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myself in the bathroom. I took a long shower, I dried my hair carefully, worrying that the hotel hair dryer, which blew violently, would give it the wrong wave. A little before ten I woke Nino, who, still dazed by sleep, was full of compliments for my dress. He tried to pull me down beside him, I drew back. Although I made an effort to pretend there was nothing wrong, I had trouble forgiving him. He had transformed our new day of love into Lila’s day, and now the time was completely indelibly marked by that looming encounter.
    I dragged him to breakfast, he followed submissively. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t tease me, he said, touching my hair with his fingertips: You look very nice. Evidently he perceived that I was anxious. And I was, I was afraid that Lila would arrive looking her best. I was made as I was made; she was elegant by nature. And, besides, she had new money, if she wanted she could take care of herself as she had done as a girl with Stefano’s money. I didn’t want Nino to be dazzled by her again.
    We left around ten-thirty, in a cold wind. We walked, unhurried, toward Piazza Amedeo. I was shivering, even though I was wearing a heavy coat and he had an arm around my shoulders. We never mentioned Lila. Nino talked in a somewhat artificial way about how Naples had improved now that there was a Communist mayor, and he began pressing me again to join him as soon as possible with the children. He held me close as we walked, and I hoped he would keep holding me until we reached the subway station. I wanted Lila to be at the metro entrance, to see us from a distance, to find us handsome, to be forced to think: a perfect couple. But, a few meters from the meeting place, he released his arm, lighted a cigarette. I took his hand instinctively, squeezed it hard, and we entered the piazza like that.
    I didn’t see Lila right away and for a moment I hoped she hadn’t come. Then I heard her call me—she called me in her usual imperative way, as though it could never even occur to her that I wouldn’t hear her, wouldn’t turn, wouldn’t obey her voice. She was in the doorway of the café opposite the metro tunnel, her hands stuck in the pockets of an ugly brown coat, thinner than usual, slightly bent, her shining black hair traversed by trails of silver and tied in a ponytail. She seemed to me the usual Lila, the adult Lila, a Lila marked by the factory experience: she had done nothing to dress up. She hugged me tight, in an intense embrace that I returned without energy, then she kissed me on the cheeks with two sharp smacks, and a contented laugh. She held out her hand to Nino absently.
    We sat inside the bar; she did almost all the talking and addressed me as if we were alone. She immediately confronted my hostility, which evidently she read in my face, and said affectionately, smiling: All right, I was wrong, I offended you, but now, enough, how is it that you’ve become so touchy, you know that I like everything about you, let’s make up.
    I avoided her, with tepid half-smiles, I didn’t say yes or no. She was sitting opposite Nino, but she never looked or spoke to him. She was there for me; once, she took my hand but I quietly withdrew it. She wanted us to be reconciled, she intended to reinstate herself in my life again, even if she didn’t agree with the direction I was taking it. I realized this from the way she added question to question without paying attention to the answers. She was so eager to reoccupy every corner that she had scarcely touched on one subject when she immediately went on to another.
    “With Pietro?”
    “Badly.”
    “And your daughters?”
    “They’re well.”
    “You’ll get divorced?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you two will live together?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where, what city?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Come back here to live.”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “I’ll find you an apartment.”
    “If it’s necessary I’ll let you know.”
    “Are you writing?”
    “I’ve