The Lying Life of Adults

by Elena Ferrante

She put the glass down in front of me; juice had dripped down the outside, while bits of pulp and white seeds floated on the bright orange surface. I looked at her hair, which was carefully combed, I had seen hairdos of the type in old films on television and in photos of my mother as a girl, a friend of hers wore her hair like that. Vittoria had very thick eyebrows, licorice sticks, black lines under her large forehead and above the deep cavities where she hid her eyes. Drink up, she said. I immediately took the glass in order not to upset her, but drinking repulsed me, I had seen the juice run across her palm, and, besides, with my mother I would have insisted that she take out pulp and seeds. Drink up, she repeated, it’s good for you. I took a gulp while she sat on the chair that a few minutes earlier she had considered not to be solid. She praised me, but keeping her brusque tone: yes, you’re smart, you immediately found an excuse to protect your parents, good. But she explained to me that I was off track, she hadn’t given me a baby bracelet, she had given me a big girl’s bracelet, a bracelet she was very fond of. Because, she emphasized, I am not like your father, who is attached to money, attached to things; I don’t give a damn about objects, I love people, and when you were born I thought: I’ll give it to the child, she’ll wear it when she grows up, I wrote that in the card to your parents—give it to her when she’s grown up—and I left it all in your mailbox, imagine me coming up there, your father and mother are animals, they would have thrown me out.

  I said:

  “Maybe thieves stole it, you shouldn’t have left it in the mailbox.”

  She shook her head, her black eyes sparkled:

  “What thieves? What are you talking about, if you don’t know anything. Drink your orange juice. Does your mother squeeze oranges for you?”

  I nodded yes, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She talked about how good orange juice is, and I noticed the extreme mobility of her face. She could smooth in a flash the folds between nose and mouth that made her grim (precisely that: grim), and the face that until a second earlier had seemed long under the high cheekbones—a gray canvas stretched tight between temples and jaw—colored, softened. My mamma, rest her soul, she said, when it was my saint’s day brought me hot chocolate in bed, she made it into a cream, it was frothy as if she had blown into it. Do they make you hot chocolate on your saint’s day? I was tempted to say yes, even though a saint’s day had never been celebrated in my house, and no one had ever brought me hot chocolate in bed. But I was afraid she would figure it out, so I made a sign to indicate no. She shook her head, unhappy:

  “Your father and mother don’t respect traditions, they think they’re someone, they don’t lower themselves to make hot chocolate.”

  “My father makes caffe latte.”

  “Your father is a jerk, imagine him trying to make caffe latte. Your grandmother knew how to make caffe latte. And she put in two spoonfuls of a beaten egg. Did he tell you how we had coffee, milk, and zabaglione when we were children?”

  “No.”

  “You see? Your father is like that. He’s the only one who does good things, he can’t accept that others do, too. And if you tell him it’s not true, he erases you.”

  She shook her head unhappily, she spoke in a distant tone, but without coldness. He erased my Enzo, she said, the person I was most fond of. Your father erases everything that might be better than him, he’s always done that, he was already doing it as a child. He thinks he’s smart, but he’s never been smart: I am smart, he’s only clever. He can become by instinct a person you can no longer do without. When I was a child, the sun stopped shining if he wasn’t there. I thought that if I didn’t behave the way he wanted, he would leave me all alone and I’d die. So he made me do everything he wanted, he decided what was good and what was bad, for me. Just to give you one example, I was born with music in my body, I wanted to be a dancer. I knew that was my destiny, and only he would have been able to persuade our parents to give me permission. But for your father a dancer was bad, and he wouldn’t let me do it. For him, only if you always show up with a book in your hand do you deserve to stay on the face of the earth, for him if you haven’t gone to school you’re nobody. He said to me: what do you mean dancer, Vittò, you don’t know what a dancer is, go back to studying and shut up. At that time he was making some money with private lessons, so he could have paid for dancing school for me instead of always and only buying books for himself. He didn’t do it, he liked to take significance away from everything and everybody, except himself and his things. With my Enzo—my aunt concluded suddenly—first he let him think they were friends and then he took away his soul, he tore it out and cut it into tiny pieces.

  She said words like that but more vulgar, with a familiarity that disoriented me. In no time at all her face cleared then clouded, troubled by diverse feelings: remorse, aversion, rage, melancholy. She covered my father with obscenities I’d never heard. But when she mentioned that Enzo, she broke off because of the emotion, and, head down, dramatically hiding her eyes with one hand, she hurried out of the kitchen.

  I didn’t move, I was in a state. I took advantage of her absence to spit into the glass the orange seeds I’d held in my mouth. A minute went by, two, I was ashamed that I hadn’t reacted when she insulted my father. I have to tell her it’s not right to talk like that about someone everybody respects, I thought. Meanwhile some music began softly and in a few seconds exploded at high volume. She shouted to me: come on, Giannì, what are you doing, sleeping? I jumped up, went from the kitchen toward the dark entrance. A few steps and I was in a small room with an old armchair, an accordion left on the floor in a corner, a table with a television, and a stool with the record player on it. Vittoria was standing in front of the window, looking out. From there she could surely see the car in which my father was waiting for me. In fact she said, without turning, alluding to the music: he’s got to hear that singer, so he’ll remember. I realized she was moving her body rhythmically, small movements of feet, hips, shoulders. I stared at her back, bewildered.

  “The first time I saw Enzo was at a dance party and we danced this dance,” I heard her say.

  “How long ago?”

  “Seventeen years on May 23rd.”

  “A long time has gone by.”

  “Not even a minute has gone by.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She turned.

  “Your father hasn’t told you anything?”

  I hesitated, she was as if frozen, for the first time she seemed older than my parents, even though I knew she was a few years younger.

  “I know only that he was married and had three children.”

  “Nothing else? He didn’t say he was a bad person?”

  I hesitated.

  “A little bad.”

  “And then?”

  “A delinquent.”

  She burst out:

  “The bad person is your father, he’s the delinquent. Enzo was a police sergeant and he was even nice to the criminals, on Sunday he always went to Mass. Imagine, I didn’t believe in God, your father had convinced me that he doesn’t exist. But as soon as I saw Enzo I changed my mind. A man more good and more just and more sensitive has never existed on the face of the earth. Such a lovely voice he had, and he sang so well, he taught me to play the accordion. Before him, men made me vomit, after him anyone who came near me I drove away in disgust. Everything your parents told you is false.”

  I looked uneasily at the floor, I didn’t answer. She pressed me:

  “You don’t believe it, eh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know because you believe more in lies than in the truth. Giannì, you’re not growing up well. Look how ridiculous you are, all in pink, pink shoes, pink jacket, pink barrette. I bet you don’t even know how to dance.”

  “My friends and I practice whenever we see each other.”

  “What are your friends’ names?”<
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  “Angela and Ida.”

  “And are they like you?”

  “Yes.”

  She scowled with disapproval and leaned over to start the record again.

  “Do you know how to do this dance?”

  “It’s an old dance.”

  She made a sudden movement, grabbed me by the waist, held me tight. Her large bosom gave off an odor of pine needles in the sun.

  “Climb on my feet.”

  “I’ll hurt you.”

  “Come on.”

  I climbed on her feet, and she whirled me around the room with great precision and elegance, until the music ended. She stopped but didn’t let go of me, she held me tight, and said:

  “Tell your father that I made you dance the same dance that I danced for the first time with Enzo. Tell him that, word for word.”

  “O.K.”

  “And now that’s enough.”

  She pushed me away forcefully, and, suddenly deprived of her warmth, I muffled a cry, as if I’d felt a sharp pain somewhere but was ashamed to show myself weak. It seemed wonderful that after that dance with Enzo she hadn’t liked anyone else. And I thought she must have preserved every detail of her unique love, so that maybe, dancing with me, she had relived it moment by moment in her mind. I thought it was thrilling, I wanted to love, too, immediately, in that absolute way. Surely she had a memory of Enzo so intense that her bony organism, her chest, her breath had transmitted a little love into my stomach. I said softly, dazed:

  “What was Enzo like, do you have a picture?”

  Her eyes shone:

  “Good, I’m glad you want to see him. Let’s make a date for May 23rd and we’ll go: he’s in the cemetery.”

  3.

  In the days that followed, my mother tried delicately to carry out the mission my father must have entrusted to her: to find out if the encounter with Vittoria had succeeded in healing the involuntary wound that they themselves had inflicted. This kept me constantly alert. I didn’t want to show either of them that I hadn’t disliked Vittoria. So I forced myself to hide the fact that, although I continued to believe in their version of things, I also believed a little in my aunt’s. I carefully avoided saying that Vittoria’s face, to my great surprise, had seemed so vividly insolent that it was very ugly and very beautiful at the same time, and so now I was hovering between the two superlatives, puzzled. Mainly I hoped that I wouldn’t give away by some uncontrollable sign or other—a flash in the eyes, a blush—the appointment in May. But I had no experience as a deceiver, I was a well-brought-up child, and I felt my way blindly, sometimes answering my mother’s questions with excessive prudence, sometimes taking things too lightly and in the end talking recklessly.

  I made a mistake that very Sunday, in the evening, when she asked me: “How did your aunt seem to you?”

  “Old.”

  “She’s five years younger than me.”

  “You look like her daughter.”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “It’s true, Mamma. You and she are very far apart.”

  “About that there’s no question. Vittoria and I were never friends, even if I did all I could to love her. It’s hard to have a good relationship with her.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Did she say nasty things?”

  “She was testy.”

  “And then?”

  “Then she got a little angry because I didn’t wear the bracelet she gave me when I was born.”

  I said it and immediately regretted it. But anyway it had happened, I felt myself blush, and immediately tried to figure out if mentioning the jewelry had made her uneasy. My mother reacted in a completely natural way.

  “A bracelet for a newborn?”

  “A bracelet for an older girl.”

  “That she supposedly gave to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so. Aunt Vittoria never gave us anything, not even a flower. But if it interests you, I’ll ask your father.”

  That upset me. Now my mother would report the story to him, and he would say: so it’s not true that they talked only about school, about Ida and Angela, they also talked about other things, of many things that Giovanna wants to hide from us. How stupid I’d been. I said confusedly that I didn’t care about the bracelet and added in a tone of disgust, Aunt Vittoria doesn’t wear makeup, doesn’t wax her facial hair, has eyebrows this thick, and when I saw her she wasn’t wearing earrings or even a necklace; so if she ever gave me a bracelet it was probably very ugly. But I knew that any dismissive remark was now pointless: from here on, whatever I said, my mother would talk to my father and would report to me not her true response but the one they had agreed on.

  I didn’t sleep well, at school I was often scolded because I was distracted. The bracelet came up again when I was sure that my parents had forgotten about it.

  “Your father doesn’t know anything about it, either.”

  “About what?”

  “The bracelet Aunt Vittoria says she gave you.”

  “I think it’s a lie.”

  “That’s for certain. Anyway, if you want to wear one, look through my things.”

  I really did go and rummage through her jewelry, even if I knew it by heart—I had played with it since I was three or four. The objects didn’t have much value, especially the two bracelets she had: one gold-plated with little angel charms, the other silver with blue leaves and pearls. As a child I loved the first and ignored the second. But lately I’d grown to really like the one with the blue leaves, even Costanza had once praised its craftsmanship. So, to let it be understood that I wasn’t interested in Vittoria’s gift, I began to wear the silver bracelet at home, at school, and when I saw Angela and Ida.

  “It’s so pretty,” Ida exclaimed once.

  “It’s my mother’s. But she said I can wear it when I want.”

  “My mother doesn’t let us wear her jewelry,” said Angela.

  “What about that?” I asked, indicating a gold necklace she was wearing.

  “It’s a present from our grandmother.”

  “Mine,” said Ida, “I got from a cousin of our father’s.”

  They often spoke of generous relatives, some of whom they were very fond of. I had had only the nice grandparents in Museo, but they were dead and I had a hard time remembering them, so I had often envied Angela and Ida their relatives. But now that I had established a relationship with Aunt Vittoria it occurred to me to say:

  “My aunt gave me a bracelet much nicer than this.”

  “Why don’t you ever wear it?”

  “It’s too precious, my mother doesn’t want me to.”

  “Show it to us.”

  “Yes, sometime when my mother’s out. Do they make you hot chocolate?”

  “My father has let me taste the wine,” said Angela.

  “Me, too,” said Ida.

  I explained proudly:

  “My grandmother made me hot chocolate when I was little and even until right before she died: not normal chocolate, my grandmother’s was all frothy, really good.”

  I had never lied to Angela and Ida, that was the first time. I discovered that lying to my parents made me anxious, while lying to Angela and Ida was fun. They had always had toys more exciting than mine, clothes more colorful, family stories more surprising. Their mother, Costanza, who came from a family of goldsmiths from Toledo, had boxes full of jewelry, all of it valuable, countless gold and pearl necklaces, earrings, and piles of bracelets and bangles, a couple that she wouldn’t let them touch, and one that she was extremely fond of and wore often, but for the rest—for the rest she had always let them play with it, and I was allowed to play with it, too. So as soon as Angela stopped being interested in hot chocolate—that is, almost immediately—and wanted some more details about the very precious pie
ce of jewelry from Aunt Vittoria, I described it in great detail. It’s pure gold with rubies and emeralds, it sparkles—I said—like the jewelry you see in movies and on television. And just as I was talking about the truth of that bracelet, I couldn’t resist and also claimed that once I had looked at myself in the mirror without anything on, only some earrings and a necklace of my mother’s, and the marvelous bracelet. Angela looked at me enchanted, Ida asked if I had at least left my underpants on. I said no, and the lie gave me such relief that I imagined if I really had done it I would have tasted a moment of absolute happiness.

  So one afternoon, to prove that, I transformed the lie into reality. I undressed, put on some of my mother’s jewelry, looked in the mirror. But it was a painful sight, I saw myself as a small, faded green plant, debilitated by too much sun, sad. Even though I had made myself up carefully, what an insignificant face I had, the lipstick was an ugly red stain on a face that looked like the gray bottom of a frying pan. I tried to understand, now that I had met Vittoria, if there really were points of contact between us, but the more I persisted the more useless it was. She was an old woman—at least in the eyes of a thirteen-year-old—I a young girl: too much disproportion between the bodies, too great an interval of time between my face and hers. And where in me was that energy of hers, the warmth that lit up her eyes? If I was really starting to look like Vittoria, my face lacked the essential, her force. So on the wave of that thought, while I was comparing her eyebrows with mine, her forehead with mine, I realized that I wished she really had given me a bracelet, and I felt that if I had it now and wore it, I would feel more powerful.

  That idea immediately infused me with a cheering warmth, as if my depressed body had suddenly found the right medicine. Certain words that Vittoria had said before we parted, walking me to the door, came to mind. Your father—she was angry—has deprived you of a big family, of all of us, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, because we’re not intelligent and educated like him; he cut us off with a hatchet, he forced you to grow up in isolation, for fear we’d ruin you. She spewed bitterness, and yet those words now brought me relief, I repeated them in my mind. They affirmed the existence of a strong and positive bond, they demanded it. My aunt hadn’t said: you have my face or at least you look something like me; my aunt had said: you don’t belong only to your father and mother, you’re mine, too, you belong to the whole family that he came from, and anyone who belongs to us is never alone, is charged with energy. Wasn’t it because of those words that, after some hesitation, I had promised her that on May 23rd I would skip school and go with her to the cemetery? Now at the idea that, at nine in the morning on that day, she would wait for me in Piazza Medaglie d’Oro beside her old dark-green Fiat 500—so she had told me imperatively, saying goodbye—I began to cry, to laugh, to make terrible faces in the mirror.