The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  With my daughters, too, I got worse. Not so much with Dede, since she resembled her father, and I was by now accustomed to her mixture of intelligence, affection, and harassing logic. It was Elsa who began to upset me. The meek little girl was becoming a being with blurry features, whose teacher did nothing but complain about her, calling her sly and violent, while I myself, in the house or on the street, constantly scolded her for picking fights, taking others’ things and breaking them when she had to give them back. A fine trio of women we are, I said to myself, it’s obvious that Nino is avoiding us, that he prefers Eleonora, Albertino, and Lidia. When I couldn’t sleep at night because of the creature stirring in my womb, as if it were made of mobile air bubbles, I hoped against every prediction that the new baby would be a male, that he would resemble Nino, that he would please him, and that Nino would love him more than his other children.

  But although I forced myself to return to the image I preferred of myself—I had always wanted to be an even-tempered person who wisely curbed petty or even violent feelings—in those final days I was unable to find an equilibrium. I blamed the earthquake, which at the time didn’t seem to have disturbed me a great deal but perhaps remained deep inside, right in my belly. If I drove through the tunnel of Capodimonte I was gripped by panic, I was afraid that a new shock would make it collapse. If I took the Corso Malta viaduct, which vibrated anyway, I accelerated to escape the shock that might shatter it at any moment. In that phase I even stopped battling the ants, which often and willingly appeared in the bathroom: I preferred to let them live and every so often observe them; Alfonso claimed that they could anticipate disaster.

  But it wasn’t only the aftermath of the earthquake that upset me; Lila’s fantastical hints also entered into it. I now looked on the streets for syringes like the ones I had absent-mindedly noticed in the days of Milan. And if I saw some in the gardens in the neighborhood a querulous mist rose around me, I wanted to go and confront Marcello and my brothers, even if it wasn’t clear to me what arguments I would use. Thus I ended up doing and saying hateful things. To my mother, who harassed me, asking if I had talked to Lila about Peppe and Gianni, I responded rudely one day: Ma, Lina can’t take them, she already has a brother who’s a drug addict, and she’s afraid for Gennaro, you can’t all burden her with the problems you can’t fix. She looked at me in horror, she had never alluded to drugs, I had said a word that shouldn’t be said. But if in earlier times she would have started shouting in defense of my brothers and against my lack of sensitivity, now she shut herself in a dark corner of the kitchen and didn’t breathe a word, so that I had to say, repentant: Don’t worry, come on, we’ll find a solution.

  What solution? I made things even more complicated. I tracked down Peppe in the gardens—who knows where Gianni was—and made an angry speech about how terrible it was to earn money from the vices of others. I said: Go find any job but not this, you’ll ruin yourself and make our mother die of worry. The whole time he was cleaning the nails of his right hand with the nail of his left thumb, and he listened to me uneasily, eyes lowered. He was three years younger than me and felt like the little brother in front of the big sister who was an important person. But that didn’t keep him from saying to me, at the end, with a sneer: Without my money Mamma would already be dead. He went away with a faint wave of farewell.

  That answer got me even more upset. I let a day or two go by and went to see Elisa, hoping to find Marcello, too. It was very cold, the streets of the new neighborhood were as damaged and dirty as those of the old. Marcello wasn’t there; the house was untidy; and I found my sister’s slovenliness annoying: she hadn’t washed or dressed, all she did was take care of her son. I almost scolded her: Tell your husband—and I stressed that word husband even though they weren’t married—that he’s ruining our brothers; if he has to sell drugs, let him do it himself. I expressed myself like that, in Italian, and she turned pale, she said: Lenù, leave my house immediately, who do you think you’re talking to, all those fancy people you know? Get out, you’re presumptuous, you always were. As soon as I tried to reply she shouted: Don’t ever come here again acting like the professor about my Marcello: he’s a good person, we owe everything to him; if I want to I can buy you, that whore Lina, and all the shits you admire so much.

  57.

  I got more and more involved in the neighborhood that, because of Lila, I had glimpsed, and realized only later that I was getting mixed up in activities that were difficult to sort out, and was violating among other things a rule I had made when I returned to Naples: not to be sucked back into the place where I was born. One afternoon when I had left the children with Mirella, I went to see my mother, and then, I don’t know whether to soothe my agitation or to give vent to it, I went to Lila’s office. Ada opened the door, cheerfully. Lila was closed in her room and arguing with a client, Enzo had gone with Rino to visit some business or other, and she felt it her duty to keep me company. She entertained me with talk about her daughter, Maria, on how big she was, how good she was in school. But then the telephone rang, she hurried to answer, calling to Alfonso: Lenuccia’s here, come. With a certain embarrassment, my former schoolmate, more feminine than ever in his ways, in his hair, in the colors of his clothes, led me into a small bare space. There to my surprise I found Michele Solara.

  I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and an unease took possession of all three of us. Michele seemed very changed. He had gone gray, and his face was lined, although his body was still young and athletic. But the oddest thing was that he appeared to be embarrassed by my presence, and behaved in a completely uncharacteristic way. First of all he stood up when I entered. Then he was polite but said very little, his usual teasing patter had disappeared. He kept looking at Alfonso as if he were seeking help, then immediately looked away, as if merely looking at him could be compromising. And Alfonso was just as uncomfortable. He kept smoothing his long hair, he smacked his lips in search of something to say, and the conversation soon languished. The moments seemed fragile to me. I became nervous, but I didn’t know why. Maybe it annoyed me that they were hiding—from me, no less, as if I couldn’t understand; from me, who had frequented and did frequent circles more progressive than that little neighborhood room, who had written a book praised even abroad on how brittle sexual identities were. On the tip of my tongue was the wish to exclaim: If I’ve understood correctly, you are lovers. I didn’t do it only out of fear of having mistaken Lila’s hints. But certainly I couldn’t bear the silence and I talked a lot, pushing the conversation in that direction.

  I said to Michele:

  “Gigliola told me you’re separated.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m also separated.”

  “I know, and I also know you you’re with.”

  “You never liked Nino.”

  “No, but people have to do what they feel like, otherwise they get sick.”

  “Are you still in Posillipo?”

  Alfonso interrupted enthusiastically:

  “Yes, and the view is fabulous.”

  Michele looked at him with irritation, he said:

  “I’m happy there.”

  I answered:

  “People are never happy alone.”

  “Better alone than in bad company,” he answered.

  Alfonso must have perceived that I was looking for a chance to say something unpleasant to Michele and he tried to focus my attention on himself.

  He exclaimed:

  “And I am about to separate from Marisa.” And he related in great detail certain quarrels with his wife on money matters. He never mentioned love, sex, or even her infidelities. Instead he continued to insist on the money, he spoke obscurely of Stefano and alluded only to the fact that Marisa had pushed out Ada (Women take men away from other women without any scruples, in fact with great satisfaction). His wife, in his words, seemed no more than an acquaintance whose doings could be talked
about with irony. Think what a waltz, he said, laughing—Ada took Stefano from Lila and now Marisa is taking him away from her, hahaha.

  I sat listening and slowly rediscovered—but as if I were dragging it up from a deep well—the old solidarity of the time when we sat at the same desk. Yet only then did I understand that even if I had never been aware that he was different, I was fond of him precisely because he wasn’t like the other boys, precisely because of that peculiar alienation from the male behaviors of the neighborhood. And now, as he spoke, I discovered that that bond endured. Michele, on the other hand, annoyed me more than ever. He muttered some vulgarities about Marisa, he was impatient with Alfonso’s conversation, at a certain point he interrupted in the middle of a sentence almost angrily (Will you let me have a word with Lenuccia?) and asked about my mother, he knew she was ill. Alfonso became suddenly silent, blushing. I started talking about my mother, purposely emphasizing how worried she was about my brothers. I said:

  “She’s not happy that Peppe and Gianni work for your brother.”

  “What’s the problem with Marcello?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me. I heard that you don’t get along anymore.”

  He looked at me almost in embarrassment.

  “You heard wrong. And anyway, if your mother doesn’t like Marcello’s money, she can send them to work under someone else.”

  I was on the point of reproaching him for that under: my brothers under Marcello, under him, under someone else: my brothers, whom I hadn’t helped with school and now, because of me, they were under. Under? No human being should be under, much less under the Solaras. I felt even more dissatisfied and had a desire to quarrel. But Lila came out.

  “Ah, what a crowd,” she said, and turned to Michele: “You need to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it take long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then first I’ll talk to Lenuccia.”

  He nodded timidly. I got up, and, looking at Michele but touching Alfonso on the arm as if to push him toward Michele, said:

  “One of these nights you two must invite me to Posillipo, I’m always alone. I can do the cooking.”

  Michele opened his mouth but no sound came out, Alfonso intervened anxiously:

  “There’s no need, I’m a good cook. If Michele invites us, I’ll do everything.”

  Lila led me away.

  She stayed in her room with me for a long time, we talked about this and that. She, too, was near the end of her term, but the pregnancy no longer seemed to weigh on her. She said, smiling, as she placed her hand in a cup shape under her stomach: Finally I’ve gotten used to it, I feel good, I’d almost keep the child inside forever. With a vanity that she had rarely displayed, she turned sideways to be admired. She was tall, and her slender figure had beautiful curves: the small bosom, the stomach, the back and the ankles. Enzo, she said, laughing, with a trace of vulgarity, likes me pregnant even more, how annoying that it’ll end. I thought: the earthquake seemed so terrible to her that each moment now is uncertain, and she would like everything to stand still, even her pregnancy. Every so often I looked at the clock, but she wasn’t worried that Michele was waiting; rather, she seemed to be wasting time with me on purpose.

  “He’s not here for work,” she said when I reminded her that he was waiting, “he’s pretending, he’s looking for excuses.”

  “For what?”

  “Excuses. But you stay out of it: either mind your own business, or these are matters you have to take seriously. Even that remark about dinner at Posillipo, maybe it would have been better if you hadn’t said it.”

  I was embarrassed. I murmured that it was a time of constant tensions, I told her about the fight with Elisa and Peppe, I told her I intended to confront Marcello. She shook her head, she repeated:

  “Those, too, are things you can’t interfere in and then go back up to Via Tasso.”

  “I don’t want my mother to die worrying about her sons.”

  “Comfort her.”

  “How.”

  She smiled.

  “With lies. Lies are better than tranquilizers.”

  58.

  But in those low-spirited days I couldn’t lie even for a good cause. Only because Elisa reported to our mother that I had insulted her and as a result she wanted nothing more to do with me; only because Peppe and Gianni shouted at her that she must never dare send me to make speeches like a cop, I finally decided to tell her a lie. I told her that I had talked to Lila and Lila had promised to take care of Peppe and Gianni. But she perceived that I wasn’t really convinced and she said grimly: Yes, well done, go home, go, you have children. I was angry at myself, and on the following days she was even more agitated, she grumbled that she wanted to die soon. But once when I took her to the hospital she seemed more confident.

  “She telephoned me,” she said in her hoarse, sorrowful voice.

  “Who?”

  “Lina.”

  I was speechless with surprise.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That I can stop worrying, she’ll take care of Peppe and Gianni.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I don’t know, but if she promised it means she’ll find a solution.”

  “That’s certainly true.”

  “I trust her, she knows what’s right.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen how pretty she looks?”

  “Yes.”

  “She told me if she has a girl she’ll call her Nunzia, like her mother.”

  “She’ll have a boy.”

  “But if it’s a girl she’ll call her Nunzia,” she repeated, and as she spoke she looked not at me but at the other suffering faces in the waiting room. I said:

  “I am certainly going to have a girl, just look at this belly.”

  “So?”

  I forced myself to promise her:

  “Then I’ll give her your name, don’t worry.”

  “Sarratore’s son will want to name her for his mother.”

  59.

  I denied that Nino had a say in it, at that stage the mere mention of him made me angry. He had vanished, he always had something to do. But on the day I made that promise to my mother, in the evening, as I was having dinner with the children, he unexpectedly appeared. He was cheerful, he pretended not to notice that I was bitter. He ate with us, he put Dede and Elsa to bed with jokes and stories, he waited for them to fall asleep. His casual superficiality made my mood worse. He had dropped in now, but he would leave again and who could say for how long. What was he afraid of, that my labor would start while he was in the house, while he was sleeping with me? That he would have to take me to the clinic? That he would then have to say to Eleonora: I have to stay with Elena because she is bringing my child into the world?

  The girls were asleep, he came back to the living room. He caressed me, he knelt in front of me, he kissed my stomach. It was a flash, Mirko came to mind: how old would he be now, maybe twelve.

  “What do you hear about your son?” I asked without preamble.

  He didn’t understand, naturally, he thought I was talking about the child I had in my belly, and he smiled, disoriented. Then I explained, with pleasure breaking the promise I had long ago made to myself:

  “I mean Silvia’s child, Mirko. I’ve seen him, he’s identical to you. But you? Did you acknowledge him? Have you ever had anything to do with him?”

  He frowned, he got up.

  “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you,” he murmured.

  “Do what? Explain.”

  “You’re an intelligent woman, but every so often you become another person.”

  “What do you mean? Unreasonable? Stupid?”

  He gave a small laugh and made a gesture as if to brush off an annoying insect.

 
; “You pay too much attention to Lina.”

  “What does Lina have to do with it?”

  “She ruins your head, your feelings, everything.”

  Those words made me lose my temper completely. I said to him:

  “Tonight I want to sleep alone.”

  He didn’t resist. With the expression of someone who in order to live peacefully gives in to a serious injustice he softly closed the door behind him.

  Two hours later, as I was wandering around the house, with no desire to sleep, I felt small contractions, as if I had menstrual cramps. I called Pietro, I knew that he still spent the nights studying. I said: I’m about to give birth, come and get Dede and Elsa tomorrow. I had barely hung up when I felt a warm liquid drip down my legs. I grabbed a bag that I had long since packed with what I needed, then I kept my finger on the neighbors’ doorbell until they answered. I had already made an arrangement with Antonella, and though she was half asleep she wasn’t surprised. I said:

  “The time has come, I’m leaving you the girls.”

  Suddenly my rage and all my anxieties disappeared.

  60.

  It was January 22, 1981, the day my third child was delivered. Of the first two experiences I didn’t have a particularly painful memory, but this one was absolutely the easiest, so much so that I considered it a happy liberation. The gynecologist praised my self-control, she was happy that I hadn’t caused her any problems. If only they were all like you, she said: You’re made for bringing children into the world. She whispered: Nino is waiting outside, I’ve let him know.

  The news pleased me, but I was even happier to discover that my resentments were gone. Delivering the child relieved me of the bitterness of the past month and I was glad, I felt capable again of a good nature that could take things less seriously. I welcomed the new arrival lovingly, she was a girl of seven pounds, purple, bald. I said to Nino, when I let him come in, after neatening myself to hide the evidence of the exertion: now we’re four females, I’ll understand if you leave me. I made no allusion to the quarrel we had had. He embraced me, kissed me, swore he couldn’t do without me. He gave me a gold necklace with a pendant. I thought it was beautiful.