The Neapolitan Novels

119.

I don’t know how long I stayed beside the phone. I was filled with hatred, my head was spinning with phrases like: Yes, come, come right now, bitch, it’s just what I’d expect, where the fuck are you from, Via Tasso, Via Filangieri, Via Crispi, the Santarella, and you’re angry with me, you piece of garbage, you stinking nonentity, you don’t know who you’re dealing with, you are nothing. Another me wanted to rise up from the depths, where she had been buried under a crust of meekness; she struggled in my breast, mixing Italian and words from childhood, I was a turmoil. If Eleonora dared to show up at my door I would spit in her face, throw her down the stairs, drag her out to the street by the hair, shatter that head full of shit on the sidewalk. I had evil in my heart, my temples were pounding. Some work was being done outside our building, and from the window came the heat and the jangle of drilling and the dust and the irritating noise of some machine or other. Dede was quarreling with Elsa in the other room: You mustn’t do everything I do, you’re a monkey, only monkeys act like that. Slowly I understood. Nino had decided to speak to his wife and that was why she had attacked me. I went from rage to an uncontainable joy. Nino wanted me so much that he had told his wife about us. He had ruined his marriage, he had given it up in full awareness of the advantages that came from it, he had upset his whole life, choosing to make Eleonora and Albertino suffer rather than me. So it was true, he loved me. I sighed with contentment. The telephone rang again, I answered right away.

Now it was Nino, his voice. He seemed calm. He said that his marriage was over, he was free. He asked me:

“Did you talk to Pietro?”

“I started to.”

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“Yes and no.”

“You want to back out?”

“No.”

“Then hurry up, we have to go.”

He had already assumed that I would go with him. We would meet in Rome, it was all arranged, hotel, tickets.

“I have the problem of the children,” I said, but softly, without conviction.

“Send them to your mother.”

“Don’t even say that.”

“Then take them with you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You would take me with you anyway, even with my daughters?”

“Of course.”

“You really love me,” I whispered.

“Yes.”