"You didn't intervene?"
"Obviously action was taken and, if nothing else, the result was that Piero never arrived with bruises again. What’s more, those brutes then made us pay with more boycotts. Other employees witnessed their mean behavior, but they would never testify in court against their colleagues. Piero had a steely character nonetheless, he went on doing his duty undaunted and always showed us the utmost respect. Then, after he graduated as a grade school teacher at eighteen, he had quit. He had reached his target of the diploma in good time, despite work and the additional effort of evening and night study: just like my father had, but he could get no pleasure from it because he was already dead. It was August when he resigned, the August of 1980. I remember it well because sho
