The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  I said weakly: Let’s go and eat. But right afterward I said to Nino, politely making light of it, and to get him to stop goading Pietro by bringing up his family: Stop it, what do you mean, informer. Then I alluded vaguely to the fact that some time ago Pasquale Peluso, maybe he remembered him, from the neighborhood, a good kid who had ended up getting together with Nadia, he remembered her, naturally, Professor Galiani’s daughter. And there I stopped because Nino was already laughing. He exclaimed: Nadia, oh good Lord, Nadia, and he turned again to Pietro, even more mockingly: only you and a couple of idiot police could think that Nadia Galiani is part of the armed struggle, it’s madness. Nadia, the best and nicest person I’ve ever known, what have we come to in Italy, let’s go and eat, come on, the defense of the established order can do without you for now. And he went to the table, calling Dede and Elsa, as I began to serve, sure that Pietro was about to join us.

  But he didn’t. I thought he had gone to wash his hands, that he was delaying in order to calm down, and I sat in my place. I was agitated, I would have liked a nice calm evening, a quiet ending to that shared life. But he didn’t come, the children were already eating. Now even Nino seemed bewildered.

  “Start,” I said, “it’s getting cold.”

  “Only if you eat, too.”

  I hesitated. Maybe I should go and see how my husband was, what he was doing, if he had calmed down. But I didn’t want to, I was annoyed by his behavior. Why hadn’t he kept to himself that visit from the police, usually he did with everything of his, he never told me anything. Why had he spoken like that in Nino’s presence: Don’t ever again bring to this house people from your home. What urgency was there to make that subject public, he could wait, he could have an outburst later, once we were in the bedroom. He was angry with me, that was the point. He wanted to ruin the evening for me, he didn’t care what I did or what I wanted.

  I began to eat. The four of us ate, first course, second, and even the dessert I had made. Pietro didn’t appear. At that point I became furious. Pietro didn’t want to eat? All right, he didn’t have to eat, evidently he wasn’t hungry. He wanted to mind his own business? Very well, the house was big, without him there would be no tension. Anyway, now it was clear that the problem was not simply that two people who had once showed up at our house were suspected of being part of an armed gang. The problem was that he didn’t have a sufficiently quick intelligence, that he didn’t know how to sustain the skirmishes of men, that he suffered from it and was angry with me. But what do I care about you and your pettiness. I’ll clean up later, I said aloud, as if I were issuing an order to myself, to my confusion. Then I turned on the television and sat on the sofa with Nino and the girls.

  A long time passed, filled with tension. I felt that Nino was uneasy and yet amused. I’m going to call Papa, said Dede, who, with her stomach full, was now worried about Pietro. Go, I said. She came back almost on tiptoe, she whispered in my ear: He went to bed, he’s sleeping. Nino heard her anyway, he said:

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Did you finish your work?”

  “No.”

  “Stay a little longer.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Pietro is a good person.”

  “You defend him?”

  Defend him from what, from whom? I didn’t understand, I was on the point of getting mad at him, too.

  110.

  The children fell asleep in front of the television, I put them to bed. When I came back Nino wasn’t there, he had gone to his room. Depressed, I cleaned up, washed the dishes. How foolish to ask him to stay longer, it would be better if he left. On the other hand, how to endure the dreariness of life without him. I would have liked him at least to leave with the promise that sooner or later he would return. I wished that he would sleep again in my house, have breakfast with me in the morning and eat at the same table in the evening, that he would talk about this and that in his playful tone, that he would listen to me when I wanted to give shape to an idea, that he would be respectful of my every sentence, that with me he would never resort to irony, to sarcasm. Yet I had to admit that if the situation had so quickly deteriorated, making our living together impossible, it was his fault. Pietro was attached to him. It gave him pleasure to see him around, the friendship that had arisen was important to him. Why had Nino felt the need to hurt him, to humiliate him, to take away his authority? I took off my makeup, I washed, I put on my nightgown. I locked the house door, I turned off the gas, I lowered all the blinds. I checked on the children. I hoped that Pietro wasn’t pretending to sleep, that he wasn’t waiting for me in order to quarrel. I looked at his night table, he had taken a sleeping pill, he had collapsed. It made me feel tender toward him, I kissed him on the cheek. What an unpredictable person: extremely intelligent and stupid, sensitive and dull, courageous and cowardly, highly educated and ignorant, well brought up and rude. A failed Airota, he had stumbled on the path. Could Nino, so sure of himself, so determined, have gotten him going again, helped him improve? Again I asked myself why that nascent friendship had changed to hostility in one direction. And this time it seemed to me that I understood. Nino wanted to help me see my husband for what he really was. He was convinced that I had an idealized image that I had submitted to on both the emotional and the intellectual level. He had wanted to reveal to me the lack of substance behind this very young professor, the author of a thesis that had become a highly regarded book, the scholar who had been working for a long time on a new publication that was to secure his reputation. It was as if in these last days he had done nothing but scold me: You live with a dull man, you’ve had two children with a nobody. His project was to liberate me by disparaging him, restore me to myself by demolishing him. But in doing so did he realize that he had proposed himself, like it or not, as an alternative model of virility?

  That question made me angry. Nino had been reckless. He had thrown confusion into a situation that for me constituted the only possible equilibrium. Why sow disorder without even consulting me? Who had asked him to open my eyes, to save me? From what had he deduced that I needed it? Did he think he could do what he wanted with my life as a couple, with my responsibility as a mother? To what end? What did he think he was driving at? It’s he—I said to myself—who ought to clarify his ideas. Doesn’t our friendship interest him? The holidays are close. I’ll go to Viareggio, he said he’s going to Capri to his in-laws’ house. Must we wait until the end of the vacations to see each other again? And why? Now, during the summer, it would be possible to consolidate the relation between our families. I could telephone Eleonora, invite her, her husband, the child to spend a few days with us in Viareggio. And I would like to be invited, in turn, to Capri, where I’ve never been, with Dede, Elsa, and Pietro. But if that doesn’t happen, why not write each other, exchange ideas, titles of books, talk about our work?

  I couldn’t quiet myself. Nino was wrong. If he really was attached to me, he had to take everything back to the starting point. He had to regain the liking and friendship of Pietro, my husband asked nothing else. Did he really think he was doing me good by causing those tensions? No, no, I had to talk to him, tell him it was foolish to treat Pietro that way. I got out of bed cautiously, I left the room. I went down the hall barefoot, knocked on Nino’s door. I waited a moment, I went in. The room was dark.

  “You’ve decided,” I heard him say.

  I was startled, I didn’t ask decided what. I knew only that he was right, I had decided. I quickly took off my nightgown, I lay down beside him in spite of the heat.

  111.

  I returned to my bed around four in the morning. My husband started, he murmured in his sleep: What’s happening? I said in a peremptory way: Sleep, and he became quiet. I was stunned. I was happy about what had happened, but no matter how great an effort I made I couldn’t comprehend it inside of my situation, inside of what I was in that house, in Florence. It seemed to me that
everything between Nino and me had been sealed in the neighborhood, when his parents were moving and Melina was throwing things out the window and yelling, racked by suffering; or on Ischia, when we went for a walk and held hands; or the night in Milan, after the meeting in the bookstore, when he had defended me against the fierce critic. That for a while gave me a sense of irresponsibility, maybe even of innocence, as if the friend of Lila, the wife of Pietro, the mother of Dede and Elsa had nothing to do with the child-girl-woman who loved Nino and finally had made love with him. I felt the trace of his hands and his kisses in every part of my body. The craving for pleasure wouldn’t be soothed, the thoughts were: the day is far off, what am I doing here, I’ll go back to him, again.

  Then I fell asleep. I opened my eyes suddenly, the room was light. What had I done? Here, in my own house, how foolish. Now Pietro would wake up. Now the children would wake up. I had to make breakfast. Nino would say goodbye, he would return to Naples to his wife and child. I would become myself again.

  I got up, took a long shower, dried my hair, carefully put on my makeup, chose a nice dress, as if I were going out. Oh, of course, Nino and I had sworn in the middle of the night that we would never lose each other, that we would find a way to continue to love each other. But how, and when? Why should he have to look for me again? Everything that could happen between us had happened, the rest was only complications. Enough, I set the table carefully for breakfast. I wanted to leave him with a beautiful image of that permanence, the house, the customary objects, me.

  Pietro appeared disheveled, in his pajamas.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.”

  He looked at me in bewilderment—I never dressed that carefully as soon as I got up.

  “You look nice.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  He went to the window, looked out, then muttered:

  “I was very tired, last night.”

  “Also very rude.”

  “I’ll apologize to him.”

  “You should apologize to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s leaving today.”

  Dede appeared, barefoot. I went to get her slippers and woke Elsa, who, as usual, her eyes still closed, covered me with kisses. What a good smell she had, how soft she was. Yes, I said to myself, it happened. Fortunately, it could never happen. But now I had to discipline myself. Telephone Mariarosa to find out about France, talk to Adele, go in person to the publishers to find out what they intend to do with my book, if they are thinking about it seriously or just want to please my mother-in-law. Then I heard noises in the hall. It was Nino, I was overwhelmed by the signs of his presence, he was here, for a short time still. I disentangled myself from the child’s hug, I said: sorry, Elsa, Mamma will be right back, and I hurried out.

  Nino was coming sleepily out of his room, I pushed him into the bathroom, I closed the door. We kissed each other, again I lost awareness of place and time. I was amazed at how much I wanted him: I was good at hiding things from myself. We embraced with a fury that I had never known, as if our bodies were crashing against each other with the intention of breaking. So pleasure was this: breaking, mixing, no longer knowing what was mine and what was his. Even if Pietro had appeared, if the children had looked in, they would have been unable to recognize us. I whispered in his mouth:

  “Stay longer.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then come back, swear you’ll come back.”

  “Yes.”

  “And call me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me you won’t forget me, tell me you won’t leave me, tell me you love me.”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “Swear that it’s not a lie.”

  “I swear.”

  112.

  He left an hour later, even though Pietro sullenly insisted that he stay, even though Dede burst into tears. My husband went to wash, and reappeared soon afterward ready to go out. Looking down he said: I didn’t tell the police that Pasquale and Nadia were in our house; and I did it not to protect you but because I think dissent now is being confused with crime. I didn’t understand right away what he was talking about. Pasquale and Nadia had completely vanished from my mind, and they had a hard time re-entering. Pietro waited for a few seconds in silence. Maybe he wanted me to show that I agreed with his observation, and wished to face this day of heat and exams knowing that we were close again, that for once, at least, we thought in the same way. But I merely gave him a distracted nod. What did I care anymore about his political opinions, about Pasquale and Nadia, about the death of Ulrike Meinhof, the birth of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the electoral advances of the Communist Party? The world had retreated. I felt sunk inside myself, inside my flesh, which seemed to me not only the sole dwelling possible but also the only material for which it was worthwhile to struggle. It was a relief when he, the witness to order and disorder, closed the door behind him. I couldn’t bear to be under his gaze, I feared that lips raw from kissing, the night’s weariness, the body hypersensitive, as if burned, all would suddenly become visible.

  As soon as I was alone, the certainty returned that I would never again see or hear from Nino. And along with it was another certainty: I could no longer live with Pietro, it seemed intolerable that we should continue to sleep in the same bed. What to do? I’ll leave him, I thought. I’ll go away with the children. But what procedure should I follow, do I simply leave? I knew nothing about separations and divorces, what was the practical part, how much time did it take to be free again. And I knew no couple who had taken that path. What happened to the children? How did one agree about their maintenance? Could I take the children to another city, for example Naples? And then why Naples, why not Milan? If I leave Pietro, I said to myself, I’ll sooner or later need a job. Times are hard, the economy is bad, and Milan is the right place, there’s the publisher. But Dede and Elsa? Their relations with their father? Must I stay in Florence, then? Never, ever. Better Milan, Pietro could come and see his daughters whenever he could and wanted to. Yes. And yet my head led me to Naples. Not to the neighborhood, I would not return there. I imagined going to live in the dazzling Naples where I had never lived, near Nino’s house, on Via Tasso. See him from the window when he was going to and from the university, meet him on the street, speak to him every day. Without disturbing him. Without causing trouble to his family, rather, intensifying my friendship with Eleonora. That nearness would be enough. In Naples, then, not Milan. Besides, Milan, if I were separated from Pietro, would no longer be so hospitable. My relations with Mariarosa would cool, and also with Adele. Not cut off, no, they were civilized people, but, still, they were Pietro’s mother and sister, even if they didn’t have much respect for him. Not to mention Guido, the father. No, certainly I would no longer be able to count on the Airotas in the same way, maybe not even on the publishing house. Help could come only from Nino. He had strong friendships everywhere, certainly he would find a way to support me. Unless my being close made his wife nervous, made him nervous. For him I was a married woman who lived in Florence with her family. Far from Naples, therefore, and not free. To break up my marriage in a rush, run after him, go and live right near him—really. He would think me mad; I would look like a silly woman, out of her mind, the type of woman, dependent on a man, who horrified Mariarosa’s friends. And, above all, not suitable for him. He had loved many women, he went from one bed to the next, he sowed children carelessly, he considered marriage a necessary convention but one that couldn’t keep desires in a cage. I would make myself ridiculous. I had done without so many things in my life, I could do without Nino as well. I would go my own way with my daughters.

  But the telephone rang and I hurried to answer. It was him, in the background I could hear a loudspeaker, noise, confusion, it was hard to hear
the voice. He had just arrived in Naples, he was calling from the station. Only a hello, he said, I wanted to know how you are. Fine, I said. What are you doing? I’m about to eat with the children. Is Pietro there? No. Did you like making love with me? Yes. A lot? Really a lot. I don’t have any more phone tokens. Go, goodbye, thanks for calling. We’ll talk again. Whenever you like. I was pleased with myself, with my self-control. I kept him at a proper distance, I said to myself, to a polite phone call I responded politely. But three hours later he called again, again from a public telephone. He was nervous. Why are you so cold? I’m not cold. This morning you insisted that I say I loved you and I said it, even if on principle I don’t say it to anyone, not even to my wife. I’m glad. And do you love me? Yes. Tonight you’ll sleep with him? Who should I sleep with? I can’t bear it. Don’t you sleep with your wife? It’s not the same thing. Why? I don’t care about Eleonora. Then come back here. How can I? Leave her. And then? He began to call obsessively. I loved those phone calls, especially when we said goodbye and I had no idea when we would talk again, but then he called back half an hour later, sometimes even ten minutes later, and began to rave, he asked if I had made love with Pietro since we had been together, I said no, he made me swear, I swore, I asked if he had made love to his wife, he shouted no, I insisted that he swear, and oath followed oath, and so many promises, above all the solemn promise to stay home, to be findable. He wanted me to wait for his phone calls, so that if by chance I went out—I had to, to do the shopping—he let the telephone ring and ring in the emptiness, he let it ring until I returned and dropped the children, dropped the bags, didn’t even close the door to the stairs, ran to answer. I found him desperate at the other end: I thought you would never answer me again. Then he added, relieved: but I would have telephoned forever, in your absence I would have loved the sound of the telephone, that sound in the void, it seemed the only thing that remained to me. And he recalled our night in detail—do you remember this, do you remember that—he recalled it constantly. He listed everything he wanted to do with me, not only sex: a walk, a journey, go to the movies, a restaurant, talk to me about the work he was doing, listen to how it was going with my book. Then I lost control. I whispered yes yes yes, everything, everything you want, and I cried to him: I’m about to go on vacation, in a week I’ll be at the sea with the children and Pietro, as if it were a deportation. And he: Eleonora is going to Capri in three days, as soon as she leaves I’ll come to Florence, even just for an hour. Meanwhile Elsa looked at me, she asked: Mamma, who are you talking to all the time, come and play. One day Dede said: Leave her alone, she’s talking to her boyfriend.