“LA tua compagna e morta” — your comrade is dead — said Fabio in wind-up mode. Fabio’s vinoteca doubles as a coffee shop until noon and is conveniently situated on the route of my morning passeggiata.
“Quale compagno?” I asked. “Barbara Balzerani,” he said knowing it would get a rise from me.
The novelist Barbara Balzerani died last week, March 4. In her younger years, she was head of the Rome column of the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) and was in the team that, on March 16 1978, along with her then-partner Mario Morretti, kidnapped the Christian Democrat president Aldo Moro, killing five police and carabinieri bodyguards in the process.
The Moro affair is, to this day, the subject of much speculation as to the motives of the main actors, the shadowy forces behind each of the protagonists and the role of foreign and domestic intelligence services.
