Finally I got up my courage and tracked down Ada. I imagined I’d find her more distressed than Pina, humiliated by her situation. Instead she lived in the house that had been Lina’s and was beautiful, and apparently serene; she had just given birth to a girl she had named Maria. Even during my pregnancy I didn’t stop working, she said proudly. And I saw with my own eyes that she was the real mistress of the two groceries, she hurried from one to the other, she took care of everything.
Each of my childhood friends told me something about Lila, but Ada seemed to be the best informed. And it was she who spoke of her with greater understanding, almost sympathy. Ada was happy, happy with her baby, her comforts, her work, Stefano, and it seemed to me that for all that happiness she was sincerely grateful to Lila.
She exclaimed, admiringly, “I did things like a madwoman, I realize it. But Lina and Enzo behaved in an even crazier way. They were so careless of everything, even of themselves, that they frightened me, Stefano, and even that piece of shit Michele Solara. You know that she took nothing with her? You know that she left me all her jewelry? You know that they wrote on a piece of paper where they were going, the precise address, number, everything, as if to say: come find us, do what you like, who gives a damn?”
I wanted the address, I took it down. While I was writing she said, “If you see her, tell her that I’m not the one keeping Stefano from seeing the child: he has too much to do and although he’s sorry, he can’t. Also tell her that the Solaras don’t forget anything, especially Michele. Tell her not to trust anyone.”
117
Enzo and Lila moved to San Giovanni a Teduccio in a used Fiat 600 that he had just bought. During the whole journey they said nothing, but battled the silence by talking to the child, Lila as if she were addressing an adult, and Enzo with monosyllables like well, what, yes. She scarcely knew San Giovanni. She had gone there once with Stefano, they had stopped in the center for coffee and she had had a good impression. But Pasquale, who often came there for construction work and for political activities had once talked to her about it with great dissatisfaction, both as a worker and as a militant. “It’s a filthy place,” he had said, “a sewer: the more wealth it produces, the more poverty increases, and we can’t change anything, even if we’re strong.” But Pasquale was always critical of everything and so not very reliable. Lila, as the car traveled along bumpy streets, past crumbling buildings and big, newly constructed apartment houses, preferred to tell herself that she was taking the child to a pretty little town near the sea and thought only of the speech that, to clarify things, out of honesty, she wanted to make to Enzo right away.
But because she was thinking about it she didn’t do it. Later, she said to herself. So they arrived at the apartment that Enzo had rented, on the third floor of a new building that was already shabby. The rooms were half-empty, he said he had bought what was indispensable but that starting the next day he would get everything she needed. Lila reassured him, he had already done too much. Only when she saw the double bed she decided that it was time to speak: she said in an affectionate tone: “I’ve had great respect for you, Enzo, since we were children. You’ve done a thing I admire: you studied by yourself, you got a diploma, and I know the determination it takes, I’ve never had it. You’re also the most generous person I know, no one would have done what you’re doing for Rinuccio and for me. But I can’t sleep with you. It’s not because we’ve seen each other alone at most two or three times. And it’s not that I don’t like you. It’s that I have no feelings, I’m like this wall or that table. So if you can live in the same house with me without touching me, good; if you can’t I understand and tomorrow morning I’ll look for another place. Know that I’ll always be grateful for what you’ve done for me.”
Enzo listened without interrupting. At the end he said, pointing to the bed: “You go there, I’ll settle on the cot.”
“I prefer the cot.”
“And Rinuccio?”
“I saw there’s another cot.”
“He sleeps by himself?”
“Yes.”
“You can stay as long as you like.”
“You’re sure?”
“Very sure.”
“I don’t want ugly things that could ruin our friendship.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine like this. If by chance feeling returns to you, you know where I am.”
118
Feeling did not return to her; rather, a sense of alienation increased. The heavy air of the rooms. The dirty clothes. The bathroom door that didn’t close properly. I imagine that San Giovanni seemed to her an abyss on the edge of our neighborhood. Although she had reached safety, she hadn’t been careful where she put her feet down, and had fallen into a deep hole.
Rinuccio immediately worried her. The child, in general serene, began to have tantrums during the day, calling for Stefano, and to wake up crying at night. The attentions of his mother, her way of playing, calmed him, yes, but no longer fascinated him, in fact began to annoy him. Lila invented new games, his eyes lighted up, the child kissed her, he wanted to put his hands on her chest, he shrieked with joy. But then he pushed her away, he played by himself or napped on a blanket on the floor. And on the street he got tired after ten steps, he said his knee hurt, he demanded to be picked up, and if she refused he fell on the ground screaming.
At first Lila resisted, then slowly she began to give in. Since at night he would quiet down only if she let him come into her bed, she let him sleep with her. When they went out to do the shopping she carried him, even though he was a well nourished, heavy child: on one side the bags, on the other him. She returned exhausted.
She rediscovered what life without money was. No books, no journals or newspapers. Rinuccio grew before her eyes, and the things she had brought no longer fit him. She herself had very few clothes. But she pretended it was nothing. Enzo worked all day, he gave her the money she needed, but he didn’t earn much, and besides he had to give money to the relatives who were taking care of his siblings. So they barely managed to pay the rent, the electricity, and the gas. But Lila didn’t seem worried. The money she had had and had wasted were all one, in her imagination, with the poverty of childhood, it was without substance when it was there and when it wasn’t. She was much more worried about the possible undoing of the education she had given her son and she devoted herself to making him energetic, eager, receptive, as he had been until recently. But Rinuccio now seemed to be content only when she left him on the landing to play with the neighbor’s child. He fought, got dirty, laughed, ate junk, appeared happy. Lila observed him from the kitchen, from there she could see him and his friend framed by the door to the stairs. He’s smart, she thought, he’s smarter than the other child, who’s a little older: maybe I should accept that I can’t coddle him, that I’ve given him what’s necessary but from now on he’ll manage by himself, now he needs to hit, take things away from other children, get dirty.
One day, Stefano appeared on the landing. He had left the grocery and decided to come and see his son. Rinuccio greeted him joyfully, Stefano played with him for a while. But Lila saw that her husband was bored, he couldn’t wait to leave. In the past it had seemed that he couldn’t live without her and the child; instead here he was, looking at his watch, yawning, almost certainly he had come because his mother or even Ada had sent him. As for love, jealousy, it had all passed, he wasn’t agitated anymore.