Everything Beautiful Began After (7 page)

Then Henry decided to check on his brother. It was his main job, after all. He was in charge when they were out.

Henry was five years older than his brother, but they looked alike. His brother always wanted everything—was always reaching his fingers into things, always touching—his face contorted with the difficulty of retrieval. Hanging saliva. The stench from his diapers—as heavy and hot as parcels of fish and chips. The violence of crying. His hair so wispy it might blow off. Henry remembered little black eyes when he came home from hospital. Mammy let Baby suck Henry’s finger.

“That’s how I eat gooseberries,” Henry had said. Everyone laughed.

Baby didn’t have any hair then. Now he was almost one. Henry liked to bounce him on the bed. His clothes were soft and blue. He was entered into them through a zip. There was a fish sewn into the cloth. It was smiling and blinked one eye.

Henry stood in his brother’s room. The smell of disinfectant and baby powder filled him with despair. The blinds were down. The light was soft but bright enough to see.

His brother breathed quickly. His hands were very small, but wrinkled in all the correct places.

And then, outside a dog barked.

His brother’s eyes opened quickly. He turned his head blinking. When he saw Henry, he smiled, but then began to cry.

“No use crying for Mam,” Henry said. “She’s next door.”

Henry put his hand through the bars of his crib, but it didn’t help.

Then Henry did a little dance and sang a song about bears he had learned at school.

“I’ll teach it to you when you’re older, like me,” Henry said.

His brother’s face was red with crying. His eyes bulged.

If only he would stop screaming. Mam and Dad would be mad that he woke up and blame Henry for going in.

Henry was about to run next door when he suddenly had the idea to give him a toy.

On his changing table, next to a pile of diapers, was a mobile that had once hung over Henry’s crib. Henry’s dad had said that maybe his brother might like it and he’d hang it tomorrow.

Henry grabbed the mobile and dangled it above the crib.

“This was mine once,” Henry said. “So stop crying.”

His brother stopped crying and reached up his hands.

“Would you like to play with it?”

The baby was laughing. His face returned to normal and the room was suddenly bright with the final moments of day. Henry dropped in the mobile.

Baby looked satisfied. His short, fat fingers explored little parts. He put one of the plastic animals into his mouth, then took it out and looked at it. He pulled on the strings, and tried to chew the wood.

“Go to sleep, little brother,” Henry said. “Have nice dreams.”

When Henry stepped out, he felt very proud. He would boast to Mam how he’d quieted his brother when a dog barked.

When his parents got home it was almost dark. There was nothing on television and so Henry had his toys everywhere. The house was now a place of shadows and Henry was too afraid to leave the glow of the television to reach the light switch.

“What a big boy,” Mammy said.

“C’mon, young man,” Dad said. “Time for bed.”

Henry yawned.

“Did your brother wake up?”

“Yes,” Henry said, “but went back to sleep after I went in and checked on him.”

“You’re such a good boy,” his mam said. “I knew I could trust you to be the man of the house.”

“Even though we were only at the neighbors,” added his father.

As Henry zipped into his own pajamas, watched dutifully by his father, there was suddenly a piercing scream that seemed to go on for a long time. His father bolted.

Then shouting from his brother’s room.

Henry watched through the crack in the door.

They had to use scissors to cut it off. Henry peed his pants but no one noticed.

Then the police came with an ambulance.

Neighbors appeared at the door in dressing gowns.

Henry was allowed to stay up and talk to the policeman.

Chapter Ten

For most of Henry’s childhood, his brother’s room was used for storage. They never talked about it as a family. Sometimes his mother cried in her bathroom. Sometimes Henry found his father in the garage staring at nothing.

As a teenager, he woke up gasping. Everybody knew his brother had died. In the supermarket, people would approach his mother.

“How are you coping?”

Even years later, the same question, the same grimace of sympathy. An arm placed gently upon her arm all helped to keep it fresh.

It was blamed on the toy; nobody knew anything beyond that.

By his final year at university, Henry realized that something wasn’t right. The mechanism that allowed other students to form long friendships over rowdy nights at the student bar had broken in him, or had never worked.

The few relationships he’d had were quiet disasters. What began as genuine intent ended quickly with indifference.

And now Rebecca. It had begun like the others. Attraction, conversation, a night together. But there was something about her that was deeper and braver—something about her that compelled Henry beyond the details and feelings of the moment, as though they were both tethered to the same point in the future.

And so he told her some things, but not everything. Of course she blamed the toy, and Henry was safe to continue impersonating the man he should have been.

After a long silence, Henry awkwardly asked Rebecca about where she grew up. “In some French country house with shutters and garden hoses and beds of lavender and a vintage Citroën?”

“Not exactly,” she said, still visibly shaken by his story.

“Where are you from in France exactly?” Henry asked.

“Guess.”

“Well, not Paris, I know that. How about Champagne?”

“
Non.
”

“Bordeaux?”

“No, not Bordeaux.”

“Dijon?”

“Is your geographical knowledge of France limited to what you can eat and drink?”

“Lascaux?”

“Good answer—being that I’ve made only sketches and not paintings yet, but no.”

Rebecca reached for the orange juice on her bedside table, but then changed her mind and set it back down.

Henry went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water.

“Thanks,” she said.

She stretched out her body in the sheets.

They were both tired. As they lay down, Henry said, “I find proof of life, and you explain the significance of it.”

“
Non,
Henry, I don’t think that’s it—I think you search for proof of your own life.”

Henry thought for a moment. “And what do you do?” he said.

“I simply draw.” She smiled. “For now.”

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” Henry said.

“He’s not my boyfriend, I told you—he was just a friend, really.”

“Greek?

“American. You’d like him,” she said.

“Would I?” Henry puffed. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he listens to opera, drinks sherry in the afternoon with a small dish of dried apricots, and of course he knows all about archaeology. The ancient Greek language is his passion.”

“Do people like that exist?”

“Here they do,” Rebecca said.

Henry thought for a moment, and then said:

“Let’s do that.”

“Do what?”

“Let’s make here our home—it’s so far from our lives that we can be free.”

She turned away and looked out into the darkness. Her pillow was soft and warm.

“But I just met you. I don’t know you.”

“I feel like you know me,” Henry said.

Rebecca turned to face him. “If I think too much about what we’re doing, I might get scared.”

Henry touched her hair. Then he planted gentle kisses on the back of her neck, and she soon fell asleep.

In the morning, Henry dressed and went outside. It was cool. He untangled the strap on his helmet and looked up at his own balcony. Then he mounted his rusty Vespa and rode north, until pulling free of the city.

He slowly climbed the mountain road that led to the scorching, sun-drenched hole he was digging, with what Rebecca would later describe as an expensive toothbrush. By early afternoon, he would leave the site with his briefcase of notes and get on a plane bound for London. A Cambridge University minibus would ferry him to his dormitory for the week.

Rebecca stayed in his apartment until noon. She washed in his hot yellow bathroom, then cleaned the dishes from supper. After dressing, she bought oranges from an Albanian in the street, propping open the front door with an empty wine bottle. She put the oranges in a small bowl and left them on the kitchen table next to the lemons with her address. Before closing all the shutters for the day, Rebecca noticed the topless man who had been boiling towels in the building opposite. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cigarette and pulling at his hair.

Chapter Eleven

George spent most of the afternoon in bed, a bilingual volume of poetry by Kazantzakis split over his body like a small church. It was open on a page that read:

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

It was about a week since he had seen Rebecca. His apartment smelled of spilled wine. Wilting vines of dill lay on the kitchen counter in thick bunches, while empty wine and liquor bottles occupied most corners and areas where George didn’t need to walk. He repeated the line of poetry a few times until he knew it by heart.

He was meeting someone at noon, and so got up, dressed, and made his way to a popular café on the corner of his street. George’s lunch companion was early, and stood to greet him. They did not shake hands, but were pleased to see one another.

“How are you, Costas?” George said. “Did you order?”

He shook his head.

“Thanks for meeting me. Here are cigarettes and the bottle of ouzo, before I forget.”

The man’s look of dull shame brightened for a moment. He tucked the cigarettes into one of the many pockets of his heavy coat, but held up the bottle of ouzo and made a great pretence of reading the label. This was an attempt, George suspected, to hide that fact that he was actually illiterate.

“Looks like a nice one, interesting history,” the man said.

“It’s excellent, just like your English.”

Costas nodded appreciatively. He was a dark-haired man of about fifty, but due to his circumstances he looked considerably older.

“So what have you been up to since our encounter?”

“Honestly?” said George.

Costas nodded.

“I’ve gone and fallen in love with someone.”

“A woman?”

George nodded.

“Greek?”

“French.”

“Oh,” Costas said. “Very nice.”

“But,” George said, “I haven’t heard from her in a week.”

“Have you telephoned?” Costas suggested.

“She doesn’t have a telephone, but I’ve been round a few times and she doesn’t appear to be home, or if she is, she doesn’t open the door when I ring.”

“Maybe she’s busy,” Costas said. “But then all women are mysterious, no?”

Costas scratched his chin, then reached for one of George’s cigarettes. “May I?”

George nodded. “Of course.”

Finally the waiter approached along with the owner—a stout man with a heavy gold chain.

The owner stood at their table, arms akimbo, and glared angrily at Costas.

“Sorry, we’re closing,” he said.

“Closing?” George said incredulously, “But you’ve just opened.”

Costas laughed heartily.

“Both of you get away from here,” the owner said.

“But why?” George said. “We’re only here for lunch.”

“Well, this is a neighborhood café, not a charity kitchen.”

George stood his ground. “I’ve always paid my bill, and tipped you generously.”

“This is true,” the owner said. “So why you know this man if you’re so respectable,” he said, pointing to Costas—who was already packing up and getting ready to leave.

“I’m very disappointed,” George said, standing up, “that you’ve lost the nature of what hospitality is. You guys invented it.”

The owner’s lips trembled slightly, but he said nothing.

As they walked away George turned around and waved. It was a peculiar habit of his that often confused people. The waiter, who had said nothing, waved back, and the owner gave him a few harsh words.

“Sorry about that,” George said. Costas smiled magnanimously and asked George for another one of his cigarettes. They smoked at the edge of a fountain and watched people pass.

“Strange world we live in, isn’t it?” George said.

Costas nodded. “Very strange.”

“Look,” George said, turning to face his friend, “I promised to buy you lunch, so how about we just get some souvlaki sandwiches and take them back to my place.”

“I don’t know,” Costas said, “I really should be going soon.”

“I know,” George said. “There’s nothing like being waited on. We could also pick up some wine to drink with our meal—I know you like a drink as much as I do.”

“Okay,” Costas said. “That sounds nice. Then maybe you could tell me more about the French girl you’re in love with.”

George purchased two sandwiches and a bottle of wine from a kiosk, then led Costas up to his apartment, which overlooked Kolonaki Square.

“I don’t much come to this area,” Costas said.

“Why not?”

“Because the police don’t like people like me here with all these beautiful foreigners spending money.”

“But it’s your country,” George said, “and you have a right to go where you please.”

“You’re a nice boy,” Costas said. “I wish you were Greek.”

When they were inside, George helped Costas take his knapsack off. It was most awkward to maneuver on account of two thick blankets strapped to the bottom with rope.

George asked Costas to sit down and then served him some wine.

“Just a cheap house red,” George said, “but it’s wet.”

“It’s wet, yes,” Costas repeated after a long gulp. He held up his glass for a refill.

During lunch, George told him all about Rebecca—the late dinners, the long romantic walks, her ambition to be a great artist, the awkward lingering on her steps. Costas listened politely, and nodded where was appropriate.