The Lying Life of Adults. Elena Ferrante

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      “Also about school.”

      “What was that music?”

      “What music?”

      “Music at a very high volume.”

      “I didn’t hear any music.”

      “Was she nice?”

      “A little rude.”

      “Did she say nasty things?”

      “No, but she’s not very nice.”

      “I warned you.”

      “Yes.”

      “Is your curiosity satisfied now? Do you realize she doesn’t look like you at all?”

      “Yes.”

      “Come here, give me a kiss, you’re beautiful. Do you forgive me for the stupid thing I said?”

      I said I had never been mad at him and let him give me a kiss on the cheek even though he was driving. But immediately afterward I pushed him away laughing, I protested: you scratched me with your beard. Although I had no desire for our games, I hoped we would start joking around and he would forget about Vittoria. Instead he replied: think of how your aunt scratches with her mustache, and what immediately came to mind was not the faint dark down on Vittoria’s lip but the down on mine. I said softly:

      “She doesn’t have a mustache.”

      “She does.”

      “No.”

      “All right, she doesn’t. The last thing we need is for you to get an urge to go back and see if she has a mustache.”

      I said seriously:

      “I don’t want to see her again.”

      2.

      That wasn’t a lie, either, I was scared to see Vittoria again. But already as I uttered that sentence I knew on what day, at what hour, in what place I would see her again. In fact, I hadn’t parted from her, I had her every word in my head, every gesture, every expression of her face, and they didn’t seem things that had just happened, it all seemed to be still happening. My father kept talking, to show me how much he loved me, while I saw and heard his sister, I hear and see her even now. I see her when she appeared before me dressed in sky blue, I see her when she said to me in that rough dialect: close the door, and had already turned her back, as if all I could do was follow her. In Vittoria’s voice, or perhaps in her whole body, there was an impatience without filters that hit me in a flash, as when, holding a match, I turned on the gas and felt on my hand the flame shooting out of the burner. I closed the door behind me, I followed her as if she had me on a leash.

      We took a few steps into a place that smelled of smoke, without windows, the only light coming from an open door. Her figure moved out of sight beyond the door, I followed her into a small kitchen whose extreme orderliness struck me immediately, along with the smell of cigarette butts and filth.

      “You want some orange juice?”

      “I don’t want to be a bother.”

      “You want it or not?”

      “Yes, thank you.”

      She ordered me to a chair, changed her mind, saying it was broken, ordered me to another. Then, to my surprise, she didn’t take out of the refrigerator—a yellowish-white refrigerator—an orange drink in a can or a bottle, as I expected, but picked out from a basket a couple of oranges, cut them, and began to squeeze them into a glass, without a squeezer, by hand, with the help of a fork. Without looking at me she said:

      “You didn’t wear the bracelet.”

      I got nervous:

      “What bracelet?”

      “The one I gave you when you were born.”

      As far as I could remember, I had never had a bracelet. But I sensed that for her it was an important object and my not having worn it could be an affront. I said:

      “Maybe my mother had me wear it when I was little, until I was one or two, then I grew up and it didn’t fit anymore.”

      She turned to look at me, I showed her my wrist to prove that it was too big for a newborn’s bracelet, and to my surprise she burst out laughing. She had a big mouth with big teeth, and when she laughed her gums showed. She said:

      “You’re smart.”

      “I told the truth.”

      “Do I scare you?”

      “A little.”

      “It’s good to be afraid. You need to be afraid even when there’s no need, it keeps you alert.”

      She put the glass down in front of me; juice had dripped down the outside, while bits of pulp and white seeds floated on the bright orange surface. I looked at her hair, which was carefully combed, I had seen hairdos of the type in old films on television and in photos of my mother as a girl, a friend of hers wore her hair like that. Vittoria had very thick eyebrows, licorice sticks, black lines under her large forehead and above the deep cavities where she hid her eyes. Drink up, she said. I immediately took the glass in order not to upset her, but drinking repulsed me, I had seen the juice run across her palm, and, besides, with my mother I would have insisted that she take out pulp and seeds. Drink up, she repeated, it’s good for you. I took a gulp while she sat on the chair that a few minutes earlier she had considered not to be solid. She praised me, but keeping her brusque tone: yes, you’re smart, you immediately found an excuse to protect your parents, good. But she explained to me that I was off track, she hadn’t given me a baby bracelet, she had given me a big girl’s bracelet, a bracelet she was very fond of. Because, she emphasized, I am not like your father, who is attached to money, attached to things; I don’t give a damn about objects, I love people, and when you were born I thought: I’ll give it to the child, she’ll wear it when she grows up, I wrote that in the card to your parents—give it to her when she’s grown up—and I left it all in your mailbox, imagine me coming up there, your father and mother are animals, they would have thrown me out.

      I said:

      “Maybe thieves stole it, you shouldn’t have left it in the mailbox.”

      She shook her head, her black eyes sparkled:

      “What thieves? What are you talking about, if you don’t know anything. Drink your orange juice. Does your mother squeeze oranges for you?”

      I nodded yes, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She talked about how good orange juice is, and I noticed the extreme mobility of her face. She could smooth in a flash the folds between nose and mouth that made her grim (precisely that: grim), and the face that until a second earlier had seemed long under the high cheekbones—a gray canvas stretched tight between temples and jaw—colored, softened. My mamma, rest her soul, she said, when it was my saint’s day brought me hot chocolate in bed, she made it into a cream, it was frothy as if she had blown into it. Do they make you hot chocolate on your saint’s СКАЧАТЬ