The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  In that period I always carried in my purse a book and a notebook: I read on the bus or when Lila was sleeping. Sometimes I discovered her with her eyes open, staring at me, maybe she was peeking to see what I was reading, but she never asked me the title of the book, and when I tried to read her some passages—from scenes at the Upton Inn, I remember—she closed her eyes as if I were boring her. The fever passed in a few days, but the cough didn’t, so I forced her to stay in bed. I cleaned the house, I cooked, I took care of Gennaro. Maybe because he was already big, somewhat aggressive, willful, he didn’t have the defenseless charm of Mirko, Nino’s other child. But sometimes in the midst of violent games he would turn unexpectedly sad, and fall asleep on the floor; that softened me, and I grew fond of him, and when that became clear to him he attached himself to me, keeping me from doing chores or reading.

  Meanwhile I tried to get a better understanding of Lila’s situation. Did she have money? No. I lent her some and she accepted it after swearing endlessly that she would pay me back. How much did Bruno owe her? Two months’ salary. And severance pay? She didn’t know. What was Enzo’s job, how much did he earn? No idea. And that correspondence course in Zurich—what concrete possibilities did it offer? Who knows. She coughed constantly, she had pains in her chest, sweats, a vise in her throat, her heart would suddenly go crazy. I wrote down punctiliously all the symptoms and tried to convince her that another medical examination was necessary, more thorough than the one Armando had done. She didn’t say yes but she didn’t oppose it. One evening before Enzo returned, Pasquale looked in, he said very politely that he, his comrades on the committee, and some workers at the Soccavo factory wanted to know how she was. I replied that she wasn’t well, she needed rest, but he asked to see her just the same, to say hello. I left him in the kitchen, I went to Lila, I advised her not to see him. She made a face that meant: I’ll do as you want. I was moved by the fact that she gave in to me—she who had always commanded, done and undone—without arguing.

  48.

  At home that same night I made a long call to Pietro, telling him in detail all Lila’s troubles and how important it was to me to help her. He listened patiently. At a certain point he even exhibited a spirit of collaboration: he remembered a young Pisan Greek scholar who was obsessed with computers and imagined that they would revolutionize philology. I was touched by the fact that, although he was a person who was always buried in his work, on this occasion, for love of me, he made an effort to be useful.

  “Find him,” I begged him, “tell him about Enzo, you never know, maybe some job prospects might turn up.”

  He promised he would and added that, if he remembered correctly, Mariarosa had had a brief romance with a young Neapolitan lawyer: maybe he could find him and ask if he could help.

  “To do what?”

  “To get your friend’s money back.”

  I was excited.

  “Call Mariarosa.”

  “All right.”

  I insisted: “Don’t just promise, call her, please.”

  He was silent for a moment, then he said: “Just then you sounded like my mother.”

  “In what sense?”

  “You sounded like her when something is very important to her.”

  “I’m very different, unfortunately.”

  He was silent again.

  “You’re different, fortunately. But in these types of things there’s no one like her. Tell her about that girl and you’ll see, she’ll help you.”

  I telephoned Adele. I did it with some embarrassment, which I overcame by reminding myself of all the times I had seen her at work, for my book, in the search for the apartment in Florence. She was a woman who liked to be busy. If she needed something, she picked up the telephone and, link by link, put together the chain that led to her goal. She knew how to ask in such a way that saying no was impossible. And she crossed ideological borders confidently, she respected no hierarchies, she tracked down cleaning women, bureaucrats, industrialists, intellectuals, ministers, and she addressed all with cordial detachment, as if the favor she was about to ask she was in fact already doing for them. Amid a thousand awkward apologies for disturbing her, I told Adele in detail about my friend, and she became curious, interested, angry. At the end she said:

  “Let me think.”

  “Of course.”

  “Meanwhile, can I give you some advice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t be timid. You’re a writer, use your role, test it, make something of it. These are decisive times, everything is turning upside down. Participate, be present. And begin with the scum in your area, put their backs to the wall.”

  “How?”

  “By writing. Frighten Soccavo to death, and others like him. Promise you’ll do it?”

  “I’ll try.”

  She gave me the name of an editor at l’Unità.

  49.

  The telephone call to Pietro and, especially, the one to my mother-in-law released a feeling that until that moment I had kept at bay, that in fact I had repressed, but that was alive and ready to advance. It had to do with my changed status. It was likely that the Airotas, especially Guido but perhaps Adele herself, considered me a girl who, although very eager, was far from the person they would have chosen for their son. It was just as likely that my origin, my dialectal cadence, my lack of sophistication in everything, had put the breadth of their views to a hard test. With just a slight exaggeration I could hypothesize that even the publication of my book was part of an emergency plan intended to make me presentable in their world. But the fact remained, incontrovertible, that they had accepted me, that I was about to marry Pietro, with their consent, that I was about to enter a protective family, a sort of well-fortified castle from which I could proceed without fear or to which I could retreat if I were in danger. So it was urgent that I get used to that new membership, and above all I had to be conscious of it. I was no longer a small match-seller almost down to the last match; I had won for myself a large supply of matches. And so—I suddenly understood—I could do for Lila much more than I had calculated on doing.

  It was with this perspective that I had my friend give me the documentation she had collected against Soccavo. She handed it over passively, without even asking what I wanted to do with it. I read with increasing absorption. How many terrible things she had been able to say precisely and effectively. How many intolerable experiences could be perceived behind the description of the factory. I turned the pages in my hands for a long time, then suddenly, almost without coming to a decision, I looked in the telephone book, I called Soccavo. I subdued my voice to the right tone, I asked for Bruno. He was cordial—What a pleasure to talk to you—I cold. He said: You’ve done so many great things, Elena, I saw a picture of you in Roma, bravo, what a wonderful time we had on Ischia. I answered that it was a pleasure to talk to him, too, but that Ischia was far away, and for better and worse we had all changed, that in his case, for example, I had heard some nasty rumors that I hoped were not true. He understood immediately and protested. He spoke harshly of Lila, of her ungratefulness, of the trouble she had caused him. I changed my tone, I said that I believed Lila more than him. Take a pencil and paper, I said, write down my number, got it? Now give instructions for her to be paid down to the last lira you owe her, and let me know when I can come and get the money: I wouldn’t like to see your picture in the papers, too.

  I hung up before he could object, feeling proud of myself. I hadn’t shown the least emotion, I had been curt, a few remarks in Italian, polite first, then aloof. I hoped that Pietro was right: was I really acquiring Adele’s tone, was I learning, without realizing it, her way of being in the world? I decided to find out whether I was capable, if I wanted, of carrying out the threat I had ended the phone call with. Agitated—as I had not been when I called Bruno, still the boring boy who had tried to kiss me on the beach of Citara—I dialed
the number of the editorial offices of l’Unità. While the telephone rang, I hoped that the voice of my mother yelling at Elisa in dialect in the background wouldn’t be heard. My name is Elena Greco, I said to the switchboard operator, and I didn’t have time to explain what I wanted before the woman exclaimed: Elena Greco the writer? She had read my book, and was full of compliments. I thanked her, I felt happy, strong, I explained, unnecessarily, that I had in mind an article about a factory on the outskirts, and I gave the name of the editor Adele had suggested. The operator congratulated me again, then she resumed a professional tone. Hold on, she said. A moment later a very hoarse male voice asked me in a teasing tone since when practitioners of literature had been willing to dirty their pens on the subject of piece work, shifts, and overtime, very boring subjects that young, successful novelists in particular stayed away from.

  “What’s the angle?” he asked. “Construction, longshoremen, miners?”

  “It’s a sausage factory,” I said. “Not a big deal.”

  The man continued to make fun of me: “You don’t have to apologize, it’s fine. If Elena Greco, to whom this newspaper devoted no less than half a page of profuse praise, decides to write about sausages, can we poor editors possibly say: that it doesn’t interest us? Are thirty lines enough? Too few? Let’s be generous, make it sixty. When you’ve finished, will you bring it to me in person or dictate it?”

  I began working on the article right away. I had to squeeze out of Lila’s pages my sixty lines, and for love of her I wanted to do a good job. But I had no experience of newspaper writing, apart from when, at the age of fifteen, I had tried to write about the conflict with the religion teacher for Nino’s journal: with terrible results. I don’t know, maybe it was that memory that complicated things. Or maybe it was the editor’s sarcastic tone that rang in my ears, especially when, at the end of the call, he asked me to give his best to my mother-in-law. Certainly I took a lot of time, I wrote and rewrote stubbornly. But even when the article seemed to be finished I wasn’t satisfied and I didn’t take it to the newspaper. I have to talk to Lila first, I said to myself, it’s a thing that should be decided together; I’ll turn it in tomorrow.

  The next day I went to see Lila; she seemed particularly unwell. She complained that when I wasn’t there certain presences took advantage of my absence and emerged from objects to bother her and Gennaro. Then she realized that I was alarmed and, in a tone of amusement, said it was all nonsense, she just wanted me to be with her more. We talked a lot, I soothed her, but I didn’t give her the article to read. What held me back was the idea that if l’Unità rejected the piece I would be forced to tell her that they hadn’t found it good, and I would feel humiliated. It took a phone call from Adele that night to give me a solid dose of optimism and make up my mind. She had consulted her husband and also Mariarosa. She had moved half the world in a few hours: luminaries of medicine, socialist professors who knew about the union, a Christian Democrat whom she called a bit foolish but a good person and an expert in workers’ rights. The result was that I had an appointment the next day with the best cardiologist in Naples—a friend of friends, I wouldn’t have to pay—and that the labor inspector would immediately pay a visit to the Soccavo factory, and that to get Lila’s money I could go to that friend of Mariarosa’s whom Pietro had mentioned, a young socialist lawyer who had an office in Piazza Nicola Amore and had already been informed.

  “Happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you write your article?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see? I was sure you wouldn’t do it.”

  “In fact it’s ready, I’ll take it to l’Unità tomorrow.”

  “Good. I run the risk of underestimating you.”

  “It’s a risk?”

  “Underestimating always is. How’s it going with that poor little creature my son?”

  50.

  From then on everything became fluid, almost as if I possessed the art of making events flow like water from a spring. Even Pietro had worked for Lila. His colleague the Greek scholar turned out to be extremely talkative but useful just the same: he knew someone in Bologna who really was a computer expert—the reliable source of his philological fantasies—and he had given him the number of an acquaintance in Naples, judged to be equally reliable. He gave me the name, address, and telephone number of the Neapolitan, and I thanked him warmly, commenting with affectionate irony on his forced entrepreneurship—I even sent him a kiss over the phone.

  I went to see Lila immediately. She had a cavernous cough, her face was strained and pale, her gaze excessively watchful. But I was bringing good news and was happy. I shook her, hugged her, held both her hands tight, and meanwhile told her about the phone call I had made to Bruno, read her the article I had written, enumerated the results of the painstaking efforts of Pietro, of my mother-in-law, of my sister-in-law. She listened as if I were speaking from far away—from another world into which I had ventured—and could hear clearly only half the things I was saying. Besides, Gennaro was constantly tugging on her to play with him, and, as I spoke, she was attending to him, but without warmth. I felt content just the same. In the past Lila had opened the miraculous drawer of the grocery store and had bought me everything, especially books. Now I opened my drawers and paid her back, hoping that she would feel safe, as I now did.

  “So,” I asked her finally, “tomorrow morning you’ll go to the cardiologist?”

  She reacted to my question in an incongruous way, saying with a small laugh: “Nadia won’t like this way of doing things. And her brother won’t, either.”

  “What way, I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Lila,” I said, “please, what does Nadia have to do with it, don’t give her more importance than she already gives herself. And forget Armando, he’s always been superficial.”

  I surprised myself with those judgments, after all I knew very little about Professor Galiani’s children. And for a few seconds I had the impression that Lila didn’t recognize me but saw before her a spirit who was exploiting her weakness. In fact, rather than criticizing Nadia and Armando, I only wanted her to understand that the hierarchies of power were different, that compared to the Airotas the Galianis didn’t count, that people like Bruno Soccavo or that thug Michele counted even less, that in other words she should do as I said and not worry. But as I was speaking I realized I was in danger of boasting and I caressed her cheek, saying that, of course, I admired Armando and Nadia’s political engagement, and then I added, laughing: but trust me. She muttered:

  “O.K., we’ll go to the cardiologist.”

  I persisted:

  “And for Enzo what appointment should I make, what time, what day?”

  “Whenever you want, but after five.”

  As soon as I got home I went back to the telephone. I called the lawyer, I explained Lila’s situation in detail. I called the cardiologist, I confirmed the appointment. I telephoned the computer expert, he worked at the Department of Public Works: he said that the Zurich courses were useless, but that I could send Enzo to see him on such and such a day at such an address. I called l’Unità, the editor said: You’re certainly taking your sweet time—are you bringing me this article, or are we waiting for Christmas? I called Soccavo’s secretary and asked her to tell her boss that, since I hadn’t heard from him, my article would be out soon in l’Unità.

  That last phone call provoked an immediate, violent reaction. Soccavo called me two minutes later and this time he wasn’t friendly; he threatened me. I answered that, momentarily, he would have the inspector on his back and a lawyer who would take care of Lila’s interests. Then, that evening, pleasantly overexcited—I was proud of fighting against injustice, out of affection and conviction, in spite of Pasquale and Franco, who thought they could still give me lessons—I hurried to l’Unità to deliver my article.

  The man
I had talked to was middle-aged, short, and fat, with small, lively eyes that permanently sparkled with a benevolent irony. He invited me to sit down on a dilapidated chair and he read the article carefully.

  “And this is sixty lines? To me it seems like a hundred and fifty.”

  I reddened, I said softly: “I counted several times, it’s sixty.”

  “Yes, but written by hand and in a script that couldn’t be read with a magnifying glass. But the piece is very good, Comrade. Find a typewriter somewhere and cut what you can.”

  “Now?”

  “And when? For once I’ve got something people will actually look at if I put it on the page, and you want to make me wait for doomsday?”

  51.

  What energy I had in those days. We went to the cardiologist, a big-name professor who had a house and office in Via Crispi. I took great care with my appearance for the occasion. Although the doctor was from Naples, he was connected with Adele’s world and I didn’t want to make a bad impression. I brushed my hair, wore a dress that she had given me, used a subtle perfume that resembled hers, put on light makeup. I wanted the professor, if he spoke to my mother-in-law on the telephone, or if by chance they met, to speak well of me. Lila instead looked as she did every day at home, careless of her appearance. We sat in a grand waiting room, with nineteenth-century paintings on the walls: a noblewoman in an armchair with a Negro servant in the background, a portrait of an old lady, and a large, lively hunting scene. There were two other people waiting, a man and a woman, both old, both with the tidy, elegant look of prosperity. We waited in silence. Lila, who on the way had repeatedly praised my appearance, said only, in a low voice: You look like you came out of one of these paintings—you’re the lady and I’m the maid.