Enigma Variations by André Aciman
Outside the Plums’ building, the air is still humid and I find myself already missing the terrace with its incipient chill draft and expansive view. Part of me wishes we hadn’t left so soon. I enjoyed the sofa, the candlelit balcony, the many drinks, and the company, even the dying conversation at the dinner table where all you needed to do if things stalled was to look out to the skyline and enjoy Pamela’s occasional comment or watch the couple in the rough patch spar over this or that. Even Nadja’s last-ditch effort to open up to Gabi wasn’t so bad either. Perhaps we shouldn’t have left. Only then does it hit me that I didn’t say goodbye to Claire. There was a moment when, on leaving the table, we ended up standing close to each other observing the skyline. Both of us meant to say something but neither could find the words, so we said nothing, Claire and I. This could have been our moment. All she said after a while was “I think Maud’s calling you.”
It has started to drizzle. My first thought is that I might have to call Manfred and cancel tennis. But then, if he’s like me, he’ll show up all the same and we’ll have coffee and something to eat under the canopy of the tennis house. I love the vision of breakfast while it rains in the park with the few regulars happy to hang together.
If he’s like me, he’ll know I’ll show up even in the rain. But this is good rain. It comes down not in torrents or in sheets that pour down so powerfully that they’ll lash about the avenues like sails flailing in stormy weather. Tonight the rain feels so meek and muted that brushing it away with a hand might make it stop. It lacks conviction, has lost its vigor. Don’t bother with umbrellas, it seems to say. I’m about to stop anyway, my heart’s not in it tonight.
We were going to say goodbye on the street corner, but Gabi walks us to an intersection where we’re more likely to find a cab He’s headed to his hotel in the Financial District, we’re headed uptown. The usual squabble about who gets to take the first cab. We insist: “Two against one, Gabi,” Maud says. So he cowers, and as he opens the door, he kisses Maud on both cheeks, embraces me Italian style, and extends a phone gesture to signify either a warning that we should not forget to call him or a promise that he’d be calling soon. “As usual, had too much to drink,” he says, almost apologetically. Minutes later, another cab screeches to a halt. We hop inside and head uptown. Because of the long cab ride, we decide to put our seat belts on, which puts us almost two feet apart. I’m looking forward to the Brooklyn Bridge, especially in the rain. But the bridge also stirs an uneasy feeling, because it has always scared me and I don’t like crossing it on foot. Something is eating me but I still can’t grapple with it. I am thinking of the old Greek vendor, of cancer, of Gabi, of Renzo & Lucia’s, and of Manfred and the Central Park tennis house when it rains on Saturday mornings and the world feels snug and happy, but it all comes in one breath, and is stirred by too much alcohol. I’m watching the rain spill ever so lightly on the empty street, and I still don’t know what’s troubling me. Thinking of Gabi’s allusion to many lives and identities, I feel I’m just another Sicily—confused and lonely.
My heart’s not in it tonight, Maud. My heart’s just not in it.
Neither of us says anything.
She touches the sleeve of my shirt. “I like the cuff links,” she says. “I’m so glad I got them.”
“I like them too.”
“I was getting tired of the gold ones you wear.”
“I was too. So, what did you think of him?”
We both know who him is.
“I don’t know. Lovely fellow. He is clever and very charming, but I don’t think we’ll be able to give him what he wants. Certainly not this year.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Two weeks. He’s writing a complicated piece, but so much of what he’s after is confidential that I know he won’t be happy with the very little we can disclose before testing and FDA approval.”
“And?”
“I’m more interested in what he has to say about Sicily than I am about what he wants to know about cancer research.”
“Are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t think so. I spent three hours with him earlier today. Enough. Pamela asked me to meet him, and I did.”
Maud wants to write him off. Because she fears him. And she fears him because she’s attracted. Classic syndrome.
“Still, you two were having a good time tonight.”
“Oh, he is totally adorable. But he drinks—you should have seen him at lunch.” I did see him at lunch!
Maud sounds too listless and vague, and she’s assumed that mildly fatigued air, which is how she deflects subjects she doesn’t want to discuss. Fatigue is always such a good cover for her, the way hysterics are for Tamar. She’s ducking, because she knows I’m prodding.
But slumped in her seat, Maud does look tired. The darting, dangerous look that comes when she wears dark lipstick has faded from her face.
“Lovely cuff links, though,” she says as she reaches over and holds my hand.
“I wore them all day.”
“I’m happy you like them. Wasn’t at all sure you’d like them, bought them on a whim,” she adds.
And suddenly it occurs to me that if ever there’s a good moment, perhaps this is it. We could even gloss over it, but I’ve been good all this time and now I have to raise the subject, even if it tears open the floodgates. Otherwise, I won’t sleep tonight. I am still looking at her, and she looks so unlike the woman I saw at the restaurant this afternoon. Is this the person I bring out when she’s alone with me, listless and fatigued? Am I even good for her? Am I enough?
“Do you like him, though?”
“I like him fine.”
I take this in, mull it over, say nothing at first.
“For a moment I thought there was something.”
“You mean between us?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe.”
“That would be too funny. Never even crossed my mind, and I can assure you it hasn’t crossed his either.”
“Why would it be too funny?”
“Why? I could think of a hundred reasons.”
“Name one.”
“You mean you couldn’t tell?”
I look at her. And she looks at me. I am feeling totally stumped, but finally I see what I was just starting to guess, or had already guessed except that I am still reluctant to let on that I have. Perhaps there’s a side of me that doesn’t want all my doubts about the two of them so hastily dispelled, though there’s yet another part that doesn’t want her to see I’ve immediately intuited what she’s barely had time to imply.
“Oh, that,” I say, downplaying her disclosure by feigning indifferent surprise.
“Oh, that!” she almost mimics. “Seriously?”
A moment of silence.
“For a while I thought you two had something going on.”
“Puh-lease! So this is why you were Mister Grumpy all evening?”
“Was I Mister Grumpy?”
“Big-time.”
She imitates my face when I’m pouting. We both laugh.
“Why do you think he asked if we were in love?” Maud asks.
“Why? Because he had too much to drink? Because he had designs on you?”
“No, dear. On you.”
I try to look baffled. But I know she can tell.
“So what else is new?” I ask.
“Nothing, I suppose.”
And suddenly I know I am saying something, not just about Gabi, or about men, but about me. But I say this looking out the window at the rain that falls ever so meek and docile over the road that leads to the ramp that leads to the bridge that leads to God knows where I’m going with this, though going with it I am. And there’s the bridge at last, vaulting the harbor under the shadow by the piers, the good, staunch, loyal bridge that understands and forgives and has always known, as I have always known, that what I really long for this evening is neither to be on this side of the river nor on the other bank but on the space a
Soon we’ll be riding up the FDR. We’ll cross over at 59th Street and then up Central Park West, and eventually pass the spot where the Greek vendor parks his hot dog cart each day, and then the Langham, the Kenilworth, the Beresford, the Bolivar, and farther up the St. Urban and Eldorado and then the entrance to the Bridle Path and to the tennis courts where Manfred stood gaping next to me this afternoon when I fired my cannonball shot and all I could think of at the time was I want to travel away with you to the island where the lemon grows and squeeze the rind of its fruit on you till I’ll smell it on your breath, on your body, under your skin.
“Were you smitten?” she asks.
I don’t want to lie. “For a moment.”
“For a moment,” she repeats, gentle irony lilting in her voice, as though realizing that, despite my tone, what I’ve just said was not spoken in passing.
Again I look outside the car.
“How long has it been?”
I am thinking of Manfred now, not of Gabi, but it doesn’t matter.
“A while,” I answer. “How long have you known?” I ask.
“A while.”
I can hear it in her voice that she’s smiling. I don’t ask her how, or when, or why in all these months we’ve never spoken about this. But I feel as though it is she who stepped into the restaurant today and witnessed for the first time what she’s probably always known but, like the Brits during the war, knew better than to say anything about.
“And all this time I thought it was Claire,” she says.
I shake my head to mean she couldn’t be more off the mark.
Silence sits between us. We seem to understand why. Finally, I utter a pallid yet grateful “Thanks.”
When I turn to look at her, all she says is “Welcome.”
We hardly need to say another word, but I know that right now, in the cab, of the two of us, it is I, not she, who’s crossed and gone over to the other side.
“Am I going to lose you?” she asks, and then pauses, as if wondering whether I’m no longer paying attention. “Because I don’t want to lose you.”
I say nothing. But I don’t know if what I’m about to say is the truth.
MANFRED
I know nothing about you. I don’t know your name, where you live, what you do. But I see you naked every morning. I see your cock, your balls, your ass, everything. I know how you brush your teeth, I know how your shoulder blades flex in and out when you shave, I know that you’ll take a quick shower after shaving and that your skin glows when you come out, know exactly how you’ll wrap a towel around your waist, and, for that short moment that I crave every morning in the tennis house, how you’ll drop your towel on the bench and stand naked after drying yourself. Even when I’m not looking, I love knowing that you’re naked right next to me, love thinking that you want me to know you’re naked, that you couldn’t possibly be unaware that I long for your naked body and that every night I lull myself to sleep, thinking that I’m cradled in your arms and you in mine. I know what soap you use and how long you take to comb your hair when it’s still wet, how you splash cream over your elbows, your knees, your legs, and in between each of your dainty toes, always generous but never wasteful with the cream, which you keep in your locker. I love to watch you inspect yourself in the mirror and seemingly approve the shape of your arms, your shoulders, your chest, your neck. Sometimes you’ll stand naked by the long urinal next to me, unaware that I’m trying my best not to look. I never look, don’t want to look, don’t want to be caught looking, don’t even want you to know I’m struggling not to look, though I can hear your stream and, for a brief moment, if only I had the courage, am tempted to slip a bare foot in its way to know the warmth from your body.
You, of course, never look. Ditto on the terrace, when you sit and start eating your morning ration of half a protein bar. Nor do you look when you’re stretching your legs against the banister before tennis. I’ll never come close to you when you’re stretching; I’ll wait or find another spot to stretch. But you’ll come right next to me, put a leg on the bar, stretch one calf, then the other, and not give it a second thought. I avoid getting close to you because I want to get close. You could almost graze my foot as you did once and never even knew it.
Sometimes, after we’ve each played for an hour in the morning and you’ve removed your shirt before showering, I love watching the sweat glisten down your spine. My mouth wants to go everywhere on your body. I want to taste you, I want to know you with my mouth.
You know nothing about me. You see me. But you don’t see me. Everyone else sees me. And yet no one has the foggiest notion of the gathering storm within me. It’s my secret private little hell. I live with it, I sleep with it. I love that no one knows. I wish you knew. Sometimes I fear you do.
To the rest of the world I might be the most cheerful person who ever leaves the tennis courts in the morning. I’ll stroll over to the 96th Street subway station, maybe run into a neighbor, joke with the neighbor, hope you’re following not far behind, which always gives me a thrill, even when I know you’re not following. Part of me wants you to see me happy, wants you to be envious of what could make me so happy. I carry this alleged happiness all the way to my office, and there I’ll greet everyone with so expansive a smile that it hovers on the brink of laughter. I can’t tell whether it’s real or contrived happiness, but it spills into every aspect of my life. Everywhere I go I affect joy, and by some strange miracle, this counterfeit joy brightens me up as well as those whose lives I touch. People look at me and I know what they think: He’s got a life. I flirt with everyone, but it’s really you I’m flirting with.
No one knows why I seem so happy, nor would anyone guess that the sprightly person so pepped up for the day and whose life seems so pulled together might be a disguised alien loping among earthlings. I seem happy even when I’m alone and couldn’t be happy. And yet wanting you does make me happy. In the office bathroom I catch myself whistling. At the salad bar the other day, I was impatient and started humming a tune. “You’re happy today,” said the lady at the cash register, which ended up making her happy as well. Work makes me happy. All I have to do at times is smile and I’ve jump-started my heart. At long, tiresome meetings, I’m the one who buoys everyone’s spirits with the most fatuous comments. Mr. Mirth-Palaver to the rescue!
It took me a while to suspect that the happiness I feel is not affected. The merest glance from you or the most cursory hello can cause a surge of happiness that lasts a whole day. Even if I can’t ever touch you, just looking at you makes me happy. Wanting you makes me happy. Thinking that I could steal one fraction of a second to place a cheek on the damp down on your chest after you’ve just showered gives more meaning and brings more joy than anything else I’ve wanted or done in a long time. I think of your skin all day, all the time.
Sometimes work gets in the way. Work keeps me busy. Work is my screen. My whole life is a screen. I am a screen. The real me has no face, no voice, isn’t always with me. Like thunder after lightning, the real me could be many, many miles away. Sometimes, there is no thunder. Just lightning and then silence. When I see you, there’s lightning and then silence.
I want to tell people. But there’s no one to tell. The only person I can think of is my father, and he’s no longer alive. You would have liked him. And he would have liked you.
I’m shrouded in silence, like a beggar hooded in burlap, skulking in a cellar. I am a cellar. My passion feeds on everything but air, then curdles like bad milk that never goes bad enough. It just sits there. And if it wastes the heart a tick per day, still, anything that touches the heart is good for the heart, is like feeling, becomes feeling. When I do not speak to you I hope that you will, whi
You speak to no one at the courts. I once overheard an older man ask to play tennis with you. It took guts to ask, since you’re an excellent player. I envied him the courage. No sooner had he asked than you smiled and answered, “I’d like that.” I envied the answer he got. It took me a month to realize that I’d like that was just polite humbug, meaning never.
You’re always so quiet. When you take a two-minute rest after stretching before playing, you stand and look out toward the trees with a vacuous, almost woeful gaze that lets you drift so far away. You look sad and ashen. Are you not happy? I want to ask. Do you even like tennis?
And yet you must be happy. You don’t need anyone. You are like a walled citadel, proud of its battlement and of its colored pennants flapping in the summer wind. Every morning I watch you walk to your court, I watch you play, and I watch you leave an hour and a half later. Always the same, never brooding, just silent. Occasionally, you’ll say “Excuse me” when I happen to stand in your way, and “Thank you” when your ball drifts into my court and I hurl it back to you. With these few words, I find comfort in false hopes and hope in false starts. I’ll coddle anything instead of nothing. Even thinking that nothing can come of nothing gives me a leg to stand on, something to consider when I wake up in the middle of the night and can see nothing, not the blackout in my life, not the screen, not the cellar, not even hope and false comforts—just the joy of your imagined limb touching mine. I prefer the illusion of perpetual fasting to the certainty of famine. I have, I think, what’s called a broken heart.