I wake up from one of my wonderful dreams, there is a woman at the door holding a hammer with a long handle. I am dumbfounded when I remember a story I heard many years ago from a friend: in prisons the ancient custom of banging the bars once a day to check that they are intact is preserved. It takes me a while to understand that I have to leave the cell to let the ritual of the bars take place. Prison rules and customs are anything but natural and intuitive. I understand less than nothing about it and I don’t worry too much: it’s already complicated enough to survive.
When they open the cell door because I have to go somewhere, I go out and very naturally start wandering around the corridor. It takes me several days to understand and internalize that I have to stop next to the cell door facing the wall and be searched. Time passes in a very strange way: the days no longer pass, but the days follow one another quickly. I never have any idea what time it is and even the days are all the same, so there is a risk of confusion. Not having a pencil, in the first few days I made a small tear on a sheet of paper every morning. I look at myself in what should probably function as a mirror, but rather than reflecting the images, it actually deforms them, and I say to myself: “Courage, Ila! Always with your head held high and with a smile. And when you get out of here you will be stronger than before.”
In the following months I will work hard to honor this promise and grow day after day, preparing for the moment when I will finally “see the stars again”.