The Story of a New Name

15

I couldn’t stop her. One Sunday — on Sundays Stefano slept until noon — we were going out for a walk and she pressed me to go to the Bar Solara. When she appeared on the new street, still white with lime, I was astonished. She was extravagantly dressed and made up: she was neither the shabby Lila of long ago nor the Jackie Kennedy of the glossy magazines but, based on the films we liked, maybe Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun, maybe Ava Gardner in The Sun Also Rises.

Walking next to her I felt embarrassment and also a sense of danger. It seemed to me that she was risking not only gossip but ridicule, and that both reflected on me, a sort of colorless but loyal puppy who served as her escort. Everything about her — the hair, the earrings, the close-fitting blouse, the tight skirt, the way she walked — was unsuitable for the gray streets of the neighborhood. Male gazes, at the sight of her, seemed to start, as if offended. The women, especially the old ones, didn’t limit themselves to bewildered expressions: some stopped on the edge of the sidewalk and stood watching her, with a laugh that was both amused and uneasy, as when Melina did odd things on the street.

And yet when we entered the Bar Solara, which was crowded with men buying the Sunday pastries, there was only a respectful ogling, some polite nods of greeting, the truly admiring gaze of Gigliola Spagnuolo behind the counter, and a greeting from Michele, at the cash register — an exaggerated hello that was like an exclamation of joy. The verbal exchanges that followed were all in dialect, as if tension prevented any engagement with the laborious filters of Italian pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax.

“What would you like?”

“A dozen pastries.”

Michele shouted at Gigliola, this time with a slight hint of sarcasm:

“Twelve pastries for Signora Carracci.”

At that name, the curtain that opened onto the bakery was pushed aside and Marcello looked out. At the sight of Lila right there, in his bar and pastry shop, he grew pale and retreated. But a few seconds later he came out again and greeted her. He mumbled, to my friend, “It’s a shock to hear you called Signora Carracci.”

“To me, too,” Lila said, and her amused half-smile, her total absence of hostility, surprised not only me but the two brothers as well.

Michele examined her carefully, his head inclined to one side, as if he were looking at a painting.

“We saw you,” he said, and called to Gigliola. “Right, Gigliò, didn’t we see her yesterday afternoon?”

Gigliola nodded yes, unenthusiastically. And Marcello agreed—saw, yes saw—but without Michele’s sarcasm, rather as if he had been hypnotized at a magic show.

“Yesterday afternoon?” Lila asked.

“Yesterday afternoon,” Michele confirmed, “on the Rettifilo.”

Marcello came to the point, irritated by his brother’s tone of voice. “You were on display in the dressmaker’s window — there’s a photograph of you in your wedding dress.”

They talked a little about the photograph, Marcello with devotion, Michele with irony, both asserting in different ways how perfectly it captured Lila’s beauty on her wedding day. She seemed annoyed, but playfully: the dressmaker hadn’t told her she would put the picture in the window, otherwise she would never have given it to her.

“I want my picture in the window,” Gigliola cried from behind the counter, imitating the petulant voice of a child.

“If someone marries you,” said Michele.

“You’re marrying me,” she replied darkly, and went on like that until Lila said seriously:

“Lenuccia wants to get married, too.”

The attention of the Solara brothers shifted reluctantly to me; until then I had felt invisible, and hadn’t said a word.

“No.” I blushed.

“Why not, I’d marry you, even if you are four-eyed,” said Michele, catching another black look from Gigliola.

“Too late, she’s already engaged,” said Lila. And slowly she managed to lead the two brothers around to Antonio, evoking his family situation, including a vivid picture of how much worse it would be if he had to go into the Army. It wasn’t just her skill with words that struck me, that I knew. What struck me was a new tone, a shrewd dose of impudence and assurance. There she was, her mouth flaming with lipstick. She made Marcello believe that she had put a seal on the past, made Michele believe that his sly arrogance amused her. And, to my great amazement, toward both she behaved like a woman who knows what men are, who has nothing more to learn on the subject and in fact would have much to teach: and she wasn’t playing a part, the way we had as girls, imitating novels in which fallen ladies appeared; rather, it was clear that her knowledge was true, and this did not embarrass her. Then abruptly she became aloof, she sent out signals of refusal, I know you want me but I don’t want you. Thus she retreated, throwing them off balance, so that Marcello became self-conscious and Michele darkened, irresolute, with a hard gaze that meant: Watch it, because, Signora Carracci or not, I’m ready to slap you in the face, you whore. At that point she changed her tone again, again drew them toward her, appeared to be amused and amused them. The result? Michele didn’t commit himself, but Marcello said: “Antonio doesn’t deserve it, but Lenuccia’s a good girl, so to make her happy I can ask a friend and find out if something can be done.”

I felt satisfied, I thanked him.

Lila chose the pastries, was friendly toward Gigliola and also toward her father, the pastry maker, who poked his head out of the bakery to say: Hello to Stefano. When she tried to pay, Marcello made a clear gesture of refusal, and his brother, if less decisively, seconded him. We were about to leave when Michele said to her seriously, in the slow tone he assumed when he wanted something and ruled out any disagreement:

“You look great in that photograph.”

“Thank you.”

“The shoes are very conspicuous.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I remember and I want to ask you something.”

“You want a photo, too, you want to put it up here in the bar?”

Michele shook his head with a cold little laugh.

“No. But you know that we’re getting the shop ready in Piazza dei Martiri.”

“I don’t know anything about your affairs.”

“Well, you should find out, because our affairs are important and we all know that you’re not stupid. I think that if that photograph is useful to the dressmaker as an advertisement for a wedding dress, we can make much better use of it as an advertisement for Cerullo shoes.”

Lila burst out laughing, she said, “You want to put that photograph in the window in Piazza dei Martiri?”

“No, I want it enlarged, huge, in the shop.”

She thought about it for a moment, then made a gesture of indifference.

“Don’t ask me, ask Stefano, he’s the one who decides.”

I saw the brothers exchange a puzzled glance, and I understood that they had already discussed the idea and had assumed that Lila would never agree, so they couldn’t believe that she hadn’t been indignant, that she hadn’t immediately said no, but had surrendered without argument to the authority of her husband. They didn’t recognize her, and, right then, even I didn’t know who she was.

Marcello went to the door with us. Outside, he became solemn, and said, “This is the first time in a long while that we’ve spoken, Lina, and it’s disturbing. You and I didn’t go with each other — all right, that’s the way it is. But I don’t want anything between us to remain unclear. And especially I don’t want blame that I don’t deserve. I know that your husband goes around saying that as an insult I claimed those shoes. But I swear to you in front of Lenuccia: he and your brother gave me the shoes to demonstrate that there was no more bad feeling. I had nothing to do with it.”

Lila listened without interrupting, a sympathetic expression on her face. Then, as soon as he had finished, she became herself again. She said with contempt, “You’re like children, accusing each other.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, Marcè, I believe you. But what you say, what they say, I don’t give a damn about it anymore.”