The Neapolitan Novels

She made an effort to limit herself to contempt, but she had a malicious look, she entwined her fingers and gripped them, making her knuckles turn white. I saw that behind those words, fierce in themselves, there were even fiercer ones that she avoided saying, but that she had ready in her mind. I read them in her face, I heard them shouted: If it was the Solaras who took Tina away from me, then too little was done to them, they should have been drawn and quartered, their hearts ripped out, and their guts dumped on the street; if it wasn’t them, whoever murdered them did a good thing just the same, they deserved that and more; if the assassins had whistled I would have hurried to give them a hand.

But she never expressed herself in that way. To all appearances the abrupt exit from the scene of the two brothers seemed to have little effect on her. Only it encouraged her to walk in the neighborhood more frequently, since there was no longer any chance of meeting them. She never mentioned returning to the activities of the time before Tina’s disappearance, she never resumed the life of home and office. She made her convalescence last for weeks and weeks, as she wandered around the tunnel, the stradone, the gardens. She walked with her head down, she spoke to no one, and since, partly because of her neglected appearance, she continued to seem dangerous to herself and others, no one spoke to her.

Sometimes she insisted that I go with her, and it was hard to say no. We often passed the bar-pastry shop, which bore a sign saying “Closed for mourning.” The mourning never ended, the shop never reopened, the time of the Solaras was over. But Lila glanced every time at the lowered shutters, the faded sign, and said with satisfaction: It’s still closed. The fact seemed to her so positive that, as we passed by, she might even give a small laugh, just a small laugh, as if in that closure there was something ridiculous.

Only once did we stop at the corner as if to take in its ugliness, now that it was without the old embellishments of the bar. Once, there had been tables and colored chairs, the fragrance of pastries and coffee, the coming and going of people, secret trafficking, honest deals and corrupt deals. Now there was the chipped gray wall. When the grandfather died, Lila said, after their mother’s murder, Marcello and Michele carpeted the neighborhood with crosses and Madonnas, they made endless lamentations; now that they’re dead, zero. Then she remembered when she was still in the clinic and I had told her that, according to the reticent words of the people, the bullets that killed the Solaras hadn’t been fired by anyone. No one killed them—she smiled—no one weeps for them. And she stopped, and was silent for a few seconds. Then, without any obvious connection, she told me that she didn’t want to work anymore.

16.

It didn’t seem like a random manifestation of a bad mood, surely she had thought about it for a long time, maybe since she had left the clinic. She said:

“If Enzo can do it by himself, good, and if not we’ll sell it.”

“You want to give up Basic Sight? And what will you do?”

“Does a person necessarily have to do something?”

“You have to use your life.”

“The way you do?”

“Why not?”

She laughed, she sighed:

“I want to waste time.”

“You have Gennaro, you have Enzo, you have to think of them.”

“Gennaro is twenty-three years old, I’ve been too taken up with him. And I have to separate Enzo from me.”

“Why?”

“I want to go back to sleeping alone.”

“It’s terrible to sleep alone.”

“You do, don’t you?”

“I don’t have a man.”

“Why should I have one?”

“Aren’t you fond of Enzo anymore?”

“Yes, but I have no desire for him or anyone. I’m old and no one should disturb me when I sleep.”

“Go to a doctor.”

“Enough with doctors.”

“I’ll go with you, those are problems that can be solved.”

She became serious.

“No, I’m fine like this.”

“No one is fine like this.”

“I am. Fucking is very overrated.”

“I’m talking about love.”

“I have other things on my mind. You’ve already forgotten Tina, not me.”

I heard Enzo and her arguing more frequently. Rather, in the case of Enzo, only his heavy voice reached me, slightly more emphatic than usual, while Lila did nothing but scream. Only a few phrases of his reached me upstairs, filtered through the floor. He wasn’t angry—he was never angry with Lila—he was desperate. In essence he said that everything had gotten worse—Tina, the work, their relationship—but she wasn’t doing anything to redefine the situation; rather she wanted everything to continue getting worse. You talk to us, he said to me once. I answered that it was no use, she just needed more time to find an equilibrium. Enzo, for the first time, replied roughly: Lina has never had any equilibrium.