I marveled at seeing them together. Alfonso had to retake exams in two subjects in October, and, since he was busy in the grocery, I imagined that on Sundays he studied. As for Marisa, I was sure that she would be at Barano with her family. Instead she told me that her parents had quarreled with Nella the year before and, with some friends from Roma, had taken a small villa at Castelvolturno. She had returned to Naples just for a few days: she needed some school books — three subjects to do again — and, then, she had to see a person. She smiled flirtatiously at Alfonso. The person was him.
I couldn’t contain myself, I asked right away how Nino had done on his graduation exams. She made a face of disgust.
“All A’s and A-minuses. As soon as he found out the results he went off on his own to England, without a lira. He says he’ll find a job there and stay until he learns English.”
“Then?”
“Then I don’t know, maybe he’ll enroll in economy and business.”
I had a thousand other questions, I even looked for a way to ask who the girl was who waited outside school, and if he had really gone alone or in fact with her, when Alfonso said, embarrassed, “Lina’s here, too.” Then he added, “Antonio brought us in the car.”
Antonio?
Alfonso must have noticed how my expression changed, the flush that was spreading over my face, the jealous amazement in my eyes. He smiled, and said quickly, “Stefano had some work to do about the counters in the new grocery and couldn’t come. But Lina was extremely eager to see you, she has something to tell you, and so she asked Antonio if he would take us.”
“Yes, she has something urgent to tell you,” Marisa said emphatically, clapping her hands gleefully to let me know that she already knew the thing.
What thing? Judging from Marisa, it seemed good. Maybe Lila had soothed Antonio and he wanted to be with me again. Maybe the Solaras had finally roused their acquaintances at the recruiting office and Antonio didn’t have to go. These hypotheses came to mind immediately. But when the two appeared I eliminated both right away. Clearly Antonio was there only because obeying Lila gave meaning to his empty Sunday, only because to be her friend seemed to him a piece of luck and a necessity. But his expression was still unhappy, his eyes frightened, and he greeted me coldly. I asked about his mother, but he gave me scarcely any news. He looked around uneasily and immediately dived into the water with the girls, who welcomed him warmly. As for Lila, she was pale, without lipstick, her gaze hostile. She didn’t seem to have anything urgent to tell me. She sat on the concrete, picked up the book I was reading, leafed through it without a word.
Marisa, in the face of those silences, became ill at ease; she tried to make a show of enthusiasm for everything in the world, then she got flustered and she, too, went to swim. Alfonso chose a place as far from us as possible and, sitting motionless in the sun, concentrated on the bathers, as if the sight of naked people going in and out of the water were utterly absorbing.
“Who gave you this book?” Lila asked.
“My professor of Latin and Greek.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it would interest you.”
“Do you know what is of interest to me and what isn’t?”
I immediately resorted to a conciliatory tone, but I also felt a need to brag.
“As soon as I finish I’ll lend it to you. These are books that the professor gives the good students to read. Nino reads them, too.”
“Who is Nino?”
Did she do it on purpose? Did she pretend not even to remember his name in order to diminish him in my eyes?
“The one in the wedding film, Marisa’s brother, Sarratore’s oldest son.”
“The ugly guy you like?”
“I told you that I don’t like him anymore. But he does great things.”
“What?”
“Now, for instance, he’s in England. He’s working, traveling, learning to speak English.”
I was excited merely by summarizing Marisa’s words. I said to Lila, “Imagine if you and I could do things like that. Travel. Work as waiters to support ourselves. Learn to speak English better than the English. Why can he be free to do that and we can’t?”
“Did he finish school?”
“Yes, he got his diploma. Afterward, though, he’s going to do a difficult course at the university.”
“Is he smart?”
“As smart as you.”
“I don’t go to school.”
“Yes, but: you lost the bet and now you have to go back to books.”
“Stop it, Lenù.”
“Stefano won’t let you?”
“There’s the new grocery, I’m supposed to manage it.”
“You’ll study in the grocery.”
“No.”
“You promised. You said we’d get our diploma together.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Lila ran her hand back and forth over the cover of the book, ironing it.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. And without waiting for me to react she muttered, “It’s so hot,” left the book, went to the edge of the concrete, hurled herself without hesitation into the water, yelling at Antonio, who was playing and splashing with Marisa and the children, “Tonì, save me!”
She flew for a few seconds, arms wide, then clumsily hit the surface of the water. She didn’t know how to swim.
24
In the days that followed, Lila started on a period of feverish activity. She began with the new grocery, involving herself as if it were the most important thing in the world. She woke up early, before Stefano. She threw up, made coffee, threw up again. He had become very solicitous, he wanted to drive her, but Lila refused, she said she wanted to walk, and she went out in the cool air of the morning, before the heat exploded, along the deserted streets, past the newly constructed buildings, most of them still empty, to the store that was being fitted out. She pulled up the shutter, washed the paint-splattered floor, waited for the workers and suppliers who were delivering scales, slicers, and furnishings, gave orders on where to place them, moved things around herself, trying out new, more efficient arrangements. Large threatening men, rough-mannered boys were ordered about and submitted to her whims without protesting. Since she had barely finished giving an order when she undertook some other heavy job, they cried in apprehension: Signora Carracci, and did all they could to help her.
Lila, in spite of the heat, which sapped her energy, did not confine herself to the shop in the new neighborhood. Sometimes she went with her sister-in-law to the small work site in Piazza dei Martiri, where Michele generally presided, but often Rino, too, was there, feeling he had the right to monitor the work both as the maker of Cerullo shoes and as the brother-in-law of Stefano, who was the Solaras’ partner. Lila would not stay still in that space, either. She inspected it, she climbed the workmen’s ladders, she observed the place from high up, she came down, she began to move things. At first she hurt everybody’s feelings, but soon, one after the other, they reluctantly gave in. Michele, although the most sarcastically hostile, seemed to grasp most readily the advantages of Lila’s suggestions.
“Signó,” he said teasing, “come and rearrange the bar, too, I’ll pay you.”
Naturally she wouldn’t think of laying a hand on the Bar Solara, but when she had brought enough disorder to Piazza dei Martiri she moved on to the kingdom of the Carracci family, the old grocery, and installed herself there. She made Stefano keep Alfonso at home because he had to study for his makeup exams, and urged Pinuccia to go out more and more often, with her mother, to poke into the shop in Piazza dei Martiri. So, little by little, she reorganized the two adjacent spaces in the old neighborhood to make the work easier and more efficient. In a short time she demonstrated that both Maria and Pinuccia were substantially superfluous; she gave Ada a bigger job, and got Stefano to increase her pay.