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By Root 630 0

have meant social disintegration. The offer of "a miserable forty million," as one of them described it, seemed insulting. They turned the bank's offer down flat. Paolo recalled that the employee with whom they dealt, after first acting with complete arrogance, calmed down, and, like his colleague, admitted that he had lived in the historic center himself and understood the value of sentimental attachment. But this sympathetic comment could not reverse new changes resulting from legislation just enacted in parliament, as a result of which their troubles picked up speed and intensity.

Under the new legislation the bank made a judicial request for an intervention by public force (forza pubblica)-a request that would, in other words, have allowed the police to be brought in, using force if necessary to evict the tenants. The request was rejected. Then, on 4 March 1995, the bank appealed for police intervention, and the residents were officially notified. "This was when our drama began" (In quel momento not entrammo nel dramma~. Their lawyer warned them that they could now be forcibly evicted but that there was still an opportunity to leave with some measure of financial compensation and perhaps new housing. They refused: "we are not 'redskins' (pellirossi~ to be moved around at will, they declared, nor are we 'postal packages' (pacchi postall) for distribution!"

To English-speaking readers, the "redskins" metaphor may suggest the influence of the tenants' neofascist patrons, but this kind of language is still quite common even in relatively enlightened circles in Italy and did not necessarily carry political implications of that kind. In fact, the rhetoric seems to have been effective; the pretore rejected the request for a forcible removal and the residents felt that "for practical purposes we had won." For the moment they were still able to rely on the older legislation; the bank had failed to produce evidence that it needed the building for some urgent purpose, whereas the tenants could argue that they found it necessary to remain together as a group.

But the bank kept up the pressure. It could afford to be patient, since evidently whatever profit it hoped to make from the eviction and subsequent reuse or sale of the building would far outweigh the minor financial loss caused by the delay. Its managers had numerous contacts within the police and refused to yield to what had seemed a final and authoritative statement from the police chief. Again, it had failed to reckon with the residents' determination.

Matters began to take a turn for the worse, however, when the police chief was replaced and his successor paid closer attention to the laws on squatting that had just been enacted in the national parliament. Here, too, we see the real beginnings of the residents' sense of having been betrayed by the left-wing establishment to which some of them had hitherto been loyal. The Alleanza nazionale was not slow to seize the opportunity.

From this point on matters became ever more tense. The tenants would receive notice of an impending eviction; the bailiff (ufficiale giudiziario) and the bank's lawyer would arrive, the former jocose and sympathetic, the latter studiously correct; the politicians-usually those of the Alleanza nazionale, occasionally a local consigliere comunale of the reigning centerleft coalition with special responsibilities for housing issues-would gather; phone calls would be made; the prefect of police would announce that he did not have enough officers at his disposal that day; and the crowd would disperse, the tension gradually ebbing away, and the residents returned to their apartments and to a continuing but ever more tenuous hold on their residential rights. After a couple of near-misses, the bailiff even allowed as how he would never agree to serve an eviction notice on the old lady in her nineties. But he kept the tone light as well; when he heard that the police had demanded to speak with Paolo and Loredana "in private" (in privato), he remarked that one only did that with one's wife! His constant