Find Me

by André Aciman

  “Yes, but it is ours. I know exactly what we’ll do tonight. We’ll return to the city, I will be like my father, and you’ll be the young man I was in those years, or you’ll be my son whom I never see, and we’ll sit together and listen to the Florian Quartet, perhaps the way my father did, when he was your age and I was Léon’s. You know, life is not so original after all. It has uncanny ways of reminding us that, even without a God, there is a flash of retrospective brilliance in the way fate plays its cards. It doesn’t deal us fifty-two cards; it deals, say, four or five, and they happen to be the same ones our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents played. The cards look pretty frayed and bent. The choice of sequences is limited: at some point the cards will repeat themselves, seldom in the same order, but always in a pattern that seems uncannily familiar. Sometimes the last card is not even played by the one whose life ended. Fate doesn’t always respect what we believe is the end of a life. It will deal your last card to those who come after. Which is why I think all lives are condemned to remain unfinished. This is the deplorable truth we all live with. We reach the end and are by no means done with life, not by a long stretch! There are projects we barely started, matters unresolved and left hanging everywhere. Living means dying with regrets stuck in your craw. As the French poet says, Le temps d’apprendre à vivre il est déjà trop tard, by the time we learn to live, it’s already too late. And yet there must be some small joy in finding that we are each put in a position to complete the lives of others, to close the ledger they left open and play their last card for them. What could be more gratifying than to know that it will always be up to someone else to complete and round off our life? Someone whom we loved and who loves us enough. In my case, I’d like to think it will be you, even if we’re no longer together. It’s like already knowing who will be the one who’ll shut my eyes. I want it to be you, Elio.”

  For a moment, and just as I was listening to Michel speak, it occurred to me that there was only one person on this planet that I’d like to have my eyes shut by. And he, I hoped, without saying a word to me for years, would cross the globe to place his palm upon my eyes, as I would place mine on his.

  “So,” said Michel, “we’ll meet the oldest member of the quartet, the one you were keen on hearing three weeks ago, and we’ll ask if he remembers. But before that, during the break, we’ll buy hot cider from the decrepit old nun, maybe pretend again that we don’t know each other, promise to meet after the concert, knowing that afterward we’ll head out for a little snack.”

  “God, I did tell you how much I wanted you to hold me and ask me to come home with you that night? I was almost on the point of saying something but then I held back.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t in the cards that night.” He smiled.

  “Perhaps not.”

  He looked at me while wrapping his scarf around his neck. “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “A bit,” I said. I could tell he was feeling apprehensive about me but didn’t want to show it. “Want to go back home instead?”

  I shook my head. “I get cold when I’m nervous.”

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “I don’t want this to end.”

  “Why should it?”

  “No reason.”

  “You are the one card I was almost cheated of in this lifetime. Tonight it will be three weeks, and it could so easily not have happened at all. I need—” But then he stopped.

  “You need?”

  “I need another week, another month, another season, meaning another lifetime. Give me winter. Come spring, you’ll fly away on tour. Beneath all the layers we uncovered today, I know there is one person for you, and I don’t believe it’s me.”

  I did not say anything. He smiled wistfully.

  “The marriage canard perhaps.” Then he balked for a moment, and I heard his voice tighten. “The one thing I want in this life is for you to find happiness. The rest…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He shook his head to mean that the rest didn’t matter.

  Neither of us had anything to add. I held him and he held me, and we were still holding each other when he spotted a skein of geese flying overhead. “Look!” he said. I did not release my hold.

  “November,” I said.

  “Yes. Not winter, not fall. I’ve always liked November in Corot country.”

  CAPRICCIO

  Erica and Paul.

  They had never met before, yet both stepped out of the same elevator together. She was wearing high heels, he boat shoes. Riding to my floor, they’d discovered they were headed to the same apartment and that they even knew someone in common, a certain Clive about whom I knew nothing whatsoever. How they managed to arrive at Clive struck me as strange, but then why find anything strange on an evening that already promised to be strange, since the two persons I so desperately wanted to see at my farewell party had in fact arrived together. He came with his significantly older boyfriend, she with her husband, but I still couldn’t believe that, after months of wanting to draw closer to the two of them, I finally had them both under my roof on my last few days in the city. There were many others present—but who cared about the other guests: his partner, her husband, the yoga instructor, the friend Micol kept saying I had to meet, the couple I befriended last fall at a conference on Jewish expatriates from the Third Reich, the peculiar acupuncturist from 10H, the crazy logician from my department along with his nutty vegan wife, and sweet Dr. Chaudhuri from Mount Sinai who’d been happy to reinvent the very concept of finger food tonight to accommodate the guests. At some point we uncorked the prosecco and everyone drank to our return to New Hampshire. The speeches echoed in the already empty apartment and a few graduate students toasted and roasted me with affection and humor, as more guests kept coming and going.

  But the two who mattered stayed. There was even a moment, as people were milling around the barren apartment, when she stepped out onto the balcony and I followed, then he followed, and the two of them leaned against the banister with flutes in hand, talking about this man Clive, she at my left, he at my right, while I set my glass down on the floor and put my arms around each of their waists, friendly, casual, totally okay. Then I removed my arms and leaned against the balustrade, all three of us shoulder to shoulder, watching the setting sun together.

  Neither shifted away from me. Both were leaning into me. It had taken months to bring them here. This was our quiet moment on the balcony overlooking the Hudson on this unusually warm mid-November evening.

  His department at the university was on the same floor as mine, but we had no academic dealings with each other. From the looks of him, I assumed he was either a graduate student finishing his dissertation or a recent postdoc or an early-tenure-track assistant professor. We shared the same stairway and the same floor, occasionally crossed paths at large faculty meetings, or more commonly at Starbucks two blocks down Broadway, usually late in the afternoon before graduate seminars started. We’d also noticed each other when we met a few times in the same salad bar across the street and then couldn’t avoid smiling when we ran into each other after lunch to brush our teeth in the same bathroom. It became a standing source of smiles when the two of us met on our way to the men’s room with our toothpaste already spread on our brushes. Neither, it seemed, brought his tube to the bathroom. One day he looked at me and asked, “Aquafresh?” and I said yes. How did he know? By the stripes, he replied. And so to seize his opening, I asked which brand he used. “Tom’s of Maine.” I should have known. He was definitely a Tom’s of Maine type. Probably used Tom’s deodorant, Tom’s soap, and other non-mainstream products found mostly in health food stores. Sometimes, after watching him rinse out the toothpaste, I wanted to know how fennel after salad tasted in his mouth.

  We weren’t courting each other but an implicit something seemed to hover between us. Our frail pontoon bridge was built over shy afternoon pleasantries and then hastily dismantled the next morning with scarcely a greeting when we happened to take the same
stairway. I wanted something, and I suspect he did too. But I was never sure I’d read the situation clearly enough to say anything or move things farther along. During one of our brief exchanges, I took the opportunity to tell him that I was coming to the end of my sabbatical and would soon be moving back to New Hampshire. He said he was sorry to hear this; he’d meant to sit in on my seminar about the Pre-Socratics. “But time!” he said. “Time!” mingling an awkward, apologetic smile with a modest sigh. So he’d looked me up and knew about my seminar on the Pre-Socratics. This was flattering. He was on deadline for his book on the Russian pianist Samuil Feinberg. I had never heard of Feinberg before and felt it added another side to him I wished I’d taken the time to know better. If he was free and wanted to come for a small farewell reception in our nearly empty apartment—there were no more than four chairs left, I said—he’d be more than welcome. Would he? Definitely, he said. His reply came so quickly I was tempted not to believe him.

  Then there was Erica. We were in the same yoga class, sometimes she was there unusually early—six a.m.—as was I; sometimes the two of us showed up very late, at six p.m. There were even times when we came twice on the same day, at six a.m. and at six p.m., almost as though we’d been looking for each other but knew better than to hope to meet twice on the same day. She liked her corner, and I was always a foot away. Even when she wasn’t there, I liked to lay my mat on the floor about four feet out from the wall. At first it was because I liked our usual spot, later I found subtle ways of saving her spot for her. But neither of us was a regular, which was why it took ages to exchange so much as a hasty nod. Sometimes when I was already lying down with my eyes shut, I would suddenly hear someone drop a mat next to mine. Without looking, I knew who it was. Even when she approached our narrow corner on bare feet, I’d learned to recognize her stealthy, timid swish, the sound of her breathing, the way she cleared her throat once she’d lain down. She made no secret of acting surprised yet pleased to see me there. I was more circumspect and would pretend to do a double take with a sudden Oh, it’s you look. I didn’t want to be obvious, nor give the impression that I was either eager to connect beyond what had always been light, perfunctory yoga chitchat whenever we gathered outside the studio with our shoes off waiting for the earlier group to vacate the room. There was something always civil yet mildly ironic when we discussed our mediocre performance in class, or complained about the bad substitute teacher, or sighed, wishing each other a pleasant weekend after hearing a stormy weather forecast. We both knew that none of this was going anywhere. But I liked her slim feet, and her smooth shoulders gleaming with a summer’s tan that seemed to resent letting the scent of last weekend’s sunscreen wear off. Above all I liked her forehead, which was not flat but rounded and which hinted at thoughts I couldn’t put into words but wanted to know better, because there was a wry afterthought visibly floating on her features every time she flashed a smile. She wore tight clothes with her lean calves exposed so that, if I allowed my mind free rein, I could easily imagine her legs raised ninety degrees in a viparita karani pose with her heels resting against my chest, toes reaching my shoulders, ankles cupped in my hands as I knelt facing her. Then if she’d bend her legs and gradually tuck her knees around my waist, all I would need was to hear her breathe and utter a moan to know that what I wanted was more than just yoga fellowship.

  I was thinking of inviting our yoga teacher for a farewell evening, I said. Would she and her husband like to join us? That would be great, she said.

  So here they both were. It was warm for November, and our French windows were wide open, and a breeze from the river kept wafting across the room, while candles flickered on the windowsills, and all of us felt we were in a movie spending the most enchanted Saturday evening where not a thing goes wrong. All I did was introduce people to people and pose questions, deftly, so nothing I asked might sound like those hackneyed, typically rehearsed host questions if I sensed that a conversation was drying up. What did you make of the final scene in the movie? What did you think of those two aging actors? Did you like the movie as much as the director’s previous one? I find myself liking movies that suddenly end with a song. Do you?

  It was my farewell party but I was still the evening’s host. I made sure the prosecco kept flowing freely, and everyone seemed completely relaxed. You could see it in the way the two were leaning against the wall and chatting, and, when I’d occasionally join them, I felt we were a band apart. If everyone had left the room, we wouldn’t have noticed and would have gone on talking about this or that book, this movie or that play, every subject flowing into the other with never a disagreement.

  They asked questions too—of me, of each other, and once or twice would turn to those who’d approached us by the kitchen to draw them into the conversation. We burst out laughing and I held their hands, and I know they both liked that I’d done it and they responded with a gentle squeeze of their own that was neither lax nor merely politely reciprocal. At some point he, and later she, rubbed my back, delicately, almost as if they also liked the feel of my sweater and wanted to feel it again. It was an amazing evening, we were drinking, our cell phones had not rung once, and Dr. Chaudhuri’s dessert would start coming out soon. The party had been supposed to end at eight thirty but it was well past that and no one gave a sign of wanting to leave.

  Occasionally I would sneak a glance at Micol meaning Things okay at your end? to which a hasty nod would mean Yes—all okay at yours? Good enough here, I’d respond. We were a perfect team, and being a team is what had kept us together. It was why, I think, we’d always known we’d make a good couple. Teamwork, yes. And sometimes passion.

  What’s with these two? she signaled with an inquiring tilt of her head, meaning the two young guests she’d never seen before. Tell you later, I signaled back. She looked pinched and a bit suspicious. I knew that killjoy look that said, You’re up to something.

  The two had a sense of humor and laughed quite a bit, sometimes at my expense since I was seldom up-to-date with things everyone else seemed to know. But I let them have their fun.

  At some point Erica interrupted and whispered: “Don’t look now, but your wife’s friend keeps staring at us.”

  “She’s interested in a job at the university, which is why I’ve been avoiding her.”

  “Not interested?” he asked, a smidgen of irony in his voice.

  “Or not convinced?” she threw in.

  “Not impressed,” I replied. “What I meant to say was not attracted.”

  “She’s pretty, though,” Erica said. I shook my head with a derisive smile.

  “Quiet! She knows we’re talking about her.”

  All three of us looked sheepishly away. “Plus her name is Kirin,” I added.

  “Not Kirin, it’s Karen,” he said.

  “I heard Kirin.”

  “Actually, she did say Kirin,” said my yoga partner.

  “That’s because she speaks Michigander.”

  “You mean Michiganese.”

  “Sounds meshuga.” We burst out laughing. We couldn’t seem to control ourselves.

  “We’re being watched,” he said.

  As we were still trying to muffle our laughter, my mind raced ahead of me. I wanted them in my life. And under any conditions. I wanted them now, with his boyfriend, her spouse, whatever, with their newborns or adopted children if they had them. They’d be welcome to come and go as they pleased, just be in my humdrum, ever-so-boring day-to-day life in New Hampshire.

  And what if Erica and Paul got to like each other in some other, unforeseen manner—which might not be so unforeseen at all?

  It might even give me a vicarious thrill. The libido accepts all currencies, and vicarious pleasures have an over-the-counter exchange rate that is considered reliable enough to pass for real. No one ever went bankrupt borrowing someone else’s pleasure. We go bankrupt only when we want no one. “Do you think she could make anyone happy?” I asked about my wife’s friend, not knowing why e
xactly I had asked the question. “A man like you?” he immediately added as though ready to aim a quick dart, while her sly but tacit smile, following his, told me she might have read the ulterior meaning of my question. Both seemed to agree that I was not the type who was easily made happy. “If you only knew how simple are the things I want.” “Like?” she asked, almost too abruptly, as though eager to catch me waffling or fibbing. “I can name two.” “Name them, then,” she said, challenging me on the spot without realizing that she had spoken too hastily and that my answer, clearly hanging on the tip of my tongue, wasn’t what she expected at all. Noticing I hesitated, he said, “Maybe he doesn’t want to answer.” “Perhaps I do,” I replied. Again a rueful smile quivered on her lips. “Perhaps not.” So now she knows, she must know. I could tell I was making her nervous. But this, I knew from experience, was the moment when the bold question is asked, or doesn’t even need to be asked, because the answer can only be yes. But she was nervous. “Most of our wants are imaginary anyway, aren’t they?” I said, trying once more to soften what I’d just said to give her an out in case she was looking for one and couldn’t find it. “And some of our fondest desires end up meaning more to us unrealized than tested—don’t you think?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever waited long enough to know what delayed desires are.” He burst out laughing.

  “I have,” she said.

  I looked at them, and they looked at me. I liked awkward moments like these. Sometimes all I needed was to draw them out and not rush to nip them in the bud. But the tension was rising and she hastened to say something, anything, which also told me she had indeed intuited what I wasn’t saying: “I’m sure there must have been someone who bruised you once, or scarred you.”

  “There was,” I replied. “Some people leave us scuttled and damaged.” I thought awhile. “In my case I’m the one who did the scuttling, yet I’m the one who never recovered.”