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F I C : bucket list .
Feb. 7th, 2022 06:11 amMafalda is the first link to his earthly life that he loses, his father doesn't count, he lost him in the human capacity, before Elio chose to step out of his own mortality for good.
One spring, he returns to Earth to a message from his mother about the elderly woman's passing several months earlier and he returns to Italy, although at this point Bordighera hasn't been his base of operations for several summers, to visit her grave in Naples, the Catholic graveyard old and unkept, but still bedecked in flowers, because what the local government has forgotten about, the locals themselves haven't. The Italian way. He's brought some of his mother's dahlias with him, a small, simple bouquet, but it feels fitting. Mafalda was not a complex woman, she lived a simple life. When Elio turns to leave, having pressed a fleeting kiss to her headstone, it's with the awareness that he'll never come back within any timeframe where it matters and as such he's severing the first bond he has to any illusion of normalcy.
When he contacts Lucifer later during the summer and asks that he sends his greetings to the old woman in her loop, Lucifer tells him that she never came to Hell.
Those Neapolitans, Elio thinks. Straight to Heaven. Mafalda lived a simple life, indeed.
_____
A couple of years later, he's on a tour through Europe, ending in Paris where his mother meets him for dinner the night before his performance, the restaurant is across from the old church where Elio met Michel, such a long, long time ago. His mother is getting old, too, and he knows, she will probably be the next that he loses to Azrael, a bit forgetful at this stage as well and in the middle of a conversation about the tenants who've taken over the summer house, she suddenly bursts out: "I don't remember if I told you, darling, but Marzia died. You remember Marzia?"
He remembers Marzia, of course.
"What? No, you didn't tell me," he says, surprised.
"Yes, she was killed in a car accident in Nice some weeks ago. Terrible, terrible."
Quickly, he gets an update on the roughly fifteen years of life that Marzia lived without his presence in it. She married a French fashion designer and had a child who died young, then another child who's now lost their mother very young and Elio's mother tells him all of this, touching not once on the topics that really weigh on him while listening. Did Marzia feel fulfilled? Did her child bring her joy? Did her husband? How many regrets did she have?
Walking his mother back to her hotel later, he still doesn't know. Giving his recital the following night, he still doesn't know. Waiting for Lucifer to come for him a month later, he still doesn't know, because Elio has accepted that this is a part of his existence now that he can't in any way prevent.
Powers far beyond him control the play of life and death, it was always that way, sure, but having a little influence in the divine is almost more frustrating than having none, he thinks, playing with his bracelet as he sits on a plane headed north. It's the end of July.
_____
As predicted, the following summer, Elio attends his mother's funeral while on Earth. She dies early April and he spends the rest of his time on the surface managing her estate from abroad, selling off what he doesn't want for himself, but keeping the summer house for rent just in case. He might want to go back some day. Or it's just nostalgia, Elio feels like he harbors more and more of that these days.
Under any circumstances, that house is the only real family he's got left, right?
As was the case the final years of his parents' lives, he doesn't visit much.
_____
Three summers later, he returns to a message from a lawyer in Paris who, upon contact, tells him that Michel has left his country house with all its interior to him in the case of his death. "When did he die," Elio asks, his frown audible even to the lawyer who states that it's been half a year, he's tried to reach him without luck in the meantime.
Elio asks for a couple of days to consider, the lawyer warning him that the inheritance will soon go on auction, unless he accepts, but Elio doesn't let himself be pressured. "Two days," he tells the man who can hear he won't get further with his objections, accepting reluctantly. Elio rents a car and drives to Corot Country, trespassing on the land and taking a walk down the old lanes, pathways, the lake's the same, the grayness, even in summer like now. Honestly, he doesn't need any more property, but something in him remembers Michel as he was that weekend long ago more than Michel, trying to save him from himself, when he didn't even understand that self in the first place.
Oh, selfish reasons.
He's no doubt in Hell now, Elio concludes. And because he is, because Elio will see him again in surroundings even drearier than Corot Country, he accepts the house and stays there the rest of the summer, freshening it up and playing on the old Steinway as the long, summer nights darken the walls, the floor, the keys.
_____
It takes five extra years, before Oliver's turn comes. Elio is on Earth when a young man calls him, introducing himself as Oliver's elder son and asking whether he's talking to Elio Perlman.
"That's me," Elio says, knowing what this means. He and Oliver discussed it a long, long time ago. It's like a promise finally being kept. The boy, Sam, tells him that his father has passed and his dying wish was to ensure Elio would be present at the ceremony. For some reason, this touches Elio deeply. He agrees to come, New Haven, US, and more or less gets on the plane in the clothes he was wearing when being told the news.
At the burial, he's in a tux and met at the door by that same, elder son who looks like Oliver, blond hair, blue eyes, early thirties, they look the same age, Elio and him, although Elio could be his father by a couple of centuries. "For some reason, I thought you'd be older," Sam says. Elio smiles.
"I'm older than I look."
"How did you know my father?"
"He didn't say?"
"He never mentioned you before getting sick and never told us any details."
Elio looks at the young man who Oliver once insisted he'd hate to see in Elio's bed once he was old enough to find his way there, thinking how time's a funny concept at its core. Relative. It's all so relative. He looks down, kind of shrugging to say, it doesn't matter, replying in a soft voice:
"Then, I think I'll show your father the respect of not sharing his and my secret."
There's a small silence, a pause while Sam looks him over, before straightening up. "He would have appreciated that, he was a secretive man."
As Oliver's elder son shows the way down the aisle, leading him to his seat, Elio follows him willingly.
"I know," he answers, simply.
One spring, he returns to Earth to a message from his mother about the elderly woman's passing several months earlier and he returns to Italy, although at this point Bordighera hasn't been his base of operations for several summers, to visit her grave in Naples, the Catholic graveyard old and unkept, but still bedecked in flowers, because what the local government has forgotten about, the locals themselves haven't. The Italian way. He's brought some of his mother's dahlias with him, a small, simple bouquet, but it feels fitting. Mafalda was not a complex woman, she lived a simple life. When Elio turns to leave, having pressed a fleeting kiss to her headstone, it's with the awareness that he'll never come back within any timeframe where it matters and as such he's severing the first bond he has to any illusion of normalcy.
When he contacts Lucifer later during the summer and asks that he sends his greetings to the old woman in her loop, Lucifer tells him that she never came to Hell.
Those Neapolitans, Elio thinks. Straight to Heaven. Mafalda lived a simple life, indeed.
A couple of years later, he's on a tour through Europe, ending in Paris where his mother meets him for dinner the night before his performance, the restaurant is across from the old church where Elio met Michel, such a long, long time ago. His mother is getting old, too, and he knows, she will probably be the next that he loses to Azrael, a bit forgetful at this stage as well and in the middle of a conversation about the tenants who've taken over the summer house, she suddenly bursts out: "I don't remember if I told you, darling, but Marzia died. You remember Marzia?"
He remembers Marzia, of course.
"What? No, you didn't tell me," he says, surprised.
"Yes, she was killed in a car accident in Nice some weeks ago. Terrible, terrible."
Quickly, he gets an update on the roughly fifteen years of life that Marzia lived without his presence in it. She married a French fashion designer and had a child who died young, then another child who's now lost their mother very young and Elio's mother tells him all of this, touching not once on the topics that really weigh on him while listening. Did Marzia feel fulfilled? Did her child bring her joy? Did her husband? How many regrets did she have?
Walking his mother back to her hotel later, he still doesn't know. Giving his recital the following night, he still doesn't know. Waiting for Lucifer to come for him a month later, he still doesn't know, because Elio has accepted that this is a part of his existence now that he can't in any way prevent.
Powers far beyond him control the play of life and death, it was always that way, sure, but having a little influence in the divine is almost more frustrating than having none, he thinks, playing with his bracelet as he sits on a plane headed north. It's the end of July.
As predicted, the following summer, Elio attends his mother's funeral while on Earth. She dies early April and he spends the rest of his time on the surface managing her estate from abroad, selling off what he doesn't want for himself, but keeping the summer house for rent just in case. He might want to go back some day. Or it's just nostalgia, Elio feels like he harbors more and more of that these days.
Under any circumstances, that house is the only real family he's got left, right?
As was the case the final years of his parents' lives, he doesn't visit much.
Three summers later, he returns to a message from a lawyer in Paris who, upon contact, tells him that Michel has left his country house with all its interior to him in the case of his death. "When did he die," Elio asks, his frown audible even to the lawyer who states that it's been half a year, he's tried to reach him without luck in the meantime.
Elio asks for a couple of days to consider, the lawyer warning him that the inheritance will soon go on auction, unless he accepts, but Elio doesn't let himself be pressured. "Two days," he tells the man who can hear he won't get further with his objections, accepting reluctantly. Elio rents a car and drives to Corot Country, trespassing on the land and taking a walk down the old lanes, pathways, the lake's the same, the grayness, even in summer like now. Honestly, he doesn't need any more property, but something in him remembers Michel as he was that weekend long ago more than Michel, trying to save him from himself, when he didn't even understand that self in the first place.
Oh, selfish reasons.
He's no doubt in Hell now, Elio concludes. And because he is, because Elio will see him again in surroundings even drearier than Corot Country, he accepts the house and stays there the rest of the summer, freshening it up and playing on the old Steinway as the long, summer nights darken the walls, the floor, the keys.
It takes five extra years, before Oliver's turn comes. Elio is on Earth when a young man calls him, introducing himself as Oliver's elder son and asking whether he's talking to Elio Perlman.
"That's me," Elio says, knowing what this means. He and Oliver discussed it a long, long time ago. It's like a promise finally being kept. The boy, Sam, tells him that his father has passed and his dying wish was to ensure Elio would be present at the ceremony. For some reason, this touches Elio deeply. He agrees to come, New Haven, US, and more or less gets on the plane in the clothes he was wearing when being told the news.
At the burial, he's in a tux and met at the door by that same, elder son who looks like Oliver, blond hair, blue eyes, early thirties, they look the same age, Elio and him, although Elio could be his father by a couple of centuries. "For some reason, I thought you'd be older," Sam says. Elio smiles.
"I'm older than I look."
"How did you know my father?"
"He didn't say?"
"He never mentioned you before getting sick and never told us any details."
Elio looks at the young man who Oliver once insisted he'd hate to see in Elio's bed once he was old enough to find his way there, thinking how time's a funny concept at its core. Relative. It's all so relative. He looks down, kind of shrugging to say, it doesn't matter, replying in a soft voice:
"Then, I think I'll show your father the respect of not sharing his and my secret."
There's a small silence, a pause while Sam looks him over, before straightening up. "He would have appreciated that, he was a secretive man."
As Oliver's elder son shows the way down the aisle, leading him to his seat, Elio follows him willingly.
"I know," he answers, simply.