Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Lila in that case didn’t have to be asked twice, and she left Gennaro with Enzo. I put on makeup, I fixed my hair, I dressed according to the taste I had developed from Adele, and helped Lila to at least look respectable, since it was difficult to persuade her to dress up. She wanted to bring pastries, I said it wasn’t suitable. Instead I bought a copy of my book, although I assumed that Professor Galiani had read it: I did it so that I would have a way of inscribing it to her.

We arrived punctually, rang the bell, silence. We rang again. Nadia opened the door, breathless, half dressed, without her usual courtesy, as if we had introduced disorder not only into her appearance but also into her manners. I explained that I had an appointment with her mother. She’s not here, she said, but make yourselves comfortable in the living room. She disappeared. We remained mute, but exchanged little smiles of uneasiness in the silent house. Perhaps five minutes passed, finally steps could be heard in the hall. Pasquale appeared, slightly disheveled. Lila didn’t show the least surprise, but I exclaimed, in real astonishment: What are you doing here? He answered seriously, unfriendly: What are you two doing here. And the phrase reversed the situation, I had to explain to him, as if that were his house, that I had an appointment with my professor.

“Ah,” he said, and asked Lila, teasingly, “Are you recovered?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m glad.”

I got angry, I answered for her, I said that Lila was only now beginning to get better and that anyway the Soccavo factory had been taught a lesson — the inspectors had paid a visit, the business had had to pay Lila everything she was owed.

“Yes?” he said just as Nadia reappeared, now immaculate, as if she were going out. “You understand, Nadia? Dottoressa Greco says she taught Soccavo a lesson.”

I exclaimed: “Not me.”

“Not her, God Almighty taught Soccavo a lesson.”

Nadia gave a slight smile, crossed the room and although there was a sofa free she sat on Pasquale’s lap. I felt ill at ease.

“I only tried to help Lina.”

Pasquale put his arm around Nadia’s waist, leaned toward me, said:

“Excellent. You mean that in all the factories, at all the construction sites, in every corner of Italy and the world, as soon as the owner kicks up a fuss and the workers are in danger, we’ll call Elena Greco: she telephones her friends, the labor authority, her connections in high places, and resolves the situation.”

He had never spoken to me like that, not even when I was a girl and he seemed to me already adult, and acted like a political expert. I was offended, and was about to answer, but Nadia interrupted, ignoring me. She spoke to Lila, in her slow little voice, as if it were not worth the trouble to speak to me.

“The labor inspectors don’t count for anything, Lina. They went to Soccavo, they filled out their forms, but then? In the factory everything is the same as before. And meanwhile those who spoke out are in trouble, those who were silent got a few lire under the counter, the police charged us, and the fascists came right here and beat up Armando.”

She hadn’t finished speaking when Pasquale started talking to me more harshly than before, this time raising his voice:

“Explain to us what the fuck you thought you resolved,” he said, with genuine pain and disappointment. “You know what the situation is in Italy? Do you have any idea what the class struggle is?”

“Don’t shout, please,” Nadia asked him, then she turned again to Lila, almost whispering: “Comrades do not abandon one another.”

She answered: “It would have failed anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“In that place you don’t win with leaflets or even by fighting with the fascists.”

“How do you win?”

Lila was silent, and Pasquale, now turning to her, hissed:

“You win by mobilizing the good friends of the owners? You win by getting a little money and screwing everyone else?”

Then I burst out: “Pasquale, stop it.” Involuntarily I, too, raised my voice. “What kind of tone is that? It wasn’t like that.”

I wanted to explain, silence him, even though I felt an emptiness in my head, I didn’t know what arguments to resort to, and the only concept that occurred to me readily was malicious and politically useless: You treat me like this because, now that you’ve got your hands on this young lady from a good family, you’re full of yourself? But Lila, here, stopped me with a completely unexpected gesture of irritation, which confused me. She said:

“That’s enough, Lenù, they’re right.”

I was upset. They were right? I wanted to respond, to get angry at her. What did she mean? But just then Professor Galiani arrived: her footsteps could be heard in the hall.

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.