Andre Aciman - Eight White Nights

“It’s Inky.” Spoken abruptly.

“Named after a ship, perhaps?”

“No.” She didn’t think I was funny.

The restaurant was empty. At one of the large tables closest to the kitchen, the help was already busy having lunch. One of the waiters was sitting at a small table all by himself reading the Corriere dello Sport-As soon as Clara walked in, she greeted him by his first name. He was the co-owner. Was there pasta? Plenty. He didn’t look up. She snuck behind the bar, opened what must have been an old fridge, produced a bottle of chilled wine and two glasses, asked me to uncork it, and headed into the kitchen, all the while removing her coat and undoing the complicated shawl wrapped around her head.

Timidly, I uncorked the bottle, poured wine for the two of us, and joined her in the kitchen. The water, apparently, was still hot, so she asked Svetonio to “throw” in the pasta and begin heating the sauce. There were also some slices of chicken waiting to be sautéed if she wanted. “Grazie, Svetonio.” She turned to me and, without making introductions, explained that their friendship went back a long way. Should I read anything into it? Svetonio lets me come here and do my thing. I get him the best opera tickets all year. Believe me, I get the raw end of the bargain, non è vero, Svetonio? “Who’s to argue with Clara?” he said.

She found the dry frying pan she was looking for, took out the sliced chicken wrapped in cellophane from the large refrigerator, then poured some olive oil into the pan. Svetonio produced some sliced vegetables. “Are you going to just stand there?” “No, I’m observing,” I replied.

“Observe away. Lunch in no more than nine minutes. Better than anything you’d planned, right?. . I need lemon and some herbs.” But she was talking to herself, not me.

I watched as one of the waiters set a table that was far away from everyone else, but right by one of the French windows. I took out the CD and placed it on her side of the table.

“What’s this?” she said when she came out to see if everything was ready. “Ein Geschenk.” “Für mich?” “Für dich.” “Warum?” I looked at her and couldn’t help saying: “Cuz.”

She took the wrapped CD with her into the kitchen. I joined her again and stood by as she watched Svetonio remove the pasta and ladle it into two deep dishes. Sauce, cheese, and what she called some-pepper-please in imitation of waiters in restaurants. He then placed the sautéed chicken in a dish, covered it with another, produced the vegetables, and within seconds we were seated across from each other. Someone had even found time to bring a large bowl of salad for the two of us.

“So what’s this?”

“It’s my favorite piece of music.”

“Yes, but what do you mean by It’s me ?”

“My moods, my thoughts, my hopes, everything I was before hearing this music and everything I became after hearing it — it’s all in there. Just better. Maybe it’s how I want you to see me.”

We drank the wine.

“And you want me to have this why?”

“I can’t explain.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I can’t explain that either.”

“We’re doing real good, Printz. Let me ask you different, then.”

Suddenly I felt at risk, exposed, about to be caught off guard.

“Why give me this?”

“Because I’ve bought almost everyone I know a Christmas present except you.”

“And that’s the real reason?”

“No, it is not.”

“Printz Oskár!” There was mock-reproof in her voice.

“Clara Brunschvicg, you make it very difficult for me both to lie and to tell you the truth. Everything seems twisted in an elaborate cat’s cradle.”

“How?”

“We say the things that matter as though they didn’t matter. And we let tangents take us off course to save us from lingering on the stuff that really matters. But then what matters comes back again, and we’re off on tangents and detours again.”

She was staring at me. She was silent.

“What stuff that matters?”

I should have known.

“Do I really have to tell you?”

“Someone walking on eggshells?”

I shook my head to suggest that I wasn’t. But I was walking on eggshells, and there was no point denying it. “Me feet is bleeding and me tongue is tied.”

“Will you please just tell me and let’s move on to the pasta.”

“Well, how shall I say this? Suddenly it feels so difficult—”

“Why?” There was tenderness and no impatience in her voice.

“Partly because I’ve never known anyone like you. I’ve never wanted to be known by anyone the way I want you to know me. I want to fake nothing with you and, yet, without meaning to, when I’m with you, I always feel I’m ducking and dodging. And yet you’re like the twin I never had. Hence this piece of music. The rest is all Vishnukrishnu Vindalu stuff, which I’ll spare you.”

“No, I want to hear the chicken vindaloo stuff too.”

“Not over spaghetti.”

“We can have Indian food for dinner if you like.”

“So you’re free tonight?”

“Aren’t you?”

I saw her lean her right side against the French window. I leaned against it with my left. This was just like yesterday, except better. I did not mind the silence. It brought to mind that time when we’d listened to the Handel together and had stared at each other for so long. She rested her chin on a fist and, looking at me, asked, “So go on with the vindaloo stuff.”

I could feel my shoulders bunch up again. This was beginning to make me feel very uncomfortable, as if I were hiding something but didn’t have a clue what it was. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. The disconnect between our sentences, between her candor and my diffidence, was being rubbed in my face. Why did I feel I was being shifty with her when I was dying not to hide anything from her?

“About the Beethoven-Vindalu,” I said, as if this was really what I’d been trying to say ever since watching her unwrap my gift, “maybe all I wanted was someone to speak for me—”

“And say what?”

“Clara, every subject we touch on, from boats to Bach to Rohmer, to tangelines and strudel gâteau, takes us to the same exact place each time, as though everything between us seems fated to keep prowling and scouring and knocking at one door — and that door we’ve decided— you’ve decided — stays shut. Right?”

“I’ll answer when it’s my turn.”

“Maybe Beethoven is my way around this door. Or maybe I should learn from Rohmer’s people, who get an indecent thrill from talking intimately about things that most people who’ve just met find awkward and prefer to pass over in silence.”

I was running for cover, not realizing that I had just given away my hiding place.

She interrupted me. “So this is awkward for you?”

The this was us, I presumed. There was something savage and cruel in her question, as though she was striking back at something I’d said that had offended her. But it also seemed that all she wanted was to expose me, to expose me for the sheer, perverse pleasure of doing so. Two nights ago she’d warned me not to hint at any of this — why was she raising the subject when I was clearly trying to avoid it? Her six clipped words So this is awkward for you? were a straight indictment of everything I was; they made me feel like a slithery trickster who should be punished for beating around the bush when he’d already been warned to stay off the grass.

And yet I knew she was right. She’d seen through me and zeroed in on the one thing I feared most: the awkwardness that sprang up between us each time she looked me in the eye and made it so difficult to speak to her or find the courage not to deny that awkwardness did indeed exist between us. I didn’t even want her to see how easily I blushed the instant I felt I’d strayed from indirect speech. Was I hiding desire? Or that I didn’t feel I deserved to desire?