The Neapolitan Novels

10.

For the half hour that I was in that place there was a chaotic collision of past and present: the shoes Lila designed, her wedding photograph, the evening of the inauguration and the miscarriage, she who for her own purposes had transformed the shop into a salon and a love nest; and the present-day plot, all of us over thirty, with our very different stories, the open rumors, the secret ones.

I affected composure, I assumed a happy tone. I exchanged kisses, hugs, and a few words with Gennaro, who was now an overweight boy of twelve with a dark strip of fuzz on his upper lip, so similar in features to the adolescent Stefano that Lila, in conceiving him, seemed to have taken away herself entirely. I felt obliged to be equally affectionate with Marisa’s children and with Marisa herself, who, pleased with my attention, began to make allusive remarks, the remarks of someone who knew the turn my life was taking. She said: Now that you’ll be in Naples more often, please, come see us; we know you two are busy, you’re scholarly people and we aren’t, but you’ll find a little time.

She sat next to her husband and restrained her children, who were eager to run outside. In vain I sought in her face traces of a blood tie with Nino, but she had nothing of her brother or even of her mother. Now that she was heavier she resembled, rather, Donato; she had also inherited his artificial patter, with which she was trying to give me the impression that she had a lovely family and a good life. And Alfonso, to support her, nodded yes, and smiled at me silently, displaying gleaming white teeth. How disorienting his looks were. He was stylishly dressed, and his long black hair, tied in a ponytail, showed off the grace of his features, but there was something in his gestures, in his face, that I couldn’t understand, something unexpected that made me uneasy. He was the only one there, except for Nino and me, who had had an education, and—it seemed to me—rather than fading over time it had more profoundly penetrated his slender body, the fine contours of his face. How handsome he was, how polite. Marisa had wanted him at all costs, even though he fled, and now look at them, she who as she aged was taking on masculine features, he who fought virility by becoming more feminine, and those two children of theirs, who were said to be the children of Michele Solara. Yes, Alfonso whispered, joining his wife’s invitation, if you would come to dinner sometime at our house you would make us very happy. And Marisa: When will you write a new book, Lenù? We’re waiting; but you have to keep up. You seemed dirty, but you weren’t dirty enough—have you seen the pornographic stuff they write today?

Although no one there showed any liking for Nino, there was no hint of criticism for my change of feeling, not even a glance, or a half smile. On the contrary, as I did my rounds, hugging and talking, they tried to impress on me their affection and their respect. Enzo put into his embrace the force of his seriousness, and although he merely smiled, without a word, it seemed to me that he was saying: I love you whatever you decide to do. Carmen, instead, drew me almost immediately into a corner—she was very nervous, and kept looking at the clock—and spoke in a rush about her brother, as one speaks to a good authority who knows everything and can do everything, and no false step can dim that aura. She made no mention of her children, her husband, her personal life or mine. I realized that she had taken upon herself the weight of Pasquale’s reputation as a terrorist, but only in order to recast it. In our few minutes of conversation she did not confine herself to saying that her brother was unjustly persecuted: she wanted to restore courage and goodness to him. Her eyes were burning with the determination to be always and no matter what on his side. She said that she had to know where to find me, she wanted my telephone number and my address. You are an important person, Lenù—she whispered—you know people who, if Pasquale isn’t murdered, can help him. Then she indicated Antonio, who was standing apart, a few steps from Enzo. Come here—she said softly—you tell her, too. And Antonio came over, head down, and spoke timid phrases whose meaning was: I know Pasquale trusts you, he came to your house before making the choice he made, so if you see him again, warn him. He has to disappear, he’d better not be seen in Italy; because, as I told Carmen, too, the problem isn’t the carabinieri, the problem is the Solaras. They’re convinced that he murdered Signora Manuela, and if they find him—now, tomorrow, years from now—I can’t help him. While he was making that speech, in a grave tone, Carmen kept interrupting to ask me: Do you understand, Lenù? She watched me with an anxious gaze. Finally she hugged me, kissed me, whispered: You and Lina are my sisters, and she went off with Enzo, they had things to do.

So I remained alone with Antonio. I seemed to have before me two people present in the same body and yet very distinct. He was the boy who long ago had held me tight at the ponds, who had idolized me, and whose intense odor had remained in my memory like a desire that is never truly satisfied. And he was the man of now, without an ounce of fat, all big bones and taut skin that went from his hard blank face to his feet, in enormous shoes. I said, embarrassed, that I didn’t know anyone who could help Pasquale, that Carmen overestimated me. But I realized right away that if Pasquale’s sister had an exaggerated idea of my prestige, his was even more exaggerated. Antonio said that I was modest as usual, that he had read my book, in German no less, that I was known all over the world. Although he had lived for a long time abroad, and had certainly seen and done terrible things for the Solaras, he had remained someone from the neighborhood and continued to imagine—or maybe he was pretending, who knows, to please me—that I had power, the power of respectable people, because I had a degree, because I spoke in Italian, I wrote books. I said, laughing: you’re the only person in Germany who bought that book. And I asked about his wife, his children. He answered in monosyllables, but meanwhile he drew me outside, into the square. There he said kindly:

“Now you have to admit that I was right.”

“In what.”

“You wanted him, and you lied to me.”

“I was a girl.”

“No, you were grown up. And you were more intelligent than me. You don’t know the harm you did letting me believe I was crazy.”

“Stop it.”

He was silent, I retreated toward the shop. He followed me, and held me back on the threshold. For a few seconds he stared at Nino, who had sat down in a corner. He murmured:

“If he hurts you, too, tell me.”

I laughed: “Of course.”

“Don’t laugh, I talked to Lina. She knows him well, she says you shouldn’t trust him. We respect you, he doesn’t.”

Lila. Here she was using Antonio, making him her messenger of possible misfortunes. Where had she gone? I saw that she was off in a corner, playing with Marisa’s children, but in fact she was observing each one of us, with her eyes narrowed. And in her usual way she was ruling over everyone: Carmen, Alfonso, Marisa, Enzo, Antonio, her son and the children of others, perhaps even the owners of the shop. I told myself again that she would no longer exercise any authority over me, that that long phase was over. I said goodbye, she hugged me tight, as if she wanted to pull me into herself. As I said goodbye to them all, one by one, I was again struck by Alfonso, but this time I understood what had disturbed me. The little that had marked him as the son of Don Achille and Maria, as the brother of Stefano and Pinuccia, had disappeared from his face. Now, mysteriously, with that long hair in a ponytail, he resembled Lila.