I found out the next day why Stefano had been looking for her. It wasn’t because we were late. It wasn’t even because he was annoyed that his wife sometimes spent her free time with me and not with him. It was something else. He had just learned that Pinuccia was often seen with Rino at his house. He had just learned that the two were together in his bed, that Lila gave them the keys. He had just learned that Pinuccia was pregnant. But what had most infuriated him was that when he slapped his sister because of the disgusting things she and Rino had done, Pinuccia shouted at him, “You’re jealous because I’m a woman and Lina isn’t, because Rino knows how to behave with women and you don’t.” Lila, seeing him so upset, listening to him—and recalling the composure he had always shown when they were engaged—had burst out laughing, and Stefano had gone for a drive, so as not to murder her. According to her, he had gone to look for a prostitute.
33.
The preparations for Rino and Pinuccia’s wedding were carried out in a rush. I was not much concerned with it, I had my final class essays, the final oral exams. And then something else happened that caused me great agitation. Professor Galiani, who was in the habit of violating the teachers’ code of behavior with indifference, invited me—me and no one else in the school—to her house, to a party that her children were giving.
It was unusual enough that she lent me books and newspapers, that she had directed me to a march for peace and a demanding lecture. Now she had gone over the limit: she had taken me aside and given me that invitation. “Come as you like,” she had said, “alone or with someone, with your boyfriend or without: the important thing is to come.” Like that, a few days before the end of the school year, without worrying about how much I had to study, without worrying about the earthquake that it set off inside me.
I had immediately said yes, but I quickly discovered that I would never have the courage to go. A party at any professor’s house was unthinkable, imagine at the house of Professor Galiani. For me it was as if I were to present myself at the royal palace, curtsey to the queen, dance with the princes. A great pleasure but also an act of violence, like a yank: to be dragged by the arm, forced to do a thing that, although it appeals to you, you know is not suitable—you know that, if circumstances did not oblige you, you would happily avoid doing it. Probably it didn’t even occur to Professor Galiani that I had nothing to wear. In class I wore a shapeless black smock. What did she expect there was, the professor, under that smock: clothes and slips and underwear like hers? There was inadequacy, rather, there was poverty, poor breeding. I possessed a single pair of worn-out shoes. My only nice dress was the one I had worn to Lila’s wedding, but now it was hot, the dress was fine for March but not for the end of May. And yet the problem was not just what to wear. There was the solitude, the awkwardness of being among strangers, kids with ways of talking among themselves, joking, with tastes I didn’t know. I thought of asking Alfonso if he would go with me, he was always kind to me. But—I recalled—Alfonso was a schoolmate and Professor Galiani had addressed the invitation to me alone. What to do? For days I was paralyzed by anxiety, I thought of talking to the professor and coming up with some excuse. Then it occurred to me to ask Lila’s advice.
She was as usual in a difficult period, she had a yellow bruise under one cheekbone. She didn’t welcome the news.
“Why are you going there?”
“She invited me.”
“Where does this professor live?”
“Corso Vittorio Emanuele.”
“Can you see the sea from her house?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does her husband do?”
“A doctor at the Cotugno.”
“And the children are still in school?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want one of my dresses?”
“You know they don’t fit me.”
“You just have a bigger bust.”
“Everything of me is bigger, Lila.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I shouldn’t go?”
“It’s better.”
“O.K., I won’t go.”
She was visibly satisfied with that decision. I said goodbye, left the grocery, turned onto a street where stunted oleander bushes grew. But I heard her calling me, I turned back.
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“Where?”
“To the party.”
“Stefano won’t let you.”
“We’ll see. Tell me if you want to take me or not.”
“Of course I want to.”
