Элена Ферранте - The Lying Life of Adults

“How did Enzo die?”

“Of a terrible illness.”

“When?”

“A few months after things ended between us.”

“He died of grief?”

“Yes, of grief. Your father made him get sick, your father who was the cause of our separation. He killed him.”

I said:

“And then why didn’t you get sick and die? Didn’t you feel the pain?”

She stared me straight in the eyes, so that I immediately lowered my gaze.

“I suffered, Giannì, I’m still suffering. But suffering didn’t kill me, first so that I would go on always thinking of Enzo; second, out of love for his children and also Margherita, because I am a good woman and I felt a duty to help her bring up those three kids, for whom I worked and work as a maid in the houses of the wealthy of half of Naples, from morning to night; third, out of hate, hate for your father, hate that makes you go on even when you don’t want to live any longer.”

I pressed her:

“How was it that Margherita wasn’t angry when you took her husband, but rather let you help her, you who’d stolen him from her?”

She lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply. While my father and mother didn’t blink in the face of my questions, but evaded them when they were embarrassed and sometimes consulted with each other before answering, Vittoria got irritated, cursed, displayed her impatience openly, but answered, explicitly, as no adult had ever done with me. You see I’m right, she said, you’re intelligent, an intelligent little slut like me, but also a bitch, you act like a saint but you like turning the knife in the wound. Steal her husband, exactly, you’re right, that’s what I did. Enzo I stole, I took him away from Margherita and the children, and I would have died rather than give him back. That, she exclaimed, is a terrible thing, but if love is very strong, sometimes you have to do it. You don’t choose, you realize that without the ugly things the good ones don’t exist, and you act that way because you can’t help it. As for Margherita, yes, she was angry, she took her husband back, screaming and hitting, but later when she realized that Enzo was sick, sick with an illness that had erupted inside in a few weeks of rage, she became depressed, she said to him go, go back to Vittoria, I’m sorry, if I’d known you’d get sick I would have sent you back to her before. But now it was too late, and so we went through his illness together, she and I, up to the last minute. What a person Margherita is, a wonderful woman, sensible, I’d like you to meet her. As soon as she understood how much I loved her husband, and how much I was suffering, she said: all right, we loved the same man, and I understand you, how could one not love Enzo. So enough, I had these children with Enzo, if you want to love them, too, I have nothing against it. Understand? Do you understand the generosity? Your father, your mother, their friends, all those important people, do they have this greatness, do they have this generosity?

I didn’t know what to say, I murmured only:

“I’ve ruined your anniversary, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to tell the story.”

“You haven’t ruined anything, in fact you’ve made me happy. I’ve talked about Enzo, and whenever I talk about him I don’t remember only the grief, but also how happy we were.”

“That’s what I want to know more about.”

“The happiness?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes became more inflamed.

“You know what happens between men and women?”

“Yes.”

“You say yes but you know nothing. They fuck. You know that word?”

I was startled.

“Yes.”

“Enzo and I did that thing eleven times altogether. Then he went back to his wife and I never did it again with anyone. Enzo kissed me and touched me and licked me all over, and I touched him and kissed him all the way to his toes and caressed him and licked and sucked. Then he put his dick inside me and held my ass with both hands, one here and one there, and he thrust it into me with such force that it made me cry out. If you, in all your life, don’t do this thing as I did it, with the passion I did it with, the love I did it with, and I don’t mean eleven times but at least once, it’s pointless to live. Tell your father: Vittoria said that if I don’t fuck the way she fucked with Enzo, it’s pointless for me to live. You have to say it just like that. He thinks he deprived me of something, with what he did to me. But he didn’t deprive me of anything, I’ve had everything, I have everything. It’s your father who has nothing.”

Those words of hers I’ve never been able to erase. They came unexpectedly, I would never have imagined that she could say them to me. Of course, she treated me like an adult, and I was glad that from the start she had abandoned the proper way to speak to a girl of thirteen. But still, what she said was so surprising that I was tempted to put my hands over my ears. I didn’t, I didn’t move, I couldn’t even avoid her gaze, which sought in my face the effect of the words. It was, in short, physically—yes, physically—overwhelming, her speaking to me like that, there, in the cemetery, in front of the portrait of Enzo, without worrying that someone might hear her. Oh what a story, oh to learn to speak like that, outside of every convention of my house. Until that moment no one had displayed to me—just to me—an adherence to pleasure so desperately carnal, I was astounded. I had felt a warmth in my stomach much stronger than what I felt when Vittoria had made me dance. Nor was there anything comparable in the warmth of certain secret conversations I had with Angela, in the languor that some of our recent hugs provoked in me, when we locked ourselves in the bathroom of her house or mine. Listening to Vittoria, I not only desired the pleasure she said she had felt; it seemed to me that that pleasure would be impossible if it weren’t followed immediately by the grief that she still felt and by her unfailing fidelity. Since I said nothing, she gave me worried looks, muttered:

“Let’s go, it’s late. But remember these things: did you like them?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it: you and I are alike.”

She stood up, refreshed, folded the chair, then stared for a moment at the bracelet with the blue leaves.

“I gave you one,” she said, “much more beautiful.”

6.

Seeing Vittoria soon became a habit. My parents, surprising me—but maybe, if I think about it, completely consistent with their choices in life and the upbringing they had given me—didn’t reproach me either together or separately. They refrained from saying: you should have told us you had an appointment with Aunt Vittoria. They refrained from saying: you plotted to skip school and keep it secret from us, that’s bad, you behaved stupidly. They refrained from saying: the city is very dangerous, you can’t go around like that, at your age anything could happen. Above all, they refrained from saying: forget about that woman, you know she hates us, you are not to see her anymore. Instead, they did the opposite, especially my mother. They wanted to know if the morning had been interesting. They asked me what impression the cemetery had made. They smiled, amused, as soon as I started describing how badly Vittoria drove. Even when my father asked me—but almost absently—what we had talked about and I mentioned—but almost without intention—the fight about the inheritance of the house and Enzo, he didn’t get upset, he responded concisely: yes, we quarreled, I didn’t share her choices, it was clear that this Enzo wanted to get possession of our parents’ apartment, under the uniform he was a crook, he went so far as to threaten me with a pistol and then, to try to prevent my sister’s ruin, I had to tell his wife everything. As for my mother, she added only that her sister-in-law, despite her nasty character, was a naïve woman and rather than get angry one should feel sorry for her, because her naïveté had ruined her life. Anyway, she said later, when we were alone, your father and I trust you and your good sense, don’t disappoint me. And since I had just told her that I would like to know the other aunts and uncles Vittoria had mentioned, and possibly my cousins, who must be my age, my mother sat me on her lap, said she was glad I was curious, and concluded: if you want to see Vittoria again go ahead, the crucial thing is that you tell us.