The Neapolitan Novels

45.

The husbands, in fact, arrived early. They were expected Sunday morning, but they appeared Saturday evening, very excited, with Lambrettas that they had, I think, rented at the Ischia Port. Nunzia prepared a lavish dinner. There was talk of the neighborhood, of the stores, of how the new shoes were coming along. Rino was full of self-praise for the models that he was perfecting with his father, but at an opportune moment he thrust some sketches under Lila’s nose, and she examined them reluctantly, suggesting some modifications. Then we sat down at the table, and the two young men gorged themselves, competing to see who could eat more. It wasn’t even ten when they dragged their wives to the bedrooms.

I helped Nunzia clear and wash the dishes. Then I shut myself in my room, I read a little. The heat in the closed room was suffocating, but I was afraid of the blotches I’d get from the mosquito bites, and I didn’t open the window. I tossed and turned in the bed, soaked with sweat: I thought of Lila, of how, slowly, she had yielded. Certainly, she didn’t show any particular affection for her husband; and the tenderness that I had sometimes seen in her gestures when they were engaged had disappeared. During dinner she had frequently commented with disgust at the way Stefano gobbled his food, the way he drank; but it was evident that some equilibrium, who knows how precarious, had been reached. When he, after some allusive remarks, headed toward the bedroom, Lila followed without delay, without saying go on, I’ll join you later; she was resigned to an inevitable routine. Between her and her husband there was not the carnival spirit displayed by Rino and Pinuccia, but there was no resistance, either. Deep into the night I heard the noise of the two couples, the laughter and the sighs, the doors opening, the water coming out of the tap, the whirlpool of the flush, the doors closing. Finally I fell asleep.

On Sunday I had breakfast with Nunzia. I waited until ten for any of them to emerge; they didn’t, I went to the beach. I stayed until noon and no one came. I went back to the house, Nunzia told me that the two couples had gone for a tour of the island on the Lambrettas, advising us not to wait for them for lunch. In fact they returned around three, slightly drunk, sunburned, all four full of enthusiasm for Casamicciola, Lacco Ameno, Forio. The two girls had shining eyes and immediately glanced at me slyly.

“Lenù,” Pinuccia almost shouted, “guess what happened.”

“What.”

“We met Nino on the beach,” Lila said.

My heart stopped.

“Oh.”

“My goodness, he is really a good swimmer,” Pinuccia said excitedly, cutting the air with exaggerated arm strokes.

And Rino: “He’s not unlikable: he was interested in how shoes are made.”

And Stefano: “He has a friend named Soccavo and he’s the mortadella Soccavo: his father owns a sausage factory in San Giovanni a Teduccio.”

And Rino again: “That guy’s got money.”

And again Stefano: “Forget the student, Lenù, he doesn’t have a lira: aim for Soccavo, you’d be better off.”

After a little more joking (Would you look at that, Lenuccia is about to be the richest of all, She seems like a good girl and yet), they withdrew again into the bedrooms.

I was incredibly disappointed. They had met Nino, gone swimming with him, talked to him, and without me. I put on my best dress—the same one, the one I’d worn to the wedding, even though it was hot—I carefully combed my hair, which had become very blond in the sun, and told Nunzia I was going for a walk.

I walked to Forio, uneasy because of the long, solitary distance, because of the heat, because of the uncertain result of my undertaking. I tracked down the address of Nino’s friend, I called several times from the street, fearful that he wouldn’t answer.

“Nino, Nino.”

He looked out.

“Come up.”

“I’ll wait here.”

I waited, I was afraid that he would treat me rudely. Instead he came out of the doorway with an unusually friendly expression. How disturbing his angular face was. And how pleasantly crushed I felt confronted by his long profile, his broad shoulders and narrow chest, that taut skin, the sole, dark covering of his thinness, merely bones, muscles, tendons. He said his friend would join us later; we walked through the center of Forio, amid the Sunday market stalls. He asked me about the bookstore on Mezzocannone. I told him that Lila had asked me to go with her on vacation and so I had quit. I didn’t mention the fact that she was giving me money, as if going with her were a job, as if I were her employee. I asked him about Nadia, he said only: “Everything’s fine.” “Do you write to each other?” “Yes.” “Every day?” “Every week.” That was our conversation, already we had nothing more of our selves to share. We don’t know anything about each other, I thought. Maybe I could ask how relations are with his father, but in what tone? And, besides, didn’t I see with my own eyes that they’re bad? Silence: I felt awkward.

But he promptly shifted onto the only terrain that seemed to justify our meeting. He said that he was glad to see me, all he could talk about with his friend was soccer and exam subjects. He praised me. Professor Galiani perceived it, he said, you’re the only girl in the school who has any curiosity about things that aren’t useful for exams and grades. He started to speak about serious subjects, we resorted immediately to a fine, impassioned Italian in which we knew we excelled. He started off with the problem of violence. He mentioned a peace demonstration in Cortona and related it skillfully to the beatings that had taken place in a piazza in Turin. He said he wanted to understand more about the link between immigration and industry. I agreed, but what did I know about those things? Nothing. Nino realized it, and he told me in great detail about an uprising of young southerners and the harshness with which the police had repressed them. “They call them napoli, they call them Moroccans, they call them Fascists, provocateurs, anarcho-syndicalists. But really they are boys whom no institution cares about, so neglected that when they get angry they destroy everything.” Searching for something to say that would please him, I ventured, “If you don’t have a solid knowledge of the problems and if you don’t find lasting solutions, then naturally violence breaks out. But the people who rebel aren’t to blame, it’s the ones who don’t know how to govern.” He gave me an admiring look, and said, “That’s exactly what I think.”

I was really pleased. I felt encouraged and cautiously went on to some reflections on how to reconcile individuality and universality, drawing on Rousseau and other memories of the readings imposed by Professor Galiani. Then I asked, “Have you read Federico Chabod?”

I mentioned that name because he was the author of the book on the idea of nationhood that I had read a few pages of. I didn’t know anything else, but at school I had learned to give the impression that I knew a lot. Have you read Federico Chabod? It was the only moment when Nino seemed to be annoyed. I realized that he didn’t know who Chabod was and from that I got an electrifying sensation of fullness. I began to summarize the little I had learned, but I quickly realized that to know, to compulsively display what he knew, was his point of strength and at the same time his weakness. He felt strong if he took the lead and weak if he lacked words. He darkened, in fact he stopped me almost immediately. He sidetracked the conversation, he started talking about the Regions, about how urgent it was to get them approved, about autonomy and decentralization, about economic planning on a regional basis, all things I had never heard a word about. No Chabod, then: I left him the field. And I liked to hear him talk, read the passion in his face. His eyes brightened when he was excited.

We went on like that for at least an hour. Isolated from the shouting around us, its coarse dialect, we felt exclusive, he and I alone, with our vigilant Italian, with those conversations that mattered to us and no one else. What were we doing? A discussion? Practicing for future confrontations with people who had learned to use words as we had? An exchange of signals to prove to ourselves that such words were the basis of a long and fruitful friendship? A cultivated screen for sexual desire? I don’t know. I certainly had no particular passion for those subjects, for the real things and people they referred to. I had no training, no habit, only the usual desire not to make a bad showing. It was wonderful, though—that is certain. I felt the way I did at the end of the year when I saw the list of my grades and read: passed. But I also understood that there was no comparison with the exchanges I had had with Lila years earlier, which ignited my brain, and in the course of which we tore the words from each other’s mouth, creating an excitement that seemed like a storm of electrical charges. With Nino it was different. I felt that I had to pay attention to say what he wanted me to say, hiding from him both my ignorance and the few things that I knew and he didn’t. I did this, and felt proud that he was trusting me with his convictions. But now something else happened. Suddenly he said, That’s enough, grabbed my hand, exclaimed, like a fluorescent caption, Now I’ll take you to see a landscape that you’ll never forget, and dragged me to Piazza del Soccorso, without letting go, rather, he entwined his fingers in mine, so that, overwhelmed as I was by his clasp, I preserve no memory of the arc of the deep blue sea.

It truly overwhelmed me. Once or twice he disentangled his fingers to smooth his hair, but he immediately took my hand again. I wondered for a moment how he reconciled that intimate gesture with his bond with Professor Galiani’s daughter. Maybe for him, I answered, it’s merely how he thinks of the friendship between male and female. But the kiss on Via Mezzocannone? That, too, was nothing, new customs, new habits of youth; and anyway so slight, just the briefest contact. I should be satisfied with the happiness of right now, the chance of this vacation that I wanted: later I’ll lose him, he’ll leave, he has a destiny that can in no way be mine, too.

I was absorbed by these throbbing thoughts when I heard a roar behind me and noisy cries of my name. Rino and Stefano passed us at full speed on their Lambrettas, with their wives behind. They slowed down, turned back with a skillful maneuver. I let go of Nino’s hand.

“And your friend?” Stefano asked, revving his engine.

“He’ll be here soon.”

“Say hello from me.”

“Yes.”

Rino asked, “Do you want to take Lenuccia for a spin?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, you see she’d like to.”

Nino flushed, he said, “I don’t know how to ride a Lam­bretta.”

“It’s easy, like a bicycle.”

“I know, but it’s not for me.”

Stefano laughed: “Rinù, he’s a guy who studies, forget it.”

I had never seen him so lighthearted. Lila sat close against him, with both arms around his waist. She urged him, “Let’s go, if you don’t hurry you’ll miss the boat.”

“Yes, let’s go,” cried Stefano, “tomorrow we have to work: not like you people who sit in the sun and go swimming. Bye, Lenù, bye, Nino, be good boys and girls.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rino said cordially.

They went off, Lila waved goodbye to Nino, shouting, “Please, take her home.”

She’s acting like my mother, I thought with a little annoyance, she’s playing grownup.

Nino took me by the hand again and said, “Rino is nice, but why did Lina marry that moron?”