It was hard to convince him that what he had seen with his own eyes was not what he had for a long time imagined but only a friendly gesture, with no other purpose. “He’s already got a girlfriend,” I said, “you saw it yourself.” But he must have caught a trace of suffering in those words, and he threatened me, his lower lip and his hands began to tremble. Then I muttered that I was tired of this, I wanted to leave him. He gave in, and we made up. But from that moment on he trusted me even less, and the anxiety of departure for military service was welded conclusively to the fear of leaving me to Nino. More and more often he abandoned his job to be in time, he said, to meet me. In reality his aim was to catch me in the act and prove, to himself above all, that I really was unfaithful. What he would do then not even he knew.
One afternoon his sister Ada saw me passing the grocery, where she now worked, to her great satisfaction and to Stefano’s. She ran out to see me. She wore a greasy white smock that covered her to below the knees, but she was still very pretty and it was clear from her lipstick, her made-up eyes, the pins in her hair that, under the smock, she was dressed as if for a party. She said she wanted to talk to me, and we agreed to meet in the courtyard before dinner. She arrived breathless from the grocery, along with Pasquale, who had picked her up.
They spoke to me together, an embarrassed phrase from one, an embarrassed phrase from the other. I understood that they were worried: Antonio lost his temper for no reason, he no longer had patience with Melina, he was absent without warning from work. And even Gallese, the owner of the shop, was upset, because he had known him since he was a boy and had never seen him like this.
“He’s afraid of military service,” I said.
“So if they call him, of course he has to go,” Pasquale said, “otherwise he becomes a deserter.”
“When you’re around, it all goes away,” said Ada.
“I don’t have much time,” I said.
“People are more important than school,” said Pasquale.
“Spend less time with Lina, and you’ll see, you’ll find the time,” said Ada.
“I do what I can,” I said, offended.
“His nerves are fragile,” Pasquale said.
Ada concluded abruptly, “I’ve been taking care of a crazy person since I was a child — two would really be too much, Lenù.”
I was annoyed, and scared. Filled with a sense of guilt, I went back to seeing Antonio often, even though I didn’t want to, even though I had to study. It wasn’t enough. One night at the ponds he began to cry, he showed me a card. He hadn’t received an exemption, he was to leave with Enzo, in the fall. And at a certain point he did something extremely upsetting. He fell on the ground and in a frenzy began sticking handfuls of dirt in his mouth. I had to hold him tight, say that I loved him, wipe the dirt out of his mouth with my fingers.
What kind of mess am I getting myself into, I thought later, in bed, unable to sleep, and I discovered that suddenly the wish to leave school — to accept myself for what I was, to marry him, to live at his mother’s house with his siblings, pumping gas — had faded. I decided that I had to do something to help him and, when he recovered, get myself out of that relationship.
The next day I went to Lila’s, really frightened. I found her overly cheerful; during that period we were both unsettled. I told her about Antonio, and the card, and I told her that I had made a decision: in secret from him, because he would never give me permission, I intended to go to Marcello or even Michele to ask if they could get him out of his predicament.
I was exaggerating my determination. In reality I was confused: on the one hand it seemed to me that I was obliged to try, since I was the cause of Antonio’s suffering; on the other, I was consulting Lila precisely because I took it for granted that she would tell me not to. But I was so absorbed by my own emotional chaos that I hadn’t taken into account hers.
Her reaction was equivocal. First she teased me, she said I was a liar, she said I must really love my boyfriend if I was willing to go in person and humble myself with the Solaras, even though I knew that, given all that had happened, they would not lift a finger for him. Immediately afterward, however, she began nervously going in circles, she laughed, became serious, laughed again. Finally she said: all right, go, let’s see what happens. And then she added:
“After all, Lenù, where’s the difference between my brother and Michele Solara or, let’s say, between Stefano and Marcello?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that maybe I should have married Marcello.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“At least Marcello isn’t dependent on anyone, he does as he likes.”
“Are you serious?”
She quickly denied that she was, laughing, but she didn’t convince me. She can’t possibly be reconsidering Marcello, I thought: all that laughter isn’t real, it’s just a sign of ugly thoughts, of suffering because things aren’t going well with her husband.
I had proof of that immediately. She became thoughtful, she narrowed her eyes to cracks, she said, “I’m going with you.”
“Where.”
“To the Solaras.”
“To do what?”
“To see if they can help Antonio.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You’ll make Stefano angry.”
“Who gives a damn. If he goes to them, I can, too, I’m his wife.”
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.