“I gave you a job. I said nothing when you joined the union, my father would have kicked you out. All right, I did something foolish, there in the drying room, but I apologized, you can’t say I persecuted you. And you, what do you do, you take revenge by casting a bad light on my factory and setting it down in black and white that I take my women workers into the drying room? For chrissake, when? Me, the workers, are you mad? You’re making me regret the favor I did you.”
“The favor? I work hard and you pay me a few cents. It’s more the favor I do you than what you do for me.”
“You see? You talk like those shits. Have the courage to admit that you wrote this crap.”
“I didn’t write anything.”
Bruno twisted his mouth, he looked at the pages in front of him, and she understood that he was hesitating, he couldn’t make up his mind: move to a harsher tone, threaten her, fire her, retreat and try to find out if there were other initiatives like that being prepared? She made up
“Trust me, I have a small child, I honestly didn’t do this thing.”
He nodded yes, but he also muttered, unhappily: “You know what you’re forcing me to do?”
“No, and I don’t want to know.”
“I’ll tell you just the same. If those are your friends, warn them: as soon as they come back and make a scene out front here, I’ll have them beaten to a pulp. As for you, be careful: stretch the cord too far and it will snap.”
But the day didn’t end there. On the way out, when Lila passed, the red light of the partial went on. It was the usual ritual: every day the guard cheerfully chose three or four victims, the shy girls, eyes lowered, let him feel them up, the savvy older women laughed, saying: Filì, if you have to touch go on, but hurry up, I’ve got to go make dinner. This time, Filippo stopped only Lila. It was cold, a strong wind was blowing. The guard came out of his booth. Lila shivered, she said: “If you so much as brush me, by God I’ll murder you or have you murdered.”
Filippo, grim, pointed to a small café table that was always next to the booth.
“Empty your pockets one at a time, put the stuff there.”
Lila found a fresh sausage in her coat, with disgust she felt the soft meat inside the casing. She pulled it out and burst into laughter, saying, “What shits you people are, all of you.”
33.
Threats to report her for theft. Deductions from her salary, fines. And insults, Filippo’s hurled at her, and hers at Filippo. Bruno didn’t appear, and yet he was surely still in the factory, his car was in the courtyard. Lila guessed that from then on things would get even worse for her.
She went home wearier than usual; she got angry at Gennaro, who wanted to stay at the neighbor’s; she made dinner. She told Enzo that he would have to study on his own and she went to bed early. Since she couldn’t get warm under the covers, she got up and put on a wool sweater over her nightgown. She was getting back in bed when suddenly, for no obvious reason, her heart was in her throat and began pounding so hard that it seemed like someone else’s.
