The Neapolitan Novels

32.

Once on the stradone I hesitated: wait at the gate for my father’s return, wander the streets in search of my brothers, see if my sister was home? I found a telephone booth, I called Elisa, I dragged the girls to her big apartment, from which you could see Vesuvius. My sister showed no signs yet of pregnancy, and yet I found her very changed. The simple fact of being pregnant must have made her expand suddenly, but distorting her. She was as if coarsened in her body, in her words, in her voice. She had an ashy complexion and was so poisoned by animosity that she welcomed us reluctantly. Not for a moment did I find any trace of the affection nor the slightly childish admiration she had always had for me. And when I mentioned our mother’s health she took an aggressive tone that I wouldn’t have thought her capable of, at least with me. She exclaimed:

“Lenù, the doctor said she’s fine, it’s her soul that suffers. Mamma is very healthy, she has her health, there’s nothing to treat except sorrow. If you hadn’t disappointed her the way you have she wouldn’t be in this state.”

“What sort of nonsense is that?”

She became even more rancorous.

“Nonsense? I’ll just tell you this: my health is worse than Mamma’s. And anyway, now that you’re in Naples and you know more about doctors, you take care of her, don’t leave it all on my shoulders. Enough for you to give her a bit of attention and she’ll be healthy again.”

I tried to control myself, I didn’t want to quarrel. Why was she talking to me like that? Had I, too, changed for the worse, like her? Were our good times as sisters over? Or was Elisa, the youngest of the family, the outward sign that the life of the neighborhood was even more ruinous than in the past? I told the children, who sat obediently, in silence, but disappointed that their aunt paid them not the slightest attention, that they could finish the candies from their grandmother. Then I asked my sister:

“How are things with Marcello?”

“Very good, how should they be? If it weren’t for all the worries he’s had since his mother died, we’d really be happy.”

“What worries?”

“Worries, Lenù, worries. Go think about your books, life is something else.”

“Peppe and Gianni?”

“They work.”

“I never see them.”

“Your fault that you never come around.”

“I’ll come more often now.”

“Good for you. Then try to talk to your friend Lina, too.”

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing. But among Marcello’s many worries she’s one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask Lina, and if she answers, tell her that she’d better stay where she belongs.”

I recognized the threatening reticence of the Solaras and I realized that we would never regain our old intimacy. I told her that Lila and I had grown apart, but I had just heard from our mother that she had stopped working for Michele and had set up on her own. Elisa muttered:

“Set up on her own with our money.”

“Explain.”

“What is there to explain, Lenù? She twists Michele around her finger. But not my Marcello.”