Elena Ferrante: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“Hurry back, I’d like to hear your opinion.”

“I don’t have opinions,” I said with a half smile.

He smiled in turn: “A writer always invents one.”

“Maybe I’m not a writer.”

“Yes, you are.”

I went to the bathroom. Nino had always had the capacity, as soon as he opened his mouth, to demonstrate to me my backwardness. I have to start studying, I thought, how could I let myself go like this? Of course, if I want I can fake some expertise and some enthusiasm. But I can’t go on like that, I’ve learned too many things that don’t count and very few that do. At the end of my affair with Franco, I had lost the little curiosity about the world that he had instilled in me. And my engagement to Pietro hadn’t helped, what didn’t interest him lost interest for me. How different Pietro is from his father, his sister, his mother. And how different he is from Nino. If it had been up to him, I wouldn’t ever have written my novel. He was almost irritated by it, as an infraction of the academic rules. Or maybe I’m exaggerating, it’s just my problem. I’m so limited, I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, excluding everything else. But now I’ll change. Right after this boring dinner I’ll drag Nino with me, I’ll make him walk all night, I’ll ask him what books I should read, what films I should see, what music I should listen to. And I’ll take him by the arm, I’ll say: I’m cold. Confused intentions, incomplete proposals. I hid from myself the anxiety I felt, I said to myself only: It might be the only chance we have, tomorrow I’m leaving, I won’t see him again.

Meanwhile I gazed angrily into the mirror. My face looked tired, small pimples on my chin and dark circles under my eyes announced my period. I’m ugly, short, my bust is too big. I should have understood long ago that he never liked me, it was no coincidence that he preferred Lila. But with what result? She’s made badly even when it comes to sex , he said. I was wrong to avoid the subject. I should have acted curious, let him continue. If he talks about it again I’ll be more open-minded, I’ll say: what does it mean that a girl is made badly when it comes to sex? I’m asking you, I’ll explain laughing, so that I can correct myself, if it seems necessary. Assuming that one can correct it, who knows. I remembered with disgust what had happened with his father on the beach at the Maronti. I thought of making love with Franco on the little bed in his room in Pisa — had I done something wrong that he had noticed but had tactfully not mentioned to me? And if that very evening, let’s say, I had gone to bed with Nino, would I make more mistakes, so that he would think: she’s made badly, like Lila, and would he speak of it behind my back to his girlfriends at the university, maybe even to Mariarosa?

I realized the offensiveness of those words; I should have rebuked him. From that mistaken sex, I should have said to him, from an experience of which you now express a negative opinion, came a child, little Gennaro, who is very intelligent: it’s not nice for you to talk like that, you can’t reduce the question to who is made badly and who is made well. Lila ruined herself for you. And I made up my mind: when I get rid of Adele and her friend, when he walks me to the hotel, I’ll return to the subject and tell him.

I came out of the bathroom. I went back to the dining room and discovered that during my absence the situation had changed. As soon as my mother-in-law saw me, she waved and said happily, her cheeks alight: the surprise finally got here. The surprise was Pietro, he was sitting next to her.

My fiancé jumped up, he embraced me. I had never told him anything about Nino. I had said a few words about Antonio, and had told him something about my relationship with Franco, which, besides, was well known in the student world of Pisa. Nino, however, I had never mentioned. It was a story that hurt me, it had painful moments that I was ashamed of. To tell it meant to confess that I had loved forever a person as I would never love him. And to give it an order, a sense, involved talking about Lila, about Ischia, maybe even going so far as to admit that the episode of sex with an older man, as it appeared in my book, was inspired by a true experience at the Maronti, by a decision that I had made as a desperate girl and which now, after so much time had passed, seemed to me repugnant. My own business, therefore. I had held on to my secrets. If Pietro had known, he would have easily understood why I was greeting him without pleasure.

He sat down again at the head of the table, between his mother and Nino. He ate a steak, drank some wine, but he looked at me in alarm, aware of my unhappiness. Certainly he felt at fault because he hadn’t arrived in time and had missed an important event in my life, because his neglect could be interpreted as a sign that he didn’t love me, because he had left me among strangers without the comfort of his affection. It would have been difficult to tell him that my dark face, my muteness, could be explained precisely by the fact that he hadn’t remained completely absent, that he had intruded between me and Nino.

Nino, meanwhile, was making me even more unhappy. He was sitting next to me but didn’t address a word to me. He seemed happy about Pietro’s arrival. He poured wine for him, offered him cigarettes, lighted one, and now they were both smoking, lips compressed, and talking about the difficult journey by car from Pisa to Milan, and the pleasure of driving. It struck me how different they were: Nino thin, lanky, his voice high and cordial; Pietro thick-set, with the comical tangle of hair over his large forehead, his broad cheeks scraped by the razor, his voice always low. They seemed pleased to have met, which was unusual for Pietro, who was generally reserved. Nino pressed him, showing a real interest in his studies ( I read an article somewhere in which you compare milk and honey to wine and every form of drunkenness ), and urging him to talk about them, so that my fiancé, who tended not to talk about his subject, gave in, he corrected good-humoredly, he opened up. But just when Pietro was starting to gain confidence, Adele interrupted.

“Enough talk,” she said to her son. “What about the surprise for Elena?”

I looked at her uncertainly. There were other surprises? Wasn’t it enough that Pietro had driven for hours without stopping, to arrive only in time for the dinner in my honor? I thought of my fiancé with curiosity, he had a sulky expression that I knew and that he assumed when circumstances forced him to speak about himself in public. He announced to me, but almost in a whisper, that he had become a tenured professor, a very young tenured professor, with a position at Florence. Like that, by magic, in his typical fashion. He never boasted of his brilliance, he was scarcely aware of his value as a scholar, he kept silent about the struggles he had endured. And now, look, he mentioned that news casually, as if he had been forced to by his mother, as if for him it meant nothing. In fact, it meant remarkable prestige at a young age, it meant economic security, it meant leaving Pisa, it meant escaping a political and cultural climate that for months, I don’t know why, had exasperated him. It meant finally that in the fall, or at the beginning of the next year, we would get married and I would leave Naples. No one mentioned this last thing, instead they all congratulated Pietro and me. Even Nino, who right afterward looked at his watch, made some acerbic remarks on university careers, and exclaimed that he was sorry but he had to go.

We all got up. I didn’t know what to do, I uselessly sought his gaze, as a great sorrow filled my heart. End of the evening, missed opportunity, aborted desires. Out on the street I hoped that he would give me a phone number, an address. He merely shook my hand and wished me all the best. From that moment it seemed to me that each of his gestures was deliberately cutting me off. As a kind of farewell I gave him a half smile, waving my hand as if I were holding a pen. It was a plea, it meant: you know where I live, write to me, please. But he had already turned his back.