“If you don’t believe me let’s go see him and I’ll repeat everything to his face, word for word, just as I told you now.”
I waved a hand to let her know there was no need.
“I believe you,” I whispered, but to avoid her eyes I looked out the door, at the street.
Meanwhile from very far away came Carmen’s voice saying: If you’re going to Nino I want to come, too; the three of us will settle things properly. I felt her lightly touching my arm to get my attention. As small girls we had read photo-romances in the garden next to the church and had felt the same urge to help the heroine when she was in trouble. Now, surely, she had the same feeling of solidarity of those days, but with the gravity of today, and it was a genuine feeling, brought on by a wrong that was not fictional but real. Lila on the other hand had always scorned such reading and there was no doubt that at that moment she was sitting across from me with other motives. I imagined that she felt satisfied, as Antonio, too, must have been when he discovered Nino’s falseness. I saw that she and Carmen exchanged a look, a sort of mute consultation, as if to make a decision. It was a long moment. No, I read on Carmen’s lips, and that breath was accompanied by an imperceptible shaking of her head.
No to what?
Lila stared at me again, her mouth half open. As usual she was taking on the job of sticking a pin in my heart not to stop it but to make it beat harder. Her eyes were narrowed, her broad forehead wrinkled. She waited for my reaction. She wanted me to scream, weep, hand myself over to her. I said softly:
“I really have to go now.”
23.
I cut Lila out of everything that followed.
I was hurt, not because she had revealed that for more than two years Nino had been telling me lies about the state of his marriage but because she had succeeded in proving to me what in fact she had said from the start: that my choice was mistaken, that I was stupid.
A few hours later I met Nino, but I acted as if nothing were wrong, I limited myself only to avoiding his embraces. I was swallowed up by bitterness. I spent the whole night with my eyes wide open, the desire to cling to that long male body was ruined. The next day he wanted to take me to see an apartment on Via Tasso, and I agreed when he said: If you like it, don’t worry about the rent, I’ll take care of it, I’m about to get a position that will resolve all our financial problems. But that night I couldn’t take it anymore and I exploded. We were in the apartment on Via Duomo, and his friend as usual wasn’t there. I said to him:
“Tomorrow I’d like to see Eleonora.”
He looked at me in bewilderment.
“Why?”
“I have to talk to her. I want to know what she knows about us, when you left home, when you stopped sleeping together. I want to know if you asked for a legal separation. I want her to tell me if her father and mother know that your marriage is over.”
He remained calm.
“Ask me: if something isn’t clear I’ll explain it to you.”
“No, I trust only her, you’re a liar.”
At that point I started yelling, I switched to dialect. He gave in immediately, he admitted everything, I had no doubt that Lila had told me the truth. I hit him in the chest with my fists and as I did I felt as if there were a me unglued from me who wished to hurt him even more, who wanted to beat him, spit in his face as I had seen people do as a child in the neighborhood quarrels, call him a shit, scratch him, tear out his eyes. I was surprised, frightened.
I slowed down, my heart was about to burst. He murmured:
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“At least give me a chance to explain.”
