The Lost Daughter

by Elena Ferrante

  Life can have an ironic geometry. Starting from the age of thirteen or fourteen I had aspired to a bourgeois decorum, proper Italian, a good life, cultured and reflective. Naples had seemed a wave that would drown me. I didn’t think the city could contain life forms different from those I had known as a child, violent or sensually lazy, tinged with sentimental vulgarity or obtusely fortified in defense of their own wretched degradation. I didn’t even look for them, those forms, in the past or in a possible future. I had run away like a burn victim who, screaming, tears off the burned skin, believing that she is tearing off the burning itself.

  What I most feared, when I left my daughters, was that Gianni, out of laziness, revenge, necessity, would take Bianca and Marta to Naples, entrust them to my mother and my relatives. I was suffocating with anxiety, I thought: what have I done, I’ve escaped, but I’m letting them go back there. The two girls would slowly sink into the black well I came from, breathing the habits, the language, all the features I had eliminated from myself when, at eighteen, I left the city to study in Florence, a place that was distant and for me foreign. I had said to Gianni: do what you want but please, don’t leave them with their relatives in Naples. Gianni screamed at me that he would do with his daughters what he liked. If I was leaving I had no right to interfere. He took good care of them, in fact, but when he was overwhelmed by work or forced to travel abroad, he took them without hesitation to my mother’s house, to the apartment where I was born, the rooms from which I had fought fiercely to free myself, and left them there for months.

  The news reached me, I regretted it, but not even for that did I retrace my steps. I was far away; it seemed to me that I was another person, finally the real one, and in the end I let my children be exposed to the wounds of my native city, the ones that in myself I considered incurable. My mother had been wonderful at the time, she had taken care of them, had worn herself out, but I had showed her no gratitude, for that or anything else. The secret rage I harbored against myself I turned on her. Later, when I reclaimed my daughters and brought them to Florence, I accused her of having branded them, as she had branded me. Wicked accusations. She defended herself, she reacted spitefully, extremely upset, and died shortly afterward, perhaps poisoned by her own unhappiness. The last thing she said to me, some time before she died, was, in a fractured dialect, I feel a little cold, Leda, and I’m shitting my pants.

  How many things did I scream at her that it would have been better not even to think. I wanted—now that I had come back—my daughters to depend only on me. At times it even seemed to me that I had created them by myself, I no longer remembered anything about Gianni, nothing intimately physical, his legs, his chest, his sex, his taste, as if we had never touched each other. When he went to Canada, that impression hardened, that I had nourished the girls only on myself, that I sensed in them only the female line of my descent, for good and ill. So my anxieties increased. For several years Bianca and Marta did badly in school, obviously they were upset. I got mad at them, pushed them, harassed them. I said: what do you want to do in life, where do you want to end up, do you want to go backward, degrade yourselves, abolish all the efforts your father and I have made, return to being like your grandmother, who got no farther than elementary school. To Bianca I murmured, depressed: I’ve spoken to your teachers, how you’ve embarrassed me. I saw them both going off track, they seemed to me more and more pretentious and ignorant. I was sure that they would fail in their studies, in everything, and there was a period when I relaxed only when I knew they had been disciplined; then they began to do well at school, and the shadows of the women of my family vanished.

  Poor Mama. In the end what was so terrible about what she passed on to the two girls: nothing, a bit of dialect. Thanks to her, today Bianca and Marta can reproduce the Neapolitan cadence and a few expressions. When they’re in a good mood they laugh at me. They exaggerate my accent, even on the telephone, from Canada. They cruelly mock the timbre of the dialect that surfaces from within the way I speak languages, or certain Neapolitan formulations that I use, Italianizing them. Fucking waste of time. I smile at Rosaria, I search for something to say, I expect good manners even if she hasn’t any. Yes, my daughters humiliate me, especially with English, they are ashamed of the way I speak; I realized it when we went abroad together. And yet it is the language of my profession, it seemed to me that my use of it was unexceptionable. They, however, insist that I’m not very good, and they’re right. In fact, despite my breaking away, I haven’t gone very far. If I wanted, in a moment I could go back to being just like this woman, Rosaria. Certainly, it would take some doing; my mother could pass without interruption from the fiction of the petit bourgeois lady to the tormented surge of her unhappiness. I would have to work harder, but I could manage it. The two girls, on the other hand—they’ve gone far away. They belong to another time, I’ve lost them to the future.

  I smile again, embarrassed, but Rosaria doesn’t smile back at me, the conversation ends. I hesitate, now, between a frightened aversion toward this woman and a sad sympathy. I imagine she’ll give birth without strain, in two hours she’ll expel herself and, at the same time, another just like her. The next day she’ll be on her feet, she’ll have plenty of milk, a river of nourishing milk, she’ll return to battle, vigilant and violent. It’s clear to me, now, that she doesn’t want me to see her sister-in-law, she considers her—I imagine—a pain in the ass who puts on airs, a sissy who during her own pregnancy was always complaining, throwing up. Nina to her is soft, liquid, open to all kinds of bad influences, and I, after my brutal confession, am no longer considered a good friend from the beach. So she wants to protect her from me, afraid I’ll put ideas in her head. She keeps watch in the name of her brother, the man with the slashed stomach. Bad people, Gino had told me. I was still standing with my feet in the water, I didn’t know what to say to her. Like a magnet, the present—yesterday, today—was drawing to itself all the past days of my life. I went back to my umbrella.

  I thought about what to do, finally decided. I took my purse, my shoes, wrapped a pareo around my waist, and went off toward the pinewood, leaving my books on the lounge chair, and hanging my dress on the spokes of the umbrella.

  Gino had said that the Neapolitans were staying in a villa in the dunes, in the shelter of the pines. I followed the borderline between needles and sand, in shade, in sun. Soon I saw the villa, a garish two-story structure set among reeds, oleanders, and eucalyptus. The cicadas at that hour were deafening.

  I headed into the underbrush, looking for a path that would lead to the house. Meanwhile I took the flyer out of my purse, and called the cell-phone number that was indicated on it. I waited, hoping that Nina would answer. While the telephone rang in vain, I heard the querulous trill of a cell phone in the thick scrub, on my right, and then the voice of Nina, who was laughing: come on, that’s enough, stop it, let me answer.

  I ended the call abruptly, and looked in the direction the voice was coming from. I saw Nina in a thin dress of a pale color, leaning against the trunk of a tree. Gino was kissing her. She seemed to accept the kiss, but with her eyes open, amused, alarmed, as she gently pushed away the hand that was seeking her breast.

  19

  I went swimming and then lay with my back in the sun, my face between my arms. From that position I could see the boy returning, descending the dunes with long strides, his head down. Back in his place, he tried to read but couldn’t, and stared at the sea for a long time. I felt the slight irritation of the evening before turning into hostility. He had seemed so polite, had kept me company for hours, appeared considerate, sensitive. He’d said he was afraid of the fierce reactions of the relatives, of Nina’s husband, had put me on my guard. And yet he couldn’t contain himself, exposing himself and her to who knows what risks. He tempted her, attracted her just when she was most fragile, crushed by the weight of her daughter. As I had discovered them, they could be discovered by anyone. I felt unhappy with them both.

&nbs
p; Surprising them had caused me, I don’t know how to put it, distress. It was a confused emotion, adding the seen to the not seen, making me go hot and sweatily cold. Their kiss still burned, warmed my stomach, my mouth had a taste of warm saliva. It wasn’t an adult sensation but a childish one, I’d felt like a frightened child. Distant fantasies returned, false, invented images, as when in childhood I’d imagined that my mother secretly left the house, day and night, to meet her lovers, and felt in my body the joy that was hers. Now it seemed to me that an encrusted sediment that had been lying for decades in the pit of my stomach was stirring.

  I left my lounge chair nervously, and hurried to gather up my things. I was wrong, I said to myself, Bianca and Marta’s departure hasn’t been good for me. It seemed so, but it’s not. How long has it been since I called, I must hear their voices. Losing your anchor, feeling yourself to be light is not an advantage, it’s cruel to yourself and to others. I have to find a way to tell Nina. What’s the sense of a summer flirtation, as if you were a sixteen-year-old, while your daughter is sick. She had seemed so extraordinary to me, when she was with Elena, with the doll, under the umbrella, in the sun, or at the water’s edge. Often they took turns digging up wet sand with an ice-cream spoon and pretended to feed Nani. How well they got on together. Elena played for hours, alone or with her mother, and you could see that she was happy. It occurred to me that there was more erotic power in her relationship with the doll, there beside Nina, than in all the eros that she would feel as she grew up and grew older. I left the beach without looking even once in Gino’s direction, or Rosaria’s.

  I drove home on the deserted road, my head full of images and voices. When I went back to my children—a long time ago now—the days became heavy again, sex a sporadic and therefore quiet practice, without expectations. Men, even before exchanging a kiss, made it clear to me, with polite conviction, that they had no intention of leaving their wives, or that they had the habits of a bachelor and wouldn’t give them up, or that they ruled out taking responsibility for my life and that of my daughters. I never complained; in fact it seemed to me predictable and therefore reasonable. I had decided that the season of passions was over, three years was enough.

  Yet that morning when I stripped the bed where Brenda and her lover had slept, when I opened the windows to get rid of their odor, I had seemed to discover in my body a call for pleasure that had nothing to do with that of my early sexual experiences, at the age of sixteen, with the uncomfortable and unsatisfying sex with my future husband, with our conjugal habits before and especially after the birth of the children. After that encounter with Brenda and her man, new expectations arose. I felt for the first time, like a fist in my chest, that I needed something else, but I felt uneasy saying it to myself, it seemed to me that such thoughts were not appropriate for my situation, for the ambitions of a reasonable and educated woman.

  Days passed, weeks, the traces of the two lovers faded for good. But I couldn’t settle down; instead, a kind of disorder took over my imagination. With my husband I was silent; I never tried to violate our sexual habits, not even the erotic slang we had elaborated over the years. But as I studied, did the shopping, stood in line to pay a bill, I would become lost in desires that embarrassed and at the same time excited me. I was ashamed of them, especially when they intervened while I was taking care of the children. I sang songs with them, read them fables before they fell asleep, helped Marta eat, washed them, dressed them, and meanwhile I felt unworthy, I couldn’t figure out how to calm myself.

  One morning my professor called from the university and said that he had been invited to an international conference on E. M. Forster. He advised me to go, it was my subject, he thought it would be very useful for my work. What work, I wasn’t doing anything, nor had he done much to smooth the way for me. I thanked him. I didn’t have the money, I had nothing to wear, my husband was going through a rough period and was very busy. After days and days of anxiety and depression, I decided I wouldn’t go. But the professor seemed displeased. He said I was wasting myself. I got angry, and didn’t hear from him for a while. When I heard from him again, he told me that he had found money to pay for the trip and the hotel.

  I had no more excuses. I organized every minute of the four days I would be gone: food ready in the refrigerator, visits from girlfriends happy to do all they could for a slightly mad scientist, a depressed student ready to babysit the children if their father had unexpected meetings. I departed, leaving everything in scrupulous order, except that Marta had a slight cold.

  The plane to London was full of well known young academics, my rivals, who in general had been much more aggressive and active than I in the race to find a job. The professor who had invited me was reserved, brooding, a gruff man. He had two grown children, a kind and gracious wife, a lot of teaching experience, was highly cultured; yet he was seized by panic attacks when he had to speak in public. During the flight all he did was revise his paper, and as soon as we were in the hotel he asked me to read it to see if it was persuasive. I read it, said it was wonderful, soothed him—that was my function. He hurried off and I didn’t see him for the whole first morning. He appeared only in the late afternoon, just in time to give his paper. He read the text smoothly, in English, but when there was some criticism, he was distressed, responded brusquely, and went off to his room; he didn’t even come down for dinner. I sat at a table with other participants like me, hardly saying a word.

  I saw him again the next day. There was an eagerly awaited paper, given by Professor Hardy, an esteemed scholar at a prestigious university. My professor didn’t even greet me; he was with others. I found a place at the back of the hall, diligently opened my notebook. Hardy appeared: a man in his fifties, short, thin, with a nice face and extraordinarily blue eyes. He had a low, enveloping voice, and after a while I was surprised to find myself wondering if I would like to be touched by him, caressed, kissed. He spoke for ten minutes, then suddenly, as if his voice were coming from within my erotic hallucination and not the microphone through which he was speaking, I heard him pronounce my name, then my last name.

  I couldn’t believe it, I felt myself blushing bright red. He went on; he was a skillful speaker, using the written text as a guide, and now improvising. He repeated my name one, two, three times. I saw that my colleagues from the university were looking for me throughout the hall, I was trembling, my hands were sweaty. Even my professor turned with a look of astonishment; I exchanged a glance with him. This English professor was citing a passage from my article, the only one I had published up to then, the same one I had given long ago to Brenda. He quoted it with admiration, he discussed a passage minutely, he used it to better articulate his own argument. I left the hall as soon as he finished his talk and the applause began.

  I ran to my room, feeling as if all the liquids inside me were boiling up under my skin; I was filled with pride. I called my husband in Florence. I almost shouted to him, on the telephone, the incredible thing that had happened to me. He said yes, wonderful, I’m pleased, and told me that Marta had chicken pox, it was definite, the doctor had said there was no doubt. I hung up. Marta’s chicken pox sought a space inside me with the usual wave of anxiety, but instead of the emptiness of the past years, it found a joyous future, a sense of power, a blissful confusion of intellectual triumph and physical pleasure. What’s chicken pox, I thought, Bianca had it, she’ll recover. I was overwhelmed by myself. I, I, I: I am this, I can do this, I must do this.

  My professor called me in my room. We were not on any kind of familiar terms, he was not a friendly man. His voice was hoarse and always sounded slightly annoyed; he had never thought much of me. He was resigned to the pressures of an ambitious graduate student, but without making promises, in general dumping on me the most boring tasks. But on that occasion he spoke to me kindly, got mixed up, muttered compliments for my success. Among other things he said: you’ll have to work harder now, try to finish your new essay quickly, another publication is i
mportant. I’ll tell Hardy how we’re working, you’ll see, he’ll want to meet you. Impossible, I said, who was I. He insisted: I’m sure.

  At lunch he had me sit beside him, and I suddenly realized, with a new wave of pleasure, that everything around me had changed. From anonymous graduate student, without even the right to give a short paper at the end of the day, I had become in the space of an hour a young scholar with some slight international fame. The Italians came one by one to congratulate me, young and old. Then some of the others. Finally Hardy came into the room, someone whispered to him and gestured toward the table where I was sitting. He looked at me for a moment, headed toward his table, stopped, turned back, and came over to introduce himself. Introduce himself to me, politely.

  Afterward, my professor said in my ear: he’s a serious scholar; but he works a lot, he’s getting old, bored. And he added: if you had been male, or ugly, or old, he would have expected you to come to him and offer the proper homage, and then would have dismissed you with some coldly courteous phrase. This seemed to me spiteful. When he made malicious allusions to the hypothesis that Hardy would certainly renew his pursuit that evening I murmured: maybe he’s really interested in my contribution. He didn’t answer, then said yes, and made no comments when I said, beside myself with joy, that Professor Hardy had invited me to sit at his table at dinner.

  I dined with Hardy; I was clever and confident, I drank a lot. Afterward we took a long walk and on the way back, it was two o’clock, he asked me to come to his room. He did it with wit and tact, in an undertone, and I accepted. I had always considered sex an ultimate sticky reality, the least mediated contact possible with another body. Instead, after that experience, I was convinced that sex is an extreme product of the imagination. The greater the pleasure, the more the other is only a dream, a nocturnal reaction of belly, breasts, mouth, anus—of every isolated inch of skin—to the caresses and thrusts of a vague entity definable according to the necessities of the moment. God knows what I put into that encounter, and it seemed to me that I had always loved that man—even though I had just met him—and desired no other but him.