Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

It was at that point that Lila felt a violent bump inside her head, as if her heart, instead of hammering in her throat, had exploded in her skull. She yelled an insult at him no less obscene than the words he had uttered, she grabbed from the desk the bronze ashtray, spilling out butts and ashes, and tried to hit him. But the gesture, in spite of her fury, was slow, powerless. And even Bruno’s voice— Lina, please, what are you doing —passed through her slowly. So maybe for that reason Solara stopped her easily and easily took away the ashtray, saying to her angrily:

“You think you work for Dottor Soccavo? You think I’m no one here? You are mistaken. Dottor Soccavo has been in my mother’s red book for quite some time, and that book is a lot more important than Mao’s little book. So you don’t work for him, you work for me, you work for me and only me. And so far I’ve let you, I wanted to see what the fuck you were driving at, you and that shit you sleep with. But from now on remember that I have my eyes on you and if I need you, you better come running, got that?”

Only then Bruno jumped to his feet nervously and exclaimed:

“Leave her, Michè, you’re going too far.”

Solara let go of Lila’s wrist, then he muttered, addressing Soccavo, again in Italian:

“You’re right, sorry. But Signora Carracci has this ability: one way or another she always compels you to go too far.”

Lina repressed her fury, she rubbed her wrist carefully, with the tip of her finger she wiped off some ash that had fallen on it. Then she unfolded the piece of paper with the demands, she placed it in front of Bruno, and as she was going to the door she turned to Solara, saying:

“I’ve known how to whistle since I was five years old.”

When she came back down, her face very pale, Edo asked her how it went, but Lila didn’t answer, she pushed him away with one hand and shut herself in the bathroom. She was afraid that Bruno would call her back, she was afraid of being forced to have a confrontation in Michele’s presence, she was afraid of the unaccustomed fragility of her body — she couldn’t get used to it. From the little window she spied on the courtyard and drew a sigh of relief when she saw Michele, tall, in a black leather jacket and dark pants, going bald at the temples, his handsome face carefully shaved, walk nervously to his car, and leave. Then she returned to the gutting room and Edo asked her again:

“So?”

“I did it. But from now on the rest of you have to take care of it.”

“In what sense?”

She couldn’t answer: Bruno’s secretary had appeared, breathless, the owner wanted her right away. She went like that saint who, although she still has her head on her shoulders, is carrying it in her hands, as if it had already been cut off. Bruno, as soon as he saw her, almost screamed:

“You people want to have coffee in bed in the morning? What is this latest thing, Lina? Do you have any idea? Sit down and explain. I can’t believe it.”

Lila explained to him, demand by demand, in the tone she used with Gennaro when he refused to understand. She said emphatically that he had better take that piece of paper seriously and deal with the various points in a constructive spirit, because if he behaved unreasonably, the office of the labor inspector would soon come down on him. Finally she asked him what sort of trouble he’d got into, to end up in the hands of dangerous people like the Solaras. At that point Bruno lost control completely. His red complexion turned purple, his eyes grew bloodshot, he yelled that he would ruin her, that a few extra lire for the four dickheads she had set against him would be enough to settle everything. He shouted that for years his father had been bribing the inspector’s office and she was dreaming if she thought he was afraid of an inspection. He cried that the Solaras would eliminate her desire to be a union member, and finally, in a choked voice, he said: Out, get out immediately, out.

Lila went to the door. On the threshold she said:

“This is the last time you’ll see me. I’m done working here, starting now.”

At those words Soccavo abruptly returned to himself. He had an expression of alarm, he must have promised Michele that he wouldn’t fire her. He said: “Now you’re insulted? Now you’re being difficult? What do you say, come here, let’s discuss it, I’ll decide if I should fire you or not. Bitch, I said come here.”

For a fraction of a second Ischia came to mind, the morning we waited for Nino and his rich friend, the boy who had a house in Forio, who was always so polite and patient, to arrive. She went out and closed the door behind her. Immediately afterward she began to tremble violently, she was covered with sweat. She didn’t go to the gutting room, she didn’t say goodbye to Edo and Teresa, she passed by Filippo, who looked at her in bewilderment and called to her: Cerù, where are you going, come back inside. But she ran along the unpaved road, took the first bus for the Marina, reached the sea. She walked for a long time. There was a cold wind, and she went up to the Vomero in the funicular, walked through Piazza Vanvitelli, along Via Scarlatti, Via Cimarosa, took the funicular again to go down. It was late when she realized that she had forgotten about Gennaro. She got home at nine, and asked Enzo and Pasquale, who were anxiously questioning her to find out what had happened to her, to come and look for me in the neighborhood.

And now here we are, in the middle of the night, in this bare room in San Giovanni a Teduccio. Gennaro is sleeping, Lila talks on and on in a low voice, Enzo and Pasquale are waiting in the kitchen. I feel like the knight in an ancient romance as, wrapped in his shining armor, after performing a thousand astonishing feats throughout the world, he meets a ragged, starving herdsman, who, never leaving his pasture, subdues and controls horrible beasts with his bare hands, and with prodigious courage.

I was a tranquil listener, and I let her talk. Some moments of the story, especially when the expression of Lila’s face and the pace of her sentences underwent a sudden, painful nervous contraction, disturbed me deeply. I felt a powerful sense of guilt, I thought: this is the life that could have been mine, and if it isn’t it’s partly thanks to her. Sometimes I almost hugged her, more often I wanted to ask questions, comment. But in general I held back, I interrupted two or three times at most.

For example, I certainly interrupted when she talked about Professor Galiani and her children. I would have liked her to explain better what the professor had said, what precise words she had used, if my name had ever come up with Nadia and Armando. But I realized in time the pettiness of the questions and restrained myself, even though a part of me considered the curiosity legitimate — they were acquaintances of mine, after all, who were important to me.

“Before I go to Florence for good, I should pay a visit to Professor Galiani. Maybe you’d come with me, do you want to?” and I added: “My relationship with her cooled a little, after Ischia, she blamed me for Nino’s leaving Nadia.” Since Lila looked at me as if she didn’t see me, I said again: “The Galianis are good people, a little stuck up, but this business of the murmur should be checked.”

This time she reacted.

“The murmur is there.”

“All right,” I said, “but even Armando said you’d need a cardiologist.”

She replied:

“He heard it, anyway.”

But I felt involved above all when it came to sexual matters. When she told me about the drying room, I almost said: an old intellectual jumped on me, in Turin, and in Milan a Venezuelan painter I’d known for only a few hours came to my room to get in bed as if it were a favor I owed him. Yet I held back, even with that. What sense was there in speaking of my affairs at that moment? And then really what could I have told her that had any resemblance to what she was telling me?