What No One Knows

On May 8, 1959, after five in the afternoon, Mercedes (the name is imaginary, but the girl really existed and I met her) leaves the house and from Via Calabritto she sets off on foot towards Chiaia. She is 18 years old, tall, blonde, with dark eyes. She is wearing a light skirt, a white blouse and a scarf around her neck. On her feet are hand-sewn sandals bought in Positano. Under her arm she carries a couple of books and a maths workbook tied with an elastic band. Anyone who sees her might easily think that she is a student going for lessons in a subject she is not skilled in. In fact, there are just over 2 months left before the feared exams for the high school leaving certificate. The girl walks quickly. She quickly turns the corner of Santa Caterina and almost runs up the hill that leads to Palazzo Cellammare. She seems to want to pull out all the stops to get to where she is headed as soon as possible. A desire that is not at all plausible if all that awaits her is only a mathematics lesson. Actually, for some months she has often walked the same route in a state of mind of impatient anticipation mixed with slight anxiety. What has happened to her is a secret. Because few could understand. Mercedes is living through a completely unrepeatable story with a man, one of her father’s friends, who is 40 years older than her and who she has known since she was a child.