But the journey wasn’t always pleasant; sometimes I became sad. And I quickly formed the impression that Nino was talking to Colombe in a tone that he didn’t use with Augustin, not to mention that too often he touched her shoulder with his fingertips. My bad mood gradually worsened, as I saw the two of them were getting very friendly. When we arrived in Paris they were the best of friends, chatting away; she laughed often, smoothing her hair with a careless gesture.
Augustin lived in a nice apartment on Canal Saint-Martin; Colombe had recently moved in. Even after they showed us our room, they wouldn’t let us to go bed. It seemed to me that they were afraid to be alone, they wouldn’t stop talking. I was tired and nervous; I was the one who had wanted to go to Paris, and now it seemed absurd to be in that house, among strangers, far from my daughters, with Nino paying scant attention to me. Once in the room I asked him:
“Do you like Colombe?”
“She’s nice.”
“I asked if you like her.”
“Do you want to quarrel?”
“No.”
“Then think about it: how can I like Colombe if I love you?”
It scared me when his tone became even slightly harsh; I was afraid I would have to acknowledge that something between us wasn’t working. He is simply nice to anyone who has been nice to us, I said to myself, and fell asleep. But I slept badly. At one point I had the impression that I was alone in the bed; I tried to wake up, but was drawn back into sleep. I emerged again sometime later. Nino now was standing in the dark, or so it seemed to me. Sleep, he said. I fell asleep again.
The next day our hosts took us to Nanterre. The whole way Nino continued to joke with Colombe, to talk to her in an allusive way. I tried not to pay attention. How could I think of living with him if I had to spend my time watching him? When we reached our destination and he became genial and charming with Mariarosa’s friend, the owner of the publishing house, and her partner — one around forty, the other sixty — I drew a sigh of relief. It’s innocent, I concluded, he’s like that with all women. And finally I felt better.
The two women greeted me warmly, full of praise, and asked about Mariarosa. I knew that my volume had only just arrived in the bookstores, but already a couple of reviews had appeared. The older woman showed them to me; she seemed amazed herself at how positive they were, and, turning to Colombe, to Augustin, to Nino, she kept repeating it. I read the articles, two lines here, four there. They were written by women — I had never heard of them, but Colombe and the two women had — and they praised the book enthusiastically. I should have been pleased; the day before, I had been compelled to sing my own praises, and now I no longer needed to. Yet I found that I couldn’t feel excited. It was as if, since I loved Nino and he loved me, that love made everything good that happened to me and would happen to me nothing but a pleasant secondary effect. I showed my satisfaction graciously and gave a feeble assent to my publishers’ plans for promotion. You’ll have to return soon, the older woman exclaimed, or at least we hope so. The younger added: Mariarosa told us about your marital crisis; we hope you’ll come out of it without too much suffering.
In this way I discovered that the news of the break between me and Pietro had reached not only Adele but Milan and even France. Better that way, I thought; it will be easier to make the separation permanent. I said to myself: I’ll take what’s mine, and I mustn’t live in fear of losing Nino, I mustn’t worry about Dede and Elsa. I’m fortunate, he will always love me, my daughters are my daughters, everything will work out.
6
We returned to Rome. We promised each other everything as we said goodbye, we did nothing but promise. Then Nino left for Naples and I for Florence.
I returned home almost on tiptoe, convinced that one of the most difficult trials of my life awaited me. Instead the children greeted me with apprehensive joy, and began tagging after me through the house — not only Elsa but Dede, too — as if they were afraid that if they lost sight of me I would disappear again. Adele was polite and didn’t mention even once the situation that had brought her to my house; Pietro, very pale, confined himself to handing me a piece of paper with a list of phone calls for me (Lila’s name appeared at least four times), muttered that he had to go to work, and two hours later had disappeared, without even saying goodbye to his mother or the children.
It took a few days for Adele to manifest her opinion plainly: she wanted me to return to myself and to my husband. But it took several weeks to convince her that I really didn’t want either of those things. In that time she never raised her voice, never lost her temper, didn’t even comment sarcastically about my frequent long phone calls to Nino. She was more interested in the phone calls from the two women in Nanterre, who were keeping me informed of the progress of the book and of a calendar of engagements that would lead to a tour in France. She wasn’t surprised at the positive reviews in the French papers; she was sure that the book would soon get the same attention in Italy, she said that in our papers she would have been able to obtain better. Above all she insistently praised my intelligence, my education, my courage, and on no account did she defend her son, who, besides, was never around.
I assumed that Pietro did not really have work obligations outside of Florence. Rather, I was immediately convinced, with rage and even a hint of contempt, that he had entrusted the resolution of our crisis to his mother and was holed up somewhere to work on his interminable book. Once, I couldn’t contain myself and I said to Adele:
“It was really difficult to live with your son.”
“There’s no man it’s not difficult to live with.”
“With him, believe me, it’s been especially difficult.”
“You think it will go better with Nino?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve asked around, the talk about him in Milan is very nasty.”
“I don’t need the talk of Milan. I’ve loved him for twenty years and you can spare me the gossip. I know more about him than anyone else.”
“How you like saying you love him.”
“Why shouldn’t I like it?”
“You’re right, why? I was wrong: it’s pointless to open the eyes of someone in love.”
From then on we stopped talking about Nino. And when I left the girls with her to rush to Naples she didn’t bat an eye. She didn’t bat an eye even when I told her that, when I returned from Naples, I would have to go to France and would be there for a week. She asked only, with a slightly ironic inflection: “Will you be here for Christmas? Will you be with the children?”
The question almost offended me, I answered:
“Of course.”
I filled my suitcase mainly with elegant underwear and stylish dresses. At the announcement of my new departure Dede and Elsa, who never asked about their father, even though they hadn’t seen him for a long time, were extremely upset. Dede went so far as to yell words that were surely not hers: go, get out, you’re mean and hateful. I glanced at Adele, hoping that she would try to get her to play, and distract her, but she did nothing. When they saw me go to the door they began to cry. Elsa started it, shrieking, I want to come with you. Dede resisted, she tried to show me all her indifference, maybe even her scorn, but finally she gave in and became even more desperate than her sister. I had to tear myself away from them, they held on to my dress, they wanted me to leave the suitcase. Their cries pursued me to the street.
The trip to Naples seemed very long. Nearing the city I looked out the window. As the train slowed down, sliding into the urban space, I was seized by an anxious exhaustion. I noticed the ugliness of the periphery, with the small gray apartment buildings beyond the tracks; the pylons, the lights of the signals, the stone parapets. When the train entered the station it seemed to me that the Naples I felt bound to, the Naples I was returning to, was now summed up only in Nino. I knew that he was in worse trouble than I was. Eleonora had thrown him out of the house; for him, too, everything had become provisional. For several weeks he had been staying at the house of a university colleague who lived near the Duomo. Where would he take me, what would we do? And, above all, what decisions would we make, since we hadn’t the least idea of a concrete solution to our situation? The only thing clear to me was that I was burning with desire, I couldn’t wait to see him. I got out of the train terrified that something had kept him from coming to meet me. But he was there: tall as he was, he stood out in the stream of travelers.