Everything Beautiful Began After (30 page)

Then you hear, “Oh, Henry!”

You look over a short hedge.

“It’s Delphine!” says a young voice.

“Yes, I recognize you.”

You climb over a gate and join her on the other side.

“I have a surprise for you,” she says.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Why are you awake so early, Delphine?”

“Oh, I like to get up early,” she says. “So does Sebastian, but Mama sleeps all morning and sometimes keeps him in bed, which is so boring.”

She pulls a piece of baguette from her pocket and hands it to you.

“Breakfast,” she says.

“Can we share it?” you say.

“No, that’s yours—I have these,” she says, taking a handful of blueberries from her pocket. Delphine is wrapped in a double-breasted black wool coat, mittens, and a woolen hat. However, underneath the coat she is still wearing pajamas, which she’s tucked into her Wellingtons. The pajamas have cartoon frogs on them.

“Have you come to let all the frogs go?”

“Frogs?”

“On your pajamas.”

Delphine looks down at her leg.

“No, I need those.”

She points at holes in the mud she has carved out with a spoon. “Do you like mice?”

“I love mice,” you say.

“Well, Sebastian doesn’t, which is why I’ve made them a home here.”

“In the mud?”

“It’s where they’re happiest.”

Delphine leans down and takes one of the plastic mice from its hiding place. It’s about the size of your thumb. It has a brown face with a painted-on shirt and tie.

“Does he like it here?”

“It’s his home—give me your hand.”

You let her take it.

“Can I put your hand in his den?”

“If you’d like.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“What about mouse plops?”

“Mouse plops?” you say.

“What if there are mouse plops?”

“From him?” you add, pointing at the plastic mouse.

“And his kids.”

“It’s okay,” you say.

“Sebastian said they’re bad. I got in trouble. He yelled.”

“Mouse plops?”

“Yes, if you touch them—they’re poisoning, Sebastian said.”

“There are plops in here?”

“Give me your hand, Awnree. Please.”

She grips your hand again and guides it down to the tiny hollow in the mud. She puts your hand in and steps back.

“Can you feel them?”

“Who?”

“Not who—the plops.”

“Delphine,” you say, turning to her, “there are no plops in here.”

“No mouse’s plops?” she says.

“Can I see that mouse?” you say.

Delphine hands you the mouse. You turn it over and sniff his bottom.

“Delphine, this sort of mouse doesn’t plop—and so there are no plops in there.”

A look of wild joy on her face.

“Want to play?”

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Where are you going?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Want a blueberry?”

“Okay.”

She takes one out of her pocket and gives it to you.

“These mice don’t even make plops!” She laughs. Then she takes out another blueberry and eats it herself.

You thank her for the blueberry when her face suddenly darkens. She sticks her fingers into her mouth as if she’s trying to make herself sick.

Her eyes bulge with terror and confusion.

Her mouth opens and closes—as if she is singing, but no sound comes out.

You grab her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” you say sternly, shaking her. “Delphine! What’s wrong!”

The lines of muscle in her neck are visible.

Her tongue is lolling in and out of her mouth.

You frantically position your clenched fists under her ribcage. Her small body lifts easily and she flies forward—dropping the plastic mouse clenched between her fingers. Her hat and one of her gloves comes off. You position her again—then violently thrust under her ribcage.

Her face is purple.

Her body flies up like a doll, but whatever you’re doing is not working.

Then another thrust, and something shoots from her mouth. She is suddenly on the ground, coughing, retching—taking very deep breaths. She spies her mouse in the grass and slowly reaches for him. Then she lies on the ground with her eyes open wide.

You pull her toward you and hold on tight. You rock her gently.

She is touching the outside of her throat.

At that moment it starts to rain.

She looks at you and smiles.

“We’ll get wet,” she says.

Then, she pushes off and stands looking at you, not saying thank you, but there’s something in her eyes that tells you she understands what happened. Water is running down her face, and you don’t realize it immediately, but she’s crying.

You watch her disappear toward the house, then get up very slowly. You are covered in mud.

Crows bark in the trees.

Every fiber in your body tingles. You are in the place that was meant for you. Everything had to be arranged like this to get you here.

And you were ready.

It’s something you feel, like a weight in both hands; it’s the faith that embodies God but incorporates logic.

And there are hands we live between that open and close.

Once aligned there is nothing to fear.

And the tapping of rain in the fields is the tapping of footsteps passing.

You are breathing again. You are with form.

Chapter Sixty

Heavy clouds drifting.

You circle like Daedalus, the doomed father of Icarus.

And then you realize it’s not cloud, but smoke from an ancient fire.

Your plane cuts the silent plume of Mount Etna. From the mouth of a volcano a white scarf is unfurling.

By the time Daedalus arrived in Sicily, his child had already fallen into the sea. You look down and imagine two feathered wings, each the length of an arm.

The city of Catania.

It shimmers from above like coins in the rocks.

Waiting for your suitcase everyone stares at one another.

A child is watching you as the belt shudders forward. She is inching toward it. She wants to touch. Her father puts down his cell phone and calls out to her.

“Valeria! Valeria!”

She pretends not to hear.

She is wearing eyeglasses and
hello kitty
earrings.

Her shoes have glitter in the straps. She is here for the summer in the place where her father was a boy. Her doll will be given new clothes by a grandmother in black. She’ll try certain foods for the first time and like them. Everyone will clap because it’s the food of her people. She looks at you without smiling and tries to guess which suitcase is yours.

Without speaking you have become friends. You are talking with your eyes. You will never get to know one another. You will never even share a coffee or a fire or a book about the sea or any other moment, except the one right now that is this moment.

And then you realize that you are thinking the way you used to.

When you were Valeria’s age, you had the flint in your hands.

Your mind is unreeling all the history you can fathom.

Dinosaurs pull leaves from the tree above the shed. The sky echoes with the leathery snap of pterodactyl.

You run toward the house.

Your parents are watching television.

The excitement is pouring from you.

Your pants are wet because you waited to pee.

You hold up the rock.

It’s the greatest moment of your life. You smile at the little girl and her father.

Dreamers conquered the world long ago.

Chapter Sixty-One

You are in a small Sicilian taxi. The interior is dusty—a bag of flour burst open.

The past is a mess of lines, like a sketch seen from afar.

Our perception of the future is the past in disguise.

The driver is taking you to Noto.

The driver taps the steering wheel and whistles softly through his teeth.

Our greatest power in subtle, momentary gestures.

For a land of rolling yellow fields, clear seas, and heavy baked rock—Sicily’s human history is a violent one. Myths of dismemberment, towns growing from slits where limbs were swallowed by the earth, countless invaders, earthquakes, volcanoes, and battles—those early lessons in human anatomy.

You see water in the distance, a blue unblinking eye peeking over the hills.

To Sicilians you are another invader. You have come to learn—to take away knowledge. Like Odysseus, you are a single soul with the burden of ages.

Sicily was a gateway to the underworld. It was where Orpheus came to find Eurydice.

You have been dropped in the main square.

There are trees everywhere.

People huddle in their shadows.

We see in others what we want and what we fear.

Close to the square there is a fountain of many streams. A cage of water. To get there, you must perish in the heat.

People wander through the park. There are stone heads on blocks. Their features have worn away. But even the faceless dead of these stone men have shadows as real as anyone living. Like the Sicilian people themselves, the statues defy their historical disfigurement with a dignity foreigners will never understand.

You will one day dissolve in the earth or in fire.

And the trees are bursting with life, but their leaves are frayed at the edges.

You are sitting on a bench in Sicily, in the town of Noto, where George lives.

Once destroyed by an earthquake and then rebuilt.

After every chapter of devastation, there is rebuilding.

It happens without thought.

It happens even when there is no guarantee it won’t happen again.

Humans may come and go—but the thread of hope is like a rope we pull ourselves up with.

And the sky is an open mouth. The streets of Noto are busy. People drain into the piazzas from the alleys—they negotiate their town in measured steps like hands on a clock. Their lives are the same but always different.

In a square cornered by a baroque church and a
gelateria
, you can see someone you know sitting on a bench and your body breaks with joy. He has been waiting for you.

He is wearing the clothes you last remember him in: linen trousers and a white shirt with a tie in a Windsor knot. Blue blazer, despite the heat.

He sees you and rushes over.

You both stand and look—two people separated only by the girth of everything they have to say.

Then he is upon you, all arms.

He is the first person you have hugged in years. Sicilians may not be particularly welcoming—but public shows of emotion are met with passionate approval.

You hold one another and recreate an ancient tableaux.

You look for shadows but see only the stone beneath, worn by centuries of footfall, centuries of pursuit and aspiration, centuries of worry that came to nothing.

He is certainly more handsome. His face is in two halves now, darker and more chiseled. When your bodies separate, you sit down on a bench.

There is a resolve in his voice you have never heard before. And then bells of the church come to life and shower you with hollow tones.

Three hours later you are sitting in his kitchen. The table is light blue. His café-style chairs are bright red. He is stuffing two fish—
spigola
—with dried oregano and salt. The fish in his hand is a silver muscle, a flash of life.

You start telling him about all the flights you took. The fish makes a wet sound when he sets it on the wooden cutting board. There is blood on his hand.

You are drinking fizzy water from a tall glass with white lines. There is a pair of scales on the fridge. There is also a calendar on the wall. There are several cats in the apartment. They are thin and their fur is coarse and uneven. They are the strays of the town. George tells you that he feeds them regularly.

On the walk back to his apartment from the square, you asked about the professor and his work in Turkey. You listened attentively. You can’t wait to see him. George carried your case and gave every beggar a coin. And he moved with the air of someone who is happy.

“Sicily is the gateway to the underworld,” he said.

You know he can sense the emotional void inside you—for his new love echoes in your abandoned house.

He is working now as a professor. He teaches American exchange students. He has aged, you can see that, and he is still sober—which is a relief.

George tells you more about his wife. She is not here tonight, he says. She is with her mother. But tomorrow her brothers will bring her home from her village of Francofonte. She is excited to meet you. He can’t stop telling you how beautiful she is.

He has fallen too, but in the opposite way.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Like the armies that once landed here in wooden ships, you had been prepared to invade George’s world with the endless narrative of journey.

But when you feel the lines of words poised and ready to fall in breathlike blows from you mouth, you feel only the soothing emptiness of this hot island, this “hollow ball of fire,” and the words age in your mouth and turn to crumbs and then ash.

Perhaps in dreams these words will come to life again—once they are splashed with sleep.

George leaves the table once during dinner to get a plate for bones.

After you have eaten, you wipe your hands with the halves of lemons. On a tall wooden sideboard with glass doors, there is a photo of a sad old man. George sees you looking.

“My father remarried.”

“Your father?”

“To a woman from Nigeria. They were just here—my mother came too with her boyfriend, same one she’s had for years.”

George has become everything that he was capable of, while you have been ravaged.

Later you wander the streets outside his apartment talking.

You tell him everything.

George asks where the journal is.

“It’s in my case.”

He wants to see it.

“You don’t think the child should have it?” he says.

“No. Do you?”

“No. What good would it do?”