The Story of the Lost Child

Elena returns often to the neighborhood and tries to persuade her mother to see a doctor. Her mother refuses, saying that Elena is the one who is killing her. Elena discovers that Lila has become a major employer in the neighborhood, hiring her ex-husband Stefano Carraci’s brother Alfonso among others. Lila wants Elena to move back to the neighborhood.

Elena wants to go on a trip to the United States with Nino to mark the publication of her book there. Lila is delighted to take care of Dede and Elsa in her absence. Elena is certain that she is pregnant by the end of the trip. She is about to tell Lila when Lila announces her own pregnancy.

Lila has done an excellent job caring for Elena’s daughters. They grow to adore her. Moreover, Lila has managed to make the idea of living together and having children without being married palatable and interesting to the girls. Elena is grateful to Lila and decides that it is silly to sacrifice their friendship.

Both women wonder how to tell their children and significant others about their pregnancies. Gennaro takes the news of Lila’s pregnancy with difficulty, telling Dede that his mother is “a tramp” (140). Dede and Elsa are converted to the idea of Elena’s pregnancy when Lila convinces them to think of the baby as a “funny live doll” (141). Elena puts off telling Nino, fearful that he will ask her to have an abortion, but also hopeful that this might be the factor that causes him to leave his wife once and for all. Lila insists that Elena tell him and find out where he stands. Nino is delighted by the news; however, he prefers to continue his double life and retain the stability he has with Eleonora.

Nino exhibits signs of jealousy when Pietro’s book is published and praised by academic circles and Elena, whereas his book, despite Elena’s best efforts, attracts little notice. Pietro’s book has a dedication to Elena that reads “to Elena, who taught me love with suffering” (144). Elena acts provocatively when she bumps into Nino and Eleonora in the street and announces that she is pregnant. Nino and Elena’s relationship is stormy, and she sees herself as “a slave, willing to always do what he wanted” (144).

Nino and Elena go to a lunch at the Sarratores and announce the pregnancy. Nino’s father Donato Sarratore, a mediocre poet and the man Elena lost her virginity to, leers at Elena and seeks reassurance from her that his verses inspired her literary career. Afterwards, Nino accuses Elena of encouraging Donato’s arrogance, and Elena hopes that Nino will not resemble Donato as he ages.

Elena attempts to help Elisa with Silvio, her newborn. However, she is soon distracted by her mother’s worsening condition. She takes responsibility for her mother’s health, taking her to the best doctors and nursing her. Her mother is resistant at first, but Elena sees how her fears are turning into sentimentality about Elena and her early academic prowess.

While Elena nurses her mother, they share an unprecedented level of intimacy. Her mother, who has had a limp ever since Elena can remember, shows her the injured leg, saying she believes she has been touched by the angel of death several times and warded him off with her suffering. She says that Elena is the only one of her children that she truly loved and felt connected to. Meanwhile, she expresses her admiration for Lila as a counterforce to the Solaras in the neighborhood. Elena’s mother wants her to ask Lila to employ Elena’s brothers and thus free them from the Solaras’ clutches.

Although Lila and Elena are in the same month of pregnancy, the time is going slowly for Lila and fast for Elena. They bump into Gigliola, Michele’s abandoned wife. Gigliola urges Lila to make life for Michele as torturous as possible, by flaunting her pregnancy before him.

Lila and Elena are closer than ever. Elena holds Lila’s hand during the gynecology appointments because Lila does not trust doctors. However, Elena conjectures that Lila does not trust her either and considers her “the one who had gone away, and who, even though I had returned […] could not be fully welcomed back” (158).

Elena cultivates “a sort of double identity” (159). She continues her life as a writer and scholar and maintains contact with her Milanese publisher, as she tries to save her work from Adele’s defamation. However, on returning to Naples, she resumes her use of Neapolitan dialect and plain speech. Still, she feels that her schoolfriends are concealing facts about the neighborhood from her, as though they believe that she is no longer capable of understanding them.

Elena asks Lila to employ her brothers. Lila replies vaguely that she cannot risk doing such a thing. Elena also notices how much Alfonso, Lila’s ex-brother-in-law, who is openly gay despite being married to Nino’s sister Marisa, resembles Lila. When Alfonso takes them maternity dress shopping, Lila says that she would like to see a dress “on me,” meaning Alfonso who has her pre-pregnancy figure (163).

Elena becomes jealous when, during one of the prenatal visits, the doctor tells Lila that her “friend” Nino has spoken admiringly of her mind (165). Lila does not explain herself and leaves.

While Elena tries to confront Lila about what she knows about Nino or why Marcello says that she is the ruin of his brother Michele, Lila is evasive. However, Lila acknowledges that Michele was unhealthily obsessed with her and then transferred his affections to the “shadow of my shadow,” meaning Alfonso, who resembles her (167). Since then, Marcello has taken charge of the Solaras’ affairs. Then, she confesses that Marcello has been trafficking drugs that have caused addiction problems in the neighborhood. Elena realizes that she no longer wants to talk to Lila about Nino and represses her feelings. It seems to her that thunder is rumbling under the buildings.

The thunderous feeling turns out to be an earthquake. Lila especially is terrified because she feels out of control.

Elena drags Lila out of the building, and Lila fears that complete chaos has descended on the city. Both women are insecure, unsure if the earthquake has set off Vesuvius in the background or whether there will be further tremors.

Lila suffers an attack of “dissolving boundaries” (175). She feels that all the distinct outlines of objects and her senses have dissolved, and everything is merging.

Lila confides that her whole life has been an exercise in holding back moments in which boundaries dissolve. She feels that even in moments of happiness she has been on the precipice of disaster. By finding other people’s fault lines, she has always managed to break them. She even confides that “love doesn’t last […] it soon gets a hole in it,” and that flaws corrupt its essential goodness (178).

Elena protects Lila and finds that the difference between them is that while Elena feels that she is stable and at the center of the world, Lila “perceived herself as a liquid and all her efforts were […] directed only at containing herself” (179). When Lila’s efforts to control life fail, she erases herself and seeks to become nothing.

As Lila and Elena scramble to find their loved ones after the earthquake, Elena realizes that Lila is universally hated because she knows everything about everyone. Elena is certain that Lila is concealing facts about Nino from her.

Elena finds that Nino had fled to the countryside with his wife’s family. Feeling abandoned by him, she does not invite him to reconcile until Christmas. Lila is elusive as ever, seeming to fear that another earthquake will occur.

Elena struggles to keep her temper in her ninth month of pregnancy. Nino avoids her, and she fights with her brother and sister about their involvement in Marcello’s drug trade. They insist that their money is essential to the family.

Elena goes to Lila’s office and finds Michele Solara there. His attitude has turned from strident to bashful. Clearly, he and Alfonso are lovers. Alfonso is also about to separate from Marisa, who is now with Lila’s former husband, Stefano. Michele denies that he is having troubles with Marcello and tells Elena that she can send her brothers to work “under someone else” (189). Lila warns Elena that she knows little about the neighborhood and could get into trouble (189). She adds that if Elena wishes to comfort her mother about her sons, she should lie to her and pretend they are not in trouble.

Elena’s mother confirms that Lila has come to visit her and has promised to do something for her sons. She then says that if Lila has a girl, she will name her Nunzia, after her mother. Elena says that she will name her girl after her, but Elena’s mother thinks that Nino will want to name her after his own mother.

Elena is infuriated with Nino’s “casual superficiality” and infrequent visits (192). She asks him about Mirko, the son he has with Silvia, and Nino reproaches her for paying too much attention to Lila. Elena asks to sleep alone and feels the contractions of childbirth.

Elena delivers her newest daughter, Immacolata Sarratore, on January 22, 1981. Nino is attentive and even suggests a baptism; Elena, a non-believer, has never baptized any of her children. Elena feels as though Nino is a “stranger I was forcing to assume a clear and definite character” (196).

Lila and Elena’s mother visit Elena in the Via Tasso apartment. Her mother admires the ocean view and the baby, who she says can be called Imma for short. However, Elena observes blood dripping from under her mother’s dress.

Elena’s mother faints, and after a period of indecision Elena stays at home with her baby, while Lila and Nino take her mother to hospital. Her trembling mother expresses the wish that she should not die alone. Elena calls Elisa, which results in she and Marcello going to the hospital and insisting that their mother be removed to a private clinic. Her mother’s care becomes a supremacy war between Lila and Marcello. Elena tries to negotiate on the phone and at last insists that Nino comes home and does not stay at the hospital with Lila.

Despite her advanced state of pregnancy, Lila stays all night at the hospital with Elena’s mother, fending off Marcello’s provocations. When Nino and Elena arrive at the hospital, they discover that her mother has been discharged.

Marcello paid to have Elena’s mother transferred to a clinic in Capodimonte. Through Elena, Elisa threatens Lila not to interfere anymore in the family business.

Elena sends for Dede and Elsa, and Pietro is more helpful to her than he was as a husband. However, Nino’s jealousy forces Elena to ask Pietro to leave. She is finally able to get a taxi to the clinic, where her mother coos over the baby and adores being “treated like a great lady” owing to its luxury (207). Elena feels that she is her mother’s favorite child. She experiences a desire to be close to her mother’s body that she never had when her mother was healthy.

The clinic becomes a gathering place for everyone in the neighborhood except Lila and Nino, who want to mount a defense against Marcello Solara. Elena greets Carmen and Alfonso there, and she observes their studied tact around Marcello. Carmen wants to be on good terms with him because she fears that he is in hot pursuit of her brother Pasquale. Meanwhile, Alfonso feels that Marcello would kill him because he sees him as the agent in Michele’s madness. Alfonso tells Elena that Lila is the one who encouraged him to come out as gay in the neighborhood and to wear clothes traditionally associated with female-presented individuals, as he always wanted. Thus, as an experiment, she encouraged him to model himself on her. Still, Alfonso feels isolated in the oppressively heteronormative neighborhood and fears for his life. Both Alfonso and Carmen are unsatisfied that Elena does not live in the neighborhood. They believe she should “stand beside Lila as a guardian deity” against the Solaras (213).

While Elena spends more time at the clinic and Lila agrees to take care of her children in her absence, Elena fears the resurgence of an intimacy between Lila and Nino. She fears that Lila will go into labor while Nino is there.

After a difficult birth, Lila gives birth to a nine-and-a-half-pound daughter named Nunzia, whom she baptizes to placate her old father. Lila, who finds the birthing process unnatural and difficult, insults the gynecologist. The gynecologist reports to Elena and Nino that the problem is not Lila’s body; it is her “dancing brain” (217).

Now that Lila has a daughter too, she and Elena spend more time together. They imitate each other and compete over who can be the best mother. Lila begins to call her daughter Tina after Elena’s childhood doll that Lila threw into the cellar. Lila dismisses this as a coincidence, before saying that her daughter is “more beautiful” than Elena’s doll (218).

When Elena’s mother worsens, the whole family realizes that the clinic is unqualified to help her. Nino refuses to intervene to find alternative help on political grounds, saying, “In this country we have to stop thinking that even for a bed in the hospital you have to […] rely on the Camorra” (219). Marcello surprises everyone by bringing in a specialist, and Elena’s mother’s condition improves for a while. When she realizes that she is dying, Elena’s mother implores her sons to accept Lila’s offer of employment. Elena is with her mother when she dies, and she feels closer to her mother than ever, wearing the bracelet she gave her years ago.

Elena misses her mother after her death and feels haunted by her. Bolstered by her mother’s deathbed expression that she has confidence in her, Elena focuses on her career, devoting every spare second to reading and writing. However, she is behind on a novel that she received an advance on, because she has not yet figured out the story. Her editor, who is passing through Naples, mistrusts her, owing to Adele’s influence. He demands that she deliver her new novel by the fall of 1982, or else he will not publish Nino’s essay collection. Despite her doubts, Elena agrees to the deadline.

Elena laments to Nino that Adele is still plotting against her. However, Nino, who had a civil conversation with Guido Airota at a conference, is cheered at the prospect that his book may be published. Elena is enraged because she is uncertain how she will accomplish such a feat when Nino does nothing to help her with her domestic duties. He recommends that they hire a housekeeper.

Elena bemoans how much she must rely on both Pietro and Nino to make ends meet. She is determined to work her way towards becoming as “autonomous as possible” (226). While she continues to love Nino, she hates the way he is warming up to her ex-father-in-law to advance his position as an academic. She observes with disgust that his politics have turned from revolutionary to aligning with the status quo. Moreover, he patronizes Elena in front of her daughters, stating that she is a fiction-maker who “doesn’t know much about how the world we live in functions” (229).

Nino makes a show of taking out the girls while Elena is working, but she finds his lack of interest in Imma disappointing. Elena realizes that Nino is genuinely fascinated by women and that he knows how to charm and gain favors from them. She sees that his promotions have all resulted from female interventions. When Elena asks him if he has ever met a “bitch,” he gives Lila’s name. On a domestic level, however, Elena recognizes “echoes of my conflicts with Pietro” when Nino believes himself to be enlightened yet leaves the housework to her (233).

Although Nino insults Lila, he refuses to consult Enzo on a technological matter, declaring that Lila would certainly know more. Elena conjectures that Lila is the root of Nino’s worship of female intelligence and that “if our season of love was already darkening, the season of Ischia [with Lila] would always remain radiant for him” (235).

Elena thinks about how her feelings for Nino changed before and after his time with Lila in Ischia. She originally arranged to go to the library for her work and conceives a story about a woman who marries her childhood sweetheart, “but on their wedding night she realizes that while a part of his body belongs to her, the other part is physically inhabited by a childhood friend” (236). Elena is then distracted by the imminent need to buy diapers for Imma and rushes home. There, she finds Nino and the housekeeper Silvana having sex. Elena runs out of the house with Imma.