Find Me

by André Aciman

  “It would have taken you a long time.”

  “I gave myself forty days and forty nights, and then I would have tried the conservatory. Instead I tried the conservatory first.”

  “But weren’t we planning on meeting this coming Sunday?”

  “I wasn’t too sure.”

  That I didn’t object or say anything to gainsay his assumption must have confirmed his suspicion. Indeed, our silence regarding next Sunday’s concert made us smile uneasily. “I have wonderful memories of last Sunday,” I ended up saying. “So do I,” he replied.

  “Who was the lovely pianist with whom you were playing?” he asked.

  “She’s a very talented third-year student from Thailand, very, very gifted.”

  “The way you looked at each other while playing clearly suggests there is more than just teacher-pupil affinity between you.”

  “Yes, she came all the way here to study with me.” I could tell where he was leading and shook my head with mock reproof at the insinuation.

  “And may I ask what you’re doing later?”

  Bold, I thought.

  “You mean tonight? Nothing.”

  “Doesn’t someone like you have a friend, a partner, someone special?”

  “Someone like me?” Were we really going to repeat last Sunday’s conversation?

  “I meant young, sparkling, clearly fascinating, to say nothing of very handsome.”

  “There is no one,” I said, then looked away.

  Was I really trying to cut him off? Or was I enjoying this without wanting to show it?

  “You don’t take compliments well, do you?”

  I looked at him and shook my head again, but without humor this time.

  “So no one, no one?” he finally asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “Not even the occasional…?”

  “I don’t do the occasional.”

  “Never?” he asked, almost baffled.

  “Never.”

  But I could hear my tone stiffen. He was trying to be playful, prodding, borderline flirtatious, and here I was coming off as mirthless, dour, and, worst of all, self-righteous.

  “But there must have been someone special?”

  “There was.”

  “Why did it end?”

  “We were friends, then we were lovers, then she split. But we stayed friends.”

  “Was there ever a he in your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did it end?”

  “He got married.”

  “Ah, the marriage canard!”

  “I thought so too at the time. But they’ve been together for years now. They were together before he started with me.”

  At first, he didn’t say anything but he seemed to question the whole setup. “Did the two of you remain friends?”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted him to ask, yet I loved being asked.

  “We haven’t spoken in ages, and I don’t know that we’re friends, though I’m sure we will always be. He’s always read me extremely well, and I have a feeling that he suspects that if I never write it’s not because I don’t care but because a part of me still does and always will, just as I know he still cares, which is why he too never writes. And knowing this is good enough for me.”

  “Even though he’s the one who got married?”

  “Even though he’s the one who got married,” I echoed. “And besides,” I added, as though it dispelled any ambiguity, “he teaches in the US, and I’m here in Paris—kind of settles it, doesn’t it? Unseen but always there.”

  “Doesn’t settle it at all. Why haven’t you gone after him, even if he is married? Why give up so easily?”

  The near-critical tone in his voice was hard to miss. Why was he reproaching me? Was he not interested then?

  “Besides, how long ago was it?” he asked.

  I knew my answer would leave him totally stumped. “Fifteen years.”

  Suddenly, he stopped asking and went silent. As I expected, he had not figured that so many years could go by and leave me still attached to someone who had become an invisible presence.

  “It belongs to the past,” I said, trying to make amends.

  “Nothing belongs to the past.” But then he right away asked: “You still think of him, don’t you?”

  I nodded because I did not want to say yes.

  “Do you miss him?”

  “When I am alone—sometimes, yes. But it doesn’t intrude, doesn’t make me sad. I can go entire weeks without thinking of him. Sometimes I want to tell him things, but then I put it off, and even telling myself that I’m putting it off gives me some pleasure, though we may never speak. He taught me everything. My father said there were no taboos in bed; my lover helped me cast them off. He was my first.”

  Michel shook his head with a confiding smile that reassured me. “How many after him?” he asked.

  “Not many. All short-lived. Men and women.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe because I never really let go or lose myself with others. After an instant of passion, I always fall back to being the autonomous me.”

  He took a last sip of his coffee.

  “At some point in your life you will need to call him. The moment will come. It always does. But perhaps I shouldn’t be saying all this.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know why.”

  I liked what he’d just said, but it left us both silent. “The autonomous you, then,” he finally said, obviously eliding what had just transpired between us that very second. “Difficult, aren’t you?”

  “My father used to say so as well, because I could never decide on anything, what to do in life, where to live, what to study, whom to love. Stick to music, he said. Sooner or later, the rest would come. He started his career at the age of thirty-two—so I still have some time, though not much, if I’m to time myself to his clock. We’ve been exceptionally close, ever since I was a baby. He was a philologist and writing his dissertation at home while my mother was a therapist in a hospital, so he was the one in charge of diapers and all the rest. We had help but I was always with him. He’s the one who taught me to love music—ironically, the very same piece I was teaching when you walked in this afternoon. When I teach it I still hear his voice.”

  “My father too taught me music. I was just a bad student.”

  I liked this sudden convergence of coincidences though I was reluctant to make too much of it either. He kept staring at me without saying anything. But then he said something that caught me off guard once again: “You are so handsome.” It had come totally unprompted, so that rather than react to his words, I tried to change the subject, except that in doing so I heard myself mutter something more unprompted yet. “You make me nervous.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I don’t really know what you’re after, or where you’d want me to stop and not go further.”

  “Should be very clear by now. If anything I’m the one who should be nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m probably just a whim for you, or maybe a few rungs higher than an occasional.”

  I scoffed at this.

  “And by the way”—I hesitated before saying it but felt impelled to say it—“I’m not very good at beginnings.”

  He chuckled. “Was this thrown in for my benefit?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, but to come back to what I was saying: You are unbelievably handsome. And the problem is either that you know it and are aware of its power over others or that you need to pretend not to—which makes you not just difficult to decipher but, for someone like me, dangerous.”

  All I did was nod listlessly. I didn’t want him to feel that what he’d just told me was misplaced. So I stared at him, smiled, and in another setting would have touched his eyelids before kissing them both.

  As it got darker, the lights of our café and of the adjoining one were lit. They cast a luminous, un
steady glow on his features, and for the first time, I was aware of his lips, his forehead, and his eyes. He’s the handsome one, I thought. I should have said so, and the moment was ripe for it. But I kept quiet. I did not want to echo his own words; it would have sounded like a strained and contrived attempt to establish parity between us. But I did love his eyes. And he was still staring at me.

  “You remind me of my son,” he finally said.

  “Do we look alike?”

  “No, but you’re the same age. He too loves classical music. So I used to take him to the Sunday-evening concerts, the way my father had so often done with me.”

  “Do you still go together?”

  “No. He lives in Sweden, mostly.”

  “But the two of you are close?”

  “I wish. My divorce with his mother ruined things between us, though I’m sure she did nothing to hurt our relationship. But he knew about me of course and, I suppose, never forgave me. Or he used it as an excuse to turn against me, which he’d been wanting to do since his early twenties, God knows why.”

  “How did they find out?”

  “She did first. One early evening she walked in and found me listening to slow jazz and nursing a drink. I was alone and just by watching me and the look on my face she knew right away that I was in love. Classic feminine intuition! She put down her handbag by the coffee table, sat next to me on the sofa, and even reached out and had a sip of my drink: ‘Is she someone I know?’ she asked after a long, long silence. I knew exactly what she meant and there was no point denying it. ‘It’s not a she,’ I replied. ‘Ah,’ she said. I still remember the last remnants of sunlight on the carpet and against the furniture, the smoky smell of my whiskey, and the cat lying next to me. Sunlight, when I see it in my living room, still reminds me of that conversation. ‘So it’s worse than I thought,’ she said. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because against a woman I still stand a chance, but against who you are, there’s nothing I can do. I cannot change you.’ Thus ended almost twenty years of marriage. My son was bound to find out soon enough, and he did.”

  “How?”

  “I told him. I was under the illusion that he’d understand. He didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry” was all I could say.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t regret the turn in my life. But I do regret losing him. He never calls when he is in Paris, seldom even writes, and doesn’t pick up when I call.”

  He looked at his watch. Was it time to go already?

  “So it’s not a mistake that I tracked you down?” he asked for the third time, perhaps because he loved hearing me say that it absolutely wasn’t, which I enjoyed telling him.

  “Not a mistake.”

  “And you weren’t upset with me about the other evening?” he asked.

  I knew exactly what he was referring to.

  “Maybe I was—a bit.”

  He smiled. I could tell he was eager to leave the café, so I moved closer to him, my shoulder touching his. Which was when he put his arm around me and drew me to him, almost urging me to rest my head on his shoulder. I didn’t know whether this was meant to reassure me or simply humor a young man who had opened up and spoken some touching words to an older man. Perhaps it was the prelude to a goodbye hug. So, fearing the unavoidable leave-taking, I blurted out, “I’m not doing anything tonight.”

  “Yes, I know. You told me.”

  But he must have sensed that I was nervous or that his tone was off.

  “You are an amazing and—” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  He was about to pay but I stopped his hand. Then as I held it I stared at it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked almost reproachfully.

  “Paying.”

  “No, you were staring at my hand.”

  “I wasn’t,” I protested. But I had stared at his hand.

  “It’s called age,” he said. Then a moment later: “Haven’t changed your mind, have you?” He bit his lower lip but then right away released it. He was waiting for my answer.

  And then because there was nothing I could think of saying to him but still felt the need to say something, anything, “Let’s not say goodbye, not just yet.” But I realized that this could easily be viewed as a request to extend our time together by a short while in the café, so I decided to opt for something bolder. “Don’t let me go home tonight, Michel,” I said. I know I blushed saying this, and was already scrambling for ways to apologize and take back my words when he came to my rescue.

  “I was struggling to ask the very same thing but, once again, you beat me to it. The truth is,” he went on, “I don’t do this frequently. Actually, I haven’t done this in a long time.”

  “This?” I said, with a slight jeer in my voice.

  “This.”

  We left shortly after. We must have walked with my bike a good twenty or thirty minutes to his home. He offered to hail a taxi. I said no, that I preferred to walk; besides, the bike was not the easiest thing to fold, and taxi drivers always complained. “I love your bike. I love that you have such a bike.” Then, catching himself: “I’m speaking nonsense, aren’t I?” We were walking side by side with hardly a foot’s distance between us and our hands kept grazing. Then I reached for his and held it for a few moments. This would break the ice, I thought. But he kept quiet. A few more paces on the cobbled street, and I let go of his hand.

  “I do love this,” I said.

  “This?” he teased. “Meaning the Brassaï effect?” he asked.

  “No, me and you. It’s what we should have done two nights ago.”

  He looked down at the sidewalk, smiling. Was I perhaps rushing things? I liked how our walk tonight was a repeat of the other evening. The crowd and the singing on the bridge, the glinting slate cobbles, the bike with its strapped bag I would eventually lock to a pole, and his passing comment about wishing to buy one just like it.

  What never ceased to amaze me and cast a halo around our evening was that ever since we’d met, we’d been thinking along the same lines, and when we feared we weren’t or felt we were wrong-footing each other, it was simply because we had learned not to trust that anyone could possibly think and behave the way we did, which was why I was so diffident with him and mistrusted every impulse in myself and couldn’t have been happier when I saw how easily we’d shed some of our screens. How wonderful to have finally said exactly what was on my mind ever since Sunday: Don’t let me go home tonight. How wonderful that he’d seen through my blushing on Sunday night and made me want to admit I’d blushed, only then to concede that he himself had blushed as well. Could two people who’d basically spent less than four hours together still have so few secrets from each other? I wondered what the guilty secret was that I held in my vault of craven falsehoods.

  “I lied about the occasionals,” I said.

  “I figured as much,” he replied, almost discounting the struggle behind my avowal.

  When we finally stepped into one of those tight, small Parisian elevators with no space between us, “Now will you hold me?” I asked. He shut the slim elevator doors and pressed the button to his floor. I heard the loud clank of the engine and the strain as the elevator began its ascent, when suddenly he didn’t just hold me but cupped my face in both his hands and kissed me deep on the mouth. I shut my eyes and kissed him back. I’d been waiting for this for such a long time. All I remember hearing was the sound of the very old elevator grinding and staggering its way up to his floor as I kept hoping the sound would never end and the elevator never stop.

  Then, once he closed the door of his apartment, it was my turn to kiss him, just as he had kissed me. I knew he was taller, and I sensed he was stronger. I just wanted him to know that I was holding nothing back and wasn’t going to.

  “Perhaps what we need is a good drink,” he said. “I have some wonderful single malts. It is single malts you like, correct?”

  The question about drinks caught me totally off guard, especially as I was just about to drop my bac
kpack and remove my coat and sweater and ask him to hold me again. My heart was racing, yet suddenly I felt awkward, even if none of this was unfamiliar to me. I kept wanting him to stop moving around so much. But I said nothing and took my time removing my backpack and placing it on an armchair.

  “Do you want to remove your coat?” he asked.

  “In a while,” I said.

  “I like your backpack,” he said, turning around.

  “It was a gift. A friend”—and because there was hesitation on his face—“just a friend.”

  He pointed to the sofa for me to sit and said he was bringing in the glasses. So I sat down. I don’t know why but I suddenly felt cold, so I stood up again while he was in the foyer and leaned against the radiator. Feeling the warmth inadequate, I placed my arms against it as well.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, just cold,” I said. I was almost not going to tell him that I was suddenly close to freezing.

  “I’ll shut the window, then.” And he did.

  Did I want ice in my whiskey?

  I shook my head.

  But I didn’t move away from the radiator and continued to keep both hands and the front of my body glued to it. He put down the glasses on the coffee table, approached me from behind and began massaging my shoulders. I loved the way he kneaded my neck and shoulder blades.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “More,” I said. Then without knowing why: “I told you I get nervous.”

  “Because of me?”

  I hunched my shoulders, knowing he’d understand I meant I don’t know, maybe it’s not you, or the evening, who knows, just don’t stop.

  He had strong hands—and he knew, just as I wanted him to know—that I was yielding bit by bit each time he pressed the area right under my skull and sent the most stirring shudder all the way down my spine. When he was done, he put his arms around me and pressed his chest to my back, both his hands clasping my stomach. I wouldn’t have minded had he gone lower, but he didn’t, though I knew it had crossed his mind, because I sensed a millisecond of hesitation. Gently, he drew me to the sofa.

  But then he started with the whiskey, poured some into both our glasses, suddenly remembered something and rushed to the kitchen, coming back with two bowls, one with nuts, the other with mini salted biscuits. He sat down at the other end of the sofa, we clinked our glasses, uttered a toast, and took our first sip. He wanted to know what I thought. I didn’t know what I thought. So I said I was still quite new to single malts but that I liked them. He offered the bowl of nuts, watched me take some, then placed it back on the coffee table without helping himself to any. I took a second sip and told him that I was still cold. “Could I have a cup of tea instead?” What kind of tea did I want, he had so many, he said. Any tea, I replied, just something hot. On his way to the kitchen he touched my cheek and the side of my neck. It reminded me of my mother when I wasn’t feeling well and she’d check to see if I had a fever. But his was not a fever touch, and I smiled. Within minutes, immediately following the beep of the microwave oven, he was back and I was cupping a warm mug in both hands. “So much better,” I said, almost laughing at how happy the tea made me feel.