Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante

Author:Elena Ferrante
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa
Published: 2012-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

16.

He pushed me toward the exit and then, quickly, toward the taxi stand. People who had been surprised by the rain were crowding under the roof of the subway entrance. The sky was black and the wind was blowing hard, driving on a diagonal a curtain of fine dense drops. Polledro got me into a taxi reeking of smoke. He spoke with speed and assurance, without leaving me space, as if he were convinced that I must feel great interest in what he was saying. But I was hardly listening; I couldn’t concentrate. I had the impression that he lacked a precise plan, that he was talking with a frantic display of self-possession that served only to contain his anxiety. I didn’t want it to infect me.

With a certain solemnity he begged my pardon in the name of his father. He said he didn’t know what to do: old age had utterly ruined his brain. But he assured me immediately that the old man wasn’t dangerous, and that he wasn’t bad. He was uncontrollable, yes: he had a strong, healthy body, he was always out and about, it was impossible to restrain him. When he managed to steal enough money from him, he disappeared for months. Abruptly he began to list for me the cashiers he had had to let go because they had been corrupted or taken in by his father.

While Polledro spoke, I noticed his smell: not his true smell, which was overpowered by the stench of sweat and tobacco that pervaded the taxi, but an odor invented by starting from that of the shop selling sweets and spices where we had often played together. The shop belonged to his grandfather and was a few blocks from where my parents lived. The sign was of wood, painted blue, and next to the legend “Coloniali” there was a palm tree and a black woman with very red lips. That sign my father had painted at the age of twenty. He had also painted the counter in the shop. He had used a color called burnt sienna to make a desert, and in the desert he had put a lot of palm trees, two camels, a man in a bush jacket and boots, cascades of coffee, African dancers, an ultramarine-blue sky, and a quarter moon. It was easy to reach that landscape. Children lived out on the street, without supervision: I would leave the courtyard of our building, turn the corner, and push open the wooden door, which had a window in the upper half and a diagonal metal bar across it. Immediately a bell rang. Then I went in and the door closed behind me. The edge was padded with fabric, or perhaps covered with rubber, to keep it from slamming. The air smelled of cinnamon and cream. On the threshold were two sacks with rolled-down edges, full of coffee beans. Above, on the marble counter, containers of cut glass, with designs in relief, displayed white, blue, and red

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