FRIENDLY ENEMIES: DIALOGUE OF THE DEAF

Paunchy, silver-haired Antonio Perelli is a lawyer and an organizer for the Christian Democratic Party in Cosenza, a sun-drenched river town of 120,000 in the southern Italian region of Calabria. Brisk, wiry Fausto Gelsomino, a printer by trade, is an official of Cosenza's Communist Party. Friendly enemies, the two men have known each other for years, and last week they were among the 30,000 people who gathered at the Piazza Fera for a Communist campaign rally at which the featured speaker was Party Boss Enrico Berlinguer. Shortly afterward, Perelli and Gelsomino met at the intersection of Corso Mazzini and Via Manzoni. There they discussed the rally in a dialogue recorded by TIME'S Rome Bureau Chief Jordan Bonfante.

"Well, what did you think of Comrade Berlinguer's speech?" Gelsomino asked, his eyes still shining from the excitement of the event. "Fantastic, eh?"

"I didn't think it was so fantastic," Perelli answered dryly. "Disappointing, I'd say. How can a man of his obvious cultivation make a speech that's so obviously a campaign speech? First he screams that the Christian Democrats are nothing but a band of corrupt thieves --you heard him, didn't you?--and then he says he wants to join forces with us and form a government of unity. Even my son, who is 16 and has some leftist ideas, unfortunately, was disappointed. He thought it was all compromise and contradiction. Now he prefers the far-left Proletarian Democratic Party, or even the Christian Democrats. At least they are coherent, he says."

"Coherent!" snorted Gelsomino. "I suppose you saw what your man Fanfani said the other day at Grosseto: that the Christian Democrats may have been mistaken in not denying the Communists their freedom and not trying to outlaw the party. He's gone crazy."

Perelli shrugged. "Well, perhaps Fanfani does exaggerate a bit, and that sort of thing can be counterproductive. But the point is, who forced us to dust off Fanfani and made us go back to such conservative positions? You guys did. We wanted to avoid an early election."

"We wanted to avoid an early election too," Gelsomino protested.

"Yes, it was you," Perelli insisted.

"You let yourself get passed over by the Socialists. And so now what do you expect? We've got to defend ourselves. Suppose you are crossing the street and you get jumped. You're going to fall back on whoever's going to help you, aren't you? That's why Fanfani and Moro had to put on their armor. Of course, you fellows also have to defend yourselves, don't you? What about the Gruppuscoli [fringe groups] of the Proletarian Democrats? Aren't they stealing some of your votes on the left?"

"Well, a few among the young voters," admitted Gelsomino, a bit annoyed at his friend's needling. "You should know that youths are impatient. Some of them complain that our line is only reformist. But as Lenin said, 'Extreme militancy is an infantile quality.' Of course, you have your problems too. The bishops' declaration ordering people to toe the line is going to hurt you more than it will help you."

"Nonsense!" shouted Perelli. "I say there's going to be a strong recovery of the Christian Democrats in Calabria and in the country."

"And I say there's going to be a strong advance of the Communist Party," retorted Gelsomino.

As the two men started to leave, the Communist could not resist one last parting shot. "I suppose I should wish you a nice, fat, total defeat--except that it probably won't be an absolute defeat. You Christian Democrats still know how to grab votes with kilos of pasta and thousand-lira notes, don't you? Heh, heh."

"Heh, heh," answered Perelli. It was not exactly a laugh.

With that, they parted somewhat less amicably than they had met.

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