by Alaric DeArment
When Amadeo and Raffaele returned home about an hour after the press conference, still wearing their black armbands, Amadeo ranted at Raffaele, who simply nodded and said “Sai, sai, sai.”
“What happened, some kind of disaster?” I asked, getting up to greet them.
“Yes, the publishers of several newspapers and relatives of Signoria members have died in car accidents, from heart attacks, and so on. A terrible tragedy,” Amadeo responded, his mouth the only thing on his face that moved as he looked me in the eye.
Raffaele made us all Lavachia and sodas, but I sat and quietly sipped on mine as he and Amadeo argued heatedly in Italian and Dalmatian. Raffaele called a taxi and returned home after having three of them.
The next morning, Raffaele and Ginevra were in the living room with Amadeo, looking miffed while discussing articles over espressos in several newspapers spread out on the coffee table. I leaned over the sofa.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The newspapers don’t like me,” Amadeo replied. “These reporters who make lies.”
“It’s not surprising,” Raffaele groaned.
I asked how we planned to handle the situation.
“Take them to court,” Amadeo replied.
I laughed. “That’s a good joke.”
“It’s not a joke,” Ginevra insisted. “Raffaele already filed the paperwork.”
“Not easy to spread lies if you’re bankrupt,” Raffaele smirked as he sipped his coffee, while Amadeo looked up at me, raising his eyebrows knowingly.
#
Amadeo decided that on Monday night, he would stage a rally at the end of the Stradun, for which I was also to prepare a short speech about the freedom of the press and democracy where I was from and how it would show the way forward for the great Republic of Stagno.
Upon our arrival, and before we ascended the stage, I saw Amadeo pull out a vial of the black pellets, wrapped in paper. He unfolded the paper, which bore a sigil like I saw in his ritual, running his hand over it with his eyes closed and silently muttering to himself before furtively swallowing one of the pellets.
As a crime reporter, I was familiar with the kinds of substance abuse problems people in my field sometimes developed, so I understood the needs Amadeo had and indeed noticed he seemed to feel more confident whenever he took a pellet.
Thousands filled the Stradun, which was lined with spotlights that shot straight into the sky, while more on the buildings pointed diagonally inward, forming what looked like a cathedral of light and giving a sense of warmth in the chilly night. The stage on which we stood – I and the other ministers in Signoria suits, the bishop in his mitre and robes, and Amadeo in the full Rector’s regalia, a giant Stagnese flag behind us – formed the cathedral’s altar.
I shuddered and looked away for a moment when I saw in front of us a line of Palazzo de 20.VIII.1623 guards with their halberds and Conquistador-like morion helmets, facing the crowd.
The crowd erupted in deafening cheers and applause as Amadeo raised his arms and smiled beatifically from behind the podium, stage lights illuminating him from below and a flaming brazier next to him.
He began his speech by holding up a newspaper and making a sarcastic remark, which the crowd booed. His speech became a tirade, the crowd cheering again as he ripped up one newspaper after another and tossed them into the brazier, spitting venom as he spoke their names like they were the names of criminals. “Il Corriere Stagnese! I Tempi di Ragusa!”
He pointed at the adjacent press pen, the reporters worriedly glancing and whispering at each other as they wrote in their notebooks and held out tape reporters while abuse poured from the demonic contortions of the faces in the crowd.
Contortions and hatred quickly reverted to smiles and cheers again as Amadeo began speaking in a more conciliatory tone, Ginevra sounding surprised as she leaned over and told me that he was saying he would “very soon” allow the people to elect a new Signoria.
I realized then that what he had said about bringing democracy to Stagno was not just empty words, but that he actually meant it. For all the horror of the coup he carried out, perhaps that was indeed a price to pay for something better.
Perhaps wary of the crowd getting out of hand, Amadeo said that instead of resorting to violence, the crowd should teach the newspapers a lesson by boycotting them and also boycotting their advertisers. The crowd erupted in cheers again, this time chanting, “Lunga vita ad Amadeo!”
As the chants died down, Amadeo introduced me as un vero giornalista and stood aside as I went behind the podium. I glanced at the reporters, who had been visibly shaken but now looked at me with suspicion, even scorn.
Ginevra stood beside me and translated as I spoke about freedom of the press and the First Amendment, and how high-quality journalism had even brought down corrupt leaders, which I compared with the old Rector and the Signoria, drawing applause from the crowd and a look of relief from the reporters. I was about to go into some detail about American political leaders forced to resign over charges of corruption when Amadeo abruptly came up grinning and shook my hand before pushing me away and continuing with his speech.
I didn’t understand Amadeo’s speech, of course, as it was in Italian and Dalmatian, but it was still moving. His gesticulations, his bellowing tone, the way the crowd, looking like parishioners in a church of electricity, shifted seamlessly from happiness to anger to tears and to happiness again as he spoke. Whatever the purpose of the ritual I had witnessed two nights before, he needed no magic to bewitch them.
“Don’t do that again. It is sensitive time, you know,” Amadeo, now back in casual clothing, snapped as we drove home. I looked at him startled, not knowing what he was talking about.
“The thing you say about journalism bringing down government. Don’t talk about that,” he grumbled. “I should have you show me your speech before.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered.
He shook his head and waved his hand in forgiveness. “Next time, careful.”
I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts before turning toward him and telling him he also needed to be careful about directing the public’s anger toward reporters who were merely doing their jobs, and suggested that he focus on the positive aspects of his leadership.
“We are giving the people freedom,” he retorted, raising his hand toward his chest with gesture like he wished to grasp his own heart, his brow in a furrow of conviction. “That means they make mistakes, no?”
