Chapter Text
Ever since he was an infant - held aloft by his doting grand-mère to witness the pilgrim’s procession - Elio’d always considered their annual vacanze di Pasqua to be a cause for celebration. A loud, ostentatious affair of rituals and fiestas, culminating in the grandiose Easter feasts that saw their harried housekeeper putting the fear of God into B’s beleaguered tradesfolk.
Invariably, he let himself be swept up by the organised chaos: sneaking chocolate treats to his younger cousins when he wasn’t dyeing hard-boiled eggs with Vimini. The previous winter, however - haunted by the ghosts of relationships-past - had him dreading his return before they’d even boxed the menorah, yet the initial crunch of tyres on the villa’s gravel driveway hit him like a ton of bricks, regardless.
It is often said a pyre reduced to embers retains the capacity to burn, and retrieving his rucksack from the Fiat’s footwell he’d made an impromptu beeline for the upstairs bedrooms, whereupon the déjà vu of those separated single frames proved the final nail in the coffin of everything he’d lost. Something inside him howled at the sight, and staging a hasty retreat he’d marched straight through to the smaller annex, flinging his belongings to the chair in the corner then falling spreadeagled on the faintly musty sheets: the irrefutable gulf between then and now widening exponentially.
A gross overreaction, he’ll admit, but it plagues him, the summer of ‘83: an indelible, VHS playback; vividly emblazoned in the multitude of dog-eared novels littering his secrétaire. The handwritten folio of Hadyn’s sonatas: meticulously transcribed at the al fresco dining table. The clothes - both gifted and mundane - that migrated to the top shelf of his armoire, and of which he can’t yet bring himself to wear anew.
He was an experiment. Little more. Just another notch on some visiting grad-student’s belt. A brief traviamento, perhaps, from the routine drudgery. So he fakes a smile to appease his parents’ worries. Occupies his mornings at the poolside loungers. Cycles to N or San Giacomo when the weather allows: pores over a stack of college prospecti in his father’s study when it doesn’t.
In short: honing the façade of normalcy even as his nights all blur in a self-sabotaging haze; the artificial highs and furtive hook-ups a poor distraction amidst the abrasive crowds of Le Danzing.
Numb, in the main - yet equally livid his path in life was determined without him - Elio can’t dismiss the emotions Oliver unleashed, so the innate certainty he’ll never experience them again cuts sharper than a blade as he props his faithful leri below a budding linden; one whose gnarled trunk he struggled to climb when he was too young to know an Oliver actually existed.
There’s a storm brewing to the east - hence his prudential dash from the piazza - and wary of disturbing the Moreshi’s mastiff he sets out briskly across the neatly-mown lawn; lamenting the batteries of his drained cassette player when Jim Kerr’s powerful vocals slur to a slow-motion garble. He’ll have to restock at the alimentari, he suspects, draping his silent headphones about his neck, and mounting the veranda shuts the heavy oak door behind him; narrowly avoiding a tan leather holdall as he kicks off his unlaced Converse.
“It’s unfortunate, I’ll concede,” he hears next: his father’s sage wisdom emanating from the living room down the hall. “But you’re a gambler, mon ami. You’re wont to hedge your bets. Our Elio’s still counting the cost of a losing hand… no matter the good it might do to confront it.”
Which is somewhat edifying in itself.
Though no less confusing.
Truth be told, Maman seemed grateful his Catholic aunts and uncles weren’t flying in ‘til Friday, and few of their mutual acquaintances would loiter at this late hour to avail themselves of his parents’ hospitality.
Curiosity spurs him onwards - that, and the raspberry semifreddo in the kitchen pantry - yet the second he peeks around the vertical jamb Elio freezes in his tracks; the visceral shock of inertia jolting the entire planet off its axis. He can practically feel the colour drain from his cheeks, and irrespective if all he can see is the third party’s back, Elio knows exactly who it is.
Flinty edges strike and flare as his too-tight lungs strain in paralysed protest, but blinking the dots from his tunnelled vision he takes a wavering step; finding a grain of self-possession in direct defiance of the farcical scene that greets him.
His father, beaming as if they’d won the lotteria.
His mother, pouring a glass of wine from their crystal decanter.
And Oliver - the last person he wants to acknowledge, yet the only one it’s impossible to ignore - every inch of his body fraught with tension when a malefic baseboard reveals his skulking presence.
Almost like a son-in-law ricochets from their Hanukkah conversation, and the clear sense of betrayal packs a physical blow as all three lever to their feet; Oliver crushing his half-smoked cigarette in a brimming portacenere.
His profile is weary. His complexion, sallow and gaunt. Lank blond hair lies oddly unkempt - gone, the golden wisps of cornsilk - and shaved at the sides there’s no disguising the patchy growth of stubble that limns his sunken jowl. A chalk outline of his muvi star self, he’s dressed in grey joggers and a frayed, Columbia sweatshirt, but despite the nod to comfort his rigid stance has Elio afraid the palm he’s curled atop the sofa’s upholstery is the sole thing supporting his weight.
He looks terrible - he looks beautiful - he looks like redemption, and the gut-punch trifecta tugs at his heartstrings on par with a Sicilian marionette.
“Elio...”
Oliver’s lips - Oliver’s voice - shaping the Americanized inflection of Oliver’s borrowed name. Succour that’s steeped in longing - longing that leaves him hollow - for Elio can barely think over the blitzkrieg volley of how, what, why that virtually drowns it out. Indeed, Saturday, April 28th has been scrawled on his mental calendar since the elegant RSVP arrived in the mail: his father tactfully declining the courtesy by dint of an upcoming dig in Alexandria. Yet here Oliver is. Nine days shy of that fairytale chuppah - of reciting the vows that bind him to someone else - and Elio thrums with pent-up energy as a volatile buzz skitters under his skin.
Harsh. Contemptuous. Unforgiving.
Suppose they’d moved the wedding forward?
Suppose he was on his honeymoon?
Oliver hadn’t brought much in terms of luggage - assuming, of course, Manfredi didn’t commandeer his suitcases - but could he truly be so callous as to welcome his wife to the home they’d made their own? Conduct a private tour of the abandoned train tracks and gypsy cars with their royal insignias? Sleep with her in those pushed-together beds whilst Elio slept less than a stone’s throw away?
The impertinence.
The subterfuge.
The sheer fucking chutzpah!
Elio’s fury is brash and brilliant; his imagination eclipsed by newfound nihilism as it flits from one chilling eventuality to the next. Bile rises in his throat upon registering the outstretched hand beside him, yet Oliver appears completely nonplussed when he shows no signs of taking it: staring, as he is, at the naked expanse of knuckle on his left ring finger.
“Mon chér?” his mother ventures softly: pomegranate seeds in Hades. “Donne-lui une chance, non?”
There’s a peculiar static in the air. A susurrant, seashell-roar burring into his temples. Elio’s jaw firms in the throes of a vulnerable quiver, and partially mollified he steals his stubborn gaze to the Bösendorfer’s ivory keys; the dancing lights of the ornate chandelier illuminating its glossed, mahogany lid.
“Scusami,” he declares under sufferance: his feigned indifference veiling a multitude of sins.
A piece of his brain has switched off - or switched gears - and unable to tolerate the wholesome family veneer he stalks from the room with no specific destination in mind. Marzia was spending the evening at her boyfriend’s condominio, but Chiara wouldn’t be averse to letting him crash in the pavilion. May well lend a sympathetic ear and a bottle of Barolo if -
“Elio… Elio, wait!” Oliver insists, and against all better judgement, he does: halting just shy of the foyer staircase. “Please don’t blame your folks, okay? It’s me who caught them unawares. They were simply too kind to -”
“- roll up the red carpet?” Elio suggests; far too blasé for the circumstances. “Bid you adieu?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are you?” Deceptively calm, Elio can’t deny the hint of schadenfreude as he lays his Walkman on top the cluttered sideboard. “Come now, professore. Surely you’re not that obtuse?”
Oliver frowns in his peripheral. “You’re mad at me.”
No kidding.
“I’m processing.”
“Elio -”
“It’s been eight months,” he says; flushed with pained dignity. “We haven’t so much as spoken in five. And what? Suddenly you’re keen to start from scratch?”
Oliver scrubs a hand over his nape. “I’m not yet ready to think of us as strangers,” he says, offering no apologies for his lack of propriety. “But I would like to sit down, if you’re willing? Talk about what happened.”
“What happened?” The shift inside him is nigh on tectonic as Elio spins on his heel. “Spare me the fudging, brave knight. Big results require big ambitions, non?”
“You’re quoting Heraclitus?”
“Would you rather Leopardi?”
“I hardly meant -”
“No, you never do, do you?” Elio accuses, refusing to do something so asinine as cry. “You used me.” You replaced me, he’s reticent to add, though Oliver’s shoulders slump all the same. “You swore we’d keep in touch - that you didn’t want to lose me, either - then quel surprise! You’re telling me you’re engaged!”
“You said it was wonderful news…”
“Sémantique!” Elio scoffs; instantly defensive. “What else did you expect me to do, huh? Run my mouth like a jealous charity case? Cow you into risking your future when you’d already decided the price wasn't worth it?” A beat. “That I wasn't worth it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Whyever not?”
“Cause the devil’s in the details!” Oliver maintains: kerosene; gun powder, combustion incarnate. “And what we had... the things I felt... Lethe itself couldn’t make me forget.”
“Stronzate!” The idea is risible: or would be, if Elio wasn’t quite so winded. “You always thought we were a mistake,” he counters, teeth clenched so bitingly he fears for the enamel. “Always wanted to be good. To behave. And I get it. Really, I do.” Butchers and bakers and all that jazz. “You had a life - a career - a girlfriend you didn’t see fit to mention! It’s been on and off for two years,” he mocks, styling it well, at any rate. “But I loved you. I did. So you don’t get to act like you can have her - can propose to her - and not destroy me in the -”
“Elio -”
“Non interrompermi!”
“Please!” Oliver persists; bloodshot eyes huge and imploring. “Please, just… say that again.”
Elio folds his arms belligerently. “Which part?”
“You know which part,” Oliver says, gaping like a netted trout.
There’s no condemnation - no derision - no malice in any form. But Elio? Elio stands naked under that tenterhook stare, and desperate to cover his embarrassment skirts the entreaty along with his shattered pride.
They’re outcasts, the pair of them - not of a country, but an ephemeral period in time - and it’d be all-too-easy to succumb to temptation. To embrace the spirit of nostalgia. Oliver might guide him in by the waist: one hand bracketing the curve of his bicep. Whereas Elio could nuzzle his face over that broadly-muscled chest. Arch in brazen encouragement as he rears up on tip-toes and -
Then what? he muses, his parents’ silhouettes breaching the monochrome hallway.
In the unbridled libertà of Rome - Ferragosto, San Clemente, a lamplit section of via Santa Maria dell’Anima - Oliver would’ve met him kiss-for-kiss: tonight though, in the absence of such revelry, his rejection would be categorical.
A violent clap of thunder crescendos in the distance.
Or maybe it wouldn’t?
Maybe he’d sample the forbidden fruit then disappear once more: prolonging Elio’s torment in some cruel war of attrition.
“I know nothing, Oliver,” he replies - battling a pull as dense as tar - and reaching for the guardrail scales those stairs like Orpheus himself; head raised, spine stiff, with zero intention of glancing back.