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Authors: Elena Ferrante
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panels, clamps, plates, latches, and bolts, would properly lock the house door, they could all, if someone wanted to, be unlocked, forced. They therefore advised me, for my peace of mind, to have the door reinforced.
I hesitated for a long time, I couldn’t spend money lightheartedly. It was easy to foresee that with Mario’s desertion my economic future would be worse as well. But in the end I decided to do it, and I began to make the rounds of specialized shops, comparing prices and service, advantages and disadvantages. In the end, after weeks of obsessive investigations and negotiations, I made a decision, and so one morning two workers arrived at the house, one in his thirties, the other in his fifties, both reeking of tobacco.
The children were at school, Otto was lying in a corner completely indifferent to the two strangers, and I immediately began to feel uneasy. This irritated me, every change in my normal behavior irritated me. In the past I had always been nice to anyone who came to the door: workers from the gas company, the electric company, the building administrator, the plumber, the upholsterer, even door-to-door salesmen and real-estate agents looking for apartments to sell. I was a trusting woman, sometimes I exchanged a few words with these strangers, I liked to appear serenely curious about their lives. I was so sure of myself that I would invite them in and close the door, sometimes I asked if they wanted something to drink. On the other hand, my behavior must have been, in general, so courteous and yet so aloof that it would not occur to any visitor to utter a disrespectful word or attempt some double-entendre to see how I would react and evaluate my sexual availability. Those two men, instead, immediately began to exchange allusive remarks, to snicker, to sing suggestively vulgar songs while they worked, lazily. So I had the suspicion that in my body, my gestures, my looks there was something that I no longer had under control. I became agitated. What could they read in me? That I hadn’t slept with a man for almost three months? That I wasn’t sucking cocks, that no one was licking my pussy? That I wasn’t screwing? Was that why those two men kept speaking to me, laughing, of keys, of keyholes, of locks? I should have armored myself, made myself inscrutable. I became more and more nervous. As they hammered energetically and smoked without asking permission and spread through the house a maddening smell of sweat, I didn’t know what to do.
First I retreated to the kitchen, taking Otto with me, closed the door, sat at the table, tried to read the paper. But I was distracted, they made too much noise. So I stopped reading, began to cook. But I wondered why I was behaving like that, why I was hiding in my own house, it made no sense. After a while I returned to the entrance, where the two were busy in the house and on the landing, setting the metal plates on the old door panels.
I brought them some beers and was greeted with ill-contained enthusiasm. The older one in particular started up again with his vulgarly allusive language, maybe he just wanted to be witty, and that was the only form of wit he knew. Almost unconsciously—it was the throat blowing air against the vocal cords—I answered him laughing, with even heavier allusions, and, realizing that I had surprised them both, I didn’t wait for them to reply but piled it on, so foul-mouthed that the two looked at one another, perplexed, gave a slight smile, left the beer half drunk, and began to work more quickly.
Soon only a persistent hammering could be heard. Uneasiness returned, and this time it was unbearable. I felt all the shame of standing there as if waiting for further vulgarities that didn’t come. There was a long interval of embarrassment, perhaps they asked me to hand them some object, a tool, but with exaggerated courtesy, and not even a smile. After a while I picked up bottles and glasses, and went back to the kitchen.
I hesitated for a long time, I couldn’t spend money lightheartedly. It was easy to foresee that with Mario’s desertion my economic future would be worse as well. But in the end I decided to do it, and I began to make the rounds of specialized shops, comparing prices and service, advantages and disadvantages. In the end, after weeks of obsessive investigations and negotiations, I made a decision, and so one morning two workers arrived at the house, one in his thirties, the other in his fifties, both reeking of tobacco.
The children were at school, Otto was lying in a corner completely indifferent to the two strangers, and I immediately began to feel uneasy. This irritated me, every change in my normal behavior irritated me. In the past I had always been nice to anyone who came to the door: workers from the gas company, the electric company, the building administrator, the plumber, the upholsterer, even door-to-door salesmen and real-estate agents looking for apartments to sell. I was a trusting woman, sometimes I exchanged a few words with these strangers, I liked to appear serenely curious about their lives. I was so sure of myself that I would invite them in and close the door, sometimes I asked if they wanted something to drink. On the other hand, my behavior must have been, in general, so courteous and yet so aloof that it would not occur to any visitor to utter a disrespectful word or attempt some double-entendre to see how I would react and evaluate my sexual availability. Those two men, instead, immediately began to exchange allusive remarks, to snicker, to sing suggestively vulgar songs while they worked, lazily. So I had the suspicion that in my body, my gestures, my looks there was something that I no longer had under control. I became agitated. What could they read in me? That I hadn’t slept with a man for almost three months? That I wasn’t sucking cocks, that no one was licking my pussy? That I wasn’t screwing? Was that why those two men kept speaking to me, laughing, of keys, of keyholes, of locks? I should have armored myself, made myself inscrutable. I became more and more nervous. As they hammered energetically and smoked without asking permission and spread through the house a maddening smell of sweat, I didn’t know what to do.
First I retreated to the kitchen, taking Otto with me, closed the door, sat at the table, tried to read the paper. But I was distracted, they made too much noise. So I stopped reading, began to cook. But I wondered why I was behaving like that, why I was hiding in my own house, it made no sense. After a while I returned to the entrance, where the two were busy in the house and on the landing, setting the metal plates on the old door panels.
I brought them some beers and was greeted with ill-contained enthusiasm. The older one in particular started up again with his vulgarly allusive language, maybe he just wanted to be witty, and that was the only form of wit he knew. Almost unconsciously—it was the throat blowing air against the vocal cords—I answered him laughing, with even heavier allusions, and, realizing that I had surprised them both, I didn’t wait for them to reply but piled it on, so foul-mouthed that the two looked at one another, perplexed, gave a slight smile, left the beer half drunk, and began to work more quickly.
Soon only a persistent hammering could be heard. Uneasiness returned, and this time it was unbearable. I felt all the shame of standing there as if waiting for further vulgarities that didn’t come. There was a long interval of embarrassment, perhaps they asked me to hand them some object, a tool, but with exaggerated courtesy, and not even a smile. After a while I picked up bottles and glasses, and went back to the kitchen.
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