Call Me By Your Name

by André Aciman

P.S. We are not written for one instrument alone; I am not, neither are you.

“If you only knew how little I know about the things that really matter.”

“You know very well I’m not going anywhere.”

But I did not let go of her hand. Nor she of mine. City camaraderie. How nice to hold a woman’s hand, especially when you don’t know a thing about her. Se l’amore, I thought.

remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once.

Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?

“God, the way they envied us from across the dinner table that first night in Rome,” he said. “Staring at us, the young, the old, men, women—every single one of them at that dinner table—gaping at us, because we were so happy.

“And on that evening when we grow older still we’ll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we’ll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.” Silence again. “Perhaps I am not yet ready to speak of them as strangers,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think either of us ever will be.”