When I tried to get away to go and see Nella, Sarratore wouldn’t let me go, he gathered up his things and insisted on coming with me. On the road he assumed a sentimental tone and without any embarrassment began to speak of what had happened between us years earlier. He asked me to forgive him, he murmured that one cannot command one’s heart, he spoke in a melancholy tone of my beauty then and above all of my present beauty.
“What an exaggeration,” I said, and, while I knew I should be serious and aloof, I began to laugh out of nervousness.
And though he was encumbered by the umbrella and his things, he would not relinquish a somewhat breathless, rambling discourse. He said that in substance the problem of youth was the lack of eyes to see oneself and feelings to feel about oneself with objectivity.
“There’s the mirror,” I replied, “and that is objective.”
“The mirror? The mirror is the last thing you can trust. I’ll bet that you feel less pretty than your two friends.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you are much, much more beautiful than they are. Trust me. Look what lovely blond hair you have. And what a bearing. You need to confront and resolve two problems only: the first is your bathing suit, it’s not adequate to your potential; the second is the style of your glasses. This is really wrong, Elena: too heavy. You have such a delicate face, so remarkably shaped by the things you study. What you need is daintier glasses.”
As I listened my irritation diminished; he was like a scientist of female beauty. Mainly he spoke with such detached expertise that at a certain point he led me to think: and if it’s true? Maybe I don’t know how to value myself. On the other hand where is the money to buy suitable clothes, a suitable bathing suit, suitable glasses? I was about to yield to a complaint about poverty and wealth when he said to me with a smile, “Besides, if you don’t trust my judgment, you’ll be aware, I hope, of how my son looked at you the time you came to see us.”
Only then did I realize that he was lying to me. His words were intended to appeal to my vanity, to make me feel good and drive me toward him in the need for gratification. I felt stupid, wounded not by him, with his lies, but by my own stupidity. I cut him short with an increasing rudeness that froze him.
At the house I talked to Nella for a while, I told her that we might all be returning to Naples that night and I wanted to say goodbye.
“A pity that you’re going.”
“Ah yes.”
“Eat with me.”
“I can’t, I have to go.”
“But if you don’t go, swear that you’ll come again and not so short next time. Stay with me for a day, or even overnight, since you know there’s the bed. I have so many things to tell you.”
“Thanks.”
Sarratore interrupted, he said, “We count on it, you know how much we love you.”
I fled, also because there was a relative of Nella’s who was going to the Port in a car and I didn’t want to miss the ride.
Along the way Sarratore’s words, surprisingly, even if I only rejected them, began to dig into me. No, maybe he hadn’t lied. He knew how to see beyond appearances. He had really had a means of observing his son’s gaze on me. And if I was pretty, if Nino seriously found me attractive — and I knew it was so: in the end he had kissed me, he had held my hand — it was time I looked at the facts for what they were: Lila had taken him from me; Lila had separated him from me to win him for herself. Maybe she hadn’t done it on purpose, but still she had done it.
I decided suddenly that I had to find him, see him at all costs. Now that our departure was imminent, now that the force of seduction that Lila had exercised over him would no longer have a chance to fascinate him, now that she herself had decided to return to the life that was hers, the relationship between him and me could begin again. In Naples. In the form of friendship. At least we could meet to talk about her. And then we would return to our conversations, to our reading. I would demonstrate that I could get interested in his interests better than Lila, certainly, maybe even better than Nadia. Yes, I had to speak to him right away, tell him I’m leaving, tell him: let’s see each other in the neighborhood, in Piazza Nazionale, in Mezzocannone, wherever you want, but as soon as possible.
I found a minicab, I took it to Forio, to Bruno’s house. I called, no one looked out. I wandered through the town feeling more and more depressed, then I set out to walk along the beach. And this time chance apparently decided in my favor. I had been walking for a long time when I saw before me Nino: he was happy we had met, a barely controlled happiness. His eyes were too bright, his gestures excited, his voice overwrought.
“I looked for the two of you yesterday and today. Where’s Lina?”
“With her husband.”
He took an envelope out of his pants pocket, he shoved it into my hand too forcefully.
“Can you give her this?”
I was annoyed. “It’s pointless, Nino.”
“Give it to her.”
“Tonight we’re leaving, we’ll go back to Naples.”
He had an expression of suffering, he said hoarsely, “Who decided?”
“She did.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true, she told me last night.”
He thought for a moment, pointed to the envelope.
“Please, give her that anyway, right away.”
“All right.”
“Swear that you will.”
“I told you, yes.”
He walked with me for a long way, saying spiteful things about his mother and his brothers and sister. They tormented me, he said, luckily they went back to Barano. I asked him about Bruno. He made a gesture of irritation, he was studying, he said mean things about him as well.
“And you’re not studying?”
“I can’t.”
His head sank between his shoulders, he grew melancholy. He began to talk about the mistakes one makes because a professor, as a result of his own problems, leads you to believe you’re smart. He realized that the things he wanted to learn had never really interested him.
“What do you mean? Suddenly?”
“A moment is enough to change the direction of your life completely.”
What was happening to him, with these banal words, I no longer recognized him. I vowed I would help him return to himself.
“You’re upset now, and you don’t know what you’re saying,” I said in my best sensible tone. “But as soon as you return to Naples we can see each other, if you want, and talk.”
He nodded yes, but right afterward cried angrily, “I’m finished with the university, I want to find a job.”
63
He came with me almost to the house, so that I was afraid of meeting Stefano and Lila. I said goodbye in a hurry and went up the stairs.
“Tomorrow morning at nine,” he shouted.
I stopped.
“If we leave I’ll see you in the neighborhood. Look for me there.”
Nino made a sign of no, decisively.
“You won’t leave,” he said, as if he were giving a threatening order to fate.
I gave him a final wave and hurried up the stairs sorry that I hadn’t had a chance to examine what was in the envelope.
In the house I found an unpleasant atmosphere. Stefano and Nunzia were whispering together. Lila must be in the bathroom or the bedroom. When I went in they both looked at me resentfully. Stefano said grimly, without preamble, “Will you tell me what you and she are getting up to?”
“In what sense?”
“She says she’s tired of Ischia, she wants to go to Amalfi.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
Nunzia intervened but not in her usual motherly way.