That remark of hers irritated me, but I was even more irritated by what happened next. As soon as the two boys had set off for Forio, and she was gathering up her things, she began to reproach me, as if I bore the blame for the entire day, hour by hour, micro-event upon micro-event, including that request of Nino’s, and the clear contradiction between my answer and hers, in some indecipherable yet indisputable way.
“Why were you always with Bruno?”
“I?”
“Yes, you. Don’t ever dare to leave me alone with that guy again.”
“What are you talking about? It was you two who rushed ahead without stopping to wait for us.”
“We? It was Nino who was rushing.”
“You could have said that you had to wait for me.”
“And you could have said to Bruno: Get going, otherwise we’ll lose them. Do me a favor: since you like him so much, go out on your own business at night. Then you’re free to say and do what you like.”
“I’m here for you, not for Bruno.”
“It doesn’t look as though you’re here for me, you’re always doing what you please.”
“If you don’t want me here anymore I’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
“Yes? And tomorrow night I have to go and get ice cream with those two by myself?”
“Lila, it was you who said you wanted to get ice cream with them.”
“Of necessity, I have to telephone Stefano, and what an impression we’d make if we meet them in Forio?”
We continued in this vein even at the house, after dinner, in Nunzia’s presence. It wasn’t a real quarrel, but an ambiguous exchange with spikes of malice in which we both tried to communicate something without understanding each other. Nunzia, who was listening in bewilderment, at a certain point said, “Tomorrow we’ll have dinner and then I’ll come, too, to get ice cream.”
“It’s a long way,” I said. But Lila interrupted abruptly: “We don’t have to walk. We’ll take a mini cab, we’re rich.”
59.
The next day, to adjust to the boys’ new schedule, we arrived at the beach at nine instead of ten, but they weren’t there. Lila became anxious. We waited, they didn’t appear at ten or later. Finally, in the early afternoon, they showed up, with a lighthearted conspiratorial air. They said that since they were going to spend the evening with us, they had decided to do their studying early. Lila’s reaction stunned me in particular: she sent them away. Slipping into a violent dialect, she hissed that they could go and study when they liked, afternoon, evening, night, no one was holding them back. And since Nino and Bruno made an effort not to take her seriously and continued to smile as if those words had been just a witty remark, she put on her sundress, impetuously grabbed her bag, and set off toward the road with long strides. Nino ran after her but returned soon afterward with a grim face. Nothing to do, she was really enraged and wouldn’t listen to reason.
“It will pass,” I said, pretending to be calm, and I went swimming with them. I dried in the sun eating a sandwich, I chattered weakly, then I announced that I, too, had to go home.
“And tonight?” Bruno asked.
“Lina has to call Stefano, we’ll be there.”
But the outburst had upset me greatly. What did that tone, that behavior mean? What right had she to get angry at an appointment not kept? Why couldn’t she control herself and treat the two young men as if they were Pasquale or Antonio or even the Solaras? Why did she behave like a capricious girl and not like Signora Carracci?
I got to the house out of breath. Nunzia was washing towels and bathing suits, Lila was in her room, sitting on the bed and, something that was also unusual, she was writing. The notebook was resting on her knees, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed, one of my books lying on the sheets. How long it was since I had seen her write.
“You overdid it,” I said.
She shrugged. She didn’t raise her eyes from the notebook, she continued to write all afternoon.
At night she decked herself out the way she did when her husband was arriving, and we drove to Forio. I was surprised that Nunzia, who never went out in the sun and was very white, had borrowed her daughter’s lipstick to give a little color to her lips and her cheeks. She wanted to avoid—she said—seeming dead already.
