The Neapolitan Novels

76.

I don’t really know what happened to me afterward. Even now, as I sort out that phone call, it’s hard to relate the effects of Lila’s sobs. If I look closely, I have the impression of seeing mainly a sort of incongruous gratification, as if that crying spell, in confirming her affection and the faith she had in my abilities, had ultimately cancelled out the negative judgment of both books. Only much later did it occur to me that the sobs had allowed her to destroy my work without appeal, to escape my resentment, to impose on me a purpose so high—don’t disappoint her—that it paralyzed every other attempt to write. But I repeat: however much I try to decipher that phone call, I can’t say that it was at the origin of this or that, that it was an exalted moment of our friendship or one of the most wretched. Certainly Lila reinforced her role as a mirror of my inabilities. Certainly I was more willing to accept failure, as if Lila’s opinion were much more authoritative—but also more persuasive and more affectionate—than that of my mother-in-law.

In fact a few days later I called Adele and said to her: Thank you for being so frank, I realized that you’re right, and it strikes me now that my first book, too, had a lot of flaws. Maybe I ought to think about it, maybe I’m not a good writer, or I simply need more time. My mother-in-law hastily drowned me in compliments, praised my capacity for self-criticism, reminded me that I had an audience and that that audience was waiting. I said yes, of course. And right afterward I put the last copy of the novel in a drawer, I also put away the notebooks full of notes, I let myself be absorbed by daily life. The irritation at that useless labor extended to my first book, too, perhaps even to the literary purposes of writing. If an image or an evocative phrase came to mind, I felt a sense of uneasiness, and moved on to something else.

I devoted myself to the house, to the children, to Pietro. Not once did I think of having Clelia back or of replacing her with someone else. Again I took on everything, and certainly I did it to put myself in a stupor. But it happened without effort, without bitterness, as if I had suddenly discovered that this was the right way of spending one’s life, and a part of me whispered: Enough of those silly notions in your head. I organized the household tasks rigidly, and I took care of Elsa and Dede with an unexpected pleasure, as if besides the weight of the womb, besides the weight of the manuscript, I had rid myself of another, more hidden weight, which I myself was unable to name. Elsa proved to be a placid creature—she took long happy baths, she nursed, she slept, she smiled even in her sleep—but I had to be very attentive to Dede, who hated her sister. She woke in the morning with a wild expression, recounting how she had saved the baby from fire, from a flood, from a wolf, but mostly she pretended to be a newborn herself, and asked to suck on my nipples, imitated infant wails, refused to act as what she now was, a child of almost four with highly developed language, perfectly independent in her primary functions. I was careful to give her a lot of affection, to praise her intelligence and her ability, to persuade her that I needed her help with everything, the shopping, the cooking, keeping her sister out of trouble.

Meanwhile, since I was terrified by the possibility of getting pregnant again, I began to take the Pill. I gained weight, I felt as if I’d swelled up, yet I didn’t dare stop: a new pregnancy frightened me more than any other thing. And then my body didn’t matter to me the way it used to. The two children seemed to have confirmed that I was no longer young, that the signs of my labors—washing them, dressing them, the stroller, the shopping, cooking, one in my arms and one by the hand, both in my arms, wiping the nose of one, cleaning the mouth of the other—testified to my maturity as a woman, that to become like the mammas of the neighborhood wasn’t a threat but the order of things. It’s fine this way, I told myself.

Pietro, who had given in on the Pill after resisting for a long time, examined me, preoccupied. You’re getting fat. What are those spots on your skin? He was afraid that the children, and he, and I were getting sick, but he hated doctors. I tried to reassure him. He had gotten very thin lately: he always had circles under his eyes and white strands had appeared in his hair; he complained of pain in his knee, in his right side, in his shoulder, and yet he wouldn’t have an examination. I forced him to go, I went with him, along with the children, and, apart from the need for some sleeping pills, he turned out to be very healthy. That made him euphoric for a few hours, and all his symptoms vanished. But in a short time, in spite of the sedatives, he felt ill again. Once Dede wouldn’t let him watch the news—it was right after the coup in Chile—and he spanked her much too hard. And as soon as I began to take the Pill he developed a desire to make love even more frequently than before, but only in the morning or the afternoon, because—he said—it was the evening orgasm that made him sleepless; then he was compelled to study for a good part of the night, which made him feel chronically tired and consequently ill.

Nonsensical talk: working at night had always been for him a habit and a necessity. Yet I said: Let’s not do it at night anymore, anything was fine with me. Of course, sometimes I was exasperated. It was hard to get help from him even in small things: the shopping when he was free, washing the dishes after dinner. One evening I lost my temper: I didn’t say anything terrible, I just raised my voice. And I made an important discovery: if I merely shouted, his stubbornness disappeared and he obeyed me. It was possible, by speaking harshly, to make even his unpredictable pains go away, even his neurotic wish to make love constantly. But I didn’t like doing it. When I behaved like that, I was sorry, it seemed to cause a painful tremor in his brain. Besides, the results weren’t lasting. He gave in, he adjusted, he took on tasks with a certain gravity, but then he really was tired, he forgot agreements, he went back to thinking only about himself. In the end I let it go, I tried to make him laugh, I kissed him. What did I gain from a few washed dishes, poorly washed at that? Better to leave him tranquil, I was glad when I could avoid tension.

In order not to upset him I also learned not to say what I thought. He didn’t seem to care, anyway. If he talked, I don’t know, about the government measure in response to the oil crisis, if he praised the rapprochement of the Communist Party to the Christian Democrats, he preferred me to be only an approving listener. And when I appeared to disagree he assumed an absent-minded expression, or said in a tone that he obviously used with his students: you were badly brought up, you don’t know the value of democracy, of the state, of the law, of mediation between established interests, balance between nations—you like apocalypse. I was his wife, an educated wife, and he expected me to pay close attention when he spoke to me about politics, about his studies, about the new book he was working on, filled with anxiety, wearing himself out, but the attention had to be affectionate; he didn’t want opinions, especially if they caused doubts. It was as if he were thinking out loud, explaining to himself. And yet his mother was a completely different type of woman. And so was his sister. Evidently he didn’t want me to be like them. During that period of weakness, I understood from certain vague remarks that he wasn’t happy about not only the success of my first book but its very publication. As for the second, he never asked me what had happened to the manuscript and what future projects I had. The fact that I no longer mentioned writing seemed to be a relief to him.

That Pietro every day revealed himself to be worse than I had expected did not, however, drive me again toward others. At times I ran into Mario, the engineer, but I quickly discovered that the desire to seduce and be seduced had disappeared and in fact that former agitation seemed to me a rather ridiculous phase; luckily it had passed. The craving to get out of the house, participate in the public life of the city also diminished. If I decided to go to a debate or a demonstration, I always took the children, and I was proud of the bags I toted, stuffed with everything they might need, of the cautious disapproval of those who said: They’re so little, it might be dangerous.

But I went out every day, in whatever weather, so that my daughters could have air and sun. I never went without taking a book. Out of a habit that I had never lost, I continued to read wherever I was, even if the ambition of making a world for myself had vanished. I generally took a short walk and then sat on a bench not far from home. I paged through complicated essays, I read the newspaper, I yelled: Dede, don’t go far, stay close to Mamma. I was that, I had to accept it. Lila, whatever turn her life might take, was different.