The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  Pinuccia had a smug expression of agreement.

  Lila said, “He was right.”

  I became upset. “And he’s the one who ruined Melina.”

  Lila answered, with a laugh, “Or maybe he made her feel good for once.”

  That remark wounded me. I knew what Melina had endured, what her children endured. I also knew Lidia’s sufferings, and how Sarratore, behind his fine manners, hid a desire that respected nothing and no one. Nor had I forgotten that Lila, since she was a child, had witnessed the torments of the widow Cappuccio and how painful it had been for her. So what was this tone, what were those words—a signal to me? Did she want to say to me: you’re a girl, you don’t know anything about a woman’s needs? I abruptly changed my mind about the secrecy of my secrets. I wanted immediately to show that I was a woman like them and knew.

  “Nino gave me his address,” I said to Lila. “If you don’t mind, when Stefano and Rino come I’m going to see him.”

  Address. Go see him. Bold formulations. Lila narrowed her eyes, a sharp line crossed her forehead. Pinuccia had a malicious look, she touched Lila’s knee, she laughed: “You hear? Lenuccia has a date tomorrow. And she has the address.”

  I flushed.

  “Well, if you’re with your husbands, what am I supposed to do?”

  For a long moment there was only the noise of the engine and the mute presence of the sailor at the helm.

  Lila said coldly, “Keep Mamma company. I didn’t bring you here to have fun.”

  I restrained myself. We had had a week of freedom. That day, besides, both she and Pinuccia, on the beach, in the sun, during long swims, and thanks to the words that Sarratore knew how to use to inspire laughter and to charm, had forgotten themselves. Donato had made them feel like girl-women in the care of an unusual father, the rare father who doesn’t punish you but encourages you to express your desires without guilt. And now that the day was over I, in declaring that I would have a Sunday to myself with a university student—what was I doing, was I reminding them both that that week in which their condition as wives was suspended was over and that their husbands were about to reappear? Yes, I had overdone it. Cut out your tongue, I thought.

  45.

  The husbands, in fact, arrived early. They were expected Sunday morning, but they appeared Saturday evening, very excited, with Lambrettas that they had, I think, rented at the Ischia Port. Nunzia prepared a lavish dinner. There was talk of the neighborhood, of the stores, of how the new shoes were coming along. Rino was full of self-praise for the models that he was perfecting with his father, but at an opportune moment he thrust some sketches under Lila’s nose, and she examined them reluctantly, suggesting some modifications. Then we sat down at the table, and the two young men gorged themselves, competing to see who could eat more. It wasn’t even ten when they dragged their wives to the bedrooms.

  I helped Nunzia clear and wash the dishes. Then I shut myself in my room, I read a little. The heat in the closed room was suffocating, but I was afraid of the blotches I’d get from the mosquito bites, and I didn’t open the window. I tossed and turned in the bed, soaked with sweat: I thought of Lila, of how, slowly, she had yielded. Certainly, she didn’t show any particular affection for her husband; and the tenderness that I had sometimes seen in her gestures when they were engaged had disappeared. During dinner she had frequently commented with disgust at the way Stefano gobbled his food, the way he drank; but it was evident that some equilibrium, who knows how precarious, had been reached. When he, after some allusive remarks, headed toward the bedroom, Lila followed without delay, without saying go on, I’ll join you later; she was resigned to an inevitable routine. Between her and her husband there was not the carnival spirit displayed by Rino and Pinuccia, but there was no resistance, either. Deep into the night I heard the noise of the two couples, the laughter and the sighs, the doors opening, the water coming out of the tap, the whirlpool of the flush, the doors closing. Finally I fell asleep.

  On Sunday I had breakfast with Nunzia. I waited until ten for any of them to emerge; they didn’t, I went to the beach. I stayed until noon and no one came. I went back to the house, Nunzia told me that the two couples had gone for a tour of the island on the Lambrettas, advising us not to wait for them for lunch. In fact they returned around three, slightly drunk, sunburned, all four full of enthusiasm for Casamicciola, Lacco Ameno, Forio. The two girls had shining eyes and immediately glanced at me slyly.

  “Lenù,” Pinuccia almost shouted, “guess what happened.”

  “What.”

  “We met Nino on the beach,” Lila said.

  My heart stopped.

  “Oh.”

  “My goodness, he is really a good swimmer,” Pinuccia said excitedly, cutting the air with exaggerated arm strokes.

  And Rino: “He’s not unlikable: he was interested in how shoes are made.”

  And Stefano: “He has a friend named Soccavo and he’s the mortadella Soccavo: his father owns a sausage factory in San Giovanni a Teduccio.”

  And Rino again: “That guy’s got money.”

  And again Stefano: “Forget the student, Lenù, he doesn’t have a lira: aim for Soccavo, you’d be better off.”

  After a little more joking (Would you look at that, Lenuccia is about to be the richest of all, She seems like a good girl and yet), they withdrew again into the bedrooms.

  I was incredibly disappointed. They had met Nino, gone swimming with him, talked to him, and without me. I put on my best dress—the same one, the one I’d worn to the wedding, even though it was hot—I carefully combed my hair, which had become very blond in the sun, and told Nunzia I was going for a walk.

  I walked to Forio, uneasy because of the long, solitary distance, because of the heat, because of the uncertain result of my undertaking. I tracked down the address of Nino’s friend, I called several times from the street, fearful that he wouldn’t answer.

  “Nino, Nino.”

  He looked out.

  “Come up.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  I waited, I was afraid that he would treat me rudely. Instead he came out of the doorway with an unusually friendly expression. How disturbing his angular face was. And how pleasantly crushed I felt confronted by his long profile, his broad shoulders and narrow chest, that taut skin, the sole, dark covering of his thinness, merely bones, muscles, tendons. He said his friend would join us later; we walked through the center of Forio, amid the Sunday market stalls. He asked me about the bookstore on Mezzocannone. I told him that Lila had asked me to go with her on vacation and so I had quit. I didn’t mention the fact that she was giving me money, as if going with her were a job, as if I were her employee. I asked him about Nadia, he said only: “Everything’s fine.” “Do you write to each other?” “Yes.” “Every day?” “Every week.” That was our conversation, already we had nothing more of our selves to share. We don’t know anything about each other, I thought. Maybe I could ask how relations are with his father, but in what tone? And, besides, didn’t I see with my own eyes that they’re bad? Silence: I felt awkward.

  But he promptly shifted onto the only terrain that seemed to justify our meeting. He said that he was glad to see me, all he could talk about with his friend was soccer and exam subjects. He praised me. Professor Galiani perceived it, he said, you’re the only girl in the school who has any curiosity about things that aren’t useful for exams and grades. He started to speak about serious subjects, we resorted immediately to a fine, impassioned Italian in which we knew we excelled. He started off with the problem of violence. He mentioned a peace demonstration in Cortona and related it skillfully to the beatings that had taken place in a piazza in Turin. He said he wanted to understand more about the link between immigration and industry. I agreed, but what did I know about those things? Nothing. Nino realized it, and he told me in great detail about an uprising of young southerners and
the harshness with which the police had repressed them. “They call them napoli, they call them Moroccans, they call them Fascists, provocateurs, anarcho-syndicalists. But really they are boys whom no institution cares about, so neglected that when they get angry they destroy everything.” Searching for something to say that would please him, I ventured, “If you don’t have a solid knowledge of the problems and if you don’t find lasting solutions, then naturally violence breaks out. But the people who rebel aren’t to blame, it’s the ones who don’t know how to govern.” He gave me an admiring look, and said, “That’s exactly what I think.”

  I was really pleased. I felt encouraged and cautiously went on to some reflections on how to reconcile individuality and universality, drawing on Rousseau and other memories of the readings imposed by Professor Galiani. Then I asked, “Have you read Federico Chabod?”

  I mentioned that name because he was the author of the book on the idea of nationhood that I had read a few pages of. I didn’t know anything else, but at school I had learned to give the impression that I knew a lot. Have you read Federico Chabod? It was the only moment when Nino seemed to be annoyed. I realized that he didn’t know who Chabod was and from that I got an electrifying sensation of fullness. I began to summarize the little I had learned, but I quickly realized that to know, to compulsively display what he knew, was his point of strength and at the same time his weakness. He felt strong if he took the lead and weak if he lacked words. He darkened, in fact he stopped me almost immediately. He sidetracked the conversation, he started talking about the Regions, about how urgent it was to get them approved, about autonomy and decentralization, about economic planning on a regional basis, all things I had never heard a word about. No Chabod, then: I left him the field. And I liked to hear him talk, read the passion in his face. His eyes brightened when he was excited.

  We went on like that for at least an hour. Isolated from the shouting around us, its coarse dialect, we felt exclusive, he and I alone, with our vigilant Italian, with those conversations that mattered to us and no one else. What were we doing? A discussion? Practicing for future confrontations with people who had learned to use words as we had? An exchange of signals to prove to ourselves that such words were the basis of a long and fruitful friendship? A cultivated screen for sexual desire? I don’t know. I certainly had no particular passion for those subjects, for the real things and people they referred to. I had no training, no habit, only the usual desire not to make a bad showing. It was wonderful, though—that is certain. I felt the way I did at the end of the year when I saw the list of my grades and read: passed. But I also understood that there was no comparison with the exchanges I had had with Lila years earlier, which ignited my brain, and in the course of which we tore the words from each other’s mouth, creating an excitement that seemed like a storm of electrical charges. With Nino it was different. I felt that I had to pay attention to say what he wanted me to say, hiding from him both my ignorance and the few things that I knew and he didn’t. I did this, and felt proud that he was trusting me with his convictions. But now something else happened. Suddenly he said, That’s enough, grabbed my hand, exclaimed, like a fluorescent caption, Now I’ll take you to see a landscape that you’ll never forget, and dragged me to Piazza del Soccorso, without letting go, rather, he entwined his fingers in mine, so that, overwhelmed as I was by his clasp, I preserve no memory of the arc of the deep blue sea.

  It truly overwhelmed me. Once or twice he disentangled his fingers to smooth his hair, but he immediately took my hand again. I wondered for a moment how he reconciled that intimate gesture with his bond with Professor Galiani’s daughter. Maybe for him, I answered, it’s merely how he thinks of the friendship between male and female. But the kiss on Via Mezzocannone? That, too, was nothing, new customs, new habits of youth; and anyway so slight, just the briefest contact. I should be satisfied with the happiness of right now, the chance of this vacation that I wanted: later I’ll lose him, he’ll leave, he has a destiny that can in no way be mine, too.

  I was absorbed by these throbbing thoughts when I heard a roar behind me and noisy cries of my name. Rino and Stefano passed us at full speed on their Lambrettas, with their wives behind. They slowed down, turned back with a skillful maneuver. I let go of Nino’s hand.

  “And your friend?” Stefano asked, revving his engine.

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  “Say hello from me.”

  “Yes.”

  Rino asked, “Do you want to take Lenuccia for a spin?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, you see she’d like to.”

  Nino flushed, he said, “I don’t know how to ride a Lam­bretta.”

  “It’s easy, like a bicycle.”

  “I know, but it’s not for me.”

  Stefano laughed: “Rinù, he’s a guy who studies, forget it.”

  I had never seen him so lighthearted. Lila sat close against him, with both arms around his waist. She urged him, “Let’s go, if you don’t hurry you’ll miss the boat.”

  “Yes, let’s go,” cried Stefano, “tomorrow we have to work: not like you people who sit in the sun and go swimming. Bye, Lenù, bye, Nino, be good boys and girls.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rino said cordially.

  They went off, Lila waved goodbye to Nino, shouting, “Please, take her home.”

  She’s acting like my mother, I thought with a little annoyance, she’s playing grownup.

  Nino took me by the hand again and said, “Rino is nice, but why did Lina marry that moron?”

  46.

  A little later I also met his friend, Bruno Soccavo, who was around twenty, and very short, with a low forehead, black curly hair, a pleasant face but scarred by what must have been severe acne.

  They walked me home, beside the wine-colored sea of twilight. Nino didn’t take my hand again, even though Bruno left us practically alone: he went in front or lingered behind, as if he didn’t want to disturb us. Since Soccavo never said a word to me, I didn’t speak to him, either, his shyness made me shy. But when we parted, at the house, it was he who asked suddenly, “Will we meet tomorrow?” And Nino found out where we were going to the beach, he insisted on precise directions. I gave them.

  “Are you going in the morning or the afternoon?”

  “Morning and afternoon. Lina is supposed to swim a lot.”

  He promised they would come and see us.

  I ran happily up the stairs of the house, but as soon as I came in Pinuccia began to tease me.

  “Mamma,” she said to Nunzia during dinner, “Lenuccia’s going out with the poet’s son, a skinny fellow with long hair, who thinks he’s better than everybody.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “It’s very true, we saw you holding hands.”

  Nunzia didn’t understand the teasing and took the thing with the earnest gravity that characterized her.

  “What does Sarratore’s son do?”

  “University student.”

  “Then if you love each other you’ll have to wait.”

  “There’s nothing to wait for, Signora Nunzia, we’re only friends.”

  “But if, let’s say, you should happen to become engaged, he’ll have to finish his studies first, then he’ll have to find a job that’s worthy of him, and only when he’s found something will you be able to get married.”

  Here Lila interrupted, amused: “She’s telling you you’ll get moldy.”

  But Nunzia reproached her: “You mustn’t speak like that to Lenuccia.” And to console me she said that she had married Fernando at twenty-one, that she had had Rino at twenty-three. Then she turned to her daughter, and said, without malice, only to point out how things stood, “You, on the other hand, were married too young.” That comment infuriated Lila and she went to her room. When Pinuccia knocked on the door, to go in to sleep, she yelled not to bother her, �
�you have your room.” How in that atmosphere could I say: Nino and Bruno promised they’ll come and see me on the beach? I gave it up. If it happens, I thought, fine, and if it doesn’t why tell them. Nunzia, meanwhile, patiently invited her daughter-in-law into her bed, telling her not to be upset by her daughter’s nerves.

  The night wasn’t enough to soothe Lila. On Monday she got up in a worse mood than when she had gone to bed. It’s the absence of her husband, Nunzia said apologetically, but neither Pinuccia nor I believed it. I soon discovered that she was angry mainly at me. On the road to the beach she made me carry her bag, and once we were at the beach she sent me back twice, first to get her a scarf, then because she needed some nail scissors. When I gave signs of protest she nearly reminded me of the money she was giving me. She stopped in time, but not so that I didn’t understand: it was like when someone is about to hit you and then doesn’t.

  It was a very hot day; we stayed in the water. Lila practiced hard to keep afloat, and made me stand next to her so that I could hold her up if necessary. Yet her spitefulness continued. She kept reproaching me, she said that it was stupid to trust me: I didn’t even know how to swim, how could I teach her. She missed Sarratore’s talents as an instructor, she made me swear that the next day we would go back to the Maronti. Still, by trial and error, she made a lot of progress. She learned every movement instantly. Thanks to that ability she had learned to make shoes, to dexterously slice salami and provolone, to cheat on the weight. She was born like that, she could have learned the art of engraving merely by studying the gestures of a goldsmith, and then been able to work the gold better than he. Already she had stopped gasping for breath, and was forcing composure on every motion: it was as if she were drawing her body on the transparent surface of the sea. Long, slender arms and legs hit the water in a tranquil rhythm, without raising foam like Nino, without the ostentatious tension of Sarratore the father.