I didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was but I discovered that Lila did. She told him that Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima were two things that couldn’t be compared, that Pearl Harbor was a vile act of war and Hiroshima was an idiotic, fierce, vindictive horror, worse, much worse, than the Nazi massacres. And she concluded: the Americans should be tried like the worst criminals, those who do terrible things to terrorize the living and keep them on their knees. She was so passionate that Nino, instead of moving to the counterattack, was silent, very thoughtful. Then he turned to me, as if she weren’t there. He said that the problem wasn’t ferocity or revenge but the urgency to bring an end to the most atrocious of wars and, at the same time, by using that terrible new weapon, to all wars. He spoke in a low tone, looking me straight in the eyes, as if he were interested only in my agreement. It was a wonderful moment. He himself was wonderful, when he was like that. I was so filled with emotion that tears rose to my eyes and I had trouble repressing them.
Then Friday came again, a very hot day that we spent mostly in the water. And suddenly something went bad again.
We had just left the two boys and were going back to the house, the sun was low, the sky pinkish-blue, when Pinuccia, unexpectedly silent after many long hours of extravagant playfulness, threw her bag on the ground, sat down on the side of road, and began to cry with rage, small thin cries, almost a moaning.
Lila narrowed her eyes, stared at her as if she saw not her sister-in-law but something ugly for which she wasn’t prepared. I went back, frightened, asked, “Pina, what’s the matter, don’t you feel well?”
“I can’t bear this wet bathing suit.”
“We all have wet bathing suits.”
“It bothers me.”
“Calm down, come on, aren’t you hungry?”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You irritate me when you tell me to calm down. I can’t stand you anymore, Lenù, you and your calm down.”
And she started moaning again, and hitting her thighs.
I sensed that Lila was going on without waiting for us. I sensed that she had decided to do so not out of annoyance or indifference but because there was something in that behavior, something scorching, and if she got too close it would burn her. I helped Pinuccia get up, I carried her bag.
52.
Eventually she became quieter, but she spent the evening sulking, as if we had somehow offended her. When she was rude even to Nunzia, brusquely criticizing the way the pasta was cooked, Lila flared up and, breaking into a fierce dialect, dumped on her all the fantastic insults she was capable of. Pina decided to sleep with me that night.
She tossed and turned in her sleep. And with two people in the room the heat made it almost impossible to breathe. Soaked with sweat, I resigned myself to opening the window and was tormented by the mosquitoes. Then I couldn’t sleep at all, I waited for dawn, I got up.
Now I, too, was in a bad mood, I had three or four disfiguring bites on my face. I went to the kitchen, Nunzia was washing our dirty clothes. Lila, too, was already up, she had had her bread-and-milk, and was reading another of my books, who knows when she had stolen it from me. As soon as she saw me, she gave me a searching glance and asked, with a genuine concern that I didn’t expect: “How is Pinuccia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you angry?”
“Yes, I didn’t sleep a wink, and look at my face.”
“You can’t see anything.”
“
“Nino and Bruno won’t see anything, either.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“You still like Nino?”
“I’ve told you no a hundred times.”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Let’s think about Pinuccia.”
“You think about her, she’s your sister-in-law, not mine.”
“You’re angry.”
“Yes, I am.”
The day was even hotter than the one before. We went to the beach apprehensively, the bad mood traveled from one to the other like an infection.
Halfway there Pinuccia realized she had forgotten her towel and had another attack of nerves. Lila kept going, head down, without even turning around.
“I’ll go get it,” I offered.
“No, I’m going back to the house, I don’t feel like the beach.”
“Do you feel sick?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Then what?”
“Look at the belly I’ve got.”
I looked at her belly, I said to her without thinking: “What about me? Don’t you see these bites on my face?”
She started yelling, she called me an idiot, and ran away to catch up with Lila.
Once at the beach she apologized, muttering, You’re so good that sometimes you make me mad.
“I’m not good.”
“I meant that you’re clever.”
“I’m not clever.”
Lila, who was trying in any case to ignore us, staring at the sea in the direction of Forio, said coldly, “Stop it, they’re coming.”
Pinuccia started. “The long and the short of it,” she murmured, with a sudden softness in her voice, and she put on some lipstick even though she already had enough.
The boys’ mood was just as bad as ours. Nino had a sarcastic tone, he said to Lila, “Tonight the husbands arrive?”
“Of course.”
“And what nice things will you do?”
