The Neapolitan Novels

93.

It was Antonio who beat up Nino, but he reported almost none of this to his boss. When Michele asked if he had found Sarratore’s son he answered yes. When he asked with evident anxiety if that track had led to Lila he said no. When he asked him if he had had information about Lila he said he couldn’t find her and the only thing he could absolutely rule out was that Sarratore’s son had anything to do with Signora Carracci.

He was lying, of course. He had found Nino and Lila fairly soon, by chance, the night he had had the job of brawling with the Communists. He had smashed a few faces and then had left the fight to follow the two who had fled. He had discovered where they lived, he had understood that they were living together, and in the following days he had studied everything they did, how they lived. Seeing them he had felt both admiration and envy. Admiration for Lila. How is it possible, he had said to himself, that she abandoned her house, a beautiful house, and left her husband, the groceries, the cars, the shoes, the Solaras, for a student without a cent who keeps her in a place almost worse than the old neighborhood? What is it with that girl: courage, or madness? Then he concentrated on his envy of Nino. What hurt him most was that Lila and I both liked the skinny, ugly bastard. What was it about the son of Sarratore, what was his advantage? He had thought about it night and day. He was gripped by a kind of morbid obsession that affected his nerves, especially in his hands, so that he was constantly interlacing them, pressing them together as if he were praying. Finally he had decided that he had to free Lila, even if at that moment, perhaps, she had no desire to be freed. But—he had said to himself—it takes time for people to understand what’s good and what’s bad, and helping them means doing for them what in a particular moment of their life they aren’t capable of doing. Michele Solara hadn’t ordered him to beat up Sarratore’s son, no: he had not told Michele the most important thing and so there was no reason to go that far; beating him up had been his own decision, and he had made it partly because he wanted to get Nino away from Lila and give her back what she had incomprehensibly thrown away, and partly for his own enjoyment, because of an exasperation he felt not toward Nino, an insignificant limp agglomerate of effeminate flesh and bone, too long and breakable, but toward what we two girls had attributed and did attribute to him.

I have to admit that when, some time afterward, he told me that story I seemed to understand his motivations. It moved me, I caressed his cheek to console him for his savage feelings. And he reddened, he was flustered; to show me that he wasn’t a beast he said, “Afterward I helped him.” He had picked up Sarratore’s son, taken him, half dazed, to a pharmacy, left him at the entrance, and returned to the neighborhood to talk to Pasquale and Enzo.

They had agreed to meet him reluctantly. They no longer considered him a friend, especially Pasquale, even though he was his sister’s fiancé. But Antonio didn’t care, he pretended not to notice, he behaved as if their hostility because he had sold himself to the Solaras were a gripe that made no dent in their friendship. He said nothing about Nino, he focused on the fact that he had found Lila and that they had to help her.

“Do what?” Pasquale had asked, aggressively.

“Go home to her own house: she didn’t go to see Lenuccia, she’s living in a shitty place in Campi Flegrei.”

“By herself?”

“Yes.”

“And why in the world did she decide to do that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t talk to her.”

“Why?”

“I found her on behalf of Michele Solara.”

“You’re a shit fascist.”

“I’m nothing, I did a job.”

“Bravo, now what do you want?”

“I haven’t told Michele that I found her.”

“And so?”

“I don’t want to lose my job, I have to think of earning a living. If Michele finds out that I lied to him he’ll fire me. You go get her and bring her home.”

Pasquale had insulted him grossly again, but even then Antonio scarcely reacted. He became upset only when his future brother-in-law said that Lila had done well to leave her husband and all the rest: if she had finally gotten out of the Solaras’ shop, if she realized that she had made a mistake in marrying Stefano, he certainly wouldn’t be the one who brought her back.

“You want to leave her in Campi Flegrei by herself?” Antonio asked, bewildered. “Alone and without a lira?”

“Why, are we rich? Lina is a grownup, she knows what life is: if she made that decision she has her reasons, let’s leave her in peace.”

“But she helped us whenever she could.”

At that reminder of the money Lila had given them Pasquale was ashamed. He had stammered some trite stuff about rich and poor, about the condition of women in the neighborhood and outside it, about the fact that if it was a matter of giving her money he was ready. But Enzo, who until then had been silent, broke in with a gesture of annoyance, and said to Antonio, “Give me the address, I’m going to see what she intends to do.”