Elena Ferrante - The Story of a New Name

“It’s none of your business.”

“No, Ste’, when it’s a question of money your business is my business.”

“What can I tell you: we’re men, you know how it works. Lina is my wife, Ada is another thing.”

“So you love Ada more?”

“Yes.”

“Resolve the situation and then we’ll talk.”

Many very dark days passed before Stefano found a way of getting out of that chokehold. Quarrels with Ada, quarrels with Lila, work gone to hell, the old grocery often closed, the neighborhood that watched and committed to memory and still remembers. The handsome engaged couple. The convertible. Soraya is going by with the Shah of Persia, Jack and Jackie are going by. Finally Stefano resigned himself and said to Lila, “I’ve found you a nice place, suitable for you and Rinuccio.”

“How generous you are.”

“I’ll come twice a week to see the baby.”

“As far as I’m concerned you don’t have to come see him, since he’s not your son.”

“You’re a bitch, you’re going to make me smash your face.”

“Smash my face when you want, I’ve got a callus there. But you take care of your child and I’ll take care of mine.”

He fumed, he got angry, he really tried to hit her. Finally he said, “The place is on the Vomero.”

“Where?”

“I’ll take you tomorrow and show it to you, in Piazza degli Artisti.”

Lila remembered in a flash the proposal Michele Solara had made long ago: “ I’ve bought a house on the Vomero, in Piazza degli Artisti. If you want I’ll drive you there now, I’ll show it to you, I took it with you in mind. There you can do what you like: read, write, invent things, sleep, laugh, talk, and be with Rinuccio. I’m interested only in being able to look at you and listen to you .”

She shook her head in disbelief, she said to her husband, “You really are a piece of shit.”

Now Lila is barricaded in Rinuccio’s room, thinking what to do. She’ll never go back to her mother and father’s house: the weight of her life belongs to her, she doesn’t want to become a child again. She can’t count on her brother: Rino is beside himself, he’s angry with Pinuccia in order to get revenge on Stefano, and has begun to quarrel also with his mother-in-law, Maria, because he’s desperate, he has no money and a lot of debts. She can count only on Enzo: she trusted and trusts him, even though he never showed up and in fact he seems to have disappeared from the neighborhood. She thinks: he promised that he’ll get me out of here. But sometimes she hopes he won’t keep his promise, she’s afraid of making trouble for him. She’s not worried about a possible fight with Stefano, her husband has now given her up, and then he’s a coward, even if he has the strength of a wild beast. But she is afraid of Michele Solara. Not today, not tomorrow, but when I’m not even thinking about it anymore he’ll appear and if I don’t submit he’ll make me pay, and he’ll make anyone who’s helped me pay. So it’s better for me to go away without involving anyone. I have to find a job, anything, enough to earn what I need to feed him and give him a roof.

Just thinking of her son saps her strength. What ended up in Rinuccio’s head: images, words. She worries about the voices that reach him, unmonitored. I wonder if he heard mine, while I carried him in my womb. I wonder how it was imprinted in his nervous system. If he felt loved, if he felt rejected, was he aware of my agitation. How does one protect a child. Nourishing him. Loving him. Teaching him things. Acting as a filter for every sensation that might cripple him forever. I’ve lost his real father, who doesn’t know anything about him and will never love him. Stefano, who isn’t his father and yet loved him a little, sold us for love of another woman and a more genuine son. What will happen to this child. Now Rinuccio knows that when I go into another room he won’t lose me, I am still there. He maneuvers with objects and fantasies of objects, the outside and the inside. He knows how to eat with a fork and spoon. He handles things and forms them, transforms them. From words he has moved on to sentences. In Italian. He no longer says “he,” he says “I.” He recognizes the letters of the alphabet. He puts them together so as to write his name. He loves colors. He’s happy. But all this rage. He has seen me insulted and beaten. He’s seen me break things and shout insults. In dialect. I can’t stay here any longer.

Lila came cautiously out of the room only when Stefano wasn’t there, when Ada wasn’t. She made something to eat for Rinuccio, she ate something herself. She knew that the neighborhood gossiped, that rumors were spreading. One late afternoon in November the telephone rang.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She recognized him and without much surprise she answered, “All right.” Then: “Enzo.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not obliged.”

“I know.”

“The Solaras are involved.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the Solaras.”

He arrived exactly ten minutes later. He came up, she had put her things and the child’s in two suitcases and had left on the night table in the bedroom all her jewelry, including her engagement ring and her wedding ring.

“It’s the second time I’ve left,” she said, “but this time I’m not coming back.”

Enzo looked around, he had never been in that house. She pulled him by the arm. “Stefano might arrive suddenly, sometimes he does that.”

“Where’s the problem?” he answered.

He touched objects that looked expensive to him, a vase for flowers, an ashtray, the sparkling silver. He leafed through a pad where Lila had written down what she needed for the baby and for the house. Then he gave her an inquiring glance, asked her if she was sure of her choice. He said he had found work in a factory in San Giovanni a Teduccio and had taken an apartment there, three rooms, the kitchen was a little dark. “But the things Stefano gave you,” he added, “you won’t have anymore: I can’t give you those.”

He said to her: “Maybe you’re afraid, because you’re not completely sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said, picking up Rinuccio with a gesture of impatience, “and I’m not afraid of anything. Let’s go.”

He still delayed. He tore a piece of paper off the shopping list and wrote something. He left the piece of paper on the table.

“What did you write?”

“The address in San Giovanni.”

“Why?”

“We’re not playing hide-and-seek.”

Finally he picked up the suitcases and started down the stairs. Lila locked the door, left the key in the lock.

I knew nothing about San Giovanni a Teduccio. When they told me that Lila had gone to live in that place with Enzo, the only thing that came to mind was the factory owned by the family of Bruno Soccavo, Nino’s friend, which produced sausages, and was in that area. The association of ideas annoyed me. I hadn’t thought of the summer on Ischia for a long time: and it made me realize that the happy phase of that vacation had faded, while its unpleasant side had expanded. I discovered that every sound from that time, every scent was repugnant to me, but what in memory, surprisingly, seemed most insupportable, and caused me long crying spells, was the night at the Maronti with Donato Sarratore. Only my suffering for what was happening between Lila and Nino could have driven me to consider it pleasurable. At this distance I understood that that first experience of penetration, in the dark, on the cold sand, with that banal man who was the father of the person I loved had been degrading. I was ashamed of it and that shame was added to other shames, of a different nature, that I was experiencing.