Everything Beautiful Began After

by Simon Van Booy

  “No,” she said, reaching for her glass, “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Do you still have the uniform?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Do you want me to go and put it on for you?”

  “Christ, are you serious?” he said. Then he got up and went into the hall. He returned with a clean ashtray and a blanket.

  “In case you get chilly,” he said.

  They talked for another hour, staring at one another intently between sentences. When the last of the wine filled Rebecca’s glass, Henry gathered everything up off the table and carried it inside. Rebecca followed him holding a cigarette.

  Henry balanced the plates and bowls in the sink, then turned the faucet on. Rebecca sat down at the kitchen table and watched. The table was dark wood. There was a terra-cotta bowl of salt and a bowl of lemons. The lights were very bright.

  “I think I’ll do this tomorrow,” he said, looking at the mess of dirty bowls and cutlery.

  He went to the freezer and removed a small tray of baklava, which he cut into triangular pieces with a large knife. The plastic handle of the knife had been melted out of shape by the rim of a very hot pot.

  Henry ladled thick cream over each piece and gave a plate to Rebecca with a fork.

  “I don’t want any,” she said.

  He held the plate in the air for a few moments, then set it down in front of himself.

  “We’ll share mine then.”

  They chewed the sweet, heavy baklava without talking. Rebecca looked at the cream.

  “What’s your surname?” she asked him.

  “Bliss.”

  “You’re joking,” she said. “Bliss? Like happiness?”

  His mouth was full, so he nodded.

  “Henry Bliss,” she laughed. “It does mean happiness, yes?”

  “Pure, wanton happiness,” Henry replied swallowing.

  “Henry Bliss,” she said. “It sounds nice, Henry Bliss, Henry Bliss, Henry Bliss, Henry Bliss.”

  Henry stopped chewing for a moment.

  “What’s your surname?”

  “Baptiste.”

  “Jesus!”

  And they both laughed without knowing why.

  Then Rebecca said the light was very bright. Henry lit candles and turned it off. Their faces glowed in the darkness. Henry lit a cigarette and passed it to Rebecca.

  “I can’t believe I had dinner with a man I picked up at Monastiraki,” she said.

  “You didn’t pick me up—I came with the book. Where is it, by the way?” He asked and then realized what had happened before she could speak.

  “The foyer at the museum,” she said. “Should we go back tomorrow?”

  “I have to go away tomorrow.”

  “For how long?”

  “Eight days.”

  “Should I miss you?” Rebecca said coyly.

  Henry smiled. “Yes, please—it’s only to Cambridge for a series of lectures on new carbon-dating technology that my boss thinks I should hear.”

  “Will you send me a postcard?”

  “I will—and don’t look so sad. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it?”

  “We’ll see,” Rebecca said.

  Henry put down his glass and balanced his hand above the flame of a candle.

  They both watched.

  “Agapi mou,” he said. “My love.”

  Rebecca picked up her glass and swirled the contents, as though it were a tiny ocean at the mercy of her reticence.

  “It’s just an expression,” he said. “I think I’m drunk.”

  “Sorry,” she said, passing the cigarette back to him. “I just realized we were supposed to be sharing this. I suppose I should tell you that I sort of have a boyfriend.”

  Henry retreated from the flame of the candle.

  “Damn,” he said, then looked at her. “Is it serious?”

  “Actually he’s not really my boyfriend at all because I don’t want to see him anymore.” She reached for another cigarette. “Maybe I’m a bit drunk too.”

  With vague coolness, Henry said:

  “Don’t hurt him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He probably loves you.”

  Rebecca sighed. “He does, I think.”

  “Well, don’t hurt him.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because if I were your boyfriend, I would want it to be serious.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend—I don’t know why I said it. Anyway, what does serious mean?”

  “Ask me in a year from now,” Henry said, “and I might have an answer for you.”

  A cool wind pushed through the blinds.

  Henry stood and leaned across the table to kiss her. The awkwardness of where he had chosen to embrace was quickly overcome when she stood and they both stepped into the hall, toward his bedroom, kissing and bumping into things. The floor felt cool against Rebecca’s bare feet. His bedroom was dark. He handled her with gentleness, undressing her quickly but deliberately.

  She let her dress drop and then stood out of it. Henry reached up her thighs with both arms as though quietly imploring. She squeezed his hands and guided them purposefully to the places on her body she wanted to feel him the most, any hesitation having long been dissolved by wine.

  She opened her eyes when she felt the weight of his body shift. He was hard and his body was heavy. The feeling that began in the market that afternoon had grown in power. And from far away, something was dragging her to a place where she would momentarily lose herself. She dug her nails fiercely into his shoulders and bit him hard. He didn’t flinch but slowed, suspending himself above her, strands of muscle in his shoulders like strings. She swirled in the currents of her life, where her sense of self was revealed as arbitrary, extraneous, and so easily washed away by the force of that singular intent.

  She grabbed on to his black hair, exhaling savagely.

  Afterward, they lay on their backs, holding hands. Two people divided by the illusion of experience. All was silent.

  Like a single drop, she hung upon the edge of sleep.

  He reached for her hand in the darkness and together they fell from this world and into another.

  Chapter Eight

  When Rebecca opened her eyes it was still dark. Henry was not in the bed, but standing against the shutters. Cool air was pouring in. She pulled back the sheet.

  “That feels nice,” she said.

  He turned around. “You’d be shocked at how early it is.”

  Through the open shutters, Rebecca could see into a bright apartment across the street. A man stood shirtless over a pan of boiling water. Henry went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses of orange juice, which he set on the bedside table.

  “Do you see him?” he said.

  The man lowered several white towels into a nest of steam.

  “What’s he doing?” Rebecca said.

  “Boiling towels.”

  “He looks miserable,” she said.

  “He has a right to look miserable.”

  Rebecca lifted her head from the pillow and opened her eyes very wide.

  “That’s the neighbor who left the fish outside my door.”

  “But why is he miserable?”

  “Five years ago his wife and baby were hit by a taxi on the corner.”

  Rebecca gasped.

  “The child died, and when the wife was out of hospital she left him and went back to her parents’ village. The woman downstairs told me,” Henry said.

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I haven’t yet—but apparently all the neighbors know there’s a foreigner living here.”

  “So he knows you’re living here alone?”

  “Yes, everyone does.”

  “Then why did he leave you two fish?”

  “I don’t know, maybe he thinks I look hungry.”

  “Or maybe he wanted to eat with you?”

  “Do you reall
y think so?”

  “I think he looks lonely,” Rebecca said.

  “But there are always people on the street below his balcony—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Rebecca interrupted. “Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in the universe, except that everyone else is still here.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Henry said. “A really beautiful thing to say.”

  Then Henry told her about something sad from his childhood. Rebecca stared at the topless man. He stood at a tilt as though tethered to some terrible weight—some moment of his past that simultaneously defined who he was yet denied him life.

  Chapter Nine

  “Bye, Henry,” Daddy said.

  “You’re not worried, are you, love?” Mammy said. “Because we’re only next door if you need us.”

  Henry nodded.

  “I know, Mam.”

  “If your brother wakes up, just run over and tell us, now, like a good boy.”

  “I know what to do, I can do it, Mam.”

  “And you’re not afraid?” she said gently.

  “He’s fine, Harriet,” Daddy said. “We’ll be late.”

  The house was very quiet, but sometimes creaking, or a sharp tick from the kitchen, or the cat flap as Duncan came and went to do his business. The television was on. Henry sat down. There was a plate of rock cakes and a large glass of orange squash. It was still light out. Cars swished along in the wake of heavy rain.

  When the cartoon ended, Henry wondered if they would come back. He stood in front of the television to see what would happen next.

  There were pictures of Spider-Man on his underwear. He could see himself in the reflection of the television. The boy in the glass stood very still. They both waited to see what would come on.

  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.