André Aciman - Call Me by Your Name

“Want me to teach you?”

And he proceeded to explain the intricacies of a straight-up dry martini. He was okay being a bartender to the bar’s help.

“Where did you learn this?” I asked.

“Mixology 101. Courtesy Harvard. Weekends, I made a living as a bartender all through college. Then I became a chef, then a caterer. But always a poker player.”

His undergraduate years, each time he spoke of them, acquired a limelit, incandescent magic, as if they belonged to another life, a life to which I had no access since it already belonged to the past. Proof of its existence trickled, as it did now, in his ability to mix drinks, or to tell arcane grappas apart, or to speak to all women, or in the mysterious square envelopes addressed to him that arrived at our house from all over the world.

I had never envied him the past, nor felt threatened by it. All these facets of his life had the mysterious character of incidents that had occurred in my father’s life long before my birth but which continued to resonate into the present. I didn’t envy life before me, nor did I ache to travel back to the time when he had been my age.

There were at least fifteen of us now, and we occupied one of the large wooden rustic tables. The waiter announced last call a second time. Within ten minutes, the other customers had left. The waiter had already started lowering the metal gate, on account of because it was the closing hour of the chiusura . The jukebox was summarily unplugged. If each of us kept talking, we might be here till daybreak.

“Did I shock you?” asked the poet.

“Me?” I asked, not certain why, of all people at the table, he should have addressed me.

Lucia stared at us. “Alfredo, I’m afraid he knows more than you know about corrupting youth. E un dissoluto assoluto,” she intoned, as always now, her hand to my cheek.

“This poem is about one thing and one thing only,” said Straordinario-fantastico.

“San Clemente is really about four — at the very least!” retorted the poet.

Third last call.

“Listen,” interrupted the owner of the bookstore to the waiter, “why don’t you let us stay? We’ll put the young lady in a cab when we’re done. And we’ll pay. Another round of martinis?”

“Do as you please,” said the waiter, removing his apron. He’d given up on us. “I’m going home.”

Oliver came up to me and asked me to play something on the piano.

“What would you like?” I asked.

“Anything.”

This would be my thanks for the most beautiful evening of my life. I took a sip from my second martini, feeling as decadent as one of those jazz piano players who smoke a lot and drink a lot and are found dead in a gutter at the end of every film.

I wanted to play Brahms. But an instinct told me to play something very quiet and contemplative. So I played one of the Goldberg Variations, which made me quiet and contemplative. There was a sigh among the fifteen or so, which pleased me, since this was my only way of repaying for this magical evening.

When I was asked to play something else, I proposed a capriccio by Brahms. They all agreed it was a wonderful idea, until the devil took hold of me and, after playing the opening bars of the capriccio, out of nowhere I started to play a stornello . The contrast caught them all by surprise and all began to sing, though not in unison, for each sang the stornello he or she knew. Each time we came to the refrain, we agreed we’d all sing the same words, which earlier that evening Oliver and I had heard Dante the statue recite. Everyone was ecstatic, and I was asked to play another, then another. Roman stornelli are usually bawdy, lilting songs, not the lacerating, heart-wrenching arias from Naples. After the third, I looked over at Oliver and said I wanted to go out to take a breath of fresh air.

“What is it, doesn’t he feel well?” the poet asked Oliver.

“No, just needs some air. Please don’t move.”

The cashier leaned all the way down, and with one arm lifted up the rolling shutter. I got out from under the partly lowered shutter and suddenly felt a fresh gust of wind on the empty alley. “Can we walk a bit?” I asked Oliver.

We sauntered down the dark alley, exactly like two shades in Dante, the younger and the older. It was still very hot and I caught the light from a streetlamp glistening on Oliver’s forehead. We made our way deeper into an extremely quiet alley, then through another, as if drawn through these unreal and sticky goblin lanes that seemed to lead to a different, nether realm you entered in a state of stupor and wonderment. All I heard were the alley cats and the splashing of running water nearby. Either a marble fountain or one of those numberless municipal fontanelle found everywhere in Rome. “Water,” I gasped. “I’m not made for martinis. I’m so drunk.”

“You shouldn’t have had any. You had scotch, then wine, grappa, now gin.”

“So much for the evening’s sexual buildup.”

He snickered. “You look pale.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Best remedy is to make it happen.”

“How?”

“Bend down and stick your finger all the way inside your mouth.”

I shook my head. No way.

We found a garbage bin on the sidewalk. “Do it inside here.”

I normally resisted throwing up. But I was too ashamed to be childish now. I was also uncomfortable puking in front of him. I wasn’t even sure that Amanda had not followed us.

“Here, bend down, I’ll hold your head.”

I was resisting. “It will pass. I’m sure it will.”

“Open your mouth.”

I opened my mouth. Before I knew it I was sick as soon as he touched my uvula.

But what a solace to have my head held, what selfless courage to hold someone’s head while he’s vomiting. Would I have had it in me to do the same for him?

“I think I’m done,” I said.

“Let’s see if more doesn’t come out.”

Sure enough, another heave brought out more of tonight’s food and drink.

“Don’t you chew your peas?” he asked, smiling at me.

How I loved being made fun of that way.

“I just hope I didn’t get your shoes dirty,” I said.

“They’re not shoes, they’re sandals.”

Both of us almost burst out laughing.

When I looked around, I saw that I had vomited right next to the statue of the Pasquino. How like me to vomit right in front of Rome’s most venerable lampoonist.

“I swear, there were peas there that hadn’t even been bitten into and could have fed the children of India.”

More laughter. I washed my face and rinsed my mouth with the water of a fountain we found on our way back.

Right before us we caught sight of the human statue of Dante again. He had removed his cape and his long black hair was all undone. He must have sweated five pounds in that costume. He was now brawling with the statue of Queen Nefertiti, also with her mask off and her long hair matted together by sweat. “I’m picking up my things tonight and good night and good riddance.” “Good riddance to you too, and vaffanculo.” “Fanculo yourself, e poi t’inculo.” And so saying, Nefertiti threw a handful of coins at Dante, who ducked the coins, though one hit him on the face. “Aiiiio,” he yelped. For a moment I thought they were going to come to blows.

We returned by another equally dark, deserted, glistening side alley, then onto via Santa Maria dell’Anima. Above us was a weak square streetlight mounted to the wall of a tiny old corner building. In the old days, they probably had a gas jet in its place. I stopped and he stopped. “The most beautiful day of my life and I end up vomiting.” He wasn’t listening. He pressed me against the wall and started to kiss me, his hips pushing into mine, his arms about to lift me off the ground. My eyes were shut, but I knew he had stopped kissing me to look around him; people could be walking by. I didn’t want to look. Let him be the one to worry. Then we kissed again. And, with my eyes still shut, I think I did hear two voices, old men’s voices, grumbling something about taking a good look at these two, wondering if in the old days you’d ever see such a sight. But I didn’t want to think about them. I didn’t worry. If he wasn’t worried, I wasn’t worried. I could spend the rest of my life like this: with him, at night, in Rome, my eyes totally shut, one leg coiled around his. I thought of coming back here in the weeks or months to come — for this was our spot.