Элена Ферранте - The Lying Life of Adults

“Aren’t we going together?” he asked, sincerely surprised.

“No.”

“What do you mean no? What about the things we did?”

“What things?”

He was embarrassed.

“You know.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You said they were fun.”

“I was lying.”

To my surprise, he seemed intimidated. He kept insisting, trying, bewildered, to kiss me. Then he gave up, turned mopey, muttered: I don’t understand you, you’re insulting me. We went to sit on a white step, facing a Naples that seemed beautiful under a transparent dome, outside was the blue sky and inside were vapors, as if all the stones in the city were breathing.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“What mistake?”

“You think you’re better than me, you don’t understand who I am.”

“Who are you?”

“Wait and see.”

“I’ll wait.”

“The one who won’t wait, Giannì, is Rosario.”

“What does Rosario have to do with it?”

“He’s in love with you.”

“Come on.”

“It’s true. You led him on and now he’s sure you love him—he talks all the time about your boobs.”

“He’s wrong, tell him I love somebody else.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you.”

He insisted, I tried to change the subject, and he put an arm around my shoulders again.

“Am I the other guy?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t have done all those nice things if you didn’t love me.”

“I’m telling you it’s true.”

“Then you’re a slut.”

“If I want, sure.”

I thought of asking about Roberto, but I knew Corrado hated him, that he would cut the conversation short with a few offensive remarks, so I held off and tried to get there through Giuliana.

“She’s so beautiful,” I said praising his sister.

“Are you kidding, she’s getting so skinny she looks like a hollowed-out corpse, you’ve never seen her when she wakes up in the morning.”

He tossed out a lot of vulgar remarks, he said that Giuliana was now acting like a goody-goody, to hold on to her fiancé with his university degree, but there was nothing goody about her. If a person has a sister, he concluded, he loses the desire for women, because he knows you females are in every way worse than us males.

“Then take your hands off me and don’t try to kiss me again.”

“What does that have to do with it, I’m in love.”

“And if you’re in love, you don’t see me?”

“I see you but I forget you’re like my sister.”

“It’s the same for Roberto: he doesn’t see Giuliana the way you see her, he sees her the way you see me.”

He was annoyed, the subject irked him.

“What do you care what Roberto sees, he’s blind, he doesn’t understand anything about women.”

“Maybe, but when he talks everybody listens to him.”

“You, too?”

“Come on.”

“Only people who are stupid like him.”

“So your sister is stupid?”

“Yes.”

“Only you are intelligent?”

“Me, you, and Rosario. He wants to see you.”

I thought for a moment then said:

“I have a ton of homework.”

“He’ll get mad, he’s the son of Sargente the lawyer.”

“He’s important?”

“Important and dangerous.”

“I don’t have time, Corrà, you two don’t study, I do.”

“You only want to be with people who study?”

“No, but there’s a real difference between you and—just for example—Roberto. Imagine if he has time to spare, he’s always got his head in a book.”

“Again? Are you in love?”

“Are you kidding.”

“If Rosario starts thinking you’re in love with Roberto, he’ll either kill him or have him killed.”

I said I absolutely had to go. I didn’t mention Roberto again.

10.

Not long afterward Rosario showed up outside school. I saw him right away, leaning on his convertible, tall, thin, with his forced smile, dressed with a display of wealth that among my classmates was considered vulgar. He didn’t signal his presence, it was as if he believed that if not him, certainly his yellow car couldn’t go unnoticed. And he was right, everyone looked at it admiringly. And naturally noticed me when, unwillingly but as if following a distant order, I went over to him. Rosario sat at the wheel with ostentatious cool, with equal cool I got in next to him.

“You have to take me home immediately,” I said.

“You’re the boss and I’m the slave,” he said.

He started the engine and set off nervously, honking to make a path through the crowd of students.

“You remember where I live?” I asked, suddenly alarmed because he was going up the street leading to San Martino.

“On San Giacomo dei Capri.”

“But this isn’t the way to San Giacomo dei Capri.”

“We’ll go later.”

He stopped on a narrow street near Sant’Elmo, turned and looked at me, his face still cheerful.

“Giannì,” he said seriously, “I liked you as soon as I saw you. I wanted to tell you in person, in a quiet place.”

“I’m ugly, go find a pretty girl.”

“You’re not ugly, you’re a certain type.”

“A certain type means I’m ugly.”

“Come on, not even statues have boobs like yours.”

He leaned over to kiss me on the mouth, I pulled back, avoiding his face.

“We can’t kiss,” I said, “you’ve got buck teeth and your lips are too thin.”

“So why have plenty of other girls kissed me?”

“Obviously they didn’t have teeth, go get kissed by them.”

“Don’t play at insulting me, Giannì, that’s not fair.”

“I’m not the one who’s playing, it’s you. You’re always laughing and then I feel like joking.”

“You know it’s the shape of my mouth. Inside I’m very serious.”

“So am I. You tell me I’m ugly, and I say you have buck teeth. Now we’re even, take me home because my mother gets worried.”

But he didn’t retreat, he stayed very close to me. He repeated that I was a type, the type he liked, and he complained in a low voice that I hadn’t understood how serious his intentions were. Then suddenly he raised his voice and said anxiously:

“Corrado is a liar, he says you did certain things with him but I don’t believe it.”

I tried to open the car door, I said angrily:

“I have to go.”

“Wait: if you did them with him, why not with me?”

I lost my patience:

“You’re really bugging me, Rosà, I don’t do anything with anyone.”

“You’re in love with someone else.”

“I’m not in love with anyone.”

“Corrado says that since you saw Roberto Matese, you’ve turned stupid.”

“I don’t even know who Roberto Matese is.”

“I’m telling you: he’s someone who thinks he’s a big deal.”

“Then it’s not the same Roberto I know.”

“Trust me, it’s him. And if you don’t believe it, I’ll bring him right to you and we’ll see.”

“You’ll bring him to me? You?”

“Just say the word.”

“And he’d come?”

“No, not spontaneously. I’d have to force him.”

“You’re ridiculous. No one forces the Roberto I know to do anything.”

“Depends on the force. With the right force everybody does what they have to.”

I looked at him, worried. He laughed, but his eyes were serious.

“I don’t care about any Roberto or about Corrado or you,” I said.

He looked intensely at my breasts, as if I were hiding something in my bra, then muttered:

“Give me a kiss and I’ll take you home.”

At that moment I was sure he would hurt me and yet, incongruously, I thought that, even if he was ugly, I liked him more than Corrado. For a second I saw him as a very bright demon who would grab my head in both hands and first forcibly kiss me, then beat me against the window until I was dead.