My Brilliant Friend (37 page)

“Maybe it’s not true that he loves me.”

“What do you mean he doesn’t love you? He does everything you tell him to.”

“Only when I don’t put real money at risk,” she said in a tone of contempt that I had never heard her use for Stefano Carracci.

In any case she returned to the world. She didn’t appear in the grocery, she didn’t go to the new house, in other words she was not the one who would seek to reconcile. She waited for Stefano to say to her: “Thank you, I love you dearly, you know there are things one is obliged to do.” Only then did she let him come up behind her and kiss her on the neck. But then she turned suddenly and looking him straight in the eyes said to him, “Marcello Solara must absolutely not set foot in my wedding.”

“How can I prevent it?”

“I don’t know, but you must swear to me.”

He snorted and said smiling, “All right, Lina, I swear.”

March 12th arrived, a mild day that was almost like spring. Lila wanted me to come early to her old house, so that I could help her wash, do her hair, dress. She sent her mother away, we were alone. She sat on the edge of the bed in underpants and bra. Next to her was the wedding dress, which looked like the body of a dead woman; in front of us, on the hexagonal-tiled floor, was the copper tub full of boiling water. She asked me abruptly: “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

“How?”

“By getting married.”

“Are you still thinking about the speech master?”

“No, I’m thinking of the teacher. Why didn’t she want me to come in?”

“Because she’s a mean old lady.”

She was silent for a while, staring at the water that sparkled in the tub, then she said, “Whatever happens, you’ll go on studying.”

“Two more years: then I’ll get my diploma and I’m done.”

“No, don’t ever stop: I’ll give you the money, you should keep studying.”

I gave a nervous laugh, then said, “Thanks, but at a certain point school is over.”

“Not for you: you’re my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls.”

She got up, took off her underpants and bra, said, “Come on, help me, otherwise I’ll be late.”

I had never seen her naked, I was embarrassed. Today I can say that it was the embarrassment of gazing with pleasure at her body, of being the not impartial witness of her sixteen-year-old’s beauty a few hours before Stefano touched her, penetrated her, disfigured her, perhaps, by making her pregnant. At the time it was just a tumultuous sensation of necessary awkwardness, a state in which you cannot avert the gaze or take away the hand without recognizing your own turmoil, without, by that retreat, declaring it, hence without coming into conflict with the undisturbed innocence of the one who is the cause of the turmoil, without expressing by that rejection the violent emotion that overwhelms you, so that it forces you to stay, to rest your gaze on the childish shoulders, on the breasts and stiffly cold nipples, on the narrow hips and the tense buttocks, on the black sex, on the long legs, on the tender knees, on the curved ankles, on the elegant feet; and to act as if it’s nothing, when instead everything is there, present, in the poor dim room, amid the worn furniture, on the uneven, water-stained floor, and your heart is agitated, your veins inflamed.

I washed her with slow, careful gestures, first letting her squat in the tub, then asking her to stand up: I still have in my ears the sound of the dripping water, and the impression that the copper of the tub had a consistency not different from Lila’s flesh, which was smooth, solid, calm. I had a confusion of feelings and thoughts: embrace her, weep with her, kiss her, pull her hair, laugh, pretend to sexual experience and instruct her in a learned voice, distancing her with words just at the moment of greatest closeness. But in the end there was only the hostile thought that I was washing her, from her hair to the soles of her feet, early in the morning, just so that Stefano could sully her in the course of the night. I imagined her naked as she was at that moment, entwined with her husband, in the bed in the new house, while the train clattered under their windows and his violent flesh entered her with a sharp blow, like the cork pushed by the palm into the neck of a wine bottle. And it suddenly seemed to me that the only remedy against the pain I was feeling, that I would feel, was to find a corner secluded enough so that Antonio could do to me, at the same time, the exact same thing.

I helped her dry off, dress, put on the wedding dress that I—I, I thought with a mixture of pride and suffering—had chosen for her. The fabric became living, over its whiteness ran Lila’s heat, the red of her mouth, her hard black eyes. Finally she put on the shoes that she herself had designed. Pressed by Rino, who if she hadn’t worn them would have felt a kind of betrayal, she had chosen a pair with low heels, to avoid seeming too much taller than Stefano. She looked at herself in the mirror, lifting the dress slightly.

“They’re ugly,” she said.

“It’s not true.”

She laughed nervously.

“But yes, look: the mind’s dreams have ended up under the feet.”

She turned with a sudden expression of fear.

“What’s going to happen to me, Lenù?”

In the kitchen, waiting impatiently for us, were Fernando and Nunzia. I had never seen them so well dressed and groomed. At that time Lila’s parents, mine—all parents—seemed to me old. I didn’t make much of a distinction between them and my grandparents, maternal and paternal, creatures who in my eyes all led a sort of cold life, an existence that had nothing in common with mine, with Lila’s, Stefano’s, Antonio’s, Pasquale’s. It was we who were truly consumed by the heat of feelings, by the outburst of thoughts. Only now, as I write, do I realize that Fernando at that time couldn’t have been more than forty-five, Nunzia was certainly a few years younger, and together, that morning, he, in a white shirt and dark suit, with his Randolph Scott face, and she, all in blue, with a blue hat and blue veil, made an impressive sight. The same goes for my parents, about whose age I can be more precise, my father was thirty-nine, my mother thirty-five. I looked at them for a long time in the church. I felt with vexation that, that day, my success in school consoled them not at all, that in fact they felt, especially my mother, that it was pointless, a waste of time. When Lila, splendid in the dazzling white cloud of her dress and the gauzy veil, processed through the Church of the Holy Family on the arm of the shoemaker and joined Stefano, who looked extremely handsome, at the flower-decked altar—lucky the florist who had provided such abundance—my mother, even if her wandering eye seemed to gaze elsewhere, looked at me to make me regret that I was there, in my glasses, far from the center of the scene, while my bad friend had acquired a wealthy husband, economic security for her family, a house of her own, not rented but bought, with a bathtub, a refrigerator, a television, and a telephone.

The ceremony was long, the priest drew it out for an eternity. Coming into the church the relatives and friends of the bridegroom had all sat together on one side, the relatives and friends of the bride on the other. Throughout the ceremony the photographer kept shooting—flash, spotlights—while his young assistant filmed the important moments.

Antonio sat devotedly next to me, in his new tailor-made suit, leaving to Ada—who was really annoyed because, as the clerk in the bridegroom’s grocery store, she might have aspired to a better place—the job of sitting at the back next to Melina and keeping an eye on her, along with the younger children. Once or twice he whispered something in my ear, but I didn’t answer. He was supposed simply to sit next to me, without showing a particular intimacy, to avoid gossip. I let my eyes wander through the crowded church, people were bored and, like me, kept looking around. There was an intense fragrance of flowers, a smell of new clothes. Gigliola looked pretty, and so did Carmela Peluso. And the boys were their equal. Enzo and especially Pasquale seemed to want to demonstrate that there, at the altar, next to Lila, they would have made a better showing than Stefano. As for Rino, while the construction worker and the fruit and vegetable seller stood at the back of the church, like sentinels for the success of the ceremony, he, the brother of the bride, breaking the order of family ranks, had gone to sit next to Pinuccia, on the side of the bridegroom’s relatives, and he, too, was perfect in his new suit, Cerullo shoes on his feet, as shiny as his brilliantined hair. What a display! It was clear that no one who had received an invitation wanted to miss it, and they came dressed like grand ladies and gentlemen, something that, as far as I knew, as far as everyone knew, meant that not a few—perhaps first of all Antonio, who was sitting next to me—had had to borrow money. Then I looked at Silvio Solara, a large man in a dark suit, standing next to the bridegroom, with a lot of gold glittering on his wrists. I looked at his wife, Manuela, dressed in pink, and loaded down with jewels, who stood beside the bride. The money for the display came from them. With Don Achille dead, it was that man with his purple complexion and blue eyes, bald at the temples, and that lean woman, with a long nose and thin lips, who lent money to the whole neighborhood (or, to be precise, Manuela managed the practical side: famous and feared was the ledger book with the red cover in which she put down figures, due dates). Lila’s wedding was an affair not only for the florist, not only for the photographer, but, above all, for that couple, who had also provided the cake, and the favors.

Lila, I realized, never looked at them. She didn’t even turn toward Stefano, she stared only at the priest. I thought that, seen like that, from behind, they were not a handsome couple. Lila was taller, he shorter. Lila gave off an energy that couldn’t be ignored, he seemed a faded little man. Lila seemed extremely absorbed, as if she were obliged to understand fully what that ritual truly signified, he instead turned every so often toward his mother or exchanged a smile with Silvio Solara or scratched his head. At one point I was seized by anxiety. I thought: and if Stefano really isn’t what he seems? But I didn’t follow that thought to the end for two reasons. First of all, the bride and groom said yes clearly, decisively, amid the general commotion: they exchanged rings, they kissed, I had to understand that Lila was really married. And then suddenly I stopped paying attention to the bride and groom. I realized that I had seen everyone except Alfonso, I looked for him among the relatives of the bridegroom, among those of the bride, and found him at the back of the church, almost hidden by a pillar. But behind him appeared in full splendor Marisa Sarratore. And right behind her, lanky, disheveled, hands in his pockets, in the rumpled jacket and pants he wore to school, was Nino.

There was a confused crowding around the newlyweds, who came out of the church accompanied by the vibrant sounds of the organ, the flashes of the photographer. Lila and Stefano stood in the church square amid kisses, embraces, the chaos of the cars and the nervousness of the relatives who were left waiting, while others, not even blood relations—but perhaps more important, more loved, more richly dressed, ladies with especially elegant hats?—were loaded immediately into cars and driven to Via Orazio, to the restaurant.

Alfonso was all dressed up. I had never seen him in a dark suit, white shirt, tie. Outside of his modest school clothes, outside of the grocery apron, he seemed to me not only older than his sixteen years but suddenly—I thought—physically different from his brother Stefano. He was taller now, slender, and was handsome, like a Spanish dancer I had seen on television, with large eyes, full lips, still no trace of a beard. Marisa had evidently stuck with him, their relationship had developed, they must have been seeing each other without my realizing it. Had Alfonso, however devoted to me, been won over by Marisa’s curls and her unstoppable chatter, which exempted him, who was so shy, from filling the gaps in conversation? Were they together officially? I doubted it, he would have told me. But things were clearly going well, since he had invited her to his brother’s wedding. And she, surely in order to get her parents’ permission, had dragged Nino along.

So there he was, in the church square, the young Sarratore, completely out of place in his shabby old clothes, too tall, too thin, hair too long and uncombed, hands sunk too deep in the pockets of his trousers, wearing the expression of one who doesn’t know what to do with himself, his eyes on the newlyweds like everyone else’s, but without interest, only to rest them somewhere. That unexpected presence added greatly to the emotional disorder of the day. We greeted each other in the church, a whisper and that was it, hello, hello. Nino had followed his sister and Alfonso, I had been grabbed firmly by the arm by Antonio and, although I immediately freed myself, had still ended up in the company of Ada, Melina, Pasquale, Carmela, Enzo. Now, in the uproar, while the newlyweds got into a big white car with the photographer and his assistant, to go and have pictures taken at the Parco della Rimembranza, I became anxious that Antonio’s mother would recognize Nino, that she would read in his face some feature of Donato’s. It was a needless worry. Lila’s mother, Nunzia, led that addled woman, along with Ada and the smaller children, to a car and they drove away.

In fact no one recognized Nino, not even Gigliola, not even Carmela, not even Enzo. Nor did they notice Marisa, although her features still resembled those of the girl she had been. The two Sarratores, for the moment, passed completely unobserved. And meanwhile Antonio was pushing me toward Pasquale’s old car, and Carmela and Enzo got in with us, and we were about to leave, and all I could say was, “Where are my parents? I hope someone is taking care of them.” Enzo said that he had seen them in some car, and so there was nothing to do, we left, and I barely had time to glance at Nino, standing in the church square, in a daze, while Alfonso and Marisa were talking to each other. Then I lost him.

I became nervous. Antonio, sensitive to my every change of mood, whispered, “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Did something upset you?”