by André Aciman
We spoke awhile longer, then the conversation petered out. Now that we had put our cards on the table, it felt like small talk.
“So this is where Monet came to paint.”
“I’ll show you at home. We have a book with wonderful reproductions of the area around here.”
“Yes, you’ll have to show me.”
He was playing the role of the patronizing understudy. I hated it.
Each leaning on one arm, we both stared out at the view.
“You’re the luckiest kid in the world,” he said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I let him ponder my statement. Then, perhaps to fill the silence that was becoming unbearable, I blurted out, “So much of it is wrong, though.”
“What? Your family?”
“That too.”
“Living here all summer long, reading by yourself, meeting all those dinner drudges your father dredges up at every meal?” He was making fun of me again.
I smirked. No, that wasn’t it either.
He paused a moment.
“Us, you mean.”
I did not reply.
“Let’s see, then—” And before I knew it, he sidled up to me. We were too close, I thought, I’d never been so close to him except in a dream or when he cupped his hand to light my cigarette. If he brought his ear any closer he’d hear my heart. I’d seen it written in novels but never believed it until now. He stared me right in the face, as though he liked my face and wished to study it and to linger on it, then he touched my nether lip with his finger and let it travel left and right and right and left again and again as I lay there, watching him smile in a way that made me fear anything might happen now and there’d be no turning back, that this was his way of asking, and here was my chance to say no or to say something and play for time, so that I might still debate the matter with myself, now that it had reached this point—except that I didn’t have any time left, because he brought his lips to my mouth, a warm, conciliatory, I’ll-meet-you-halfway-but-no-further kiss till he realized how famished mine was. I wished I knew how to calibrate my kiss the way he did. But passion allows us to hide more, and at that moment on Monet’s berm, if I wished to hide everything about me in this kiss, I was also desperate to forget the kiss by losing myself in it.
“Better now?” he asked afterward.
I did not answer but lifted my face to his and kissed him again, almost savagely, not because I was filled with passion or even because his kiss still lacked the zeal I was looking for, but because I was not so sure our kiss had convinced me of anything about myself. I was not even sure I had enjoyed it as much as I’d expected and needed to test it again, so that even in the act itself, I needed to test the test. My mind was drifting to the most mundane things. So much denial? a two-bit disciple of Freud would have observed. I squelched my doubts with a yet more violent kiss. I did not want passion, I did not want pleasure. Perhaps I didn’t even want proof. And I did not want words, small talk, big talk, bike talk, book talk, any of it. Just the sun, the grass, the occasional sea breeze, and the smell of his body fresh from his chest, from his neck and his armpits. Just take me and molt me and turn me inside out, till, like a character in Ovid, I become one with your lust, that’s what I wanted. Give me a blindfold, hold my hand, and don’t ask me to think—will you do that for me?
I did not know where all this was leading, but I was surrendering to him, inch by inch, and he must have known it, for I sensed he was still keeping a distance between us. Even with our faces touching, our bodies were angles apart. I knew that anything I did now, any movement I’d make, might disturb the harmony of the moment. So, sensing there was probably not going to be a sequel to our kiss, I began to test the eventual separation of our mouths, only to realize, now that I was making mere motions of ending the kiss, how much I’d wanted it not to stop, wanted his tongue in my mouth and mine in his—because all we had become, after all these weeks and all the strife and all the fits and starts that ushered a chill draft each time, was just two wet tongues flailing away in each other’s mouths. Just two tongues, all the rest was nothing. When, finally, I lifted one knee and moved it toward him to face him, I knew I had broken the spell.
“I think we should go.”
“Not yet.”
“We can’t do this—I know myself. So far we’ve behaved. We’ve been good. Neither of us has done anything to feel ashamed of. Let’s keep it that way. I want to be good.”
“Don’t be. I don’t care. Who is to know?”
In a desperate move which I knew I’d never live down if he did not relent, I reached for him and let my hand rest on his crotch. He did not move. I should have slipped my hand straight into his shorts. He must have read my intention and, with total composure, bordering on a gesture that was very gentle but also quite glacial, brought his hand there and let it rest on mine for a second, then, twining his fingers into mine, lifted my hand.
A moment of unbearable silence settled between us.
“Did I offend you?”
“Just don’t.”
It sounded a bit like Later! when I’d first heard it weeks earlier—biting and blunted, and altogether mirthless, without any inflection of either the joy or the passion we’d just shared. He gave me his hand and helped me stand up again.
He suddenly winced.
I remembered the scrape on his side.
“I should make sure it doesn’t get infected,” he said.
“We’ll stop by the pharmacist on the way back.”
He didn’t reply. But it was about the most sobering thing we could have said. It let the intrusive real world gust into our lives—Anchise, the mended bike, the bickering over tomatoes, the music score hastily left under a glass of lemonade, how long ago they all seemed.
Indeed, as we rode away from my spot we saw two tourist vans heading south to N. It must have been nearing noon.
“We’ll never speak again,” I said as we glided down the never-ending slope, the wind in our hair.
“Don’t say that.”
“I just know it. We’ll chitchat. Chitchat, chitchat. That’s all. And the funny thing is, I can live with that.”
“You just rhymed,” he said.
I loved the way he’d flip on me.
Two hours later, at lunch, I gave myself all the proof I needed that I would never be able to live with that.
Before dessert, while Mafalda was clearing away the plates and while everyone’s attention was focused on a conversation about Jacopone da Todi, I felt a warm, bare foot casually brush mine.
I remembered that, on the berm, I should have seized my chance to feel if the skin of his foot was as smooth as I’d imagined it. Now this was all the chance I’d get.
Perhaps it was my foot that had strayed and touched his. It withdrew, not immediately, but soon enough, as though it had consciously waited an appropriate interval of time so as not to give the impression of having recoiled in panic. I too waited a few seconds more and, without actually planning my move, allowed my foot to begin seeking the other out. I had just begun searching for it when my toe suddenly bumped into his foot; his had hardly budged at all, like a pirate ship that gave every indication of having fled miles away but was really hiding in a fog no more than fifty yards away, waiting to pounce as soon as the chance presented itself. I had barely enough time to do anything with my foot when, without warning, without giving me time to work my way to his or to let mine rest at a safe distance again, softly, gently, suddenly his foot moved over to mine and began caressing it, rubbing it, never holding still, the smooth round ball of his heel holding my foot in place, occasionally bringing its weight to bear but lightening it right away with another caress of the toes, indicating, all the while, that this was being done in the spirit of fun and games, because it was his way of pulling the rug out from under the lunch drudges sitting right across from us, but also telling me that this had nothing to do with others and would remain strictly between us, because it was
about us, but that I shouldn’t read into it more than there was. The stealth and stubbornness of his caresses sent chills down my spine. A sudden giddiness overtook me. No, I wasn’t going to cry, this wasn’t a panic attack, it wasn’t a “swoon,” and I wasn’t going to come in my shorts either, though I liked this very, very much, especially when the arch of his foot lay on top of my foot. When I looked at my dessert plate and saw the chocolate cake speckled with raspberry juice, it seemed to me that someone was pouring more and more red sauce than usual, and that the sauce seemed to be coming from the ceiling above my head until it suddenly hit me that it was streaming from my nose. I gasped, and quickly crumpled my napkin and brought it to my nose, holding my head as far back as I could. “Ghiaccio, ice, Mafalda, per favore, presto,” I said, softly, to show that I was in perfect control of the situation. “I was up at the hill this morning. Happens all the time,” I said, apologizing to the guests.
There was a scuffle of quick sounds as people rushed in and out of the dining room. I had shut my eyes. Get a grip, I kept saying to myself, get a grip. Don’t let your body give the whole thing away.
“Was it my fault?” he asked when he stepped into my bedroom after lunch.
I did not reply. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”
He smiled and said nothing.
“Sit for a second.”
He sat at the far corner of my bed. He was visiting a hospitalized friend who was injured in a hunting accident.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I thought I was. I’ll get over it.” I’d heard too many characters say the same thing in too many novels. It let the runaway lover off the hook. It allowed everyone to save face. It restored dignity and courage to the one whose cover had been completely blown.
“I’ll let you sleep now.” Spoken like an attentive nurse.
On his way out he said, “I’ll stick around,” the way people might say, I’ll leave the light on for you. “Be good.”
As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the hill with fear and shame and who knows what else pressing on me, seemed to come back to me from summers and ages ago, as though I’d biked up to the piazzetta as a little boy before World War I and had returned a crippled ninety-year-old soldier confined to this bedroom that was not even my own, because mine had been given over to a young man who was the light of my eyes.
The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that’s what you are, light of my life. I didn’t know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth had I fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to drown in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.
I didn’t understand why he had brought his foot on mine. Was it a pass, or a well-meaning gesture of solidarity and comradeship, like his chummy hug-massage, a lighthearted nudge between lovers who are no longer sleeping together but have decided to remain friends and occasionally go to the movies? Did it mean, I haven’t forgotten, it’ll always remain between us, even though nothing will come of it?
I wanted to flee the house. I wanted it to be next fall already and be as far away as I could. Leave our town with its silly Le Danzing and its silly youth no one in his right mind would wish to befriend. Leave my parents and my cousins, who always competed with me, and those horrible summer guests with their arcane scholarly projects who always ended up hogging all the bathrooms on my side of the house.
What would happen if I saw him again? Would I bleed again, cry, come in my shorts? And what if I saw him with someone else, ambling as he so often did at night around Le Danzing? What if instead of a woman, it was a man?
I should learn to avoid him, sever each tie, one by one, as neurosurgeons do when they split one neuron from another, one thought-tormented wish from the next, stop going to the back garden, stop spying, stop heading to town at night, wean myself a bit at a time each day, like an addict, one day, one hour, one minute, one slop-infested second after the other. It could be done. I knew there was no future in this. Supposing he did come into my bedroom tonight. Better yet, supposing I had a few drinks and went into his and told him the plain honest truth square in your face, Oliver: Oliver, I want you to take me. Someone has to, and it might as well be you. Correction: I want it to be you. I’ll try not to be the worst lay of your life. Just do with me as you would with anyone you hope never to run into again. I know this doesn’t sound remotely romantic but I’m tied up in so many knots that I need the Gordian treatment. So get on with it.
We’d do it. Then I’d go back to my bedroom and clean up. After that, I’d be the one to occasionally place my foot on his, and see how he liked that.
This was my plan. This was going to be my way of getting him out of my system. I’d wait for everyone to go to bed. Watch for his light. I’d enter his room from the balcony.
Knock knock. No, no knocking. I was sure he slept naked. What if he wasn’t alone? I’d listen outside the balcony before stepping in. If there was someone else with him and it was too late to beat a hasty retreat, I’d say, “Oops, wrong address.” Yes: Oops, wrong address. A touch of levity to save face. And if he was alone? I’d walk in. Pajamas. No, just pajama bottoms. It’s me, I’d say. Why are you here? I can’t sleep. Want me to get you something to drink? It’s not a drink I need. I’ve already had enough to find the courage to walk from my room to your room. It’s you I’ve come for. I see. Don’t make it difficult, don’t talk, don’t give me reasons, and don’t act as if you’re any moment going to shout for help. I’m way younger than you and you’d only make a fool of yourself by ringing the house alarm or threatening to tell my mommy. And right away I’d take off my pajama bottoms and slip into his bed. If he didn’t touch me, then I’d be the one to touch him, and if he didn’t respond, I’d let my mouth boldly go to places it’d never been before. The humor of the words themselves amused me. Intergalactic slop. My Star of David, his Star of David, our two necks like one, two cut Jewish men joined together from time immemorial. If none of this worked I’d go for him, he’d fight me back, and we’d wrestle, and I’d make sure to turn him on as he pinned me down while I wrapped my legs around him like a woman, even hurt him on the hip he’d scraped in his bicycle fall, and if all this didn’t work then I’d commit the ultimate indignity, and with this indignity show him that the shame was all his, not mine, that I had come with truth and human kindness in my heart and that I was leaving it on his sheets now to remind him how he’d said no to a young man’s plea for fellowship. Say no to that and they should have you in hell feet first.
What if he didn’t like me? In the dark they say all cats…What if he doesn’t like it at all? He’ll just have to try, then. What if he gets really upset and offended? “Get out, you sick, wretched, twisted piece of shit.” The kiss was proof enough he could be pushed that way. To say nothing of the foot? Amor ch’a null’amato amar perdona.
The foot. The last time he’d brought out such a reaction in me was not when he’d kissed me but when he’d pressed his thumb into my shoulders.
No, there’d been another time yet. In my sleep, when he came into my bedroom and lay on top of me, and I pretended to be asleep. Correction there again: in my sleep I’d heaved ever so slightly, just enough to tell him, Don’t leave, you’re welcome to go on, just don’t say I knew.
When I awoke later that afternoon, I had an intense desire for yogurt. Childhood memories. I went to the kitchen and found Mafalda lazily stowing away the china, which had been washed hours earlier. She must have napped too, and just awakened. I found a large peach in the fruit bowl and began to pare it.
“Faccio io,” she said, trying to grab the knife from my hand.
“No, no, faccio da me,” I replied, trying not to offend her.
I wanted to slice it and then cut the pieces into smaller pieces, and the smaller pieces into yet smalle
r ones. Till they became atoms. Therapy. Then I picked a banana, peeled it ever so slowly, and then proceeded to slice it into the thinnest slices, which I then diced. Then an apricot. A pear. Dates. Then I took the large container of yogurt from the refrigerator and poured its contents and the minced fruit into the blender. Finally, for coloring, a few fresh strawberries picked from the garden. I loved the purr of the blender.
This was not a dessert she was familiar with. But she was going to let me have my way in her kitchen without interfering, as if humoring someone who’d been hurt enough already. The bitch knew. She must have seen the foot. Her eyes followed me every step of the way as if ready to pounce on my knife before I slit my veins with it.
After blending my concoction, I poured it into a large glass, aimed a straw into it as if it were a dart, and proceeded toward the patio. On my way there, I stepped into the living room and took out the large picture book of Monet reproductions. I placed it on a tiny stool by the ladder. I wouldn’t show him the book. I’d just leave it there. He’d know.
On the patio, I saw my mother having tea with two sisters who had come all the way from S. to play bridge. The fourth player was due to arrive any minute.
In the back, from the garage area, I could hear their driver discussing soccer players with Manfredi.
I brought my drink to the far end of the patio, took out a chaise longue, and, facing the long balustrade, tried to enjoy the last half hour of full sun. I liked to sit and watch the waning day spread itself out into pre-dusk light. This was when one went for a late afternoon swim, but it was good to read then as well.
I liked feeling so rested. Maybe the ancients were right: it never hurt to be bled from time to time. If I continued to feel this way, later I might try to play one or two preludes and fugues, maybe a fantasy by Brahms. I swallowed more of the yogurt and put my leg on the chair next to mine.
It took me a while to realize that I was striking a pose.