Everything Beautiful Began After

by Simon Van Booy

  “To see if she had family.”

  “Not to fall in love with her all over again?”

  You say nothing because it’s true. Then your mouth is full of words, and impulsively you confess to Sebastian that Rebecca was pregnant.

  He stops walking and touches your arm.

  “With your child?”

  You nod.

  He seems more disturbed than you would have thought.

  Neither of you move.

  After a few moments, Sebastian seems like he wants to ask you something, but then shakes his head.

  “What’s done is done,” he says. “I’m glad you told me—it won’t go any further, I promise.”

  You walk for a long time without speaking.

  The road gets very narrow. Sebastian explains that it was built for horses and small traps. Then he points out a truck stop café where Natalie and Rebecca worked when they were teenagers.

  You remember the journal but say nothing. You don’t know what to think and consider that you will never know whose child Delphine really is—that you’ll never know whose feelings they were. To find out could cost the happiness of a little girl who is loved and knows nothing of the tragedy that defines you.

  “When I arrived here,” Sebastian explains, “the village was almost deserted. There was no work for the young, really, and so the elderly either died alone in the village or moved to nursing homes in the cities, closer to their kids.”

  “But how did you end up here?”

  “By literally crashing into it—into a stone wall, actually.”

  Sebastian stops walking and drinks in the air with long, deep breaths.

  “Earlier that day,” he went on, “I had taken drugs in a quiet corner of Gare du Nord in Paris, and then, in a sort of calm stupor, I climbed into a Mercedes that some foolish twat had left running outside the station.

  “Does that surprise you?” Sebastian asks.

  “A little,” you say.

  He is walking quickly now. You walk alongside him, listening, searching his story for a wisdom you can relate to.

  “I drove and drove, not knowing where I was going, but just driving. Then I must have turned off the highway and begun driving through the countryside around here. And then at some point, I crashed into a wall in the village.”

  “A few hours later at dawn I awoke covered in glass and partially crushed by the stones that had fallen through the windshield. And if you think all that is far-fetched, then listen to this, Henry. I stepped from the car and fell in love.”

  Sebastian stops walking again and spreads his arms.

  “With all this dereliction, I found myself enchanted.”

  Sebastian is much older than you thought—forty-seven.

  He has a brother with Down syndrome that he wants to move in with them eventually. Then you both come upon an abandoned barn. The walls are slanted gray stone with hanging moss.

  Sebastian leans on a gate and lights a cigarette.

  Chickens dot the yard, pecking around a battered Mercedes they’re using as a coup. All the windows are missing. The front end is also completely smashed in. A sign on the top says:

  TAXI

  PARISIEN

  Sebastian laughs.

  “The shiny paint gives it away,” you tell him.

  “Chicken shit will take care of that pretty soon,” he laughs. “That part of my life is long gone.”

  Sebastian walks you around the barn, pointing out birds’ nests, beehives, low bushy green squares covered with wire that mark the beginning of his organic vegetable business.

  “Anyway, to cut a long story short, I bought a derelict house for €�15,000, did it up, and then opened a little café, which I only do now in the summer—Delphine is the waitress, if you can imagine that—I have an old espresso machine and of course Coca-Cola and fizzy drinks for the kids. And I met Natalie when one day she came into my café when she was down from the Paris suburbs with Delphine, trying to sell her grandfather’s house. But the house couldn’t be sold.”

  “Why?”

  “Mold—it’s close to a lake and somehow the water has seeped underneath and the whole place is fucked. But it’s a big part of her life, you know—it’s where she and her sister grew up, so even though it’s a wreck, it would upset her to get rid of it completely—so it’s just standing. I’ll take you to see it if you want.”

  You nod, but then you think you wouldn’t like to see it.

  As you step through tall grass toward a gate, you decide to burn the journal. You’re still not sure who wrote it. You’ll never be sure and don’t care anymore.

  Delphine is a happy child—and truth is just a lie that everyone believes.

  Sebastian holds the gate open and tells you about the British Spitfire plane he found in the woods behind the house. He said that it was hidden there by the Résistance during the war after it crash-landed in a muddy field. Once his organic vegetable business is in full swing, he’s going to buy the parts for it and get it airborne, teach Delphine how to fly, he says.

  After crossing a few grassy meadows, you see Sebastian’s tall house in the distance. The shutters are painted white. Clouds drift beyond the roof.

  “Did the house come with the café?” you ask him.

  “That’s a secret,” he laughs. “We didn’t buy it from anyone—we just live in it.”

  “Do you know who it belongs to?”

  “I do,” Sebastian says. “A family that left after the war for Paris because they were collaborators.”

  “Do you know anything about Rebecca’s mother?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact,” Sebastian says.

  “Is she in Paris?”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “Rebecca told me.”

  “Natalie doesn’t know,” Sebastian admits.

  “Know what?”

  “That I went to see her.”

  “Is it true she abandoned her children?”

  “It is—and it’s lucky for them she did.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s got something—a mental thing—same as what her mother had.”

  “Rebecca’s grandmother?”

  “Yeah—she killed herself in the lake when Rebecca’s mother was a little girl.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The next morning, you wake and go downstairs. It’s getting cold. Fall is coming. A bright nest of fire crackles and spits in the stone fireplace. Sebastian is outside splitting wood with a long-handled axe.

  A cat stops eating and looks up at you. Before you can pet it, you hear purring.

  You decide to take a walk before breakfast, to stretch your legs and feel the morning wash through you.

  You don’t want to see Natalie anymore. She’s a stranger dressed in the clothes of someone you once loved. It’s impossible to love someone after they’ve died. And that’s why it hurts so much.

  Maybe tomorrow you’ll go back to Wales.

  You step into your shoes and leave quietly by the back door. You turn the handle very gently. The morning air is cold. A shallow mist lingers low across the fields.

  You pass Sebastian’s vegetable patch and climb over a gate into empty pasture.

  Then you hear, “Oh, Henry!”

  You look over a short hedge.

  “It’s Delphine!” says a young voice.

  “Yes, I recognize you.”

  You climb over a gate and join her on the other side.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she says.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Why are you awake so early, Delphine?”

  “Oh, I like to get up early,” she says. “So does Sebastian, but Mama sleeps all morning and sometimes keeps him in bed, which is so boring.”

  She pulls a piece of baguette from her pocket and hands it to you.

  “Breakfast,” she says.

  “Can we share it?” you say.

  “No, that’s yours—I have these,” s
he says, taking a handful of blueberries from her pocket. Delphine is wrapped in a double-breasted black wool coat, mittens, and a woolen hat. However, underneath the coat she is still wearing pajamas, which she’s tucked into her Wellingtons. The pajamas have cartoon frogs on them.

  “Have you come to let all the frogs go?”

  “Frogs?”

  “On your pajamas.”

  Delphine looks down at her leg.

  “No, I need those.”

  She points at holes in the mud she has carved out with a spoon. “Do you like mice?”

  “I love mice,” you say.

  “Well, Sebastian doesn’t, which is why I’ve made them a home here.”

  “In the mud?”

  “It’s where they’re happiest.”

  Delphine leans down and takes one of the plastic mice from its hiding place. It’s about the size of your thumb. It has a brown face with a painted-on shirt and tie.

  “Does he like it here?”

  “It’s his home—give me your hand.”

  You let her take it.

  “Can I put your hand in his den?”

  “If you’d like.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  “What about mouse plops?”

  “Mouse plops?” you say.

  “What if there are mouse plops?”

  “From him?” you add, pointing at the plastic mouse.

  “And his kids.”

  “It’s okay,” you say.

  “Sebastian said they’re bad. I got in trouble. He yelled.”

  “Mouse plops?”

  “Yes, if you touch them—they’re poisoning, Sebastian said.”

  “There are plops in here?”

  “Give me your hand, Awnree. Please.”

  She grips your hand again and guides it down to the tiny hollow in the mud. She puts your hand in and steps back.

  “Can you feel them?”

  “Who?”

  “Not who—the plops.”

  “Delphine,” you say, turning to her, “there are no plops in here.”

  “No mouse’s plops?” she says.

  “Can I see that mouse?” you say.

  Delphine hands you the mouse. You turn it over and sniff his bottom.

  “Delphine, this sort of mouse doesn’t plop—and so there are no plops in there.”

  A look of wild joy on her face.

  “Want to play?”

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Want a blueberry?”

  “Okay.”

  She takes one out of her pocket and gives it to you.

  “These mice don’t even make plops!” She laughs. Then she takes out another blueberry and eats it herself.

  You thank her for the blueberry when her face suddenly darkens. She sticks her fingers into her mouth as if she’s trying to make herself sick.

  Her eyes bulge with terror and confusion.

  Her mouth opens and closes—as if she is singing, but no sound comes out.

  You grab her shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?” you say sternly, shaking her. “Delphine! What’s wrong!”

  The lines of muscle in her neck are visible.

  Her tongue is lolling in and out of her mouth.

  You frantically position your clenched fists under her ribcage. Her small body lifts easily and she flies forward—dropping the plastic mouse clenched between her fingers. Her hat and one of her gloves comes off. You position her again—then violently thrust under her ribcage.

  Her face is purple.

  Her body flies up like a doll, but whatever you’re doing is not working.

  Then another thrust, and something shoots from her mouth. She is suddenly on the ground, coughing, retching—taking very deep breaths. She spies her mouse in the grass and slowly reaches for him. Then she lies on the ground with her eyes open wide.

  You pull her toward you and hold on tight. You rock her gently.

  She is touching the outside of her throat.

  At that moment it starts to rain.

  She looks at you and smiles.

  “We’ll get wet,” she says.

  Then, she pushes off and stands looking at you, not saying thank you, but there’s something in her eyes that tells you she understands what happened. Water is running down her face, and you don’t realize it immediately, but she’s crying.

  You watch her disappear toward the house, then get up very slowly. You are covered in mud.

  Crows bark in the trees.

  Every fiber in your body tingles. You are in the place that was meant for you. Everything had to be arranged like this to get you here.

  And you were ready.

  It’s something you feel, like a weight in both hands; it’s the faith that embodies God but incorporates logic.

  And there are hands we live between that open and close.

  Once aligned there is nothing to fear.

  And the tapping of rain in the fields is the tapping of footsteps passing.

  You are breathing again. You are with form.

  Chapter Sixty

  Heavy clouds drifting.

  You circle like Daedalus, the doomed father of Icarus.

  And then you realize it’s not cloud, but smoke from an ancient fire.

  Your plane cuts the silent plume of Mount Etna. From the mouth of a volcano a white scarf is unfurling.

  By the time Daedalus arrived in Sicily, his child had already fallen into the sea. You look down and imagine two feathered wings, each the length of an arm.

  The city of Catania.

  It shimmers from above like coins in the rocks.

  Waiting for your suitcase everyone stares at one another.

  A child is watching you as the belt shudders forward. She is inching toward it. She wants to touch. Her father puts down his cell phone and calls out to her.

  “Valeria! Valeria!”

  She pretends not to hear.

  She is wearing eyeglasses and hello kitty earrings.

  Her shoes have glitter in the straps. She is here for the summer in the place where her father was a boy. Her doll will be given new clothes by a grandmother in black. She’ll try certain foods for the first time and like them. Everyone will clap because it’s the food of her people. She looks at you without smiling and tries to guess which suitcase is yours.

  Without speaking you have become friends. You are talking with your eyes. You will never get to know one another. You will never even share a coffee or a fire or a book about the sea or any other moment, except the one right now that is this moment.

  And then you realize that you are thinking the way you used to.

  When you were Valeria’s age, you had the flint in your hands.

  Your mind is unreeling all the history you can fathom.

  Dinosaurs pull leaves from the tree above the shed. The sky echoes with the leathery snap of pterodactyl.

  You run toward the house.

  Your parents are watching television.

  The excitement is pouring from you.

  Your pants are wet because you waited to pee.

  You hold up the rock.

  It’s the greatest moment of your life. You smile at the little girl and her father.

  Dreamers conquered the world long ago.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  You are in a small Sicilian taxi. The interior is dusty—a bag of flour burst open.

  The past is a mess of lines, like a sketch seen from afar.

  Our perception of the future is the past in disguise.

  The driver is taking you to Noto.

  The driver taps the steering wheel and whistles softly through his teeth.

  Our greatest power in subtle, momentary gestures.

  For a land of rolling yellow fields, clear seas, and heavy baked rock—Sicily’s human history is a violent one. Myths of dismemberment, towns growing from slits w
here limbs were swallowed by the earth, countless invaders, earthquakes, volcanoes, and battles—those early lessons in human anatomy.

  You see water in the distance, a blue unblinking eye peeking over the hills.

  To Sicilians you are another invader. You have come to learn—to take away knowledge. Like Odysseus, you are a single soul with the burden of ages.

  Sicily was a gateway to the underworld. It was where Orpheus came to find Eurydice.

  You have been dropped in the main square.

  There are trees everywhere.

  People huddle in their shadows.

  We see in others what we want and what we fear.

  Close to the square there is a fountain of many streams. A cage of water. To get there, you must perish in the heat.

  People wander through the park. There are stone heads on blocks. Their features have worn away. But even the faceless dead of these stone men have shadows as real as anyone living. Like the Sicilian people themselves, the statues defy their historical disfigurement with a dignity foreigners will never understand.

  You will one day dissolve in the earth or in fire.

  And the trees are bursting with life, but their leaves are frayed at the edges.

  You are sitting on a bench in Sicily, in the town of Noto, where George lives.

  Once destroyed by an earthquake and then rebuilt.

  After every chapter of devastation, there is rebuilding.

  It happens without thought.

  It happens even when there is no guarantee it won’t happen again.

  Humans may come and go—but the thread of hope is like a rope we pull ourselves up with.

  And the sky is an open mouth. The streets of Noto are busy. People drain into the piazzas from the alleys—they negotiate their town in measured steps like hands on a clock. Their lives are the same but always different.

  In a square cornered by a baroque church and a gelateria, you can see someone you know sitting on a bench and your body breaks with joy. He has been waiting for you.

  He is wearing the clothes you last remember him in: linen trousers and a white shirt with a tie in a Windsor knot. Blue blazer, despite the heat.

  He sees you and rushes over.

  You both stand and look—two people separated only by the girth of everything they have to say.