Everything Beautiful Began After

by Simon Van Booy

  “You know I do.”

  “Just coming home?”

  “Yes—why do you have leaves stuck to your pants?”

  “These leaves?” George said and looked down at his soiled suit trousers, laughing. “I took a nap in the grounds of the academy—it really needs a good rake, to be honest.”

  “I thought you said it was a library?”

  “It’s both, in a way, I suppose—hasn’t it been ages since we saw each other!”

  “Looks like you need to sober up.”

  “Rebecca,” he said breathlessly. There was so much he wanted to say, but was unable to think past the syllables of her name that filled him like some delicate music.

  She looked down the platform, in the direction of her apartment.

  “I’ll sober up very soon,” he said. “I have something for you too.”

  He reached into his pocket and handed her the orange envelope.

  “It looks important,” she said. “Is it a letter?”

  “Sort of, open it later.”

  She faltered, but George insisted and she put the envelope in the pocket of her dress. Then she looked again in the direction of the steps.

  “I have to go, George,” she smiled.

  George raised his fingers to his face.

  “Is my nose bleeding?”

  “I don’t think so,” Rebecca said, standing on her tip toes.

  “I’ve been having some trouble with it.”

  It was a lie he made up which he instantly regretted.

  For a moment George thought she might ask him over for a nap or a cup of tea. She may even have a little wine and some hard Greek biscuits to chew on.

  Sensing her departure, he said:

  “I’m pretty sober now, as it happens.” But then realized he was carrying a can of freshly opened beer he’d just purchased at the train station kiosk.

  His shoes were also covered in dark stains, which he suspected was urine.

  Rebecca had on her light blue ballet flats. She sighed heavily. Her arm with the flowers fell.

  “George,” she said. “Can we sit down here and chat for a minute?”

  She guided him over to a bench seat at the top of the stairs, and they both sat down.

  “This is nice, isn’t it?” George said.

  Rebecca surveyed him carefully before she spoke. “Can we just be friends from now on?”

  George said nothing. Then he laughed. “Friends?”

  “Like we were when we first met, having coffee or dinner from time to time.”

  George said nothing.

  “I think it’s for the best,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I love your company, but I’ve just been thinking and this is where I am right now in my life.”

  “Is it my drinking?” he said, dropping his eyes to the can.

  “That’s part of it.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “I can’t be your girlfriend.”

  “Ever? Or just anymore?”

  Rebecca frowned.

  “Ever,” she said.

  And then George began to sob.

  People looked.

  “George,” Rebecca said quietly.

  But he continued sobbing. It was quite loud. A woman passing said something to her in Greek.

  “George,” she said again. “Please stop crying. It’s not that bad.”

  “I can’t,” he said. His face was very red. Two of his shirt buttons had come undone and displayed a few unflattering inches of stomach.

  “Just tell me why you’re so upset.”

  George rubbed his eyes and took a swig from his beer. When he seemed to have himself under control, a fresh wave of sobs came. If a train hadn’t pulled in, they would have been surrounded by curious locals.

  “Just tell me why you’re crying, George.”

  She touched his hand but he pulled away.

  “Because I’m slightly upset.”

  “Why?”

  George didn’t answer, but fumbled for his cigarettes. Rebecca lit one for him quickly. More than anything, she wanted the scene to end.

  He took another swig from his beer.

  “I just thought . . .” he said, wiping his eyes, and raising the can to his lips again.

  “Oh, George,” Rebecca said desperately. “Can you stop drinking for five minutes?”

  George set the can on the platform. By the sound it made, they could both tell it was empty.

  “Are you crying because you’re drunk?”

  George began sobbing again, and very loudly. A train pulled in, but hardly anyone got off.

  “We should talk about this when you’re sober,” Rebecca said. Then for the first and only time in her life, Rebecca caught a rare glimpse of George’s temper.

  In a low growl, he said:

  “How dare you, how dare you judge me, Rebecca—you just gave up that right, so just you stop talking before you insult both of us.”

  Rebecca wasn’t sure what he meant, and suspected he wasn’t either, but she saw it as her cue to exit and stood up.

  “Good-bye, George,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about this rationally, but you’re too . . . upset.”

  George let his head fall into his hands. Then without getting up, he kicked the beer can toward the tracks. It rolled in noisily. Someone shouted something from down the platform, and Rebecca walked away. When she was almost to the end staircase, she turned around. George was standing up. “Rebecca! Rebecca! Rebecca!” he shouted.

  She went home and cried. Her first attempt to connect in Athens, and she had failed on all counts. It must run in my family, she thought—an inability to maintain any kind of emotional connection. And then she remembered Henry, and longed for him, despite the shame that hung over her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next morning Rebecca woke to someone knocking forcefully on her front door. She slipped into a floral print dress and padded across the cold floor.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “It’s Henry!”

  She flung open the door and threw her arms around him.

  “I missed you so much,” she said, but then fell silent.

  They were soon in bed. She could feel his muscles tightening over her, and she opened her thighs to take in as much as possible. Afterward, they lay on their backs.

  Henry said he was taking her up to his dig.

  “Is that your idea of romantic?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  “Well, I have nothing to wear.”

  Henry looked around her room. “How about a pair of trousers, a cotton blouse, a pair of sensible shoes, and a silk scarf?”

  “There’s no such thing as sensible shoes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shoes are either beautiful or sensible, and I have only beautiful.”

  Henry laughed.

  “It’s Air France’s fault.”

  The events of the previous night’s confrontation were starting to lessen. The feeling would soon break into fragments and cease to affect her.

  They kissed again. She reached down and put him inside. They kissed without moving their bodies.

  Later on as she was getting ready, Henry said:

  “I love the way you tie up your hair.”

  She turned to look at him from the mirror.

  “Well, you’re lucky, because that’s my favorite way to wear it.”

  “I can see your neck.”

  “Do you like my neck?”

  “It’s my second favorite part of your body.”

  “What’s your favorite part?”

  “The rest.”

  She rushed over and kissed him several times on the lips. Then she went back to the mirror. Henry sat on the edge of the bath.

  “When did you fall in love for the first time, Henry?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I was eleven. I used to take a bus to school. The bus was blue with writing across the side in cream lett
ers. It used to stop in front of a ballet school and pick children up. From my seat on the left side, I could see over a tall fence into a bright studio where girls about my age were warming up in front of a mirror. I remember the beauty of their arms, the slow arches, the ghostlike sweeping away. Sometimes they would all move together, in a sort of elegant dip. There was one girl in particular with light brown hair, not as tall as the others. And I was in love with her.” Henry got up and stood behind her.

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “No, but she looked at me once, and then it was the end of school term and in the autumn my parents moved and I went to a different school in another town.”

  “You still think about her.”

  “She wore her hair like you.”

  “Like this?” Rebecca said, taking Henry’s hand and holding it against the back of her head . “It’s how I wore it for Air France—but pulled very neat.”

  “I would have fallen for you in the sky,” he said and then left her to get ready.

  After drinking some coffee, they raced down the stairs holding hands and laughing. His hand felt very strong, and as they neared the last few steps, Henry stopped and pulled her to him.

  He hadn’t shaved that morning and the profile of his warm, slightly perspiring cheek renewed her desire for him.

  They mounted his old Vespa and dropped off the curb into a light stream of traffic.

  It was already hot. After about an hour, they crossed a bridge that coughed them on to a dusty road that seemed endless but was in fact climbing to a high, hot peak that Henry said had not seen consistent human life for thousands of years. There was a white tent in the distance, and several tables of large stones, and an old car that seemed to have been abandoned. They parked beside one of the tables. A tent flap went up like an eye opening, and a figure stood looking at them, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “Good morning,” the man said. “And who is this?”

  “Rebecca,” Henry said.

  “Not her, you,” the man said.

  Henry laughed.

  “I haven’t seen you in a week, Henry. Where have you been?”

  Before Henry could speak, the man patted him on the back.

  “Good to have you home, Henry. Now, who might this be?”

  “Hello,” Rebecca said, extending her hand. “Rebecca Baptiste.”

  “Baptiste, eh?” the man said, and then turned toward the tent.

  “Come on in and have some water—I’m Professor Peterson, by the way.”

  Henry took Rebecca’s helmet and followed her under the flap.

  They sat in canvas chairs. It was very cool and smelled faintly of vinegar. Several tables inside the tent were covered with tools and stones. There was also a sink connected to a large bucket, and a plastic washing-up bowl with some white sticky substance in it.

  “What news, Professor?” Henry said.

  “What news? Well, take these first—” The professor handed them each a glass of cold water. Then he lit his pipe and looked at Rebecca from the corner of his eye. He held the match into the stomach of his pipe—it flickered as he puffed, and then the tobacco caught and sizzled with each shallow intake of breath.

  “Giuseppe has gone back home for a week at least, his poor old mum is not well again.”

  “Again?” Henry said. He turned to Rebecca. “When Giuseppe’s mother misses him, she becomes so ill that he goes to her immediately.”

  “How are we going to get the script on that discus analyzed?” Henry said.

  “We’ll have to wait.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes,” Professor Peterson said. “If you do go down to the university, don’t mention that Giuseppe is not here.”

  “I won’t.”

  “They’re looking for any excuse to get rid of us.”

  “Are they?”

  The professor removed the pipe from his lips. “Well, I always think so.”

  After a little more conversation, they found themselves outside again in the heat. The professor gazed past Rebecca and Henry at Athens in the distance. An uneven film of smoke hung over the city like tufts of wool. They were many miles from Athens, but the heat, the energy, and the sense of human plight could be felt—even from such an isolated cliff.

  “If you want to be useful, my dear—” the professor said to Rebecca, “and I’m old enough to make such requests without the least awkwardness—feel free to sketch a few of the things on the table for the British school newsletter. I can pay you either in rocks or in compliments, or by sorting Henry out when he behaves intolerably.”

  “Finally, a man who understands women,” Rebecca said. “I’ll take the rocks.”

  “Henry tells me you are a gifted artist.”

  “But he’s never seen my work.”

  “Yes, I have,” Henry called up from his pit. “I glimpsed a few sketches on the living room floor this morning.”

  “But that was this morning,” she said.

  “I was right though, wasn’t I?”

  Rebecca followed the professor to a table covered by a sheet of plastic that was anchored by bricks. Then he pulled out a box of old British dental tools and explained what they were doing with them and where things went after being found, and which ones she might like to sketch.

  A few sketches later, Rebecca dozed in the hammock beside the tent. She had fanned herself with a faded copy of The Economist until falling asleep.

  Professor Peterson stepped to the edge of Henry’s pit.

  “You’re awfully quiet today, Henry—all this marriage business with Rebecca no doubt.”

  “Marriage?”

  “Steady on, Henry—anyway, where has that leg gone?”

  “It ran away.”

  “Very good.”

  “It was picked up yesterday, so it should be at the lab.”

  “Righto.”

  Henry gazed up and smiled at his old friend. The sun was too bright to make out the expression on the old man’s face.

  “You’re doing a fine job, as usual, my boy,” he said.

  Then Rebecca appeared. Her face glistened with perspiration.

  “Was I asleep for long?”

  “Not long,” Henry said. “An hour, tops.”

  “Henry found a femur last week,” the professor said.

  “I think it belonged to a woman,” added Henry.

  “How can you tell?” Rebecca said.

  “I get a sense of the shape, somehow.”

  “How does it feel holding the leg of someone who once lived?”

  Henry thought for a moment, cleaning the blade of a small shovel on his apron.

  “I wonder about their lives—not the main events, but small things, like drinking a glass of water, or folding clothes, or walking home.”

  The professor rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m going back to work.”

  Rebecca wobbled down the ladder into Henry’s pit.

  “Sometimes I find the bones of children,” he said. “These bones are very different than the bones of their ancient parents—I mean they feel different. Even though the children would still be dead if they had lived long lives, it just amazes me somehow.”

  Rebecca picked up a rock.

  “Is this anything?”

  Henry leaned in and surveyed it.

  “Do you think our lives stand for nothing and we are all destined to die and be forgotten?” she said.

  “In some ways,” Henry said. “I suppose you could say that we’re already dead—already lost—in some ways.”

  “Well if that’s true, Henry, then I’m going to lie down in your pit so that you can find me.”

  On the way back down the mountain, the world blew through their hair.

  The skin on Henry’s arms was a dark, deep brown, and warm to touch.

  When they entered Athens, the air was still and heavy.

  Henry raced through the city center, swerving around trucks destined for points far away. Res
taurants were opening for dinner.

  Rebecca held on under Henry’s linen jacket. The rushing coolness made her feel light, and for a few moments fearless. She would tell him soon about her childhood, for she could feel the love growing between them as a rare and unspoken trust that allowed her to reveal herself. If it continued, she felt sure that if it ever came time to fall, she would spread her arms and fly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As they neared his apartment in central Athens, Rebecca squeezed Henry to stop. He pulled to the side of the road, but didn’t turn off the motor.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she shouted. “Can we stop here for a minute?”

  “Okay,” he said with slight reluctance. Rebecca climbed off and Henry pulled the scooter up on to the sidewalk. Rebecca took off her helmet and scarf. Her hair was wet.

  “I need to go to a shop near here.”

  “Aren’t the shops closing?”

  Rebecca pointed to a row of buildings on the other side of the fountain.

  “I think it’s just over there somewhere,” she said. “With all the foreign boutiques.”

  It was still hot and the air was dusty.

  The normally packed shopping precinct had thinned to single people hurrying home with small packages of meat or fish.

  “Let’s go in here and get you something,” she said as they reached a heavy brown door. “I found this in my dress.” She held up a small orange envelope. “I want us to use it and get rid of it.”

  “I’m all dusty,” Henry said.

  Rebecca held the door.

  “I really don’t want anything,” Henry insisted, “but we can look for you.”

  “No, I can’t buy myself anything with this—let’s just use it for you.”

  The shop had several display cabinets of scarves and a long table set out for a full dinner with plates, cutlery, and napkins.

  In the middle of the shop were two saddles and a selection of equestrian accessories.

  “This place is amazing,” Henry said, picking up a riding crop.

  “It’s French,” Rebecca said, “like me.”

  The saleswoman glided toward them. She was in her late fifties and had short hair. She smiled at Rebecca and said in a deep voice, “Hello, mademoiselle.”

  Rebecca smiled. “I’m here to find something beautiful for this strange man.”

  “I really don’t need anything,” Henry said to the woman.