“Are you still living on Via Tasso?”
“Yes.”
“It’s out of the way.”
“It has a view of the sea.”
“What’s the sea, from up there? A bit of color. Better if you’re closer, that way you notice that there’s filth, mud, piss, polluted water. But you who read and write books like to tell lies, not the truth.”
I cut her short, I said:
“For now I’m there.”
She cut me even shorter:
“One can always change. How many times do we say one thing and then do another? Take a place here.”
I shook my head, I said goodbye. Was that what she wanted? To bring me back to the neighborhood?
37
Then in my already complicated life two completely unexpected things happened at the same time. Nino’s research institute was invited to New York for some important job and a tiny publishing house in Boston published my book. Those two events turned into a possible trip to the United States.
After endless hesitations, endless discussions, some quarrels, we decided to take that vacation. But I would have to leave Dede and Elsa for two weeks. Even under normal conditions I had a hard time making arrangements: I wrote for some journals, I did translations, I took part in debates in places large and small, I compiled notes for a new book, and to arrange for the children with all that hectic activity was always extremely difficult. In general I turned to Mirella, a student of Nino’s, who was very reliable and didn’t ask much, but if she wasn’t available I left them with Antonella, a neighbor of around fifty, the competent mother of grown children. This time I tried to get Pietro to take them, but he said it was impossible just then to have them for so long. I examined the situation (I had no relationship with Adele, Mariarosa had left and no one knew where she was, my mother was weakened by her elusive illness, Elisa was increasingly hostile), and there didn’t seem to be an acceptable solution. It was Pietro who finally said to me: Ask Lina, she left her son with you for months, she’s in your debt. I had a hard time making up my mind. The more superficial part of me imagined that, although she had showed that in spite of her work obligations she was available, she would treat my daughters like fussy, demanding little dolls, she would torment them, or leave them to Gennaro; while a more hidden part, which perhaps upset me more than the first, considered her the only person I knew who would devote herself entirely to making them comfortable. It was the urgency of finding a solution that drove me to call her. To my tentative and evasive request she responded without hesitation, as usual surprising me:
“Your daughters are more than my daughters, bring them to me whenever you like and go do your things as long as you want.”
Even though I had told her that I was going with Nino, she never mentioned him, not even when, with all kinds of cautions, I brought her the children. And so in May of 1980, consumed by misgivings and yet excited, I left for the United States. It was an extraordinary experience. I felt again that I had no limits, I was capable of flying over oceans, expanding over the entire world: an exhilarating delirium. Naturally the two weeks were very exhausting and very expensive. The women who had published my book had no money and even though they were generous I still spent a lot. As for Nino, he had trouble getting reimbursed even for his airplane ticket. Yet we were happy. I, at least, have never been so happy as in those days.
When we got back I was sure I was pregnant. Already before leaving for America I had had some suspicions, but I hadn’t said anything to Nino and for the entire vacation I had savored the possibility in secret, with a heedless pleasure. But when I went to get my daughters I had no more doubts and, feeling so literally full of life, I was tempted to confide in Lila. As usual, however, I gave up on the idea, I thought: She’ll say something unpleasant, she’ll remind me that I claimed I didn’t want another child. I was radiant and Lila, as if my happiness had infected her, greeted me with an air that was no less content, she exclaimed: How beautiful you look. I gave her the gifts I had brought for her, for Enzo, and for Gennaro. I told her in detail about the cities I had seen, the encounters I’d had. From the plane, I said, I saw a piece of the Atlantic Ocean through a hole in the clouds. The people are very friendly, they’re not reserved the way they are in Germany, or arrogant, as in France. Even if you speak English badly they listen to you with attention and make an effort to understand. In the restaurants everybody shouts, more than in Naples. If you compare the skyscraper on Corso Novara with the ones in Boston or New York, you realize it’s not a skyscraper. The streets are numbered, they don’t have the names of people everyone’s forgotten by now. I never mentioned Nino, I didn’t say anything about him and his work, I acted as if I had gone by myself. She listened attentively, she asked questions I wasn’t able to answer, and then she praised my daughters sincerely, she said she had got on very well with them. I was pleased, and again I was on the point of telling her that I was expecting a child. But Lila didn’t give me time, she whispered seriously: Lucky you’re back, Lenù, I’ve just had some good news and it makes me happy to tell you first of all. She, too, was pregnant.
38
Lila had dedicated herself to the children body and soul. And it could not have been easy to wake them in time in the morning, get them washed and dressed, give them a solid but quick breakfast, take them to school in the Via Tasso neighborhood amid the morning chaos of the city, pick them up punctually in that same turmoil, bring them back to the neighborhood, feed them, supervise their homework, and keep up with her job, her domestic tasks. But, when I questioned Dede and Elsa closely, it became clear that she had managed very well. And now for them I was a more inadequate mother than ever. I didn’t know how to make pasta with tomato sauce the way Aunt Lina did, I didn’t know how to dry their hair and comb it with the skill and gentleness she had, I didn’t know how to perform any task that Aunt Lina didn’t approach with a superior sensitivity, except maybe singing certain songs that they loved and that she had admitted she didn’t know. To this it should be added that, especially in Dede’s eyes, that marvelous woman whom I didn’t visit often enough (Mamma, why don’t we go see Aunt Lina, why don’t you let us sleep at her house more, don’t you have to go away anymore?) had a specific quality that made her unequalled: she was the mother of Gennaro, whom my older daughter usually called Rino, and who seemed to her the most wonderful person of the male sex in the world.
At the moment I was hurt. My relations with the children were not wonderful and their idealization of Lila made things worse. Once, at yet another criticism of me, I lost my patience, I yelled: O.K., go to the market of mothers and buy another one. That market was a game of ours that generally served to alleviate conflicts and reconcile us. I would say: Sell me at the market of mothers if I’m no good for you; and they would answer, no, Mamma, we don’t want to sell you, we like you the way you are. On that occasion, however, maybe because of my harsh tone, Dede answered: Yes, let’s go right now, we can sell you and buy Aunt Lina.
That was the atmosphere for a while. And certainly it wasn’t the best one for telling the children that I had lied to them. My emotional state was complicated: shameless, shy, happy, anxious, innocent, guilty. And I didn’t know where to begin, the conversation was difficult: children, I thought I didn’t want another child, but I did, and in fact I’m pregnant, you’ll have a little brother or maybe another sister, but the father isn’t your father, the father is Nino, who already has a wife and two children, and I don’t know how he’ll take it. I thought about it, thought about it again, and put it off.