He woke up very early, exactly when the sky displays an orange tinge that confidently signals the dawn of another hot day of the Mediterranean summer. The air outside has not yet acquired the ponderous humidity that numbs every limb of the body but still retains the translucent freshness of the vanishing night, promising that this particular day will be bearable. Of course, this promise will prove false, and the sky will soon turn from soft orange into a biting yellow, and the heat will become unbearable for humans, beasts, and plants alike.
For most of his adult life, he had lived far away, in a cold country of the north where the sky was always sullen and cloudy. He had almost forgotten – until that morning when he opened his eyes – that the sky was always orange in his youth. At the same time, the air was delicately perfumed by the blossoms of the fragrant trees, whose intoxicating smell was carried through the dewy night.
On that particular morning, all the mornings of his youth seemed to float before his eyes in a rapid sequence of pictures – some vague, others sharp – in an irrational order. He remembered how he had sometimes awakened and sprung out of his bed with excitement and how, at other times, he had risen with a consuming melancholic disposition that left his whole body leaden and lethargic.
As he lay in his large hotel room on crispy white sheets bathed in orange light – still half awake and half asleep – he could suddenly smell the warm cheese and olive bread from the village bakeries, situated left and right from the main street, that filled the air. He still tasted sweet bergamot juice in his mouth, and he could feel the burning sun rays on his skin as he ran up and down the schoolyard.
Every morning, he wore his uniform: a white shirt, grey trousers, and a blue tie – hastily bound around his neck – that he was twisting and adjusting throughout the journey to school. He was always driven by his father, who was mostly silent throughout the trip. He never felt the need to exchange more than trite pleasantries or insubstantial platitudes, and he was always quite relieved when they arrived at school as he was uncomfortable sitting next to him, even for that short period of time.
He never had much to say to his father during his entire childhood and teenage years. He was afraid of his dark beard, his commanding voice, and his sinuous body. He never missed him while away on one of his frequent trips. He naively hoped that his father would not come back this time, and the thought of his permanent dissolution into thin air filled him with happiness and relief.
As he grew older, he started to hate him viscerally, and one day, in a fit of rage, he almost pushed him down the scaffold while they were both on the roof, trying to fix a broken tile. He was later ashamed of his sinister thoughts and afraid of the malice he harboured inside. His teachers had written in their confidential reports that he was an ‘intense young man.’ He was not supposed to see those reports, but, of course, he managed to see them, and for a long time, he ruminated on the meaning of the word ‘intense.’
His inward darkness, his fits of uncontrollable rage, the gory images of blood and slaughter that sometimes kept emerging from his innermost soul on uncalled-for occasions, he kept for himself.
His childhood world consisted of proud heroes, outlandish fairy tales, exquisite dollhouses – cherished gifts from birthdays and Christmases – and the many toys that he would always carefully arrange on the floor of his room. In his boundless imagination, he believed he could be attacked by pirates or kidnapped by medieval knights whenever he traversed the small woodland near his home.
If he sometimes stayed out until dusk, carried away in a game on the streets, and had to return home after dark, he often believed he could see dragons and ghoulish creatures emerging from behind the impenetrable leafage of the trees and bushes – left and right of the road – ready to attack him. Then he would run as fast as he could until he reached the front door of his home, panting and out of breath.
Back in the safety of his room, he would often draw elaborate pictures of pastoral landscapes and medieval castles, some of which would earn him praise from his teachers, or he read books about the adventures of Greek heroes on the soft carpet when the rays of the parching sun were throwing a trellised light on the floor through the half-closed mahogany shutters, leaving the room covered in a tender semi-darkness that exuded protectiveness from the world outside with its dust and glaring heat.
His mother would often bring him his favourite ‘Hawaiian’ toast – consisting of loaves of bread topped with pineapples, ham, and cheese – as he was consumed with his task for hours, forgetting both hunger and sleep.
He sincerely believed back then that in this world, there would always be him, his mother, his many cherished toys, and nobody else. They would forever live in the large two-storey house with its arched veranda, surrounded by an uncultivated garden, where frogs and wild birds could find shelter, and sometimes a straying goat would try to cheat the heat under the shady trees. He firmly believed that this world would never change and everybody he loved would live forever.
When he turned fifteen, his parents bought him a video recorder and his own TV set that he put on his desk, on which he watched movies by Jean-Claude Van Damme and his favourite series, Murder, She Wrote. In the following years, he filled his shelves with books on ancient Greece, which he read avidly. Behind the densely packed stacks, he carefully hid his pornographic movies and magazines – smuggled in from America – that featured muscular and lean men of unworldly beauty, sometimes donning the gear of soldiers and sailors. Some had memorable names, like Rex Chandler or Jeff Stryker, but others were anonymous. He was always deeply fascinated by men who could bare it all in front of a camera, knowing that strangers from all over the world could see their most intimate parts. Collecting gay pornographic magazines became an obsession.
The biggest clash with his father came when he was seventeen and was to be conscripted into national service. Back then, every young man had to serve in the army for a year right after school. An exemption was unheard of, but an exemption on the grounds of a ‘deviant sexual orientation’ was downright scandalous and utterly inconceivable. But he stubbornly went through with his initial design despite the numerous admonitions from teachers and friends, urging him to rethink his decision and consider its dire consequences.
As was his habit, he did not listen to anyone. He was – after endless committee sessions and unnecessary bureaucracy – begrudgingly given his desired exemption by the authorities, together with the coveted exit permit to leave the hateful country of his birth; of course, all attached with a deep stigma.
He did not even remember what he had said that day in front of the military committees that were supposed to grant him his desired exemption in those stuffy barracks on the city’s outskirts on a day in June. He only remembered his rage, his great stress, his anger, and his aggressive behaviour against everyone around him.
He left the country a few days later and did not come back for many years. He settled well into his new life, and the past seemed forgotten. His dreams might not have come true, but he was not unhappy either. Dreams rarely come true, but we often do not realize it even if they do.
The years passed in stratified tranquillity: He enrolled at university, graduated from university, found a job, tried to find a partner, failed, bought a house, sold it, and then bought a bigger house. He worked during the week and visited gay saunas on the weekend, where he had brief, intense sexual encounters with strange men whose faces and smells he would easily forget.
He enjoyed the leisurely walks on the broad boulevards in the big city, sitting at elegant cafes buying things he did not need. He cherished his ingrained habits that made his life feel settled and secure. He always ate porridge with fresh blueberries in the morning, bought his underwear from Tom Ford, and would have coffee on the large English sofa in the afternoon. The cups were from Wedgwood or Meissen, and the coffee was from Dallmayr Prodomo. It is surprising how habits can become obsessions and how these otherwise insignificant details could weave a net of stability around life itself.
He did not keep in touch with his old life, never called relatives or friends, and even stopped speaking his native language. The country of his birth could have vanished into thin air, and he would not have noticed. He only maintained contact with his mother whom he called every day. For a while, his life seemed happy and content, but there came a time when his demons unexpectedly reappeared.
It was a foggy winter morning, and he was walking on the street when a young man in a military uniform, perhaps a recruit, passed by. He did not even notice him then – or thought he had not noticed him – but in the days that followed, that vision was coming back, night and day, gnawing at him persistently.
The image of a soldier in his uniform was powerful, emblematic, and masculine. The recollection of that unknown young man, walking down the street in camouflage, kept tormenting him in the following nights and days, and he did not even know the reason. It eventually became clear to him that it pained him enormously that he had never worn a uniform himself; he had never been a soldier.
In the days that followed, he began to spend more time on the computer, voraciously gathering information about military life, suddenly wanting to know everything about it. He was filled with an unquenchable curiosity about the various drills and branches of the military; he wanted to know and see every detail of military life. His curiosity became an obsession, a compulsion, a frenzy.
In the following days, he bought a staple of green shirts and trousers and started running around the city with a packed rucksack, pretending to be a fully-fledged soldier. At that time, he often recalled a vague but tenacious memory – perhaps his earliest memory – when he was once held in the arms of a soldier – maybe a comrade of his father, sitting on the veranda of his parent’s – still in camouflage, taking a rest from a field day.
He could not remember the faces of the men, what they said to him, or anything else on that day, but the blurry vision of men with cropped hair and clipped beards, dressed in green, wearing boots and speaking loudly, persisted in his mind. He vividly remembered that he was thoroughly happy and content among them. When he grew up, he liked to march, and he even asked his father for a pair of military boots, which the latter procured for him and which he proudly wore well into his teenage years.
Now that his interest was so suddenly rekindled after many years, he indulged in imagining himself a serviceman in uniform, taking commands, sleeping in a boot camp, and being woken up by loud shouts at the earliest hour. What he saw and imagined became one, and he could not think of anything other than the military, night and day.
Nonetheless, he remained hesitant for a while to make that decisive call to the conscription center and send in his application. Something was still holding him back, a deeply ingrained fear from the past. Visions of cruel, sadistic officers and bullying comrades were occasionally springing up in his mind: ingrained fears that tormented him as a young boy revived. He would then remember the angst that made his stomach ache and the numbness and panic he felt as a teenager. In those moments, he remembered another time, when he thought soldiers were all wicked, hated gays, and eager to bully them.
He eventually took the great step and called the army’s career centre. The voice on the phone was brisk but polite. It belonged to a young officer who was helpful and keen to assist him with bureaucratic matters. He sent his application in, was soon after invited for a health check-up, and was made to sign an endless array of documents, where, among others, he agreed not to sue the army if he was killed or maimed. At the end of the process, he was given a day to enlist. He arrived to report on the appointed day; entering the boot camp, he had butterflies in his stomach.
His service in the mountain division was tough, but he enjoyed it, and when on leave, he visited his mother and told her all about his adventures. He even mentioned to his father in passing that he enlisted, but he did so briefly, in the way that he would say, ‘The milkman came.’
He realized on that visit that he had not seen his parents in many years. His father was now old, with a white beard and a face of wrinkles, and his once so robust body and strong arms were now weak. The former elite soldier, with his stentorian voice, seemed meek and frail. His movements were now slow, and his once so fierce gaze was now sad and empty. He would still drive his son around when he was home without complaining, but it felt as awkward as before.
The service in the army, with its shouts, its drills, the mud, the injuries – some small, some almost fatal – the many pranks and the occasional tears eventually ended, like everything else. Military service, too, became a thing of the past, a cherished memory, and life went on. The whole experience was not exactly how he had imagined it, perhaps less enchanting. His comrades and officers were real men, with their imperfections and weaknesses, not the gods he had imagined them to be. Despite all this, he was glad he had joined; it was a score he had wanted to settle, a business to take care of that would let him proceed in life. He could now proudly refer to his military service. It was like a second coming out for him, a relief.
In the years that followed, he travelled to his parents more often. His mother was always full of joy, cooking for him and cleaning as if he had never ceased being a boy. He often asked his mother about dishes she had made for him in his childhood because he wanted to taste them again. His father remained distanced, perhaps even more silent. He would not sit at the table when son and mother were sitting there, and he would spend more time with his cats as if acknowledging that he was a mere intrusion in the bond between mother and son, that he had no place in it. He was now often keeping himself busy on his iPad, always reading something about Vietnam, having conceived in his old age a fondness for that country and its people.
Maybe he had regretted his past behaviour; maybe he wanted to say, ‘I am sorry, I saw things differently then.’ But he never said anything; words were not his strong point, but it is possible that he tried to make amends with little gestures, such as buying pasty on his way from the bakery and gently asking his son if he needed a lift with his car.
He never spoke to his father about his anger and rage, the passions that were consuming him as a restive teenager, his blind hatred against those who were his enemies, his fears, his dreams, his secret collection of gay pornographic magazines that he carefully hid and that formed the world of his teenage years, his only exodus.
He came out to his mother quite late – or he thought he had come out – but of course, she knew all along. ‘You are telling me this as news?’ she retorted in a matter-of-fact way. Women seem to possess a sixth sense to understand matters long before they are even said.
His mother would always take everything in her stride. She was pragmatic and caring, but she could be blind to things she did not want to see. When she called him one day and told him with a sombre voice that forbode nothing good that his father was very ill, he casually replied, ‘He never loved me because I am gay.’ It was the first time he put it so bluntly, and he was taken aback by his frankness. She remained silent for a while and then said with conviction, ‘This is nonsense; first of all, your father was raised in a village; he does not even know what “gay” means. You must have imagined it.’
He had arrived on the island the day before to bury his father and to duly perform the last rights as a dutiful son. The procession took place in the small village church where he had often attended mass as a child, when he was afraid of the shadows that the candle lights were making on the vaulted ceiling and when the haggard saints seemed uncanny. He liked going to church; he enjoyed the lights, the smell of frankincense, and the sonorous voices of the choir, but as a rebellious teenager, he declared that there is no God, at least not one for gays.
As he stood in the church on the day of the procession, behind the coffin of his father, he realized that his life was almost half over, that he had a happy life, but there was also bitterness. The death of a parent is a turning point in everybody’s life; the person who gave birth is not gone, and oneself becomes the only survivor, the next in line.
It suddenly dawned upon him that one day, he would also lie in a coffin, in the same church or another one. No children would mourn him. In death, he would be alone as he was for most of his life. His priceless diamond and mother-of-pearl studded cufflinks from Garrard would probably land in a pawn shop, appreciated by some aficionado or lovesick fiancée who would be thrilled at the bargain she could get for her loved one. The beloved porcelain cups that cheered him up in the wintery afternoons with tea and coffee would probably land on the internet, maybe with a small description for the buyers: ‘From the estate of an eccentric gay writer of otherwise exquisite taste.’
As he stood still during the procession in his tailored black suit in the unbearable heat, he remembered the olive grove his father had taken him as a child. His father carefully cultivated that particular part of the land and would work on it until his last days. People often wondered why a man so wealthy would spend time toiling on a field for the sake of a few olives, like the lowest labourer. He probably did it out of a sense of loyalty for the land he had inherited from his own father or because he wanted to prove himself as a strong man who could work the soil.
His father remained an impenetrable mystery, but he came to realize on the day of the funeral that he had more in common with him than he had imagined. He, too, sometimes needed the hard physical work, the exhaustion, and the toil. Only then could he feel independent and manly, and he decided on that day to pay the olive groves a visit on one of the following days.
Then he started to weep from his heart. He wept for all the days his father had come back with a little gift for him when he was a small boy; he wept for the words not spoken, the handshake not made, the embrace that was never dared. He also mourned the loss of a world that was once small, secure, and familiar.