ANDRÉ

ACIMAN
Room
on the
Sea
For Rebecca Hartje, Mollye Shacklette and Hemin Shin
 They arrived at his house in East Hampton before noon. He checked the
refrigerator and saw that the cleaning lady had purchased everything they’d
need. Eggs, milk, sourdough bread, and so on. She’d even decided to buy three
cans of tuna. He’d told the cleaning lady he’d leave hermoneyintheusualspoton
thekitchentable,underthemortarandpestle.
Catherine watched him slip the bills under the mortar. ‘An interesting
antique,’ she said.
‘It’s not an antique,’ he replied. ‘It belonged to my mother. She likedcoming
here,andoneyearspentawholesummerinthehousebyherself.God knows why
she needed a mortar and pestle. But for some crazy reason she had brought the
thing from Italy. It was one of the very fewthings she’d lugged all the way to the
States.’
For lunch he managed to improvise something simple and delicious, using
vodka and a bit of cream in the tomato sauce. He remembered that his mother
would sometimes cook lunch for him when he’d drive fromhis office on Wall
Street.He’deatwithherandthendriveallthewaybacktothecity.He’ddoitagain
in a flash if she were alive today. ‘My mother used to like it here,’ he said. ‘I think
it’sbecauseofthewater.’
After lunch, and after brewing what Catherine referred to as the bestcoffee in
the world, he suggested they take a walk along the shore. Hadshe brought a hat?
Shehadbroughtahat.Andsun-screen?Andsunscreentoo.Goodthing,because
therewasn’tanysunscreeninthehouse.
Neither wished to ask about putting on bathing suits. She was leavingit
up to him. He was leaving it up to her. She started laughing; he did too,
because he had immediately guessed what had made them laugh.
‘Let’s leave the walk for a bit later.’
‘And see how things develop?’
It brought a sudden, expansive smile to his lips. ‘I adore you,
Catherine.’
It was mid-afternoon when they decided to go for their walk. They
had even managed to steal a short nap and were in the best of moods.
‘So,’ she said, after the two had put on their hats and sunscreen and
had already walked past one dune and another, which he told her was a
totally new dune, until they finally reached the shoreline. Her So,
seemingly thrown out so casually, suggested a portentous let the shrink
ask now. ‘So, tell me about your mother from Naples.’
He looked at her with an I-thought-you’d-never-ask smile. ‘My
mother,’ he began.
And right away, as they dipped their toes in the water, they knew that
their walk would last a long, leisurely while. He started telling her of the
war years when his father was stationed in Naples and had met a local
girl recently hired by the US army base. She knew just enough to be
asked to stand in for one of the typists who was sick that week, but he
was struck by the way she stared at the giant Remington they had placed
before her. She right away confessed that she had never seen the letters
K, X, or W before. They discussed the matter for a short while, but when
she finally raised her darting eyes to tell him that Italian didn’t have these
letters, he knew immediately that those startled dark eyes of hers could
stop army trucks in their tracks. Still, with the typewriter before her and
both her girlish, thin hands resting delicately on her lap, she turned and
said, ‘Captain Wadsworth, what would you have me type now?’ He’d
frequently tell the story of how they met and how when she asked him
what she should type, all he could think of saying to her right then and
there was ‘I’ve fallen in love with you and I don’t even know your
name.’ Her chilling response as she put the cover back over the
typewriter, determined to walk out of the office, was simply ‘Un altro!’
Another one!
He persuaded her to stay for the day. Then she stayed for the week.
And then, fearing he’d never see her again once the person who’d been
sick said she was coming back the following week, he did something so
bold that he knew one way or another it would change his life. He asked
her to invite him to her parents’ house for dinner. He would find
everything they’d need, and more, at the PX. ‘But I have to ask my
parents,’ she said. ‘As long as there’s not another reason to say no,’ he
ventured. ‘There is no other reason,’ she replied. It was the first time he
saw her smile, and on that night she cooked dinner for Captain
Wadsworth.
He was never the same again. When she was with her mother in the
kitchen, he overheard her sing a song in a low voice, and, while her
father was speaking to him in the dining room, he couldn’t focus on a
single word the old man was saying. He stood up, apologized for leaving
the room, and walking on tiptoes, headed to the kitchen. He waited by the
door for her to finish the song. When she was done singing, he asked her
the name of the song. Dicitencello vuje, she said, as though asking, What
else could it be but that? Would she please sing it again for him? What,
the song? she asked, totally surprised by so simple a request. Yes, the
song.
And once she started to sing it again, she kept staring at him so
intensely that he had no recourse but to start tearing up in front of her and
her parents. ‘It was my gift,’ she said when he stood at their door and was
about to leave long after dinner. ‘Can I come tomorrow?’ he asked,
knowing it was totally out of place to ask. She did not say yes, she said a
domani, until tomorrow. It changed his life. Over the years, he’d still ask
her to sing for him. She would sing for him softly in their bedroom, she
sang on everyone’s birthday, she sang for him when he was dying,
because he wanted to hear her voice one last time.
‘Had Captain Wadsworth not dared to tell her so openly what was in
his heart the moment he set eyes on her, had she never invited him for
dinner at her parents’, she would never have left Italy, I wouldn’t have
been born, I would never have sat next to you in the central jury room,
and never dared ask what you were reading.’
‘Couldn’t you tell?’
‘Couldn’t I tell what?’
‘I was happy you asked.’
They walked all the way to where some of the houses became
mansions, talking endlessly about so many things.
 ‘Was she beautiful?’ she asked.
‘Very, even in old age.’
‘You loved her?’
‘So much. But then everyone did. She was easy to love. She may be
dead but she isn’t gone. I speak to her sometimes.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, but she comes back to me. We joke, I complain about
things, I warned you, she always says, and warn me she did when she
was alive. I never told you this, but each time I went to Naples it was
always on business, and I never once made a point of visiting the home
where she grew up, never reached out to relatives, many of whom I’m
sure are still alive today. Maybe I didn’t want to find out. Maybe I didn’t
feel strong enough alone.’
‘You didn’t feel strong enough alone,’ she repeated, as though she’d
read his meaning in far greater depth than he had.
When was the last time he’d spoken about his mother? she asked.
His answer disturbed her more than it threw her off.
‘Decades ago, very seldom,’ he replied. Then, as though to dissemble
his unsettling answer, ‘Strange, isn’t it?’
‘Not strange, sad. Maybe you should still consider going, and not for
business this time.’
‘I would love to – but not alone.’
They kept walking along the shore while he picked up shells then
aimed them as far as he could into the water. They decided to turn back.
When they finally reached the spot where the new dune had risen, she
said she wanted to sit on the ground for a while.
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because I want to see the afternoon sun with you. You made love to
me today.’
Her words moved him so deeply that what he was about to say stuck
in his throat and left him speechless.
‘I want to catch many more sunsets with you.’ And, seeing he wasn’t
saying anything, ‘Do I have to spell it out?’ she asked.
‘As you can see, maybe I’m the one who was born yesterday.’
‘Clearly.’
 He understood her well enough, but couldn’t bring himself to believe
it. As he’d done already, he let his hand rest on the sand next to hers for
her to put her hand in his, and she did.
‘We’ve caught up with four decades, haven’t we?’
‘Who’s counting? But yes.’ Then, with hesitation in her voice, ‘Can
we not go back to the city, not today? I don’t want to.’
‘So we’re staying. Easy.’
‘There’s just a tiny thing left, and we both know what it is.’
He looked startled. Obviously, she thought, he had no idea what she
was referring to.
‘It’s about August.’
It took him a while. ‘Are we this crazy?’
‘We’re going to have to be.’
‘Will it make Pirro happy?’
‘It will definitely make him happy.’
They smiled, but neither wished to laugh.
‘I think it will make your mother happy too.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I’m sure it would.’
They were silent for a moment.
‘What was her name?’
‘Everyone called her Ginny, but her name was Ginestra.’
‘Ginestra, what a beautiful name.’
‘It’s the name of a plant. They say it grows on Mount Vesuvius. It
survives the worst eruptions. But I’ve never seen it. She used to recite a
poem about that flower.’
‘All these years …?’ she started to ask.
‘All these years,’ he replied.
All these years he had wanted to know his mother’s world, the world
of her songs, of her parents, of old Naples and old kitchen utensils that
had travelled far enough to outlive many lives, on this side and that side,
lives he’d never known of and longed to know now, though not alone,
because he already knew he’d cry and he didn’t want to cry, not alone,
though maybe it would be good to cry in this world of sunlit balconies
and sunlit faces, and of stunning voices that could nurse a child to sleep,
stir a husband’s love, and, when he was old, send him to the next world
with nothing but grace and plenitude in his heart, a world where sunlight
itself forgave and forgot and where bliss was a promise, even when
unkept.
‘I so wish my mother had met you.’
Catherine nodded in agreement. ‘But I met you,’ she said.
‘We should have met forty years ago.’
‘Can we just assume we did? We weren’t who we are now.’
‘Could we have been so different from who we are today?’
‘You’re talking two generations ago. That’s a long time, Paul. I don’t
want to be who I was then. And I suspect you don’t either. Come, your
coffee is better than Pirro’s.’
They stood up.
‘Was this your way of asking for another cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, but I was also starting to wonder about drinks and dinner.
Remember, you owe me an omelette and a few other things, and wine
too.’
‘How could I forget?’
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me by

Your Name, Out of Egypt, Eight White Nights, False Papers, Alibis,
Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, Find Me and the essay collection
Homo Irrealis. He is the editor of The Proust Project and teaches
comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of
New York. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.
 By the Same Author

fiction
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
EIGHT WHITE NIGHTS
HARVARD SQUARE
ENIGMA VARIATIONS
FIND ME
THE GENTLEMAN FROM PERU

non-fiction
OUT OF EGYPT: A MEMOIR
FALSE PAPERS: ESSAYS ON EXILE AND MEMORY
ENTREZ: SIGNS OF FRANCE (with Steven Rothfeld)
THE LIGHT OF NEW YORK (with Jean-Michel Berts)
ALIBIS: ESSAYS ON ELSEWHERE
HOMO IRREALIS

as editor
LETTERS OF TRANSIT: REFLECTIONS ON EXILE,
IDENTITY, LANGUAGE, AND LOSS
THE PROUST PROJECT
 COPYRIGHT

First published in 2025

by Faber & Faber Limited
The Bindery, 51 Hatton Garden
London EC1N 8HN
This ebook edition first published in the UK in 2025
All rights reserved
© André Aciman, 2024
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations and events portrayed in this
novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously
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ISBN 978–0–571–38516–4