Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
No.I had found nothing wrong with the words with which Ilda Boccassini had recalled, in her autobiography, her love for Giovanni Falcone.
All the more reason, I was excited and moved by the words with which Felice Cavallarothe journalist who for forty years has been telling Sicily to the community of Corriere della Serarecalls in his latest book (FrancescaSolferino) the figure of Francesca Morvillothe wife who accompanied Falcone in the latter part of his life.
Because a man, big or small, can have two loves, moreover at different times. And without love there is no life. There was a lot of life in that Palermo house in via Notarbartolo.
Cavallaro tells of candlelit dinners amidst folders from which the two magistrates never part.
When Falcone, meeting three journalists before moving to Rome, says he is not afraid «because my life is worth as much as a button on my jacket», Francesca stands up: «Are you crazy? Your life is everything to me. A button! ».
In Rome they experience a new dimension, often without guardsmen around. It is a warm evening in May, the couple without an escort in tow relaxes with a romantic dinner, carbonara and fresh red wine, in a restaurant in Campo De ‘Fiori.
“Francesca” by Felice Cavallaro (Solferino).
They toast to their next holiday in Favignana and Francesca marks the departure date on the agenda: May 23rd. They kiss on their way home alone. Francesca throws her arms around her neck. Then almost pressing a button on Falcone’s jacket, she hard and loving: “Our life is worth much more than a button.”
On 23 May, Giovanni and Francesca return to Palermo for their vacation. A vacation they won’t take. Because everything explodes and collapses in Capaci. In a succession of sirens and flashing lights, screams and alarms, the bodies of Francesca and Giovanni are poured into the destroyed car.
Agents Antonio Montinaro, Rocco Dicillo and Vito Schifani die. Francesca, still alive, is loaded into an ambulance. A nurse tries to clean the injured face with gauze. It seems to be no more. But his eyes, lost, open for an instant. Only time to whisper a question, an invocation: “Where is John?”.
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