Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend

One afternoon at the end of August we went as far as the Villa Comunale park, and sat down in a café there, because Pasquale, acting the grandee, wanted to buy everyone a spumone. At a table across from us was a family eating ice cream, like us: father, mother, and three boys between twelve and seven. They seemed respectable people: the father, a large man, in his fifties, had a professorial look. And I can swear that Lila wasn’t showing off in any way: she wasn’t wearing lipstick, she had on the usual shabby dress that her mother had made — the rest of us were showing off more, Carmela especially. But that man — this time we all realized it — couldn’t take his eyes off her, and Lila, although she tried to control herself, responded to his gaze as if she couldn’t get over being so admired. Finally, while at our table the discomfort of Rino, of Pasquale, of Antonio increased, the man, evidently unaware of the risk he ran, rose, stood in front of Lila, and, addressing the boys politely, said:

“You are fortunate: you have here a girl who will become more beautiful than a Botticelli Venus. I beg your pardon, but I said it to my wife and sons, and I felt the need to tell you as well.”

Lila burst out laughing because of the strain. The man smiled in turn, and, with a small bow, was about to return to his table when Rino grabbed him by the collar, forced him to retrace his steps quickly, sat him down hard, and, in front of his wife and children, unloaded a series of insults of the sort we said in the neighborhood. Then the man got angry, the wife, yelling, intervened, Antonio pulled Rino away. Another Sunday ruined.

But the worst was a time when Rino wasn’t there. What struck me was not the fact in itself but the consolidation around Lila of hostilities from different places. Gigliola’s mother gave a party for her name day (her name was Rosa, if I remember right), and invited people of all ages. Since her husband was the baker at the Solara pastry shop, things were done on a grand scale: there was an abundance of cream puffs, pastries with cassata filling, sfogliatelle , almond pastries, liqueurs, soft drinks, and dance records, from the most ordinary to the latest fashion. People came who would never come to our kids’ parties. For example the pharmacist and his wife and their oldest son, Gino, who was going to high school, like me. For example Maestro Ferraro and his whole large family. For example Maria, the widow of Don Achille, and her son Alfonso and daughter Pinuccia, in a bright-colored dress, and even Stefano.

That family at first caused some unease: Pasquale and Carmela Peluso, the children of the murderer of Don Achille, were also at the party. But then everything arranged itself for the best. Alfonso was a nice boy (he, too, was going to high school, the same one as me), and he even exchanged a few words with Carmela; Pinuccia was just pleased to be at a party, working, as she did, in the store every day; Stefano, having precociously understood that good business is based on the absence of exclusiveness, considered all the residents of the neighborhood potential clients who would spend their money in his store; he produced his lovely, gentle smile for everyone, and so was able to avoid, even for an instant, meeting Pasquale’s gaze; and, finally, Maria, who usually turned the other way if she saw Signora Peluso, completely ignored the two children and talked for a long time to Gigliola’s mother. And then, as some people started dancing, and the din increased, there was a release of tension, and no one paid attention to anything.

First came the traditional dances, and then we moved on to a new kind of dance, rock and roll, which everyone, old and young, was curious about. I was hot and had retreated to a corner. I knew how to dance rock and roll, of course, I had often done it at home with my brother Peppe, and at Lila’s, on Sundays, with her, but I felt too awkward for those jerky, agile moves, and, I decided, though reluctantly, just to watch. Nor did Lila seem particularly good at it: her movements looked silly, and I had even said that to her, and she had taken the criticism as a challenge and persisted in practicing on her own, since even Rino refused to try. But, perfectionist as she was in all things, that night she, too, decided, to my satisfaction, to stand aside with me and watch how well Pasquale and Carmela Peluso danced.

At some point, however, Enzo approached. The child who had thrown stones at us, who had surprisingly competed with Lila in arithmetic, who had once given her a wreath of sorb apples, over the years had been as if sucked up into a short but powerful organism, used to hard work. He looked older even than Rino, who among us was the oldest. You could see in every feature that he rose before dawn, that he had to deal with the Camorra at the fruit-and-vegetable market, that he went in all seasons, in cold, in the rain, to sell fruit and vegetables from his cart, up and down the streets of the neighborhood. Yet in his fair-skinned face, with its blond eyebrows and lashes, in the blue eyes, there was still something of the rebellious child we had known. Enzo spoke rarely but confidently, always in dialect, and it would not have occurred to either of us to joke with him, or even to make conversation. It was he who took the initiative. He asked Lila why she wasn’t dancing. She answered: because I don’t really know how to do this dance. He was silent for a while, then he said, I don’t, either. But when another rock-and-roll song was put on he took her by the arm in a natural way and pushed her into the middle of the room. Lila, who if one simply grazed her without her permission leaped up as if she had been stung by a wasp, didn’t react, so great, evidently, was her desire to dance. Rather, she looked at him gratefully and abandoned herself to the music.

It was immediately clear that Enzo didn’t know much about it. He moved very little, in a serious, composed way, but he was very attentive to Lila, he obviously wished to do her a favor, let her show off. And although she wasn’t as good as Carmen, she managed as usual to win everyone’s attention. Even Enzo likes her, I said to myself in desolation. And — I realized right away — Stefano, the grocer: he gazed at her the whole time the way one gazes at a movie star.

But while Lila was dancing the Solara brothers arrived.

The mere sight of them agitated me. They greeted the pastry maker and his wife, they gave Stefano a pat of sympathy, and then they, too, started watching the dancers. First, like masters of the neighborhood, as they felt they were, they looked in a vulgar fashion at Ada, who avoided their gaze; then they spoke to each other and, indicating Antonio, gave him an exaggerated nod of greeting, which he pretended not to see; finally they noticed Lila, stared at her for a long time, then whispered to each other, Michele giving an obvious sign of assent.

I didn’t let them out of my sight, and I quickly realized that in particular Marcello — Marcello, whom all the girls liked — didn’t seem in the least angered by the knife business. On the contrary. In a few seconds he was completely captivated by Lila’s lithe and elegant body, by her face, which was unusual in the neighborhood and perhaps in the whole city of Naples. He gazed without ever taking his eyes off her, as if he had lost the little brain he had. He gazed at her even when the music stopped.

It was an instant. Enzo made as if to push Lila into the corner where I was, Stefano and Marcello moved together to ask her to dance; but Pasquale preceded them. Lila made a gracious skip of consent, clapped her hands happily. At the same moment, four males, of various ages, each convinced in a different way of his own absolute power, reached out toward the figure of a fourteen-year-old girl. The needle scratched on the record, the music started. Stefano, Marcello, Enzo retreated uncertainly. Pasquale began to dance with Lila, and, given his virtuosity, she immediately let go.