The sun was hot - and unbelievably so - in the summer of 1924. More specifically in Sorrento, an idyllic little town in the south of Italy. Perhaps it was the heat to blame, for 1924 was the year in which Antonio Esposito, a humble olive picker, began to act in a peculiar way. He was hard at work the day it happened; perched on a wooden ladder as tall as he, picking lemons and tossing them gently into the hands of a girl below. Giulia, her name was. She had been the one to notice Nino's odd behaviour.
The sleeves of his thin cotton shirt were pushed to the elbow, his braces had been pushed off each shoulder and were hanging by his knees as they always did by the mid afternoon. His thick, curly hair had been pushed out of his eyes, one tanned forearm gripping onto a rung of the ladder, the other reaching forward to pick a lemon. Nothing about his appearance looked in the slightest out of the ordinary, with the exception of the way he was standing. He was standing as though he had forgotten how - his legs weak, his knees pressed against the frame of the ladder to keep him from falling. He repeatedly glanced through the boughs and the branches and the lemons to look at something, only to avert his eyes back to his hands in a frenzy every time.
It was obvious to Giulia that Nino was in love, but with whom it was impossible to know. She made a list of all the girls around, ruling out name after name in her head until the options began to dwindle - Lia was too young, Signora Di Paolo too old, and Florence was just downright ugly. She had thick, bushy brows paired with dark hair on her upper lip and forearms. Her hooded eyes and sallow complexion made her impossible to admire, even someone as gentle as Nino.
It bothered Giulia for the rest of the day. Nino was looking at someone, but she simply couldn't find out who she was.
Nino, on the other hand, had been distracted all day long. He couldn't resist parting the branches every once in a while to steal a glance of the most beautiful being he'd ever set his dark, dark eyes upon. It was painful to tear his gaze from the unflawed tanned skin to return to his work, it hurt to cease thinking about running his calloused, labourer's hands through the oaken brown hair, not to mention the effort it took to stop himself imagining how it would feel to kiss those soft, rosebud lips. Nino's pulse was set racing, even though he tried and failed to shake the feeling off. Nino was ashamed - for the person he had been distracted by, for the entirety of his day, was a man.
Nino closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the top rung of his ladder. He had never felt this way before. Never had he looked at girl in this manner, and never had he thought about men.
"You there!" Nino froze. Though his eyes were shut, he knew who had spoken. His accent wasn't English, nor French nor German, and it definitely was not Italian. Nino opened his eyes and was greeted with a smile, and a gesture requesting him to climb down.
"My English isn't very good," Nino excused himself when he was halfway down the ladder. The butterflies in his stomach flittered with more and more vigour with each rung he took.
"Nonsense," the man smiled. Upon closing the distance, Nino observed that he was even more beautiful closer up. His exposed teeth when he smiled were clean and straight, and his clean shaven face was free from flaws. His hair had the slightest wave to it, and his eyes - oh, his eyes. They were distracting, almost as distracting as the man had been when he was still concealed by Nino's lemon tree, "I'm a Dane, you see, but my parents did not really want me around. Your English is no worse than mine was before I moved to London."
"You give me too much credit."
"You don't give yourself enough. My name is Albin."
"Antonio - but please, Nino," Nino held out his hand for Albin to take, and when he did he felt electricity shoot up his arm, a thousand volts. It travelled up his arm, his fingers tingling, into his brain until it reached his heart, which had begun to pound so violently he was sure his companion and everyone surrounding would be able to feel it. Thus, a love was born.
It was slow in the beginning. Neither knew if the other was willing to abandon their god, yet both wondered and hoped it might be true. They met under the facade of interest in new cultures, in lemon picking, in London, in childhood dreams. It wasn't until a question of religion arose that Nino was certain his uncertainty was reciprocated.
"Do you believe in God?" he had asked one day, when they were sat by the edge of a mirror lake. Nino looked at his companion with baited breath, and fought the urge to cry as Albin pondered, until finally he shook his head.
He answered Nino's prayers by saying; "no."
That's when he kissed him for the first time, though neither was sure of by whom it was initiated. All that mattered to Nino was that they were alone, they were seen by no one, and neither believed in God. After that day, I believe in early June, the pair were inseparable and no one suspected. To the Italians it was implausible, it was unthinkable that a man could fall in love with a man.
So Nino would go back to his work everyday and Albin would sit back and watch him. He'd pretend to be interested in the trade, in talking to the manager about his workers, but really Albin would count down the hours until Nino was free. Sometimes together, but mostly alone, Nino and Albin would wait until they were out of sight and then break into a sprint, hand in hand until they found an empty barn, or deserted boathouse in which to talk and kiss and explore.
An infrequent topic of discussion was the immortality of their love, and the fragility of their relationship. The hairline cracks only started to deepen when the summer was nearing its end. Had they been the only beings in the world, or had they been in control of it, there would be no barrier to overcome, or in Nino's case, avoid altogether. Nino and Albin, however, lived in a world of Christians and hypocrites, of crime and lengthy sentence. Neither willed it to end but come the end of August, they both secretly knew it had to - even though both Nino and Albin avoided talking about it for as long as they could. Their efforts lasted until the 29th. Nino knew the fire of his first love was dwindling into embers, and soon it would be ash.
He suspected Albin knew too.
"What if..." Nino said slowly that day. He was sat between Albin's legs, his head resting against his love's chest. They were watching the sun set behind the orchard, sat against the trunk of a lemon tree so no one would witness their sin, "What if... how do you say?"
"What if we were to... let them know?"
"Sì," Nino said in Italian, after a pause, because it felt natural. He loved Albin, but he missed the days when he was just a normal boy; when having a God was still an option, when the idea of marrying was still plausible. He loved Albin, but hated him for making him a sinner and an outcast. Nino was afraid he already knew Albin's answer as soon as he felt him smile a solemn smile.
"We can't."
"But, what if-"
"Nino, we simply can't! You know we can't. I'll go back to England and marry the girl of my parents' dreams. She and I'll have five children - three boys and a daughter or two. We'll move back to Denmark and I'll live a long, wealthy, lonely life, and never-" Albin's voice cracked, "Never will I forget you."
"Oh."
"Did you understand any of that?"
"Some," Nino said, even though he had understood every word, and every word had cut into his heart like a knife. It was easier to pretend he'd only caught onto the coattails of few of Albin's words, that he knew roughly the gist, but not the explicit meaning Albin had administered like a liquor to a wound.
Nino loved Albin, but he hated him for breaking his heart.
