Everything Beautiful Began After (6 page)

“When we were walking in the marketplace, you mentioned the bones.”

“Oh.”

And from the remains of the fish that lay on his plate, Henry explained how bones grow, how they change, and a few of the intricacies involved with his work.

Rebecca said that it was impossible for an artist to draw a person without seeing them alive, at least once.

Henry folded his arms appreciatively.

“Only Michelangelo could resurrect the dead,” she went on. “I heard a story where a Roman statue was found about fifteen hundred years after it had been sculpted. It was intact except for a missing arm. Michelangelo was asked to sculpt a new one. Despite serious concern at the angle of the new arm in relation to the body, Michelangelo insisted that it was anatomically correct—that his arm was an exact replica of the missing arm. A few hundred years later, a farmer found a heavy piece of marble in his field outside the city of Rome, which turned out to be the original missing arm from the statue.”

“And?” Henry exclaimed, ashing his cigarette.

“It was exactly the same shape and dimensions as the one Michelangelo had made.”

“Amazing story.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever make a living from painting,” Rebecca admitted, “but if I work hard, I might get to a certain standard—maybe good enough to exhibit in Paris.”

“That’s exciting,” Henry said, “and enviable.”

“Enviable?”

“Yes,” Henry explained, “most people don’t have such a passion for something. When you do, it stands out.”

Rebecca asked him if it felt personal, taking people’s bones from the soil.

“No, but I suppose it is. I’m their last point of contact.”

“It sounds as though you wish you could say ‘hope,’ their last point of ‘hope.’ ”

Henry thought for a moment. “But I’m a scientist; I would never say that. There’s a reason why people die, and it’s often straightforward—nothing to get emotional about.”

Then he looked over the balcony. A man was brushing his dog next to the fountain. The dog was standing very still with his tongue out.

“How about those human remains,” Rebecca said.

Henry smiled at her.

“I wonder what will happen to mine,” she laughed. “I wonder what will remain of my life—who will find my body.”

Henry nodded.

“Will anyone remember the way I felt?” she said and then forked the last few pieces of flesh from under the spine of her fish.

Henry removed the plates.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Rebecca sat alone on the balcony as Henry disappeared into the bright kitchen. It was getting dark. More people had gathered at the fountain. Three old men had taken off their shoes. They lit cigarettes. The smoke drifted above them, unfolding its wispy arms until it reached Rebecca as the faint aroma of something on fire.

“Are you ever going back to Wales?” Rebecca shouted toward the kitchen.

“No,” Henry bellowed. “Would you care for more wine?”

“
Oui, oui,
of course,” she shouted. “I’m a French girl after all.”

Henry returned with a fresh bottle and a packet of Greek cigarettes.

“Why did you come to Athens really?” she asked.

“I’m an archaeologist—so I need ancient places.”

“But people die everywhere.”

“But they have to have died a long time ago,” Henry said, and found her hand under the table for the second time that day. “It’s most interesting to me if they died before the invention of written language, because in the absence of records, the way someone is buried tells us so much about what was important to them when they were alive.”

“Did you grow up close to Paris?” He poured a heavy glass of wine. Rebecca shook her head.

“I think someone once said that Paris is the most modern of ancient cities, while New York is the most ancient of modern cities,” Henry said.

“Who said it?”

“I forget now—were you always a painter?”

She touched her chest. “In here, yes, but I worked for Air France for a few years.”

“Air France?”

“As a flight attendant.”

“Is that why your English is so good?”

She nodded. “I speak Italian too, and Dutch, but no Greek.”

“God in heaven,” Henry said with a lustful groan. “All men love flight attendants.”

Rebecca raised her eyebrows with mild distaste.

“I love the little hats. Were you good at it?”

“I think so,”

“Did you ever have any difficult passengers?”

“Never,” she laughed.

“That means they all were—tell me some more about it, I’m really interested, really interested!”

Rebecca brushed a few strands of flame-red hair from her face and took a drink before speaking.

“To see those people there like that, up there in the sky with me—some sleeping, some reading, but most staring up at the television, was very bizarre.”

“Really?”

“I wanted to paint them, not serve little plates of warm pasta.”

“Is it true that the pilots seduce the flight attendants?”

“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 really 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.