Elena Ferrante - The Story of the Lost Child

“That I can stop worrying, she’ll take care of Peppe and Gianni.”

“In what sense?”

“I don’t know, but if she promised it means she’ll find a solution.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“I trust her, she knows what’s right.”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen how pretty she looks?”

“Yes.”

“She told me if she has a girl she’ll call her Nunzia, like her mother.”

“She’ll have a boy.”

“But if it’s a girl she’ll call her Nunzia,” she repeated, and as she spoke she looked not at me but at the other suffering faces in the waiting room. I said:

“I am certainly going to have a girl, just look at this belly.”

“So?”

I forced myself to promise her:

“Then I’ll give her your name, don’t worry.”

“Sarratore’s son will want to name her for his mother.”

I denied that Nino had a say in it, at that stage the mere mention of him made me angry. He had vanished, he always had something to do. But on the day I made that promise to my mother, in the evening, as I was having dinner with the children, he unexpectedly appeared. He was cheerful, he pretended not to notice that I was bitter. He ate with us, he put Dede and Elsa to bed with jokes and stories, he waited for them to fall asleep. His casual superficiality made my mood worse. He had dropped in now, but he would leave again and who could say for how long. What was he afraid of, that my labor would start while he was in the house, while he was sleeping with me? That he would have to take me to the clinic? That he would then have to say to Eleonora: I have to stay with Elena because she is bringing my child into the world?

The girls were asleep, he came back to the living room. He caressed me, he knelt in front of me, he kissed my stomach. It was a flash, Mirko came to mind: how old would he be now, maybe twelve.

“What do you hear about your son?” I asked without preamble.

He didn’t understand, naturally, he thought I was talking about the child I had in my belly, and he smiled, disoriented. Then I explained, with pleasure breaking the promise I had long ago made to myself:

“I mean Silvia’s child, Mirko. I’ve seen him, he’s identical to you. But you? Did you acknowledge him? Have you ever had anything to do with him?”

He frowned, he got up.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you,” he murmured.

“Do what? Explain.”

“You’re an intelligent woman, but every so often you become another person.”

“What do you mean? Unreasonable? Stupid?”

He gave a small laugh and made a gesture as if to brush off an annoying insect.

“You pay too much attention to Lina.”

“What does Lina have to do with it?”

“She ruins your head, your feelings, everything.”

Those words made me lose my temper completely. I said to him:

“Tonight I want to sleep alone.”

He didn’t resist. With the expression of someone who in order to live peacefully gives in to a serious injustice he softly closed the door behind him.

Two hours later, as I was wandering around the house, with no desire to sleep, I felt small contractions, as if I had menstrual cramps. I called Pietro, I knew that he still spent the nights studying. I said: I’m about to give birth, come and get Dede and Elsa tomorrow. I had barely hung up when I felt a warm liquid drip down my legs. I grabbed a bag that I had long since packed with what I needed, then I kept my finger on the neighbors’ doorbell until they answered. I had already made an arrangement with Antonella, and though she was half asleep she wasn’t surprised. I said:

“The time has come, I’m leaving you the girls.”

Suddenly my rage and all my anxieties disappeared.

It was January 22, 1981, the day my third child was delivered. Of the first two experiences I didn’t have a particularly painful memory, but this one was absolutely the easiest, so much so that I considered it a happy liberation. The gynecologist praised my self-control, she was happy that I hadn’t caused her any problems. If only they were all like you, she said: You’re made for bringing children into the world. She whispered: Nino is waiting outside, I’ve let him know.

The news pleased me, but I was even happier to discover that my resentments were gone. Delivering the child relieved me of the bitterness of the past month and I was glad, I felt capable again of a good nature that could take things less seriously. I welcomed the new arrival lovingly, she was a girl of seven pounds, purple, bald. I said to Nino, when I let him come in, after neatening myself to hide the evidence of the exertion: now we’re four females, I’ll understand if you leave me. I made no allusion to the quarrel we had had. He embraced me, kissed me, swore he couldn’t do without me. He gave me a gold necklace with a pendant. I thought it was beautiful.

As soon as I felt better I called the neighbor. I learned that Pietro, diligent as usual, had arrived. I talked to him, he wanted to come to the clinic with the children. I had him put them on the phone, but they were distracted by the pleasure of being with their father, and answered in monosyllables. I told my ex-husband I would prefer that he take them to Florence for a few days. He was very affectionate, I would have liked to thank him for his care, tell him that I loved him. But I felt Nino’s inquiring gaze and I gave up on the idea.

Right afterward I called my parents. My father was cold, maybe out of timidity, maybe because my life seemed to him a disaster, maybe because he shared my brothers’ resentment at my recent tendency to stick my nose in their business, when I had never let them meddle in mine. My mother wanted to see the child immediately, and I struggled to calm her down. Afterward I called Lila, she commented, amused: Things always go smoothly for you, for me nothing’s moving yet. Maybe because she was busy with work she was brusque, she didn’t mention a visit to the clinic. Everything normal, I thought, good-humoredly, and fell asleep.

When I woke I took it for granted that Nino had disappeared, but he was there. He talked for a long time with his friend the gynecologist, he asked about acknowledgment of paternity, he showed no anxiety about Eleonora’s possible reaction. When I said I wanted to give the baby my mother’s name he was pleased. And as soon as I recovered we went to a city clerk to officially register the child I had just delivered as Immacolata Sarratore.

Nino didn’t appear uncomfortable on that occasion, either. I was the confused one, I said that I was married to Giovanni Sarratore, I corrected myself, I said separated from Pietro Airota, I came out with a disorderly pile of names, surnames, imprecise information. But the moment seemed lovely to me and I went back to believing that, to put my life in order, I needed only a little patience.

In those early days Nino neglected his endless duties and demonstrated in every possible way how important I was to him. He darkened only when he discovered that I didn’t want to baptize the child.

“Children are baptized,” he said.

“Are Albertino and Lidia baptized?”

“Of course.”

Thus I learned that, in spite of the anti-religiousness that he often flaunted, baptism seemed necessary to him. There were moments of embarrassment. I had thought, ever since we were in high school, that he wasn’t a believer, and he, on the other hand, said to me that, precisely because of the argument with the religion teacher in middle school, he was sure that I was a believer.

“Anyway,” he said, bewildered, “believer or not, children are baptized.”

“What sort of reasoning is that.”