On Beauty (52 page)

‘At least they're not starving half to death,' said Kiki, getting down on her knees to look under the bed. ‘At least they've got some flesh on their bones. OK – there's
all kinds of crap
under here. You take that end and lift.'

Jerome hiked up his end of the bed.

‘Higher,' requested Kiki and Jerome obliged. Suddenly Kiki's right knee slipped and her hand went to the floor. ‘Oh, my God,' she whispered.

‘What?'

‘Oh, my
God
.'

‘
What?
Is it porn? My arm's getting tired.' Jerome lowered the bed a little.

‘DON'T MOVE!' screamed Kiki.

Jerome, terrified, lifted the bed high. His mother was gasping, like she was having some kind of a fit.

‘Mom – what? You're scaring me, man. What is it?'

‘I don't understand this. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS.'

‘Mom, I can't hold this any longer.'

‘HOLD IT.'

Jerome saw his mother get a grip on the sides of something. She slowly began to pull out whatever it was from under the bed.

‘What the . . . ?' said Jerome.

Kiki dragged the painting into the middle of the floor and sat next to it, hyperventilating. Jerome came up behind her and tried to touch her to calm her, but she slapped his hand away.

‘Mom, I don't understand what's going on. What
is
that?'

Then came the sound of the front door clicking and opening. Kiki leaped to her feet and left the room, leaving Jerome to stare at the naked brown woman surrounded by her Technicolor flowers and fruit. He heard screaming and yelling from upstairs.

‘OH, REALLY – OH, REALLY – NOTHING GOING ON!'

‘LET GO OF ME!'

They were coming down the stairs, Kiki and Levi. Jerome went
to the door and saw Kiki smack Levi round the head harder than he'd ever seen.

‘Get
in
there! Get your ass in there!'

Levi fell into Jerome and then both of them almost fell on to the painting. Jerome steadied himself and pulled Levi aside.

Levi stood dumbfounded. Even his powers of rhetoric could not obscure the evidence of a five-foot oil painting hidden underneath his own bed.

‘Oh,
shit
, man,' he said simply.

‘WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?'

‘Mom,' tried Jerome quietly, ‘you need to calm down.'

‘Levi,' said Kiki, and both boys recognized her coming on ‘all Florida', which was the same thing, in Kiki terms, as ‘going postal', ‘you'd better open your mouth with some kind of explanation or I am
gonna strike you down where you stand
, as God is my witness, I will
wear
your ass out today.'

‘Oh
shit
.'

They heard the front door open and slam again. Levi looked in that direction hopefully, as if some intervention from upstairs might save him, but Kiki ignored it, yanking him by his sweatshirt to face her. ‘Because I
know
no son of mine steals ANYTHING – no child I ever raised took it into his head to steal ANYTHING FROM ANYBODY. Levi, you better open your mouth!'

‘We didn't steal it!' managed Levi. ‘I mean, we took it, but it ain't stealing.'

‘
We?
'

‘This guy and me, this . . . guy.'

‘Levi, give me his name before I break your neck. I am
not
playing with you today, young man. There ain't no games here today.'

Levi squirmed. From upstairs came the noise of shouting.

‘What's . . . ?' he said, but that was never going to work.

‘Never
mind
what's going on up there – you better start worrying about what's going on down
here
. Levi, tell me the name of this man
now
.'

‘Man . . . it's like . . . I can't do that. He's a guy . . . and he's a
Haitian guy and –' Levi took a breath and began to speak extremely quickly. ‘Trust me, you don't even understand, it's like – OK, so,
this painting is stolen anyway
. It don't even
belong
to that guy Kipps, not really – it was like twenty years ago and he just went to Haiti and got all these paintings by lying to poor people and buying them for a few dollars and now they be worth all this money and it ain't
his
money and we're just trying to –'

Kiki pushed Levi hard in the chest. ‘You
stole
this from Mr Kipps's office because some
guy
told you a lot of
bullshit
? Because some brother spun you a load of conspiracy bullshit? Are you an
idiot
?'

‘No! I'm not an idiot – and it's not bullshit! You don't know anything about it!'

‘Of
course
it's bullshit – I happen to know this painting, Levi. It belonged to
Mrs
Kipps. And
she
bought it herself, before she was even married.'

This silenced Levi.

‘Oh, Levi,' said Jerome.

‘And that isn't even the point, the point is you
stole
. You just
believed
anything these people say. You just gonna believe them all the way to jail. Just want to be cool, show you the big man around a load of
no-good Negroes
who don't even –'

‘IT AIN'T LIKE THAT!'

‘That's
exactly
what it's like. It's those guys you been spending all your time with – you can't lie to me. I am so angry at you right now. I am so MAD right now! Levi – I'm trying to understand what you think you've achieved by stealing somebody's property. Why would you
do
this?'

‘You don't understand anything,' said Levi very quietly.

‘What was that?
Excuse
me? WHAT WAS THAT?'

‘People in Haiti, they got NOTHING, RIGHT? We living off these people, man! We – we – living off them! We sucking their blood – we're like vampires!
You
OK, married to your white man in the land of plenty –
you
OK.
You
doing fine. You're living off these people, man!'

Kiki stuck a shaky finger in his face. ‘You crossing a line right
now, Levi. I don't know what you're talking about – I don't think you do either. And I
really
don't know what any of this has to do with you becoming a
thief
.'

‘Then why don't you
listen
to what I'm talking about. That painting don't belong to him! Or his wife! These people I'm talking about, they remember how things went
down
, man – and now look how much it's worth. But that money belongs to the Haitian people, not some . . . some
Caucasian art dealer
,' said Levi, confidently remembering Choo's phrase. ‘That money needs to be redis – to be shared.'

Kiki was briefly too astounded to speak.

‘Umm, that's not the way the world works,' said Jerome. ‘I study economics and I can tell you that isn't the way the world works.'

‘That's
exactly
the way the world works! I know you all think I'm some kind of a fool – I'm not a fool. And I been reading, I been watching the news – this shit is
real
. With that money from that painting you could go build a hospital in Haiti!'

‘Oh, is
that
what you were intending to do with the money?' asked Jerome. ‘Build a hospital?'

Levi made a face both sheepish and defiant. ‘No, not zackly. We was going to
redistribute
,' said Levi successfully. ‘The funds.'

‘I see. So how exactly were you gonna sell it? Ebay?'

‘Choo had people on that.'

Kiki found her voice again. ‘Choo?
Choo?
WHO IS CHOO?'

Levi covered his face with both hands. ‘Oh,
shit
.'

‘Levi . . . I'm trying to understand what you're telling me,' said Kiki slowly, making an effort to calm herself. ‘And I . . . I understand that you had concerns about these people, but, baby, Jerome's right, this is not the way you go about solving social problems, this is not how you –'

‘So how
do
you do it?' demanded Levi. ‘By paying people four dollars an hour to clean? That's how much you pay Monique, man! Four dollars! If she was American you wouldn't be paying her no four dollars an hour. Would you? Would you?'

Kiki was stunned.

‘You know what, Levi?' she said, her voice breaking. She bent
down to put her hands to one side of the painting, ‘I don't want to talk to you any more.'

‘ 'Cause you ain't got no answer to that!'

‘
Because
the only thing that comes out of your mouth is
bullshit
. And you can save it for the poh-leese when they come and drag your ass off to jail.'

Levi sucked his teeth. ‘You ain't got no answer,' he repeated.

‘Jerome,' said Kiki, ‘take the other side of this. Let's try to get it upstairs. I'll call Monty and see if we can sort this out without a lawsuit.'

Jerome went to the other side and hitched the painting up on to his knee. ‘I think longwise. Levi – get out of the damn way,' he said, and together they turned themselves a hundred and eighty degrees. As they were completing this manoeuvre, Jerome began to yank at something on the back of the canvas.

Kiki let out a little scream. ‘No!
No!
Don't pull at it! What are you
doing
? Have you damaged it? Oh,
Jesus Christ
– I don't believe this is happening.'

‘No, Mom, no . . .' said Jerome uncertainly. ‘It's just there's something stuck here . . . it's fine . . . we can just. . .' Jerome brought the painting upright and rested it against his mother. He pulled again at a piece of white notecard tucked into the frame.

‘Jerome! What are you doing? Stop doing that!'

‘I just want to see what . . .'

‘Don't tear it,' yelled Kiki, unable to see what was going on. ‘Are you tearing it? Leave it!'

‘Oh, my God . . .' whispered Jerome, forgetting his own blaspheming rule. ‘Mom?
Oh, my God!
'

‘What are you doing? Jerome!
Why are you tearing it more?
'

‘Mom! Oh, shit, Mom! Your name's written here!'

‘
What?
'

‘Oh, man, this is too fucking weird . . .'

‘Jerome! What are you
doing
?'

‘Mom . . . look.' Jerome pulled the note free. ‘Here, it says
To Kiki – please enjoy this painting. It needs to be loved by someone like you. Your friend, Carlene
.'

‘
What?
'

‘I'm reading it! It's right here! And then, under that,
There is such a shelter in each other
. This is too weird!'

Kiki lost her legs, and it was only Levi's intervention, hands at her waist, which prevented both Kiki and painting from hitting the floor.

Ten minutes earlier, Zora and Howard had arrived back home together. After driving around Wellington for most of the afternoon, thinking things over, Zora had spotted Howard walking back from the Greenman. She gave him a lift. He was in chipper spirits after a good afternoon's work on his lecture and spoke so much and so continually that he didn't notice that his daughter was not responding. Only when they came through the front door did it dawn on Howard that a cold front was coming off Zora in his direction. They walked silently into the kitchen, where Zora threw the car keys on to the table with such vigour that they slid the length of it and fell off the other side.

‘Sounds like Levi's in trouble,' said Howard cheerfully, nodding towards the sound of shouting coming from the basement. ‘He had it coming. I can't say I'm surprised. There're sandwiches developing into life forms in that room.'

‘Ha,' said Zora. ‘And ha.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Just admiring your ironic gift for comedy, Daddy.'

Sighing, Howard sat down in the rocking chair. ‘Zoor – have I pissed you off? Look, if it was that last grade, let's discuss it. I think it was fair, darling, that's why I gave it. The essay was just badly structured. Ideas-wise it was fine, but – there was a lack of . . . concentration, somehow.'

‘It's true,' said Zora. ‘My mind's been elsewhere. I'm real focused now, though.'

‘Good!'

Zora rested her backside on the lip of the kitchen table. ‘And I've got a bombshell for the next faculty meeting.'

Howard put on his interested face – but it was spring, and he wanted to go into the garden and sniff the flowers, and maybe take his first swim of the year and towel off upstairs, and lie naked on the marital bed he had so recently been allowed to return to, and pull his wife on to that bed with him and make love to her.

‘The discretionaries?' said Zora. She lowered her eyes to avoid the bright, reflected sun streaming through the house. It dappled the walls and made the whole place look like it was underwater. ‘I don't think that's going to be a problem any more.'