Элена Ферранте - The Lying Life of Adults

“Did she do something that scared you?”

“No.”

“You seem upset.”

“I’m fine.”

“But your hands are cold, you’re sweaty. Are you sure nothing happened?”

“Very sure.”

She was surprised, she was alarmed, she was pleased, or maybe it was I who was mixing happiness, bewilderment, and worry thinking that they were her reactions. I never mentioned Roberto, I didn’t think I’d find the right words, and then I’d hate myself. Instead I explained to her that I’d heard some talks in the church that I’d liked.

“Every Sunday,” I told her, “the priest invites this really smart friend of his, they set up a table at the end of the central nave, and he talks.”

“About what?”

“I can’t repeat it now.”

“You see, you’re upset?”

I wasn’t upset, or rather I was in a state of happy agitation, and that condition didn’t go away even when she said uneasily that a few days earlier, completely by chance, she had met Mariano and, knowing I was on an outing to Caserta, had invited him for coffee that afternoon.

Not even that news could change my mood, I asked:

“Do you want to be with Mariano?”

“Of course not.”

“Why is it that you all can never tell the truth?”

“Giovanna, I swear to you, it is the truth: there is nothing and never was anything between me and him. But since your father has started to see him again, why shouldn’t I?”

That last bit of information upset me. My mother told me briefly that it was a recent change, the two former friends had met once when Mariano came to see his daughters and, for love of the children, they had spoken politely. I burst out:

“If my father has re-established relations with a friend he betrayed, why doesn’t he examine his conscience and re-establish relations with his sister?”

“Because Mariano is a civilized person and Vittoria isn’t.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s because Mariano teaches at the university, makes him feel good, gives him a certain status, while Vittoria makes him feel like what he is.”

“You realize how you’re speaking of your father?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop it.”

“I’m saying what I think.”

I went to my room, taking refuge in the thought of Roberto. It was Vittoria who had introduced me to him. He was part of my aunt’s world, not my parents’. Vittoria spent time with him, appreciated him, had approved, if not encouraged, his engagement to Giuliana. In my eyes that made her more sensitive, more intelligent than the people my parents had spent their lives with, Mariano and Costanza at the top of the list. I shut myself in the bathroom in a state of nervous tension, I carefully took off my makeup, I put on a pair of jeans and a white shirt. What would Roberto say, if I told him what had happened in my house, my parents’ behavior, that recomposition in the midst of the rot of an old friendship. The violent buzz of the intercom startled me. A few minutes passed, I heard Mariano’s voice, my mother’s, I hoped she wouldn’t assert herself and summon me. She didn’t, I started studying, but there was no escape, I heard her call: Giovanna, come and say hello to Mariano. I huffed, closed the book, went.

I was struck by how thin Angela and Ida’s father was, he was a match for my mother. Seeing him I felt sorry for him, but it didn’t last. I was irritated that his excited gaze fell immediately on my breasts, just like Corrado and Rosario, even if this time my chest was completely covered by the shirt.

“You’ve grown so much,” he exclaimed, with emotion, and wanted to hug me, kiss me on the cheeks.

“Want a chocolate? Mariano brought them.”

I refused, I said I had to study.

“I know you’re busy making up for your lost year,” he said.

I nodded yes, I muttered: I’m going. Before leaving I felt his gaze on me again and I was ashamed. I thought how Roberto had looked only at my eyes.

4.

I soon understood what had happened: I had fallen in love at first sight. I had read enough about that type of love, but, I don’t know why, I never used that expression to myself. I preferred to consider Roberto—his face, his voice, his hands around mine—a sort of miraculous consolation for my agitated days and nights. Naturally, I wanted to see him again, but after the first upheaval—that unforgettable moment when seeing him had coincided with a violent need for him—a sort of calm realism had taken over. Roberto was a man, I a girl. Roberto loved someone else, who was very beautiful and good. Roberto was inaccessible, he lived in Milan, I didn’t know anything about what was important to him. The only possible contact was Vittoria, and Vittoria was a complicated person, apart from the fact that every attempt to see her would be painful to my mother. So I let the days pass, uncertain what to do. Then I thought that I surely had the right to a life of my own without having to constantly worry about my parents’ reactions, especially since they weren’t worrying at all about mine. And I couldn’t resist, one afternoon when I was alone in the house I called my aunt. I regretted not having accepted her invitation to lunch, I seemed to have wasted an important opportunity, and I wanted to cautiously find out when I could go and visit her with some certainty of seeing Roberto. I was sure I would be warmly welcomed, after giving back the bracelet, but Vittoria wouldn’t let me get a word in. I learned from her that the day after the lie about Caserta my mother had called her to say, in her feeble way, that she was to leave me alone, that she wasn’t ever to see me again. In light of which she was now furious. She insulted her sister-in-law, shouted that she would wait outside the house to stab her. She yelled: how could she dare to say that I am doing all I can to steal you from her when it’s all of you taking away from me every reason for living, you , your father, your mother, and you, too, you thought that all you had to do was give me back the bracelet and everything would be fine. She shouted: if you’re on your parents’ side don’t call me ever again, get it? And, breathless, she went on to gasp a series of obscenities about her brother and sister-in-law, after which she hung up.

I tried to call her back to tell her that I was on her side, that in fact I was extremely angry about that phone call of my mother’s, but she didn’t answer. I felt depressed, just then I needed her affection, I was afraid that without her I would never have the chance to see Roberto. And meanwhile time slipped away, days of grim unhappiness, then of bitter reflection. I began to think of him as of the silhouette of a very distant mountain, a bluish substance contained within heavy lines. Probably—I said to myself—no one in Pascone has ever seen him with the clarity I was capable of there in the church. He was born in that area, grew up there, is a childhood friend of Tonino. They all appreciate him as a particularly luminous fragment of that bleak background, and Giuliana herself must be in love with him not for what he really is but for their common origins and the aura of someone who, though he came from the foul-smelling Industrial Zone, went to school in Milan and has managed to distinguish himself. Except that—I persuaded myself—precisely the aspects of him that they’re able to love prevent them from seeing him seriously and recognizing his uniqueness. Roberto mustn’t be treated like an ordinary person with special abilities, Roberto must be protected. For example, if I were Giuliana, I would fight with all my strength to keep him from coming to lunch at my house, I would prevent Vittoria, Margherita, Corrado from spoiling him for me and spoiling the reasons he chose me. I would keep him outside that world, I would say to him: let’s run away, I’ll come to you in Milan. But Giuliana, in my view, isn’t truly aware of her good fortune. As far as I’m concerned, if I succeeded even just in becoming his friend, I would never make him waste his time with my mother, who is surely much more presentable than Vittoria and Margherita. And I would especially avoid any possible encounter with my father. The energy that Roberto gives off needs care in order not to be dissipated, and I feel that I would be able to assure him that care. Oh yes, become his friend, only that, and show him that, somewhere inside me unknown even to myself, I possess the qualities he needs.