Both Rino and Michele blamed Gigliola for the fire, because she smoked secretly and so had a tiny lighter. According to Rino, Gigliola had done it on purpose: while they were all occupied by their wrangling, she had set fire to the panel, which, loaded with paper, glue, paint, had instantly burst into flames. Michele was more circumspect: Gigliola, he knew, continuously toyed with the lighter and so, unintentionally, caught up in the argument, hadn’t realized that the flame was too close to the photograph. But the girl couldn’t bear either the first hypothesis or the second, and with a fiercely combative look blamed Lila herself, that is, she blamed the disfigured image, which had caught fire spontaneously, like the Devil, who, attempting to corrupt the saints, assumed the features of a woman, but the saints called on Jesus, and the demon was transformed into flames. She added, in confirmation of her version, that Pinuccia herself had told her that her sister-in-law had the ability not to stay pregnant, and, in fact, if she was unsuccessful she would let the child drain out, rejecting the gifts of the Lord.
This gossip grew worse when Michele Solara began to go regularly to the new grocery store. He spent a lot of time joking with Lila, joking with Carmen, so that Carmen hypothesized that he came for her and on the one hand was afraid that someone would tell Enzo, doing his military service in Piedmont, while on the other she was flattered and began to flirt. Lila instead made fun of the young Solara. She heard the rumors spread by his fiancée and so she said to him: “You’d better go, we’re witches here, we’re very dangerous.”
But when I went to see her, during that period, I never found her truly cheerful. She assumed an artificial tone and was sarcastic about everything. Did she have a bruise on her arm? Stefano had caressed her too passionately. Were her eyes red from crying? Those were tears of happiness, not grief. Be careful of Michele, he liked to hurt people? No, she said, all he has to do is touch me and he’ll burn: it’s I who hurt people.
On that last point there had always been modest agreement. But Gigliola especially had no doubts by now: Lila was a witch-whore, she had cast a spell on her fiancé; that’s why he wanted her to manage the shop in Piazza dei Martiri. And for days, jealous, desperate, she wouldn’t go to work. Then she decided to talk to Pinuccia, they became allies, and moved to the offensive. Pinuccia worked on her brother, insisting that he was a happy cuckold, and then she attacked Rino, her fiancé, telling him that he wasn’t a boss but Michele’s servant. So one evening Stefano and Rino waited for Michele outside the bar, and when he appeared they made a very general speech that in substance, however, meant: leave Lila alone, you’re making her waste time, she has to work. Michele immediately got the message and replied coldly:
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“If you don’t understand it means you don’t want to understand.”
“No, my fine friends, it’s you who don’t want to understand our commercial needs. And if you won’t understand them, I necessarily have to see to them.”
“Meaning?” Stefano asked.
“Your wife is wasted in the grocery.”
“In what sense?”
“In Piazza dei Martiri she would make in a month what your sister and Gigliola couldn’t make in a hundred years.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Lina needs to command, Ste’. She needs to have a responsibility. She should invent things. She ought to start thinking right away about the new shoe styles.”
They argued and finally, amid a thousand fine distinctions, came to an agreement. Stefano absolutely refused to let his wife go and work in Piazza dei Martiri: the new grocery was going well and to take Lila out of there would be foolish; but he agreed to have her design new models right away, at least for winter. Michele said that not to let Lila run the shoe store was stupid, and with a vaguely threatening coolness he put off the discussion until after the summer; he considered it a done deal that she would start designing new shoes.
“They have to be chic,” he urged, “you have to insist on that point.”
“She’ll do what she wants, as usual.”
“I can advise her, she’ll listen to me,” said Michele.
“There’s no need.”
I went to see Lila shortly after that agreement, and she spoke to me about it herself. I had just come from school, the weather was already getting hot, and I was tired. She was alone in the grocery and for the moment she seemed as if relieved. She said that she wouldn’t design anything, not even a sandal, not even a slipper.
“They’ll get mad.”
“What can I do about it?”
“It’s money, Lila.”
“They already have enough.”
