That idea became insistent. Everything I read in that period ultimately drew Lila in, one way or another. I had come upon a female model of thinking that, given the obvious differences, provoked in me the same admiration, the same sense of inferiority that I felt toward her. Not only that: I read thinking of her, of fragments of her life, of the sentences she would agree with, of those she would have rejected. Afterward, impelled by that reading, I often joined the group of Mariarosa’s friends, but it wasn’t easy: Dede asked me continuously when we were leaving, Elsa would suddenly let out cries of joy. But it wasn’t just my daughters who were the problem. It was that there I found only women who, resembling me, couldn’t help me. I was bored when the discussion became a sort of inelegant summary of what I already knew. And it seemed to me I knew well enough what it meant to be born female, I wasn’t interested in the work of consciousness-raising. And I had no intention of speaking in public about my relationship with Pietro, or with men in general, to provide testimony about what men are, of every class and of every age. And no one knew better than I did what it meant to make your own head masculine so that it would be accepted by the culture of men; I had done it, I was doing it. Furthermore I remained completely outside the tensions, the explosions of jealousy, the authoritarian tones, weak, submissive voices, intellectual hierarchies, struggles for primacy in the group that ended in desperate tears. But there was one new fact, which naturally led me to Lila. I was fascinated by the way people talked, confronted each other — explicit to the point of being disagreeable. I didn’t like the amenability that yielded to gossip: I had known enough of that since childhood. What seduced me instead was an urge for authenticity that I had never felt and that perhaps was not in my nature. I never said a single word, in that circle, that was equal to that urgency. But I felt that I should do something like that with Lila, examine our connection with the same inflexibility, that we should tell each other fully what we had been silent about, starting perhaps from the unaccustomed lament for my mistaken book.
That need was so strong that I imagined going to Naples with the children for a while, or asking her to come to me with Gennaro, or to write to each other. I talked about it with her once on the phone but it was a fiasco. I told her about the books by women I was reading, about the group I went to. She listened but then she laughed at titles like The Clitoral Woman and the Vaginal Woman, and did her best to be vulgar: What the fuck are you talking about, Lenù, pleasure, pussy, we’ve got plenty of problems here already, you’re crazy. She wanted to prove that she didn’t have the tools to put into words the things that interested me. And in the end she was scornful, she said: Work, do the nice things you have to do, don’t waste time. She got angry. Evidently it’s not the right moment, I thought, I’ll try again later on. But I never found the time or the courage to try again. I concluded that first of all I had to understand better what I was. Investigate my nature as a woman. I had been excessive, I had striven to give myself male capacities. I thought I had to know everything, be concerned with everything. What did I care about politics, about struggles. I wanted to make a good impression on men, be at their level. At the level of what, of their reason, most unreasonable. Such persistence in memorizing fashionable jargon, wasted effort. I had been conditioned by my education, which had shaped my mind, my voice. To what secret pacts with myself had I consented, just to excel. And now, after the hard work of learning, what must I unlearn. Also, I had been forced by the powerful presence of Lila to imagine myself as I was not. I was added to her, and I felt mutilated as soon as I removed myself. Not an idea, without Lila. Not a thought I trusted, without the support of her thoughts. Not an image. I had to accept myself outside of her. The gist was that. Accept that I was an average person. What should I do. Try again to write. Maybe I didn’t have the passion, I merely limited myself to carrying out a task. So don’t write anymore. Find some job. Or act the lady, as my mother said. Shut myself up in the family. Or turn everything upside down. House. Children. Husband.
78
I consolidated my relations with Mariarosa. I called her frequently, but when Pietro noticed he began to speak more and more contemptuously of his sister. She was frivolous, she was empty, she was dangerous to herself and others, she had been the cruel tormenter of his childhood and adolescence, she was the great worry of her parents. One evening he came out of his study disheveled, his face tired, while I was talking to my sister-in-law on the phone. He walked around the kitchen, ate something, joked with Dede, eavesdropping on our conversation. Then all of a sudden he shouted: Doesn’t that idiot know it’s time for dinner? I apologized to Mariarosa and hung up. It’s all ready, I said, we can eat right away, there’s no need to shout. He complained that spending money on phone calls to listen to his sister’s nonsense seemed stupid to him. I didn’t answer, I set the table. He realized I was angry, and said, in a tone of apprehension: I’m mad at Mariarosa, not you. But after that night he began to look through the books I was reading, to make sarcastic comments on the sentences I had underlined. He said, Don’t be taken in, it’s nonsense. And he tried to demonstrate the weak logic of feminist manifestos and pamphlets.
On this very subject we ended up arguing one evening and maybe I overdid it, going so far as to say to him: You think you’re so great but everything you are you owe to your father and mother, just like Mariarosa. His reaction was completely unexpected: he slapped me, and in Dede’s presence.
I took it well, better than he did: I had had many blows in the course of my life, Pietro had never given any and almost certainly had never received any. I saw in his face the revulsion for what he had done; he stared at his daughter for an instant, and left the house. My anger cooled. I didn’t go to bed, I waited for him, and when he didn’t return I became anxious, I didn’t know what to do. Did he have some nervous illness, from too little sleep? Or was that his true nature, buried under thousands of books and a proper upbringing? I realized yet again that I knew little about him, that I wasn’t able to predict his moves: he might have jumped into the Arno, be lying drunk somewhere, even left for Genoa to find comfort and complain in his mother’s arms. Oh enough, I was frightened. I realized that I was leaving what I was reading, and what I knew, on the edges of my personal life. I had two daughters, I didn’t want to draw conclusions too hastily.
Pietro came home at around five in the morning and the relief of seeing him safe and sound was so great that I hugged him, I kissed him. He mumbled: You don’t love me, you’ve never loved me. And he added: Anyway, I don’t deserve you.
79
The fact was that Pietro couldn’t accept the disorder that was by now spreading into every aspect of existence. He would have liked a life ruled by unquestioned habits: studying, teaching, playing with the children, making love, contributing every day, in his small way, to resolving by democratic means the vast confusion of Italian affairs. Instead he was exhausted by the conflicts at the university, his colleagues disparaged his work, and although he was gaining a reputation abroad, he felt constantly vilified and threatened, he had the impression that because of my restlessness (but what restlessness, I was an opaque woman) our very family was exposed to constant risks. One afternoon Elsa was playing on her own, I was making Dede practice reading, he was shut in his study, the house was still. Pietro, I thought anxiously, is looking for a fortress where he works on his book, I take care of the household, and the children grow up serenely. Then the doorbell rang, I went to open the door, and to my surprise Pasquale and Nadia entered.