12

My mother was nonplussed. We all, including my two cousins who

were visiting that week, had an impulse to clap.

On the matter of etymologies, however, Oliver begged to differ. “Ah?!”

was my father’s startled response.

“The word is actually not an Arabic word,” he said.

“How so?”

My father was clearly mimicking Socratic irony, which would start with

an innocent “You don’t say,” only then to lead his interlocutor onto

turbulent shoals.

“It’s a long story, so bear with me, Pro.” Suddenly Oliver had become

serious. “Many Latin words are derived from the Greek. In the case of

‘apricot,’ however, it’s the other way around; the Greek takes over from

Latin. The Latin word was praecoquum, from pre-coquere, pre-cook, to

ripen early, as in ‘precocious,’ meaning premature.

“The Byzantines borrowed praecox, and it became prekokkia or

berikokki, which is finally how the Arabs must have inherited it as al￾birquq.”

My mother, unable to resist his charm, reached out to him and tousled

his hair and said, “Che muvi star!”

“He is right, there is no denying it,” said my father under his breath, as

though mimicking the part of a cowered Galileo forced to mutter the truth

to himself.

“Courtesy of Philology 101,” said Oliver.

All I kept thinking of was apricock precock, precock apricock.

One day I saw Oliver sharing the same ladder with the gardener, trying

to learn all he could about Anchise’s grafts, which explained why our

apricots were larger, fleshier, juicier than most apricots in the region. He

became fascinated with the grafts, especially when he discovered that the

gardener could spend hours sharing everything he knew about them with

anyone who cared to ask.

Oliver, it turned out, knew more about all manner of foods, cheeses, and

wines than all of us put together. Even Mafalda was wowed and would, on

occasion, defer to his opinion—Do you think I should lightly fry the paste

with either onions or sage? Doesn’t it taste too lemony now? I ruined it,

didn’t I? I should have added an extra egg—it’s not holding! Should I use

the new blender or should I stick to the old mortar and pestle? My mother

couldn’t resist throwing in a barb or two. Like all caubois, she said: they

know everything there is to know about food, because they can’t hold a

knife and fork properly. Gourmet aristocrats with plebian manners. Feed

him in the kitchen.

With pleasure, Mafalda would have replied. And indeed, one day when

he arrived very late for lunch after spending the morning with his translator,

there was Signor Ulliva in the kitchen, eating spaghetti and drinking dark

red wine with Mafalda, Manfredi, her husband and our driver, and Anchise,

all of them trying to teach him a Neapolitan song. It was not only the

national hymn of their southern youth, but it was the best they could offer

when they wished to entertain royalty.

Everyone was won over.

Chiara, I could tell, was equally smitten. Her sister as well. Even the

crowd of tennis bums who for years had come early every afternoon before

heading out to the beach for a late swim would stay much later than usual

hoping to catch a quick game with him.

With any of our other summer residents I would have resented it. But

seeing everyone take such a liking to him, I found a strange, small oasis of

peace. What could possibly be wrong with liking someone everyone else

liked? Everyone had fallen for him, including my first and second cousins

as well as my other relatives, who stayed with us on weekends and

sometimes longer. For someone known to love spotting defects in everyone else, I derived a certain satisfaction from concealing my feelings for him

behind my usual indifference, hostility, or spite for anyone in a position to

outshine me at home. Because everyone liked him, I had to say I liked him

too. I was like men who openly declare other men irresistibly handsome the

better to conceal that they’re aching to embrace them. To withhold universal

approval would simply alert others that I had concealed motives for needing

to resist him. Oh, I like him very much, I said during his first ten days when

my father asked me what I thought of him. I had used words intentionally

compromising because I knew no one would suspect a false bottom in the

arcane palette of shadings I applied to everything I said about him. He’s the

best person I’ve known in my life, I said on the night when the tiny fishing

boat on which he had sailed out with Anchise early that afternoon failed to

return and we were scrambling to find his parents’ telephone number in the

States in case we had to break the terrible news.

On that day I even urged myself to let down my inhibitions and show

my grief the way everyone else was showing theirs. But I also did it so none

might suspect I nursed sorrows of a far more secret and more desperate kind

—until I realized, almost to my shame, that part of me didn’t mind his

dying, that there was even something almost exciting in the thought of his

bloated, eyeless body finally showing up on our shores.

But I wasn’t fooling myself. I was convinced that no one in the world

wanted him as physically as I did; nor was anyone willing to go the distance

I was prepared to travel for him. No one had studied every bone in his body,

ankles, knees, wrists, fingers, and toes, no one lusted after every ripple of

muscle, no one took him to bed every night and on spotting him in the

morning lying in his heaven by the pool, smiled at him, watched a smile

come to his lips, and thought, Did you know I came in your mouth last

night?

to be continued

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