Элена Ферранте - The Lying Life of Adults

I felt that something was escaping me, something that at times I got a glimpse of and grasped its meaning, and then, as soon as the meaning tried to surface, I drew back. So I constantly returned to the more obscure facts: Costanza’s visit, for example, which had followed the quarrel; my mother’s face, so worn, and her violet eyes that cast suddenly imperious glances at an old friend by whom she had tended to be dominated; Costanza’s remorseful look and the contrite gesture with which she seemed to want to give me a gift, while instead—my mother had explained—it was not a gift but a restitution; the trembling fingers with which Angela and Ida’s mother had helped me put on my wrist the white-gold bracelet she was so fond of; the bracelet itself, which I now wore day and night. Oh, of those events that took place in my room, of that dense network of glances, gestures, words around a bracelet that without explanation had been given to me and described as mine, I certainly knew more than what I could tell myself. So I prayed, especially at night, when I woke up scared by what I was afraid was about to happen. God, I whispered, God, I know it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have insisted on meeting Vittoria, I shouldn’t have gone against my parents’ wishes; but now that it’s happened put things back in order, please. I truly hoped that God would do that, because if he didn’t, everything would collapse. San Giacomo dei Capri would tumble onto the Vomero and the Vomero onto the entire city, and the entire city would drown in the sea.

In the dark, I was dying of anguish. I felt such a weight crushing my stomach that I got up in the middle of the night to vomit. I made noise on purpose: sharp feelings in my chest, in my head had wounded me deeply, I hoped that my parents would appear and help me. But they didn’t. And yet they were awake; a strip of light scratched the darkness right outside their bedroom. I deduced from that that they no longer wished to concern themselves with me, and so they never, for any reason, interrupted their nighttime murmuring. At most, a sudden peak broke the monotony, a syllable, half a word that my mother uttered like the tip of a knife on a windowpane, my father like distant thunder. In the morning they were exhausted. We had breakfast in silence, eyes lowered, I couldn’t stand it. I prayed, God, that’s enough, make something happen, anything, good or bad doesn’t matter: let me die, for example, that should shake them up, reconcile them, and afterward let me be resurrected into a family that’s happy again.

One Sunday, at lunch, a violent internal energy suddenly incited my mind and my tongue. I said in a light tone, showing the bracelet:

“Papa, Aunt Vittoria gave me this, right?”

My mother took a sip of wine, my father didn’t look up from his plate, he said:

“In a certain sense, yes.”

“And why did you give it to Costanza?”

This time he raised his eyes, stared at me coldly, without saying anything.

“Answer her,” my mother ordered him, but he didn’t obey. Then she almost shouted: “For fifteen years your father has had another wife.”

Spots of red burned her face, her eyes were frantic. I realized that it must have seemed a terrible revelation to her, she already regretted having made it. But I wasn’t surprised nor did it seem to me any sort of wrong, rather I had the impression of having always known it and for a moment I was sure that everything could be healed. If the thing had been going on for fifteen years it could go on forever, the three of us just had to say it’s fine like that and peace would return, my mother in her room, my father in his study, the meetings, the books. And so, as if to help them move toward this reconciliation, I said to my mother:

“And you, too, you have another husband.”

My mother turned pale, she murmured:

“Me no, I assure you, I don’t.”

She denied it with such desperation that, maybe because all that suffering hurt me too much, I felt like repeating, in falsetto: I assure you, I assure you, and I laughed. The laugh escaped against my will, I saw the rage in my father’s eyes and I was afraid of it, I was ashamed. I would have liked to explain to him: it wasn’t a real laugh, Papa, but a contraction I couldn’t help, it happens, I saw it recently on the face of a boy named Rosario Sargente. But the laugh wouldn’t be erased, it changed into a frozen smile, I felt it on my face and couldn’t get rid of it.

My father got up slowly, moved to leave the table.

“Where are you going?” my mother said alarmed.

“To sleep,” he said.

It was two in the afternoon: usually at that hour, especially on Sunday or when he had the day off from school, he shut himself in to study and went on until dinnertime. Instead he yawned, to let us know that he really was sleepy. My mother said:

“I’m coming to sleep, too.”

He shook his head, and we both read in his face that the usual lying down with her in the same bed had become intolerable to him. Before he left the kitchen, he said to me, in a tone of surrender that for him was very rare:

“There’s nothing to be done about it, Giovanna, you really are like my sister.”

IV

1.

It took my parents almost two years to decide to separate, even though during that time they lived under the same roof only for brief periods. My father disappeared for weeks without warning, leaving me with the fear that he had taken his life in some dark, squalid place in Naples. I discovered only later that he went to live happily in a beautiful house in Posillipo that Costanza’s parents had given their daughter, who was now permanently fighting with Mariano. When my father reappeared he was affectionate and courteous, he seemed to want to return to my mother and me. But after a few days of reconciliation my parents began fighting about everything. There was one thing, however, about which they were always in agreement: for my own good I shouldn’t ever see Vittoria again.

I didn’t object, I was of the same opinion. And on the other hand, my aunt, from the moment the crisis exploded, hadn’t been seen or heard from. I guessed that she was waiting for me to seek her out: she, the servant, believed that she had me forever in her service. But I had promised myself not to stand by her anymore. I was exhausted, she had unloaded on me all of herself, her hatreds, her need for revenge, her language, and I hoped that from the mixture of fear and fascination I’d felt toward her at least the fascination was fading.

But one afternoon Vittoria began tempting me again. The telephone rang, I answered and heard her at the other end saying: hello, is Giannina there, I want to talk to Giannina. I hung up, holding my breath. But she phoned again and again, every day at the same time, never on Sunday. I forced myself not to answer. I let the phone ring, and if my mother was home and she went to answer, I yelled: I’m not here for anyone, imitating the imperative tone in which she sometimes shouted the same formula from her room.

I’d hold my breath, pray with my eyes closed that it wasn’t Vittoria. And, fortunately, it wasn’t, or at least if it was my mother didn’t tell me. Instead, the phone calls gradually became less frequent, until I thought she had given up and I began to answer the phone without anxiety. But, unexpectedly, Vittoria erupted again, shouting from the other end of the line: hello, you’re Giannina, I want to talk to Giannina. But I didn’t want to be Giannina anymore, and I always hung up. Of course, sometimes I heard suffering in her weary voice, I felt pity, and I became curious to see her, to question her, to provoke her. Sometimes when I was especially depressed I was tempted to cry: yes, it’s me, explain to me what happened, what did you do to my father and mother. But I always kept silent, cutting off the call, and I got used to not naming her even to myself.