The Neapolitan Novels

37.

He stopped the car in front of the shoemaker’s shop, came around and opened the door for me, gave me his hand to help me out. He didn’t concern himself with Lila, who got out herself and stayed behind. He and I stopped in front of the window, under the eyes of Fernando and Rino, who looked at us from inside the shop with sullen curiosity.

When Lila joined us Stefano opened the door of the shop, let me go first, went in without making way for her. He was very courteous with father and son, and asked if he could see the shoes. Rino rushed to get them, and Stefano examined them, praised them: “They’re light and yet strong, they really have a nice line.” He asked me, “What do you think, Lenù?”

I said, with great embarrassment, “They’re very handsome.”

He turned to Fernando: “Your daughter said that all three of you worked on them and that you have a plan to make others, for women as well.”

“Yes,” said Rino, looking in wonder at his sister.

“Yes,” said Fernando, puzzled, “but not right away.”

Rino said to his sister, a little worked up, because he was afraid she would refuse, “Show him the designs.”

Lila, continuing to surprise him, didn’t resist. She went to the back of the shop and returned, handing the sheets of paper to her brother, who gave them to Stefano. They were the models that she had designed almost two years earlier.

Stefano showed me a drawing of a pair of women’s shoes with a very high heel.

“Would you buy them?”

“Yes.”

He went back to examining the designs. Then he sat down on a stool, took off his right shoe.

“What size is it?”

“43, but it could be a 44,” Rino lied.

Lila, surprising us again, knelt in front of Stefano and using the shoehorn helped him slip his foot into the new shoe. Then she took off the other shoe and did the same.

Stefano, who until that moment had been playing the part of the practical, businesslike man, was obviously disturbed. He waited for Lila to get up, and remained seated for some seconds as if to catch his breath. Then he stood, took a few steps.

“They’re tight,” he said.

Rino turned gray, disappointed.

“We can put them on the machine and widen them,” Fernando interrupted, but uncertainly.

Stefano turned to me and asked, “How do they look?”

“Nice,” I said.

“Then I’ll take them.”

Fernando remained impassive, Rino brightened.

“You know, Ste’, these are an exclusive Cerullo design, they’ll be expensive.”

Stefano smiled, took an affectionate tone: “And if they weren’t an exclusive Cerullo design, do you think I would buy them? When will they be ready?”

Rino looked at his father, radiant.

“We’ll keep them in the machine for at least three days,” Fernando said, but it was clear that he could have said ten days, twenty, a month, he was so eager to take his time in the face of this unexpected novelty.

“Good: you think of a friendly price and I’ll come in three days to pick them up.”

He folded the pieces of paper with the designs and put them in his pocket before our puzzled eyes. Then he shook hands with Fernando, with Rino, and headed toward the door.

“The drawings,” Lila said coldly.

“Can I bring them back in three days?” Stefano asked in a cordial tone, and without waiting for an answer opened the door. He made way for me to pass and went out after me.

I was already settled in the car next to him when Lila joined us. She was angry.

“You think my father is a fool, that my brother is a fool?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you think you’ll make fools of my family and me, you are mistaken.”

“You are insulting me: I’m not Marcello Solara.”

“And who are you?”

“A businessman: the shoes you’ve designed are unusual. And I don’t mean just the ones I bought, I mean all of them.”

“So?”

“So let me think and we’ll see each other in three days.”

Lila stared at him as if she wanted to read his mind, she didn’t move away from the car. Finally she said something that I would never have had the courage to utter:

“Look, Marcello tried in every possible way to buy me but no one is going to buy me.”

Stefano looked her straight in the eyes for a long moment.

“I don’t spend a lira if I don’t think it can produce a hundred.”

He started the engine and we left. Now I was sure: the drive had been a sort of agreement reached at the end of many encounters, much talk. I said weakly, in Italian, “Please, Stefano, leave me at the corner? If my mother sees me in a car with you she’ll bash my face in.”