My Brilliant Friend: Childhood: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

That summer, Lila is in a cast, and Fernando will barely even look at her while it’s on. Lenù  thinks that Fernando’s violence toward Lila is “small” compared to the violence happening elsewhere throughout the neighborhood as the temperatures rise. At the Bar Solara, a popular gambling location run by the Camorrist Silvio Solara, many fights break out each week. Silvio takes it upon himself to beat up customers who ask for loans or can’t pay for drinks; he enlists the help of his teenage sons Marcello and Michele in doling out violence as well.

In the middle of the summer, Don Achille is murdered on a rainy August day. Don Achille had just gotten up from a midday nap in order to open the kitchen window—as he did, someone plunged a knife into his neck, spraying blood all over his kitchen and killing him. Lila becomes fascinated with the story of Don Achille’s murder and repeats it over and over again, each time focusing on new details. Lila claims to know secret details of the murder and keeps Carmela and Lenù both rapt yet terrified with each new repetition. In each retelling of the story, Lila imagines the murderer to be female.

Many days that summer, Lila and Lenù play at Carmela’s house. Carmela’s mother is a cheerful, kind, welcoming woman, and Lenù enjoys being at the Peluso house. One morning, as the three girls play checkers, there is a knock at the door. When Signora Peluso opens the door, she begins screaming—the carabinieri (police) begin dragging Alfredo away. Alfredo screams to his wife and children, professing his innocence—he declares that he was not responsible for the murder of Don Achille. As the Pelusos begin to weep, Lenù joins them—only Lila does not cry.

Lenù remembers this event as the “most terrible thing” she witnessed in her childhood—but now, as an adult, she remembers that Lila was strangely unaffected by it. Elena recalls Lila comforting Carmela by stroking her hair and gently telling her that if her father was the murderer after all, he’d done the right thing in killing Don Achille.