The Neapolitan Novels

In Florence I had invented a plot, drawing on facts of my childhood and adolescence with the boldness that came from distance. Naples, seen from there, was almost a place of imagination, a city like the ones in films, which although the streets and buildings are real serve only as a background for crime stories or romances. Then, since I had moved and saw Lila every day, a mania for reality had gripped me, and although I hadn’t named it I had told the story of the neighborhood. But I must have overdone it, and the relationship between truth and fiction must have gone awry: now every street, every building had become recognizable, and maybe even the people, even the violent acts. The photographs were proof of what my pages really contained, they identified the area conclusively, and the neighborhood ceased to be, as it had always been for me while I was writing, an invention. The author of the article told the history of the neighborhood, even mentioning the murders of Don Achille Carracci and Manuela Solara. He went on at length about the latter, hypothesizing that it had been either the visible point of a conflict between Camorra families or an execution at the hands of the “dangerous terrorist Pasquale Peluso, born and raised in the area, former bricklayer, former secretary of the local section of the Communist Party.” But I hadn’t written anything about Pasquale, I hadn’t written anything about Don Achille or Manuela. The Carraccis, the Solaras had been for me only outlines, voices that had been able to enrich, with the cadence of dialect, gestures, at times violent tonalities, a completely imagined scheme. I didn’t want to stick my nose in their real business, what did “the dominion of the Solara brothers” have to do with it.

I had written a novel.

91.

I went to Lila’s house in a state of great agitation, the children were with her. You’re back already, said Elsa, who felt freer when I wasn’t there. And Dede greeted me distractedly, murmuring with feigned restraint: Just a minute, Mamma, I’ll finish my homework and then hug you. The only enthusiastic one was Imma, who pressed her lips to my cheek and kissed me for a long time, refusing to let go. Tina wanted to do the same. But I had other things on my mind, and paid them almost no attention. I immediately showed Lila Panorama. I told her about the Solaras, suppressing my anxiety. I said: They’re angry. Lina read the article calmly and made a single comment: Nice photos. I exclaimed:

“I’ll send a letter, I’ll protest. Let them do a report on Naples, let them do it on, I don’t know, the kidnapping of Cirillo, on Camorra deaths, on what they want, but they shouldn’t use my book gratuitously.”

“And why?”

“Because it’s literature, I didn’t narrate real events.”

“I recall that you did.”

I looked at her uncertainly.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t use the names, but a lot of things were recognizable.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told you I didn’t like the book. Things are told or not told: you remained in the middle.”

“It was a novel.”

“Partly a novel, partly not.”

I didn’t answer, my anxiety increased. Now I didn’t know if I was more unhappy about the Solaras’ reaction or because she, serenely, had just repeated her negative judgment of years earlier. I looked at Dede and Elsa, who had taken possession of the magazine, but almost without seeing them. Elsa exclaimed:

“Tina, come see, you’re in the newspaper.”

Tina approached and looked at herself, eyes wide with wonder and a pleased smile on her face. Imma asked Elsa:

“Where am I?”

“You’re not there because Tina is pretty and you’re ugly,” her sister answered.

Imma then turned to Dede to find out if it was true. And Dede, after reading the Panorama caption aloud twice, tried to convince her that since her name was Sarratore and not Airota, she wasn’t truly my daughter. I couldn’t take it anymore, I was tired, upset, I cried: That’s enough, let’s go home. They all three objected, supported by Tina and by Lila, who insisted that we stay for dinner.