Thirteen Ways of Looking

by Colum McCann

  —You’ve become a man of peace, Carlos.

  —I’m not sure—excuse me—I think you’ve maybe mistaken me—

  —I don’t think so.

  —You must excuse me. I have a car waiting.

  It strikes her how ordinary and extraordinary both, then, this moment, a street-corner shop, the rain, a London sidestreet, her rapist, thirty-seven years ago, the sound of a distant piano, a pigeon flapping through a railway station, her brother, the books on the floor, a collision, that ancient river in Galway where she made her decision to join the Church, so young then, the way the light shone even on the underside of the bridge, bouncing up from the copper-colored Owenriff.

  —I’m not here to hurt you, Carlos. You have more important things to do. I’m not here to ruin what you are doing.

  —What is it you said your name was again?

  —Sister Beverly Clarke.

  —Well, Sister Beverly Clarke, it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I think you’ve mistaken me—

  —But I’d like to know how you achieved it.

  —I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.

  —Where did you find it, Carlos? That grace?

  —Encantado. Let me go. My jacket. You’re holding my jacket.

  Beverly is surprised to feel the tug in her fingers, that it is true, she has brought him closer, that there is the faint smell of coffee from his breath, that she has bridged this space, caught him so unaware.

  She lets go of him, hears the high ping of the cash register and the fumble for money, a laugh from one of the young boys as they leave the shop.

  —Do you recognize me?

  —Por supuesto no le…

  She touches the top button on her blouse, opens it. He steps back, attempts an ease into his face.

  —Are you sure, Carlos?

  —No me llame Carlos.

  —I’m interested in what it means to you. When you sit there and you talk about peace?

  A second button, the necklace at her fingers. The shopkeeper has not moved, his dark hands spread wide on the countertop.

  —I would be happy to talk to you in my office, Miss—

  —Sister Beverly.

  —You could arrange it with my secretary.

  —You’re doing good work, Carlos.

  —Stop it.

  —I’m not going to harm that.

  He leans toward her: No sé quién diablo eres, tu.

  She opens the third button on her blouse, her flesh cold to the touch. He turns, panicked, toward the shopkeeper, then glances back to Beverly.

  —No puedes hacer esto.

  —It healed, see?

  —Soltame.

  No embarrassment. No shame. She is surprised by the banality of it, how naked, how ordinary it is to her, the small ruin of her breast in her hand.

  —Que quieres conmigo?

  —Nothing.

  —Tell me what you want.

  —Nothing, Carlos. Nothing. I just want you to know that I’m here, I exist, that’s all.

  He backs, panicked, toward the door. A small hitch in his step as he leaves. He grasps for the handle. The door swings slowly closed behind him.

  She watches through the window as Carlos yanks open the rear door of a car. Something apparitional in the moment. A man immune to himself. It looks to her as if he is stepping into a caisson of his own loneliness. He slams the door. The tinted window powers down.

  She begins to rebutton her blouse.

  From the rear seat Carlos stares out. He gestures with an open hand and the car lurches forward, the small rope of exhaust fumes dispersing into the air.

  Five yards along the car stops again and the door opens. His suit jacket swings in the wind. He steps over the curb, his hands above his head as if he might stop the rain.

  The shop bell sounds again. The top of his shoes are wet and dripping. He stands, his face red, the veins in his neck shining. Something shifting and buzzing in his eyes.

  He looks up at the shop ceiling, turns his back to the camera. So, he does not want to be seen, then. For how many years has he walked in this wilderness?

  He leans forward, a sheen of sweat or rain on his brow, she can’t tell which. He hovers a moment close to her, his breath sharp in her ear.

  —Puta, he whispers.

  The word is immediately meek and useless. It grazes against her, dissolves, tumbles, something graceful even about its fall.

  Beverly turns her back, steps toward the counter, the tea, her newspaper. No nerves in her fingers. No shake in her hands. She closes the final button of her blouse.

  She is aware, now, exactly what sort of man he has become. No peace about him. No great swerve in his life. He has polished all his lies.

  She could, now, do anything at all: arrange a conference, expose him to the newspapers, call him to task, let others know, create a revenge out of justice. But she will, she knows, just sit at the counter, slowly sip her tea, let the minutes pass, fold the newspaper, rise, leave the shop, shuffle down along the Thames, return to her brother’s flat, sit with him, talk, allow the night to fade away, and later she will slip into the warm bath, rise, towel, glance at the mirror, look away again, dress, sleep in the chair instead of the bed, listen to the evening tap against the windowpane, rise then, leave, return to Houston, a long flight across the Atlantic, a return, up the steps, those young girls, that small bakery of love and death.

  There is a silence behind her, then she hears the sound of the shop door closing, a car door, an engine, and Carlos is gone.

  Beverly runs her finger around the rim of the saucer, folds the newspaper, smooths out the creases, moves toward the cash register. Rows of cigarettes, lottery tickets, sweets. She slides the folded newspaper across the counter. She will leave the paper for the shopkeeper now, allow him to sell it again, why not: she has no more use for it.

  She returns to her seat, ties her headscarf, lifts her coat into her arms.

  The shopkeeper remains still, his hands spread wide. There is, she notices, a copy of the Qur’an near the register, thumbed, used. On a black-and-white television screen behind him, she sees the front door of the shop, the aisles of food, a small coin of baldness in the back of his head.

  He has about him the air of a man prone to bruises and scars. There is a dark mark in the center of his forehead. A prayer bruise. She feels herself shiver. She has stepped into his world, showed herself immodest.

  —Excuse me, sir?

  —Madam?

  —I’m sorry, she says.

  —I didn’t see anything, Madam. I assure you. I did not see a thing.

  She likes him for the quickness of the lie. She glances up at the ceiling camera.

  —Those tapes?

  —Yes?

  —I don’t suppose you could give them to me?

  —Excuse me?

  —I wouldn’t like anybody else to see them.

  He seems to ponder it a moment, weigh it. He reaches out and pats the newspaper on the counter, nods at her with a sharp cordiality.

  —I’m afraid not. They record on the drive. There’s no actual tapes. I can’t give them to you.

  He touches his hand to his chest where a row of pens sit in his shirt pocket.

  —But nobody will see them, I promise you.

  Beverly pulls the cardigan around her shoulders, hitches her coat, catches a glimpse of herself in the cubed screens, two or three versions, standing in the store, from the front, from behind, caught in the chorus of light and dark.

  She steps through the shop, pauses a moment, spies the reflection of the shopkeeper in the window. At the cash register, the blinking red camera light above him is immutable, almost sacred.

  —Thank you, she says without turning.

  It is, she recognizes, an agreement of faith with a man whose name she does not even know.

  She reaches for the door handle, pulls up the collar of her coat against the chill, steps out to the street and into the hard free fall of rain.

&nbs
p; For Lisa, Jackie, Mike, and Karen.

  For all those who continue to build Narrative 4.

  In memory of my father, Sean McCann.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  These stories were primarily completed in 2014 on either side of an incident that occurred in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 27, when I was punched from behind and knocked unconscious, then hospitalized, after trying to help a woman who had also been assaulted in the street.

  Some of these stories were written before the assault and some of them were written afterward (for example, the punch in “Thirteen Ways” was dreamed up long before the incident, but Beverly’s recognition of her attacker in “Treaty” was written later).

  Sometimes it seems to me that we are writing our lives in advance, but at other times we can only ever look back. In the end, though, every word we write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical.

  For all its imagined moments, literature works in unimaginable ways.

  These stories have their own voices, but to learn more about their provenance, including the Victim Impact Statement from that incident in Connecticut, please go to my website, colummccann.com.

  By Colum McCann

  Thirteen Ways of Looking

  TransAtlantic

  Let the Great World Spin

  Zoli

  Dancer

  Everything in This Country Must

  This Side of Brightness

  Songdogs

  Fishing the Sloe-Back River

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COLUM MCCANN is the internationally bestselling author of the novels TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as two critically acclaimed story collections. His fiction has been published in thirty-five languages. He has received many honors, including the National Book Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres award from the French government, and the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace. He has been named one of Esquire’s “Best and Brightest,” and his short film Everything in This Country Must was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, he teaches in the Hunter College MFA Creative Writing program. He lives in New York City with his wife and their three children, and he is the cofounder of the global nonprofit story exchange organization, Narrative 4.

  colummccann.com