Elsa asked: “When is a month, when is thirty days?”
And I, having managed to repress my tears, stared at Nino and said:
“Yes, when is a month, when is thirty days?”
We laughed — Dede more than us adults — at Elsa’s vague idea of time. Then Pietro tried to pay, but he discovered that Nino had already done it. He protested. He drove, I sat in the back between the two girls, who were half asleep. We took Nino to the hotel and all the way I listened to their slightly tipsy conversation. Once we were there Pietro, euphoric, said:
“It doesn’t make sense to throw away money: we have a guest room, next time you can come and stay with us, don’t stand on ceremony.”
Nino smiled:
“Less than an hour ago we said that Elena needs time, and now you want to burden her with my presence?”
I interrupted wearily: “It would be a pleasure for me, and also for Dede and Elsa.”
But as soon as we were alone I said to my husband:
“Before making certain invitations you might at least consult me.”
He started the car, looked at me in the rearview mirror, stammered:
“I thought it would please you.”
102
Oh of course it pleased me, it pleased me greatly. But I also felt as if my body had the consistency of eggshell, and a slight pressure on my arm, on my forehead, on my stomach would be enough to break it and dig out all my secrets, in particular those which were secrets even to me. I avoided counting the days. I concentrated on the texts I was studying, but I did it as if Nino had commissioned that work and on his return would expect first-rate results. I wanted to tell him: I followed your advice, I kept going, here’s a draft, tell me what you think.
It was a good expedient. The thirty days of waiting went by too quickly. I forgot about Elisa, I never thought of Lila, I didn’t telephone Mariarosa. And I didn’t read the newspapers or watch television. I neglected the children and the house. Of arrests and clashes and assassinations and wars, in the permanent agon of Italy and the planet, only an echo reached me; I was scarcely aware of the heavy tensions of the electoral campaign. All I did was write, with great absorption. I racked my brains over a pile of old questions, until I had the impression that I had found, at least in writing, a definitive order. At times I was tempted to turn to Pietro. He was much smarter than me, he would surely save me from writing hasty or crude or stupid things. But I didn’t do it, I hated the moments when he intimidated me with his encyclopedic knowledge. I worked hard, I remember, especially on the first and second Biblical creations. I put them in order, taking the first as a sort of synthesis of the divine creative act, the second as a sort of more expansive account. I made up a lively story, without ever feeling imprudent. God — I wrote, more or less — creates man, Ish, in his image. He creates a masculine and a feminine version. How? First, with the dust of the earth, he forms Ish, and blows into his nostrils the breath of life. Then he makes Isha’h, the woman, from the already formed male material, material no longer raw but living, which he takes from Ish’s side, and immediately closes up the flesh. The result is that Ish can say: This thing is not, like the army of all that has been created, other than me, but is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones. God produced it from me. He made me fertile with the breath of life and extracted it from my body. I am Ish and she is Isha’h. In the word above all, in the word that names her, she derives from me. I am in the image of the divine spirit. I carry within me his Word. She is therefore a pure suffix applied to my verbal root, she can express herself only within my word.
And I went on like that and lived for days and days in a state of pleasurable intellectual overexcitement. My only pressure was to have a readable text in time. Every so often I was surprised at myself: I had the impression that striving for Nino’s approval made the writing easier, freed me.
But the month passed and he didn’t appear. At first it helped me: I had more time and managed to complete my work. Then I was alarmed, I asked Pietro. I discovered that they often talked in the office, but that he hadn’t heard from him for several days.
“You often talk?” I said annoyed.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?”
“That you often talked.”
“They were calls about work.”
“Well, since you’ve become so friendly, call and see if he’ll deign to tell us when he’s coming.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Not for you, but the effort is mine: I’m the one who has to take care of everything and I’d like to be warned in time.”
He didn’t call him. I responded by saying to myself: All right, let’s wait, Nino promised the girls he’d be back, I don’t think he’ll disappoint them. And it was true. He called a week late, in the evening. I answered, he seemed embarrassed. He uttered a few generalities, then he asked: Is Pietro not there? I was embarrassed in turn, I gave the phone to Pietro. They talked for a long time, I felt with increasing uneasiness that my husband was using unfamiliar tones: exclamations, laughter, his voice too loud. I understood only then that the relationship with Nino reassured him, made him feel less isolated, he forgot his troubles and worked more eagerly. I went into my study, where Dede was reading and Elsa playing, both waiting for dinner. But even there his voice reached me, he seemed drunk. Then he was silent, I heard his steps in the house. He peeked in, and said gaily to his daughters:
“Girls, tomorrow night we’re going to eat frittelle with uncle Nino.”
Dede and Elsa shouted with excitement, I asked:
“What’s he doing, is he coming to stay here?”
“No,” he answered, “he’s with his wife and son, they’re at the hotel.”
103
It took me a long time to absorb the meaning of those words. I burst out:
“He could have warned us.”
“They decided at the last minute.”
“He’s a boor.”
“Elena, what is the problem?”
So Nino had come with his wife; I was terrified by the comparison. I knew what I was like, I knew the crude physicality of my body, but for a good part of my life I had given it little importance. I had grown up with one pair of shoes at a time, ugly dresses sewed by my mother, makeup only on rare occasions. In recent years I had begun to be interested in fashion, to educate my taste under Adele’s guidance, and now I enjoyed dressing up. But sometimes — especially when I had dressed not only to make a good impression in general but for a man — preparing myself (this was the word) seemed to me to have something ridiculous about it. All that struggle, all that time spent camouflaging myself when I could be doing something else. The colors that suited me, the ones that didn’t, the styles that made me look thinner, those that made me fatter, the cut that flattered me, the one that didn’t. A lengthy, costly preparation. Reducing myself to a table set for the sexual appetite of the male, to a well-cooked dish to make his mouth water. And then the anguish of not succeeding, of not seeming pretty, of not managing to conceal with skill the vulgarity of the flesh with its moods and odors and imperfections. But I had done it. I had done it also for Nino, recently. I had wanted to show him that I was different, that I had achieved a refinement of my own, that I was no longer the girl at Lila’s wedding, the student at the party of Professor Galiani’s children, and not even the inexperienced author of a single book, as I must have appeared in Milan. But now, enough. He had brought his wife and I was angry, it seemed to me a mean thing. I hated competing in looks with another woman, especially under the gaze of a man, and I suffered at the thought of finding myself in the same place with the beautiful girl I had seen in the photograph, it made me sick to my stomach. She would size me up, study every detail with the pride of a woman of Via Tasso taught since birth to attend to her body; then, at the end of the evening, alone with her husband, she would criticize me with cruel lucidity.