Everything Beautiful Began After (32 page)

“We don’t know yet if I can,” Kristina admitted, turning to George. “But we hope, don’t we?”

“Would you raise them in Italy?”

“Right here in Noto,” George said firmly.

The sunlight was very bright, and fell evenly upon the ground, washing everything with a bright glaze. The path to the beach looked narrow and rocky.

“How far is it?” Henry asked. George was unbolting his wife’s chair.

“About a five-minute walk,” he said without looking up. “Not too far—would you grab the bag of towels in the trunk?”

Henry nodded. He sensed a tension in George’s voice and again regretted bringing up the idea of children.

“We have grapes somewhere in a brown paper bag,” Kristina said.

Kristina unbuckled from her seat as George unfolded the ramp and lined up the wheels of her chair with two grooves in the door frame. When she was out of the car, George folded everything back up and bent down to lift her. She kissed him once and then reached her arms around his neck.

“Do me a favor, Henry, and put her chair in the car, would you?” George asked.

“You’re going to carry her all the way?” Henry said.

“I am,” George replied. “I always do—it saves me from having to join a gym.”

“Stop it,” Kristina said. “And concentrate—I don’t want to be dropped.”

“Stop what?” George answered with an exaggerated innocence.

“Stop teasing.”

“Who am I teasing?”

“Me.”

“I love carrying you,” he insisted.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

She turned to Henry. “This will be good.”

Henry put down the heavy canvas bag of beach towels.

“It’s simple,” George said. “I need to be needed.”

Kristina glanced up at Henry.

“It’s actually true,” she said. “It’s his only flaw.”

When they were halfway, George stopped to maneuver Kristina onto his back. He stepped carefully past low thick plants and the occasional jutting rock. The sky was a heavy blue, and the sun weighed down mercilessly upon them.

When they arrived at the beach, people were camped in groups—huddling in the shade under cotton umbrellas. The water was very still and of a light brown tint. Children splashed laughing. Old men slept under wide-brim hats.

In the distance, rocks rose up against the horizon. Some people had swum out to them with snorkels. Kristina said the plants that grew on the rocks attracted fish and other forms of life.

After George drove the umbrella into the sand, they lay on brown towels and ate grapes. Kristina was wearing an orange bathing suit, with a towel folded over her legs.

“I still can’t bring myself to go out there,” George said.

Kristina touched Henry’s arm.

“We’re so glad you came,” she said.

“She’s right, Henry, we don’t have to talk about it,” George sighed. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

Henry lifted a corner of the towel to dry his eyes.

“I’m glad you said it, actually,” Henry admitted. “I’m glad you said it because I was terrified you were going to ask me to go swimming.” After saying this he cried a bit more, and then he laughed.

Before leaving, Henry watched George carry his wife to the water. She screamed as they entered the sea. It must have been cold on her legs. George didn’t flinch. He bore her weight with the poise of the truly devoted.

It was very hot on the sand. People strolled by looking at Henry, not rudely, but as if they wondered who he was.

Henry carried Kristina on his back to the car. George trailed with the bag of towels making comments about an ancient ruin in the distance.

They slept away what remained of the afternoon.

At dusk, George entered Henry’s room with a glass of water.

“We like to dress up for dinner, Henry, if you don’t mind—just for fun, you understand.”

“Dress up? Like in animal costumes?”

“No.” He grinned. “Kristina is wearing a dress and I put on a tie—it’s very Italian.”

“I’m not sure I have—”

“Borrow something else of mine—though my shirts might be too big for you. I can’t believe you’ve traveled with only these things for two years—it’s almost religious.”

“Don’t worry,” Henry said. “I have plenty of other baggage.”

Over dinner, they opened the doors to the long balcony that ran along the edge of the apartment.

The sound of life from the street below filled the house.

Insects chirped and hissed from tall palms nodding over the piazza.

They talked about many things. Kristina explained how the heart works, the miracle of electricity and valves, chambers, arteries, and veins.

George gulped glasses of cold water. Then Kristina wheeled herself to the sideboard for the wedding album.

It was still quite hot and they were all sweating.

“So what’s next, Henry?”

“I don’t know. I’m broke.”

“I can lend you some money. But on the condition you stay with us for a while.”

Henry nodded. “I actually think I’d like that.”

“Bravo!” Kristina exclaimed from across the room. “I’d love it too.”

“Stop eavesdropping, you,” George said.

“George and I sometimes listen to music in the evenings,” Kristina said, holding up a compact disc case, “Beethoven’s
Pastoral
?”

They relocated to the balcony.

The high, crisp notes swept out into the dusk, igniting the great horizon beyond.

Night came with many stars.

And then one afternoon, without telling anyone, Henry went swimming. Weightless steps carried him forward until salt water came up to his chin.

He let his mouth fill, determined to take in some part of that other world.

He felt his body rise and fall with the current.

He floated upright in perfect silence, drifting farther out.

And then the water was suddenly dark.

The sensation of cold.

The sensation of change.

The sensation of sensation.

END OF BOOK FOUR

Nine Years Later
Paris, France

Instead of going straight home from the shop with his small bag of groceries, Henry decides to stroll through the courtyards of the Louvre Museum.

It is midsummer, and everything around him is glowing.

Henry has worked at the Louvre for seven years. He is a curator. He reconstructs scenes from the past to illustrate their beauty and significance.

His latest show includes pieces on loan from the Museum of Piraeus.

Professor Peterson is helping to prepare the book that will accompany the exhibition. Henry has known the professor now for more than thirty years.

Thankfully, the book they are working on for the exhibition is taking months to put together. The professor is staying with the Malraux family on the other side of Paris. They have a grand piano in their apartment. They also have a driver with photographs of his children on the dashboard. Céleste and Bernard are their names.

Professor Peterson likes to work late in the archives when evenings are warm like this. He likes to open windows and stare out into the many courtyards around the Louvre.

He drinks sherry by first wetting his lips.

His eyes are attracted to people who move slowly.

He walks with a cane and has trouble hearing.

George is still living in Sicily.

He has two young children.

He says it was hard but they did it.

Italian is their first language and they all have strong Sicilian accents.

When Henry visits in the winter, the children climb all over him. Their mother shouts at them to stop, but everyone is laughing.

The house is marked with the lines and scuffs from her wheelchair. Stray cats still wait outside the door for scraps. It’s always hot, and something is cooking.

Henry’s friends from the museum have already left Paris for their summer homes in Burgundy or the Loire Valley. Henry will soon join them for long dinners, the soft fumes of wine, warm gushing rivers, long dreaming nights in heavy sheets, falling asleep under trees, afternoon baths, the joy of friendship.

The stones crunch beneath Henry’s shoes. Inside his shopping bag is a clay pot of yogurt, an orange, an apple, and a bottle of water. The plastic handles weigh in heavy lines upon his fingers. He likes to feel its swing as he walks—like a pendulum, timing his journey across the open squares of the museum, from which stone watchmen, carved high into the walls, peer blindly down at the tourists and their silver boxes of lightning.

A young couple have shed their backpacks to make ripples in the black waters of a fountain. A homeless man talks to himself about something important.

Henry walks slowly. His hair is graying, and he likes a glass of wine before bed.

Sometimes he walks home along the River Seine and, remembering his old friend in Sicily, drops a coin into any hand that reaches out for one.

Sometimes he thinks of her, of them. Of what could have been.

Sometimes it’s all he thinks about.

But he doesn’t stop walking anymore.

He doesn’t stop to look around.

He keeps going.

He can feel the weight of their lives in a single step forward.

And he is enchanted by the beauty of small things: hot coffee, wind through an open window, the tapping of rain, a passing bicycle, the desolation of snow on a winter’s day.

On his slow walk on this brightest of nights, Henry Bliss passes high windows that reveal the museum in fractional glances; the sleeve of a Napoleonic uniform in oil, a white marble shoulder, the head of a lion sewn into a tapestry.

He approaches the steps that lead to the dim archway between courtyards—a narrow echoing chamber through which everyone must pass to reach the vast relief of occupied space.

Setting his foot upon the first stone, motion draws him.

Someone has fallen.

A woman is lying on the ground.

The people around gasp, but stand at a distance—their heads move with dismay and indecision.

Henry drops his bag and breaks through the crowd.

He’s soon on his knees with his palms out.

He touches her; cradles her head and cushions it with his hands against the sharp stones of the courtyard.

She stares at him without blinking.

It’s the story he will one day tell his daughter:

A camera in pieces.

He takes all her weight and the heaviness to come.

He raises her back into the world.

Her arms push on his, but he lifts her with his eyes.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the following:

Les Arts Florissants, Amy Baker, Erica Barmash, the O’Brien Family, Joshua Bodwell, Bryan Le Boeuf, Dr. A. S. and Mrs. J. E. Booy, Darren and Raha Booy, Douglas and Aneta Borroughs Esq., Milan Bozic, Ken Browar, David Bruson, Gabriel Byrne, Tricia Callahan, Billy O’Callaghan, Pamela Carlson, Jessica Chen
for Chinese translation
, the Connelly Family, Mary Beth Constant, Joan Copeland, Christine Corday, Christina Daigneault Esq.
of Orchard Strategies
, Ryan Davies, Emily Dixon, the
East Hampton Star
, Dr. Laura Falesi
for help with archaeology
, Peggy Flaum, Tom Ford, Dr. G. Frazzetto, the Frazzetto family
in Sicily
, the Gaddis Family, Valentino, Dr. Bruce Gelb, Dr. Greg Gulbransen, Jen Hart, Dr. Maryhelen Hendricks
at SVA
, Dolores Henry, Gregory Henry, the Hermès Group, Nancy Horner, Sebastian Horsley, Mr. Howard, Jaguar Automobiles, Dr. M. Kempner, Alan Kleinberg, Hilary Knight, Agnes Korbani
for Arabic translation
, the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society of East Hampton, Bénédicte Le Lay
for help with French translation
, the Lotos Club, Peng Lun, Madeleine
for her remarkable drawings
, Alain Malraux, Lisa Mamo, Michael and Delphine Matkin, McNally Jackson Booksellers, Dr. Edmund Miller, Dr. Bob Milgrom
at SVA
, Cal Morgan, Samuel Morris III, Bill Murray, Dr. William Neal of Campbellsville University, Neil Olson, New & Lingwood, Lukas Ortiz, Cristina Palomba, Robert and Babette Pereno, Professor William and Mary Peterson, Simon and Tam Petherick, Francine Prose, Jonathan Rabinowitz, Stephanie Reed
for help with archaeology and linguistics
, Rob, Alberto Rojas, Hala Schlub, Ivan Shaw, Anthony Sperduti
at Partners & Spade
, Philip G. Spitzer, Virginia Stanley, Jeremy Strong, Lorilee Van Booy, Jan T. Vilcek, Marcia Vilcek, and Rick A. Kinsel
of the Vilcek Foundation
, Fred Volkmer, Catrin Brace and Judith Kampfner of the Welsh Assembly Government, and Dr. Barbara Wersba.

Very special thanks to Rich Green, Carrie Howland, Michael Signorelli, and Poppy de Villeneuve, and extra special thanks for poetic brilliance and friendship to Lucas A. Hunt.

And enormous thanks to Carrie Kania—whose editorial brilliance, unequaled sense of humor, generosity, addiction to style, and deep friendship helped make this book possible.

About the Author

SIMON VAN BOOY
grew up in rural Wales. He is the author of
The Secret Lives of People in Love
and
Love Begins in Winter
, which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He is the editor of three philosophy books, titled
Why We Fight, Why We Need Love
, and
Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter
, and his essays have appearedin the
New York Times, The Daily Telegraph
, and
The Guardian
, and on NPR. He lives in New York City, where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts and is involved in the Rutgers Early College Humanities program for youngadults living in underserved communities. He was a finalist for the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, and his work has been translated into thirteen different languages.

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FICTION