Chapter 7

According to Leila's brother, Reno, Leila learned to read when she was about three years old, looking at the pictures and letters in his literacy textbook. He did his homework in the kitchen and his sister always sat next to him, learning faster and more than he did.

Reno was to be almost six years older than Leila, and he was a very brave young man. He was especially good at playing games in the yard and on the street, especially pumping gyroscopes, but when it came to reading and writing, he was not that kind of material. When he was less than ten years old, his father, Fernando, began to take him to the store to teach him the art of shoe repair. The store was located in a narrow alley at the back of the main road. When we little girls met Lino, we could smell the stinky feet, old uppers, and shoe glue on him, and we jokingly called him the "little shoemaker". He was proud of his sister for being such a good student and felt he had a part to play. But in reality, he never had a literacy textbook or sat down to write a minute of homework. So it is impossible to say that Leila learned to read from his textbooks. Leila's early intelligence was most likely due to the newspapers that wrapped her shoes. Her father would sometimes bring those newspapers home and read interesting news to the family, and Leila learned the use of letters as a result.

Whatever the reason, here's the truth: Lila could read and write. The teacher showed us this on that gray morning, and my clearest memory is the feeling of weakness I felt after hearing the news. From the first day of school, I felt that school was better than my home, and I felt that it was the safest place in the whole city. Every time I went to school, I was excited, I paid attention in class, I listened very carefully to my teachers, and I learned something. I liked to please people, and I especially liked to please my teachers. At home, I was the apple of my father's eye, and several of my brothers loved me. The problem was with my mother, with whom I did not have a good relationship. I think that from the time I was almost six years old, she tried everything to make me understand that I was superfluous in her life. She didn't like me, and I didn't like her. I especially hated her body, and she could probably sense that. Her hair was yellow, her eyes were blue, her physique was bloated, and her right eye was so crooked that it was always confusing to figure out where she was looking. Her right leg was not working well either, a "frustrated leg," she said. She walked with a limp and a gait that made me very uneasy, especially at night, when she couldn't sleep and would walk down the hallway, go to the kitchen, and then come back to her room. Sometimes I could hear her pounding on the cockroaches with the heels of her shoes, the ones that came in from under the front door, and I imagined her staring with angry eyes, like when she was angry with me.

She must have been very unhappy, the housework was tiring her out and there was never enough money to spend. She was often angry at my father, who was the concierge at the city hall, and she yelled at him to find a way to earn money or else she couldn't get by. They quarreled a lot. My father usually didn't yell even when he was losing his patience. I always supported my father and opposed my mother, even though my father also beat my mother and was sometimes mean to me. On my first day at school, it was my father, not my mother, who said to me: "Lenonchia, you have to study well at school and listen to your teachers, we pay for your education, and if you don't study well, if you are not the best student, you go to work! Daddy needs help ......" These words have always scared me, even though they were said by my father, I felt as if it was my mother's proposal, that she forced him to say them. I promised my parents I would study hard. In my studies, everything was as it should be, and my teacher used to say to me.

"Greco, come and sit in front of me."

Sitting in front of the teacher was a great privilege. Ms. Oliviero always had an empty chair next to her, and she let the girls who studied the best sit there as a reward. In the beginning, I was often called to her. She always motivated me with heart-warming words about my beautiful blond hair, which made me want to perform even better. At home, my mother was the opposite; she was always accusing me, sometimes bordering on verbal abuse, making me long to hide in a dark corner, to disappear so she couldn't find me. Then Mrs. Cerullo came to the class and Mrs. Oliviero showed us: Lila was already far ahead of us in her studies. Not only that, but she often asked Lila to sit next to her, more often than she called me, which made me feel very lost inside. Now, years after the fact, I find it hard to describe clearly how I felt at that time, and probably I felt a bit jealous, like all girls.

But what is certain is that it was exactly at that stage that I began to develop a concern: even though my leg was fine at that time, I felt that I was still at risk of becoming lame. This was the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning, and I would immediately get out of bed and check my leg. I was particularly concerned about Leila, perhaps because her legs were thin and very flexible, always moving around, moment by moment, even when she was sitting next to the teacher, her feet were kicking around, annoying the teacher, who soon made her sit back in her seat. At that time I had the conviction that if I followed her all the time and learned how she walked, the way my mother walked that was engraved in my head would not threaten me. I decided to follow that girl and keep an eye on her, even if she would be annoying, even if she would drive me away.