Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend

Enzo didn’t give her any other gifts. After the fight with Gigliola, who had told everyone about the declaration he had made to her, we saw him less and less. Although he had proved to be extremely good at doing sums in his head, he was lazy, so the teacher didn’t suggest that he take the admissions test for the middle school, and he wasn’t sorry about it, in fact he was pleased. He enrolled in the trade school, but in fact he was already working with his parents. He got up very early to go with his father to the fruit-and-vegetable market or to drive the cart through the neighborhood, selling produce from the countryside, and so he soon quit school.

We, instead, toward the end of fifth grade, were told that it would be suitable for us to continue in school. The teacher summoned in turn my parents and those of Gigliola and Lila to tell them that we absolutely had to take not only the test for the elementary school diploma but also the one for admission to middle school. I did all I could so that my father would not send my mother, with her limp, her wandering eye, and her stubborn anger, but would go himself, since he was a porter and knew how to be polite. I didn’t succeed. She went, she talked to the teacher, and returned home in a sullen mood.

“The teacher wants money. She says she has to give some extra lessons because the test is difficult.”

“But what’s the point of this test?” my father asked.

“To let her study Latin.”

“Why?”

“Because they say she’s clever.”

“But if she’s clever, why does the teacher have to give her lessons that cost money?”

“So she’ll be better off and we’ll be worse.”

They discussed it at length. At first my mother was against it and my father uncertain; then my father became cautiously in favor and my mother resigned herself to being a little less against it; finally they decided to let me take the test, but always provided that if I did not do well they would immediately take me out of school.

Lila’s parents on the other hand said no. Nunzia Cerullo made a few somewhat hesitant attempts, but her father wouldn’t even talk about it, and in fact hit Rino when he told him that he was wrong. Her parents were inclined not to go and see the teacher, but Maestra Oliviero had the principal summon them, and then Nunzia had to go. Faced with the timid but flat refusal of that frightened woman, Maestra Oliviero, stern but calm, displayed Lila’s marvelous compositions, the brilliant solutions to difficult problems, and even the beautifully colored drawings that in class, when she applied herself, enchanted us all, because, pilfering Giotto’s pastels, she portrayed in a realistic style princesses with hairdos, jewels, clothes, shoes that had never been seen in any book or even at the parish cinema. When the refusal persisted, the teacher lost her composure and dragged Lila’s mother to the principal as if she were a student to be disciplined. But Nunzia couldn’t yield, she didn’t have permission from her husband. As a result she kept saying no until she, the teacher, and the principal were overcome by exhaustion.

The next day, as we were going to school, Lila said to me in her usual tone: I’m going to take the test anyway. I believed her, to forbid her to do something was pointless, everyone knew it. She seemed the strongest of us girls, stronger than Enzo, than Alfonso, than Stefano, stronger than her brother Rino, stronger than our parents, stronger than all the adults including the teacher and the carabinieri, who could put you in jail. Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence. She knew how to go beyond the limit without ever truly suffering the consequences. In the end people gave in, and were even, however unwillingly, compelled to praise her.

We were also forbidden to go to Don Achille’s, but she decided to go anyway and I followed. In fact, that was when I became convinced that nothing could stop her, and that every disobedient act contained breathtaking opportunities.

We wanted Don Achille to give us back our dolls. So we climbed the stairs: at every step I was on the point of turning around and going back to the courtyard. I still feel Lila’s hand grasping mine, and I like to think that she decided to take it not only because she intuited that I wouldn’t have the courage to get to the top floor but also because with that gesture she herself sought the force to continue. So, one beside the other, I on the wall side and she on the banister side, sweaty palms clasped, we climbed the last flights. At Don Achille’s door my heart was pounding, I could hear it in my ears, but I was consoled by thinking that it was also the sound of Lila’s heart. From the apartment came voices, perhaps of Alfonso or Stefano or Pinuccia. After a very long, silent pause before the door, Lila rang the bell. There was silence, then a shuffling. Donna Maria opened the door, wearing a faded green housedress. When she spoke, I saw a brilliant gold tooth in her mouth. She thought we were looking for Alfonso, and was a bit bewildered. Lila said to her in dialect:

“No, we want Don Achille.”

“Tell me.”

“We have to speak to him.”

The woman shouted, “Achì!”

More shuffling. A thickset figure emerged from the shadows. He had a long torso, short legs, arms that hung to his knees, and a cigarette in his mouth; you could see the embers. He asked hoarsely:

“Who is it?”

“The daughter of the shoemaker with Greco’s oldest daughter.”

Don Achille came into the light, and, for the first time, we saw him clearly. No minerals, no sparkle of glass. His long face was of flesh, and the hair bristled only around his ears; the top of his head was shiny. His eyes were bright, the white veined with small red streams, his mouth wide and thin, his chin heavy, with a crease in the middle. He seemed to me ugly but not the way I imagined.

“Well?”

“The dolls,” said Lila.

“What dolls?”

“Ours.”

“Your dolls are of no use here.”

“You took them down in the cellar.”

Don Achille turned and shouted into the apartment:

“Pinù, did you take the doll belonging to the shoemaker’s daughter?”

“Me, no.”

“Alfò, did you take it?”

Laughter.

Lila said firmly, I don’t know where she got all that courage:

“You took them, we saw you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“ ‘You’ me?”

“Yes, and you put them in your black bag.”

The man, hearing those words, wrinkled his forehead in annoyance.

I couldn’t believe that we were there, in front of Don Achille, and Lila was speaking to him like that and he was staring at her in bewilderment, and in the background could be seen Alfonso and Stefano and Pinuccia and Donna Maria, who was setting the table for dinner. I couldn’t believe that he was an ordinary person, a little short, a little bald, a little out of proportion, but ordinary. So I waited for him to be abruptly transformed.

Don Achille repeated, as if to understand clearly the meaning of the words:

“I took your dolls and put them in a black bag?”

I felt that he was not angry but unexpectedly pained, as if he were receiving confirmation of something he already knew. He said something in dialect that I didn’t understand, Maria cried, “Achì, it’s ready.”

“I’m coming.”

Don Achille stuck a large, broad hand in the back pocket of his pants. We clutched each other’s hand tightly, waiting for him to bring out a knife. Instead he took out his wallet, opened it, looked inside, and handed Lila some money, I don’t remember how much.

“Go buy yourselves dolls,” he said.