The Neapolitan Novels

59.

I hoped that the professor hadn’t heard me shouting. But at the same time I wanted to see Nadia jump off Pasquale’s lap and hurry over to the sofa, I wished to see both of them humiliated by the need to pretend an absence of intimacy. I noticed that Lila, too, looked at them sardonically. But they stayed where they were; Nadia, in fact, put an arm around Pasquale’s neck, as if she were afraid of falling, and said to her mother, who had just appeared in the doorway: Next time, tell me if you’re having visitors. The professor didn’t answer, she turned to us coldly: I’m sorry I was late, let’s sit in my study. We followed her, while Pasquale moved Nadia off him, saying in a tone that seemed to me suddenly depressed: Come on, let’s go.

Professor Galiani led us along the hall muttering irritably: What really bothers me is the boorishness. We entered an airy room with an old desk, a lot of books, sober, cushioned chairs. She assumed a polite tone, but it was clear that she was struggling with a bad mood. She said she was happy to see me and to see Lila again; yet at every word, and between the words, I felt her rage increasing, and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I apologized for not having come to see her, and went on somewhat breathlessly about studying, the book, the innumerable things that had overwhelmed me, my engagement, my approaching marriage.

“Are you getting married in church or only in a civil service?”

“Only a civil service.”

“Good for you.”

She turned to Lila, to draw her into the conversation: “You were married in church?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a believer?”

“No.”

“Then why did you get married in church?”

“That’s what’s done.”

“You don’t always have to do things just because they’re done.”

“We do a lot of them.”

“Will you go to Elena’s wedding?”

“She didn’t invite me.”

I was startled, I said right away:

“It’s not true.”

Lila laughed harshly: “It’s true, she’s ashamed of me.”

Her tone was ironic, but I felt wounded anyway. What was happening to her? Why had she said earlier, in front of Nadia and Pasquale, that I was wrong, and now was making that hostile remark in front of the professor?

“Nonsense,” I said, and to calm down I took the book out of my bag and handed it to Professor Galiani, saying: I wanted to give you this. She looked at it for a moment without seeing it, perhaps following her own thoughts, then she thanked me, and saying that she already had a copy, gave it back:

“What does your husband do?”

“He’s a professor of Latin literature in Florence.”

“Is he a lot older than you?”

“He’s twenty-seven.”

“So young, already a professor?”

“He’s very smart.”

“What’s his name?”

“Pietro Airota.”

Professor Galiani looked at me attentively, like when I was at school and I gave an answer that she considered incomplete.

“Relative of Guido Airota?”

“He’s his son.”

She smiled with explicit malice.

“Good marriage.”

“We love each other.”

“Have you already started another book?”

“I’m trying.”

“I saw that you’re writing for l’Unità.”

“A bit.”

“I don’t write for it anymore, it’s a newspaper of bureaucrats.”

She turned again to Lila, she seemed to want to let her know how much she liked her. She said to her:

“It’s remarkable what you did in the factory.”

Lila grimaced in annoyance.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s not true.”

The professor got up, rummaged through the papers on the desk, and showed her some pages as if they were an incontrovertible truth.

“Nadia left this around the house and I took the liberty of reading it. It’s a courageous, new work, very well written. I wanted to see you so that I could tell you that.”

She was holding in her hand the pages that Lila had written, and from which I had taken my first article for l’Unità.