The Neapolitan Novels

62.

I snatched the infant with an instinctive jerk. My mother realized what was happening and I saw in her face disgust and shame. Nino grabbed her a moment before she fainted. Mamma, mamma, I called while he struck her lightly on one cheek with his fingertips. I was alarmed, she didn’t regain consciousness, and meanwhile the baby began to wail. She’ll die, I thought, terrified, she held out until the moment she saw Immacolata and then she let go. I kept repeating Mamma in a louder and louder voice.

“Call an ambulance,” Lila said.

I went to the telephone, I stopped, confused, I wanted to give the baby to Nino. But he avoided me, he turned to Lila instead, he said that it would be quicker to take her to the hospital in the car. I felt my heart in my throat, the baby was crying, my mother regained consciousness and began to moan. She whispered, weeping, that she didn’t want to set foot in the hospital, she reminded me, pulling on my skirt, that she had been admitted once and didn’t want to die in that abandonment. Trembling, she said: I want to see the baby grow up.

Nino at that point assumed the firm tone he had had even as a student when he had to confront difficult situations. Let’s go, he said and picked up my mother in his arms. Since she protested weakly he reassured her, he told her that he would take care of arranging everything. Lila looked at me perplexed, I thought: the professor who attends to my mother at the hospital is a friend of Eleonora’s family, Nino at this moment is indispensable, lucky he’s here. Lila said, leave me the baby, you go. I agreed, I was about to hand her Immacolata but with a hesitant gesture, I was connected to her as if she were still inside me. And, anyway, I couldn’t separate myself now, I had to feed her, bathe her. But to my mother, too, I felt bound as never before, I was shaking, what was that blood, what did it mean.

“Come on,” Nino said impatiently to Lila, “hurry up.”

“Yes,” I said, “go and let me know.”

Only when the door closed did I feel the wound of that situation: Lila and Nino together were taking my mother away, they were taking care of her when it should have been me.

I felt weak and confused. I sat on the couch, giving my breast to Immacolata to soothe her. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood on the floor as I imagined the car speeding over the frozen streets of the city, the handkerchief outside the window signaling an emergency, the finger on the horn, my mother dying in the back seat. The car was Lila’s, was she driving or had he gotten behind the wheel? I have to stay calm, I said to myself.

I placed the baby in the cradle, and decided to call Elisa. I minimized what had happened, I was silent about Nino, I mentioned Lila. My sister immediately lost her temper, burst out crying, insulted me. She shouted that I had sent our mother who knows where with a stranger, that I should have called an ambulance, that I thought only of my own affairs and convenience, that if our mother died I was responsible. Then I heard her calling Marcello repeatedly in a commanding tone unfamiliar to me, petulant yet anguished cries. I said to her: What does “who knows where” mean, Lina took her to the hospital, why must you speak like that. She slammed down the telephone.

But Elisa was right. I had lost my head. I really should have called an ambulance. Or torn the baby away and given her to Lila. I was subject to Nino’s authority, to that craving of men to make a good impression by appearing determined, saviors. I waited by the telephone for them to call me.

An hour passed, an hour and a half, finally the phone rang. Lila said calmly:

“They admitted her. Nino knows the doctors, they told him it’s all under control. Be calm.”

“Is she alone?”

“Yes, they won’t let anyone in.”

“She doesn’t want to die alone.”

“She won’t die.”

“She’s frightened, Lila, do something, she’s not what she used to be.”

“That’s how the hospital works.”

“Did she ask about me?”

“She said you should bring her the baby.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Nino is still with the doctors, I’m going.”

“Go, yes, thank you, don’t get tired.”

“He’ll phone as soon as he can.”

“O.K.”

“And stay calm, otherwise your milk won’t come.”

That allusion to the milk helped me. I sat next to Immaco­lata’s cradle as if her nearness could preserve my swollen breasts. What was the body of a woman: I had nourished my daughter in the womb, now that she was out she was nourished by my breast. I thought, there was a moment when I, too, had been in my mother’s womb, had sucked at her breast. A breast as big as mine, or maybe even bigger. Until shortly before my mother got sick my father had often alluded obscenely to that bosom. I had never seen her without a bra, in any stage of her life. She had always concealed herself, she didn’t trust her body because of the leg. Yet at the first glass of wine she would counter my father’s obscenities with words just as coarse in which she boasted of her attractions, an exhibition of shamelessness that was pure show. The telephone rang again and I hurried to answer. It was Lila again, now she had a curt tone.

“There’s trouble here, Lenù.”

“Is she worse?”

“No, the doctors are confident. But Marcello showed up and he’s acting crazy.”

“Marcello? What does Marcello have to do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“Wait, he’s arguing with Nino.”

I recognized in the background Marcello’s thick voice, loaded with dialect, and Nino’s, in good Italian, but strident, which happened when he lost his temper.

“Tell Nino to forget it, in fact send him away.”

Lila didn’t answer, I heard her join a discussion that I was ignorant of and then suddenly shout in dialect: What the fuck are you saying, Marcè, go fuck yourself, get out. Then she shouted at me: Talk to this shit, please, you two come to an agreement, I don’t want to get involved. Distant voices. After a few seconds Marcello came to the phone. He said, trying to assume a polite tone, that Elisa had insisted that we not leave our mother in the hospital and that he had come to get her and take her to a nice clinic in Capodimonte. He asked as if he seriously sought my permission:

“Am I right? Tell me if I’m right.”

“Calm down.”

“I’m calm, Lenù. But you gave birth in a clinic, Elisa gave birth in a clinic: why should your mother die here?”

I said uneasily:

“The doctors who are taking care of her work there.”

He became aggressive as he had never been toward me:

“The doctors are where the money is. Who’s in charge here, you, Lina, or that shit?”

“It’s not a question of being in charge.”

“Yes, it is. Either tell your friends that I can take her to Capodimonte or I’ll break someone’s face and take her all the same.”

“Give me Lina,” I said.

I had trouble standing up, my temples were pounding. I said: Ask Nino if my mother can be moved, make him talk to the doctors, then call me back. I hung up wringing my hands, I didn’t know what to do.

A few minutes went by and the phone rang again. It was Nino.

“Lenù, control that beast, otherwise I’ll call the police.”

“Did you ask the doctors if my mother can be moved?”

“No, she can’t be moved.”

“Nino, did you ask or not? She doesn’t want to stay in the hospital.”

“Private clinics are even more disgusting.”

“I know, but calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“All right, but come home now.”

“And here?”

“Lina will take care of it.”

“I can’t leave Lina with that guy.”

I raised my voice:

“Lina can take care of herself. I can’t stand up, the baby’s crying, I have to bathe her. I told you, come home right now.”

I hung up.