Elena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Lina. Lila .

I sought her gaze and she looked back for a fraction of a second, a look that said: Now do you understand the game, you remember how it works? Then, to my great surprise, while Enzo stared at an indeterminate point on the tablecloth, she rose meekly and came over to Michele.

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t touch a hand, an arm, nothing, as if between them hung a blade that could wound him. Instead he placed his fingers for several seconds on my shoulder and turned to me again: You mustn’t be offended, Lenù, you’re smart, you’ve gone so far, you’ve been in the newspapers, you’re the pride of us all who have known you since you were a child. But — and I’m sure you agree, and you’ll be pleased if I say it now, because you love her — Lina has something alive in her mind that no one else has, something strong, that jumps here and there and nothing can stop it, a thing that not even the doctors can see and that I think not even she knows, even though it’s been there since she was born — she doesn’t know it and doesn’t want to recognize it, look what a mean face she’s making right now — a thing that, if it doesn’t like you can cause you a lot of problems but, if it does, leaves everyone astonished. Well, for a long time I’ve wanted to buy this distinctive aspect of her. Yes, buy, there’s nothing wrong, buy the way you buy pearls, diamonds. But until now, unfortunately, it was impossible. We’ve made just a small step forward, and it’s this small step that I wish to celebrate tonight: I’ve hired Signora Cerullo to work in the data-processing center that I’ve set up in Acerra, a very modern thing that if it interests you, Lenù, if it interests the professor, I’ll take you to visit tomorrow, or anyway before you leave. What do you say, Lina?

Lila made an expression of disgust. She shook her head unhappily and said, staring at Signora Solara: Michele doesn’t understand anything about computers and I don’t know what he thinks that I do, but it’s nonsense, it just takes a correspondence course, I learned it even though I only went up to fifth grade in school. And she said nothing else. She didn’t mock Michele, as I expected she would, because of that tremendous image he had invented, the living thing that flowed in her mind. She didn’t mock him for the pearls, the diamonds. Above all, she didn’t evade the compliments. In fact she allowed us to toast her hiring as if she really had been assumed into Heaven, she allowed Michele to continue to praise her, justifying with his praise the salary he was paying her. And all while Pietro, with that capacity of his for feeling at ease with people he considered inferior, was already saying, without consulting me, that he would very much like to visit the center in Acerra and he wanted to hear about it from Lila, who had sat down again. I thought for a moment that if I gave her time she would take away my husband as she had taken Nino from me. But I didn’t feel jealous: if it happened it would happen only out of a desire to dig a deeper furrow between us, I took it for granted that she couldn’t like Pietro and that Pietro would never be capable of betraying me out of desire for someone else.

Another feeling, however, came over me, a more tangled one. I was in the place where I was born, I had always been considered the girl who had been most successful, I was convinced that it was, at least in that place, an indisputable fact. Instead Michele, as if he had deliberately organized my demotion in the neighborhood and in particular in the midst of the family I came from, had contrived to make Lila overshadow me, he had even wanted me to comply with my overshadowing by publicly recognizing the incomparable power of my friend. And she had willingly agreed to it. In fact, maybe she had even had a hand in the result, planning and organizing it. If a few years earlier, when I had had my little success as a writer, the thing wouldn’t have wounded me, in fact would have pleased me, now that that was over I realized that I was suffering. I exchanged a look with my mother. She was frowning, she had the expression she assumed when she was struggling not to hit me. She wanted me not to pretend my usual meekness, she wanted me to react, to show how much I knew, all the high-quality stuff, not that nonsense of Acerra. She was saying it to me with her eyes, like a mute command. But I said nothing. Suddenly Manuela Solara, darting glances of impatience, exclaimed: I feel hot, don’t you all, too?

Elisa, like my mother, could not tolerate my loss of prestige. But while my mother remained silent, she turned to me, radiant, affectionate, to let me know that I remained her extraordinary older sister, whom she would always be proud of. I have something to give you, she said, and added, jumping lightheartedly, as was her way, from one subject to another: Have you ever been in an airplane? I said no. Possible? Possible. It turned out that of those present only Pietro had flown, several times, but he spoke of it as if it were nothing much. Instead for Elisa it had been a wonderful experience, and also for Marcello. They had gone to Germany, a long flight, for reasons of work and pleasure. Elisa had been afraid at first, because of the jolting and shaking, and a jet of cold air struck her right in the head as if it were going to drill a hole. Then through the window she had seen white clouds below and blue sky above. So she had discovered that above the clouds there was always fine weather, and from high up the earth was all green and blue and violet and shining with snow when they flew over the mountains. She asked me:

“Guess who we met in Düsseldorf.”

I said, unhappy with everything:

“I don’t know, Elisa, tell me.”

“Antonio.”

“Ah.”

“He was very eager for me to send his greetings.”

“Is he well?”

“Very well. He gave me a gift for you.”

So that was the thing she had for me, a gift from Antonio. She got up and went to get it. Marcello looked at me with a smile, Pietro asked:

“Who is Antonio?”

“An employee of ours,” said Marcello.

“A boyfriend of your wife,” said Michele, laughing. “Times have changed, Professò, today women have a lot of boyfriends and they boast about it much more than men. How many girlfriends have you had?”

Pietro said seriously:

“None, I’ve loved only my wife.”

“Liar,” Michele exclaimed, in great amusement. “Can I whisper to you how many girlfriends I’ve had?”

He got up and, followed by Gigliola’s look of disgust, stood behind my husband, whispered to him.

“Incredible,” Pietro exclaimed, cautiously ironic. They laughed together.

Meanwhile Elisa returned, she handed me a package wrapped in packing paper.

“Open it.”

“Do you know what’s in it?” I asked, puzzled.

“We both know,” said Marcello, “but we hope you don’t.”

I unwrapped the package. I realized, as I did, that they were all watching me. Lila looked at me sideways, intent, as if she expected a snake to dart out. When they saw that Antonio, the son of crazy Melina, the illiterate and violent servant of the Solaras, my boyfriend in adolescence, had sent me as a gift nothing wonderful, nothing moving, nothing that alluded to times past, but only a book, they seemed disappointed. Then they noticed that I had changed color, that I was looking at the cover with a joy I couldn’t control. It wasn’t just any book. It was my book. It was the German translation of my novel, six years after its publication in Italy. For the first time I was present at the spectacle — yes, a spectacle — of my words dancing before my eyes in a foreign language.

“You didn’t know about it?” Elisa asked, happy.