Elena Ferrante - The Story of a New Name

It truly overwhelmed me. Once or twice he disentangled his fingers to smooth his hair, but he immediately took my hand again. I wondered for a moment how he reconciled that intimate gesture with his bond with Professor Galiani’s daughter. Maybe for him, I answered, it’s merely how he thinks of the friendship between male and female. But the kiss on Via Mezzocannone? That, too, was nothing, new customs, new habits of youth; and anyway so slight, just the briefest contact. I should be satisfied with the happiness of right now, the chance of this vacation that I wanted: later I’ll lose him, he’ll leave, he has a destiny that can in no way be mine, too.

I was absorbed by these throbbing thoughts when I heard a roar behind me and noisy cries of my name. Rino and Stefano passed us at full speed on their Lambrettas, with their wives behind. They slowed down, turned back with a skillful maneuver. I let go of Nino’s hand.

“And your friend?” Stefano asked, revving his engine.

“He’ll be here soon.”

“Say hello from me.”

“Yes.”

Rino asked, “Do you want to take Lenuccia for a spin?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, you see she’d like to.”

Nino flushed, he said, “I don’t know how to ride a Lambretta.”

“It’s easy, like a bicycle.”

“I know, but it’s not for me.”

Stefano laughed: “Rinù, he’s a guy who studies, forget it.”

I had never seen him so lighthearted. Lila sat close against him, with both arms around his waist. She urged him, “Let’s go, if you don’t hurry you’ll miss the boat.”

“Yes, let’s go,” cried Stefano, “tomorrow we have to work: not like you people who sit in the sun and go swimming. Bye, Lenù, bye, Nino, be good boys and girls.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rino said cordially.

They went off, Lila waved goodbye to Nino, shouting, “Please, take her home.”

She’s acting like my mother, I thought with a little annoyance, she’s playing grownup.

Nino took me by the hand again and said, “Rino is nice, but why did Lina marry that moron?”

A little later I also met his friend, Bruno Soccavo, who was around twenty, and very short, with a low forehead, black curly hair, a pleasant face but scarred by what must have been severe acne.

They walked me home, beside the wine-colored sea of twilight. Nino didn’t take my hand again, even though Bruno left us practically alone: he went in front or lingered behind, as if he didn’t want to disturb us. Since Soccavo never said a word to me, I didn’t speak to him, either, his shyness made me shy. But when we parted, at the house, it was he who asked suddenly, “Will we meet tomorrow?” And Nino found out where we were going to the beach, he insisted on precise directions. I gave them.

“Are you going in the morning or the afternoon?”

“Morning and afternoon. Lina is supposed to swim a lot.”

He promised they would come and see us.

I ran happily up the stairs of the house, but as soon as I came in Pinuccia began to tease me.

“Mamma,” she said to Nunzia during dinner, “Lenuccia’s going out with the poet’s son, a skinny fellow with long hair, who thinks he’s better than everybody.”

“It’s not true.”

“It’s very true, we saw you holding hands.”

Nunzia didn’t understand the teasing and took the thing with the earnest gravity that characterized her.

“What does Sarratore’s son do?”

“University student.”

“Then if you love each other you’ll have to wait.”

“There’s nothing to wait for, Signora Nunzia, we’re only friends.”

“But if, let’s say, you should happen to become engaged, he’ll have to finish his studies first, then he’ll have to find a job that’s worthy of him, and only when he’s found something will you be able to get married.”

Here Lila interrupted, amused: “She’s telling you you’ll get moldy.”

But Nunzia reproached her: “You mustn’t speak like that to Lenuccia.” And to console me she said that she had married Fernando at twenty-one, that she had had Rino at twenty-three. Then she turned to her daughter, and said, without malice, only to point out how things stood, “You, on the other hand, were married too young.” That comment infuriated Lila and she went to her room. When Pinuccia knocked on the door, to go in to sleep, she yelled not to bother her, “you have your room.” How in that atmosphere could I say: Nino and Bruno promised they’ll come and see me on the beach? I gave it up. If it happens, I thought, fine, and if it doesn’t why tell them. Nunzia, meanwhile, patiently invited her daughter-in-law into her bed, telling her not to be upset by her daughter’s nerves.

The night wasn’t enough to soothe Lila. On Monday she got up in a worse mood than when she had gone to bed. It’s the absence of her husband, Nunzia said apologetically, but neither Pinuccia nor I believed it. I soon discovered that she was angry mainly at me. On the road to the beach she made me carry her bag, and once we were at the beach she sent me back twice, first to get her a scarf, then because she needed some nail scissors. When I gave signs of protest she nearly reminded me of the money she was giving me. She stopped in time, but not so that I didn’t understand: it was like when someone is about to hit you and then doesn’t.

It was a very hot day; we stayed in the water. Lila practiced hard to keep afloat, and made me stand next to her so that I could hold her up if necessary. Yet her spitefulness continued. She kept reproaching me, she said that it was stupid to trust me: I didn’t even know how to swim, how could I teach her. She missed Sarratore’s talents as an instructor, she made me swear that the next day we would go back to the Maronti. Still, by trial and error, she made a lot of progress. She learned every movement instantly. Thanks to that ability she had learned to make shoes, to dexterously slice salami and provolone, to cheat on the weight. She was born like that, she could have learned the art of engraving merely by studying the gestures of a goldsmith, and then been able to work the gold better than he. Already she had stopped gasping for breath, and was forcing composure on every motion: it was as if she were drawing her body on the transparent surface of the sea. Long, slender arms and legs hit the water in a tranquil rhythm, without raising foam like Nino, without the ostentatious tension of Sarratore the father.

“Is this right?”

“Yes.”

It was true. In a few hours she could swim better than I could, not to mention Pinuccia, and already she was making fun of our clumsiness.

That bullying air dissipated abruptly when, around four in the afternoon, Nino, who was very tall, and Bruno, who came up to his shoulders, appeared on the beach, just as a cool wind rose, taking away the desire to swim.

Pinuccia was the first to make them out as they advanced along the shore, among the children playing with shovels and pails. She burst out laughing in surprise and said: Look who’s coming, the long and the short of it. Nino and his friend, towels over their shoulder, cigarettes and lighters, advanced deliberately, looking for us among the bathers.

I had a sudden sense of power, I shouted, I waved to signal our presence. So Nino had kept his promise. So he had felt, already, the next day, the need to see me again. So he had come purposely from Forio, dragging along his mute companion, and since he had nothing in common with Lila and Pinuccia, it was obvious that he had taken that walk just for me, who alone was not married, or even engaged. I felt happy, and the more my happiness seemed justified — Nino spread his towel next to me, he sat down, he pointed to an edge of the blue fabric, and I, who was the only one sitting on the sand, quickly moved over — the more cordial and talkative I became.