Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“Nadia,” Professor Galiani called again in a suddenly irritated tone, “are you deaf? Come, there’s someone here to see you.”

Nadia finally looked into the room. Behind her was Pasquale.

Lila’s bitterness exploded again. So Pasquale, when work was over, rushed to the house of those people, amid mothers and fathers and grandmothers and aunts and happy babies, all affectionate, all well educated, all so broad-minded that they welcomed him as one of them, although he was a construction worker and still bore the dirty traces of his job?

Nadia embraced her in her emotional way. Lucky you’re here, she said, leave the child with my mother, we have to talk. Lila replied aggressively that yes, they had to talk, right away, that’s why she was there. And since she said emphatically that she had only a minute, Pasquale offered to take her home in the car. So they left the living room, the children, the grandmother, and met — also Armando, also the blond girl, whose name was Isabella — in Nadia’s room, a large room with a bed, a desk, shelves full of books, posters showing singers, films, and revolutionary struggles that Lila knew little about. There were three other young men, two whom she had never seen, and Dario, banged up from the beating he’d had, sprawled on Nadia’s bed with his shoes on the pink quilt. All three were smoking, the room was full of smoke. Lila didn’t wait, she didn’t even respond to Dario’s greeting. She said that they had got her in trouble, that their lack of consideration had put her at risk of being fired, that the pamphlet had caused an uproar, that they shouldn’t come to the gate anymore, that because of them the fascists had showed up and everyone was now angry with both the reds and the blacks. She hissed at Dario: As for you, if you don’t know how to fight stay home, you know they could kill you? Pasquale tried to interrupt her a few times, but she cut him off contemptuously, as if his mere presence in that house were a betrayal. The others instead listened in silence. Only when Lila had finished, did Armando speak. He had his mother’s delicate features, and thick black eyebrows; the violet trace of his carefully shaved beard rose to his cheekbones, and he spoke in a warm, thick voice. He introduced himself, he said that he was very happy to meet her, that he regretted he hadn’t been there when she spoke at the meeting, that, however, what she had told them they had discussed among themselves and since they had considered it an important contribution they had decided to put everything in writing. Don’t worry, he concluded calmly, we’ll support you and your comrades in every way.

Lila coughed, the smoke in the room irritated her throat.

“You should have informed me.”

“It’s true, but there wasn’t time.”

“If you really want the time you find it.”

“We are few and our initiatives are more every day.”

“What work do you do?”

“In what sense?”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a doctor.”

“Like your father?”

“Yes.”

“And at this moment are you risking your job? Could you end up in the street at any moment along with your son?”

Armando shook his head unhappily and said:

“Competing for who is risking the most is wrong, Lina.”

And Pasquale:

“He’s been arrested twice and I have eight charges against me. Nobody here risks more or less than anyone else.”

“Oh, no?”

“No,” said Nadia, “we’re all in the front lines and ready to assume our responsibilities.”

Then Lila, forgetting that she was in someone else’s house, cried:

“So if I should lose my job, I’ll come and live here, you’ll feed me, you’ll assume responsibility for my life?”

Nadia answered placidly:

“If you like, yes.”

Four words only. Lila understood that it wasn’t a joke, that Nadia was serious, that even if Bruno Soccavo fired his entire work force she, with that sickly-sweet voice of hers, would give the same senseless answer. She claimed that she was in the service of the workers, and yet, from her room in a house full of books and with a view of the sea, she wanted to command you, she wanted to tell you what you should do with your work, she decided for you, she had the solution ready even if you ended up in the street. I — it was on the tip of Lila’s tongue — if I want, can smash everything much better than you: I don’t need you to tell me, in that sanctimonious tone, how I should think, what I should do. But she restrained herself, and said abruptly to Pasquale:

“I’m in a hurry, are you going to take me or are you staying here?”

Silence. Pasquale glanced at Nadia, muttered, I’ll take you, and Lila started to leave the room, without saying goodbye. The girl rushed to lead the way, saying to her how unacceptable it was to work in the conditions that Lila herself had described so well, how urgent it was to kindle the spark of the struggle, and other phrases like that. Don’t pull back, she urged, finally, before they went into the living room. But she got no response.

Professor Galiani, sitting in the armchair, was reading, a frown on her face. When she looked up she spoke to Lila, ignoring her daughter, ignoring Pasquale, who had just arrived, embarrassed.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes, it’s late. Let’s go, Gennaro, leave Marco his car and put your coat on.”

Professor Galiani smiled at her grandson, who was pouting.

“Marco gave it to him.”

Lila narrowed her eyes, reduced them to cracks.

“You’re all so generous in this house, thank you.”

The professor watched as she struggled with her son to get his coat on.

“May I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“What did you study?”

The question seemed to irritate Nadia, who broke in:

“Mamma, Lina has to go.”

For the first time Lila noticed some nervousness in the child’s voice, and it pleased her.

“Will you let me have two words?” Professor Galiani snapped, in a tone no less nervous. Then she repeated to Lila, but kindly: “What did you study?”

“Nothing.”

“To hear you speak — and shout — it doesn’t seem so.”

“It’s true, I stopped after fifth grade.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t have the ability.”

“How did you know?”

“Greco had it, I didn’t.”

Professor Galiani shook her head in a sign of disagreement, and said:

“If you had studied you would have been as successful as Greco.”

“How can you say that?”

“It’s my job.”

“You professors insist so much on education because that’s how you earn a living, but studying is of no use, it doesn’t even improve you — in fact it makes you even more wicked.”

“Has Elena become more wicked?”

“No, not her.”

“Why not?”

Lila stuck the wool cap on her son’s head. “We made a pact when we were children: I’m the wicked one.”

In the car she got mad at Pasquale ( Have you become the servant of those people ?) and he let her vent. Only when it seemed to him that she had come to the end of her recriminations did he start off with his political formulas: the condition of workers in the South, the condition of slavery in which they lived, the permanent blackmail, the weakness if not absence of unions, the need to force situations and reach the point of struggle. Lina, he said in dialect, his tone heartfelt, you’re afraid of losing the few cents they give you and you’re right, Gennaro has to grow up. But I know that you are a true comrade, I know that you understand: here we workers have never even been within the regular wage scales, we’re outside all the rules, we’re less than zero. So, it’s blasphemy to say: leave me alone, I have my own problems and I want to mind my own business. Each of us, in the place assigned to us, has to do what he can.