The Neapolitan Novels

110.

It was because of Gigliola, according to my mother, that Lila’s situation had become even more intolerable. Everything began on a Sunday in April when the daughter of Spagnuolo the pastry maker invited Ada to the parish cinema. The following evening, after the stores closed, she again went to her and said, “What are you doing all alone? Come watch television at my parents’ house and bring along Melina.” One thing led to another, and she ended up dragging her along on evening outings with Michele Solara, her boyfriend. Five of them often went to the pizzeria: Gigliola, her younger brother, Michele, Ada, Antonio. The pizzeria was in the center, at Santa Lucia. Michele drove, Gigliola sat beside him, all dressed up, and in the back seat were Lello, Antonio, and Ada.

Antonio didn’t like spending his free time with his boss, and at first he tried to tell Ada that he was busy. But when Gigliola reported that Michele was angry that he didn’t show up, he sank his head between his shoulders and obeyed. The conversation was almost always between the two girls; Michele and Antonio didn’t exchange a word, in fact Solara often left the table and went to talk to the owner of the pizzeria, with whom he had various dealings. Gigliola’s brother ate pizza and was quietly bored.

The girls’ preferred subject was the love between Ada and Stefano. They talked about the presents he had given her and was gaving her, of the wonderful trip to Stockholm in August the year before (how many lies Ada had had to tell poor Pasquale), how in the grocery he treated her better than if she had been the owner. Ada softened, she talked and talked. Gigliola listened and every so often said things like “The Church, if you want, can annul a marriage.”

Ada interrupted, scowling, “I know, but it’s difficult.”

“Difficult, not impossible. You have to go to the Sacra Rota.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know exactly, but the Sacra Rota can wipe out everything.”

“You’re sure?”

“I read it.”

Ada was very happy about that unexpected friendship. She had been living her story in silence, among many fears and much remorse. Now she discovered that talking about it did her good, proved she was right, erased her guilt. The only thing that spoiled her relief was her brother’s hostility, and in fact when they got home all they did was quarrel. Once Antonio nearly hit her, he shouted at her, “Why the fuck do you tell your business to everybody? Do you realize you look like a whore and I’m the pimp?”

She said in the most antagonistic tone she was capable of: “You know why Michele Solara comes to dinner with us?”

“Because he’s my boss.”

“Oh yes, sure.”

“Then why?”

“Because I’m with Stefano, who’s important. If I waited for you, the daughter of Melina I would be and the daughter of Melina I would remain.”

Antonio lost control, he said: “You’re not with Stefano, you’re Stefano’s whore.”

Ada burst into tears. “It’s not true, Stefano loves only me.”

One night things got even worse. They were at home, dinner was over. Ada was doing the dishes, Antonio was staring into space, their mother was humming an old song while she swept the floor too energetically. At some point Melina accidentally swept the broom over her daughter’s feet. It was terrible. There was at the time a superstition—I don’t know if it still exists—that if you sweep the broom over the feet of an unmarried girl she’ll never get married. Ada saw her future in a flash. She leaped back as if she had been touched by a cockroach and the plate she was holding fell to the floor.

“You swept over my feet,” she shrieked, leaving her mother astonished.

“She didn’t do it on purpose,” Antonio said.

“She did do it on purpose. You don’t want me to get married, it’s too useful for you to have me work for you, you want to keep me here my whole life.”

Melina tried to embrace her daughter, saying no no, but Ada repulsed her rudely, so that she retreated, bumped into a chair, and fell on the floor amid the fragments of the broken plate.

Antonio rushed to help his mother, but Melina now was screaming in fear, fear of her son, of her daughter, of the things around her. And Ada screamed louder in return, saying, “I’ll show you who I’m going to marry, and soon, because if Lina doesn’t get out of the way by herself, I’ll get her out, and off the face of the earth.”

Antonio left the house, slamming the door. More desperate than usual, in the following days he tried to escape from that new tragedy in his life, he made an effort to be deaf and dumb, he avoided going past the old grocery, and if by chance he ran into Stefano Carracci he looked in another direction before the wish to beat him up overpowered him. His mind was troubled, he couldn’t understand what was right and what wasn’t. Had it been right not to hand Lila over to Michele? Had it been right to tell Enzo to take her home? If Lila hadn’t returned to her husband, would his sister’s situation be different? Everything happens by chance, he reasoned, without good and without ill. But at that point his brain got stuck and on the first occasion, as if to free himself from bad dreams, he went back to quarreling with Ada. He shouted at her, “He is a married man, bitch: he has a small child, you are worse than our mother, you don’t have any sense of things.” Ada then went to Gigliola, confided to her: “My brother is crazy, my brother wants to kill me.”

So it was that one afternoon Michele called Antonio and sent him to do a long-term job in Germany. He didn’t object, in fact he obeyed willingly, he left without saying goodbye to his sister or even to Melina. He took it for granted that in a foreign country, among people who spoke like the Nazis at the church cinema, he would be stabbed, or shot, and he was content. He considered it more tolerable to be murdered than to continue to observe the suffering of his mother and Ada without being able to do anything.

The only person he wanted to see before setting off on the train was Enzo. He found him busy: at the time he was trying to sell everything, the mule, the cart, his mother’s little shop, a garden near the railroad. He wanted to give part of the proceeds to a maiden aunt who had offered to take care of his siblings.

“And you?” Antonio asked.

“I’m looking for a job.”

“You want to change your life?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a good thing.”

“It’s a necessity.”

“I, on the other hand, am what I am.”

“Nonsense.”

“It’s true, but it’s all right. Now I have to leave and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Every so often, please, could you cast an eye on my mother, my sister, and the children?”

“If I stay in the neighborhood, yes.”

“We were wrong, Enzù, we shouldn’t have taken Lina home.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s all a mess, you never know what to do.”

“Yes.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

They didn’t even shake hands. Antonio went to Piazza Garibaldi and got the train. He had a long, difficult journey, night and day, with many angry voices running through his veins. He felt extremely tired after just a few hours, his feet were tingling; he hadn’t traveled since he returned from military service. Every so often he got out to get a drink of water from a fountain, but he was afraid the train would leave. Later he told me that at the station in Florence he felt so depressed that he thought: I’ll stop here and go to Lenuccia.