Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [162]
Polite forms of dissimulation are indeed essential in all such complex social transactions; that they are instantly recognizable for what they are only makes them more effective, since no one would wish to challenge a system of conventions that protects all concerned. An itinerant vendor explained how, at the various markets he frequents, some officers leave their car parked with its doors open; preceded by an implicitly menacing demand to inspect his documents, this suggestive move is implicitly interpreted as an invitation to deposit some new underwear and socks (but never money) on the seat. The system is a convenience in that all know the rules, explained the vendor: "Look, it's all done, and we're off and running!" In his view the tax police, though also respectful of the unspoken rules, are more demanding and their stratagems correspondingly more elaborate. When pressuring the vendor to pay him a heavy bribe, for example, one officer insisted that it be wrapped in a particular newspaper. He yielded to the pressure, he complained, "out of fear that they'd find [my unreported income], because they do find [such things]"; few citizens are in a legal position to resist. On the other hand, people generally assume that officials prefer to ignore petty illegality because, by putting more people out of work, they would simply magnify existing problems. The alleged kickback of 12,ooo lire for each undocumented foreign worker, for example, not only protects the immigrant and saves the authorities from the embarrassments of having an arrest legally overturned, but also allows the local employer to stave off bankruptcy for a relatively small consideration.
Many merchants prefer to pay bribes than go to all the trouble involved in hiring a tax accountant ~commercialista) and finding their way through the maze of complex legislation and bureaucratic procedure. In the same way, even the street cleaners on one of the large commercial avenues bordering the district expect a bribe of io,ooo lire per week simply to do their job; the probable consequences of a huge pile of garbage blocking the entranceway are too horrific for any business proprietor to hesitate for long. This does not happen on the residential streets because the balance between immediate necessity and the possibility of registering a complaint is quite different there.
Official rules, it is understood, are intended to be broken, or are used to benefit the citizen in practical ways from which complicit officials can also benefit. Strict legality may be irrelevant; a man who had arranged for the decoration of his newly acquired apartment, with all necessary permits duly acquired, suddenly found himself entertaining a visit from two vigili who would clearly be able to find some minor problem allowing them to halt the entire redecoration if he did not pay them off. What matters is less whether the citizen has broken any laws than that the officers almost always have greater authority to describe the situation in terms that will result in punitive fines.
But citizens are often as wily as the bureaucrats who harass them. City laws require bars to keep their toilets available for all passers-by regardless of whether they are customers; bar owners circumvent this by hanging a notice saying "Out of order" ~Guasto) on the door, safe in the knowledge that regulars will understand the stratagem while strangers will indeed be discouraged from trying to use the facilities. During the summer months, when shops are supposed to maintain a rotation system so that one of each kind stays open in each section, a bar owner who simply wanted to take a vacation put up a notice announcing that he was ill. Locals understood this stratagem too. The vigili are the most local of police, and they and the citizens under their care understand