André Aciman - Harvard Square

“Is this what you want?” Kalaj asked me one day when I found I needed to speak with him and only him, because I knew he’d understand. “Do you really want to get married?”

I said I didn’t know.

“People are always nervous before getting married, but at some point they know.”

“Well, I don’t know. So there.” Why, had he known before getting married how-many-times-now?

“I wasn’t in love,” he replied, ignoring my little dart. “Are you in love?”

I didn’t know that either.

“She wants me to go to Spain during Christmas to meet her family.”

He pondered the matter.

“Can you afford the plane ticket?’

“No.”

“Then who will pay?”

I didn’t know.

I had never thought that marriage could be determined on so paltry a basis as the price of a round-trip ticket to Barajas Airport.

But there it was, my answer.

We decided to put off the trip till early the following summer. Meanwhile we listened to all of Beethoven’s Late Quartets during an entire Saturday afternoon. Then, on the following day, to three versions of The Art of the Fugue , after which we sat and watched 60 Minutes . Next came dinner, the usual rice and spiced meats with a glass of wine for each, followed by lovemaking, and more lovemaking — there was a reason for those spiced meats, she joked. I wanted her all the time. I had never lived like this or been so happy with someone before. In the middle of the night sometimes we’d both wake up and stand by the large glass window in her living room and stare at the magical lights on Memorial Drive. Don’t take this away, don’t take this away…

After about three weeks and after classes had started, I felt something coming. She complained once that I didn’t cook. “Doesn’t even want to learn,” I heard her mutter to herself, as though speaking to the kitchen sink, to her rack of spices from Iran hanging in an open cabinet over the sink, to her prized Chantal teakettle, and her tins of teas shipped directly from Mariage Frères in France. At least I should offer to wash the dishes, she said, when she stepped out of the kitchen after we’d had dinner one evening. Maybe also help with laundry. And put some of your things away. Plus, awkward as this was for her, perhaps it was time to discuss sharing expenses here. That here cut me to the quick, for it brimmed over with muffled resentment. Who knows how long she’d been stewing over this before coming out with it. Finally, she said, my lovemaking wasn’t what it was in the beginning. I used to speak while making love to her. Now I was as quiet as a mouse. And I didn’t wait for her — a man should always wait for a woman.

My heart wasn’t in it, and she had spotted it right away, even before I did.

Then, a week or so later, it finally happened. On Sunday at 2:00 a.m., just one night before my meeting with Lloyd-Greville, I woke up with the usual paralyzing anxiety about what he would ask. I knew he’d prod and prod to see how shallow my knowledge of Chaucer was. But then, with one thought leading to the next, I finally realized that it wasn’t just Harvard or Lloyd-Greville’s office I was dying to run away from, but from her as well. Suddenly, I had to get out of her bed. Actually, and it took me a few more minutes to realize this, I had to get out of her house — just get out and run away. I decided to put off leaving until we’d discussed the matter later in the morning like two adults. Perhaps I’d cool down by then and know that my exams were the cause of my anxiety. But I knew that just getting out of bed and sitting in the living room for a few minutes might trigger alarm signals for her. One word about considering slowing things down a bit, especially before my meeting with Lloyd-Greville, or of possibly taking a break for a few days — a couple of weeks, no more, I promise — and there were bound to be tears, recriminations, at which point I’d have to tell her what everyone says under these circumstances: that it was me, not her, my exams, not us, the way my life was run, and not the gifts she’d brought to it — she was perfect, I didn’t deserve her. Where would I be without her now? The now was meant to convey the extent of my loss and despair. It was just that I had to go. Please don’t fight it, I’d say, I was learning not to fight it myself. The rhetoric, I failed to realize, was lifted from A Beginner’s Guide to Breakups .

But by 3:00 a.m. I was ready to explode. Every time I’d fall asleep a nightmare would insidiously work its way into my sleep, hover over my shoulders, then quietly work its way through my left ear and wake me up, even when I knew it was a dream, to remind me I was living a lie, that this should not go on, that I no longer wanted to touch her, didn’t even want her foot to rub against mine under the sheets. By 3:30 a.m. I got up, put on my socks, my trousers, kept the T-shirt I was sleeping in, picked up a few of my books, and removed her keys from my key ring and silently placed them on the kitchen counter. When I was out of her building and felt the first cool draft of autumn fan my face, I knew that this sudden freedom was the closest thing to ecstasy I’d known since moving in with her.

From an old telephone booth, I called Kalaj. After a few bland apologies for waking him at this time of the night, I asked: “Can you pick me up?”

“J’arrive.”

No questions. No explanations. From the sound of my voice he’d already guessed why I was calling. I wasn’t the first, or the last man who wanted out — desperately. Clearly he’d done the same thing himself many times before.

I waited in the late September weather, but I didn’t have time to feel the chill, for soon, I spotted his yellow Checker cab nosing its way ever so stealthily in between two rows of parked cars. Less than ten minutes had elapsed since I’d woken up and put on my socks.

After more apologies, I got into the cab. It was warm and smelled of cigarettes. All he said was, “You’re as white as aspirin.”

He laughed, I laughed. He’d learned the expression from a Greek sailor.

“Still, it was cowardly,” he finally said.

“Yes, it was cowardly.”

Looking straight ahead of him, he added, “You’ll do the same to me some day.”

I let it pass. Something told me not to argue.

To dispel the awkward moment between us, I asked if he’d known it could come to this.

Yes, he’d known all along, he said.

Why hadn’t he said anything then?

“Would it have made any difference?” he asked.

“No.”

“That’s why I never said anything.”

But I knew he had guessed the real why.

As we drove on Memorial Drive, I kept thinking of her, of what she’d feel when she woke up, how she’d look for me everywhere before spotting the keys on the kitchen counter. How long before she’d finally put two and two together and realize that I’d left for good? He’s left me. I could just hear her mutter those words to herself as she started rinsing last night’s wineglasses that we’d left on the tea table before turning in. He’s left, the irked, embittered rise in her voice betraying how much she wished she had me there if only to unleash her fury, while a plangent strain in her voice would nail the coffin on our brief love.

Tears began to well in my eyes, especially as I saw her sitting on her sofa that had become our sofa, or worse yet, by the very spot where we’d eaten our rice and spiced meats, realizing that her life had just spun out of orbit — Paris, the Arab Institute, my dissertation, our stay in Spain, everything thrashing about her like wild birds fluttering scared before an approaching beast. I was the beast. How could I do this to someone? And the way I’d done it was worse than the offense itself.