The Neapolitan Novels

95.

I was frightened, and I felt distressed. Carmen? Carmen had done a thing like that to me?

The thrilling phase of success ended at that moment. In a few seconds the guilt at having neglected Imma was added to the fear that by legal means everything would be taken away from me, joy, prestige, money. I was ashamed of myself, of my aspirations. I said to Lila that I wanted to talk to Carmen right away, she advised me against it. But I had the impression that she knew more than what she had said and I went to look for Carmen anyway.

First I went to the gas pump, but she wasn’t there. Roberto was embarrassed in my presence. He was silent about the lawsuit, he said that his wife had gone with the children to Giugliano, to some relatives, and would be there for a while. I left him standing there and went to their house to see if he had told me the truth. But Carmen either really had gone to Giugliano or wouldn’t open the door to me. It was very hot. I walked for a while to calm myself, then I looked for Antonio, I was sure he would know something. I thought it would be hard to track him down, he was always out. But his wife told me that he had gone to the barber and I would find him there. I asked him if he had heard talk of legal actions against me, and instead of answering he began to complain about the school, he said that the teachers were annoyed with his children, they complained that they spoke in German or in dialect, but meanwhile they didn’t teach them Italian. Then out of the blue he almost whispered:

“Let me take this moment to say goodbye.”

“Where are you going.”

“I’m going back to Germany.”

“When?”

“I don’t yet know.”

“Why are you saying goodbye now?”

“You’re never here, we hardly see each other.”

“It’s you who never come to see me.”

“You don’t come to see me, either.”

“Why are you going?”

“My family isn’t happy here.”

“Is it Michele who’s sending you away?”

“He commands and I obey.”

“So it’s he who doesn’t want you in the neighborhood anymore.”

He looked at his hands, he examined them carefully.

“Every so often my nervous breakdown returns,” he said, and he began to talk to me about his mother, Melina, who wasn’t right in the head.

“You’ll leave her to Ada?”

“I’ll take her with me,” he muttered. “Ada already has too many troubles. And I have the same constitution, I want to keep her in sight to see what I’m going to become.”

“She’s always lived here, she’ll suffer in Germany.”

“One suffers everywhere. You want some advice?”

I understood from the way he looked at me that he had decided to get to the point.

“Let’s hear it.”

“You get out of here, too.”

“Why?”

“Because Lina believes that the two of you are invincible but it’s not true. And I can’t help you any longer.”

“Help us in what?”

He shook his head unhappily.

“The Solaras are furious. Did you see how people voted here in the neighborhood?”

“No.”

“It turned out that they no longer control the votes they used to control.”

“So?”

“Lina has managed to shift a lot of them to the Communists.”

“And what do I have to do with it?”

“Marcello and Michele see Lina behind everything, especially behind you. There is a lawsuit, and Carmen’s lawyers are their lawyers.”