On Beauty (49 page)

‘Levi! Cool – you came –'

Levi looked puzzled.

‘The library – it's through here.'

‘Oh, yeah . . .' said Levi, knocking the fist that Carl offered to him. ‘Yeah – that's right. You . . . you said come, so I came.'

‘You just caught me, man – I was just about to quit for the day. Come in, man, come in.'

Carl walked him into the Music Library and sat him down.

‘You wanted to hear something? Name it.' He clapped his hands. ‘I got
every
damn thing.'

‘Er . . . yeah . . . hear something . . . OK, well, actually there's this group I been hearing a lot about . . . they Haitian . . . their name is hard to say – I'll write it down like how I hear it.'

Carl looked disappointed. He bent over Levi as Levi phonetically wrote the name on a Post-it. Afterwards Carl took up the little piece of paper and frowned at it.

‘Oh . . . well, that ain't my area, man – I bet you Elisha'll know, though – she does the world music.
Elisha!
Let me go find her – I'll ask her. This is the name?'

‘Something like that,' said Levi.

Carl left the room. Levi hadn't been comfortable in his seat for a few minutes – now he remembered why. He lifted up and pulled the newspaper from his pocket. He was still restless. He hadn't brought his iPod out with him today, and he had no personal resources to cope with being alone without music. It never even occurred to him that the paper in front of him might afford a distraction.

‘You Levi?' said Elisha. She stretched out her hand, and Levi stood up and shook it. ‘I can't believe it – you're one of the first visitors to this
fine
resource,' she said chidingly. ‘And then you got to go and make some
rare
request. Couldn't just ask for Louis Armstrong. No, sir.'

‘But don't be searching if it's like a big hassle or a problem,' said Levi, embarrassed now to be here.

Elisha laughed easily. ‘Isn't either. We're glad to have you. It'll take a little while for me to have a look through our records, that's all. We're not completely computerized . . . not
yet
. You can go and come back if you like – it might be about ten, fifteen minutes, though.'

‘Stay, man,' pressed Carl. ‘I been going stir crazy in here today.'

Levi did not especially want to stay, but it was more effort to be rude. Elisha left to go through her archives. Levi sat back down in her seat.

‘So – what's up?' asked Carl. But just then a loud beep came from Carl's computer. A look of hungry anticipation broke out over his face.

‘Oh, Levi – sorry, man, one minute – e-mail.'

Levi sat back in his chair, bored, as Carl typed frantically with two fingers. He felt the despondency universities had long inspired in him. He had grown up in them; he had known their book stacks and storage cupboards and quads and spires and science blocks and tennis courts and plaques and statues. He felt sorry for the people who found themselves trapped in such arid surroundings. Even as a small child he was absolutely clear that he would never, ever enrol at one himself. In universities, people forgot how to live. Even in the middle of a music library, they had forgotten what music was.

Carl hit ‘Return' with a pianist's flourish. He sighed happily. He said, ‘Oh,
man
.' He seemed to have overestimated Levi's curiosity about the lives of other people.

‘Know who that was?' he prompted finally.

Levi shrugged.

‘Remember that girl? I first saw her when I was with you. The one with the booty that was just . . .' Carl kissed the air. Levi did his best to look unimpressed. One thing he couldn't
stand
was brothers boasting about their ladies. ‘That was
her
, man. I asked someone her name and found her in the college book. Easy as that. Victoria.
Vee
. She driving me crazy, man – she e-mails like . . .' Carl lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘She so dirty. Photos and all'a that. She got a body like . . . I don't even have any
words
for what she got. She be like sending me . . . well – you want to see something? Takes a minute to download.' Carl clicked his mouse a few times and then began to turn his screen round. Levi had seen a quarter of a breast when they both heard Elisha coming down the hall. Carl whipped his computer back to face him, switched off the screen and picked up the newspaper.

‘Hey, Levi,' said Elisha. ‘We got lucky. I found what you're looking for. You want to come with me?'

Levi stood up and, without saying goodbye to Carl, followed Elisha out of the room.

‘Baby, you can't lie to me. I can see it in your face.'

Kiki took Levi by the chin, tilted his head back and examined the swollen pockets of skin under the eyes, the blood that had leaked into his corneas, the dryness of his lips.

‘I'm just tired.'

‘Tired my
ass
.'

‘Let go of my chin.'

‘I
know
you've been crying,' insisted Kiki, but she didn't know the half of it: couldn't know, would never know, the lovely sadness of that Haitian music, or what it was like to sit in a small dark booth and be alone with it – the plangent, irregular rhythm, like a human heartbeat, the way the many harmonized voices had sounded, to Levi, like a whole nation weeping in tune.

‘I know things at home haven't been good,' said Kiki, looking into his red eyes. ‘But they're going to get better, I promise you that. Your daddy and I are
determined
to make it better. OK?'

There was no point in explaining. Levi nodded and zipped up his coat.

‘The Bus Stop,' said Kiki, and resisted the urge to deliver a curfew that would only be ignored. ‘You go and have fun.'

‘You want a ride?' asked Jerome, who was passing through the kitchen with Zora. ‘I'm not drinking.'

Just before they got in the car, Zora took off her coat and turned her back to Levi. ‘Seriously, do you think I should wear this – I mean, does it look OK?'

Her dress was a bad colour and it had no back and it was the wrong material for her lumpy body and it was too short. Normally, Levi would have bluntly told his sister all of this, and Zoor would have been upset and angry, but at least she would have gone back in and changed, and, as a consequence, arrived at the party looking a hell of a lot better than she did now. But tonight Levi had other things on his mind. ‘Beautiful,' he said.

Fifteen minutes later they dropped Levi off in Kennedy Square and continued on to the party. There was nowhere to park. They had to leave the car several blocks from the party itself. Zora had specifically worn the shoes she was wearing because she had not
anticipated any walking. To make progress she had to grip her brother around his waist, take little pigeon-steps and lean far back on her heels. For a long time Jerome restrained himself from commentary, but at the fourth pit stop he could keep silent no longer. ‘I don't get you. Aren't you meant to be a feminist? Why would you cripple yourself like this?'

‘I
like
these shoes, OK? They actually make me feel powerful.'

Finally they reached the house. Zora had never been so happy to see a set of porch steps. Steps were easy, and with joy she placed the ball of her foot on each wide wooden slat. A girl they did not know answered the door. At once they saw that it was a better party than either had been expecting. Some of the younger grads and even a few faculty members were there. People were already boisterously drunk. Pretty much everybody Zora considered vital for her social success this coming year was present. She had the guilty thought that she would do better at this party without Jerome hanging at her heels in his slacks with the T-shirt tucked in too tightly.

‘Victoria's here,' he said as they left their coats in the pile.

Zora looked down the hall and spotted her, simultaneously overdressed and half naked.

‘Oh,
whatever
,' said Zora, but then a thought came to her. ‘But Jay . . . If, I mean, if you want to go . . . I'd understand, I could get a taxi back.'

‘No, it's fine. Of course it's fine.' Jerome went over to a punch bowl and scooped them a drink each. ‘To lost love,' he said sadly, taking a sip. ‘One glass. Did you see Jamie Anderson? He's
dancing
.'

‘I
like
Jamie Anderson.'

It was strange being at a party with your sibling, standing in a corner, holding your plastic tumblers with both hands. There's no small talk between siblings. They bopped their heads ineptly and stood slightly turned out from each other, trying to look not alone and yet not with each other.

‘There's Dad's Veronica,' said Jerome, as she passed by in an unflattering 1920s flapper dress complete with headband. ‘And that's your rapper friend, isn't it? I saw him in the paper.'

‘Carl!' called Zora, too loudly. He was fiddling with the stereo, and now turned and came over. Zora remembered to put both hands behind her back and pull down her shoulders. Her chest looked better that way. But he did not look in that direction. He patted her chummily on the arm as usual and shook Jerome's hand vigorously.

‘Good to see you again, man!' he said and shot out that movie star smile. Jerome, now recalling the young man he had met that night in the park, registered the pleasant change: this open, friendly demeanour, this almost
Wellingtonian
confidence. In answer to Jerome's polite question as to what Carl had been up to recently, Carl prattled on about his library, neither defensively nor particularly boastfully, but with an easy egotism that did not for a moment consider asking Jerome a similar question. He spoke of the Hip-hop Archive and the need for more Gospel, the growing African section, the problem of getting money out of Erskine. Zora waited for him to mention their campaign to keep discretionaries in class. No mention came.

‘So,' she said, attempting to keep her own voice casual and cheery, ‘did you see my op-ed or . . . ?'

Carl, in the middle of an anecdote, stopped and looked confused. Jerome, peacemaker and trouble-spotter, stepped in.

‘I forgot to tell you I saw that in the
Herald
– Speaker's Corner – it was really great. Really
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
 . . . it was great, Zoor. You're lucky you got this girl fighting in your corner,' said Jerome, knocking his tumbler against Carl's. ‘When she gets her teeth into something, she doesn't let go. Believe me, I know.'

Carl grinned. ‘Oh, I
hear
that. She's my Martin Luther King! I'm serious, she be – sorry,' said Carl, looking away from them towards the outdoor balcony. ‘Sorry, I just saw someone I gotta speak to . . . Look, I'll talk to you later, Zora – good to see you again, man. I'll catch you both later.'

‘He's very charming,' said Jerome generously, as they watched him go. ‘Actually he's almost slick.'

‘Everything's going so well for him right now,' said Zora uncertainly. ‘When he's gotten used to it, he'll get more focus, I think.
More time to tune in to other important stuff. He's just a little busy right now. Believe me,' she said, with more conviction, ‘he'll be a real addition to Wellington. We need more people like him.'

Jerome hummed in an ambivalent way. Zora rounded on him. ‘You know, there's other ways to have a successful college career than the route you went down. Traditional qualifications are
not
everything. Just because –'

Jerome mimed zipping up his lip and throwing away the key. ‘I'm a hundred and ten per cent behind you, Zoor, as ever,' he said, smiling. ‘More wine?'

It was the kind of party where every hour two people leave and thirty people arrive. The Besley siblings found and lost each other several times that night, and lost new people they found. You'd turn to eat from a bowl of peanuts and not see the person you'd been talking to again until you met them forty minutes later in the line for the toilets. Around ten, Zora found herself on the balcony smoking a joint in an absurdly cool circle consisting of Jamie Anderson, Veronica, Christian and three grads she didn't know. In normal circumstances she would have been ecstatic at this, but, even as Jamie Anderson was taking her theory about women's punctuation seriously, Zora's busy brain was otherwise occupied, wondering where Carl was, if he'd already left, and whether he'd liked her dress. Out of nerves she kept drinking, filling her cup from an abandoned bottle of white wine by her feet.

Just after eleven, Jerome stepped out on to the balcony, interrupting the impromptu lecture that Anderson was giving and plonked himself upon his sister's lap. He was badly drunk.

‘Sorry!' he said, touching Anderson's knees. ‘Carry on, sorry – don't mind me. Zoor,
guess
what I saw? I should say
who
.'

Anderson, piqued, moved away and took his acolytes with him. Zora bumped Jerome off her lap, stood up and leaned against the balcony, looking out on to the quiet, leafy street.