please call me by your name

"Let's talk later!" That word, that voice, that attitude.

I've never heard anyone say goodbye with the phrase "we'll talk about it later."It sounds harsh, curt and contemptuous, with a hidden indifference in the tone, as if the speaker is reluctant to see you or hear from you again.

This is my first memory of him, which is still faintly audible.Talk about it later!

Closing my eyes and saying this, I felt like I was back in Italy many years ago: I was walking along the tree-lined driveway, watching him get out of the taxi, wearing a loose blue shirt with a wide open neckline, He was wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, showing a lot of skin; the next moment, he shook my hand, handed me my backpack, took the suitcase out of the trunk of the taxi, and asked me if my father was home.

It might have started in that place, in that moment: the shirt, the rolled-up sleeves, the way the round heels slid in and out of the frayed canvas sandals, the eagerness to test the gravel road leading to our house With the hot temperature, every step you take seems to be asking: "Which way leads to the sea?"

This summer's visitor, another nuisance.

Then, with his back to the taxi, he waved his free hand almost without thinking, and spit out a casual "I'll talk about it later" to another passenger in the car who might have carpooled from the station.No name added, no one-liner to soften the unpleasantness of the farewell, nothing.His short farewell was jovial, abrupt, crisp - call it what you will, he doesn't care.

Let's see, when the time comes, he will say goodbye to us in the same way.With a rude and sloppy "we'll talk about it later"!

Meanwhile, we had to endure his six long weeks.

I am a little scared.He was definitely the kind of guy who was difficult to get along with.

However, I might also slowly grow to like him.From his round chin to his round heels.Then, within a few days, I would start hating her.

It was him, the person whose photo was posted on the application form a few months ago, who appeared in front of me with an unmistakable affinity.

To guide young scholars in revising manuscripts before publication, my parents host annual summer visitors.For six weeks every summer, I had to vacate my bedroom and move into the much smaller adjacent room down the hall where my grandfather used to live.In the dead of winter, when we bid farewell to living downtown, that small attic room became a makeshift tool room, storage room, and rumored to be where my namesake grandfather still grinds his teeth after his death.Summer visitors don’t pay anything and can basically use any facilities in the house as they like, as long as they spend an hour or so a day helping father with correspondence and sorting papers.Often they ended up becoming part of our family.After 15 years of continuous reception, now it's not just Christmas time, postcards or gifts will come like snowflakes all year round.The sender is like a member of our family. Every time he comes to Europe, he will take his family to visit City B for a few days, and take a nostalgic trip to the place where he once stayed briefly.

There were often two or three extra guests at meal times, sometimes neighbors or relatives, sometimes colleagues, lawyers, doctors and other celebrities, who stopped by to visit my father before heading to the family's summer house.Sometimes we even open the restaurant to occasional couples or couple travelers who have heard about this old villa and simply want to come and see it.These people were ecstatic when they were invited to eat with us, and chatted enthusiastically about themselves.Mafalda, who always receives such short notice at the last minute, will serve her special dishes.My father, who is reserved and shy in private, actually likes to listen to new stars with expertise in certain fields talking in several languages; with a few glasses of rose, sitting in the hot summer sun in the afternoon, people will inevitably become sluggish.We always refer to this period as "dinner drudgery"—and soon, so will our six-week-long visitors.

It probably started with a grueling lunch not long after he arrived.He was sitting next to me, and I finally noticed that although he got a little tan from his stay in Sicily that summer, the color of his palms was as white and soft as the soles of his feet, his throat, and the insides of his forearms, because there wasn't much exposure to the sun. Underneath, almost pale pink, glossy and smooth like a lizard's belly.Private, pure, youthful, like the blush on an athlete's face, like the dawn on a stormy night, revealing something I didn't need to ask.

It probably started with those endless free periods after lunch, when everyone was in bathing suits, lounging around the house or laying down to kill time, until someone finally suggested going to the reef for a swim.Relatives, friends, friends of friends, colleagues, or anyone who would knock on our door asking if we could borrow a tennis court, everyone is welcome to hang out, swim, and dine with us; Long enough, of course, you can stay overnight in the guest room.

Or maybe it all started by the sea.Or on the tennis court.Or on the first day he arrived, we walked side by side for the first time, and I introduced him to the house and showed him around as instructed.Walking, I finally took him deep into the seemingly endless wasteland in the remote area, through the ancient wrought iron metal gate, to the long-abandoned railroad track that once connected City B and City N. "Is there an abandoned train station nearby?" He looked up to the other side of the deep woods under the scorching sun, perhaps wanting to ask the right question to the owner's son. "No, there's never been a train station nearby. The trains just stop whenever they're called." He was curious about the trains, because the tracks looked so narrow.A wagon with a royal emblem, I explained.Now gypsies live in it.They'd lived there since my mother's teenage summers, and towed two derailed trucks farther inland.I asked him if he wanted to see it? "Let's talk about it later. Maybe." Polite indifference, as if he saw through my untimely enthusiasm to please him, and immediately pushed me away.

This stings me.

Instead, he said he wanted to open a bank account in City B and then visit the Italian translator whom his Italian publisher had hired for him.

I decided to take him there by bike.

Conversations don't go as smoothly on a bike as they do on a walk.On the way, we stopped for something to drink.The tobacco shop bar was dark and empty, and the proprietor was mopping the floor with strong-smelling ammonia, and we left in a hurry.A lonely crow perched on a Mediterranean pine sings a few notes, only to be drowned out by the chatter of cicadas.

I gulped down the jug of mineral water, handed it to him, and brought it back to drink.I sprinkled some on my hands, wiped my face, and wet my fingers through my hair.The water is not cool enough, and the bubbles are too few, leaving the unsatisfied thirst.

——What are you doing here?

—Do nothing until summer is over.

——So, what do you do in winter?

When the answer came to my lips, I couldn't help smiling.He understood what I meant, and said, "Don't tell me yet: it's waiting for summer, right?"

I like to let people see through their minds.This person will realize "dinner drudgery" earlier than his "predecessors".

"Actually, it gets very gray in here in winter. We're here for Christmas. Otherwise it's pretty deserted."

"What do you guys do here for Christmas besides roasting chestnuts and drinking eggnog?"

He is teasing me.I smiled the same as before.He figured it out and said nothing more, so we laughed.

He asked me what I do.I say play tennis.swim.go out at night.jogging.Arrange music.read.

He said he jogged too.Go out early in the morning.Where to go for a jog around here?Mostly, along the seaside boulevard.If he wants to see it, I can lead the way.

Just when I liked him a little more, he gave me a slap in the face: "Let's talk later. Maybe."

I put "reading" at the bottom of the list of hobbies, because I think reading should be the last place for him, given the willful stubbornness and indifference he has shown so far.But a few hours later, I remembered that he had just finished a book on Heraclitus, and that "reading" might not have been a small part of his life.I realized that I had to be smart, change course, and let him know that my real interests aligned with his.Yet it wasn't the complex maneuvers required to win back a victory for me that disturbed me. It was the fear of unsavory doubts that finally woke me up: even though I hadn't shown up at the time, or when we chatted by the railroad tracks, , trying, without even admitting it, to win him over - but in vain.

①: Heraclitus: Greek philosopher.

I shouldn't be so dumb as to just stand there without a word of wit when I propose to take him to San Giacomo (which visitors love) and climb to the top of the bell tower we jokingly call "Die to See" rebuttal.I thought I'd win him over just by taking him to the top of the tower and showing him the town, the sea, the eternal view.But no.Another "I'll talk about it later"!

②The original text to-die-for means very beautiful or attractive.

But it may all start much later than I thought, when I didn't realize it.You see someone, but you don't really see him, he is still in the background ready to appear; or you notice him, but there is no touch, no "spark", even before you are aware of a certain existence or something The six weeks you had before it bothered you were almost over, and by then he was either no longer there or was about to leave.Basically, you are now in a hurry to face up to and accept some "something". This "something" has been brewing in front of you for several weeks without your knowledge, and all its symptoms force you to Say what I want.We ask ourselves: How did we not understand this sooner?I have always known what desire is.However, this time it just slipped by without a trace.I am obsessed with the instantly bright and sly smile that flashes on his face every time he sees through my mind, but what I really long for is actually flesh and blood, just his body.

At dinner on the third day after his arrival, I felt him staring at me as I was explaining to my guests my adaptation of Haydn's Seven Words on the Last Days.I was 17 years old that year.Since I was the youngest at the table and probably the least vocal, I made it a habit to convey the most information in the fewest sentences possible.I spoke very quickly, giving the impression that I was always flustered and slurred.After explaining what I was adapting, I realized that the warmest gaze was projected from my left, giving me a thrill and a ride; he was clearly interested—he liked me.At the time, things weren't that difficult.When I had a good time, I finally turned around to face him, and when I met his eyes, I was greeted with cold and angry eyes.It was glassy, ​​hostile, almost cruel.

This makes me extremely uneasy.Why do I have to suffer this kind of crime?I hope he treats me better and laughs with me again, just like I did a few days ago at the abandoned railway tracks, the same afternoon I explained to him that B City is the only regional bus in Italy that can carry Christ all the way at a high speed. city ​​of.He laughed immediately, recognizing that I was alluding to Carlo Levi's book.I love how our hearts seem to run parallel, and we can always guess right away what word games the other is playing, but keep it until the last moment.

③ Carlo Levi (Carlo Levi): Italian writer, journalist, doctor, artist.

He'll be a tough neighbor, and I think it's best to stay away from him.Just thinking about it makes me almost fall in love with his hands, his chest, his feet that were never born to touch rough surfaces, the skin of those parts of him... and his eyes.When his kinder gaze falls on you, it feels like the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, you never get tired of watching it for a long time, but you have to keep staring at it to know why you can’t get tired of watching it.

I must have cast the same malevolent glance on him.

For two days, our conversation suddenly stopped.

When we ran into each other on the long balcony shared by our two bedrooms, we also avoided it completely, only perfunctory hello, good morning, nice weather, completely superficial gossip.

Then, without explanation, everything went back to the way it was.

Want to go for a jog this morning?No, not much.Well, let's swim.

The pain, the ecstasy, the excitement of a new lover; the many promises of happiness hovering close at hand; searching among people I might misunderstand, who I don't want to lose, who must first guess at every turn; I use Treating the desperate cunning of every person I desire and desire to be desired; I erected multiple barriers, as if there are many layers of paper sliding doors between myself and the world; I want to encode and decode things that have never been encrypted The urge—now it all started the summer Oliver came to our house.These imprints are in every popular song that summer, in every novel I read during his boarding and afterward, in the smell of rosemary on a hot day, and in the frantic hissing of cicadas in the afternoon— ——Until then, the familiar smells and sounds that grew up with me every year suddenly touched me, adding a charm that was forever smudged with the colors of the scenes in that summer.

Or maybe it all started in his first week: I was so heartened to see him still remember who I was and not ignore me, as if I could meet him on the way to the garden without having to pretend not to notice him, It is already a luxury.On the first morning, we went for a jog early in the morning and ran all the way to City B.The next morning we went swimming.Then, the next day, we went jogging again.I like to run beside the milk truck, or the grocer or the baker who is getting ready to start his business, or run along the coast when there is not even a ghost, our house looks It looks like a distant mirage.I liked how we walked side by side, left foot to right, hitting the ground at the same time, leaving footprints on the bank; I wanted to get back there, stealthily, and tap my foot where he had left his mark.

Alternating swimming and jogging every day was just a "routine" when he was a graduate student.Did he run on the Sabbath?I asked jokingly.He keeps exercising, even when he's sick, and he does it in bed when necessary.Even after sleeping with someone new the night before, he still went for a jog early in the morning.He said the only time he didn't exercise was because of the surgery.I asked him why he had the surgery, which I swore never again would induce his answer to snap at me like a grinning pogo stick. "Let's talk later."

Maybe it's because he's out of breath and doesn't want to talk, or maybe he just wants to focus on swimming or running.Or maybe it's his way of motivating me to keep going, completely without malice.

Yet at the most unexpected moments, some chilling and repulsive obstacles crept between us.It was almost on purpose; he made me slack, and slack, and then whipped out any resemblance of friendship.

The steely cold eyes always come back again and again.I was practicing guitar one day at "my table" by the pool in the back garden, and he was lying on the grass nearby, and I immediately recognized that stare.He kept staring at me while I was concentrating on the fretboard, and when I suddenly looked up to see if he liked what I was playing, there was that look again: sharp, cold, like a shiny The blade retracted as soon as the victim caught a glimpse.He gave me a flat smile, as if to say: there is no need to hide now.

Keep your distance from him.

He must have noticed my shock, and as if to make up for it, he started asking me questions about the guitar.I was too wary to answer him honestly.Hearing my flustered answer, he guessed that there might be something wrong with me that I didn't show. "Don't explain, just play it again." "But I think you hate this piece." "Hate? Why do you think that?" We argued endlessly. "Just play it, okay?" "The same song?" "The same song."

I got up and went into the living room and opened the big French windows so he could hear me playing the same piece on the piano.He walked halfway with me, then leaned against the wooden window frame and listened for a while.

"You changed it. It's not the same song. What did you do?"

"I just play it in Liszt's improvisational style."

"Just play it one more time, please!"

I liked the way he pretended to be annoyed, so I started playing the piece again.

after awhile. "I can't believe you changed it again."

"Well, a little bit. It's similar to Busoni's rewriting of Liszt's version."

"Can't you play what Bach wrote?"

"But Bach never wrote the guitar version. Maybe he didn't write it for the harpsichord at all. In fact, we're not even sure if Bach wrote it."

"When I didn't ask you."

"Okay, okay, don't be so excited." It was my turn to pretend to reluctantly agree. "This is my adaptation of Bach, without Busoni and Liszt. It is a work dedicated to the brothers by the young Bach."

From the first time I played it, I knew exactly which phrase of this work moved him.Whenever I get to that passage, I give it to him as a little gift, because it's really dedicated to him, the part that symbolizes my beauty, that doesn't have to be a genius to understand, and it inspires me to put in a passage Long cadenzas, just for him.

We were flirting, and he must have seen it far before I did.

In my diary that night, I wrote: "I'm exaggerating when I say I think you hate that show. What I'm really saying is: I think you hate me. I want you to convince me the opposite is true, and you do Been doing it for a while. But why won't I believe it tomorrow morning?"

So he had that too—I said to myself after seeing how he went from frosty to sunny.

I may have also asked: Am I just as capricious?

Side note: none of us was built for just one instrument: I'm not, and neither are you.

I am [-]% willing to label him as tricky and repulsive, and then have nothing to do with him.But every word of his can make me go from making a bad face to being willing to play anything for him, until he calls stop, until lunch time, until the skin on my fingers peels off layer by layer, because I like Serving him, willing to do anything for him, as long as he asks.I loved him from day one, and even if my offer of friendship with both hands only received a cold response from him, I'll never forget this conversation we had, and not forgetting to drive away the blizzard and return to the sunny summer Day, there are good ways.

And I forgot to add a note to that promise: Frost and indifference have more ways to revoke immediately all peace truces signed on sunny days.

Then came that Sunday afternoon in July, when the house was suddenly empty, just the two of us, and the fire roared through my guts—the "fire" being that night when I was trying to sort it out in my diary, The first word that comes to mind is also the simplest.I stayed in my room, strapped to my bed in a trance of horror and anticipation, waiting and waiting.It's not the fire of passion, it's not the fire of destruction, but something that paralyzes and paralyzes. Makes your mouth dry.You wish no one would speak because you couldn't; you begged that no one would move you because your heart muscle was clogged, beating so fast that it seemed to be spewing shards of glass before anything could flow through the narrow ventricle.The fire was fear, it was panic, it seemed like one more minute and I would die if he didn't knock on my door—but I'd rather he never come than come now.I opened the floor-to-ceiling windows a small crack, lay on the bed in only my bathing suit, and my whole body seemed to be on fire.The fire seemed to be begging: Please, please, tell me I'm wrong!Tell me it's all my imagination, because it can't be true to you; and if it were true to you, then you're the cruelest man who ever lived.As if summoned by my prayer, he finally walked into my room without knocking in the afternoon and asked me why I didn’t go to the beach with other people. At this moment, all I could think of was: In order to be with you— — Although I can't say it.To be with you, Oliver.It's fine with or without a swimsuit.I want to be with you, in my bed, in yours—the bed that's been mine for the rest of the year.Do with me what you want.possess me.Just ask me if I want it and see what you get, just don't make me say no.

Please also tell me that I was not dreaming that night for no reason.I heard a noise from the landing by the door, and suddenly realized that someone had come into my room, was sitting at the end of my bed, thinking, thinking, thinking, finally moved towards me, and lay down—no Lying next to me, but on top of me who was lying on my stomach.I like it so much that I don't dare to make a rash move, lest he realize that he woke me up, or make him change his mind and turn away.I pretended to be sound asleep, and my mind was pounding, thinking: This is not, it cannot be, and it is better not to be a dream.When I refrained from closing my eyes tightly, all I could think of at this moment was: "This is like coming home."As if, after years of going away and fighting with the Trojans and the Lystrigonians, you come back to a country of your own kind, where the people understand, they understand; You suddenly realize that you've been wasting your time for 17 years, messing with the wrong people.It was at this moment that I decided not to move and told him with a calm posture of the body: If you take a step forward, I am willing to submit; I have surrendered to you, I am yours, all yours.But you left suddenly.It feels too real to be a dream, but I'm convinced that from that day on, all I wanted was for you to do to me what you did in my sleep, the exact same thing.

④ Trojans (Trojans): Troy is the ruins of an ancient city in western Turkey.According to Greek legend, the city of Troy was besieged by the Greek coalition forces for ten years.Homer describes this story in The Iliad.Lestrigonians: Legendary giant cannibals who lived in Sicily.

The next day we played doubles.During a certain intermission, we were drinking the lemon juice prepared by Mafalda. He stretched out an arm around me, gently pinched my shoulder with his thumb and index finger, and pretended to hug me kindly to help me massage , the whole process is very intimate.But being so dazed and overwhelmed, I turned away from him sharply, because if it lasted a second longer, I was afraid that I would collapse like a wooden toy that would collapse at the touch of a mainspring.He jumped up, apologized, and asked if I was pressing on my "nerve or something" - he didn't mean to hurt me.If he thought he was hurting me or that his touch made me uncomfortable, he must have been extremely embarrassed.It was the last thing on my mind to put him off, but I mumbled something like "It doesn't hurt" to stop there.But I also realized that if it wasn't the pain that sparked the reaction, then why was it that I was so rudely shunning him in front of my friends?I had no choice but to put on a distorted expression of desperately enduring the pain but in vain.

I never thought that his touch would scare me so much. It is exactly the same as the horror that a virgin feels when being touched by a sweetheart for the first time: the sweetheart stirs up sensitive nerves in us that we have never even realized, and that produces Unsettlingly great pleasure, far beyond what we're used to.

He still seemed surprised by my reaction, but acted in total convincing, like I was hiding the pain in my shoulder.He tried to smooth things over for me, while pretending he wasn't aware of my subtle reactions.I later learned how adept he was at catching and sorting out such contradictory messages, and I'm sure he must have gotten suspicious then. "Come on, let me change the way." He tested me and continued to massage my shoulder. "Relax," he said in front of the others. "I'm relaxing." "You're as stiff as this bench. Feel it," he said to Marcia, the girl closest to us. "It's all lumps, right?" I felt Marcia reach out and touch my back. "Here." He said, pressing Mazia's flat palm against my back. "Do you feel it? He should relax a little more." So Marcia said, "You should relax a little more."

My immediate reaction was like facing other things. I didn't know how to imply it, so I could only respond in silence.Like a deaf-mute who hasn't learned sign language, I stammer and babble so as not to confide in my heart.That's how much I use code words.As long as I can bear to keep it under wraps, I can get by more or less as if nothing had happened.Otherwise, the silence between us might have exposed me.No amount of incoherent speech is better than silence.Silence may give me away, but the way I suppress myself in front of others will definitely reveal more.

I couldn't help feeling disappointed in myself, which must have made my expression look a little bordering on impatience and unspoken anger.It never occurred to me that he might have mistakenly thought it was all for him.

One more thing, perhaps for similar reasons.As soon as he came, I looked away, just to hide the tension caused by my timidity.He probably thought it was impolite for me to evade like this, so he retaliated with hostile eyes from time to time-I didn't know that at the time.

I hope he doesn't pick up on my overreaction, that's another thing.But before I dodged his arm, I knew I had surrendered to him, almost stuck to him, as if to say, "don't stop" (like when I heard the adults massaging someone after they happened to pass by shoulder is often said).Did he notice that I was ready to submit to him and become one with him?

This is also the feeling I described in my diary that night, which I call "disorientation".Why am I so distraught?Does this emotion come so easily?As long as he touches me lightly, my feet will go weak and I will be fascinated?Is this what everyone calls "melts like cream"?

Why wouldn't I want to let him know how easily I soften?For fear of the consequences?Afraid he will laugh at me?Afraid that he will spread it around?Afraid he'd ignore me on the grounds that I was too young to know what I was doing?Or was he so suspicious that he might want to act on it?Do I want him to act?Or would I rather long for it for the rest of my life, as long as both parties continue this back-and-forth guessing game: don't know, know, don't know?Just keep silent, don't say anything; if you don't say yes, don't say no, just say "we'll talk later" - doesn't everyone do that?Even if you agree, you have to say a vague "maybe", which looks like a rejection on the surface, but the hidden meaning is: please, please ask me again, ask me again.

Looking back on that summer, I can't believe I was able to notice the good moments in my life when I was racking my brains to figure out how to live with "fire" or "intoxication."Italian summer.Noisy cicadas chirping at one or two o'clock in the afternoon.my room.his room.A balcony that shuts out the world.The breeze followed the moisture from the garden up the stairs and into my room.I fell in love with fishing that summer because he loved it.Fall in love with jogging, because he loves it.Fall in love with octopuses, Heraclitus, "Tristan" ⑤.That summer I listened to the singing of birds, smelled the fragrance of herbs, felt the mist rising from my feet on a sunny day, and my alert senses always rushed to him involuntarily.

⑤ "Tristan" (Tristan): This may refer to Wagner's opera "Tristan and Isolde" (Tristanandisold).

I can deny many things.Deny my longing to touch his knees and wrists that glisten in the sun, I seldom see that sticky sheen; deny that I love that there always seems to be an earth-colored stain on his white tennis pants, and as the weeks pass, that stain as if it had become one with his complexion; to deny the color of his hair, which grew more blond every day, the golden color of the sun already shining before the sun was fully up in the morning; to deny that when the wind blew, he wore That wavy blue wide shirt that looks more majestic must hide the smell of body and sweat that makes me hard just thinking about it.I can deny it all and delude myself into believing that none of it is true.

It was the gold necklace around his neck and the Star of David with the golden gatepost ⑥ that told me there was something more attractive than any desire I had for him, because this necklace bound us together, Reminds me that even if everything else conspires to prove that we are two of the most dissimilar beings, at least, at least this transcends all differences.Almost the first day he came, I saw the Star of David on his neck.From that moment on, I knew what it was that baffled me, made me crave his friendship, never even hoped to find his obnoxiousness; To be vast, deep, and important, and therefore far above his soul, my body, or the world itself.Gaze upon his neck with the star necklace and the telltale talisman.Like gazing at my, his, and our shared ancestry, immortality, praying to be rekindled, recalled from a thousand years of slumber.

⑥门柱圣卷(mezuzah):犹太人将刻有《圣经·申命记》(Deuteronomy)6；4-9与11；13-21经文的小块羊皮纸卷起来放入容器，常挂在门框等处，以宣示自己的信仰。

⑦ Star of David (Spar of David): A symbol of Judaism, a six-pointed star composed of two equilateral triangles interlaced and superimposed.

What puzzles me is that he doesn't seem to care or notice that I'm also wearing a Star of David.Like he probably didn't care or never noticed that my eyes were always wandering over his swimsuit trying to figure out what it was that made us brothers in the desert.

Apart from my family, he was probably the only Jew who set foot in City B.But he was different from us, he was visible from the beginning.My family never made a high-profile Jewish identity, but kept it under their shirts like other Jews scattered around the world, not hiding it but keeping it low—we were “discreet Jews,” to borrow my mother’s phrase.Seeing Oliver, with his shirt collar unbuttoned, declaring the Jewish faith represented by the necklace, and riding straight into town on the family bike shocked us, and let us know that we could do the same, with no trouble at all.I tried to go out like him a few times, but I couldn't let it go, like someone who wants to walk around the dressing room naked, but in the end I was aroused by my own nakedness.More out of repressed shame than arrogance, I tried to proclaim my Jewish faith in town with a sort of silent bravado; What it means to be a Jew in the kingdom, or what Jewish life is like.Occasionally, on long afternoons, when the whole family and guests are lounging into the spare bedroom for an hour or so, we will leave our work and have a pleasant chat, and we discuss this topic.Having lived for quite some time in several small towns in New England, he knew very well that Jews lived alone in