Going away, even for a few days and not even far—from Medole to the Istrian town of Zacchigni, it’s a four-hour drive in the end—Nina had felt guilty. Of the invasion of the Ukraine and the forced emigration of compatriots who also landed in the Mantua areaWord had spread and they were asking about her: Nina Gryshak, 40, acted as a translator, organized logistics, collected food. However, those holidays in Croatia, organized with her boyfriend Marcello Passera, also from Medole – they had met in a bar at the time of an aperitif, a cheap aperitif based on beer and chips – seemed even obligatory. Nina, sweet Nina, I was tired: the anguish until the parents managed to leave the Ukraine arriving in Poland, the separation from her husband after not a short negotiation, the management of the two young daughters, the accounts to settle, not only the economic ones. And then Istria was one of his beloved places, in the geography of that low-cost tourism in the Adriatic of our immigrants, housewives and caretakers and masons and porters and dishwashers and waiters to the coast of Saranda, in Albania, a kind of of Salento from decades ago when Salento was not a brand.
Also Marcello, 30 years old, metallurgist, one that, will be said later, but was it really like that? —She fought in her life to start and continue relationships of friendship and love, every blessed relationship of friendship and love, she wanted to catch her breath. And then luggage, car, road, port. And the massacre.
the sequences
On the night of August 18, a Thursday, Marcello Passera massacred Nina Gryshak. with bare hands. Case resolved already in the immediate inspection by the Croatian police inside an anonymous house, on the first and last floor: the devastated body of the woman beaten on all sides by the fists, and the killer there, dazed, sweaty, knuckles bleeding, ready to be arrestedin fact, almost aspiring to be pulled from that devastating crime scene, he hadn’t even done it himself; and everywhere, no sign of forced entry, no mention of the (few) neighbors or strangers seen arriving that day or the days before, and no signs of theft, and no prints other than Passera’s, no obvious murder weapon. Nothing. Tracing the fury somehow to the scene of a witness who had sat in a restaurant in Umag near the couple, the night before the crime (“They drank instead of eating, they couldn’t stand”), means nothing. and yet less. Instead, there had been, and many, discussions. Perhaps you will limit yourself to screams, which, however, again mean nothing and even less. Otherwise. Flounder was swollen with rage, he posed an imminent threat. Who knows the true meaning, as soon as they found out about the tragedy, of the action of his mother and father, cohesive in refusing to seek a lawyer, much less to pay for the one chosen by the son: his business. End.
As if by killing Marcello Passera had also died.
Community
In the usual reserve of the Ukrainian community, in choosing to be there without being seen, both in Mantua and in other parts of the world, the prayers of Nina’s friends had outweighed the hateful phrases; from there, in Umag, the Croatian investigators, accustomed to spreading news grudgingly, had reported nothing “useful.” Assuming there was: as the mentioned case was closed immediately, the police had not assumed accomplicesIn the cadaveric inspection, the coroner had identified that geography of beatings and also, analyzing a corpse that was even unrecognizable in the autopsy, had isolated other injuries, perhaps caused by blunt objects and a kitchen knife, but neither the objects nor the knife were found. had been discovered.
From the town to the police station, from the police station to the jail, Passera had cried a lot and talked less, much less.and when speaking, with the help of an interpreter, perhaps believing that extenuating circumstances might turn out, he had repeated stories like this, that is, that it was not he, that unfortunate and violent night, who had gone overboard with the vodka, that Nina He didn’t want to transform that story into a definitive relationship that included shared housing, marriage, children… An agony had not been ruled out at all, the enraged murderer and the dying woman asking for mercy.
Perhaps late, either because he fell into a deep sleep or was hesitating out of fear, the owner of that nameless cottage, who resided on the ground floor, had gone up the stairs to reach the first floor and asked correctly, and passed the balcony, when she opened the door – she had knocked and knocked in vain – she had stopped quickly to avoid the objects on the floor. Dishes, furniture, overturned chairs, cups, clothes, in a long and confused trail of red. Perhaps Nina had promised to run away, or she had tried to reach out to the entrance while Passera was giving her orders; then that blocked her, hit her. “Do you know her well?” the officers had asked; and the lady, the owner of the apartment, had replied that she had known Nina for years, she came on vacation with her husband and her children, good people. Yes, the husband, the girls. The police had contacted the man for official recognition and the former her had responded by making an appointment for three days later: “I’m in Ukraine for commitments, I can’t.” It was the parents, from Poland, who came to Istria and then moved to Medole, four thousand inhabitants in the countryside.to manage the mourning of the granddaughters.
voluntary manslaughter
Research supplements had made it possible to collect rumors according to which since the beginning of the holidays the couple argued and raised their voices; more than one had dared to face them, because they disturbed sleep; the couple swore there would be no more trouble.
At Medole, Nina’s help to her compatriots was a sustained exercise with essentially no income.; They offered her money but she preferred to let it go, from her point of view she was still privileged. It wasn’t money that was the problem. Or rather: she offered herself in the village to clean, iron, cook, the money was used to send them to their parents, she was in charge of paying the compatriots in charge of the transfer to Poland, with the money sent she sent the savings so that the old people live decently. There are no saints, there are good people. For Passera, the accusation of voluntary manslaughter and imprisonment until the end.
