59
I hoped that the professor hadn’t heard me shouting. But at the same time I wanted to see Nadia jump off Pasquale’s lap and hurry over to the sofa, I wished to see both of them humiliated by the need to pretend an absence of intimacy. I noticed that Lila, too, looked at them sardonically. But they stayed where they were; Nadia, in fact, put an arm around Pasquale’s neck, as if she were afraid of falling, and said to her mother, who had just appeared in the doorway: Next time, tell me if you’re having visitors. The professor didn’t answer, she turned to us coldly: I’m sorry I was late, let’s sit in my study. We followed her, while Pasquale moved Nadia off him, saying in a tone that seemed to me suddenly depressed: Come on, let’s go.
Professor Galiani led us along the hall muttering irritably: What really bothers me is the boorishness. We entered an airy room with an old desk, a lot of books, sober, cushioned chairs. She assumed a polite tone, but it was clear that she was struggling with a bad mood. She said she was happy to see me and to see Lila again; yet at every word, and between the words, I felt her rage increasing, and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I apologized for not having come to see her, and went on somewhat breathlessly about studying, the book, the innumerable things that had overwhelmed me, my engagement, my approaching marriage.
“Are you getting married in church or only in a civil service?”
“Only a civil service.”
“Good for you.”
She turned to Lila, to draw her into the conversation: “You were married in church?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a believer?”
“No.”
“Then why did you get married in church?”
“That’s what’s done.”
“You don’t always have to do things just because they’re done.”
“We do a lot of them.”
“Will you go to Elena’s wedding?”
“She didn’t invite me.”
I was startled, I said right away:
“It’s not true.”
Lila laughed harshly: “It’s true, she’s ashamed of me.”
Her tone was ironic, but I felt wounded anyway. What was happening to her? Why had she said earlier, in front of Nadia and Pasquale, that I was wrong, and now was making that hostile remark in front of the professor?
“Nonsense,” I said, and to calm down I took the book out of my bag and handed it to Professor Galiani, saying: I wanted to give you this. She looked at it for a moment without seeing it, perhaps following her own thoughts, then she thanked me, and saying that she already had a copy, gave it back:
“What does your husband do?”
“He’s a professor of Latin literature in Florence.”
“Is he a lot older than you?”
“He’s twenty-seven.”
“So young, already a professor?”
“He’s very smart.”
“What’s his name?”
“Pietro Airota.”
Professor Galiani looked at me attentively, like when I was at school and I gave an answer that she considered incomplete.
“Relative of Guido Airota?”
“He’s his son.”
She smiled with explicit malice.
“Good marriage.”
“We love each other.”
“Have you already started another book?”
“I’m trying.”
“I saw that you’re writing for l’Unità.”
“A bit.”
“I don’t write for it anymore, it’s a newspaper of bureaucrats.”
She turned again to Lila, she seemed to want to let her know how much she liked her. She said to her:
“It’s remarkable what you did in the factory.”
Lila grimaced in annoyance.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not true.”
The professor got up, rummaged through the papers on the desk, and showed her some pages as if they were an incontrovertible truth.
“Nadia left this around the house and I took the liberty of reading it. It’s a courageous, new work, very well written. I wanted to see you so that I could tell you that.”
She was holding in her hand the pages that Lila had written, and from which I had taken my first article for l’Unità.
60
Oh yes, it was really time to get out. I left the Galiani house embittered, my mouth dry, without the courage to say to the professor that she didn’t have the right to treat me like that. She hadn’t said anything about my book, although she’d had it for some time and surely had read it or at least skimmed it. She hadn’t asked for a dedication in the copy I had brought for that reason and when, before leaving — out of weakness, out of a need to end that relationship affectionately — I had offered anyway, she hadn’t answered, she had smiled, and continued to talk to Lila. Above all, she had said nothing about my articles, rather she had mentioned them only to include them in her negative opinion of l’Unità, and then pulled out Lila’s pages and began to talk to her as if my opinion on the subject didn’t count, as if I were no longer in the room. I would have liked to yelclass="underline" Yes, it’s true, Lila has a tremendous intelligence, an intelligence that I’ve always recognized, that I love, that’s influenced everything I’ve done; but I’ve worked hard to develop mine and I’ve been successful, I’m valued everywhere, I’m not a pretentious nobody like your daughter. Instead, I listened silently while they talked about work and the factory and the workers demands. They kept talking, even on the landing, until Professor Galiani absently said goodbye to me, while to Lila she said, now using the familiar tu, Stay in touch, and embraced her. I felt humiliated. Moreover, Pasquale and Nadia hadn’t returned, I hadn’t had a chance to refute them and my anger at them was still raging inside me: why was it wrong to help a friend, to do it I had taken a risk, how could they dare to criticize what I’d done. Now, on the stairs, in the lobby, on the sidewalk of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, it was only Lila and me. I was ready to shout at her: Do you really think I’m ashamed of you, what were you thinking, why did you say those two were right, you’re ungrateful, I did all I could to stay close to you, to be useful to you, and you treat me like that, you really have a sick mind. But as soon as we were outside, even before I could open my mouth (and on the other hand what would have changed if I had?), she took me by the arm and began to defend me against Professor Galiani.
I couldn’t find a single opening in order to reproach her for aligning herself with Pasquale and Nadia, or for the senseless accusation that I didn’t want her at my wedding. She behaved as if it had been another Lila who said those things, a Lila of whom she herself knew nothing and whom it was pointless to ask for explanations. What terrible people — she began, and spoke without stopping all the way to the subway at Piazza Amedeo — did you see how the old woman treated you, she wanted to get revenge, she can’t bear that you write books and articles, she can’t bear that you’re about to marry well, she especially can’t bear that Nadia, brought up precisely to be the best of all, Nadia who was to give her so much satisfaction, isn’t up to anything good, is sleeping with a construction worker and acting like a whore right in front of her: no, she can’t bear it, but you’re wrong to be upset, forget about it, you shouldn’t have left her your book, you shouldn’t have asked if she wanted it inscribed, you especially shouldn’t have done that, those are people who should be treated with a kick in the ass, your weakness is that you’re too good, you swallow everything that educated people say as if they’re the only ones who had a mind, but it’s not true, relax, go, get married, have a honeymoon, you were too worried about me, write another novel, you know that I expect great things from you, I love you.