On Beauty (9 page)

‘Wonderful, isn't it?' said Kiki. ‘We're so glad to bump into you two. Is Maisie here, Jack? Or the kids?'

‘It
is
wonderful,' confirmed Jack, putting his hands on his slim hips.

Zora was elbowing her father in his mid-section. Howard observed the moon-eyes his daughter was making at Dean French. It was typical of Zora that when actually faced with the authority figure she had been cursing out all week she would simply swoon at said authority figure's feet.

‘Jack,' tried Howard, ‘you've met Zora, haven't you? She's a sophomore now.'

‘It is an unusual visitation of wonder,' said Jack, turning back to them all.

‘Yes,' said Howard.

‘For such a prosaic and,' expanded Jack.

‘Hmm,' said Howard.

‘
Municipal
setting,' said Jack, and beamed at Zora.

‘Dean French,' said Zora, picking up Jack's hand and shaking it for him, ‘I'm so excited about this year. It's an incredible line-up you've got this year – I was in the Greenman – I work on Tuesdays in the Greenman, in the Slavic section? And I was looking at the past faculty reports like for the past five years, and every year since you've been Dean we just keep on getting more and more amazing guest
lecturers
and
speakers
and
research fellows
– myself and my friends, we're just really psyched about this semester. And of course
Dad's
giving his incredible art theory class – which I am so taking this year – I'm just so over whatever anybody has to say about that – I mean, in the end you've just got to take the class that will most develop you as a human being at whatever cost, I truly believe that. So I just wanted to say that it's just really exciting for me to feel that Wellington's moving through a new progressive stage. I think the college is really moving in a positive direction, which it needed, I think, after that dismal power struggle in the mid-to-late eighties, which I think really dented morale around here.'

Howard did not know which piece of this horrible little speech the Dean was capable of extracting from the rest, of processing
and/or replying to, nor had he any idea how long this might take. Kiki once again came to his rescue.

‘Honey – let's not talk shop tonight, OK? It's not polite. We've got all semester for that, haven't we . . . Oh, and before I forget, God, it's our
wedding anniversary
in a week and a half – we're gonna have like a shin-dig, nothing much, some Marvin Gaye, some soul-food – you know, very mellow . . .'

Jack asked the date. Kiki told him. Jack's face gave in to that tiny, involuntary shudder with which Kiki had, in recent years, become familiar.

‘But of course it's your actual anniversary, so . . .' said Jack, meaning to have said that to himself.

‘Yep – and since by the fifteenth everybody's crazy busy anyway, we thought we might as well just have it on the actual day . . . and it might be an opportunity to . . . you know, everybody say hello, meet the new faces before semester begins, etcetera.'

‘Although your own faces,' said Jack, his face alight with private delight at the thought of the rest of his sentence, ‘of course, will not be so new to each other, will they? Is it twenty-five years?'

‘Honey,' said Kiki, laying her big bejewelled hand on Jack's shoulder, ‘confidentially, it's
thirty
.'

Some emotion came into Kiki's voice as she said this.

‘Now, in the proverbial way of things,' considered Jack, ‘would that be silver? Or is it gold?'

‘Adamantine chains,' joked Howard, pulled his wife to him and kissed her wetly on her cheek. Kiki laughed deeply, shaking everything on her.

‘But you'll come?' asked Kiki.

‘It will be a great –' began Jack, beaming, but just then came the divine intervention of a voice over a tannoy system, asking people to take their seats.

Mozart's Requiem begins with you walking towards a huge pit. The pit is on the other side of a precipice, which you cannot see over until you are right at its edge. Your death is awaiting you in that pit. You don't know what it looks like or sounds like or smells like. You don't know whether it will be good or bad. You just walk towards it. Your will is a clarinet and your footsteps are attended by all the violins. The closer you get to the pit, the more you begin to have the sense that what awaits you there will be terrifying. Yet you experience this terror as a kind of blessing, a gift. Your long walk would have had no meaning were it not for this pit at the end of it. You peer over the precipice: a burst of ethereal noise crashes over you. In the pit is a great choir, like the one you joined for two months in Wellington in which you were the only black woman. This choir is the heavenly host and simultaneously the devil's army. It is also every person who has changed you during your time on this earth: your many lovers; your family; your enemies, the nameless, faceless woman who slept with your husband; the man you thought you were going to marry; the man you did. The job of this choir is judgement. The men sing first, and their judgement is very severe. And when the women join in there is no respite, the debate only grows louder and sterner. For it
is
a debate – you realize that now. The judgement is not yet decided. It is surprising how dramatic the fight for your measly soul turns out to be. Also surprising are the mermaids and the apes that persist on dancing around each other and sliding down an ornate staircase during the
Kyrie
, which, according to the programme notes, features no such action, even in the metaphorical sense.

Kyrie eleison
.

Christe eleison
.

Kyrie eleison
.

That is all that happens in the
Kyrie
. No apes, just Latin. But for Kiki, it was apes and mermaids all the same. The experience of listening to an hour's music you barely know in a dead language you do not understand is a strange falling and rising experience. For minutes at a time you are walking deep into it, you seem to understand. Then, without knowing how or when exactly, you discover you have wandered away, bored or tired from the effort, and now you are nowhere near the music. You refer to the programme notes. The notes reveal that the past fifteen minutes of wrangling over your soul have been merely the repetition of a single inconsequential line. Somewhere around the
Confutatis
, Kiki's careful tracing of the live music with the literal programme broke down. She didn't know where she was now. In the
Lacrimosa
or miles ahead? Stuck in the middle or nearing the end? She turned to ask Howard, but he was asleep. A glimpse to her right revealed Zora concentrating on her Discman, through which a recording of the voice of a Professor N. R. A. Gould carefully guided her through each movement. Poor Zora – she lived through footnotes. It was the same in Paris: so intent was she upon reading the guide book to Sacré-Coeur that she walked directly into an altar, cutting her forehead open.

Kiki tipped her head back on her deckchair and tried to let go of her curious anxiety. The moon was massive overhead, and mottled like the skin of old white people. Or maybe it was that Kiki noted many older white people with their faces turned up towards the moon, their heads resting on the back of their deckchairs, their hands dancing gently in their lap in a way that suggested enviable musical knowledge. Yet surely no one among these white people could be more musical than Jerome, who, Kiki now noticed, was crying. She opened her mouth with genuine surprise and then, fearful of breaking some spell, closed it again. The tears were silent and plentiful. Kiki felt moved, and then another feeling interceded: pride.
I
don't understand, she thought, but
he
does. A young black man of intelligence and sensibility, and
I
have raised him. After all, how many other young black men would even come to an event like this – I bet there isn't one in this entire crowd, thought Kiki,
and then checked and was mildly annoyed to find that indeed there was one, a tall young man with an elegant neck, sitting next to her daughter. Undeterred, Kiki continued her imaginary speech to the imaginary guild of black American mothers:
And there's no big secret, not at all, you just need to have faith, I guess, and you need to counter the dismal self-image that black men receive as their birthright from America – that's essential – and, I don't know . . . get involved in after-school activities, have books around the house, and sure, have a little money, and a house with outdoor
 . . . Kiki abandoned her parental reverie for a moment to tug at Zora's sleeve and point out the marvel of Jerome, as if these tears were rolling down the cheek of a stone madonna. Zora glanced over, shrugged and returned to Professor Gould. Kiki returned her own gaze to the moon. So much more lovely than the sun and you can look at it without fear of harm. A few minutes later, she was preparing to make a final, concentrated effort to match the sung words with the text on the page when suddenly it was over. She was so surprised she came late to the clapping, although not as late as Howard, whom it had only just awoken.

‘That it, then?' he said, springing from his chair. ‘Everyone been touched by the Christian sublime? Can we go now?'

‘We have to find Levi. We can't go without him . . . maybe we should try Jerome's cell . . . I don't know if it's on.' Kiki looked up at her husband with sudden curiosity. ‘What, so you hated it? How can you hate it?'

‘Levi's over there,' said Jerome, waving towards a tree a hundred yards away. ‘Hey – Levi!'

‘Well,
I
thought it was amazing,' pressed Kiki. ‘It's obviously the work of a genius –'

Howard groaned at the term.

‘Oh, Howard, come
on
– you
have
to be a genius to write music like that.'

‘Music like what? Define genius.'

Kiki ignored the request. ‘I think the kids were quite moved,' she said, squeezing Jerome's arm lightly but saying no more. She would not expose him to his father's ridicule. ‘And
I
was very moved. I
don't see how it's possible not to be moved by music like that. You're serious – you didn't like it?'

‘I liked it fine . . . it was fine. I just prefer music which isn't trying to fake me into some metaphysical idea by the back door.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about. It's like God's music or something.'

‘I rest my case,' said Howard, and now turned from her and waved at Levi, who was stuck in the crowd, waving back at them. Levi nodded as Howard pointed to the gate where they should all meet up.

‘Howard,' continued Kiki, because she was happiest when she could get him to talk to her about his ideas, ‘explain to me how what we just heard wasn't the work of a genius . . . I mean, no matter what you say, there's
obviously
a difference between something like that and something like . . .'

The family set off, continuing their debate, with the voices of the children now added to the dispute. The black boy with the elegant neck who had been sitting next to Zora strained to hear the disappearing remnants of a conversation he had been interested in, although he had not followed all of it. More and more these days he found himself listening to people talk, wanting to add something. He had wanted to add something just then, a point of information – it was from that movie. According to the film, Mozart died before he finished the thing, right? So someone else must have finished it – so that seemed relevant to that genius thing they were discussing. But he wasn't in the habit of talking to strangers. Besides, the moment passed. It always did. He pulled his baseball cap down his forehead and checked in his pocket for his cell. He reached under his deckchair to retrieve his Discman – it was gone. He swore violently, padded his hand around the area in the darkness and found something, a Discman. But not his. His had a faint sticky residue on the bottom that he could always feel, the remains of a long-gone sticker of a silhouetted naked lady with a big afro. Apart from that the two Discmans were identical. It took him a second to figure it out. He rushed to get his hoodie off the back of his
chair, but it got caught, and he ripped it slightly. That was his best hoodie. At last it was detached – he hurried as best he could after that heavy-set girl with the glasses. With every step more people seemed to place themselves between him and her.

‘Hey!
Hey!
'

But there was no name to put on the end of
Hey
and a six foot two athletic black man shouting
Hey
in a dense crowd does not create easiness wherever he goes.

‘She's got my Discman, this girl, this lady – just up there – sorry, 'scuse me, man – yeah, can I just get by here –
Hey! Hey, sister!
'

‘ZORA – wait up!' came a voice loud by the side of him, and the girl he'd been trying to stop turned around and gave somebody the finger. The white people near by looked about themselves anxiously. Was there going to be trouble?

‘Aw, fuck you too,' said the voice resignedly. The young man turned and saw a boy a little shorter than him, but not much, and several shades lighter.

‘Hey, man – is that your girl?'

‘
What?
'

‘The girl with the glasses you was just calling? Is she your girl?'

‘
Hell
, no – that's my sister, bro.'

‘Man, she's got my Discman, my music – she must have picked it up by mistake. See, I got hers. I been trying to call her, but I didn't know her name.'

‘For real?'

‘This is hers, right here, man. It ain't mine.'

‘Wait here –'

Few among Levi's pastoral circle of family and teachers would have believed Levi could launch so promptly into action after an instruction as he did for this young man he had never met before. He pushed swiftly through the crowd, caught his sister by the arm and began to talk to her animatedly. The young man approached more slowly, but got there in time to here Zora say: ‘Don't be ridiculous – I'm not giving some friend of yours my player – get off me –'

‘You're not listening to me – it's
not
yours, it's his –
his
,' repeated
Levi, spotting the young man and pointing at him. The young man smiled weakly under the brim of his baseball cap. Even so small a glimpse of his smile told you that his were perfect white teeth, superbly arranged.

‘Levi, if you and your friend want to be
gangstas
, piece of advice: you've got to take, not ask.'

‘Zoor – it's not yours – it's this guy's.'

‘I
know
my Discman – this is my Discman.'

‘Bro –' said Levi, ‘you got a disc in here?'

The young man nodded.

‘Check the CD, Zora.'

‘Oh, for God's sake – see? It's a recordable disc. Mine. OK? Bye now.'

‘Mine's recordable too – it's my own mix,' said the young man firmly.

‘Levi . . . We've got to get to the car.'

‘Listen to it –' said Levi to Zora.

‘
No
.'

‘Listen to the damn CD, Zoor.'

‘What's going on over there?' called Howard, twenty yards away. ‘Can we get going, please?'

‘Zora, you freak – just listen to the CD, settle this.'

Zora made a face and pressed play. A little spring of sweat burst over her forehead.

‘Well, this isn't my CD. It's some kind of hip-hop,' she said sharply, as if the CD itself were somehow to blame.

The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one's yours.'

‘They're
exactly
the same.'

‘Yeah, I guess that's where the confusion came from.' He was grinning now and the fact that he was stupidly good-looking could no longer be ignored. Pride and prejudice, however, connived in Zora to make a point of ignoring it anyway.

‘Yeah, well, I put mine under
my
chair,' she said tartly, and turned and walked off in the direction of her mother, who stood hands on hips another hundred yards away.

‘Phew. Tough sister,' said the young man, laughing lightly.

Levi sighed.

‘Yo, thanks, man.'

They clapped hands.

‘Who you listening to anyway?' asked Levi.

‘Just some hip-hop.'

‘Bro, can I check it out – I'm all into that.'

‘I guess . . .'

‘I'm Levi.'

‘Carl.'

How old is this boy, Carl wondered. And where'd he learn that you just ask some strange brother you never seen before in your life if you can listen to his Discman? Carl had figured a year ago that if he started going to events like this he would meet the kind of people he didn't usually meet – couldn't have been more right about that one.

‘It's tight, man. There's a nice flow there. Who is it?'

‘Actually, that track is me,' Carl said, neither humbly nor proudly. ‘I got a very basic sixteen-track at home. I do it myself.'

‘You a rapper?'

‘Well . . . it's more like Spoken Word, as it happens.'

‘Scene.'

They talked all the way over the green towards the gates of the park. About hip-hop generally, and then about recent shows in the Boston area. How few and far they were. Levi asked question after question, sometimes answering himself as Carl opened his mouth to reply. Carl kept on trying to figure out what the deal was, but it seemed like there was no deal – some people just like to talk.