The Story of a New Name

91

They lived together for twenty-three days. The relief at having left everything increased from moment to moment. She didn’t miss any of the comforts she had enjoyed after her marriage, and separation from her parents, her younger siblings, Rino, her nephew didn’t sadden her. She never worried that the money would run out. The only thing that seemed to matter was that she woke up with Nino and fell asleep with him, that she was beside him when he studied or wrote, that they had lively discussions in which the jumble of thoughts in her head poured out. At night they went to a movie together, or chose a book presentation, or a political debate, and often they stayed out late, returning home on foot, clinging to one another to protect themselves from the cold or the rain, squabbling, joking.

Once they went to hear a writer named Pasolini, who also made films. Everything that had to do with him caused an uproar and Nino didn’t like him, he twisted his mouth, said, “He’s a fairy, all he does is make a lot of noise,” so he had resisted, he would have preferred to stay home and study. But Lila was curious and she dragged him there. The talk was held in the same club where I had gone once, in obedience to Professor Galiani. Lila was enthusiastic when she came out, she pushed Nino toward the writer, she wanted to talk to him. But Nino was nervous and did his best to get her away, especially when he realized that on the sidewalk across the street there were youths shouting insults. “Let’s go,” he said, worried, “I don’t like him and I don’t like the fascists, either.” But Lila had grown up amid violence, she had no intention of sneaking off; he tried to pull her toward an alley and she wriggled free, she laughed, she responded to the insults with insults. She gave in abruptly when, just as a real fight was starting, she recognized Antonio. His eyes and his teeth shone as if they were made of metal, but unlike the others he wasn’t shouting. He seemed too busy hitting people to be aware of her, but the thing ruined the evening for her anyway. On the way home she felt some tension with Nino: they didn’t agree about what Pasolini had said, they seemed to have gone to different places to hear different people. But it wasn’t only that. That night he regretted the long exciting period of the furtive meetings in the shop on Piazza dei Martiri and at the same time perceived that something about Lila disturbed him. She noticed his distraction, his irritation, and to avoid further tension did not say that among the attackers she had seen a friend of hers from the neighborhood, Melina’s son.

From then on Nino seemed less and less inclined to take her out. First he said that he had to study, and it was true, then he let slip that on various public occasions she had been excessive.

“In what sense?”

“You exaggerate.”

“Meaning?”

He made a resentful list: “You make comments out loud; if someone tells you to be quiet you start arguing; you bother the speakers with your own monologues. It’s not done.”

Lila had known that it wasn’t done, but she had believed that now, with him, everything was possible, bridging gaps with a leap, speaking face to face with people who counted. Hadn’t she been able to talk to influential types, in the Solaras’ shop? Hadn’t it been thanks to one of the customers that he had published his first article in Il Mattino? And so? “You’re too timid,” she said. “You still don’t understand that you’re better than they are and you’ll do much more important things.” Then she kissed him.

But the following evenings Nino, with one excuse or another, began to go out alone. And if he stayed home instead and studied, he complained of how much noise there was in the building. Or he grumbled because he had to go and ask his father for money, and Donato would torment him with questions like: Where are you sleeping, what are you doing, where are you living, are you studying? Or, in the face of Lila’s ability to make connections between very different things, instead of being excited as usual he shook his head, became irritable.

After a while he was in such a bad mood, and so behind with his exams, that in order to keep studying he stopped going to bed with her. Lila said, “It’s late, let’s go to sleep,” he answered with a distracted, “You go, I’ll come later.” He looked at the outline of her body under the covers and desired its warmth but was also afraid of it. I haven’t yet graduated, he thought, I don’t have a job; if I don’t want to throw my life away I have to apply myself; instead I’m here with this person who is married, who is pregnant, who vomits every morning, who prevents me from being disciplined. When he found out that Il Mattino wouldn’t publish the article he was really upset. Lila consoled him, told him to send it to other newspapers. But then she added, “Tomorrow I’ll call.”

She wanted to call the editor she had met in the Solaras’ shop and find out what was wrong. He stammered, “You won’t telephone anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because that shit was never interested in me but in you.”

“It’s not true.”

“It’s very true, I’m not a fool, you just make problems for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t have listened to you.”

“What did I do?”

“You confused my ideas. Because you’re like a drop of water, ting ting ting. Until it’s done your way, you won’t stop.”

“You thought of the article and wrote it.”

“Exactly. And so why did you make me redo it four times?”

“You wanted to rewrite it.”

“Lina, let’s be very clear: choose something of your own that you like, go back to selling shoes, go back to selling salami, but don’t desire to be something you’re not by ruining me.”

They had been living together for twenty-three days, a cloud in which the gods had hidden them so that they could enjoy each other without being disturbed. Those words wounded her deeply, she said, “Get out.”

He quickly pulled his coat on over his sweater and slammed the door behind him.

Lila sat on the bed and thought: he’ll be back in ten minutes, he left his books, his notes, his shaving cream and razor. Then she burst into tears: how could I have thought of living with him, of being able to help him? It’s my fault: to free my head, I even made him write something wrong.

She went to bed and waited. She waited all night, but Nino didn’t come back, not the morning after or the one after that.