Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

by Elena Ferrante

  “No.”

  “Are you regular?”

  “In what?”

  “Menstruation.”

  “No.”

  “When did you last have a period?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t keep track?”

  “Should I keep track?”

  “It’s better. Do you use contraceptives?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Condoms, coil, the Pill.”

  “What Pill?”

  “A new medicine: you take it and you can’t get pregnant.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Absolutely true. Your husband has never used a condom?”

  “I don’t have a husband anymore.”

  “He left you?”

  “I left him.”

  “When you were together did he use one?”

  “I don’t even know how a condom is made.”

  “Do you have a regular sex life?”

  “What’s the use of talking about these things?”

  “If you don’t want to we won’t.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Armando put his instruments back in the case, sat down on a half-broken chair, sighed.

  “You should slow down, Lina: you’ve pushed your body too far.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re undernourished, anxious, you’ve seriously neglected yourself.”

  “And so?”

  “You have a little catarrh, I’ll give you a syrup.”

  “And so?”

  “You should have a series of tests, your liver is a little enlarged.”

  “I don’t have time for tests, give me some medicine.”

  Armando shook his head discontentedly.

  “Listen,” he said. “I understand that with you it’s better not to beat around the bush: you have a murmur.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A problem with the heart, and it could be something that’s not benign.”

  Lila made a grimace of anxiety.

  “What do you mean? I might die?”

  He smiled and said:

  “No, only you should get checked by a cardiologist. Come see me in the hospital tomorrow, and I’ll send you to someone good.”

  Lila furrowed her brow, got up, said coldly: “I have a lot to do tomorrow, I’m going to see Soccavo.”

  42.

  Pasquale’s worried tone exasperated her. As he was driving home he asked her:

  “What did Armando say, how are you?”

  “Fine, I should eat more.”

  “You see, you don’t take care of yourself.”

  Lila burst out: “Pasquà, you’re not my father, you’re not my brother, you’re no one. Leave me alone, get it?”

  “I can’t be worried about you?”

  “No, and be careful what you do and say, especially with Enzo. If you tell him I was ill—and it’s not true, I was only dizzy—you risk ruining our friendship.”

  “Take two sick days and don’t go to Soccavo: Capone advised you against it and the committee advised against it, it’s a matter of political expediency.”

  “I don’t give a damn about political expediency: you’re the one who got me in trouble and now I’ll do as I like.”

  She didn’t invite him to come in and he went away angry. Once at home, Lila cuddled Gennaro, made dinner, waited for Enzo. Now it seemed to her that she was constantly short of breath. Since Enzo was late, she fed Gennaro; she was afraid it was one of those evenings when he was seeing women and would return in the middle of the night. When the child spilled a glass of water, the caresses stopped, and she yelled at him as if he were an adult, in dialect: Will you hold still a moment, I’ll hit you, why do you want to ruin my life?

  Just then Enzo returned, and she tried to be nice. They ate, but Lila had the impression that the food was struggling to get to her stomach, that it was scratching her chest. As soon as Gennaro fell asleep, they turned to the installments of the Zurich course, but Enzo soon got tired, and tried, politely, to go to bed. His attempts were vain, Lila kept going until it was late, she was afraid of shutting herself in her room, she feared that as soon as she was alone in the dark the symptoms she hadn’t admitted to Armando would appear, all together, and kill her. He asked her softly:

  “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You come and go with Pasquale, why, what secrets do you have?”

  “It’s things to do with the union, he made me join and now I have to take care of them.”

  Enzo looked disheartened, and she asked:

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Pasquale told me what you’re doing in the factory. You told him and you told the people on the committee. Why am I the only one who doesn’t deserve to know?”

  Lila became agitated, she got up, she went to the bathroom. Pasquale hadn’t held out. What had he told? Only about the union seed that she wanted to plant at Soccavo or also about Gino, about her not feeling well at Via dei Tribunali? He hadn’t been able to stay silent—friendship between men had its unwritten but inviolable pacts, not like that between women. She flushed the toilet, returned to Enzo and said:

  “Pasquale is a spy.”

  “Pasquale is a friend. Whereas you, what are you?”

  His tone hurt, she gave in unexpectedly, suddenly. Her eyes filled with tears and she tried in vain to push them back, humiliated by her own weakness.

  “I don’t want to make more trouble for you than I already have,” she sobbed, “I’m afraid you’ll send me away.” Then she blew her nose and added in a whisper: “Can I sleep with you?”

  Enzo stared at her, in disbelief.

  “Sleep how?”

  “However you want.”

  “And do you want it?”

  Lila gazed at the water pitcher in the middle of the table, with its comical rooster’s head: Gennaro liked it. She whispered:

  “The crucial thing is for you to hold me close.”

  Enzo shook his head unhappily.

  “You don’t want me.”

  “I want you, but I don’t feel anything.”

  “You don’t feel anything for me?”

  “What do you mean, I love you, and every night I wish you would call me and hold me close. But beyond that I don’t want anything.”

  Enzo turned pale, his handsome face was contorted as if by an intolerable grief, and he observed:

  “I disgust you.”

  “No, no, no, let’s do what you want, right away, I’m ready.”

  He had a desolate smile, and was silent for a while. Then he couldn’t bear her anxiety, he muttered: “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Each in our own room?”

  “No, in my bed.”

  Lila, relieved, went to get undressed. She put on her nightgown, went to him trembling with cold. He was already in bed.

  “I’ll go here?”

  “All right.”

  She slid under the covers, rested her head on his shoulder, put an arm around his chest. Enzo remained motionless; she felt immediately that he gave off a violent heat.

  “My feet are cold,” she whispered, “can I put them near yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I caress you a little?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Slowly the cold disappeared. The pain in her chest dissolved, she forgot the grip on her throat, she gave in to the respite of his warmth.

  “Can I sleep?” she asked, dazed by weariness.

  “Sleep.”

  43.

  At dawn she started: her body reminded her that she had to wake up. Immediately, the terrible thoughts arrived, all very clear: her sick heart, Gennaro’s regressions
, the fascists from the neighborhood, Nadia’s self-importance, Pasquale’s untrustworthiness, the list of demands. Only afterward did she realize that she had slept with Enzo, but that he was no longer in the bed. She rose quickly, in time to hear the door closing. Had he arisen as soon as she fell asleep? Had he been awake all night? Had he slept in the other room with the child? Or had he fallen asleep with her, forgetting every desire? Certainly he had had breakfast alone and had left the table set for her and Gennaro. He had gone to work, without a word, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  Lila, too, after taking her son to the neighbor, hurried to the factory.

  “So did you make up your mind?” Edo asked, a little sulkily.

  “I’ll make up my mind when I like,” Lila answered, returning to her old tone of voice.

  “We’re a committee, you have to inform us.”

  “Did you circulate the list?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do the others say?”

  “Silence means consent.”

  “No,” she said, “silence means they’re shitting in their pants.”

  Capone was right, also Nadia and Armando. It was a weak initiative, a forced effort. Lila worked at cutting the meat furiously, she had a desire to hurt and be hurt. To jab her hand with the knife, let it slip, now, from the dead flesh to her own living flesh. To shout, hurl herself at the others, make them all pay for her inability to find an equilibrium. Ah, Lina Cerullo, you are beyond correction. Why did you make that list? You don’t want to be exploited? You want to improve your condition and the condition of these people? You’re convinced that you, and they, starting from here, from what you are now, will join the victorious march of the proletariat of the whole world? No way. March to become what? Now and forever workers? Workers who slave from morning to night but are empowered? Nonsense. Hot air to sweeten the pill of toil. You know that it’s a terrible condition, it shouldn’t be improved but eliminated, you’ve known it since you were a child. Improve, improve yourself? You, for example, are you improved, have you become like Nadia or Isabella? Is your brother improved, has he become like Armando? And your son, is he like Marco? No, we remain us and they are they. So why don’t you resign yourself? Blame the mind that can’t settle down, that is constantly seeking a way to function. Designing shoes. Getting busy setting up a shoe factory. Rewriting Nino’s articles, tormenting him until he did as you said. Using for your own purposes the installments from Zurich, with Enzo. And now demonstrating to Nadia that if she is making the revolution, you are even more. The mind, ah yes, the evil is there, it’s the mind’s discontent that causes the body to get sick. I’ve had it with myself, with everything. I’ve even had it with Gennaro: his fate, if all goes well, is to end up in a place like this, crawling to some boss for another five lire. So? So, Cerullo, take up your responsibilities and do what you have always had in mind: frighten Soccavo, eliminate his habit of fucking the workers in the drying room. Show the student with the wolf face what you’ve prepared. That summer on Ischia. The drinks, the house in Forio, the luxurious bed where I was with Nino. The money came from this place, from this evil smell, from these days spent in disgust, from this poorly paid labor. What did I cut, here? A revolting yellowish pulp spurted out. The world turns but, luckily, if it falls it breaks.

  Right before the lunch break she made up her mind, she said to Edo: I’m going. But she didn’t have time to take off her apron, the owner’s secretary appeared in the gutting room to tell her:

  “Dottor Soccavo wants you urgently in the office.”

  Lila thought that some spy had told Bruno what was coming. She stopped work, took the sheet of demands from the closet and went up. She knocked on the door of the office, and went in. Bruno was not alone in the room. Sitting in a chair, cigarette in his mouth, was Michele Solara.

  44.

  She had always known that Michele would sooner or later reappear in her life, but finding him in Bruno’s office frightened her like the spirits in the dark corners of the house of her childhood. What is he doing here, I have to get out of here. But Solara, seeing her, stood up, spread his arms wide, seemed genuinely moved. He said in Italian: Lina, what a pleasure, how happy I am. He wanted to embrace her, and would have if she hadn’t stopped him with an unconscious gesture of revulsion. Michele stood for some instants with his arms outstretched, therefore, in confusion, with one hand he caressed his cheekbone, his neck, with the other he pointed to Lila, this time speaking in an artificial tone:

  “But really, I can’t believe it: right in the middle of the salamis, you were hiding Signora Carracci?”

  Lila turned to Bruno abruptly: “I’ll come back later.”

  “Sit down,” he said, darkly.

  “I prefer to stand.”

  “Sit, you’ll get tired.”

  She shook her head, remained standing, and Michele gave Bruno a smile of understanding:

  “She’s made like that, resign yourself, she never obeys.”

  To Lila it seemed that Solara’s voice had more power than in the past, he stressed the end of every word as if he had been practicing his pronunciation. Maybe to save her strength, maybe just to contradict him, she changed her mind and sat down. Michele also changed position, but so that he was turned completely toward her, as if Bruno were no longer in the room. He observed her carefully, affectionately, and said, in a tone of regret: your hands are ruined, too bad, as a girl you had such nice ones. Then he began to talk about the shop in Piazza dei Martiri in the manner of one imparting information, as if Lila were still his employee and they were having a work meeting. He mentioned new shelves, new light fixtures, and how he had had the bathroom door that opened onto the courtyard walled up again. Lila remembered that door and said softly, in dialect:

  “I don’t give a fuck about your shop.”

  “You mean our: we invented it together.”

  “Together with you I never invented anything.”

  Michele smiled again, shaking his head in a sign of mild dissent. Those who put in the money, he said, do and undo just the way those who work with their hands and their head do. Money invents scenarios, situations, people’s lives. You don’t know how many people I can make happy or ruin just by signing a check. And then he began chatting again, placidly; he seemed eager to tell her the latest news, as if they were two friends catching up. He began with Alfonso, who had done his job in Piazza dei Martiri well and now earned enough to start a family. But he had no wish to marry, he preferred to keep poor Marisa in the condition of fiancée for life and continued to do as he liked. So he, as his employer, had encouraged him, a regular life is good for one’s employees, and had offered to pay for the wedding celebration; thus, finally, in June the marriage would take place. You see, he said, if you had continued to work for me, rather than Alfonso, I would have given you everything you asked for, you would have been a queen. Then, without giving her time to answer, he tapped the ashes of his cigarette into an old bronze ashtray and announced that he, too, was getting married, also in June, and to Gigliola, naturally, the great love of his life. Too bad I can’t invite you, he complained, I would have liked to, but I don’t want to embarrass your husband. And he began to talk about Stefano, Ada, and their child, first saying nice things about all three, then pointing out that the two grocery stores weren’t doing as well as they used to. As long as his father’s money lasted, he explained, Carracci kept afloat, but commerce is a rough sea now, Stefano’s been shipping water for quite some time, he can’t manage things anymore. Competition, he said, had increased, new stores were constantly opening. Marcello himself, for example, had got it into his head to expand the late Don Carlo’s old store and transform it into one of those places where you can get anything, from soap to light bulbs, mortadella, and candy. And he had done it, the business was booming, it was called Everything for Everyone.

  “You’re saying that you and your brother have managed to ruin
Stefano, too?”

  “What do you mean ruin, Lina, we do our job and that’s all, in fact, when we can help our friends we help them happily. Guess who Marcello has working in the new store?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your brother.”

  “You’ve reduced Rino to being your clerk?”

  “Well, you abandoned him, and that fellow is carrying all of them on his shoulders: your father, your mother, a child, Pinuccia, who’s pregnant again. What could he do? He turned to Marcello for help and Marcello helped him. Doesn’t that please you?”

  Lila responded coldly:

  “No, it doesn’t please me, nothing you do pleases me.”

  Michele appeared dissatisfied, and he remembered Bruno:

  “You see, as I was telling you, her problem is that she has a bad character.”

  Bruno gave an embarrassed smile that was meant to be conspiratorial.

  “It’s true.”

  “Did she hurt you, too?”

  “A little.”

  “You know that she was still a child when she held a shoemaker’s knife to my brother’s throat, and he was twice her size? And not as a joke, it was clear that she was ready to use it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. That girl has courage, she’s determined.”

  Lila clenched her fists tightly. She detested the weakness she felt in her body. The room was undulating, the bodies of the dead objects and the living people were expanding. She looked at Michele, who was extinguishing the cigarette in the ashtray. He was putting too much energy into it, as if he, too, in spite of his placid tone, were giving vent to an uneasiness. Lila stared at his fingers, which went on squashing the butt, the nails were white. Once, she thought, he asked me to become his lover. But that’s not what he really wants, there’s something else, something that doesn’t have to do with sex and that not even he can explain. He’s obsessed, it’s like a superstition. Maybe he thinks that I have a power and that that power is indispensable to him. He wants it but he can’t get it, and it makes him suffer, it’s a thing he can’t take from me by force. Yes, maybe that’s it. Otherwise he would have crushed me by now. But why me? What has he recognized in me that’s useful to him? I mustn’t stay here, under his eyes, I mustn’t listen to him, what he sees and what he wants scares me. Lila said to Soccavo: