Call Me By Your Name

by André Aciman

stultifying

And yet, it was in Rome, where we live not two hundred meters away from the Basilica of San Clemente, that I put the finishing touches to a poem which, ironically enough, I had started eons ago in Bangkok precisely because Rome felt galaxies away.”

Perhaps, without thinking, we had taken more than a brief vacation; we were eloping together with return-trip tickets to separate destinations. Perhaps it was his gift to me. Perhaps it was my father’s gift to the two of us.

affectation.

“Sindromo

All that remains is dreammaking and strange remembrance.

All these facets of his life had the mysterious character of incidents that had occurred in my father’s life long before my birth but which continued to resonate into the present.

wasn’t worried. I could spend the rest of my life like this: with him, at night, in Rome, my eyes totally shut, one leg coiled around his.

I had never been able to admit to myself how happy Oliver had made me the day he’d swallowed my peach. Of course it had moved me, but it had flattered me as well, as though his gesture had said, I believe with every cell in my body that every cell in yours must not, must never, die, and if it does have to die, let it die inside my body.

guile.

But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!”

I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you’d want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open.”

said. People getting married was always wonderful news, I was happy for them, marriages were good, and the broad smile on my face was genuine enough, even if it occurred to me a while later that such news couldn’t possibly bode well for us.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t stay.

then the greatest gift life could bestow on me was to move this divider forward in time.

eclipsed

No one could say my name that way. “Elio,” I repeated, to say it was I speaking but also to spark our old game and show I’d forgotten nothing. “It’s Oliver,” he said. He had forgotten.

My god we love each other we were each others first loves but in the ruthless march forward in time has rendered the greatest gifts we’ve ever received, ones we made for each other, lost in all the moves. This struck me somehow, in the

“How many years has it been?” “Fifteen. I counted them last night on my way here.” Then I added: “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve always known.” “Fifteen it is. Just look at you!

“Forgive? There was nothing to forgive. If anything, I’m grateful for everything. I remember good things only.”

possibly have known about? Things he had longed for, loved, and lost, and whose loss had crushed him, but whose presence in his life, when he had them, I wasn’t there to witness and wouldn’t know the first thing about. I wasn’t there when he’d acquired them, wasn’t there when he’d given them up.

I still went back to those spots but even with her in my passenger seat all I have are memories of memories of remembering her

I could easily have thrust myself on him years ago, married or unmarried—unless it was I who, despite all appearances, had all along been unreal and spectral myself.

I’d assumed he’d totally forgotten me.

It was a coma. Tomorrow I go back to my coma, and you to yours.

life.” Maybe every other sorrow I’d known in life suddenly decided to converge on this very one. I had to fight it off. And if he didn’t see, it’s probably because he himself was not immune to it.

“She suspects everyone.” He understood. It saddened him.

finally speaking the unavoidable two words: twenty years.

When there’s a breeze and they swell and I look up from down here or stand outside on the balcony, I’ll catch myself thinking that you’re in there, staring

Twenty years was yesterday, and yesterday was just earlier this morning, and morning seemed light-years away.

Memories recalled in perfect clarity as if they were sitting on ice patiently waiting for us to pick them back up again