Enigma Variations

by André Aciman

Perhaps in this, finally, lay the leanest proof of love: the hope, the belief, the conviction that she knew more about me than I did myself, that she, not I, held the key to everything I felt.

I myself was nothing more than a collection of marginal selves who sit out their time like unpaid stevedores on an unfinished pier where no boats ever dock.

“Not rituals. Rituals are when we wish to repeat what has already happened, rehearsals when we repeat what has yet to occur. Where do we fit?” Nowhere, I would have added.

Maybe there is no true life or false life—just rehearsals for parts we might never be lucky enough to play.

I began making love to her thinking of the child we were never going to have together.

In the end, and without ever admitting it to myself, I’d grown to love serving two masters—perhaps so as never truly to answer to either one.

You want something from me, but you don’t know what it is. Perhaps all I am is an idea with a body. There was always something missing. Your hell—and it’s mine too—is that even when you’re with Manfred, you’ll want to be with me again. You and I don’t love the way others do—we run on empty.

You’re alone, as I’m alone, and the cruelest thing is that finding each other and saying let us be alone together won’t solve a thing.

“Why have we waited so long?” I didn’t know the answer. “Maybe because what we want hasn’t been invented yet.”

“Maybe because it doesn’t exist.”

“Star love, my love, star love. It may not live but it never dies. It’s the only thing I’m taking with me, and you will too, when the time comes.”

A woman who knows what you’re thinking must think what you’re thinking.

My entire life faces the wall except when I’m with you. I stare at my life and want to undo every mistake, every deceit, turn a new leaf, turn the table, turn the clock. I want to put a real face on my life, not the drab front I’ve been wearing since forever.

Late have I loved you!