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In his chair in the darkened study, Nicolò can already smell the pungent fragrances of crushed basil and garlic wafting in from the kitchen. Tucking a worn bookmark between pages to mark his place, he closes the volume and sets it down gently, heading towards the tantalizing source.
He pauses at the doorway, admiring. Early evening sunlight slants through the window in long golden ribbons, illuminating Yusuf's soft halo of dark curls and burnishing the tan of his forearms to a warm copper glow. He's wearing that pale blue shirt Nicolò likes so much, sleeves pushed above the elbows so they won't interfere with his task, and his eyes are focused intently on the mortar he's bracing on the counter with a single hand. With the other, he methodically grinds the pestle into the stone bowl, crushing the ingredients together in a steady rhythm.
Nicolò takes advantage of this single-minded focus to slip into the room unseen, wrapping his arms around his husband's chest and nuzzling into his neck. "Cosa stai facendo, mio sole?"
Yusuf keeps working, but turns his face to kiss Nicolò's forehead, dark eyes twinkling merrily. "Ti ho sentito dalla porte, mio caro. Non stai abbastanza furtivo."
They switch easily between languages at this point in their shared lives, but it still makes Nicolò's heart flutter to hear Yusuf speak to him this way. "Battuto zeneize, sí? What's the occasion?"
"You're so old-fashioned, Nicky," his husband teases. "No one's called it that in the past hundred years." Yusuf dips an index finger into the bright green sauce, tastes, and frowns, adding a few splashes of olive oil and several more cloves of garlic. "Besides, who needs an occasion to eat well?"
"That's fair," Nicolò concedes, snagging a couple of stray pignoli and crunching them pensively.
"È pronto," Yusuf declares after another experimental taste. He mixes a generous amount of pesto into a steaming platter of hand-rolled trofie, and gestures for Nicolò to serve himself.
The dish is simple country fare, but to Nicolò it tastes like the verdant, rolling hills of Liguria, his native land. It's not a dish he ever tried in his first life, a couple hundred years before the Venetian merchant Il Milione spun fanciful tales about the court of Kublai Khan from a Genoese prison cell. Nicolò does fondly recall the taste of agliata, spread thick over a warm slice of crusty bread. He appreciates that Yusuf knows to add extra garlic to the pesto he makes. While the basil is a welcome addition, garlic gives it the flavor he loves.
"A penny for your thoughts, mio caro."
Nicolò shakes himself out of his reveries to find Yusuf frowning at him with gentle concern. "Non é niente, Xu," he replies. "Thinking about the first time we ate this."
Yusuf smiles sadly. "Molassana."
They hadn't originally planned to fight for Garibaldi, despite a personal fondness for the man. Nicolò in particular had been lukewarm on the idea of a "unified Italy"--should all those messy little principalities and duchys and states really be bound together under a single government? Ancient rivals like Genoa and Venice, part of one country?--but Garibaldi's conviction and revolutionary zeal were infectious, for better or worse. This was why he and Yusuf arrived in Cuneo in February of 1859, taking up arms with i Cacciatori delle Alpe, the Hunters of the Alps.
They'd stayed with Garibaldi for more than a year, through the Expedition of the Thousand, but that final campaign had proven to Nicolò that he shouldn't have buried his doubts. So many lives cut short, and in the end, no meaningful land reforms for the Sicilian peasants they'd hoped to liberate. He vividly remembers learning about the brutal suppression of the revolt in Bronte, by Garibaldi's trusted general Bixio. Yusuf had cradled his head and chest while Nicolò wept with bitter remorse.
After that, they'd taken passage on the first ship they could find, from Palermo to Reggio to Ostia to Genoa, and then walked until Nicolò couldn't hear the rumble of trains or smell the smokestacks of newly mechanized factories anymore. They hired themselves out as day laborers in Molassana, working the land with the locals through the harvest months. Was it penance for his misplaced loyalties, an effort to absolve himself of the sins of his former comrades? Nicolò only knows that those precious hours of toil healed some broken part of him, allowing him to nurture growing life for once, instead of taking it.
At the end of each long, sweaty summer afternoon, they would rinse their hands and faces with water rushing cold from the heights of the Appenines to their sunny valley, scrubbing the dirt from their palms and nails. Then came the feast. At least, that's the way Nicolò likes to remember it. Three or four generations of villagers, sitting on barrels and hay bales and rough benches. Everyone bringing what they could spare, whichever produce had grown so heartily that some portion could be held back from the markets of Genoa, to share with the community. There was gossip and laughter. Argument and music. Children scrambling over obstacles or darting around their elders' legs, yelling and teasing and wrestling in the grass. Their names and faces have faded from Nicolò's memory after nearly a century and a half, but the ephemeral sweetness of those evenings in their company remains.
Finishing his plate, Nicolò finally takes in the world around him. The sun is sinking, and in the cool dusk air outside, the crickets have begun to sing. He will never be able to stay in that kind of simple, joyous life, but no mortal does either. The beauty of such moments lies in their fleetingness. A taste of summer, lingering golden in memory, through all the dark months to come.
"Joe." He smiles, eyes stinging, as he takes his husband's hand. "Thank you for this."
Yusuf brings his hand to Nicolò's cheek, gently wiping away stray tears. They kiss, the taste of basil and garlic mingling on their tongues and lips. Yusuf pulls Nicolò's head to his chest, resting just above his beating heart, and wraps his strong arms around Nicolò's shoulders. "Always, Nicky."