Andre Aciman - Eight White Nights

Why had she ever asked me this? To unsaddle me even more, in case I presumed too much? To egg me on, if I presumed too little? To rob the moment of its luster? To bring out the truth? To make me doubt everything about us? Or, as I was perfectly willing to accept, was all this taking place in my head only?

I looked at her. I knew I could risk everything by saying something marginally wanton or clever. The Claras of this world seldom give men second chances. Say the wrong thing and they’re gone. Say nothing and they’re equally gone. She’ll put on a dark skirt, a crimson blouse, and, with her daunting good looks and many shirt buttons undone, find any man at the first party she’ll care to get herself invited to. I was staring at her unbuttoned light green shirt now. No wonder she was wearing such a heavy shawl. There was nothing underneath. Why the unbuttoned shirt? Do I look or do I look away? I’ll look.

“Now this is getting really awkward, Printz. Is this another Vishnukrishnu Vindalu moment?”

Keep a lid on and out fly the barbs, I thought.

“You mean my silence?” I asked.

“I meant your staring. But the silence too.”

“Let’s change the subject, then,” I said.

“And run away? No, talk to me about awkwardness. I want to learn.”

I cleared my throat.

She removed the cover dish from the chicken plate and served me two slices of chicken and herself two. “Three tiny potatoes for you, three for me, one more for you, because every man about to make a speech deserves a potato, five sprigs of asparagus for you, three for me, because I need to make room for what I’m about to receive from him, and finally, a bit of gravy for you and some for me to wash things down with. Okay, I’m listening.” Then, realizing she’d omitted something, she added, “And don’t ruin the moment.”

“I was thinking of how lucky I was to have gone to Hans’s party.”

“Ye-es.” Cautious encouragement to keep going.

“Lucky for me, I mean, not for you.”

“Of course.”

We laugh. We know why we laugh. We pretend not to know. Realize we’re both pretending. Standard fare. I love it. Aren’t we so very, very clever.

“Maybe I don’t feel awkward at all with you, but feel that I should. Maybe the twinge of awkwardness sitting between us right now is nothing more than intimacy deferred. Or waiting to happen. Or failing to happen.”

“And?”

“And something tells me we both feel that this could easily be the best part, which is why we’re both reluctant to fight it. This may just be the rose garden. What comes after could be trenches.”

“And?”

Was I even speaking the truth? Was I lying? Why couldn’t I believe a word I was saying?

“And?” she insisted.

“And this is where I wish Beethoven might step in and make this moment last forever, this lunch, this conversation, even these twinges of awkwardness. I want nothing to change and everything to last.”

“And?” At this point she was teasing, and I was loving it.

“And here’s a thought: In a year from now, when we go to Hans’s party, will we go there as strangers?”

“Well, I am no stranger to Hans.”

“I didn’t mean Hans and you.”

She elbowed me.

“I know what you meant. Chances are we will have had a few arguments, maybe strong disagreements, ratted on each other — I’m almost certain — and probably hung up and sworn never to speak again — but I harbor no grudges and make up way too easily, so the asshole who’ll ruin things will be you, not me.”

“Ruin? Ruin what?”

I had finally managed to corner her.

“See — you’re doing it now — ruining things, this time by pretending.”

So there was no boxing her in anywhere.

“Well, what if I am an asshole? What then?”

“You mean will I make allowances, and try to understand, and get under your skin and feel your pain, and see the world with your eyes and not through my own blinkered, selfish point of view?”

Why was she sidetracking?

“Put it this way: What if things suddenly die, or are about to, and with their death the desire to keep them alive dies as well — what will you do then?”

Without meaning to, I felt that I had cornered her once again.

“I will let you know they’re about to die, but I won’t do a thing more.”

“So, it is conceivable that we will meet at Hans’s party next year — what am I saying? — next week, and though we’ll stand this far apart, we could be total strangers.”

I was sounding peevish.

“Why are you doing this?”

Suddenly she wasn’t being flippant at all. “We’re having this most wonderful lunch, probably one of the best I’ve had all year, and look at us: we’re playing chess — worse than chess, because chess pieces move, but you’re freezing us on the spot, like two blocks of ice stuck under a bridge. The idiots get past all our roadblocks and find all manner of shortcuts. The one or two lifemates end up ruining things, and I’m the one who’s blamed. Shall I keep going, or shall I flip channels?”

“Please, please, keep going and don’t change channels.”

“Unlike you, you mean.” A little dart — light and swift. Light and swift, just as I liked her. I let it slide. “See, I know what you want, and the funny thing is, I can bring it to you, but I also know you: you want promises more than what I have to bring, and promises I can’t make. Nor, for that matter, can you — not these days. Let’s not fool ourselves; this ain’t the rose garden.”

I was stunned by her candor.

“Have I spoken out of turn?” she asked.

“Nope. As always, you’ve nailed it on the head. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t speak like you.”

“Want to know why?”

“Dying to know why.”

“It’s very simple, Printz. You don’t trust me.”

“Why don’t I trust you? Tell me.”

“Really, really want me to tell you, Mr. Vindalu?”

“Yes.”

“Because you know I can hurt you.”

“And you know this for a fact?” I was trying to recover my dignity.

She nodded.

Why couldn’t I be like her?

I reached out and held her hand in mine, then lowered my head, opened her palm, and kissed it. How I loved that hand, exactly as it was, as I felt it, as it smelled. It belonged to that shirt which belonged to that face, to this woman who had always been me but might never want me. I felt her hand go limp in mine; she was suffering me to touch it and would do no more.

“Why?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders to mean, God knows.

“I don’t always think I’m a good person. But telling people this only makes them want to prove me wrong, and the more they try to prove me wrong, the more I want to push them away, but the more I push them away, the guiltier I get, the nicer I become, the more they think I’ve changed. It never lasts. In the end I learn to hate both myself and them for things that should have lasted no longer than a few hours.” She reflected on this. “Maybe a few nights. Inky and I could have stayed friends.”

“This is the most twisted thing you’ve said so far.”

“What, that being kind to people makes me want to hurt them? Or that hurting them makes me want to be kind?”

“Both. I won’t ask you why you’re telling me all this—”

She didn’t let me finish. “Perhaps my hell is having to say all and not knowing if I should be quiet instead, and yours, unless I’m all wrong, is to listen and not know whether I mean it.”

“Amphibalence?”

She looked at me with something like gratitude in her gaze.

“Amphibalence indeed. But let me put this on the table, but you can’t raise me, okay?”