The Neapolitan Novels

55.

Stefano and Rino burst in. Lila was even more affectionate than the week before. She embraced Stefano, let him embrace her, gave a cry of joy when he took a case out of his pocket and she opened it and found a gold necklace with a pendant in the shape of a heart.

Naturally Rino, too, had brought a present for Pinuccia, who did her best to react as her sister-in-law had, but her painful fragility was visible in her eyes. So Rino’s kisses and embraces and the gift had soon swept away the form of the happy wife within which she had so hastily enclosed herself. Her mouth started to tremble, the fountain of tears erupted, and she said, in a choked voice, “I’ve packed my bags. I don’t want to stay here a minute longer, I want to be with you and only you, always.”

Rino smiled, he was moved by all that love, he laughed. Then he said, “I also want to be with you and only you, always.” Finally he understood that his wife was not just communicating how much she missed him, and how much she would always miss him, but that she really wanted to leave, that everything was ready for departure, and she was insisting on that decision with a real, unbearable grief.

They shut themselves in the bedroom to discuss it, but the discussion didn’t last long, Rino came out, shouting at his mother, “Mamma, I want to know what happened.” And without waiting for an answer, he turned aggressively to his sister: “If it’s your fault by God I’ll smash your face.” Then he shouted at his wife, “That’s enough, you’re a pain in the ass, come out now, I’m tired, I want to eat.”

Pinuccia reappeared with swollen eyes. When Stefano saw her, he made a playful attempt to defuse the situation, embracing his sister, and sighing, “Ah, love, you women drive us crazy for it.” Then, as if suddenly recalling the primary cause of his own craziness, he kissed Lila on the lips, and in observing the unhappiness of the other couple he felt happy at how unexpectedly happy they were.

We all sat down at the table and Nunzia served us, one by one, in silence. But this time it was Rino who couldn’t bear it, he yelled that he wasn’t hungry anymore, he hurled the plate of spaghetti and clams into the middle of the kitchen. I was frightened, Pinuccia began to cry again. And even Stefano lost his composure and said to his wife, sharply: “Let’s go, I’ll take you to a restaurant.” Amid the protests of Nunzia and even of Pinuccia they left the kitchen. In the silence that followed we heard the Lambretta setting off.

I helped Nunzia clean the floor. Rino got up, went to the bedroom. Pinuccia locked herself in the bathroom, but then she came out and joined her husband. She closed the door. Only then did Nunzia explode, forgetting her role of tolerant mother-in-law.

“Do you see how that bitch is making Rinuccio suffer? What’s happened to her?”

I said I didn’t know, and it was true, but I spent the evening consoling her by romanticizing Pinuccia’s feelings. I said that if I were carrying a child in my belly I, like her, would have wanted to be with my husband always, to feel protected, to be sure that my responsibility as a mother was shared by his as a father. I said that if Lila was there to have a child, and it was clear that the cure was right, that the sea was doing her good—you had only to look at the happiness that lighted up her face when Stefano arrived—Pinuccia instead was already full of love and wished to give all that love to Rino every minute of the day and night, otherwise it weighed on her and she suffered.

It was a sweet hour, Nunzia and I in the kitchen that was tidy now, the dishes and the pots shining because of the care with which they had been washed. She said to me, “How well you speak, Lenù, it’s clear that you’ll have a wonderful future.” Tears came to her eyes, she murmured that Lila should have gone to school, it was her destiny. “But my husband didn’t want it,” she added, “and I didn’t know how to oppose him: there wasn’t the money then, and yet she could have done as you did; instead she got married, she chose a different path and one can’t go back, life takes us where it wants.” She wished me happiness, “with a fine young man who has studied like you.” She asked if I really liked the son of Sarratore. I denied it, but I confided to her that I was going the next day to climb the mountain with him. She was glad, she helped me make some sandwiches with salami and provolone. I wrapped them in paper, put them in the bag with my towel for swimming, and everything else I needed. She urged me to be prudent as always and we said good night.

I went to my room, read a little, but I was distracted. How lovely it would be to go out early in the morning, with the cool air, the scents. How much I loved the sea, and even Pinuccia, her tears, the evening’s quarrel, the conciliatory love that, week by week, was increasing between Lila and Stefano. And how much I desired Nino. And how pleasant it was to have there with me, every day, him and my friend, the three of us content despite misunderstandings, despite the bad feelings that did not always remain silent in the dark depths.

I heard Stefano and Lila return. Their voices and laughter were muffled. Doors opened, closed, opened again. I heard the tap, the flush. Then I turned off the light, I listened to the faint rustle of the reeds, the scurrying in the henhouse, I fell asleep.

But I woke immediately, there was someone in my room.

“It’s me,” Lila whispered.

I felt her sitting on the edge of the bed, I was about to turn on the light.

“No,” she said, “I’ll stay only a moment.”

I turned it on anyway, I sat up.

She was wearing a pale pink nightgown. Her skin was so darkened by the sun that her eyes seemed white.

“Did you see how far I went?”

“You were great, but I was worried.”

She shook her head proudly and gave a little smile as if to say that the sea now belonged to her. Then she became serious.

“I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Nino kissed me,” she said, and she said it in one breath, like someone who, making a spontaneous confession, is trying to hide, even from herself, something more unconfessable. “He kissed me but I kept my lips closed.”