The Neapolitan Novels

34.

I wasn’t ashamed of her, I swore it, but I hid from her the fact that I was afraid of having to be ashamed of myself for it.

Stefano took us in the convertible to the professor’s house. I sat in the back, the two of them in front, and for the first time I was struck by the massive wedding rings on their hands, his and hers. While Lila wore a skirt and blouse, as she had promised, nothing excessive, and no makeup except some lipstick, he was dressed up, with a lot of gold, and a strong odor of shaving soap, as if he expected that at the last moment we would say to him: You come, too. We didn’t. I confined myself to thanking him warmly several times, Lila got out of the car without saying goodbye. Stefano drove off with a painful screeching of tires.

We were tempted by the elevator, but then decided against it. We had never taken an elevator, not even Lila’s new building had one, we were afraid of getting in trouble. Professor Galiani had said that her apartment was on the fourth floor, that on the door it said “Dott. Prof. Frigerio,” but just the same we checked the name plates on every floor. I went ahead, Lila behind, in silence, flight after flight. How clean the building was, the doorknobs and the brass nameplates gleamed. My heart was pounding.

We identified the door first of all by the loud music coming from it, by the din of voices. We smoothed our skirts, I pulled down the slip that tended to rise up my legs, Lila straightened her hair with her fingertips. Both of us, evidently, were afraid of escaping ourselves, of erasing in a moment of distraction the mask of self-possession we had given ourselves. I pressed the bell. We waited, no one came to the door. I looked at Lila, I pressed the button again, longer. Quick footsteps, the door opened. A dark young man appeared, small in stature, with a handsome face and a lively gaze. He appeared to be around twenty. I said nervously that I was a student of Professor Galiani, and without even letting me finish, he laughed, exclaimed, “Elena?”

“Yes.”

“In this house we all know you, our mother never misses a chance to torment us by reading us your papers.”

The boy’s name was Armando and that remark of his was decisive, it gave me a sudden sense of power. I still remember him fondly, there in the doorway. He was absolutely the first person to show me in a practical sense how comfortable it is to arrive in a strange, potentially hostile environment, and discover that you have been preceded by your reputation, that you don’t have to do anything to be accepted, that your name is known, that everyone knows about you, and it’s the others, the strangers, who must strive to win your favor and not you theirs. Used as I was to the absence of advantages, that unforeseen advantage gave me energy, an immediate self-confidence. My anxieties disappeared, I no longer worried about what Lila could or couldn’t do. In the grip of my unexpected centrality, I even forgot to introduce my friend to Armando, nor, on the other hand, did he seem to notice her. He led me in as if I were alone, enthusiastically insisting on how much his mother talked about me, on how she praised me. I followed, self-deprecatingly, Lila closed the door.

The apartment was big, the rooms open and bright, the ceilings high and decorated with floral motifs. What struck me most was the books everywhere, there were more books in that house than in the neighborhood library, entire walls covered by floor-to-ceiling shelves. And music. And young people dancing freely in a large, brilliantly lighted room. And others talking, smoking. All of whom obviously went to school, and had parents who had gone to school. Like Armando: his mother a teacher, his father a surgeon, though he wasn’t there that evening. The boy led us onto a small terrace: warm air, large sky, an intense odor of wisteria and roses mixed with that of vermouth and marzipan. We saw the city sparkling with lights, the dark plane of the sea. The professor called my name in greeting, it was she who reminded me of Lila behind me.

“Is she a friend of yours?”

I stammered something, I realized that I didn’t know how to make introductions. “My professor. Her name is Lina. We went to elementary school together,” I said. Professor Galiani spoke approvingly of long friendships, they’re important, an anchorage, generic phrases uttered as she stared at Lila, who responded self-consciously in monosyllables, and who, when she realized that the professor’s gaze had come to rest on the wedding ring, immediately covered it with her other hand.

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the same age as Elena?”

“I’m two weeks older.”

Professor Galiani looked around, turned to her son: “Have you introduced them to Nadia?”

“No.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Take it easy, Mamma, they just got here.”

The professor said to me, “Nadia is really eager to meet you. This fellow here is a rascal, don’t trust him, but she’s a good girl, you’ll see, you’ll be friends, she’ll like you.”

We left her alone to smoke. Nadia, I understood, was Armando’s younger sister: sixteen years of being a pain in the ass—he described her with feigned animosity—she ruined my childhood. I jokingly alluded to the trouble that my younger sister and brothers had always given me, and I turned to Lila for confirmation, smiling. But she remained serious, she said nothing. We returned to the room with the dancers, which had darkened. A Paul Anka song, or maybe “What a Sky,” who can remember anymore. The dancers held each other close, faint flickering shadows. The music ended. Even before someone reluctantly switched on the lights, I felt an explosion in my chest, I recognized Nino Sarratore. He was lighting a cigarette, the flame leaped up into his face. I hadn’t seen him for almost a year, he seemed to me older, taller, more disheveled, more handsome. Meanwhile the electric light flooded the room and I also recognized the girl he had just stopped dancing with. She was the same girl I had seen long ago outside school, the refined, luminous girl, who had compelled me to comprehend my dullness.

“Here she is,” said Armando.

It was Nadia, the daughter of Professor Galiani.