I couldn’t do it. In the space of two or three days things changed further. They began to hold hands without hiding it, with an offensive shamelessness, as if they had decided that with us it wasn’t worth pretending. They often quarreled jokingly, then grabbed each other, hit each other, held each other tight, tumbled on the sand together. When we were walking, if they spotted an abandoned hut, an old bath house reduced to its foundations, a path that got lost among the wild vegetation, they decided like children to go exploring and didn’t invite us to follow. They went off with him in the lead, she behind, in silence. When they lay in the sun, they lessened the distance between them as much as possible. At first they were satisfied with the slight contact of shoulders, their arms, legs, feet just grazing. Later, returning from that interminable daily swim, they lay beside each other on Lila’s towel, which was bigger, and soon, with a natural gesture, Nino put his arm around her shoulders, she rested her head on his chest. They even, once, went so far as to kiss on the lips, a light, quick kiss. I thought: she’s mad, they’re mad. If someone from Naples who knows Stefano sees them? If the supplier who got the house for us passes by? Or if Nunzia, now, should decide to make a visit to the beach?
I couldn’t believe such recklessness, and yet time and time again they crossed the limit. Seeing each other during the day no longer seemed sufficient; Lila decided that she had to call Stefano every night, but she rudely rejected Nunzia’s offer to go with us. After dinner she obliged me to go to Forio. She made a quick phone call to her husband and then we went walking, she with Nino, I with Bruno. We never returned home before midnight and the two boys came with us along the dark beach.
On Friday night, that is, the day before Stefano returned, she and Nino argued, unexpectedly, not in fun but seriously. We were eating ice cream at the table, Lila had gone to telephone. Nino, grim-faced, took out of his pocket a number of pages with writing on both sides and began to read, giving no explanation, but isolating himself from the dull conversation between Bruno and me. When she returned, he didn’t even glance at her, he didn’t put the pages back in his pocket, but went on reading. Lila waited half a minute, then asked in a lighthearted tone:
“Is it so interesting?”
“Yes,” Nino said, without looking up.
“Then read aloud, we want to hear it.”
“It’s my business, it has nothing to do with the rest of you.”
“What is it?” Lila asked, but it was clear that she knew already.
“A letter.”
“From whom?”
“From Nadia.”
With a sudden, lightning-like move, she reached out and tore the pages from his grasp. Nino started, as if a giant insect had stung him, but he made no effort to get the letter back, even when Lila began to read it to us in declamatory tones, in a loud voice. It was a rather childish love letter, carrying on from line to line with sentimental variations on the theme of missing. Bruno listened silently, with an embarrassed smile, and I, seeing that Nino showed no sign of taking the thing as a joke, but was staring darkly at his sandaled, suntanned feet, whispered to Lila, “That’s enough, give it back to him.”
As soon as I spoke she stopped reading, but her expression of amusement lingered, and she didn’t give the letter back.
“You’re embarrassed, eh?” she asked. “You’re the one to blame. How can you have a girlfriend who writes like that?”
Nino said nothing, he went on staring at his feet. Bruno interrupted, also lightheartedly: “Maybe, when you fall in love with someone, you don’t make her take an exam to see if she can write a love letter.”
But Lila didn’t even turn to look at him, she spoke to Nino as if they were continuing in front of us one of their secret conversations:
“Do you love her? And why? Explain it to us. Because she lives on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in a house full of books and old paintings? Because she speaks in a simpering little voice? Because she’s the daughter of the professor?”
Finally Nino roused himself and said abruptly, “Give me back those pages.”
“I’ll only give them back if you tear them up immediately, here, in front of us.”
Countering Lila’s tone of amusement Nino uttered grave monosyllables, with obvious aggressive undertones. “And then?”
“Then we’ll all write Nadia a letter together in which you tell her you’re leaving her.”
“And then?”
“We’ll mail it tonight.”
He said nothing for a moment, then he agreed. “Let’s do it.”
Lila pointed to the pages in disbelief.
“You’re really going to tear them up?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll leave her?”
“Yes. But on one condition.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“That you leave your husband. Now. Let’s all of us go together to the phone and you’ll tell him.”
