Элена Ферранте - The Beach at Night

Mati is a five-year-old girl who talks a lot, especially to me. I’m her doll.

Her father has just arrived—he comes to the beach every weekend.

He’s brought her a present—a black-and-white cat. So until five minutes ago Mati was playing with me and now she’s playing with the cat, whom she’s named Minù.

I’m lying on the sand, in the sun, and I don’t know what to do.

Mati’s brother is digging a hole. He doesn’t like me. He cares more about a booger than he does about me, and all the sand he’s shoveling he dumps on me.

It’s very hot.

I think about the last game Mati played with me.

She had me jump, she had me run, she got me scared, she had me talk and shout, she had me laugh and even cry.

When we play, I chatter a lot, and whatever I talk to answers me. But here, by myself, half buried under the sand, I’m bored.

A Beetle passes by, so busy digging himself a pathway he doesn’t even say hi.

Mati’s mother left the beach an hour ago and went home. Now her father, too, is about to go; he’s loaded down with bags.

“Mati, let’s go, hurry up.”

Mati heads off from the big beach umbrella along with her brother and the kitten.

And me?

I can’t see them anymore.

I call out: “Mati!”

But Mati doesn’t hear me.

She’s talking to Minù the cat; she hears only him, and he answers her.

The sun has set, the light is pink.

A Beach Attendant arrives. His eyes, I don’t like his eyes. He folds up the big beach umbrellas, the chaises. I see the two halves of his mustache moving over his lip like lizards’ tails.

Then I recognize him.

He’s the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset—Mati’s always scared when she talks about him. He comes to the beach when it gets dark and steals the little girls’ toys.

The Mean Beach Attendant is very tall.

He calls his friend, the Big Rake, who’s even taller than he is, and together they start combing the sand.

The Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset sings a song that goes:

The Big Rake has horrible iron teeth, shiny from use. He bites the sand ferociously as he advances.

I’m afraid—he’ll hurt me, he’ll break me.

Here he comes, he’s here.

I end up between his teeth along with pumice-stone pebbles, shells, plum and peach pits.

I feel a little beat up, but I’m all in one piece.

The Mean Beach Attendant goes on singing in a threatening tone:

Everything he raked ends up in a pile of sticks, sand, tissues, bags, and plastic bottles.

I’ve been flung down not too far from a plastic Pony, a metal Bottle Cap, a ballpoint Pen, the Beetle that passed a while ago, digging, and now is on his back, waving his legs.

The light isn’t pink anymore but violet. The sand is cooling.

I’m very sad, and angry, too.

I don’t like this cat Minù, in fact I hate him. Even his name is ugly. I hope he has diarrhea, and vomits, and stinks so much that Mati is grossed out and gets rid of him. By this time I should have had a bath with her, and be at dinner with the whole family, eating from her spoon, a mouthful for Mati and one for me.

Instead I’m here, belly up like this Beetle, and I have to listen to the horrible song of the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset.

It’s getting dark. There are no stars and no moon, either. The sound of the sea is louder now.

It’s damp, I’ll catch cold. Mati always tells me: “If you catch cold, you’ll get a fever.” She says it exactly the way her mother says it to her. Because Mati and I are also mother and daughter.

So it’s impossible that she’s forgotten me. As soon as she realizes I’m still here on the beach, she’ll certainly come and get me. Maybe it’s just a game she invented to scare me.

The Mean Beach Attendant is very annoyed. He kneels down beside me and says to the Big Rake:

“We didn’t even find a gold bracelet, or a necklace with precious stones. There’s just this ugly doll.”

“I’m not ugly!” I yell.

The Mean Beach Attendant stares at me with his cruel eyes. He strokes the lizard tails of his mustache. Then he extends his gnarled, dirty hands, picks me up, tries to open my mouth, shakes me.

“She still has words in her,” he says to the Big Rake. Then he asks me: “How many did your mamma put inside you, eh?”

I hide at the back of my throat all the words Mati taught me, the ones we use for our games, and I stay very quiet.

“Let’s see. At the doll market they pay a lot for words that come from games.”

The Big Rake appears to agree and sticks his teeth out even farther, as if to open up my chest. But the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset shakes his head no.

He clicks his tongue and from between his lips a small Hook emerges, like a raindrop.

The Hook, hanging on a disgusting thread of saliva, drops down until it enters my mouth.

I quickly collect all Mati’s words and hide them in my chest. Only the Name she gave me stays behind.

The Name is very frightened, it calls itself: “Celina!”

The Hook hears it and, wham, grabs it and rips it out of me—it really hurts.

I see Celina—my Name, the Name that my Mati gave me—fly through the air attached to the Mean Beach Attendant’s saliva and then disappear beneath the lizard tails, into his big mouth.

But he’s disappointed—the Name isn’t enough for him. He shakes me hard.

“Just Celina?” he asks. “That’s all?”

The Mean Beach Attendant hurls me angrily into the brush. I end up near the plastic Pony, the ballpoint Pen, the Beetle. I hear him ask the Big Rake:

“How much will they give us for a doll’s name? two bucks? three?”

Ah, how sad I feel.

The Name that Mati gave me is lost forever. Now I’m a little doll without a Name.

But I keep quiet, I don’t say a word. The Mean Beach Attendant is still here, a tall dark shadow.

His voice has started singing again: