The Neapolitan Novels

35.

Odd as it may seem, that discovery did not spoil the pleasure of finding myself there, in that house, among respectable people. I loved Nino, I had no doubt, I never had any doubt about that. And of course I should have suffered in the face of further proof that I would never have him. But I didn’t. That he had a girlfriend, that the girlfriend was in every way better than me, I already knew. The novelty was that it was the daughter of Professor Galiani, who had grown up in that house, among those books. I immediately felt that the thing, instead of grieving me, calmed me, further justified their choosing each other, made it an inevitable movement, in harmony with the natural order of things. In other words, I felt as if suddenly I had before my eyes an example of symmetry so perfect that I had to enjoy it in silence.

But it wasn’t only that. As soon as Armando said to his sister, “Nadia, this is Elena, mamma’s student,” the girl blushed and impetuously threw her arms around my neck, murmuring, “Elena, how happy I am to meet you.” Then, without giving me time to say a single word, she went on to praise, without her brother’s mocking tone, what I had written and how I wrote, in tones of such enthusiasm that I felt the way I did when her mother read a theme of mine in class. Or maybe it was even better, because there, present, listening to her, were the people I most cared about, Nino and Lila, and both could observe that in that house I was loved and respected.

I adopted a friendly demeanor that I had never considered myself capable of, I immediately engaged in casual conversation, I came out with a fine, cultured Italian that didn’t feel artificial, like the language I used at school. I asked Nino about his trip to England, I asked Nadia what books she was reading, what music she liked. I danced with Armando, with others, without a pause, even to a rock-and-roll song, during which my glasses flew off my nose but didn’t break. A miraculous evening. At one point I saw that Nino exchanged a few words with Lila, invited her to dance. But she refused; she left the dancing room, and I lost sight of her. A long time passed before I remembered my friend. It took the slow waning of the dances, a passionate discussion between Armando, Nino, and a couple of other boys their age, a move, along with Nadia, to the terrace, partly because of the heat and partly to bring into the discussion Professor Galiani, who had stayed by herself, smoking and enjoying the cool air. “Come on,” Armando said, taking me by the hand. I said, “I’ll get my friend,” and I freed myself. All hot, I went through the rooms looking for Lila. I found her alone in front of a wall of books.

“Come on, let’s go out on the terrace,” I said.

“To do what?”

“Cool off, talk.”

“You go.”

“Are you bored?”

“No, I’m looking at the books.”

“See how many there are?”

“Yes.”

I felt she was unhappy. Because she had been neglected. Fault of the wedding ring, I thought. Or maybe her beauty isn’t recognized here, Nadia’s counts more. Or perhaps it’s she who, although she has a husband, has been pregnant, had a miscarriage, designed shoes, can make money—she who doesn’t know who she is in this house, doesn’t know how to be appreciated, the way she is in the neighborhood. I do. Suddenly I felt that the state of suspension that had begun the day of her wedding was over. I knew how to be with these people, I felt more at ease than I did with my friends in the neighborhood. The only anxiety was what Lila was provoking now by her withdrawal, by remaining on the margins. I drew her away from the books, dragged her onto the terrace.

While many of the guests were still dancing, a small group had formed around the professor, three or four boys and two girls. Only the boys talked. The sole woman who took part, and she did so with irony, was the professor. I saw right away that the older boys, Nino, Armando and one called Carlo, found it somehow improper to argue with her. They wished mainly to challenge each other, considering her the authority, bestower of the palm of victory. Armando expressed opinions contrary to his mother’s but in fact he was addressing Nino. Carlo agreed with the professor but in refuting the others he strove to separate his arguments from hers. And Nino, politely disagreeing with the professor, contradicted Armando, contradicted Carlo. I listened spellbound. Their words were buds that blossomed in my mind into more or less familiar flowers, and then I flared up, mimicking participation; or they manifested forms unknown to me, and I retreated, to hide my ignorance. In this second case, however, I became nervous: I don’t know what they’re talking about, I don’t know who this person is, I don’t understand. They were sounds without sense, they demonstrated that the world of persons, events, ideas was endless, and the reading I did at night had not been sufficient, I would have to work even harder in order to be able to say to Nino, to Professor Galiani, to Carlo, to Armando: Yes, I understand, I know. The entire planet is threatened. Nuclear war. Colonialism, neocolonialism. The pieds-noirs, the O.A.S. and the National Liberation Front. The fury of mass slaughters. Gaullism, Fascism. France, Armée, Grandeur, Honneur. Sartre is a pessimist, but he counts on the Communist workers in Paris. The wrong direction taken by France, by Italy. Opening to the left. Saragat, Nenni. Fanfani in London, Macmillan. The Christian Democratic congress in our city. The followers of Fanfani, Moro, the Christian Democratic left. The socialists have ended up in the jaws of power. We will be Communists, we with our proletariat and our parliamentarians, to get the laws of the center left passed. If it goes like that, a Marxist-Leninist party will become a social democracy. Did you see how Leone behaved at the start of the academic year? Armando shook his head in disgust: Planning isn’t going to change the world, it will take blood, it will take violence. Nino responded calmly: Planning is an indispensable tool. The talk was tense, Professor Galiani kept the boys at bay. How much they knew, they were masters of the earth. At some point Nino mentioned America favorably, he said words in English as if he were English. I noticed that in the space of a year his voice had grown stronger, it was thick, almost hoarse, and he used it less rigidly than he had at Lila’s wedding and, later, at school. He even spoke of Beirut as if he had been there, and Danilo Dolci and Martin Luther King and Bertrand Russell. He appeared to support an organization he called the World Brigade for Peace and rebuked Armando when he referred to it sarcastically. Then he grew excited, his voice rose. Ah, how handsome he was. He said that the world had the technical capability to eliminate colonialism, hunger, war from the face of the earth. I was overwhelmed by emotion as I listened, and, although I felt lost in the midst of a thousand things I didn’t know—what were Gaullism, the O.A.S., social democracy, the opening to the left; who were Danilo Dolci, Bertrand Russell, the pieds-noirs, the followers of Fanfani; and what had happened in Beirut, what in Algeria—I felt the need, as I had long ago, to take care of him, to tend to him, to protect him, to sustain him in everything that he would do in the course of his life. It was the only moment of the evening when I felt envious of Nadia, who stood beside him like a minor but radiant divinity. Then I heard myself utter sentences as if it were not I who had decided to do so, as if another person, more assured, more informed, had decided to speak through my mouth. I began without knowing what I would say, but, hearing the boys, fragments of phrases read in Galiani’s books and newspapers stirred in my mind, and the desire to speak, to make my presence felt, became stronger than timidity. I used the elevated Italian I had practiced in making translations from Greek and Latin. I was on Nino’s side. I said I didn’t want to live in a world at war. We mustn’t repeat the mistakes of the generations that preceded us, I said. Today we should make war on the atomic arsenals, should make war on war itself. If we allow the use of those weapons, we will all become even guiltier than the Nazis. Ah, how moved I was, as I spoke: I felt tears coming to my eyes. I concluded by saying that the world urgently needed to be changed, that there were too many tyrants who kept peoples enslaved. But it should be changed by peaceful means.

I don’t know if everyone appreciated me. Armando seemed unhappy and a blond girl whose name I didn’t know stared at me with a small, mocking smile. But as I was speaking Nino nodded at me in agreement. And when Professor Galiani, just afterward, gave her opinion, she referred to me twice, and it was thrilling to hear, “As Elena rightly said.” It was Nadia, though, who did the most wonderful thing. She left Nino and came over and whispered in my ear: “How clever you are, how brave.” Lila, who was next to me, didn’t say a word. But while the professor was still talking to me she gave me a tug and whispered, in dialect, “I’m falling asleep on my feet, find out where the telephone is and call Stefano?”