The Neapolitan Novels

40.

In fact two nights later, in front of the whole family except Rino, who was out, before they sat down at the table, before the television was turned on, Lila asked Marcello, “Will you take me to get some ice cream?”

Marcello couldn’t believe his ears.

“Ice cream? Without eating first? You and me?” And he suddenly asked Nunzia, “Signora, would you come, too?”

Nunzia turned on the television and said, “No, thank you, Marcè. But don’t be too long. Ten minutes, you’ll go and be back.”

“Yes,” he promised, happily, “thank you.”

He repeated thank you at least four times. It seemed to him that the longed-for moment had arrived, Lila was about to say yes.

But as soon as they were outside the building she confronted him and said, with the cold cruelty that had come easily to her since her first years of life, “I never told you that I loved you.”

“I know. But now you do?”

“No.”

Marcello, who was heavily built, a healthy, ruddy youth of twenty-three, leaned against a lamppost, brokenhearted.

“Really no?”

“No. I love someone else.”

“Who is it?”

“Stefano.”

“I knew it, but I couldn’t believe it.”

“You have to believe it, it’s true.”

“I’ll kill you both.”

“With me you can try right now.”

Marcello left the lamppost in a rush, but, with a kind of death rattle, he bit his clenched right fist until it bled.

“I love you too much, I can’t do it.”

“Then get your brother, your father to do it, some friend, maybe they’re capable. But make it clear to all of them that you had better kill me first. Because if you touch anyone else while I’m alive, I will kill you, and you know I will, starting with you.”

Marcello continued to bite his finger stubbornly. Then he repressed a sort of sob that shook his breast, turned, and went off.

She shouted after him: “Send someone to get the television, we don’t need it.”