Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [111]
In an economy of limited options, debt is a moral and social stain from which redemption is all but impossible. The only recourse is to reliable friends, who do lend each other money for short periods without interest but in the expectation of reciprocation; this is especially liable to happen between small-scale merchants, and seems to occur with greater ease between women. A few men, especially those who see themselves as representing the culture of the old popular classes, also like to express their masculinity through their gracious consent to lend women, especially beautiful younger women, money without interest, in a spirit of gallantry. Loans between friends or close neighbors demand a high degree of mutual trust and esteem; indeed, the lender often proffers help precisely in order to gain a measure of social acceptance. One restaurateur who is locally regarded as something of a country bumpkin has found this a pleasant and effective way of compensating for his rustic ways in the eyes of his more urbane neighbors. In this way, he gains "a kind of intimacy, a kind of friendship." Loans actually create bonds between friends, but it is, remarked the same observer (a beneficiary of the restaurateur's desire for such relations, not without its social risks; she saw it as perhaps more typical of Naples than of Rome although it evidently subsists in both cities as "a solidarity that creates fear."
Friendship, in fact, is also the key metaphor for the relationship between usurer and debtor; this is an idiom that eases an almost imperceptible transition from social solidarity to vicious exploitation. A serious debt, especially one that the debtor may not be able to repay quickly, is likely to drive the debtor in search of ever more distant sources of financial help. This is when the usurers-local, but notorious for their ability to call on sinister outside forces-step in with their smiling protestations of a disinterested desire to help and their outrageous interest rates of up to 20 percent per month, their natty neckties and their insinuations of a friendship too useful to be refused but too dangerous to be defied. They often politely request small favors such as a gift of country produce. This reinforces the metaphor and pretense of disinterested friendship while reminding debtors that, in reality, defaulting is not an option-for these are people whose slightest request one can never refuse with impunity.
Every so often, the usurers' henchmen make an example of defaulters and welshers-those who have failed to pay up and those who have committed the ultimate solecism of reporting their distress and its sources to the authorities. The least violent response is the destruction of property, but it occasionally extends to an exemplary murder. For any large loan, moreover, usurers always cover themselves by making sure that the victim signs a promissory note; this not only ensures that they will be paid, but reinforces the usurers' good credit in the eyes of their banks.
Such stories of collusion grounded in fear and the hope of easy profit, frequently though they are voiced, are hard to verify. But quite recently such a ring, which also included a lawyer, was disbanded by the police.22 The shopkeeper who told me of being saved by the arrival of a police car also recounted seeing his tormentor engaging in affable relations with the entire staff of a local bank: "he was greatly respected," he remarked, evoking the language of underworld ethics. Even so, it is not entirely this direct collusion to which Monticiani allude when they say that the banks are the worst usurers-far worse than the loan sharks themselves. Nor are they simply expressing a conventional preference