Andrea and I took it for granted that that evening, one way or another, we would go to Capotondo, about four kilometers away, where our friends from Naples had their country house. Andrea didn’t have a driver’s license, only a learner’s permit, and he swore to Mom that he would take the car together with a licensed friend to go to Capotondo. The friend, of course, didn’t exist, and in the afternoon, as soon as the sultry heat had passed, we got in the car and, pulling the ignition lever beside the seat, set off. Coming out of the gate of our house onto the state road, we turned left onto the long curve that finally continues in a short straight toward the sea and turns right in front of the Autostello, the first seafront hotel in San Menaio, from the 1930s, as old as the railway. From there the state road becomes the seafront road, running parallel to the railway, which separates it from the beach on the right. About halfway along the seafront, with a tight S-bend interrupted by a level crossing, the road crosses over the railway, continuing alongside it and running close to the beach. We passed the beach hut of the Lido Centrale and the bar opposite it. Shortly after, just outside the town, we left the state road, turning onto a narrow private lane that, after crossing the railway again at an unguarded crossing, climbed with hairpin bends through olive trees and pine woods. And here we were, at last, in Capotondo.
On the way back, by now late, we headed home by the light of the headlights. Down the hairpin bends and carefully across the railway, we were back on the state road. We entered San Menaio with the long row of streetlights that poorly lit the road; there wasn’t a living soul, but there, at that time of year and at that hour, it’s always like that. As we went on, a light seemed to come from the bar window, perhaps still open. Getting closer, I saw a figure coming out of the bar, and a car was parked opposite, across the road. Andrea was driving slowly. Going on, the reflectors of the uniform and the car became clear. A carabiniere stepped out in front of us with a bright red signal paddle. Panic, adrenaline, terror, all in a moment. I wasn’t risking anything, but Andrea, as far as I was concerned, was done for.
“Go,” I told him quietly, “Go and don’t speed up!”.
In short, we acted as if nothing were happening and drove past him. After about fifty meters I turned to look: there was no one, and the light from the bar was getting farther and farther away; the parked car with its lights off was still there. And yet it hadn’t all been a dream, and I kept looking back.
We were almost at the level crossing of the double bend halfway along the seafront when, by now very far away, I saw two figures come out of the bar and run toward the car. We took the S-bend and I couldn’t see anything anymore.
“Floor it! floor it!” I shouted desperately to an Andrea who had gone ashen. The plan, for me, was simple. We had a big head start, and the important thing was that the gate of the house at the end of the curve had been left open: once inside the garden with the car, we’d be safe.
We went at full throttle, as far as a Fiat 500 L allowed, and when we were at the Autostello bend, they were already emerging from the S-bend at the level crossing. At the end of the last straight we were about to take the curve before the house when they appeared at the Autostello. We’d never make it.
Halfway along the curve a little lane branches off, ending a bit farther on in a field where we used to play as children. I don’t remember who made that last decision, but by now we had no way out. Andrea turned into the lane and, after a few meters, switched off the lights and the engine, and we crouched down in our seats.
The carabinieri sped past behind us at full speed and, in less than a breath, not seeing us at the end of the road where we should have been, they slammed on the brakes with screeching tires and reversed. Panic exploded. Andrea restarted and drove off with the lights off into the dark. They were right on us. The road, as we knew, ended there. Andrea stopped, and so did they, flooding us with light.
A wonderful, sweet, tender, interesting and cultured evening had turned in an instant into a nightmare, like in a film. And we were the bad guys.
All four of us immediately got out of the cars; they with their submachine guns pointed, I with my hands well raised, standing stock still beside the car door. Andrea, on the other hand, running toward the headlights and the guns, dived to the ground hugging the boots of the nearest carabiniere, in cathartic tears, begging for forgiveness and mercy.
Whether it was Andrea’s unusual reaction or his almost magical ability to always get away with it, our sincerity and our age, the fact is that, after turning around, they followed us for the two hundred meters separating us from home.
I remember Mom, late at night, on the terrace, in a long white dressing gown, who, after hearing in brief from the carabinieri what had happened, with what little strength she had began to rain slaps and kicks on us, which we did not dodge. And that’s how the matter ended.
During the checks, at the far end of the field, amid tears, fear and shame, I remember one of them, trying to look me in the eye, saying: “We risk our lives for idiots like you”.
They surely broke some regulation, given how it ended, but in hindsight I want to say loud and clear that their humanity and level-headedness were superb. In America, and in many other parts of the world, they would have shot at us from the very start of the curve.

Today, that seafront road bears Andrea’s name.”