Everything Beautiful Began After Part 39

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

George gulped gla.s.ses of cold water. Then Kristina wheeled herself to the sideboard for the wedding alb.u.m.

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 ill.u.s.trate 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. Celeste 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 sc.r.a.ps. 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 gus.h.i.+ng rivers, long dreaming nights in heavy sheets, falling asleep under trees, afternoon baths, the joy of friends.h.i.+p.

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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing bicycle, the desolation of snow on a winter's day.

On his slow walk on this brightest of nights, Henry Bliss pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s to reach the vast relief of occupied s.p.a.ce.

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 cus.h.i.+ons 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 Hermes 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, Benedicte 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 a.s.sembly 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 friends.h.i.+p to Lucas A. Hunt.

And enormous thanks to Carrie Kania-whose editorial brilliance, unequaled sense of humor, generosity, addiction to style, and deep friends.h.i.+p 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, t.i.tled 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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Also by Simon Van Booy.

FICTION.

The Secret Lives of People in Love.

Love Begins in Winter.

EDITOR.

Why We Fight.

Why We Need Love.