“Mamma, what’s a tramp?”
“A beggar.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Rino told Dede that Aunt Lina is a tramp.”
Problems, in other words. I didn’t talk to Lila about it, that seemed pointless. And then I had my own difficulties: I couldn’t bring myself to tell Pietro, I couldn’t tell the children, mainly I couldn’t tell Nino. I was sure that when Pietro found out I was pregnant he would be resentful, even though he now had Doriana, and would turn to his parents, would induce his mother to make trouble for me in every way possible. I was sure that Dede and Elsa would become hostile again. But my real worry was Nino. I hoped that the birth of the child would bind him definitively to me. I hoped that Eleonora, once she found out about that new fatherhood, would leave him. But it was a feeble hope, usually fear predominated. Nino had told me clearly: he preferred that double life — even though it caused all sorts of problems, anxieties, tensions — to the trauma of an absolute break with his wife. I was afraid he would ask me to have an abortion. So every day I was on the point of telling him and every day I said to myself: No, better tomorrow.
Instead everything began to sort itself out. One night I telephoned Pietro and told him: I’m pregnant. There was a long silence, he cleared his throat, he said softly that he expected it. He asked:
“Have you told the children?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to tell them?”
“No.”
“Be careful.”
“All right.”
That was it. He began to call more often. His tone was affectionate, he was worried about how the girls would react, he offered every time to talk to them about it. But in the end it was neither of us. It was Lila, who, although she had refused to tell her own son, convinced Dede and Elsa that it would be a wonderful thing to occupy themselves, when the time came, with the funny live doll that I had made with Nino and not with their father. They took it well. Since Aunt Lina had called it a doll, they began to use the same word. They were interested in my stomach, and every morning when they woke up they asked, Mamma, how’s the doll?
Between telling Pietro and telling the girls, I finally confronted Nino. It went like this. One afternoon when I felt especially anxious I went to see Lila to complain, and asked her:
“What if he wants me to have an abortion?”
“Well,” she said, “then everything becomes perfectly clear.”
“What’s clear?”
“That his wife and children come first, then you.”
Direct, brutal. Lila hid many things from me, but not her aversion to my union. I wasn’t sorry, in fact I knew that it did me good to speak explicitly. In the end she had said what I didn’t dare say to myself, that Nino’s reaction would provide proof of the solidity of our bond. I muttered something like: It’s possible, we’ll see. When, soon afterward, Carmen arrived with her children, and Lila drew her, too, into the conversation, the afternoon became like afternoons of our adolescence. We confided in each other, we plotted, we planned. Carmen got mad, she said that if Nino was opposed she was ready to go and speak to him in person. And she added: I don’t understand how it’s possible, Lenù, that a person at your level can let someone walk all over you. I tried to justify myself and to justify my companion. I said that his in-laws had helped and were helping him, that everything Nino and I could afford was possible only because, thanks to his wife’s family, he had a good income. I admitted that, with what I got from my books and from Pietro, the girls and I would have a hard time scraping by in a respectable way. And I added: Don’t get the wrong idea, though, Nino is very affectionate, he sleeps at my house at least four times a week, he has always avoided humiliating me in any way, when he can he takes care of Dede and Elsa as if they were his. But as soon as I stopped speaking Lila almost ordered me:
“Then tell him tonight.”
I obeyed. I went home and when he arrived we had dinner, I put the children to bed, and finally I told him that I was pregnant. There was a very long moment, then he hugged me, kissed me, he was very happy. I whispered with relief: I’ve known for a while, but I was afraid you would be angry. He reproached me, and said something that amazed me: We have to go with Dede and Elsa to my parents and give them this good news, too — my mother will be pleased. He wanted in that way to sanction our union, he wanted to make his new paternity official. I gave a halfhearted sign of agreement, then I said:
“But you’ll tell Eleonora?”
“It’s none of her business.”
“You’re still her husband.”
“It’s pure form.”
“You’ll have to give your name to our child.”
“I’ll do it.”
I became agitated.
“No, Nino, you won’t do it, you’ll pretend it’s nothing, as you’ve done up to now.”
“Aren’t you happy with me?”
“I’m very happy.”
“Do I neglect you?”
“No. But I left my husband, I came to live in Naples, I changed my life from top to bottom. You instead still have yours, and it’s intact.”
“My life is you, your children, this child who’s about to arrive. The rest is a necessary background.”
“Necessary to whom? To you? Certainly not to me.”
He hugged me tight, he whispered:
“Have faith.”
The next day I called Lila and said to her: Everything’s fine, Nino was really happy.
40
Complicated weeks followed; I often thought that if my body hadn’t reacted with such delighted naturalness to pregnancy, if I had been in Lila’s state of continuous physical suffering, I wouldn’t have held up. My publisher, after much resistance, finally brought out Nino’s collection of essays, and I — continuing to imitate Adele, in spite of our terrible relationship — took on the job of persuading both the few prominent people I knew to cover it in the newspapers, and the many, very many, he knew, but out of pride refused to telephone. Around at the same time, Pietro’s book also was published, and he brought a copy to me himself when he came to Naples to see his daughters. He waited anxiously while I read the dedication (embarrassing: to Elena, who taught me to love with suffering), we were both excited, he invited me to a celebration in his honor in Florence. I had to go, if only to bring the children. But then I was forced to face not only the open hostility of my in-laws but also, before and after, Nino’s agitation: he was jealous of every contact with Pietro, angry about the dedication, surly because I had said that my ex-husband’s book was really good and was talked about with great respect within the academic world and outside it, unhappy because his volume was going completely unnoticed.
How exhausting our relationship was, and how many hazards were concealed in every gesture, in every sentence that I uttered, that he uttered. He didn’t even want to hear Pietro’s name, he darkened if I recalled Franco, he became jealous if I laughed too much with some friend of his, yet he found it completely normal to divide himself between me and his wife. A couple of times I ran into him on Via Filangieri with Eleonora and the two children: the first time they pretended not to see me, and kept going; the second I stopped in front of them with a warm smile, I said a few words referring to my pregnancy, even though it wasn’t visible, I went off in a rage, with my heart pounding in my throat. When, later, he reproached me for what he called a needlessly provocative attitude, we quarreled (I didn’t tell her that you’re the father: all I said was I’m pregnant), I threw him out of the house, I welcomed him back.