I took my things and, after insisting that he not lose sight of Nino and especially Lila, I left, still dripping wet, to try to find out what else was happening to Pina.
54.
It was a disastrous afternoon followed by an even more disastrous evening. I found that Pinuccia was really packing her bags and that Nunzia was unable to quiet her.
“You mustn’t worry,” she said to her soothingly, “Rino knows how to wash his underwear, he knows how to cook, and then there is his father, his friends. He doesn’t think you’re here to have fun, he understands that you’re here to rest so that you’ll have a fine healthy baby. Come, I’ll help you tidy up everything. I never went on vacation, but today there’s money, thank God, and although you mustn’t waste it, a little comfort isn’t a sin, you can afford it. So Pinù, please, child: Rino worked all week, he’s tired, he’s about to arrive. Don’t let him find you like this, you know him, he’ll worry, and when he worries he gets angry, and if he gets angry what’s the result? The result is that you want to leave to stay with him, he has left to be with you, and now when you’ll be together, and you ought to be happy, instead you’re torturing each other. Does that seem nice to you?”
But Pinuccia was impervious to the arguments that Nunzia rattled off. Then I began to enumerate them, too, since we had reached the point where we were taking her many things out of the suitcases and she was putting them in, she cried, she calmed down, she started again.
Eventually Lila returned. She leaned against the doorpost and stood looking, with a frown, a long horizontal crease across her brow, at that disheveled image of Pinuccia.
“Everything all right?” I asked her.
She nodded yes.
“You’re such a good swimmer now.”
She said nothing.
She had the expression of someone who is forced to repress joy and fear at the same time. It was evident that the spectacle of Pinuccia was becoming increasingly intolerable to her. Her sister-in-law was again displaying her intention to depart, farewells, regret that she had forgotten this object or that, sighs for her Rinuccio, all interwoven, in a contradictory fashion, with regret for the sea, the smells of the gardens, the beach. And yet Lila said nothing, not one of her mean statements or even a sarcastic remark. Finally, the words came out of her mouth, not a call to order but the announcement of an imminent event that threatened us all: “They’re about to arrive.”
At that point Pinuccia collapsed disconsolate on the bed, next to the closed suitcases. Lila grimaced, went off to dress. She returned soon afterward in a clinging red dress, her black hair pulled back. She was the first to recognize the sound of the Lambrettas, she looked out the window, waved enthusiastically. Then, becoming serious, she turned to Pinuccia and in her most scornful voice hissed: “Go wash your face and take off that bathing suit.”
Pinuccia looked at her without reacting. Something passed rapidly between the two girls, their secret feelings darted invisibly, infinitesimal particles shot at each other from the depths of themselves, a jolt and a trembling that lasted a long second; I caught it, bewildered, but couldn’t understand, while they did, they understood, in something they recognized each other, and Pinuccia knew that Lila knew, understood and wished to help her, even with contempt. So she obeyed.
55.
Stefano and Rino burst in. Lila was even more affectionate than the week before. She embraced Stefano, let him embrace her, gave a cry of joy when he took a case out of his pocket and she opened it and found a gold necklace with a pendant in the shape of a heart.
Naturally Rino, too, had brought a present for Pinuccia, who did her best to react as her sister-in-law had, but her painful fragility was visible in her eyes. So Rino’s kisses and embraces and the gift had soon swept away the form of the happy wife within which she had so hastily enclosed herself. Her mouth started to tremble, the fountain of tears erupted, and she said, in a choked voice, “I’ve packed my bags. I don’t want to stay here a minute longer, I want to be with you and only you, always.”
Rino smiled, he was moved by all that love, he laughed. Then he said, “I also want to be with you and only you, always.” Finally he understood that his wife was not just communicating how much she missed him, and how much she would always miss him, but that she really wanted to leave, that everything was ready for departure, and she was insisting on that decision with a real, unbearable grief.
They shut themselves in the bedroom to discuss it, but the discussion didn’t last long, Rino came out, shouting at his mother, “Mamma, I want to know what happened.” And without waiting for an answer, he turned aggressively to his sister: “If it’s your fault by God I’ll smash your face.” Then he shouted at his wife, “That’s enough, you’re a pain in the ass, come out now, I’m tired, I want to eat.”
