Elena Ferrante - The Story of a New Name

It cost me to say those things, I considered them lies. And it was of little use: Lila grumbled, she objected hesitantly, I refuted her. Until she really got mad and began to defend Nino in the tone of someone who says: I’m the only one who knows what sort of person he is. She asked why I was always disparaging him. She asked me what I had against him. “He helped you,” she said, “he even wanted to publish that nonsense of yours in a review. Sometimes I don’t like you, Lenù, you diminish everything and everyone, even people who are lovable if you just look at them.”

I lost control, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I had spoken ill of the person I loved in order to do something to make her feel better and now she insulted me. Finally I managed to say, “Do what you like, I’m going to bed.” But she immediately changed her tone, she embraced me, she hugged me tight, to keep me there, she whispered, “Tell me what to do.” I pushed her away with annoyance, I whispered that she had to decide herself, I couldn’t decide in her place. “Pinuccia,” I said, “how did she do it? In the end she behaved better than you.”

She agreed, we sang the praises of Pinuccia and abruptly she sighed: “All right, tomorrow I won’t go to the beach and the day after I’ll go back to Naples with Stefano.”

It was a terrible Saturday. She really didn’t go to the beach, and I didn’t go, either, but I thought only of Nino and Bruno, who were waiting for us in vain. And I didn’t dare say: I’ll make a quick trip to the sea, time for a swim and then I’ll come back. Nor did I dare ask: What should I do, pack the suitcases, are we going, are we staying? I helped Nunzia clean the house, cook lunch and dinner, every so often checking on Lila, who didn’t even get up. She stayed in bed reading and writing in her notebook, and when her mother called her to eat she didn’t answer, and when she called her again she slammed the door of her room so violently that the whole house shook.

“Too much sea makes one nervous,” Nunzia said, as we ate lunch alone.

“Yes.”

“And she’s not even pregnant.”

“No.”

In the late afternoon Lila left her bed, ate something, spent hours in the bathroom. She washed her hair, put on her makeup, chose a pretty green dress, but her face remained sullen. Still, she greeted her husband affectionately and he, seeing her, gave her a movie kiss, a long intense kiss, with Nunzia and I as embarrassed spectators. Stefano brought greetings from my family, said that Pinuccia had made no more scenes, recounted in minute detail how happy the Solaras were with the new shoe styles that Rino and Fernando were working on. Lila wasn’t pleased by Stefano’s reference to the new styles, and things between them were spoiled. Until that moment she had kept a forced smile on her face, but as soon as she heard the name of the Solaras she became aggressive, and said she didn’t give a damn about those two, she wouldn’t live her life according to what they thought about this or that. Stefano was disappointed, he frowned. He realized that the enchantment of the previous weeks was over, but he answered her with his usual agreeable half smile, he said that he was only telling her what had happened in the neighborhood, there was no need to take that tone. It was little use. Lila rapidly transformed the evening into a relentless conflict. Stefano couldn’t say a word without hostile criticism from her. They went to bed squabbling and I heard them quarreling until I fell asleep.

I woke at dawn. I didn’t know what to do: gather my things, wait for Lila to make a decision; go to the beach, with the risk of running into Nino, something that Lila would not have forgiven; rack my brains all day as I was already doing, shut in my room. I decided to leave a note saying that I was going to the Maronti but would be back in the early afternoon. I wrote that I couldn’t leave Ischia without seeing Nella. I wrote in good faith, but today I know what was going on in my mind: I wanted to trust myself to chance; Lila couldn’t reproach me if I ran into Nino when he had gone to ask his parents for money.

The result was a muddled day and a modest waste of money. I hired a boat, to take me to the Maronti. I went to the place where the Sarratores usually camped and found only the umbrella. I looked around, and saw Donato, who was swimming, and he saw me. He waved in greeting, hurried out of the water, told me that his wife and children had gone to spend the day in Forio, with Nino. I was extremely disappointed, the situation was not only ironic, it was contemptuous; it had taken away the son and delivered me to the sickening patter of the father.

When I tried to get away to go and see Nella, Sarratore wouldn’t let me go, he gathered up his things and insisted on coming with me. On the road he assumed a sentimental tone and without any embarrassment began to speak of what had happened between us years earlier. He asked me to forgive him, he murmured that one cannot command one’s heart, he spoke in a melancholy tone of my beauty then and above all of my present beauty.

“What an exaggeration,” I said, and, while I knew I should be serious and aloof, I began to laugh out of nervousness.

And though he was encumbered by the umbrella and his things, he would not relinquish a somewhat breathless, rambling discourse. He said that in substance the problem of youth was the lack of eyes to see oneself and feelings to feel about oneself with objectivity.

“There’s the mirror,” I replied, “and that is objective.”

“The mirror? The mirror is the last thing you can trust. I’ll bet that you feel less pretty than your two friends.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you are much, much more beautiful than they are. Trust me. Look what lovely blond hair you have. And what a bearing. You need to confront and resolve two problems only: the first is your bathing suit, it’s not adequate to your potential; the second is the style of your glasses. This is really wrong, Elena: too heavy. You have such a delicate face, so remarkably shaped by the things you study. What you need is daintier glasses.”

As I listened my irritation diminished; he was like a scientist of female beauty. Mainly he spoke with such detached expertise that at a certain point he led me to think: and if it’s true? Maybe I don’t know how to value myself. On the other hand where is the money to buy suitable clothes, a suitable bathing suit, suitable glasses? I was about to yield to a complaint about poverty and wealth when he said to me with a smile, “Besides, if you don’t trust my judgment, you’ll be aware, I hope, of how my son looked at you the time you came to see us.”

Only then did I realize that he was lying to me. His words were intended to appeal to my vanity, to make me feel good and drive me toward him in the need for gratification. I felt stupid, wounded not by him, with his lies, but by my own stupidity. I cut him short with an increasing rudeness that froze him.

At the house I talked to Nella for a while, I told her that we might all be returning to Naples that night and I wanted to say goodbye.

“A pity that you’re going.”

“Ah yes.”

“Eat with me.”

“I can’t, I have to go.”

“But if you don’t go, swear that you’ll come again and not so short next time. Stay with me for a day, or even overnight, since you know there’s the bed. I have so many things to tell you.”

“Thanks.”

Sarratore interrupted, he said, “We count on it, you know how much we love you.”

I fled, also because there was a relative of Nella’s who was going to the Port in a car and I didn’t want to miss the ride.

Along the way Sarratore’s words, surprisingly, even if I only rejected them, began to dig into me. No, maybe he hadn’t lied. He knew how to see beyond appearances. He had really had a means of observing his son’s gaze on me. And if I was pretty, if Nino seriously found me attractive — and I knew it was so: in the end he had kissed me, he had held my hand — it was time I looked at the facts for what they were: Lila had taken him from me; Lila had separated him from me to win him for herself. Maybe she hadn’t done it on purpose, but still she had done it.