The Neapolitan Novels

69.

I was greeted by Nella and the Sarratore family with the usual enthusiasm. I assumed my humblest mask, the mask of my father when he collected tips, the elaborate mask of my forebears—always fearful, always subordinate, always pleasingly willing—by which to avoid danger, and I went from lie to lie in a pleasant manner. I said to Nella that if I had decided to come and disturb her it wasn’t by choice but necessity. I said that the Carraccis had guests, that there was no room for me that night. I said that I hoped I hadn’t presumed too much in showing up like this, unexpectedly, and that if there were difficulties I would return to Naples for a few days.

Nella embraced me, fed me, swearing that to have me in the house was an immense pleasure for her. I refused to go to the beach with the Sarratores, although the children protested. Lidia insisted that I join them soon and Donato declared that he would wait for me so we could swim together. I stayed with Nella, helped her straighten the house, cook lunch. For a moment everything weighed on me less: the lies, the images of the adultery that was taking place, my complicity, a jealousy that couldn’t be defined because I felt at the same time jealous of Lila who was giving herself to Nino, of Nino who was giving himself to Lila. In the meantime, Nella, talking about the Sarratores, seemed less hostile. She said that husband and wife had found an equilibrium and since they were getting along they gave her less trouble. She told me about Maestra Oliviero: she had telephoned her in order to tell her that I had come to see her, and she had been very tired but more optimistic. For a while, in other words, there was a tranquil flow of news. But a few remarks were enough, an unexpected detour, and the weight of the situation I was involved in returned forcefully.

“She praised you a lot,” Nella said, speaking of Maestra Oliviero, “but when she found out that you came to see me with your two married friends she asked a lot of questions, especially about Signora Lina.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that in her entire career as a teacher she never had such a good student.”

The evocation of Lila’s old primacy disturbed me.

“It’s true,” I admitted.

But Nella made a grimace of absolute disagreement, her eyes lit up.

“My cousin is an exceptional teacher,” she said, “and yet in my view this time she is wrong.”

“No, she’s not wrong.”

“Can I tell you what I think?”

“Of course.”

“It won’t upset you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t like Signora Lina. You are much better, you’re prettier and more intelligent. I talked about it with the Sarratores, too, and they agree with me.”

“You say that because you love me.”

“No. Pay attention, Lenù. I know that you are good friends, my cousin told me. And I don’t want to interfere in things that have nothing to do with me. But a glance is enough for me to judge people. Signora Lina knows that you’re better than her and so she doesn’t love you the way you love her.”

I smiled, pretending skepticism. “Does she hate me?”

“I don’t know. But she knows how to wound, it’s written in her face, it’s enough to look at her forehead and her eyes.”

I shook my head, I repressed my satisfaction. Ah, if it were all so straightforward. But I already knew—although not the way I do today—that between the two of us everything was more tangled. And I joked, laughed, made Nella laugh. I told her that Lila never made a good impression the first time. Since she was little she had seemed like a devil, and she really was, but in a good way. She had a quick mind and did well in whatever she happened to apply herself to: if she could have studied she would have become a scientist like Madame Curie or a great novelist like Grazia Deledda, or even like Nilde Iotti, the lover of Togliatti. And hearing those last two names, Nella exclaimed, oh Madonna, and ironically made the sign of the cross. Then she gave a little laugh, then another, and she couldn’t contain herself, she wanted to whisper a secret, a very funny thing that Sarratore had said to her. Lila, according to him, had an almost ugly beauty, a type that males are, yes, enchanted by but also fear.

“What fear?” I asked, also in a low voice.

And she, in an even lower voice, “The fear that their thingy won’t function or it will fall off or she’ll pull out a knife and cut it off.”

She laughed, her chest heaved, her eyes became teary. She couldn’t contain herself for quite some time and I felt an unease I had never felt with her before. It wasn’t my mother’s laughter, the obscene laughter of the woman who knows. In Nella’s there was something chaste and yet vulgar, it was the laugh of an aging virgin that assailed me and pushed me to laugh, too, but in a forced way. A smart woman like her, I said to myself, why does this amuse her? And meanwhile I saw myself growing old, with that laugh of malicious innocence in my breast. I thought: I’ll end up laughing like that, too.