I can get a page and a half from Il Manifesto today. I can translate the rest of it tomorrow. Italiti tov m'od m'ivriti. Imparai l'italiano invece del francese--importava per tutto.
Mille grazie a SneakySnu per dirigere l'attenzione dei Kossachi alla stampa italiana per quel racconto.
I will have to defer to the real Italians for the story of her encounter with the Americans unless I can get it from La Repubblica or something. (mmm...calcio..) What I have here is at least very dramatic.
Translation begins on the flip.
I am still in the darkness. That of Friday has been the most dramatic day of my life. The days that I had been confiscated were so many. I had spoken only a little before with my kidnappers, for days they were saying that they would liberate me. So I lived hours of waiting. They talked about things of which I would understand the importance only afterwards. They talked about problems "tied to the transfers". I had learned to understand what air blew from the attitude of my two "guards", the two characters who had me in custody every day. One in particular, who showed attention to my every desire, was unbelievably self-confident. To really understand what was happening I provocatively asked him if he was satisfied because I was leaving or because I was staying. I remained amazed and satisfied when, it was the first time that it happened, he said to me , "I know only that you will leave, I don't know when". In confirmation that something new was happening at a certain point both of them came to my room, as if to comfort me, and to joke: "Congratulations", they told me, "you are leaving for Rome". For Rome, they have said exactly so.
I felt a strange sensation. Because this word immediately evoked liberation but also projected an emptiness inside me. I understood that this was the most difficult moment of the whole kidnapping and that if all that which I had lived until now was "certain", now an abyss of uncertainties opened itself, one heavier than the other. I changed my clothes. They returned: "We accompany you, and do not give signals of your presence together with us so that the Americans cannot intervene". It was the confirmation that I would not want to hear. It was the happiest moment and together, the most dangerous. If we met someone, which means some American soldiers, there would be an encounter at fire, my kidnappers were ready and would answer. I had to have eyes covered. Already I accustomed myself to a momentary blindness. Of what was happening outside I knew only that at Baghdad it had rained. The car went secure in a zone of swamps. There was the chauffeur besides the usual two confiscators. I immediately heard something that I would not wish to hear. A helicopter which was flying over,at a low height, exactly the zone where we had stopped. "Remain calm, now they will come to look for you...they will come to look for you in ten minutes". We had always talked in Arabic for all the time, and a little in French and a lot in a halting English. Even this time we talked so.
Then they descended. I remained in that condition of immobility and blindness. I had my eyes padded with cotton, covered by sunglasses. I was steady. I thought...what do I do? Do I begin to count the seconds that pass from here to another condition, that of freedom? I had just mentally nodded to a count when immediately a voice arrived to me, friendly to the ears: "Giuliana, Giuliana, I am Nicola, don't worry, I talked with Gabriele Polo, be calm, you are free".
He had the cotton "bandage" removed and the black glasses. I felt relief, not for what had happened and I did not understand, but for the words of this "Nicola". He talked, he talked, he was uncontainable, an avalanche of friendly sentences, of beats. I finally felt an almost physical consolation, warm, which I had forgotten for some time. The car continued its route, crossing an underpassage full of puddles, and almost swerving in order to avoid them. Unbelievably, we all laughed. It was liberating. To swerve in a street full of water in Baghdad and in spite of it have an ugly traffic accident after all that which had passed was...
End of Il Manifesto's free reporting.
Update [2005-3-6 13:8:9 by 4jkb4ia]: Brava La Repubblica! We've got more!
Here is Sgrena again:
Nicola Calipari was seated at my side. The driver had twice communicated to the embassy and in Italy that we were directed to the airport which I knew to be supercontrolled by the American troops, less than a kilometer was lacking, they said to me...when...I remember I am fire. At that point a rain of fire and bullets brought itself down upon us, silencing the amused voices of a few minutes ago. The driver began shouting that "We're Italians, we're Italians". Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me, and immediately, I repeat, immediately, I heard the last breath of him who died on me...
My mind went immediately to the words that my captors had said. They declared to feel until the base pledged to free me, however, I must pay attention because "there are Americans who do not want you to return". Then, when they had said it
to me, I had judged these words as superfluous and ideological. In that moment for me they risked acquiring the taste of a bitter truth. The rest I cannot tell yet...
Gilgamesh did have these two paragraphs. At least no typos.