III

I’m going to be happy, thought Enrica. I’m going to be happy.

The air in the closed interior of the steamer was unbreathable, so she’d stepped out onto the deck. But the hot wind brought no relief, and the smell of diesel fuel coupled with the rolling of the deck made her seasick; for the thousandth time she wondered whether she’d made the right choice.

I’m going to be happy, she repeated to herself firmly. She even whispered it, without realizing it, and a fat woman looking green around the gills stared at her curiously.

The last few months hadn’t been easy. Shy by nature, she’d had to force herself to build, painstakingly and patiently, a friendship with Rosa, the childhood governess of the man she’d fallen in love with.

Had she fallen in love? Yes, no question. She was more than certain. Because love, Enrica thought to herself, is a physical thing more than a state of mind. You can measure it by the beat that your heart skips every time he lays his eyes on you, and by the extra little surge in the next beat, when you realize that there’s a tenderness welling up in those eyes. Love is the heat that you feel on your face at the idea of placing your lips against his. Love is the sinking feeling in your belly when you spot his silhouette at the window, on a dark winter evening, glimpsed from across the street, through the rain.

Love is something physical. And she was in love.

The absurd thing was that the whole time she’d always sensed, in her heart, on her skin, in her gut, that he loved her too. And during the long months in which he had watched her from the window and she had awaited a single gesture, a word, she’d wondered why he hadn’t declared himself. Was there another woman?

The only way to find out was to talk to those who knew him, and there was only one person who fit that description, namely his elderly governess, his old tata, a modest woman, only apparently bad-tempered, who’d welcomed Enrica’s desperate appeal with pragmatism, telling her how much she hoped Enrica’s wish would come true, and sooner rather than later, too, because Rosa was tired and afraid that her young master would be left alone, once she was no longer around to look after him.

Now, on the deck of the steamer, as Enrica clasped her hat to her head with one begloved hand, and pressed a scented handkerchief to her nose with the other, she struggled to remember the enthusiasm and trepidation she had felt when she first set foot in his home. At Easter she had felt she could sweep aside any obstacle, that—with her innate calm and patience—she would be able to claim her desired place, beside the lifetime companion she had chosen in silence, in the privacy of her bedroom, reading and rereading the first awkward letter that he had sent her, in which he asked her permission to greet her when they met.

She had cooked for him. With Rosa’s help, she’d put together a meal with all the dishes he loved best. She’d picked out a dress, a perfume, a pair of shoes. She’d even planned out the topics of conversation. She was ready; she felt like the woman she most wanted to be.

She gulped back a sob that was rising in her chest. She felt sorry for herself when she thought back to that night. He’d never shown up at all, and there she had sat, stiff and silent, while Rosa, embarrassed and sad, watched her from the kitchen door, not knowing what to say. Finally Enrica had gotten up and gone home. Later, when her fear for his safety won out over her mortification, she’d stood watching at the window until she’d heard a car pull up in the street below, and she’d seen him step out of the car with a chauffeur holding the door; she’d been able to make out a silhouette in the car’s cab and, in the silent night, she’d heard a woman’s laugh. That woman.

That was when she’d made up her mind to be happy in spite of him.

If he preferred the other woman, she could hardly blame him. She’d seen her once, at the Gran Caffè Gambrinus, and she could hardly ignore her beauty, her style, and her elegance. Rosa had said in a contemptuous tone that she was a fallen woman, one of those who smoke in public and flirt with everyone, but Enrica knew how difficult it was, for a simple schoolteacher like her, to complete with someone like that other woman.

Enrica’s mother—who never missed a chance to point out that when a girl reaches the age of twenty-four she can officially call herself an old maid, that her younger sister (younger!) had not only been married for over two years but already had a son, while Enrica seemed fated to a future of miserable loneliness—watched her with unconcealed and growing concern, and this pained Enrica intolerably, especially now that she couldn’t even lay secret claim to a love she believed was reciprocated. Her father, so similar in temperament to Enrica, quiet and gently determined, understood that if he spoke to her about it he’d only wound her further; and so he watched her surreptitiously, helplessly, sympathetically sharing in the sorrow that he could see on her face.

Shielding her glasses from the sea’s spray, Enrica told herself that yes, she’d made the right decision. She couldn’t stand the prospect of a long hot summer, of having to duck her head every time she walked past his window; struggling to keep from looking across the street on afternoons when she tutored students forced to take makeup exams in the fall; doing her best to sidestep painful chance encounters with Rosa in the grocer’s shop downstairs. What could she tell the old woman? That she didn’t think she was up to fighting for the man she loved? That the weapons of seduction, which that other woman seemed so expert in, weren’t part of her arsenal? That she was so cowardly and resigned that she was willing to step aside, so long as it put an end to her suffering?

And so she’d stopped by the teachers’ college where she’d taken her degree and inquired whether they knew of anyone who might be looking for a teacher. Was she running away? Yes. She was running away. From him. From herself. From what she wished had happened and hadn’t. From the stagnant life she hadn’t been able to escape.

She’d thought it over long and hard, and decided that this was the best solution. They called them “temporary climatic colonies”; they were designed to ward off tuberculosis, one of the diseases that threatened children’s health. Give a sick child to the sea, and the sea will give back a healthy child, ran the slogan; who could say if that were true. In any case, it was a way to offer fresh air to those who couldn’t afford it, and an opportunity for the Opera Nazionale Balilla, the Fascist youth organization, to do some summertime proselytizing. The director of the college, who remembered Enrica as the best student she’d ever had, had given her a hug and promised that she’d make sure she was first in line if any openings presented themselves. Sure enough, a few days later the director had sent for her.

Enrica’s father had objected; he’d rather have kept his daughter close. But her mother had supported her, in the hope that a new setting might offer a chance to meet new people.

So now Enrica found herself aboard a ship steaming toward the island of Ischia, twenty miles across the Bay of Naples, where a summer colony was currently missing one of its teachers; the last one had been discovered to be scandalously pregnant, though unmarried. Apparently fate wanted to second her decision to put as much distance as she could between herself and those sorrowful green eyes that appeared to her every night in her dreams—when, that is, she finally managed to get to sleep after tossing and turning for hours.

She squinted into the sunshine, gulped, and tried to distract herself by admiring the view. She recognized Pizzofalcone, the Charterhouse of San Martino, Castel Sant’Elmo standing atop its brilliant green hill; along the coast, the handsome façades of the palaces of Santa Lucia and Castel dell’Ovo, which stretched alongside the water like a long stone finger. Further back, Posillipo tumbled downhill toward the bright blue waters of the bay, with its court of a hundred fishing boats returning after a night out on the water. The city, teeming and treacherous, assumed a stirring beauty from that vantage point, and she felt a twinge of homesickness. Enrica wondered what people who are forced to emigrate must feel when they sail away and turn to look back at that spectacular view, knowing they may never set eyes on it again.

A knot of despair swelled in her throat. The green-gilled woman, who’d been struggling against an overwhelming urge to vomit, found the strength to ask her if she felt well. Enrica nodded with a tight smile, then turned back toward sea to conceal the ocean of tears that had filled her eyes.

I’m going to be happy, she said over and over again to herself. I’m going to be happy.

And she silently wept.