“You should leave your wife more time.”
“She has all day available.”
“I’m not kidding. If you don’t, you’re guilty not only on a human level but also on a political one.”
“What’s the crime?”
“The waste of intelligence. A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women’s intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn’t realize it.”
I waited in silence for Pietro to respond. My husband reacted with sarcasm.
“Elena can cultivate her intelligence when and how she likes, the essential thing is that she not take time from me.”
“If she doesn’t take it from you, then who can she take it from?”
Pietro frowned.
“When the task we give ourselves has the urgency of passion, there’s nothing that can keep us from completing it.”
I felt wounded, I whispered with a false smile:
“My husband is saying that I have no true interest.”
Silence. Nino asked:
“And is that true?”
I answered in a rush that I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything. But while I was speaking, with embarrassment, with rage, I realized that my eyes were filled with tears. I lowered my gaze. That’s enough fritelle, I said to the children in a scarcely controlled voice, and Nino came to my aid, he exclaimed: I’ll eat just one more, Mamma also, Papa, too, and you can have two, but then that’s it. He called over the owner and said solemnly: I’ll be back here with these two young ladies in exactly thirty days and you’ll make us a mountain of these exquisite fritelle, all right?
Elsa asked: “When is a month, when is thirty days?”
And I, having managed to repress my tears, stared at Nino and said:
“Yes, when is a month, when is thirty days?”
We laughed—Dede more than us adults—at Elsa’s vague idea of time. Then Pietro tried to pay, but he discovered that Nino had already done it. He protested. He drove, I sat in the back between the two girls, who were half asleep. We took Nino to the hotel and all the way I listened to their slightly tipsy conversation. Once we were there Pietro, euphoric, said:
“It doesn’t make sense to throw away money: we have a guest room, next time you can come and stay with us, don’t stand on ceremony.”
Nino smiled:
“Less than an hour ago we said that Elena needs time, and now you want to burden her with my presence?”
I interrupted wearily: “It would be a pleasure for me, and also for Dede and Elsa.”
But as soon as we were alone I said to my husband:
“Before making certain invitations you might at least consult me.”
He started the car, looked at me in the rearview mirror, stammered:
“I thought it would please you.”
102.
Oh of course it pleased me, it pleased me greatly. But I also felt as if my body had the consistency of eggshell, and a slight pressure on my arm, on my forehead, on my stomach would be enough to break it and dig out all my secrets, in particular those which were secrets even to me. I avoided counting the days. I concentrated on the texts I was studying, but I did it as if Nino had commissioned that work and on his return would expect first-rate results. I wanted to tell him: I followed your advice, I kept going, here’s a draft, tell me what you think.
It was a good expedient. The thirty days of waiting went by too quickly. I forgot about Elisa, I never thought of Lila, I didn’t telephone Mariarosa. And I didn’t read the newspapers or watch television. I neglected the children and the house. Of arrests and clashes and assassinations and wars, in the permanent agon of Italy and the planet, only an echo reached me; I was scarcely aware of the heavy tensions of the electoral campaign. All I did was write, with great absorption. I racked my brains over a pile of old questions, until I had the impression that I had found, at least in writing, a definitive order. At times I was tempted to turn to Pietro. He was much smarter than me, he would surely save me from writing hasty or crude or stupid things. But I didn’t do it, I hated the moments when he intimidated me with his encyclopedic knowledge. I worked hard, I remember, especially on the first and second Biblical creations. I put them in order, taking the first as a sort of synthesis of the divine creative act, the second as a sort of more expansive account. I made up a lively story, without ever feeling imprudent. God—I wrote, more or less—creates man, Ish, in his image. He creates a masculine and a feminine version. How? First, with the dust of the earth, he forms Ish, and blows into his nostrils the breath of life. Then he makes Isha’h, the woman, from the already formed male material, material no longer raw but living, which he takes from Ish’s side, and immediately closes up the flesh. The result is that Ish can say: This thing is not, like the army of all that has been created, other than me, but is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones. God produced it from me. He made me fertile with the breath of life and extracted it from my body. I am Ish and she is Isha’h. In the word above all, in the word that names her, she derives from me. I am in the image of the divine spirit. I carry within me his Word. She is therefore a pure suffix applied to my verbal root, she can express herself only within my word.
And I went on like that and lived for days and days in a state of pleasurable intellectual overexcitement. My only pressure was to have a readable text in time. Every so often I was surprised at myself: I had the impression that striving for Nino’s approval made the writing easier, freed me.
But the month passed and he didn’t appear. At first it helped me: I had more time and managed to complete my work. Then I was alarmed, I asked Pietro. I discovered that they often talked in the office, but that he hadn’t heard from him for several days.
“You often talk?” I said annoyed.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?”
“That you often talked.”
“They were calls about work.”
“Well, since you’ve become so friendly, call and see if he’ll deign to tell us when he’s coming.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Not for you, but the effort is mine: I’m the one who has to take care of everything and I’d like to be warned in time.”
He didn’t call him. I responded by saying to myself: All right, let’s wait, Nino promised the girls he’d be back, I don’t think he’ll disappoint them. And it was true. He called a week late, in the evening. I answered, he seemed embarrassed. He uttered a few generalities, then he asked: Is Pietro not there? I was embarrassed in turn, I gave the phone to Pietro. They talked for a long time, I felt with increasing uneasiness that my husband was using unfamiliar tones: exclamations, laughter, his voice too loud. I understood only then that the relationship with Nino reassured him, made him feel less isolated, he forgot his troubles and worked more eagerly. I went into my study, where Dede was reading and Elsa playing, both waiting for dinner. But even there his voice reached me, he seemed drunk. Then he was silent, I heard his steps in the house. He peeked in, and said gaily to his daughters:
“Girls, tomorrow night we’re going to eat frittelle with uncle Nino.”
Dede and Elsa shouted with excitement, I asked:
“What’s he doing, is he coming to stay here?”
“No,” he answered, “he’s with his wife and son, they’re at the hotel.”
103.
It took me a long time to absorb the meaning of those words. I burst out:
“He could have warned us.”
“They decided at the last minute.”
“He’s a boor.”
“Elena, what is the problem?”
So Nino had come with his wife; I was terrified by the comparison. I knew what I was like, I knew the crude physicality of my body, but for a good part of my life I had given it little import
ance. I had grown up with one pair of shoes at a time, ugly dresses sewed by my mother, makeup only on rare occasions. In recent years I had begun to be interested in fashion, to educate my taste under Adele’s guidance, and now I enjoyed dressing up. But sometimes—especially when I had dressed not only to make a good impression in general but for a man—preparing myself (this was the word) seemed to me to have something ridiculous about it. All that struggle, all that time spent camouflaging myself when I could be doing something else. The colors that suited me, the ones that didn’t, the styles that made me look thinner, those that made me fatter, the cut that flattered me, the one that didn’t. A lengthy, costly preparation. Reducing myself to a table set for the sexual appetite of the male, to a well-cooked dish to make his mouth water. And then the anguish of not succeeding, of not seeming pretty, of not managing to conceal with skill the vulgarity of the flesh with its moods and odors and imperfections. But I had done it. I had done it also for Nino, recently. I had wanted to show him that I was different, that I had achieved a refinement of my own, that I was no longer the girl at Lila’s wedding, the student at the party of Professor Galiani’s children, and not even the inexperienced author of a single book, as I must have appeared in Milan. But now, enough. He had brought his wife and I was angry, it seemed to me a mean thing. I hated competing in looks with another woman, especially under the gaze of a man, and I suffered at the thought of finding myself in the same place with the beautiful girl I had seen in the photograph, it made me sick to my stomach. She would size me up, study every detail with the pride of a woman of Via Tasso taught since birth to attend to her body; then, at the end of the evening, alone with her husband, she would criticize me with cruel lucidity.
I hesitated for hours and finally decided that I would invent an excuse, my husband would go alone with the children. But the next day I couldn’t resist. I dressed, I undressed, I combed my hair, I uncombed it, I nagged Pietro. I went to his room constantly, now with one dress, now another, now with one hairdo, now another, and I asked him, tensely: How do I look? He gave me a distracted glance, he said: You look nice. I answered: And if I put on the blue dress? He agreed. But I put on the blue dress and I didn’t like it, it was tight across the hips. I went back to him, I said, It’s too tight. Pietro replied patiently Yes, the green one with the flowers looks better. But I didn’t want the green one with the flowers to simply look better, I wanted it to look great, and my earrings to look great, and my hair to look great, and my shoes to look great. In other words I couldn’t rely on Pietro, he looked at me without seeing me. And I felt more and more ungainly, too much bosom, too much ass, wide hips, and that dirty-blond hair, that big nose. I had the body of my mother, a graceless body, all I needed was for the sciatica to return and start limping. Nino’s wife, instead, was very young, beautiful, rich, and surely knew how to be in the world, as I would never manage to learn. So I returned a thousand times to my first decision: I won’t go, I’ll send Pietro with the children, I’ll have him say I don’t feel well. I did go. I put on a white shirt over a cheerful flowered skirt, the only jewel I wore was my mother’s old bracelet, in my purse I put the text I had written. I said who gives a damn about her, him, all of them.
104.
Because of all my hesitations we arrived late at the restaurant. The Sarratore family was already at the table. Nino introduced his wife, Eleonora, and my mood changed. Oh yes, she had a pretty face and beautiful black hair, just as in the photograph. But she was shorter than I, and I wasn’t very tall. She had no bosom, though she was plump. And she wore a bright-red dress that didn’t suit her at all. And she was wearing too much jewelry. And from the first words she spoke she revealed a shrill voice with the accent of a Neapolitan brought up by canasta players in a house with a picture window on the gulf. But mainly, in the course of the evening, she proved to be uneducated, even though she was studying law, and inclined to speak ill of everything and everyone with the air of one who feels she is swimming against the tide and is proud of it. Wealthy, in other words, capricious, vulgar. Even her pleasing features were constantly spoiled by an expression of irritation followed by a nervous laugh, ih ih ih, which broke up her conversation, even the individual sentences. She was irritated by Florence—What does it have that Naples doesn’t—by the restaurant—terrible—by the owner—rude—by whatever Pietro said—What nonsense—by the girls—My goodness, you talk so much, let’s have a little quiet, please—and naturally me—You studied in Pisa, but why, literature in Naples is much better, I’ve never heard of that novel of yours, when did it come out, eight years ago I was fourteen. She was sweet only with her son and with Nino. Albertino was sweet, round, with a happy expression, and Eleonora did nothing but praise him. The same happened with her husband: no one was better than he, she agreed with everything he said, and she touched him, hugged him, kissed him. What did that girl have in common with Lila, even with Silvia? Nothing. Why then had Nino married her?
I observed her all evening. He was nice to her, he let himself be hugged and kissed, he smiled at her affectionately when she said rude and foolish things, he played distractedly with the child. But he didn’t change his attitude toward my daughters, giving them a lot of attention; he continued to talk pleasantly to Pietro, and even spoke a few words to me. His wife—I wished to think—did not absorb him. Eleonora was one of the many pieces of his busy life, but had no influence on him, Nino went forward on his own path without attaching any importance to her. And so I felt increasingly at ease, especially when he held my wrist for a few seconds, and almost caressed it, showing that he recognized my bracelet; especially when he kidded my husband, asking him if he had left me a little more time for myself; especially when, right afterward, he asked if I had made progress with my work.
“I finished a first draft,” I said.
Nino turned to Pietro seriously: “Have you read it?”
“Elena never lets me read anything.”
“It’s you who don’t want to,” I replied, but without bitterness, as if it were a game between us.
Eleonora at that point interrupted, she didn’t want to be left out.
“What sort of thing is it?” she asked. But just as I was about to answer, her flighty mind carried her away and she asked me blithely: “Tomorrow will you take me to see the shops, while Nino works?”
I smiled with false cordiality and she began with a detailed list of things that she meant to buy. Only when we left the restaurant I managed to approach Nino and whisper:
“Do you feel like looking at what I’ve written?”
He looked at me with genuine amazement: “Would you really let me read it?”
“If it wouldn’t bore you, yes.”
I handed him my pages furtively, my heart pounding, as if I didn’t want Pietro, Eleonora, or the children to notice.
105.
I didn’t close my eyes. In the morning I resigned myself to the date with Eleonora; we were to meet at ten at the hotel. Don’t do the stupid thing—I ordered myself—of asking her if her husband began to read it: Nino is busy, it will take time; you mustn’t think about it, at least a week will go by.
But at precisely nine, when I was about to leave, the phone rang and it was him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m on my way to the library and I can’t telephone until tonight. Sure I’m not bothering you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I read it.”
“Already?”
“Yes, and it’s really excellent. You have a great capacity for research, an admirable rigor, and astonishing imagination. But what I envy most is your ability as a narrator. You’ve written something hard to define, I don’t know if it’s an essay or a story. But it’s extraordinary.”
“Is that a flaw?”
“What?”
“That it’s not classifiable.”
“Of course not, that’s one of its merits.”
&
nbsp; “You think I should publish it as it is?”
“Absolutely yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, now I have to go. Be patient with Eleonora, she seems aggressive but it’s only timidity. Tomorrow morning we return to Naples, but I’ll be back after the elections and if you want we can talk.”
“It would be a pleasure. Will you come and stay with us?”
“You’re sure I won’t bother you?”
“Not at all.”
“All right.”
He didn’t hang up, I heard him breathing.
“Elena.”
“Yes.”
“Lina, when we were children, dazzled us both.”
I felt an intense uneasiness.
“In what sense?”
“You ended up attributing to her capacities that are only yours.”
“And you?”
“I did worse. What I had seen in you, I then stupidly seemed to find in her.”
I was silent for several seconds. Why had he felt the need to bring up Lila, like that, on the telephone? And what was he saying to me? Was it merely compliments? Or was he trying to communicate to me that as a boy he would have loved me but that on Ischia he had attributed to one what belonged to the other?
“Come back soon,” I said.
106.
I went out with Eleonora and the three children in a state of such well-being that even if she had stuck a knife in me I would not have felt bad. Nino’s wife, besides, in the face of my euphoria and the many kindnesses I showed her, stopped being hostile, praised Dede and Elsa’s good behavior, confessed that she admired me. Her husband had told her everything about me, my studies, my success as a writer. But I’m a little jealous, she admitted, and not because you’re clever but because you’ve known him forever and I haven’t. She, too, would like to have met him as a girl, and know what he was like at ten, at fourteen, his voice before it changed, his laughter as a boy. Luckily I have Albertino, she said, he’s just like his father.
The Neapolitan Novels Page 112