The Neapolitan Novels

28.

Lila’s pregnancy lasted scarcely more than ten weeks; then the midwife came and scraped away everything. The next day she went back to work in the new grocery with Carmen Peluso. This marked the beginning of a long period in which, sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce, she stopped running around, having apparently decided to compress her whole life into the orderliness of that space fragrant with mortar and cheese, filled with sausages, bread, mozzarella, anchovies in salt, hunks of cicoli, sacks overflowing with dried beans, bladders stuffed with lard.

This behavior was greatly appreciated in particular by Stefano’s mother, Maria. As if she had recognized in her daughter-in-law something of herself, she suddenly became more affectionate, and gave her some old earrings of red gold. Lila accepted them with pleasure and wore them often. For a while her face remained pale, she had pimples on her forehead, her eyes were sunk deep into the sockets, the skin was stretched so tight over her cheekbones that it seemed transparent. Then she revived and put even more energy into promoting the shop. Already by Christmastime the profits had risen and within a few months surpassed those of the grocery in the old neighborhood.

Maria’s appreciation grew. She went more and more often to give her daughter-in-law a hand, rather than her son, whose failed paternity—along with the pressures of business—had made him surly, or her daughter, who had started working in the store in Piazza dei Martiri and had strictly forbidden her mother to appear, so as not to make a bad impression with the clientele. The old Signora Carracci even took the young Signora Carracci’s side when Stefano and Pinuccia blamed her for her inability, or unwillingness, to keep a baby inside her.

“She doesn’t want children,” Stefano complained.

“Yes,” Pinuccia supported him, “she wants to stay a girl, she doesn’t know how to be a wife.”

Maria reproached them both harshly: “Don’t even think such things, Our Lord gives children and Our Lord takes them away, I don’t want to hear that nonsense.”

“You be quiet,” her daughter cried, in annoyance. “You gave that bitch the earrings I liked.”

Their arguments, Lila’s reactions, soon became neighborhood gossip, which spread, and even I heard it. But I didn’t pay much attention, the school year had begun.

It started right off in a way that amazed me most of all. I did well from the first days, as if, with the departure of Antonio, the disappearance of Nino, maybe even Lila’s decisive commitment to managing the grocery, something in my head had relaxed. I found that I remembered with precision everything I had learned badly in my first year; I answered the teachers’ questions with ready intelligence. Not only that. Professor Galiani, maybe because she had lost Nino, her most brilliant student, redoubled her interest in me and said that it would be stimulating and instructive for me to go to a march for world peace that started in Resina and continued on to Naples. I decided to have a look, partly out of curiosity, partly out of fear that Professor Galiani would be offended, and partly because the march went along the stradone, skirting the neighborhood, and it wouldn’t take much effort. But my mother wanted me to take my brothers. I argued, I protested, and was late. I arrived with them at the railway bridge, and down below saw the people marching; they occupied the whole street, preventing the cars from passing. They were normal people and weren’t really marching but walking, carrying banners and signs. I wanted to find Professor Galiani, to be seen, and I ordered my brothers to wait on the bridge. It was a terrible idea: I couldn’t find the professor, and, as soon as I turned my back, they joined some other children who were throwing stones at the demonstrators and yelling insults. In a sweat I rushed to get them, and hurried them away, terrified by the idea that the far-sighted Professor Galiani had picked them out and recognized that they were my brothers.

Meanwhile the weeks passed, there were new classes and the textbooks to buy. It seemed pointless to show the list of books to my mother so that she would negotiate with my father and get money from him, I knew that there was no money. In addition, there was no news of Maestra Oliviero. Between August and September, I had gone twice to visit her in the hospital, but the first time I had found her asleep and the second I discovered that she had been discharged but had not returned home. Feeling desperate, in early November I went to ask the neighbor about her, and learned that, because of her health, she had gone to a sister in Potenza, and who knew if she would ever return to Naples, to the neighborhood, to her job. At that point I decided to ask Alfonso if, when his brother had bought the books for him, we could somehow arrange things so that I could use his. He was enthusiastic and proposed that we should study together, maybe at Lila’s house, which, ever since she had started working at the grocery, was empty from seven in the morning until nine at night. We resolved to do that.

But one morning Alfonso said to me, somewhat annoyed, “Go and see Lila in the grocery today, she wants to see you.” He knew why, but she had sworn him to silence and it was impossible to get the secret out of him.

In the afternoon I went to the new grocery. Carmen, with a mixture of sadness and joy, wanted to show me a card from some city in Piedmont that Enzo, her fiancé, had sent her. Lila had also received a card, from Antonio, and for a moment I thought she had wanted me to come there just to show it to me. But she didn’t show it to me or tell me what he had written. She dragged me into the back of the shop and asked, in a tone of amusement:

“You remember our bet?”

I nodded yes.

“You remember that you lost?”

I nodded yes.

“You remember that you now have to pass with the best grades?”

I nodded yes.

She pointed to two large packages tied up in wrapping paper. In them were the school books.