My Brilliant Friend

by Elena Ferrante

  We had never walked those streets toward the public gardens so close to one another, so together, so happy to see each other. She told me that things were getting worse every day. Just the night before Marcello had arrived with sweets and spumante and had given her a ring studded with diamonds. She had accepted it, had put it on her finger to avoid trouble in the presence of her parents, but just before he left, at the door, she had given it back to him rudely. Marcello had protested, he had threatened her, as he now did more and more often, then had burst into tears. Fernando and Nunzia had immediately realized that something was wrong. Her mother had grown very fond of Marcello, she liked the good things he brought to the house every night, she was proud of being the owner of a television; and Fernando felt as if he had stopped suffering, because, thanks to a close relationship with the Solaras, he could look to the future without anxieties. Thus, as soon as Marcello left, both had harassed her more than usual to find out what was happening. Result: for the first time in a long, long time, Rino had defended her, had insisted that if his sister didn’t want a halfwit like Marcello, it was her sacrosanct right to refuse him and that, if they insisted on giving him to her, he, in person, would burn down everything, the house and the shoemaker’s shop and himself and the entire family. Father and son had started fighting, Nunzia had got involved, all the neighbors had woken up. Not only: Rino had thrown himself on the bed in distress, had abruptly fallen asleep, and an hour later had had another episode of sleepwalking. They had found him in the kitchen lighting matches, and passing them in front of the gas valve as if to check for leaks. Nunzia, terrified, had wakened Lila, saying, “Rino really does want to burn us all alive,” and Lila had hurried in and reassured her mother: Rino was sleeping, and in sleep, unlike when he was awake, he wanted to make sure that there was no gas escaping. She had taken him back to bed.

  “I can’t bear it anymore,” she concluded, “you don’t know what torture this is, I have to get out of this situation.”

  She clung to me as if I could give her the energy.

  “You’re well,” she said, “everything’s going well for you: you have to help me.”

  I answered that she could count on me for everything and she seemed relieved, she squeezed my arm, whispered, “Look.”

  I saw in the distance a sort of red spot that radiated light.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t you see?”

  I couldn’t see clearly.

  “It’s Stefano’s new car.”

  We walked to where the car was parked, in front of the grocery store, which had been enlarged, had two entrances now, and was extremely crowded. The customers, waiting to be served, threw admiring glances at that symbol of well-being and prestige: a car like that had never been seen in the neighborhood, all glass and metal, with a roof that opened. A car for wealthy people, nothing like the Solaras’ 1100.

  I wandered around it while Lila stood in the shadows and surveyed the street as if she expected violence to erupt at any moment. Stefano looked out from the doorway of the grocery, in his greasy apron, his large head and his high forehead giving a not unpleasant sense of disproportion. He crossed the street, greeted me cordially, said, “How well you look, like an actress.”

  He, too, looked well: he had been in the sun as I had, maybe we were the only ones in the whole neighborhood who appeared so healthy. I said to him:

  “You’re very dark.”

  “I took a week’s vacation.”

  “Where?”

  “In Ischia.”

  “I was in Ischia, too.”

  “I know, Lina told me: I looked for you but didn’t see you.”

  I pointed to the car. “It’s beautiful.”

  Stefano’s face wore an expression of moderate agreement. He said, indicating Lila, with laughing eyes: “I bought it for your friend, but she won’t believe it.” I looked at Lila, who was standing in the shadows, her expression serious, tense. Stefano said to her, vaguely ironic, “Now Lenuccia’s back, what are you doing?”

  Lila said, as if the thing annoyed her, “Let’s go. But remember, you invited her, not me: I only came along with the two of you.”

  He smiled and went back into the shop.

  “What’s happening?” I asked her, confused.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and meant that she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into. She looked the way she did when she had to do a difficult calculation in her head, but without her usual impudent expression; she was visibly preoccupied, as if she were attempting an experiment with an uncertain result. “It all began,” she said, “with the arrival of that car.” Stefano, first as if joking, then with increasing seriousness, had sworn to her that he had bought the car for her, for the pleasure of opening the door and having her get in at least once. “It was made just for you,” he had said. And since it had been delivered, at the end of July, he had been asking her constantly, not in an aggressive way, but politely, first to take a drive with him and Alfonso, then with him and Pinuccia, then even with him and his mother. But she had always said no. Finally she had promised him, “I’ll go when Lenuccia comes back from Ischia.” And now we were there, and what was to happen would happen.

  “But he knows about Marcello?”

  “Of course he knows.”

  “And so?”

  “So he insists.”

  “I’m scared, Lila.”

  “Do you remember how many things we’ve done that scared you? I waited for you on purpose.”

  Stefano returned without his apron, dark eyes, dark face, shining black eyes, white shirt and dark pants. He opened the car door, sat behind the wheel, put the top down. I was about to get into the narrow back space but Lila stopped me, she settled herself in the back. I sat uneasily next to Stefano, he started off immediately, heading toward the new buildings.

  The heat dissipated in the wind. I felt good, intoxicated by the speed and by the tranquil certainties released by Carracci’s body. It seemed to me that Lila had explained everything without explaining anything. There was, yes, this brand-new sports car that had been bought solely to take her for a ride that had just begun. There was, yes, that young man who, though he knew about Marcello Solara, was violating men’s rules of masculinity without any visible anxiety. There was me, yes, dragged furiously into that business to hide by my presence secret words between them, maybe even a friendship. But what type of friendship? Certainly, with that drive, something significant was happening, and yet Lila had been unable or unwilling to provide me with the elements necessary for understanding. What did she have in mind? She had to know that she was setting in motion an earthquake worse than when she threw the ink-soaked bits of paper. And yet it might be that she wasn’t aiming at anything precise. She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way. So here we were racing along, hair blowing in the wind, Stefano driving with satisfied skill, I sitting beside him as if I were his girlfriend. I thought of how he had looked at me, when he said I looked like an actress. I thought of the possibility of him liking me more than he now liked my friend. I thought with horror of the idea that Marcello Solara might shoot him. His beautiful person with its confident gestures would lose substance like the copper of the pot that Lila had written about.

  We were driving among the new buildings in order to avoid passing the Bar Solara.

  “I don’t care if Marcello sees us,” Stefano said without emphasis, “but if it matters to you it’s fine like this.”’

  We went through the tunnel, we turned toward the Marina. It was the road that Lila and I had taken many years earlier, when we had gotten caught in the rain. I mentioned that episode, she smiled, Stefano wanted us to tell him about it. We told him everything, it was fun, and meanwhile we arrived at the Granili.

  “What do you think, fast, isn’t it?”

  “Incredibly fas
t,” I said, enthusiastically.

  Lila made no comment. She looked around, at times she touched my shoulder to point out the houses, the ragged poverty along the street, as if she saw a confirmation of something and I was supposed to understand it right away. Then she asked Stefano, seriously, without preamble, “Are you really different?”

  He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “From whom?”

  “You know.”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said in dialect, “Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “The intention is there, but I don’t know how it will end up.”

  At that point I was sure that Lila must not have told me quite a few things. That allusive tone was evidence that they were close, that they had talked other times and not in jest but seriously. What had I missed in the period of Ischia? I turned to look at her, she delayed replying, I thought that Stefano’s answer had made her nervous because of its vagueness. I saw her flooded by sunlight, eyes half closed, her shirt swelled by her breast and by the wind.

  “The poverty here is worse than among us,” she said. And then, without connection, laughing, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about when you wanted to prick my tongue.”

  Stefano nodded.

  “That was another era,” he said.

  “Once a coward, always a coward—you were twice as big as me.”

  He gave a small, embarrassed smile and, without answering, accelerated in the direction of the port. The drive lasted less than half an hour, we went back on the Rettifilo and Piazza Garibaldi.

  “Your brother isn’t well,” Stefano said when we had returned to the outskirts of the neighborhood. He looked at her again in the mirror and asked, “Are those shoes displayed in the window the ones you made?”

  “What do you know about the shoes?”

  “It’s all Rino talks about.”

  “And so?”

  “They’re very beautiful.”

  She narrowed her eyes, squeezed them almost until they were closed.

  “Buy them,” she said in her provocative tone.

  “How much will you sell them for?”

  “Talk to my father.”

  Stefano made a decisive U turn that threw me against the door, we turned onto the street where the shoe repair shop was.

  “What are you doing?” Lila asked, alarmed now.

  “You said to buy them and I’m going to buy them.”

  37.

  He stopped the car in front of the shoemaker’s shop, came around and opened the door for me, gave me his hand to help me out. He didn’t concern himself with Lila, who got out herself and stayed behind. He and I stopped in front of the window, under the eyes of Fernando and Rino, who looked at us from inside the shop with sullen curiosity.

  When Lila joined us Stefano opened the door of the shop, let me go first, went in without making way for her. He was very courteous with father and son, and asked if he could see the shoes. Rino rushed to get them, and Stefano examined them, praised them: “They’re light and yet strong, they really have a nice line.” He asked me, “What do you think, Lenù?”

  I said, with great embarrassment, “They’re very handsome.”

  He turned to Fernando: “Your daughter said that all three of you worked on them and that you have a plan to make others, for women as well.”

  “Yes,” said Rino, looking in wonder at his sister.

  “Yes,” said Fernando, puzzled, “but not right away.”

  Rino said to his sister, a little worked up, because he was afraid she would refuse, “Show him the designs.”

  Lila, continuing to surprise him, didn’t resist. She went to the back of the shop and returned, handing the sheets of paper to her brother, who gave them to Stefano. They were the models that she had designed almost two years earlier.

  Stefano showed me a drawing of a pair of women’s shoes with a very high heel.

  “Would you buy them?”

  “Yes.”

  He went back to examining the designs. Then he sat down on a stool, took off his right shoe.

  “What size is it?”

  “43, but it could be a 44,” Rino lied.

  Lila, surprising us again, knelt in front of Stefano and using the shoehorn helped him slip his foot into the new shoe. Then she took off the other shoe and did the same.

  Stefano, who until that moment had been playing the part of the practical, businesslike man, was obviously disturbed. He waited for Lila to get up, and remained seated for some seconds as if to catch his breath. Then he stood, took a few steps.

  “They’re tight,” he said.

  Rino turned gray, disappointed.

  “We can put them on the machine and widen them,” Fernando interrupted, but uncertainly.

  Stefano turned to me and asked, “How do they look?”

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Then I’ll take them.”

  Fernando remained impassive, Rino brightened.

  “You know, Ste’, these are an exclusive Cerullo design, they’ll be expensive.”

  Stefano smiled, took an affectionate tone: “And if they weren’t an exclusive Cerullo design, do you think I would buy them? When will they be ready?”

  Rino looked at his father, radiant.

  “We’ll keep them in the machine for at least three days,” Fernando said, but it was clear that he could have said ten days, twenty, a month, he was so eager to take his time in the face of this unexpected novelty.

  “Good: you think of a friendly price and I’ll come in three days to pick them up.”

  He folded the pieces of paper with the designs and put them in his pocket before our puzzled eyes. Then he shook hands with Fernando, with Rino, and headed toward the door.

  “The drawings,” Lila said coldly.

  “Can I bring them back in three days?” Stefano asked in a cordial tone, and without waiting for an answer opened the door. He made way for me to pass and went out after me.

  I was already settled in the car next to him when Lila joined us. She was angry.

  “You think my father is a fool, that my brother is a fool?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you think you’ll make fools of my family and me, you are mistaken.”

  “You are insulting me: I’m not Marcello Solara.”

  “And who are you?”

  “A businessman: the shoes you’ve designed are unusual. And I don’t mean just the ones I bought, I mean all of them.”

  “So?”

  “So let me think and we’ll see each other in three days.”

  Lila stared at him as if she wanted to read his mind, she didn’t move away from the car. Finally she said something that I would never have had the courage to utter:

  “Look, Marcello tried in every possible way to buy me but no one is going to buy me.”

  Stefano looked her straight in the eyes for a long moment.

  “I don’t spend a lira if I don’t think it can produce a hundred.”

  He started the engine and we left. Now I was sure: the drive had been a sort of agreement reached at the end of many encounters, much talk. I said weakly, in Italian, “Please, Stefano, leave me at the corner? If my mother sees me in a car with you she’ll bash my face in.”

  38.

  Lila’s life changed decisively during that month of September. It wasn’t easy, but it changed. As for me, I had returned from Ischia in love with Nino, branded by the lips and hands of his father, sure that I would weep night and day because of the mixture of happiness and horror I felt inside. Instead I made no attempt to find a form for my emotions, in a few hours everything was reduced. I put aside Nino’s voice, the irritation of his father’s mustache. The island faded, lost itself in some secret corner of my head. I made room for what
was happening to Lila.

  In the three days that followed the astonishing ride in the convertible, she, with the excuse of doing the shopping, went often to Stefano’s grocery, but always asked me to go with her. I did it with my heart pounding, frightened by the possible appearance of Marcello, but also pleased with my role as confidante generous with advice, as accomplice in weaving plots, as apparent object of Stefano’s attentions. We were girls, even if we imagined ourselves wickedly daring. We embroidered on the facts—Marcello, Stefano, the shoes—with our usual eagerness and it seemed to us that we always knew how to make things come out right. “I’ll say this to him,” she hypothesized, and I would suggest a small variation: “No, say this.” Then she and Stefano would be deep in conversation in a corner behind the counter, while Alfonso exchanged a few words with me, Pinuccia, annoyed, waited on the customers, and Maria, at the cash register, observed her older son apprehensively, because he had been neglecting the job lately, and was feeding the gossip of the neighbors.

  Naturally we were improvising. In the course of that back and forth I tried to understand what was really going through Lila’s head, so as to be in tune with her goals. At first I had the impression that she intended simply to enable her father and brother to earn some money by selling Stefano, for a good price, the only pair of shoes produced by the Cerullos, but soon it seemed to me that her principal aim was to get rid of Marcello by making use of the young grocer. In this sense, she was decisive when I asked her:

  “Which of the two do you like more?”

  She shrugged.

  “I’ve never liked Marcello, he makes me sick.”

  “You would become engaged to Stefano just to get Marcello out of your house?”

  She thought for a moment and said yes.

  From then on the ultimate goal of all our plotting seemed to us that—to fight by every means possible Marcello’s intrusion in her life. The rest came crowding around almost by chance and we merely gave it a rhythm and, at times, a true orchestration. Or so at least we believed. In fact, the person who was acting was only and was always Stefano.