We publish a short extract from “Tell me what you see from there” (Solferino) dedicated to the figure of the great scholar who died in mysterious circumstances
I arrive in via Cadlolo, slipping into the silence of Monte Mario. At number 42 lived the man who became a ghost. He too slipped, in the apparent stillness, among the buildings ordered as in a model, in an April dawn of 1987. I imagine him confident in his movements, that old man then an ageless ghost, where the last darkness touches the first light. A fading similar to that of the past night, elusive, soft as his footsteps who hadn’t woken up their brother in the house. An escape from the impending triumph of the adversaries, an escape from the public scene after seventy-three years spent in the service of magnificently solid ideas, personal at the cost of being bold. So he had fought, along with men and women who looked to him as a guide.
His name is Federico Caffè. A teacher, a professor of economic and financial policy in Rome, at the faculty of economics. A mentor. A true intellectual. A shy and charming man, bright for the world even if the world was darkening for him.
He left behind him, on a shelf in the apartment he shared with his brother, his watch. He left time behind like a tool that is now useless. He also left behind him symbols of identity – the passport – and symbols of ownership and belonging: the keys to the house and the faculty, the checkbook.
April 3, 2022 (change April 3, 2022 | 10:03 pm)
© Time.News