Everything Beautiful Began After

by Simon Van Booy

Then he is upon you, all arms.

  He is the first person you have hugged in years. Sicilians may not be particularly welcoming—but public shows of emotion are met with passionate approval.

  You hold one another and recreate an ancient tableaux.

  You look for shadows but see only the stone beneath, worn by centuries of footfall, centuries of pursuit and aspiration, centuries of worry that came to nothing.

  He is certainly more handsome. His face is in two halves now, darker and more chiseled. When your bodies separate, you sit down on a bench.

  There is a resolve in his voice you have never heard before. And then bells of the church come to life and shower you with hollow tones.

  Three hours later you are sitting in his kitchen. The table is light blue. His café-style chairs are bright red. He is stuffing two fish—spigola—with dried oregano and salt. The fish in his hand is a silver muscle, a flash of life.

  You start telling him about all the flights you took. The fish makes a wet sound when he sets it on the wooden cutting board. There is blood on his hand.

  You are drinking fizzy water from a tall glass with white lines. There is a pair of scales on the fridge. There is also a calendar on the wall. There are several cats in the apartment. They are thin and their fur is coarse and uneven. They are the strays of the town. George tells you that he feeds them regularly.

  On the walk back to his apartment from the square, you asked about the professor and his work in Turkey. You listened attentively. You can’t wait to see him. George carried your case and gave every beggar a coin. And he moved with the air of someone who is happy.

  “Sicily is the gateway to the underworld,” he said.

  You know he can sense the emotional void inside you—for his new love echoes in your abandoned house.

  He is working now as a professor. He teaches American exchange students. He has aged, you can see that, and he is still sober—which is a relief.

  George tells you more about his wife. She is not here tonight, he says. She is with her mother. But tomorrow her brothers will bring her home from her village of Francofonte. She is excited to meet you. He can’t stop telling you how beautiful she is.

  He has fallen too, but in the opposite way.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Like the armies that once landed here in wooden ships, you had been prepared to invade George’s world with the endless narrative of journey.

  But when you feel the lines of words poised and ready to fall in breathlike blows from you mouth, you feel only the soothing emptiness of this hot island, this “hollow ball of fire,” and the words age in your mouth and turn to crumbs and then ash.

  Perhaps in dreams these words will come to life again—once they are splashed with sleep.

  George leaves the table once during dinner to get a plate for bones.

  After you have eaten, you wipe your hands with the halves of lemons. On a tall wooden sideboard with glass doors, there is a photo of a sad old man. George sees you looking.

  “My father remarried.”

  “Your father?”

  “To a woman from Nigeria. They were just here—my mother came too with her boyfriend, same one she’s had for years.”

  George has become everything that he was capable of, while you have been ravaged.

  Later you wander the streets outside his apartment talking.

  You tell him everything.

  George asks where the journal is.

  “It’s in my case.”

  He wants to see it.

  “You don’t think the child should have it?” he says.

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. What good would it do?”

  “I was going to burn it, but I thought we could leave it in the sea.”

  “We can,” George says. “If that’s what you want.”

  Then you eat granita di caffè from plastic cups.

  He orders two bottles of water. Sobriety suits him. There is an effortless elegance in him the locals admire. He tells you he’s building a library for his department. He asks if you can help fill it, if you can find things to go in it. He tells you he wants knowledge to be given to others. You think he will soon become a father.

  He is full of the breath that brings life to empty places.

  You are hatching from the past.

  Glimpses of light, of feelings, thoughts, and ideas, wait to be discovered again.

  No . . . not discovered, but appreciated.

  The time of discovery has finished for you.

  Your life now is the appreciation of all that is good—all that is worth living for. And you embrace life and its inevitable end like hands joined in prayer.

  Your stillness is no longer despair but patience.

  Your grief is something to be admired—the pain of severance. A scar where something used to be.

  To love again, you must not discard what has happened to you, but take from it the strength you’ll need to carry on.

  END OF BOOK THREE

  Love is most nearly itself

  When here and now cease to matter.

  —T. S. Eliot

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Henry Bliss finally woke up in the late morning.

  He opened his eyes and for a moment was unable to place himself. Then he remembered that he was in Sicily, in a small town.

  Through the old lace curtains above his bed, morning seemed especially clear.

  Then the sound of George laughing.

  Then talking.

  As Henry dressed, he noticed that George had left a shirt and tie out for him on the inside door handle.

  Henry knotted a four-in-hand and hurried into the living room.

  George replaced the telephone handset.

  “That was my wife,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

  Under a plastic umbrella, George and Henry ate Sicilian hamburgers of horsemeat with ketchup and mayonnaise from a burger van.

  They talked in depth about Professor Peterson and his new project in Turkey—and then about how George and his wife, Kristina, were planning to visit him there for Christmas.

  Then suddenly, the sound of a cannon firing. Henry jumped in his seat. George chewed. It was another wedding, he explained. There was one almost every day in the summer. Another deafening boom resounded through the town.

  George described his own wedding. The brass band that followed them through the piazza. The trailing families, then tourists at the rear, enchanted by the public custom of a Sicilian marriage.

  A few birds passed over their heads, perching finally on a headless statue at the edge of the square.

  Then George asked Henry why he had really come to Sicily.

  Henry’s gaze rolled over the uneven terra-cotta roofs.

  “I suppose I don’t know. I wanted to see you, of course—but I don’t know why beyond that. It was saving Delphine from choking that finally got me here. But I don’t know why.”

  “Sometimes it takes a while,” George said. Then he admitted that his love for Rebecca was different than Henry’s—a truth he realized only after he met Kristina.

  “Back then, I just wanted someone I could care about—and who cared about me—isn’t that silly?”

  “Not if you’ve never had it, George.”

  George smiled. “Well, I’ve got it now and more. Are you happy for me?”

  “Blissful,” Henry said.

  “Why don’t you stay a month then?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s probably the last time you’ll ever have the freedom to stay somewhere for a month on a total whim.”

  Henry nodded appreciatively. He would have to call his parents. They would protest and he would have to convince them he’s feeling better or has found work.

  “How did you meet your wife, George?”

  “She drove over my foot here in the piazza.”

  “Is that how you meet everyone, George? They run you over.”

  George lau
ghed. “You’ll see.”

  Then a man came over with a small Tupperware box. He shook the box and George dropped a coin into it. And then another cannon shot boomed through the town, and the sky was a tangle of birds—like seeds thrown against blue porcelain.

  The street was beginning to fill up.

  “Let’s go to a café in the very center of town for coffee. It’s where I told Kristina we’d meet her.”

  George stood up and waved to the tall man clearing tables. He was wearing a plastic apron and had a long nose. The man shouted something and waved them off.

  “He’s been here for decades,” George said. “He does a roaring trade, but will never open an actual shop. It’s just not the way they do things here.”

  In the distance, down the Via Luca, a brass band played.

  Henry laughed. “Is it the same one that played at your wedding?”

  “It is,” George said. “It’s like so much here—unsophisticated but sincere.”

  They walked in silence for a little while, and then George said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Henry turned and looked curiously at his friend.

  “You’re wondering how I can live here,” George admitted.

  Henry smiled. “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “You couldn’t live here, could you?”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Henry said. “But I didn’t know why until I saw you.”

  “Oh?” George remarked.

  “Because I need more than love.”

  George smiled. “Is it that obvious?”

  The brass band in the distance was getting closer. A teenager with one arm passed quickly at a trot, beating his only fist in the air to the blasting trumpets.

  George stopped walking. The brass band was suddenly upon them, going in the opposite direction.

  The off-key trumpet players were at the back, and the procession was trailed by babies being pushed in strollers, a suited man walking alone with flowers, friends, family, endless cousins, a gang of young children—two of whom were dressed for a mock wedding—and then finally, two carabinieri in blue uniforms, trailed by a clothes rack on wheels with rows of inflatable Spider-Man helium balloons.

  George led Henry to a café in the center of the village, and they sat down.

  Before the waiter came to take their order, several children who had been sitting quietly on the steps stood up and called over to George, who pretended to ignore them.

  “I think those children are calling you,” Henry said.

  “Try and ignore them,” George whispered.

  “They look persistent.”

  “Don’t make eye contact. If you do then we’re finished.”

  “I think I already have because they’re coming over.”

  “Oh dear.”

  They came over in a small pack, saying “Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao” in a church voice to the tourists they brushed past at the rickety tables set up on the cobbles in front of the café.

  They surrounded George and Henry like a band of outlaws.

  “Questo è il mio amico Henry,” George said, presenting his friend. The children smiled respectfully.

  Then one of the smaller children said, “Welcome, old man!”

  George reluctantly raised his hand to the waiter, and the children cheered. The waiter cheered too, and the children ran off into the café and emerged a few minutes later—each with a cone of gelato.

  “Just when I think I’ve lost them,” George said. “They pop up somewhere.”

  “Who?”

  “Those little bastards,” he said pointing. They see him gesture in their direction, but their mouths are too full to say grazie, so they wave the same way George waves when saying good-bye to people.

  “You’re going to be an amazing father one day, George.”

  George shrugged. It was a new habit of his that Henry noticed was particular to the Sicilians.

  And then the brass band appeared again—this time going in the other direction, and fighting with a larger crowd of people.

  Henry noticed a woman in a wheelchair behind George’s chair, about to get swallowed up by the procession.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Henry said.

  The woman smiled when she saw him.

  “Thanks so much,” she said in a heavy Italian accent.

  The wheelchair handles were made of ostrich leather. The chair was a handsome dark green.

  “You speak English?” Henry said.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Sorry,” Henry said, not really knowing why.

  “I’m the one who is sorry,” she remarked, “for not being here to meet you yesterday.”

  “Kristina?”

  “Oh, Henry. Isn’t that why you came over?”

  “No.”

  “George was right then,” she said. “I am going to have a crush on you.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  After some fresh coffee, Kristina said she wanted to cool down in the sea.

  “Wait until you see our car,” George said, signaling to the waiter.

  “My husband loves his car more than he loves his wife.”

  “This must be some car,” Henry said. Then he took out some bills.

  “I have a tab,” George said. “Keep your money.”

  “Don’t argue with him,” Kristina said. “For someone who grew up rich, he’s very generous.”

  “Well, thank you, Signora Cavendish,” George said, slightly embarrassed.

  “I just meant to say that you’re kind.”

  “I know,” he assured her with a wink. “Let’s not argue in front of Henry.”

  Henry took the handles of her chair. The lanes of the town were warm.

  George carried her up the stairs to the front door. She talked to Henry the whole time. George looked tired but didn’t say anything. They all freshened up, and in an hour were outside again. George wheeled his wife toward a row of garages that faced their 1930s apartment building.

  “For my wedding present,” George said, “I finally took my father up on his guilty need to buy me things.”

  George fiddled with a rusty padlock and then slid open the garage door. The front end of a deep green automobile glinted where the sunlight reached inside the open door. Henry brushed his fingers along the headlight.

  “It’s not an E-type, is it?” Henry said.

  “But that’s not why it’s special,” George added. “Of course, 1966 E-type Jaguars are unique—but this is truly a one-of-a-kind, modified by Jaguar at the factory to accommodate Kristina’s chair.”

  “A bespoke E-type? You’ve certainly gone up in the world, George.”

  “They changed my chair too,” Kristina said, “to bolt in next to my husband.”

  Henry and Kristina waited outside the garage as George started the engine and slowly pulled forward into the light. The hood was enormously long.

  In George’s absence, Henry and Kristina looked at one another with a simple, unspoken appreciation for the parts they had played in the life of a man they both loved.

  The engine fired and spat.

  George got out and unfolded a ramp. Kristina positioned herself at the foot of it and George pushed her up. Then he clamped the chair to chrome bars that held the chair in place.

  “Amazing,” Henry said. “It’s so quick.”

  Henry clambered into the very small backseat behind Kristina as she brushed strands of blond hair from her face. Then she helped George find his sunglasses.

  Like many vintage automobiles, the seats carried the particular odor of leather, oil, and wood that had been cooking under glass for decades. The streets they negotiated were only wide enough for traffic to proceed one way. People waved from chairs set in doorways. The car was very loud.

  “They all know me,” George shouted above the engine. “She has a peculiar throatiness, doesn’t she?”

  “She?” Kristina shouted.

  “His other wife,” Henry pointed out.


  As they neared a tunnel, two cars swerved around them, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with an oncoming truck. Vespa scooters overtook on the inside, raising small clouds of dust. Their passengers bounced along unperturbed.

  “If you consider that the driving is largely unregulated—it’s actually civil,” George shouted above the engine.

  Behind them a small Fiat roared at its engine’s full capacity—inches away from the antique Jaguar. Henry turned around to see a middle-aged man with a perfectly calm face, close enough for Henry to tell that he needed a shave. The man nodded hello. Henry waved.

  “The Italians don’t really like to be alone—even when they’re driving,” shouted George. “And I love that about them.”

  “He’s always talking about ‘the Italians,’ ” Kristina said.

  “What do you do for work?” Henry shouted to her.

  “Cardiologist,” she shouted back.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I love it. I work mostly in hospice.”

  George turned down a small, dusty road that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Flowering oleander that lined the narrow lane was coated with white dust. As the road condition deteriorated, George slowed to a crawl.

  “When I was at boarding school,” he said, “I never dreamed I’d be driving an English E-type with my two best friends somewhere in the Mediterranean.” He turned and looked at Henry. “And so happy after everything we’ve been through.”

  “You’ve come a long way since then,” Henry said.

  Kristina nodded. “Yes, he has—I’m very proud of him.”

  Henry smiled, wondering how much George had told her.

  The road ended in a mess of cars parked crookedly against a stone wall. Henry could neither see the water nor hear it.

  A scatter of children climbed the wall and then set off along a narrow path with bags and chairs.

  It had been many years since Henry had walked on sand.

  George parked at a distance from the other cars. Henry asked Kristina if they wanted to be parents, but then quickly regretted it—suddenly conscious that somehow it was beyond her physically.

  George pulled up the handbrake. “If it happens it happens.”