Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“You like throwing away money? What’s the use of a license if you don’t have a car?”

“We’ll see later.”

“You want to buy a car? How much do you really have saved up?”

“None of your business.”

Pietro had a car, and once we were married I intended to use it. When he returned to Naples, in the car, in fact, to bring his parents to meet mine, he let me drive a little, around the old neighborhood and the new one. I drove on the stradone , passing the elementary school, the library, I drove on the streets where Lila had lived when she was married, I turned back and skirted the gardens. That experience of driving is the only good thing I can remember. Otherwise it was a terrible afternoon, followed by an endless dinner. Pietro and I struggled to make our families less uncomfortable, but they were so many worlds apart that the silences were extremely long. When the Airotas left, loaded with an enormous quantity of leftovers pressed on them by my mother, it suddenly seemed to me that I was wrong about everything. I came from that family, Pietro from that other, each of us carried our ancestors in our body. How would our marriage go? What awaited me? Would the affinities prevail over the differences? Would I be capable of writing another book? When? About what? And would Pietro support me? And Adele? And Mariarosa?

One evening, with thoughts like that in my head, I heard someone call me from the street. I rushed to the window — I had immediately recognized the voice of Pasquale Peluso. I saw that he wasn’t alone, he was with Enzo. I was alarmed. At that hour shouldn’t Enzo be in San Giovanni a Teduccio, at home, with Lila and Gennaro?

“Can you come down?” Pasquale shouted.

“What’s happening?”

“Lina doesn’t feel well and wants to see you.”

I’m coming, I said, and ran down the stairs although my mother was shouting after me: Where are you going at this hour, come back here.

I hadn’t seen either Pasquale or Enzo for a long time, but they got right to the point — they had come for Lila and began talking about her immediately. Pasquale had grown a Che Guevara-style beard and it seemed to me that it had improved him. His eyes seemed bigger and more intense, and the thick mustache covered his bad teeth even when he laughed. Enzo, on the other hand, hadn’t changed, as silent, as compact, as ever. Only when we were in Pasquale’s old car did I realize how surprising it was to see them together. I had been sure that no one in the neighborhood wanted to have anything to do with Lila and Enzo. But it wasn’t so: Pasquale often went to their house, he had come with Enzo to get me, Lila had sent them together.

It was Enzo who in his dry and orderly way told me what had happened: Pasquale, who was working at a construction site near San Giovanni a Teduccio, was supposed to stop for dinner at their house. But Lila, who usually returned from the factory at four-thirty, still hadn’t arrived at seven, when Enzo and Pasquale got there. The apartment was empty, Gennaro was at the neighbor’s. The two began cooking, Enzo fed the child. Lila hadn’t shown up until nine, very pale, very nervous. She hadn’t answered Enzo and Pasquale’s questions. The only thing she said, in a terrified tone of voice, was: They’re pulling out my nails. Not true, Enzo had taken her hands and checked, the nails were in place. Then she got angry and shut herself in her room with Gennaro. After a while she had yelled at them to find out if I was at home, she wanted to speak to me urgently.

I asked Enzo:

“Did you have a fight?”

“No.”

“Did she not feel well, was she hurt at work?”

“I don’t think so, I don’t know.”

Pasquale said to me:

“Now, let’s not make ourselves anxious. Let’s bet that as soon as Lina sees you she’ll calm down. I’m so glad we found you — you’re an important person now, you must have a lot to do.”

I denied it, but he cited as proof the old article in l’Unità and Enzo nodded in agreement; he had also read it.

“Lila saw it, too,” he said.

“And what did she say?”

“She was really pleased with the picture.”

“But they made it sound like you were still a student,” Pasquale grumbled. “You should write a letter to the paper explaining that you’re a graduate.”

He complained about all the space that even l’Unità was giving to the students. Enzo said he was right, and they held forth with arguments not so different from those I had heard in Milan, only the vocabulary was cruder. It was clear that Pasquale especially wanted to entertain me with arguments worthy of someone who, though she was their friend, appeared in l’Unità with a photograph. But maybe they did it to dispel the anxiety, theirs and mine.

I listened. I quickly realized that their relationship had solidified precisely because of their political passion. They often met after work, at party or some sort of committee meetings. I listened to them, I joined in out of politeness, they replied, but meanwhile I couldn’t get Lila out of my mind, Lila consumed by an unknown anguish, she who was always so resistant. When we reached San Giovanni they seemed proud of me, Pasquale in particular didn’t miss a single word of mine, and kept checking on me in the rear-view mirror. Although he had his usual knowing tone — he was the secretary of the local section of the Communist Party — he ascribed to my agreement on politics the power to sanction his position. So that, when he felt clearly supported, he explained to me, in some distress, that, with Enzo and some others, he was engaged in a serious fight within the party, which — he said, frowning, pounding his hands on the wheel — preferred to wait for a whistle from Aldo Moro, like an obedient dog, rather than stop procrastinating and join the battle.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s as you say,” I said.

“You’re clever,” he praised me then, solemnly, as we were going up the dirty stairs, “you always were. Right, Enzo?”

Enzo nodded yes, but I understood that his worry about Lila was increasing at every step, as it was in me, and he felt guilty for being distracted by that chatter. He opened the door, said aloud, We’re here, and pointed to a door whose top half was of frosted glass, and through which a faint light shone. I knocked softly and went in.

Lila was lying on a cot, fully dressed. Gennaro was sleeping next to her. Come in, she said, I knew you’d come, give me a kiss. I kissed her on the cheeks, I sat on the empty bed that must be her son’s. How much time had passed since I’d last seen her? I found her even thinner, even paler, her eyes were red, the sides of her nose were cracked, her long hands were scarred by cuts. She continued almost without a pause, in a low voice so as not to wake the baby: I saw you in the newspapers, how well you look, your hair is lovely, I know everything about you, I know you’re getting married, he’s a professor, good for you, you’re going to live in Florence, I’m sorry I made you come at this hour, my mind’s no help to me, it’s coming unglued like wallpaper, luckily you’re here.

“What’s happening?” I asked, and moved to caress her hand.

That question, that gesture were enough. She opened her eyes wide, clenched her hand, abruptly pulled it away.

“I’m not well,” she said, “but wait, don’t be scared, I’ll calm down now.”

She became calm. She said softly, enunciating the words:

“I’ve disturbed you, Lenù, because you have to make me a promise, you’re the only person I trust: if something happens to me, if I end up in the hospital, if they take me to the insane asylum, if they can’t find me anymore, you have to take Gennaro, you have to keep him with you, bring him up in your house. Enzo is good, he’s smart, I trust him, but he can’t give the child the things you can.”