The Story of the Lost Child

In a panic over what to do, Elena settles on collecting Dede and Elsa from school and taking them to Lila’s. Elena finds that she “hated Nino as until that moment I had never hated anyone” (243).

Lila deals with the children. Elena laments that little Tina is more developed than Imma, despite being a month younger. Lila insists that Elena leave Nino. Elena asks if Lila has something to tell her. Lila says that Nino has often come to her, both before he was with Elena and after, begging her to go back to him. He even swore that he was only with Elena to feel close to Lila.

Elena returns home, determined to break up with Nino. Lila has sent Antonio to accompany Elena to make sure she does not run after him. Antonio lists all the women Nino has had a continuous relationship with. They include Elena’s babysitter Mirella and the gynecologist who delivered Imma and Tina. While Lila was aware of all this, she wanted to wait for Elena to be less in love with Nino before she broke the news to her. Antonio, who is accustomed to running errands for others, confesses that he did not tell Lila that Nino was on his way back to her when he beat him up. He says he did it so that Lila would not waste any more time on Nino. He would like to beat Nino again. Elena demands comfort from Antonio, and they end up in bed together. Nino calls and says he will come tomorrow.

Nino lies about his sexual advances on Lila and other women. He offers his “exorbitant virility” as an excuse for his actions (253). Elena taunts him that Antonio and certain friends of his who she has slept with are better lovers. Although Nino protests that he loves Elena’s daughters and that Imma is his favorite child, he stops paying rent on the Via Tasso flat, meaning that Elena must find another place to live. Lila mentions a place she has found in the neighborhood. Elena, who worries about Imma being developmentally behind Tina, sends off a book manuscript that Adele previously disparaged to the publisher to meet her deadline.

Nino, who is insecure about Elena’s sexual encounters with other men, turns up and tries to re-enter her bed. She throws him out. Elena is so worried about money that she considers becoming a middle-school teacher. The publisher calls her and, to her surprise, declares the manuscript she sent him both unexpected and “extraordinary” (258).

The book, which both Adele and Lila hated, is a “novel form of [Elena’s] experience of the poorest and most violent Naples” (258). When the publisher confirms that Naples is good for Elena’s writing, she agrees to take up Lila’s offer of the neighborhood flat.

Elena and her daughters move into the apartment above Lila’s. Seeking to make her ties to the neighborhood complete, she enrolls Dede in her old middle school and Elsa in her elementary school. When Elena tells Lila that she is publishing the book Lila hated, Lila loses confidence, saying, “I told you that I don’t understand anything” (262). Elena praises Tina who is more advanced that Imma, both in speech and manual dexterity. Although a pediatrician confirmed that there is nothing wrong with Imma, Elena cannot help comparing the two children. Lila, however, claims that Gennaro, despite being clever as a baby, turned out badly.

Lila and Elena live in unprecedentedly close quarters and share childcare duties. Elena is relieved to be free of Nino and getting along better than ever with Pietro. Lila admires Pietro’s easy, learned manner and laments that Gennaro is not more like him. She wants Elena to help her ensure that Tina grows up better than him. They have faith that they can change the neighborhood.

While Elena’s new book receives media attention, Lila is the local celebrity, for both her business success and the energy she releases. Elena reflects that “those who had known us from birth attributed to her, to the force of her attraction, the fact that the neighborhood could have on its streets an esteemed person like me” (270).

Elena resolves to take herself out of Naples and the violent, drug-filled neighborhood as soon as the book is finished. When Elena protests that they must make the neighborhood more lawful and decorous, Lila laughs, saying that the law does not count here.

At Elisa and Marcello’s wedding, Michele makes a big speech and reproaches Tina for squalling in the middle of it. This signals that he is on his brother’s side over Lila’s.

Elisa accuses Elena of preferring Lila and her daughter to her and Silvio. She also complains about their brothers working out of the neighborhood and not under the Solaras.

Alfonso is devastated that Michele has left him and that he was not invited to the wedding. He is wearing women’s clothes and insecure that he might not be as pretty as Lila. Enzo feels upset and wants to beat Michele, but Lila tells him to stop because he is frightening Tina.

Elena’s publicity office claims that they must do a photoshoot around the neighborhood for the book. A sophisticated Milanese photographer surprises Elena when she is looking after Imma and Tina, saying that she prefers to take photographs when the subject least expects her. She takes pictures of Elena and the girls around the neighborhood and especially of Tina, who she says has “a fantastic face” (280).

Michele shouts at Elena, accusing her of writing “despicable things” about the neighborhood (281). He refers to a Panorama article which features a picture of Elena and Tina and mistakenly captions the latter as her daughter. Michele and Elena believe she has been manipulated by Lila.

Elena reads the Panorama article, which features “four pages of the ugliest places in the neighborhood” and includes details of seedy Camorrist dealings (282). Elena feels that she may have overdone her descriptions of the truth of the neighborhood and is surprised to find the murders of Don Achille Carracci and Manuela Solara mentioned, in addition to the “dangerous terrorist Pasquale Peluso” (283). Elena is confused, as she has not written any of this.

Elena goes back to Lila’s with the Panorama article. Lila argues that while Elena did not name the places she mentioned in the novel, her descriptions made them easily identifiable. Then, Lila admits that she has not succeeded in subduing the danger of Michele Solara, and that they should not be afraid of him. Meanwhile, Enzo is so proud of Tina’s picture in the paper that he pins it up in his office, omitting the mistaken caption that she is Elena’s daughter.

Elena publishes her book, which performs well commercially and is praised for its unparalleled descriptions of Naples. Lila dismisses the book and refuses to look at it. Enzo says that he will save it for Tina when she is older.

Elena has numerous public engagements for the book, and although Lila complains about babysitting her daughters, she will not accept Elena’s offer to hire someone. In the interviews, Elena discusses the decline of Naples but refrains from mentioning the Solaras’ activities. She receives a phone call from Adele congratulating her and wanting to make peace. She also receives a call from Nino, who is ingratiating himself with Guido Airota. Nino suggests that he and Elena get back together. She says that she is finished with him.

Elena goes on a promotional book tour and finds that when she is in the world of letters, she forgets about her daughters. When Imma develops pneumonia and Lila nurses her in hospital, Elena feels guilty. However, Lila informs her that she has bigger problems now that Carmen is suing her over her book.

Elena is determined to get to the bottom of Carmen’s lawsuit, but Carmen will not see her. Antonio tells Elena that the Solaras are sending him back to Germany. He then advises her to get out of the neighborhood because they are furious about Lila’s influence in the local elections. He adds that Carmen’s lawyers are the Solaras.

Carmen demands that Elena withdraw the book from circulation and pay damages for tarnishing the memory of her mother. Lila advises Elena to combat this by telling the newspapers about the lawsuit and the Solaras. Her editor writes about the lawsuit in the Corriere della Sera.

To Elena’s relief, her editor was not overly specific in his article about the lawsuit. Instead, he referred obliquely to backwards forces that would stop Italy from modernizing. Lila, however, is disappointed that the article does not accuse the Solaras by name of forcing Carmen to take up the lawsuit.

Elena tracks Carmen to her relatives’ home in Giugliano. There, Carmen reveals that the Solaras threatened her, saying that they knew where Pasquale was and would kill him if she did not try to sue Elena. When Elena suggests that Pasquale would be safest if Carmen turns him into the carabinieri, Carmen gets mad. Elena fears that Carmen will return to the Solaras and take further action against her.

While Elena expects disaster to strike, she wins a prestigious literary prize and continuous readership. However, things are hard for Lila when her son Gennaro arrives home with the marks of heroin needles on his arms, and Lila reacts by forcing Enzo to beat him. She also throws her heroin-addicted brother Rino out of Basic Sight. Lila quarrels with Alfonso over his unreliability. Alfonso then disappears and is found murdered on the shore. Lila mourns him deeply, and Elena conjectures that “she must have looked at him as at a mirror and seen herself in him” (305).

Surprisingly, only the Solaras turn up at Alfonso’s funeral. Lila insists that she and Elena confront them. Lila threatens the brothers, saying that they are finished in the neighborhood and ought to leave. She says she knows enough to ruin Michele. Michele then threatens to “take away everything you have” and punches Lila to the ground (307).

The punch at the funeral signifies that the Solaras have declared themselves Lila’s enemies. Elena asks Lila what dirt she has on the Solaras. Lila says that while working for Michele she saw a lot of documents and made meticulous notes of their contents. Elena and Lila enclose themselves in the Basic Sight offices, and Elena watches Lila type up the Solaras’ transgressions. Elena sends the pages to the publishing house and wants to know whether it is enough to send the Solaras to jail.

The editor at the publishing house praises the article but affirms that there is not enough material to send the Solaras to jail. While he suggests publishing it, Elena is uncertain and reports the exchange to Lila.

A few weeks later, Elena’s editor calls her and says that Lila has sent the article with Elena’s name on it. It will appear in L’Espresso in a few days’ time. Elena suspects that Lila removed her own name to remain hidden, but Lila protests that she used Elena’s famous name to give the article weight.

Elena grows in fame because of the article. While she is threatened by right wing voices defaming her, the Solaras remain quiet. Marcello tells Elena that he is not angry with her, even as Elisa and her father cut her out of their lives.

Lila becomes depressed and increasingly leaves Tina and occasionally Gennaro in Elena’s charge. When Elena complains of becoming overwhelmed, Lila says that she should send for her mother Nunzia to help. The girls dislike Nunzia, and Nunzia is sharp with Imma until Elena agrees to pay her.

Lila becomes increasingly critical of Elena’s abilities as a mother, especially with regard to Imma. Lila says that Imma lacks confidence because she never sees her father and seldom sees her mother. While Imma is pretty and bright, next to Tina she becomes dull and insipid. Imma expresses awareness of her lack of a father when she protests that no prince will rescue her.

Elena writes Nino a letter, telling him that he is damaging their daughter by his absence. When he does not respond, she calls his wife Eleonora, who affirms that he is an absent father to her children, too. Elena eventually tracks him down and insists that he come for monthly visits and pay attention to Imma exclusively.

Although Elena tells Lila that this day will be about Imma, Tina shows up to her house as usual. Elena is worried about Lila and her daughter stealing the attention away from Imma.

Nino behaves well, and after one compliment to Tina, who tries to impress him with how well she can write her name, lavishes his affection on Imma.

To her fury, Elena finds that Nino and Lila are absorbed in conversation, with Imma in Lila’s arms. Elena insists that they must come to lunch and finds that Imma is clinging to her skirt and is not with Tina. Lila at first does not pay too much attention to Tina’s absence.

The party look for Tina all over the neighborhood and even recruit Antonio and Marcello Solara. There are rumors of Tina chasing a blue ball and being struck by a truck at such speed that “not a drop of blood remained, nothing, nothing at all” (332).