The Neapolitan Novels

30.

Yet it was thanks to those phrases that in a short time the Solaras’ shop and Cerullo shoes became more successful. Gigliola and Pinuccia boasted a lot about how they had been quoted in the papers, but the success did not diminish their rivalry and each went on to give herself the credit for the shop’s fortunes, and began to consider the other an obstacle to further successes. On a single point they continued to agree: Lila’s panel was an abomination. They were rude to anyone who, in a refined little voice, stopped in just to have a look at it. And they framed the articles from Roma and Napoli Notte, but not the one from Il Mattino.

Between Christmas and Easter, the Solaras and the Carraccis made a lot of money. Stefano, especially, drew a sigh of relief. The new grocery and the old one were prospering, the Cerullo shoe factory was working at full capacity. In addition, the shop in Piazza dei Martiri revealed what he had always known, and that is that the shoes Lila had designed years before sold well not only on the Rettifilo, Via Foria, and Corso Garibaldi but were coveted by the wealthy, those who casually reached for their wallets. An important market, therefore, which had to be consolidated and expanded.

As proof of that success, in the spring some good imitations of Cerullo shoes began to appear in the shopwindows of the outlying neighborhoods. These shoes were essentially identical to Lila’s, but slightly modified by a fringe, a stud. Protests, threats immediately blocked their circulation: Michele Solara straightened things out. But he didn’t stop there, he soon reached the conclusion that new models had to be designed. For that reason, one evening in the shop in Piazza dei Martiri, he summoned his brother Marcello, the Carraccis, Rino, and, naturally, Gigliola and Pinuccia. Surprisingly, Stefano showed up without Lila, he said that his wife was sorry, she was tired.

Her absence did not please the Solara brothers. If Lila isn’t here, Michele said, making Gigliola nervous, what the fuck are we talking about. But Rino immediately interrupted. He asserted, lying, that he and his father had begun some time ago to think of new models and planned to introduce them at a trade show that was to be held in Arezzo in September. Michele didn’t believe him, and became still more irritable. He said that they had to come out with products that were really innovative and not with normal stuff. Finally he turned to Stefano:

“Your wife is necessary, you’ve got to make her come.”

Stefano answered with startling hostility: “My wife works hard all day in the grocery store and at night she has to stay home, she has to think of me.”

“All right,” Michele said, with a grimace, spoiling for a moment his handsome boy’s face. “But see if she can think of us, too, a little.”

The evening left everyone unhappy, but Pinuccia and Gigliola in particular. For different reasons, they found the importance that Michele gave Lila intolerable, and in the following days their disgruntlement became a dark mood that at the slightest opportunity gave rise to a quarrel.

At that point—I think it was March—an accident happened; I don’t really know how. One afternoon, during one of their daily disagreements, Gigliola slapped Pinuccia. Pinuccia complained to Rino, who, believing at the time that he was riding the crest of a wave as high as a house, came to the shop with a proprietary air and told Gigliola off. Gigliola reacted aggressively and he went so far as to threaten to fire her.

“Starting tomorrow,” he said to her, “you can go and stuff ricotta in the cannoli again.”

Then Michele showed up. Smiling, he led Rino outside, to the square, to indicate the sign over the door.

“My friend,” he said, “the shop is called Solara and you have no right to come here and tell my girlfriend: I’m firing you.”

Rino retaliated by reminding him that everything in the shop belonged to his brother-in-law, and that he made the shoes himself, so he certainly did have the right. Inside, meanwhile, Gigliola and Pinuccia, each feeling protected by her own fiancé, had already started fighting again. The two young men hurried back inside, tried to calm them down, and couldn’t. Michele lost patience and cried that he would fire them both. Not only that: he let slip that he would have Lila manage the shop.

Lila?

The shop?

The two girls were silent and the idea left even Rino speechless. Then the discussion started up again, this time focused on that outrageous statement. Gigliola, Pinuccia, and Rino were allied against Michele—what’s wrong, what use to you is Lina, we’re making money here, you can’t complain, I thought up all the shoe styles, she was a child, what could she invent—and the tension increased. Who knows how long the quarreling would have gone on if the accident I mentioned hadn’t happened. Suddenly, and it’s unclear how, the panel—the panel with the strips of black paper, the photograph, the thick patches of color—let out a rasping sound, a kind of sick breath, and burst into flame. Pinuccia had her back to the photograph when it happened. The fire blazed up behind her as if from a secret hearth and licked her hair, which crackled and would have burned completely if Rino hadn’t quickly extinguished it with his bare hands.