The Story of the Lost Child

Lila becomes “a voice invented by ill feeling” for Elena, who admits that as the years pass, she is losing track of who Lila has become (24). Still, she finds that she can only reach Lila by “passing through myself” (24). As Elena the writer recounts the most painful part of their story, she seeks to find a balance on the page between herself and her friend.

Elena leaves her husband Pietro and their two daughters Dede and Elsa to go with Nino to Montpellier, France for an academic conference. There, she watches Nino turn into a suave academic, even though he is insecure about his paper, which Elena praises despite its mediocrity. Elena meets a French couple who have also separated from their families. Desperately missing her daughters, Elena calls home. Pietro answers in an accusatory manner, saying that neither he nor her daughters ever want to see her again.

Elena overhears Nino talking to someone at midnight. She accuses him of speaking to his wife Eleonora and is angry that he may be on the point of reconciliation, whereas she has taken the decisive step of leaving her family. Elena fears that the time in Montpellier is “merely an interlude” and that she will lose both Nino and her family upon returning to Italy (31). When the French adulterous couple offer to drive them to Paris, Nino initially refuses. However, Elena says that she will go with them herself to promote her literary career. Nino finally agrees to go with them, but he privately tells Elena that they cannot keep on fleeing; they will have to return to Italy and begin a real life together.

On the trip to Paris, Elena is disturbed by Nino’s flirtatiousness with Colombe, the female half of the French couple. He becomes defensive when Elena asks him about it, and she later observes that flirtatiousness is his manner with all women. In Paris, they also go to the publishing house where, thanks to Pietro’s sister Mariarosa, Elena’s book will appear in French. Elena finds that the news of her marital crisis has spread as far as Paris, but she hopes that everything will turn out okay.

When Elena returns to Florence, her daughters are clingy, and Pietro is distant. However, his mother Adele calmly expresses that Elena should return to her family home and that there are nasty rumors about Nino around Milan. Elena protests that she has loved Nino for 20 years.

When she escapes to Naples to see him, her daughters begin crying and protesting. Still, she frees herself and, filled with desire, goes to meet Nino. Nino tells her that Lila wants to see them.

Lila found out about Elena’s Naples plans from Adele. At dinner, Nino tells Elena that she wants him to ask Pietro for a separation and that he too will try, although it is harder in Naples because his wife Eleonora’s family is powerful and conservative. Elena thinks of the unsaid things between them, including Nino’s love-affair with Lila and Elena’s loss of virginity to Nino’s father, Donato. Nino suggests that Elena might move to Naples and share custody with Pietro.

Elena dresses carefully for their meeting with Lila, fearing that Lila will outdazzle her and recapture Nino’s heart. Elena feels as though Nino and Lila are making a concerted effort to disguise that they were ever a couple, as they use Elena as a channel for their conversation and show no sign of flirtation. Both Lila and Nino want Elena to return to Naples, but it is as though they are talking about different cities, and each “was openly intent on detaching me from the influence of the other” (46). While Elena wants to cut the interview short, Lila insists that she accompany her to the Piazza dei Martiri to see her son Gennaro and Antonio Capuccio, Elena’s old boyfriend. Antonio has been brought back to Naples by the Solara family, since the murder of their mother, Manuela Solara.

Lila informs Elena that Antonio has returned to the neighborhood with his German wife and their three children. Although Elena allows Lila to take her arm, Elena feels her friend’s influence wane, as she reserves her passion for her lover. Elena finds that she wants to be associated with Nino and have everyone in the neighborhood know they are together. Antonio and Nino exchange a cold greeting, especially because Antonio beat Nino up years earlier when he was involved with Lila.

The Solaras’ shoe shop is full of memories; it is where Lila charmed Michele Solara and took Nino as her lover. Carmen, the sister of Communist Pasquale Peluso and the man whom the Solaras suspect of killing their mother, takes Elena aside and tells her that she must persuade Pasquale to disappear from Italy if he approaches her, as the Solaras will surely kill him. Then, Antonio talks to Elena, saying that he has read her book in German. He then accuses her of always having loved Nino. He adds that Elena did him harm in brushing off his suspicions back when he was her boyfriend. He offers to beat Nino again if he betrays Elena, adding, “We respect you, he doesn’t” (54). Elena realizes that Lila is ruling over everything in her usual manner.

Pietro and Elena quarrel violently about the matter of a separation before she leaves for France to meet her publishers. They take her on a book tour, and Elena finds that she “improvised successfully” on feminist subjects, drawing from the experiences of her own life (56). However, she finds that she never mentions Lila and talks as though she can keep her reflections separate from her friend.

Elena intends to go home for Christmas and be with her daughters, but Nino, who is openly envious of her career success, persuades her to come to Rome to meet him. She then has difficulty getting home to Florence and misses Christmas Eve. She arrives home to an empty house and fears she has lost everything.

Pietro finally arrives the next morning and is so angry with Elena that he punches the wall to avoid hitting her. Elena finds to her rancor that her daughters have been taken by their grandmother Adele to Genoa to force Elena and Pietro to reconcile. Pietro informs Elena that he has called her mother and that her arrival is imminent.

At first, Elena’s mother praises both Elena and Pietro, encouraging them to make up. However, when Elena says, “Enough, Ma, it’s pointless, I can’t stay with Pietro anymore, I love someone else”, her mother’s tone changes, and she begins a litany of curses against Elena (63). She tells Elena that she is ungrateful and evil for leaving her good life and husband for worthless Nino. She says that the evil in Elena’s nature originates in her and not in Lila as she previously thought. Elena feels as though her mother really wants to kill her and feels the weight of her disappointment. Elena also loses her temper and finds herself pushing her mother to the floor, despite the latter’s bad leg.

Elena locks herself away to process the horror of her mother’s feelings. Pietro knocks on the door, confessing, “I didn’t want this, it’s too much, not even you deserve it” (65).

In the morning, Elena and Pietro take Elena’s mother back to the station. Ironically, the visit makes relations more cordial between Elena and Pietro, and they go to a lawyer to obtain a formal separation. Elena calls Adele to reclaim her daughters, but Adele has a system for taking care of them. She tells Elena that an ambitious separated woman “has to take account of reality and decide what she can give up and what she can’t” (67).

While Elena intends to leave for Genoa to reclaim her daughters, she is delayed by Nino’s request to see her. They go to Argentario and Nino confesses that he ensured that an article that Elena wrote in high school about an argument with her religion teacher remained unpublished. He was so envious of her writing quality that he threw it out instead of passing it on to the student magazine. While Elena remembers the warnings not to trust Nino, she instantly forgives him.

Elena goes to Genoa to stay with her daughters at the house of Pietro’s parents. Her in-laws treat her with cold courtesy. Pietro’s father, a university professor named Guido Airota, eventually brings up that Elena has left Pietro for Nino. He describes Nino as having “intelligence without traditions” (74). On a later occasion, Adele clarifies that this means that Nino is “unreliable,” as is Elena (74). Adele then accuses Elena of marrying Pietro without loving him and affirms that she will take away all the career advantages that she has procured for Elena. She affirms that her granddaughters are Airotas and that she will not let Elena ruin them.

Elena’s in-laws insist that if Elena puts herself first, she must entrust her children to them. Elena imagines beginning an independent existence with her children but is distracted by her work and Nino. She feels happy and guilty simultaneously. In Milan, Elena stays with Mariarosa, her sister-in-law, and attends an event for her book. Later, there is a group of guests composed of Franco, Elena’s first boyfriend at university, and Silvia, a woman who bore Nino’s child Mirko. Elena, who has not told Nino she knows that Mirko is his son, looks for resemblances between the two. The people at the dinner have different opinions about Elena’s childcare dilemma. While Mariarosa advises leaving the children at their grandparents’ house, Franco advises that Elena should adopt the paternal role of continuing “to refine” her children “without getting lost in female obligations” (79). Back in Genoa, Elena gives the girls the choice between accompanying her for work or staying with her grandparents. They prefer the latter option.

In the next two years, Elena becomes successful in her writing despite Adele’s attempts to block the publication of her book. Elena feels that her dependence on the Airotas is over, though she is embarrassed by how often Lila calls their house to get in touch. Lila has even gone as far as getting in touch with Nino and forcing him to meet her. There is news that Pasquale’s accomplice and the daughter of Elena’s high-school teacher, Nadia Galiani, have fled to safety abroad, while Pasquale remains in danger.

Elena notices that Lila is only interested in what happens inside the neighborhood, whereas Elena takes every possible opportunity to travel. She and Nino go on her book tour to West Germany and Austria. When they are stopped by the police, both in Germany and Bologna, Italy, Elena thinks of Pasquale Peluso and of Lila’s warning that Elena might become involved in the search for him. On tour, Elena finds herself telling Pasquale’s story, feeling that her words “had meaning only when I connected them to certain facts of the neighborhood” (84). Nino reminds her that the most important thing is that they remain together and that “the rest is background and will change” (86).

Elena and Nino are always on the move, sometimes getting into trouble for their political opinions. They consider that their “true life” only began once they were together (86).

When Pietro is beaten up by students armed with clubs, Elena visits him in the hospital and realizes that he has taken up with a new girlfriend, Doriana. Elena tells Adele that as Pietro is moving on, she will now take a house in Naples and bring her daughters to live with her. Adele protests Elena’s decision to bring her granddaughters to a disorderly city like Naples. She also disapproves of the influence of Elena’s mother. Elena argues that her mother is superior to Adele.

Pietro agrees to let Elena take his daughters to Naples. Nino is delighted, and Elena imagines they will live together. Meanwhile, Elena has become friendly with Carmen, Pasquale’s sister. Lila, who Elena has been avoiding, joins them by surprise and announces that had Nino followed by Antonio. Antonio discovered that Nino continues to live with his wife and, as a reward, was made head of a research institute by his father-in-law.

Elena is hurt because Lila was right about Nino’s untrustworthiness. When Elena confronts Nino, he makes a series of excuses regarding his wife Eleonora’s mental health and the danger she poses to their child. Elena finds that she is furious with Nino, beating him and insulting him in Neapolitan dialect. Nino protests that he can live with his wife and begin a new life with Elena at the same time. Elena breaks up with him and returns to Genoa.

Back in Genoa with the Airotas, Elena quarrels with Adele and accuses her of holding back the publication of her book. She even brings up Pietro’s confession that Adele had lovers. Adele calls Elena evil and throws her and her children out of the house. At the train station, Elena considers taking the children to Naples and confronting Nino; however, at the last minute she takes them to Mariarosa’s in Milan.

At Mariarosa’s, Nino calls Elena constantly. They fight, even as Nino says that he has rented an apartment in Naples for Elena and her daughters. Elena screams at Nino to stop tormenting her and hangs up angry.

Elena stills loves Nino and despises herself for neglecting her daughters. Mariarosa is initially an excellent host, entertaining Elena with intellectual debates. However, when it is Elena’s turn to speak, Mariarosa harshly critiques her, stating that “a woman without love for her origins is lost” (104).

While Elena works, her college ex-boyfriend Franco takes care of her children. Nino visits and says that he can neither leave Eleonora nor live without Elena. He also announces that Eleonora is seven months pregnant, fearing that Elena will learn it from someone other than him.

A devastated Elena asks Franco to get Nino out of the apartment. Franco separates them and then advises Elena, “It was a good rule not to expect the ideal but to enjoy what is possible” (107). Mariarosa retorts that Elena should make peace with Eleonora and that her happiness should not come at the expense of another woman’s destruction. Elena knows that Lila would advise her to break things off definitively from Nino. When Nino asks Elena what she will do, she replies that she does not know.

When Mariarosa goes to Bordeaux, she asks Elena to look after Franco in her absence. Elena suddenly understands that Mariarosa is in love with Franco. Elena tries to keep her promise, but one day Elena finds a note that says “Lena, don’t let the children in” (111). Elena goes into the room and finds Franco dead by suicide. She is devastated and feels that Franco meant for her to see his body. Following the funeral, Elena feels that she and her daughters are irritating Mariarosa and decides that they will return to Naples.

Elena and her daughters go to live at the apartment Nino rents on the Via Tasso. Although Eleonora is pregnant and soon gives birth to a girl named Lidia, Elena and Nino resume their relationship. Elena finds that her love for Nino becomes her reason for living, even as Dede and Elsa struggle to settle into their Neapolitan school and talk longingly of Adele and Mariarosa. Elena repeatedly questions whether she is letting herself “be invented by a man to the point where his needs were imposed on mine and those of my daughters” (115).

Elena dresses her daughters carefully and takes them to see her mother. Her mother is cordial to her granddaughters and scathing to Elena, whom she sees as having wasted her opportunities. She once again says Lila is the worthier of the two, as Lila bought her parents a house and has influence in the neighborhood. Her mother reveals that Elena’s sister Elisa is pregnant with the child of the Camorrist Marcello Solara. She also blames Elena for her sickness and the burst vein in her stomach.

When Elena visits Elisa at the apartment she shares with Marcello Solara, Elisa’s reception is hostile. She blames Elena for their mother’s health and blames Lila for the troubles she brought upon Marcello owing to her influence with his brother Michele.

When Elena and her daughters go to Carmen’s for lunch, Carmen insists that she must call Lila too.

Lila arrives with her son Gennaro and her partner Enzo. Dede and Elsa remember Gennaro, an adolescent who is failing school, and vie for his attention. Although Lila and Enzo have founded an informatics business called Basic Sight, Lila reports that Michele Solara, the camorrist who is obsessed with her, has gone mad and thrown his family out of his home. She predicts that the Solaras are finished. Meanwhile, Carmen and Lila confess that they have seen Pasquale, who is living life on the run. Towards the end of the meeting, Lila asks Elena for her number, indicating that they should be close to each other. Elena gives four numbers, getting two of them wrong on purpose, because she is uncertain of whether she wants Lila in her life. Lila asks Elena whether she will have a child with Nino.