The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  “First you pull off his ear, then you help him? You should have left him outside.”

  “He helped me and I helped him.”

  Teresa turned to Edo, incredulous:

  “You helped her?”

  He stammered:

  “I didn’t like to see a stranger beating her up, I want to do it myself.”

  The woman said:

  “Did you see how Filippo shat himself?”

  “Serves him right,” Edo muttered, “too bad all they broke was the booth.”

  Teresa turned to Lila and asked her, with a hint of malice:

  “Did you call the Communists? Tell the truth.”

  Is she joking, Lila wondered, or is she a spy, who’ll go running to the owner.

  “No,” she answered, “but I know who called the fascists.”

  “Who?”

  “Soccavo.”

  40.

  Pasquale appeared that evening, after dinner, with a grim expression, and invited Enzo to a meeting at the San Giovanni a Teduccio section. Lila, alone with him for a few minutes, said:

  “That was a shitty thing to do, this morning.”

  “I do what’s necessary.”

  “Did your friends agree with you?”

  “Who are my friends?”

  “Nadia and her brother.”

  “Of course they agreed.”

  “But they stayed home.”

  Pasquale muttered:

  “And who says they stayed home?”

  He wasn’t in a good mood, in fact he seemed emptied of energy, as if the practice of violence had swallowed up his craving for action. Further, he hadn’t asked her to go to the meeting, he had invited only Enzo, something that never happened, even when it was late, and cold, and unlikely that she would take Gennaro out. Maybe they had other male wars to fight. Maybe he was angry with her because, with her resistance to the struggle, she had caused him to look bad in front of Nadia and Armando. Certainly he was bothered by the critical tone she had used in alluding to the morning’s expedition. He’s convinced, Lila thought, that I don’t understand why he hit Gino like that, why he wanted to beat up the guard. Good or bad, all men believe that after every one of their undertakings you have to put them on an altar as if they were St. George slaying the dragon. He considers me ungrateful, he did it to avenge me, he would like me to at least say thank you.

  When the two left, she got in bed and read the pamphlets on work and unions that Pasquale had given her long ago. They helped to keep her anchored to the dull things of every day, she was afraid of the silence of the house, of sleep, of her unruly heartbeats, of the shapes that threatened to break apart at any moment. In spite of her weariness, she read for a long time, and in her usual way became excited, and learned a lot of things quickly. To feel safe, she made an effort to wait for Enzo to return. But he didn’t, and finally the sound of Gennaro’s regular breathing became hypnotic and she fell asleep.

  The next morning Edo and the woman from the gutting room, Teresa, began to hang around her with timid, friendly words and gestures. And Lila not only didn’t rebuff them but treated the other workers courteously as well. She showed herself available to those who were complaining, understanding to those who were angry, sympathetic toward those who cursed the abuses. She steered the trouble of one toward the trouble of another, joining all together with eloquent words. Above all, in the following days, she let Edo and Teresa and their tiny group talk, transforming the lunch break into a time for secret meeting. Since she could, when she wanted, give the impression that it wasn’t she who was proposing and disposing but the others, she found more and more people happy to hear themselves say that their general complaints were just and urgent necessities. She added the claims of the gutting room to those of the refrigerated rooms, and those of the vats, and discovered to her surprise that the troubles of one department depended on the troubles of another, and that all together were links in the same chain of exploitation. She made a detailed list of the illnesses caused by the working conditions: damage to the hands, the bones, the lungs. She gathered enough information to demonstrate that the entire factory was in terrible shape, that the hygienic conditions were deplorable, that the raw material they handled was sometimes spoiled or of uncertain origin. When she was able to talk to Pasquale in private she explained to him what in a very short time she had started up, and he, in his peevish way, was astonished, then said beaming: I would have sworn that you would do it, and he set up an appointment with a man named Capone, who was secretary of the union local.

  Lila copied down on paper in her fine handwriting everything she had done and brought the copy to Capone. The secretary examined the pages, and he, too, was enthusiastic. He said to her things like: Where did you come from, Comrade, you’ve done really great work, bravo. And besides, we’ve never managed to get into the Soccavo plant; they’re all fascists in there, but now that you’ve arrived things have changed.

  “How should we start?” she asked.

  “Form a committee.”

  “We already are a committee.”

  “Good: the first thing is to organize all this.”

  “In what sense organize?”

  Capone looked at Pasquale, Pasquale said nothing.

  “You’re asking for too many things at once, including things that have never been asked for anywhere—you have to establish priorities.”

  “In that place everything is a priority.”

  “I know, but it’s a question of tactics: if you want everything at once you risk defeat.”

  Lila narrowed her eyes to cracks; there was some bickering. It emerged that, among other things, the committee couldn’t go and negotiate directly with the owner, the union had to mediate.

  “And am I not the union?” she flared up.

  “Of course, but there are times and ways.”

  They quarreled again. Capone said: You look around a little, open the discussion, I don’t know, about the shifts, about holidays, about overtime, and we’ll take it from there. Anyway—he concluded—you don’t know how happy I am to have a comrade like you, it’s a rare thing; let’s coordinate, and we’ll make great strides in the food industry—there aren’t many women who get involved. At that point he put his hand on his wallet, which was in his back pocket, and asked:

  “Do you want some money for expenses?”

  “What expenses?”

  “Mimeographing, paper, the time you lose, things like that.”

  “No.”

  Capone put the wallet back in his pocket.

  “But don’t get discouraged and disappear, Lina, let’s keep in touch. Look, I’m writing down here your name and surname, I want to talk about you at the union, we have to use you.”

  Lila left dissatisfied, she said to Pasquale: Who did you bring me to? But he calmed her, assured her that Capone was an excellent person, said he was right, you had to understand, there was strategy and there were tactics. Then he became excited, almost moved, he was about to embrace her, had second thoughts, said: Move ahead, Lina, screw the bureaucracy, meanwhile I’ll inform the committee.

  Lila didn’t choose among the objectives. She confined herself to compressing the first draft, which was very long, into one densely written sheet, which she handed over to Edo: a list of requests that had to do with the organization of the work, the pace, the general condition of the factory, the quality of the product, the permanent risk of being injured or sick, the wretched compensations, wage increases. At that point the problem arose of who was to carry that list to Bruno.

  “You go,” Lila said to Edo.

  “I get angry easily.”

  “Better.”

  “I’m not suitable.”

  “You’re very suitable.”

  “No, you go, you’re a member of the union. And then you’re a good speaker, you’ll put hi
m in his place right away.”

  41.

  Lila had known from the start that it would be up to her. She took her time; she left Gennaro at the neighbor’s, and went with Pasquale to a meeting of the committee on Via dei Tribunali, called to discuss also the Soccavo situation. There were twelve this time, including Nadia, Armando, Isabella, and Pasquale. Lila circulated the paper she had prepared for Capone; in that first version all the demands were more carefully argued. Nadia read it attentively. In the end she said: Pasquale was right, you’re one of those people who don’t hold anything back, you’ve done a great job in a very short time. And in a tone of sincere admiration she praised not only the political and union substance of the document but the writing: You’re so clever, she said, I’ve never seen this kind of material written about in this way! Still, after that beginning, she advised her not to move to an immediate confrontation with Soccavo. And Armando was of the same opinion.

  “Let’s wait to get stronger and grow,” he said. “The situation concerning the Soccavo factory needs to develop. We’ve got a foot in there, which is already a great result, we can’t risk getting swept away out of pure recklessness.”

  Dario asked:

  “What do you propose?”

  Nadia answered, addressing Lila: “Let’s have a wider meeting. Let’s meet as soon as possible with your comrades, let’s consolidate your structure, and maybe with your material prepare another pamphlet.”

  Lila, in the face of that sudden cautiousness, felt a great, aggressive satisfaction. She said mockingly: “So in your view I’ve done this work and am putting my job at risk to allow all of you to have a bigger meeting and another pamphlet?”

  But she was unable to enjoy that feeling of revenge. Sud­denly Nadia, who was right opposite her, began to vibrate like a window loose in its frame, and dissolved. For no evident reason, Lila’s throat tightened, and the slightest gestures of those present, even a blink, accelerated. She closed her eyes, leaned against the back of the broken chair she was sitting on, felt she was suffocating.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Armando.

  Pasquale became upset.

  “She gets overtired,” he said. “Lina, what’s wrong, do you want a glass of water?”

  Dario hurried to get some water, while Armando checked her pulse and Pasquale, nervous, pressed her:

  “What do you feel, stretch your legs, breathe.”

  Lila whispered that she was fine and abruptly pulled her wrist away from Armando, saying she wanted to be left in peace for a minute. But when Dario returned with the water she drank a small mouthful, murmured it was nothing, just a little flu.

  “Do you have a fever?” Armando asked calmly.

  “Today, no.”

  “Cough, difficulty breathing?”

  “A little, I can feel my heart beating in my throat.”

  “Is it a little better now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come into the other room.”

  Lila didn’t want to, and yet she felt a vast sense of anguish. She obeyed, she struggled to get up, she followed Armando, who had picked up a black leather bag with gold clasps. They went into a large, cold room that Lila hadn’t seen before, with three cots covered by dirty-looking old mattresses, a wardrobe with a corroded mirror, a chest of drawers. She sat down on one of the beds, exhausted: she hadn’t had a medical examination since she was pregnant. When Armando asked about her symptoms, she mentioned only the weight in her chest, but added: It’s nothing.

  He examined her in silence and she immediately hated that silence, it seemed a treacherous silence. That detached, clean man, although he was asking questions, did not seem to trust the answers. He examined her as if only her body, aided by instruments and expertise, were a reliable mechanism. He listened to her chest, he touched her, he peered at her, and meanwhile he forced her to wait for a conclusive opinion on what was happening in her chest, in her stomach, in her throat, places apparently well known that now seemed completely unknown. Finally Armando asked her:

  “Do you sleep well?”

  “Very well.”

  “How much?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On my thoughts.”

  “Do you eat enough?”

  “When I feel like it.”

  “Do you ever have difficulty breathing?”

  “No.”

  “Pain in your chest?”

  “A weight, but light.”

  “Cold sweats?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever fainted or felt like fainting?”

  “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?