Lina. Here, in the mouths of strangers, in this place. I realized only then that I had in mind Lila as I had seen her the last time, in the apartment in the new neighborhood, in the orderliness that, however charged with anguish it had been, now seemed the backdrop of her life, the furniture, the refrigerator, the television, the well-cared-for child, she herself with a look certainly worn out but still that of a well-off young woman. I knew nothing, at that moment, of how she lived, what she did. The gossip had stopped at the abandonment of her husband, at the incredible fact that she had left a beautiful house and money and gone away with Enzo Scanno. I didn’t know about the encounter with Soccavo. So I had left the neighborhood in the certainty that I would find her in a new house among open books and educational games for her son, or, at most, out momentarily, doing the shopping. And, out of laziness, in order not to feel uneasy, I had mechanically placed those images inside a toponymy, San Giovanni a Teduccio, beyond the Granili, at the end of the Marina. I went up with that expectation. I thought, I’ve made it, here I am at my destination. So I reached Titina. A young woman with a baby in her arms who was crying quietly, with slight sobs, rivulets of mucous dripping onto her upper lip from cold-reddened nostrils, and two more children attached to her skirts, one on each side.
Titina turned her gaze to the door opposite, closed.
“Lina’s not here,” she said, in a hostile tone.
“Nor Enzo?”
“No.”
“Did she take the child for a walk?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Elena Greco, I’m a friend.”
“And you don’t recognize Rinuccio? Rinù, have you ever seen this lady?”
She boxed the ear of one of the children beside her, and only then I recognized him. The child smiled at me, he said in Italian, “Hello, Aunt Lenù. Mamma will be back tonight at eight.”
I picked him up, hugged him, praised how cute he was and how well he spoke.
“He’s very clever,” Titina admitted, “he’s a born professor.”
At that point, her hostility ceased, she invited me to come in. In the dark corridor I stumbled on something that surely belonged to the children. The kitchen was untidy, everything was sunk in a grayish light. There was a sewing machine with some material still under the needle, and around and on the floor other fabric of various colors. Suddenly ashamed, Titina tried to straighten the room, then she gave up and made coffee, but continuing to hold her daughter in her arms. I sat Rinuccio on my lap, asked him stupid questions that he answered with lively resignation. The woman meanwhile told me about Lila and Enzo.
“She makes salami at Soccavo,” she said.
I was surprised, only then did I remember Bruno.
“Soccavo, the sausage people?”
“Soccavo, yes.”
“I know him.”
“They are not nice people.”
“I know the son.”
“Grandfather, father, and son, same shit. They made money and forgot they ever went around in rags.”
I asked about Enzo. She said he worked at the locomotives, she used that expression, and I soon realized that she thought he and Lila were married, she called Enzo, with liking and respect, “Signor Cerullo.”
“When will Lina be back?”
“Tonight.”
“And the child?”
“He stays with me, eats, plays, does everything here.”
So the journey wasn’t over: I approached, Lila moved away. I asked, “How long does it take to walk to the factory?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Titina gave me directions, which I wrote down on a piece of paper. Meanwhile Rinuccio asked politely, “May I go play, aunt?” He waited for me to say yes, he ran into the hall with the other child, and immediately I heard him yelling a nasty insult in dialect. The woman gave me an embarrassed look and shouted from the kitchen, in Italian, “Rino, bad words aren’t nice, watch out or I’ll come and give you a rap on the knuckles.”
I smiled at her, remembering my trip on the bus. I also deserve a rap on the knuckles, I thought, I’m in the same condition as Rinuccio. When the quarrel in the hall didn’t stop, we ran out. The two boys were hitting each other, throwing things and yelling fiercely.
124
I arrived at the site of the Soccavo factory by a dirt path, amid trash of every type, a thread of black smoke in the frozen sky. Before I even saw the boundary wall I noticed a sickening odor of animal fat mixed with burned wood. The guard said, derisively, you don’t go visiting your girlfriend during working hours. I asked to speak to Bruno Soccavo. He changed his tone, stammered that Bruno almost never came to the factory. Call him at home, I replied. He was embarrassed, he said that he couldn’t bother him for no reason. “If you don’t call,” I said, “I’ll go and find a telephone and do it myself.” He gave me a nasty look, he didn’t know what to do. A man came by on a bicycle, braked, said something obscene to him in dialect. The guard appeared relieved to see him. He began to talk to him as if I no longer existed.
At the center of the courtyard a bonfire was burning. The flame cut the cold air for a few seconds as I passed. I reached a low building of a yellow color, I pushed open a heavy door, I entered. The smell of fat, already strong outside, was unendurable. I met a girl who, obviously angry, was fixing her hair with agitated gestures. I said Excuse me, she passed by with her head down, took three or four steps, stopped.
“What is it?” she asked rudely.
“I’m looking for someone called Cerullo.”
“Lina?”
“Yes.”
“Look in sausage-stuffing.”
I asked where it was, she didn’t answer, she walked away. I pushed open another door. I was assailed by a warmth that made the odor of fat even more nauseating. The place was big, there were tubs full of a milky, steaming water in which dark bodies floated, stirred by slow, bent silhouettes, workers immersed up to their hips. I didn’t see Lila. I asked a man who, lying on the swampy tile floor, was fixing a pipe: “Do you know where I could find Lina?”
“Cerullo?”
“Cerullo.”
“In the mixing department.”
“They told me stuffing.”
“Then why are you asking me, if you know?”
“Where is mixing?”
“Straight ahead.”
“And stuffing?”
“To the right. If you don’t find her there, look where they’re stripping the meat off the carcasses. Or in the storerooms. They’re always moving her.”
“Why?”
He had a malicious smile.
“Is she a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“You won’t be offended?”
“No.”
“She’s a pain in the ass.”
I followed the directions, no one stopped me. The workers, both men and women, seemed to be enveloped in a bitter indifference; even when they laughed or shouted insults they seemed remote from their very laughter, from their voices, from the swill they handled, from the bad smell. I emerged among women in blue smocks who worked with the meat, caps on their heads: the machines produced a clanking sound and a mush of soft, ground, mixed matter. But Lila wasn’t there. And I didn’t see her where they were stuffing skins with the rosy pink paste mixed with bits of fat, or where, with sharp knives, they skinned, gutted, cut, using the blades with a dangerous frenzy. I found her in the storerooms. She came out of a refrigerator along with a sort of white breath. With the help of a short man, she was carrying a reddish block of frozen meat on her back. She placed it on a cart, she started to go back into the cold. I immediately saw that one hand was bandaged.