The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante Read Free Book Online Page B

spoke in a rush about her brother, as one speaks to a good authority who knows everything and can do everything, and no false step can dim that aura. She made no mention of her children, her husband, her personal life or mine. I realized that she had taken upon herself the weight of Pasquale’s reputation as a terrorist, but only in order to recast it. In our few minutes of conversation she did not confine herself to saying that her brother was unjustly persecuted: she wanted to restore courage and goodness to him. Her eyes were burning with the determination to be always and no matter what on his side. She said that she had to know where to find me, she wanted my telephone number and my address. You are an important person, Lenù—she whispered—you know people who, if Pasquale isn’t murdered, can help him. Then she indicated Antonio, who was standing apart, a few steps from Enzo. Come here—she said softly—you tell her, too. And Antonio came over, head down, and spoke timid phrases whose meaning was: I know Pasquale trusts you, he came to your house before making the choice he made, so if you see him again, warn him. He has to disappear, he’d better not be seen in Italy; because, as I told Carmen, too, the problem isn’t the carabinieri, the problem is the Solaras. They’re convinced that he murdered Signora Manuela, and if they find him—now, tomorrow, years from now—I can’t help him. While he was making that speech, in a grave tone, Carmen kept interrupting to ask me: Do you understand, Lenù? She watched me with an anxious gaze. Finally she hugged me, kissed me, whispered: You and Lina are my sisters, and she went off with Enzo, they had things to do.
    So I remained alone with Antonio. I seemed to have before me two people present in the same body and yet very distinct. He was the boy who long ago had held me tight at the ponds, who had idolized me, and whose intense odor had remained in my memory like a desire that is never truly satisfied. And he was the man of now, without an ounce of fat, all big bones and taut skin that went from his hard blank face to his feet, in enormous shoes. I said, embarrassed, that I didn’t know anyone who could help Pasquale, that Carmen overestimated me. But I realized right away that if Pasquale’s sister had an exaggerated idea of my prestige, his was even more exaggerated. Antonio said that I was modest as usual, that he had read my book, in German no less, that I was known all over the world. Although he had lived for a long time abroad, and had certainly seen and done terrible things for the Solaras, he had remained someone from the neighborhood and continued to imagine—or maybe he was pretending, who knows, to please me—that I had power, the power of respectable people, because I had a degree, because I spoke in Italian, I wrote books. I said, laughing: you’re the only person in Germany who bought that book. And I asked about his wife, his children. He answered in monosyllables, but meanwhile he drew me outside, into the square. There he said kindly:
    “Now you have to admit that I was right.”
    “In what.”
    “You wanted him, and you lied to me.”
    “I was a girl.”
    “No, you were grown up. And you were more intelligent than me. You don’t know the harm you did letting me believe I was crazy.”
    “Stop it.”
    He was silent, I retreated toward the shop. He followed me, and held me back on the threshold. For a few seconds he stared at Nino, who had sat down in a corner. He murmured:
    “If he hurts you, too, tell me.”
    I laughed: “Of course.”
    “Don’t laugh, I talked to Lina. She knows him well, she says you shouldn’t trust him. We respect you, he doesn’t.”
    Lila. Here she was using Antonio, making him her messenger of possible misfortunes. Where had she gone? I saw that she was off in a corner, playing with Marisa’s children, but in fact she was observing each one of us, with her eyes narrowed. And in her usual way she was