The Lost Daughter

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.

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 important. 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.

Gianni, when I got home, reproached me because in four days I had called only twice, even though Marta was sick. I said: I had a lot to do. I also said that, after what had happened, I would have to work very hard to take advantage of it. I began to go to the university, provocatively, ten hours a day. When we returned to Florence, my professor, suddenly available, did all he could to help me finish and publish a new essay, and he collaborated energetically with Hardy to enable me to spend some time at his university. I entered a period of painful, frenzied activity. I studied intensely and yet I suffered, because it seemed to me that I couldn’t live without Hardy. I wrote him long letters, called him. If Gianni, especially on the weekends, was home, I hurried to a pay phone, dragging Bianca and Marta with me so that he wouldn’t become suspicious. Bianca listened to the phone calls and, although they were in English, understood everything without understanding, and I knew it, but I didn’t know what to do. The children were there with me, mute and bewildered: I never forgot it, I will never forget it. Yet I radiated pleasure against my own will, I whispered affectionate words, I responded to obscene allusions and made obscene allusions in turn. I was careful—when they pulled me by the skirt, when they said they were hungry or wanted an ice cream or insisted on a balloon from the man with balloons who was just over there—never to say, That’s it, I’m leaving, you’ll never see me again, as my mother had when she was desperate. She never left us, despite crying that she would; I, on the other hand, left my daughters almost without announcing it.

I drove as if I were not at the wheel, unaware even of the road. Through the windows came a hot wind. I parked at the apartment, I had Bianca and Marta before my eyes, frightened, small, as they had been eighteen years earlier. I was burning hot, and got in the shower immediately. Cold water. I let it run over me for a long time, staring at the sand that slid black down my legs, my feet, onto the white enamel of the floor. The chill of the crooked wing falls down along my body. Get dry, dressed. I had taught that line of Auden’s to my daughters, we used it as our private phrase to say that we didn’t like a place or that we were in a bad mood or simply that it was a freezing cold day. Poor girls, forced to be cultured even in their family lexicon, from the time they were children. I took my bag, carried it out onto the terrace in the sun, spilled the contents onto the table. The doll fell on one side, I spoke to her, the way one does to a cat or a dog, then I heard my voice and was immediately silent. I decided to take care of Nani, for company, to calm myself. I looked for some alcohol, I wanted to erase the pen marks she had on her face and body. I rubbed her carefully, but I didn’t do a good job. Nani, come, dear. Let’s put on the underpants, the socks, the shoes. Let’s put on the dress. How nice you look. I was surprised by that nickname, which I myself was now easily calling her. Why, among the many that Elena and Nina used, had I chosen that one. I looked in my notebook, I had recorded them all: Neni, Nile, Nilotta, Nanicchia, Nanuccia, Nennella. Nani. You have water in your belly, my love. You keep your liquid darkness in your stomach. I sat in the sun, next to the table, drying my hair, every so often running my fingers through it. The sea was green.

I, too, was hiding many dark things, in silence. The remorse of ingratitude, for example: Brenda. It was she who had given Hardy my text, he told me himself. I don’t know how they knew each other, and didn’t want to know what reciprocal debts they had. Today I know only that my pages would never have gotten any attention without Brenda. But at the time I told no one, not even Gianni, not even my professor, and above all I never looked for her. It’s something that I admitted only in the letter to the girls two years ago, the one they never read. I wrote: I needed to believe that I had done everything alone. I wanted, with increasing intensity, to feel myself, my talents, the autonomy of my abilities.

Meanwhile things were happening in a chain reaction, seemingly the confirmation of what I had always hoped for. I was good; I didn’t need to pretend a kind of superiority, as my mother did; I really was a creature out of the ordinary. My professor in Florence was finally sure of it. The famous, sophisticated Professor Hardy was sure of it, he seemed to believe it more than anyone. I left for England, I returned, I left again. My husband was alarmed, what was happening. He protested that he couldn’t keep up with work and the children both. I told him that I was leaving him. He didn’t understand, he thought I was depressed, he looked for solutions, called my mother, cried that I had to think of the children. I told him that I couldn’t live with him any longer, I needed to understand who I was, what were my real possibilities—and other lines like that. I couldn’t announce that I already knew all about myself, I had a thousand new ideas, I was studying, I was loving other men, I was in love with anyone who said I was smart, intelligent, helped me to test myself. He calmed down. For a while he tried to be understanding, then he sensed that I was lying, got angry, moved on to insults. Finally he said do what you want, get out.

He had never really believed that I could go without the children. Instead I left them to him, and was gone for two months; I never called. It was he who hunted me down, from a distance, harassing me. When I returned, I did so only to pack my books and notes, for good.

On that occasion I bought dresses for Bianca and Marta, and brought them as a gift. Small and tender, they wanted help in putting them on. My husband took me aside gently, asked me to try again, began to cry, said he loved me. I said no. We quarreled, and I shut myself in the kitchen. After a while I heard a light knocking. Bianca came in, very serious, followed by her sister, timidly. Bianca took on orange from the tray of fruit, opened a drawer, handed me a knife. I didn’t understand, I was running after my own desires, I couldn’t wait to escape that house, forget it and forget everything. Make a snake for us, she asked then, for herself and Marta, too, and Marta smiled at me encouragingly. They sat in front of me waiting, they assumed the poses of cool and elegant little ladies, in their new dresses. All right, I said, took the orange, began to cut the peel. The children stared at me. I felt their gazes longing to tame me, but more brilliant was the brightness of the life outside them, new colors, new bodies, new intelligence, a language to possess finally as if it were my true language, and nothing, nothing that seemed to me reconcilable with that domestic space from which they stared at me in expectation. Ah, to make them invisible, to no longer hear the demands of their flesh as commands more pressing, more powerful than those which came from mine. I finished peeling the orange and I left. From that moment, for three years, I didn’t see or hear them at all.