The Neapolitan Novels

36.

Professor Galiani, too, must have seen something she liked, maybe a frankness verging on rudeness. When Lila mentioned our friendship, the professor seemed pleased, she exclaimed: Ah yes, Greco, we never see her anymore, success has gone to her head. Then she led mother and son to the living room, where she had left her grandson playing, a blond child whom she almost ordered: Marco, say hello to our new friend. Lila in turn pushed her son forward, she said, go on, Gennaro, play with Marco, and she sat in an old, comfortable green armchair, still talking about the party years ago. The professor was sorry she had no recollection of it, but Lila remembered everything. She said that it had been one of the worst nights of her life. She spoke of how out of place she had felt, she described in sarcastic tones the conversations she had listened to without understanding anything. I was very ignorant, she exclaimed, with an excessive gaiety, and today even more than I was then.

Professor Galiani listened and was impressed by her sincerity, by her unsettling tone, by the intense Italian of her sentences, by her skillfully controlled irony. She must have felt in Lila, I imagine, that elusive quality that seduced and at the same time alarmed, a siren power: it could happen to anyone, it happened to her, and the conversation broke off only when Gennaro slapped Marco, insulting him in dialect and grabbing a small green car. Lila got up quickly, and, seizing her son by the arm, forcefully slapped the hand that had hit the other child, and although Professor Galiani said weakly, Let it go, they’re children, she rebuked him harshly, insisting that he return the toy. Marco was crying, but Gennaro didn’t shed a tear; instead, he threw the toy at him with contempt. Lila hit him again, hard, on the head.

“We’re going,” she said, nervously.

“No, stay a little longer.”

Lila sat down again.

“He’s not always like that.”

“He’s a very handsome child. Right, Gennaro, you’re a good boy?”

“He isn’t good, he isn’t at all good. But he’s clever. Even though he’s little, he can read and write all the letters, capitals and small. What do you say, Gennà, do you want to show the professor how you read?”

She picked up a magazine from a beautiful glass table, pointed to a word at random on the cover, and said: Go on, read. Gennaro refused. Lila gave him a pat on the shoulder, repeated in a threatening tone: Read, Gennà. The child reluctantly deciphered, d-e-s-t, then he broke off, staring angrily at Marco’s little car. Marco hugged it to his chest, gave a small smile, and read confidently: destinazione.

Lila was disappointed, she darkened, she looked at Galiani’s grandson with annoyance.

“He reads well.”

“Because I devote a lot of time to him. His parents are always out.”

“How old is he?”

“Three and a half.”

“He seems older.”

“Yes, he’s sturdy. How old is your son?”

“He’s five,” Lila admitted reluctantly.

The professor caressed Gennaro, and said to him:

“Mamma made you read a difficult word, but you’re a clever boy, I can see that you know how to read.”

Just then there was a commotion, the door to the stairs opened and closed, the sound of footsteps scurrying through the house, male voices, female voices. Here are my children, Professor Galiani said, and called out: Nadia. But it wasn’t Nadia who came into the room; instead a thin, very pale, very blond girl, with eyes of a blue so blue that it looked fake, burst in noisily. The girl opened wide her arms and cried to Marco: Who’s going to give his mamma a kiss? The child ran to her and she embraced him, kissed him, followed by Armando, Professor Galiani’s son. Lila remembered him, too, immediately, and looked at him as he practically tore Marco from his mother’s arms, crying: Immediately, at least thirty kisses for papa. Marco began to kiss his father on the cheek, counting: One, two, three, four.

“Nadia,” Professor Galiani called again in a suddenly irritated tone, “are you deaf? Come, there’s someone here to see you.”

Nadia finally looked into the room. Behind her was Pasquale.