The Neapolitan Novels

57.

I was sure that he wouldn’t come, but when I got to the beach he was already there, and without Bruno. But I realized that he had no desire to look for the road to the mountain, to set out on unknown paths. He said that he was ready to go, if I really wanted to, but he predicted that in this heat we’d get unbearably exhausted and dismissed the idea that we’d ever find anything as worthwhile as a good swim. I began to worry, I thought he was on the verge of saying that he was going to go back and study. Instead, to my surprise, he proposed renting a boat. He counted and recounted the money he had, I took out my few cents. He smiled, he said gently, “You’ve taken care of the sandwiches, I’ll do this.” A few minutes later we were on the sea, he at the oars, I sitting in the stern.

I felt better. I thought maybe Lila had lied to me, that he hadn’t kissed her. But in some part of myself I knew very well that it wasn’t so: I sometimes lied, yes, even (or especially) to myself; she, on the other hand, as far as I could remember, had never done so. Besides, I had only to wait a while and it was Nino himself who explained things. When we were out on the water he let go of the oars and dived in, I did the same. He didn’t swim the way he usually did, mingling with the undulating surface of the sea. Instead he dropped toward the bottom, disappeared, reappeared farther on, sank again. I was alarmed by the depth, and swam around the boat, not daring to go too far, until I got tired and clumsily pulled myself in. After a while he joined me, grabbed the oars, began to row energetically, following a line parallel to the coast, toward Punta Imperatore. So far we had remarked on the sandwiches, the heat, the sea, how wise we had been not to take the mule paths up Epomeo. To my increasing wonder he hadn’t yet resorted to the subjects he was reading about in books, in journals, in newspapers, even though every so often, afraid of the silence, I threw out some remark that might set off his passion for the things of the world. But no, he had something else on his mind. And eventually he put down the oars, stared for a moment at a rock face, a flight of seagulls, then he said:

“Did Lina say anything to you?”

“About what?”

He pressed his lips together uneasily, and said, “All right, I’m going to tell you what happened. Yesterday I kissed her.”

That was the beginning. We spent the rest of the day talking about the two of them. We went swimming again, he explored cliffs and caves, we ate the sandwiches, drank all the water I had brought, he wanted to teach me to row, but as for talking we couldn’t talk about anything else. And what most struck me was that he didn’t try even once, as he normally tended to do, to transform his particular situation into a general situation. Only he and Lila, Lila and he. He said nothing about love. He said nothing about the reasons one ends up being in love with one person rather than another. He questioned me, instead, obsessively about her and her relationship with Stefano.

“Why did she marry him?”

“Because she was in love with him.”

“It can’t be.”

“I assure you it is.”

“She married him for money, to help her family, to settle herself.”

“If that was all she could have married Marcello Solara.”

“Who’s that?”

“A guy who has more money than Stefano and was crazy about her.”

“And she?”

“Didn’t want him.”

“So you think she married the grocer out of love.”

“Yes.”

“And what’s this business about going swimming to have children?”

“The doctor told her.”

“But does she want them?”

“At first no, now I don’t know.”

“And he?”

“He yes.”

“Is he in love with her?”

“Very much.”

“And you, from the outside, do you think that everything’s fine between them?”

“With Lina things are never fine.”

“Meaning?”

“They had problems from the first day of their marriage, but it was because of Lina, who couldn’t adjust.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s going better.”

“I don’t believe it.”

He went around and around that point with growing skepticism. But I insisted: Lila never had loved her husband as in that period. And the more incredulous he appeared the more I piled it on. I told him plainly that between them nothing could happen, I didn’t want him to delude himself. This, however, was of no use in exhausting the subject. It became increasingly clear that the more I talked to him in detail about Lila the more pleasant for him that day between sea and sky would be. It didn’t matter to him that every word of mine made him suffer. It mattered that I should tell him everything I knew, the good and the bad, that I should fill our minutes and our hours with her name. I did, and if at first this pained me, slowly it changed. I felt, that day, that to speak of Lila with Nino could in the weeks to come give a new character to the relationship between the three of us. Neither she nor I would ever have him. But both of us, for the entire time of the vacation, could gain his attention, she as the object of a passion with no future, I as the wise counselor who kept under control both his folly and hers. I consoled myself with that hypothesis of centrality. Lila had come to me to tell me about Nino’s kiss. He, starting out from the confession of that kiss, talked to me for an entire day. I would become necessary to both.

In fact Nino already couldn’t do without me.

“You think she’ll never be able to love me?” he asked at one point.

“She made a decision, Nino.”

“What?”

“To love her husband, to have a child with him. She’s here just for that.”

“And my love for her?”

“When one is loved one tends to love in return. It’s likely that she’ll feel gratified. But if you don’t want to suffer more, don’t expect anything else. The more Lina is surrounded by affection and admiration, the crueler she can become. She’s always been like that.”

We parted at sunset and for a while I had the impression of having had a good day. But as soon as I was on the road home the anguish returned. How could I even think of enduring that torture, talking about Lila with Nino, about Nino with Lila, and, from tomorrow, witnessing their flirtations, their games, the clasps, the touching? I reached the house determined to announce that my mother wanted me back home. But as soon as I came in Lila assailed me harshly.

“Where have you been? We came to look for you. We need you, you’ve got to help us.”

I discovered that they had not had a good day. It was Pinuccia’s fault, she had tormented everyone. In the end she had cried that if her husband didn’t want her at home it meant that he didn’t love her and so she preferred to die with the child. At that point Rino had given in and taken her back to Naples.