see.
Bene!
” Enrico says with a flash of white teeth, a frank smile which is always a surprise in his melancholyface. “I have to go now, but I hope we can meet again soon. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Later Dawit meets an adorable little boy with blond hair and flushed cheeks who is perched on Enrico’s shoulders, his hands gripping his father’s thick russet curls. Dawit thinks of Takla with a lonely tilt of the heart.
XV
T HEY DO NOT COME TO THE VILLA WHEN THEY SPEND AFTERNOONS together. They meet at the tennis club in Porto Cervo. Dawit feels he cannot see enough of Enrico. He knows he is moving back to Rome at the end of the summer, that their time together will be brief. Each moment is precious. When he is not with Enrico, he replays their time together in his mind like a film. He finds it difficult to think of anything else, to concentrate on what M. is saying to him.
“How can you play tennis in the heat of the day?” M. asks him, looking worried.
He shrugs. “You know the heat doesn’t bother me.”
“Ah, youth,” she says and smiles with fond indulgence.
They do, indeed, play tennis in the heat of the day. Dawit usually beats Enrico, but sometimes he concedes out of pity. Then they have a quick shower, a light lunch in the restaurant, a glass of white Sardinian wine. Afterward they use one of the upstairs rooms.
There, in the small white room, with the shutters drawn, Enrico’s pale skin glows as he lets Dawit undress him. Dawit loves the freckles on his shoulders and back. With a half smile, complicitous and yet slightly ironic—there is often somethingslightly detached about Enrico—he allows Dawit to enter his body with passion. They make love to the accompaniment of the
pong
of the tennis balls hit back and forth and an occasional expletive in the air.
Enrico loves pleasure. He whispers in a low, almost strangled voice into Dawit’s ear. He tells him he loves his smooth black skin. “How you shine for me!” he says, calling him his Dark King, his Balthazar, a wise man come to adore the child. He makes love passionately, using his nails and teeth, his tongue, as though he wishes to absorb more and more of Dawit’s body, his strength and youth.
Even so, he is often in a hurry, checking the time, afraid of leaving late and arousing his wife’s suspicion. He fears discovery. Obviously, he is a devoted husband, son-in-law, and father. He is the one who tells Dawit when they can meet and for how long, saying succinctly, “I have an hour tomorrow afternoon,” without further explanation. Dawit often feels Enrico is halfway out the door, only giving himself up completely for a moment at the height of passion. From the second he enters the room, he is ready to leave, folding his clothes neatly on the chair, leaving his car keys—he drives an old Alfa Romeo—available.
Only if his wife is absent for the afternoon or is at her parents’ house with the children does he permit Dawit to tarry on the bed beside him with the shutters drawn and the sound of the tennis players below. As long as Dawit is home by seven in the evening to hear her work, M. does not seem to mind.
Enrico gazes at the ceiling, and Dawit encourages him totalk about his life. He wants to know everything about him. Also, he loves lying beside him and listening to the sound of his patrician voice, with its Italian cadences, which he doesn’t always understand but sound to him like singing. He feels he has entered an Italian opera, one about love and death.
He thinks of his father, who loved Italian opera and particularly
Aida
, with its Ethiopian story, which he listened to again and again.
Dawit lies quietly and stares at Enrico’s small, almost pointed ears, his endearingly boyish curls, his fine profile, with the pointed nose, almost pencil-thin at the tip, the sensuous lips. He adores the slight swell of the stomach and the dusting of reddish hair on the pale skin that goes with it. Dawit winds his own
Bene!
” Enrico says with a flash of white teeth, a frank smile which is always a surprise in his melancholyface. “I have to go now, but I hope we can meet again soon. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Later Dawit meets an adorable little boy with blond hair and flushed cheeks who is perched on Enrico’s shoulders, his hands gripping his father’s thick russet curls. Dawit thinks of Takla with a lonely tilt of the heart.
XV
T HEY DO NOT COME TO THE VILLA WHEN THEY SPEND AFTERNOONS together. They meet at the tennis club in Porto Cervo. Dawit feels he cannot see enough of Enrico. He knows he is moving back to Rome at the end of the summer, that their time together will be brief. Each moment is precious. When he is not with Enrico, he replays their time together in his mind like a film. He finds it difficult to think of anything else, to concentrate on what M. is saying to him.
“How can you play tennis in the heat of the day?” M. asks him, looking worried.
He shrugs. “You know the heat doesn’t bother me.”
“Ah, youth,” she says and smiles with fond indulgence.
They do, indeed, play tennis in the heat of the day. Dawit usually beats Enrico, but sometimes he concedes out of pity. Then they have a quick shower, a light lunch in the restaurant, a glass of white Sardinian wine. Afterward they use one of the upstairs rooms.
There, in the small white room, with the shutters drawn, Enrico’s pale skin glows as he lets Dawit undress him. Dawit loves the freckles on his shoulders and back. With a half smile, complicitous and yet slightly ironic—there is often somethingslightly detached about Enrico—he allows Dawit to enter his body with passion. They make love to the accompaniment of the
pong
of the tennis balls hit back and forth and an occasional expletive in the air.
Enrico loves pleasure. He whispers in a low, almost strangled voice into Dawit’s ear. He tells him he loves his smooth black skin. “How you shine for me!” he says, calling him his Dark King, his Balthazar, a wise man come to adore the child. He makes love passionately, using his nails and teeth, his tongue, as though he wishes to absorb more and more of Dawit’s body, his strength and youth.
Even so, he is often in a hurry, checking the time, afraid of leaving late and arousing his wife’s suspicion. He fears discovery. Obviously, he is a devoted husband, son-in-law, and father. He is the one who tells Dawit when they can meet and for how long, saying succinctly, “I have an hour tomorrow afternoon,” without further explanation. Dawit often feels Enrico is halfway out the door, only giving himself up completely for a moment at the height of passion. From the second he enters the room, he is ready to leave, folding his clothes neatly on the chair, leaving his car keys—he drives an old Alfa Romeo—available.
Only if his wife is absent for the afternoon or is at her parents’ house with the children does he permit Dawit to tarry on the bed beside him with the shutters drawn and the sound of the tennis players below. As long as Dawit is home by seven in the evening to hear her work, M. does not seem to mind.
Enrico gazes at the ceiling, and Dawit encourages him totalk about his life. He wants to know everything about him. Also, he loves lying beside him and listening to the sound of his patrician voice, with its Italian cadences, which he doesn’t always understand but sound to him like singing. He feels he has entered an Italian opera, one about love and death.
He thinks of his father, who loved Italian opera and particularly
Aida
, with its Ethiopian story, which he listened to again and again.
Dawit lies quietly and stares at Enrico’s small, almost pointed ears, his endearingly boyish curls, his fine profile, with the pointed nose, almost pencil-thin at the tip, the sensuous lips. He adores the slight swell of the stomach and the dusting of reddish hair on the pale skin that goes with it. Dawit winds his own
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