The Neapolitan Novels

67.

I heard someone calling me, I turned suddenly.

“So I had good eyesight,” said a teasing male voice.

“I told you it was her,” said a female voice.

I recognized them immediately, I sat up. It was Michele Solara and Gigliola, along with her brother, a boy of twelve called Lello.

I welcomed them warmly, even though I never said: Sit down. I hoped that for some reason they were in a hurry, that they would leave right away, but Gigliola spread her towel, along with Michele’s, carefully on the sand, placed her purse on it, cigarettes, lighter, said to her brother: lie down on the hot sand, because the wind’s blowing, your bathing suit’s wet and you’ll catch cold. What to do. I made an effort not to look toward the sea, as if in that way it wouldn’t occur to them to look at it, and I paid happy attention to Michele, who started talking in his usual unemotional, careless tone. They had taken a holiday, it was too hot in Naples. Boat in the morning, boat in the evening, good air. Since Pinuccia and Alfonso were in the shop on Piazza dei Martiri, or, rather, no, Alfonso and Pinuccia, because Pinuccia didn’t do much, while Alfonso was great. It was on Pina’s recommendation that they had decided to come to Forio. You’ll find them, she had said, just walk along the beach. And in fact, they had walked and walked, Gigliola had shouted: Isn’t that Lenuccia? And here we are. I kept saying what a pleasure, and meanwhile Michele got up absent-mindedly, with his sandy feet on Gigliola’s towel, so she reproached him—“Pay a little attention”—but in vain. Now that he had finished the story of why they were on Ischia, I knew that the real question was about to arrive, I read it in his eyes even before he said it:

“Where’s Lina?”

“She’s swimming.”

“In this sea?”

“It’s not too rough.”

It was inevitable, both he and Gigliola turned to look at the sea, with its curls of foam. But they did it distractedly, they were settling themselves on the towels. Michele argued with the boy, who wanted to go swimming again. “Stay here,” he said, “you want to drown?” He stuck a comic book in his hand, adding, to his girlfriend, “We’re never taking him again.”

Gigliola complimented me profusely: “How well you look, all tanned, and your hair is even lighter.”

I smiled, I was self-deprecating, but I was thinking only: I’ve got to find a way to get them out of here.

“Come rest at the house,” I said. “Nunzia’s there, she’ll be very happy.”

They refused, they had to catch the boat in a couple of hours, they preferred to have a little more sun and then they would head off on their walk.

“So let’s go to the bath house, we’ll get something to eat there,” I said.

“Yes, but let’s wait for Lina.”

As always in tense situations, I undertook to blot out the time with words, and I started off with a flurry of questions, anything that came into my head: How was Spagnuolo the pastry maker, how was Marcello, if he’d found a girlfriend, what did Michele think of the shoe designs, and what did his father think and what did his mamma think of them, and what did his grandfather think. At one point I got up, I said, “I’ll call Lina,” and I went down to the water’s edge, I began to shout: “Lina, come back, Michele and Gigliola are here,” but it was useless, she didn’t hear me. I went back, and started talking again to distract them. I hoped that Lila and Nino, returning to shore, would become aware of the danger before Gigliola and Michele saw them and avoid any intimate attitude. But though Gigliola listened to me, Michele wasn’t even polite enough to pretend. He had come to Ischia purposely to see Lila and talk to her about the new shoes, I was sure of it, and he cast long glances at the sea, which was getting rougher.

Finally he saw her. He saw her as she came out of the water, her hand entwined in Nino’s, a handsome couple who would not pass unobserved, both tall, both naturally elegant, shoulders touching, smiles exchanged. They were so entranced with themselves that they didn’t immediately realize I had company. When Lila recognized Michele and pulled her hand away, it was too late. Maybe Gigliola didn’t notice, and her brother was reading the comic book, but Michele saw and turned to look at me as if to read on my face the verification of what he had just had before his eyes. He must have found it, in the form of fear. He said gravely, in the slow voice that he assumed when he had to deal with something that required speed and decisiveness: “Ten minutes, just the time to say hello, and we’ll go.”

In fact they stayed more than an hour. Michele, when he heard Nino’s last name—introducing him I placed great emphasis on the fact that he was our schoolmate in elementary school as well as my classmate in high school—asked the most irritating question:

“You’re the son of the guy who writes for Roma and for Napoli Notte?”

Nino nodded unwillingly, and Michele stared at him for a long instant, as if he wanted to find in his eyes confirmation of that relationship. Then he did not speak to him again, he spoke only and always to Lila.

Lila was friendly, ironic, at times deceitful.

Michele said to her, “That blowhard your brother swears he thought up the new shoes.”

“It’s the truth.”

“So that’s why they’re garbage.”

“You’ll see, that garbage will sell even better than the preceding.”

“Maybe, but only if you come to the store.”

“You already have Gigliola, who’s doing great.”

“I need Gigliola in the pastry shop.”

“Your problem, I have to stay in the grocery.”

“You’ll see, you’ll move to Piazza dei Martiri, signò, and you’ll have carte blanche.”

“Carte blanche, carte noir, get it out of your head, I’m fine where I am.”

And so on in this tone, they seemed to be playing tamburello with their words. Every so often Gigliola or I tried to say something, mainly Gigliola, who was furious at the way her fiancé talked about her fate without even consulting her. As for Nino, he was—I realized—stunned, or perhaps astonished at how Lila, skillful and fearless, found the phrases, in dialect, to match Michele’s.

Finally the young Solara announced that they had to go, they had an umbrella with their belongings quite far away. He said goodbye to me, he said goodbye warmly to Lila, repeating that he would expect her in the store in September. To Nino he said seriously, as if to a subordinate whom one asks to go and buy a pack of Nationals, “Tell your papa that he was wrong to write that he didn’t like the way the store looked. When you take money, you have to write that everything’s great, otherwise no more money.”

Nino was caught by surprise, perhaps by humiliation, and didn’t answer. Gigliola held out her hand, he gave her his mechanically. The couple went off, dragging the boy, who was reading the comic book as he walked.