Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by: The New York Times, People, E'ltertainment Weekly, Amazon.com, The Washitlgton Post, Los Angeles Times, TIle Dallas Monting News, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, The Miami Herald, Salon, Tlte Atlantic Monthly, Newsday, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), The Salt Lake Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Kansas City Star, LibraryJournal, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Century, NPR's Day to Day, Th e Columbus Dispatch Declared One of the 25 Best Books of the Year by the New York Public Library Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize "[AJ thoroughly original cale ... wonderfully engaging, wonderfully observed ... alive with the cacophony of urban life and animated by a vibrant sense of how people live and talk .... [With] her instinctive srorytelling gifts, her uncanny ear for dialogue and her magical access ro her characters' inner lives. . she possesses an ability to inhabit with equal ease the point of view of children, adolescents and the middle-aged.... Ms. Smith possesst;!s a captivating authorial voice-at once authoritative and nonchalant, and capacious enough to accommodate high moral seriousness, laid-back. humor and virtually everything in between-and in these pages, she uses that voice to enormous effect, giving us thac rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty. It's a thing of beaury indeed .... She thrillingly balances engaging ideas with equally engaging characters. , . [and] evident throughout is Smith's droll humor," -Los Angeles Times "Enjoy Smith's narrative finesse and her cool wit and tben, after you've turned the last delicious page, you can dig up that withered old paperback of Howards End and revel not in what Smith learned from Forster, but in how much she al­ready knew .. , . Comic and caustic, but never mean-spirited ... Smith's specialty is her ability to render the new world, in its vibrant multiculturalism, with a kind of dancing, daring joy. ... Her plots and people sing with life ... one of the best of the year, a splendid treat." -Chicago Tribune "[AJ beautiful novel ... an ambitious, warm and bending portrayal of people who know little certainty and treasure that which they can find." -Newsday (New York) "Short·Iisted for this year's Man Booker Prize, On Beauty is a rollicking satire of the sacred pieties laid bare when a university confronts thorny issues of race, class and privilege. Chummy and bighearted, it is also a tremendously good read ... great fun." -Sail Francisco Chronicle "Some fearless outside referee had to barge in and try to adjudicate the culture wars, so let us rejoice that it's Zadie Smith. She brings almost everything you want to the task: humor, brains, objectivity, equanimity, empathy, a pitch-perfect ear for smugness and cant, and then still more humor." -Frank Rich, The New York Times Book Review "Ms. Smith became a literary sensation at twenty-four with her debut, Mite Teeth. I liked her new one even better." -The Christian Science Monitor "Masterly on almost any level-impressive in its command of every register of English, never tiresome despite its length and astonishingly sympathetic to every sort of human frailty. Smith brings to blazing life everyone she portrays. from a young hip-hop poet to a formal British lord. To this satirical, wise and sexy book, the correct critical response should largely be either gratitude and admiration or a simple wow. .. ," -Michael Dirda, The Washington Post 'i\n academic comedy of multicultural manners finds Smith recapruring the sparkle of White Teeth . . , , The British author returns to biting, frequently hilari­ous form, .. . As Smith details the generation-spanning interactions of various minorities within a predominantly white, liberal community. she finds shades of meaning in shades of skin tone, probing the prickly issues of affirmative action, race relations and culrural imperialism while skewering the political correctness that masks emotional honesty" -Kirkus Reviews "This is a boisterous, funny; poignant, and erudite novel that should firmly estab­lish Smith as a literary force of narure." -Booklist "A wise yarn . .. expertly crafted." -Jane "Smith narrows her focus but not her ambitions with her third novel, returning to White Teeth's themes-race, identity, our everyday self-deceptions-but with a deeper cast and an even swifter comic touch." -Details "A rollicking satire . . . a tremendously good read." -The AtlantaJournal-Constitution "Smith has the gift of writing crackerjack dialogue: Her ear is fine and mutable, and she can do street jive and breakfast banter as easily as she does the inter­minable faculty meeting." -The Boston Globe "Sublimely audacious . . . a sprawling novel that threads tender humanity into the skewering hilarity." -New York Daily News "Smith displays all her strengths: satirical energy, imaginative breadth (she's equally engaging about the inner lives of a teenage boy and a middle-aged mother), and a sure and funny touch." -The Atlantic Monthly "Splendid and big-hearted . , . a 443-page novel you wish were longer." -Entertainment Weekly "Hilarious." -Time Out New York "A novel that savvily illuminates the time we're living in. It also leaves you feeling mere's almost nothing beyond the scope of this gifted writer," -Tile Seattle Times "On Beauty showcases Smith's prodigious talents, her ability to create varied char­acters, her masterful storytelling and dialogue, her remarkable insights into fam­ily and social life. her breadth of knowledge and interests." -Seattle Post-Intelligrncer "This juicy send-up of campus politicS, families, culture wars, love and lust is stingingly clever ... . Beauty takes many forms and through her sharply vivified characters, Smith exposes its various guises. Smart, lively; thought-provoking and highly entertaining, On Beauty is one beauty of a book." -The Kansas City Star "[An] exceptionally accomplished novel ... wonderfully funny. From the per­fectly nuanced dialogue of young black men to the refined aesthetic wranglings of art historians, Smith displays a remarkable talent for embracing all the possi­bilities of language, and time and again she produces images that shout out in their brilliance." -The Guardian (London) "Smith's specialty is her ability to render the Dew world-so various, so new, in its vibrant multiculturalism-with a kind of dancing, daring joy.... Her plots and her people sing with life." -Chicago Tribune "On Beauty is highly ambitious and crackling with narrative energy. Smith smoothly interweaves high culture and pop culture, lucidly writing about Rembrandt and rap music, Mozart and Eminem with respect for everything along the spectrum." -The Writer ''A hilarious comedy of errors, poking fun at petty jealOUSies, ego, and identity. Smith diffuses the big issues of race and culture with wit. It's ironic, acerbic and intelligent at the same time." -The Crisis "This tale of two families explodes with vitality, curiosity. sympathy and emhusi­asm for human beings and the perplexing situations [hey get into.... In Smith's hands the stuff of routine satire becomes miraculously endearing and sympa­thetic. She is that very rare breed of author who can make us laugh at her char­acters even as she envelops them (and by extension, us) in her fierce, radiant and irresistible love." -Salon On Beauty A NOVEL BY ZADIE SMITH PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BO OKS Published by the Pcnguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 100l4, U.S.A . • Penguin Group {Canada),9O Eglinlon Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto. Ootario. Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canad3 Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd. 80 Strnnd, London WC2R ORL. England • Penguin Ireland. 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (3 division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwcll Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Austr3lia (a division of PeauonAusrralia Group Pey Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 1\ Community Centre, Panchshecl Park, New Delhi-IIO 017, India · Penguin Group (NZ), cor Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, johannesburg 2196. Soulh Africa Penguin Books Ltd. Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Tnc. 2005 Published in Penguin Books 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright 0 Zadie Smith, 2005 All rights reserved Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted works: Excerpt from "[ Get Around:' words by Ron Brooks, words and music by Tupac Shakur, Gregory jacobs, Roger Troutman, Larry Troutman and Shirley Murdock. Cl Copyright 1993 joshua SDream Music, Saja Music Company, Pubhowyalike Publishing. Ghetto Gospe.! Music, Inlerscope Pearl Music. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited and Sony I ATV Music Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Inlernational copyright secured. Selection from School of rltt Arts: Poans by Mark Doey. Copyright e 2005 by Mark Dory. Reprinted by perrrussion of HarperCollins Publishers, "On Beauty" and excerpts from ~lmperial" and "The Last Saturday in UIster~ from To a Fault by Nick Laird. Copyright 0 2005 by Nick Laird. Used by permission of W W Norton & Company, inc. Excerpt from all lkaury al1d Bril1gJu.st by Elaine Scarry. Copyright C 1999 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc. PUBLISHflR's NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. LIBRARY Of' CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION OATA Smith, Zadie. On beaury : a novel I by Zadie Smith. p. em. ISBN 0 14 30.37749 1. College teachers-Fiction. 2. Massachusetts-Fiction. 3. Domestic Fiction. I. Title. PR6069.M59052006b 823' 91~c22 2006043278 Printed in the United States of America Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circu1ated without the publisher's prior consent In any fonn ofbinding or cover other than that in'which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authonu:d electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your SUpport of the author's rightS is appreciated. For my dear Laird contents I kipps and belsey I 2 the anatomy lesson I27 3 on beauty and being wrong 273 author's note 445 acknowledgements My gratitude to my first readers, Nick Laird, Jessica Frazier. Tamara Barnett-Herrin. Michal Shavit. David O'Rourke. Yvonne Bailey­Smith and Lee Klein. Their encouragement. criticism and good advice got the thing started. Thank you to Harvey and Yvonne for their support and to my younger brothers. Doc Brown and Luc Skyz. who offer advice on all the things I am too old to know. Thank you to my ex-srudentJacob Kramer for notes on college life and East Coast mores. Thank you to India Knight and Elisabeth Merriman for all the French. Thank you to Cassandra King and Alex Adamson for dealing with all extra-literary matters. I thank Beatrice Monti for another stay at Santa Maddelena and the good work that came out of it. Thank you to my English and American editors. Simon Prosser and Anne Godoff. without whom this book would be longer and worse. Thank you to Donna Poppy. the cleverest copy editor a girl could hope for. Thank you to Juliette Mitchell at Penguin for all her hard work on my behalf. Without my agent. Georgia Garrett. I couldn't do this job at all. Thank you. George. You're a bobby dazzler. Thank you to Simon Schama for his monumental Rembrandt's Eyes. a book that helped me to see paintings properly for the first time. Thank you to Elaine Scarry for her wonderful essay 'On Beaury and Being Just'. from which I borrowed a title. a chapter heading and a good deal of inspiration. It should be obvious from the first line that this is a novel inspired by a love of E. M. Forster. to whom all my fiction is indebted. one way or the other. This time I wanted to repay the debt with hommage. Most of all. I thank my husband. whose poetry I steal to make my ptose look pretty. It's Nick who knows that 'time is how you spend your love'. and that's why this book is dedicated to him. as is my life. kipps and befse~ We refuse to be each other. H. J. Blackham One may as well begin with Jerome's e-mails to his father: To: HowardBelsey@fas.Wellington.edu From: Jeromeabroad@easymail.com Date: 5 November Subject: Hey, Dad -basically I'm just going to keep on keeping on with these mails -I'm no longer expecting you to reply, but I'm still hoping you will, if that makes sense. Well, I'm really enjoying everything. I work in Monty Kipps's own office (did you know that he's actually Sir Monty??), which is in the Green Park area. It's me and a Cornish girl called Emily. She's cool. There're also three more yank interns downstairs (one from Boston!), so I feel pretty much at home. I'm a kind of an intern with the duties of a PA -organizing lunches, filing, talking to people on the phone, that sort of thing. Monty's work is much more than just the academic stuff: he's involved with the Race Commission, and he has Church charities in Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti, etc. -he keeps me really busy. Because it's such a small set-up, I get to work closely with him ­and of course I'm living with the family now, which is like being completely integrated into something new. Ah, the family. You didn't respond, so I'm imagining your reaction (not too hard to imagine .. . ). The truth is, it was really just the most convenient option at the time. And they were totally kind to offer -I was being evicted from the 'bedsit' place in Marylebone. The Kippses aren't under any obligation to me, but they asked and I accepted -gratefully. I've been in their place a week now, and still no mention of any rent, which should tell you something. I know you want me to tell you it's a nightmare, but I can't -I love living here. It's a different universe. The house is just wow -early Victorian, a 'terrace' -unassuming-looking outside but massive inside -but there's still a kind of humility that really appeals to me -almost everything white, and a lot of handmade things, and quilts and dark wood shelves and cornices and this four-storey staircase -and in the whole place there's only one television, which is in the basement anyway, just so Monty can keep abreast of news stuff, and some of the things he does on the television -but that's it. I think of it as the negativized image of our house sometimes . . . It's in this bit of North London called 'Kilburn', which sounds bucolic, but boy oh boy is not bucolic in the least, except for this street we live on off the 'high road', and it's suddenly like you can't hear a thing and you can just sit in the yard in the shadow of this huge tree -eighty feet tall and ivy-ed all up the trunk ... reading and feeling like you're in a novel ... Fall's different here -much less intense and trees balder earlier -everything more melancholy somehow. The family are another thing again -they deserve more space and time than I have right now (I'm writing this on my lunch hour). But, in brief: one boy, Michael, nice, sporty. A little dull, I guess. You'd think he was, anyway. He's a business guy -exactly what business I haven't been able to figure out. And he's huge! He's got two inches on you, at least. They're all big in that athletic, Caribbean way. He must be 6' 5". There's also a very tall and beautiful daughter, Victoria, who I've seen only in photos (she's inter-railing in Europe), but she's coming back for a while on Friday, I think. Monty's wife, Carlene -perfect. She's not from Trinidad, though -it's a small island, St something or other -I'm not sure. I didn't hear it very well the first time she mentioned it, and now it's like it's too late to ask. She's always trying to fatten me up -she feeds me constantly. The rest of the family talk about sports and God and politics, and Carlene floats above it all like a kind of angel -and she's helping me with prayer. She really knows how to pray -and it's very cool to be able to pray without someone in your family coming into the room and (a) passing wind (b) shouting (c) analysing the 'phoney metaphysics' of prayer (d) singing loudly (e) laughing. So that's Carlene Kipps. Tell Mom that she bakes. Just tell her that and then walk away chuckling .. . Now, listen to this next bit carefully: in the morning THE WHOLE KIPPS FAMil Y have breakfast together and a conversation TOGETHER and then get into a car TOGETHER (are you taking notes?) -I know, I know -not easy to get your head around. I never met a family who wanted to spend so much time with each other. I hope you can see from everything I've written that your feud, or whatever it is, is a complete waste of time. It's all on your side, anyway -Monty doesn't do feuds. You've never even really met -just a lot of public debates and stupid letters. It's such a waste of energy. Most of the cruelty in the world is just misplaced energy. Anyway: I've got to go -work calls! Love to Mom and Levi, partial love to Zora, And remember: I love you, Dad (and I pray for you, too) Phew! Longest mail ever! Jerome XXOXXXX To: HowardBelsey@fas.Wellington.edu From: Jeromeabroad@easymail.com Date: 14 November Subject: Hello again Dad, Thanks for forwarding me the details about the dissertation ­could you phone the department at Brown and maybe get me an extension? Now I begin to see why Zora enrolled at Wellington ... lot easier to miss your deadline when Daddy's the teacher © I read your one-liner query and then like a fool I searched for a further attachment (like, say, a letter???), but I guess you're too busy/mad/ etc. to write. Well, I'm not. How's the book going? Mom said you were having trouble getting going. Have you found a way to prove Rembrandt was no good yet? © The Kippses continue to grow on me. On Tuesday we all went to the theatre (the whole clan is home now) and saw a South African dance troupe, and then, going back on the 'tube', we started to hum one of the tunes from the show, and this became full-blown singing, with Carlene leading (she's got a terrific voice) and even Monty joined in, because he's not really the 'self-hating psychotic' you think he is. It was really kind of lovely, the singing and the train coming acove ground and then walking through the wet back to this beautiful house and a curried chicken home-cooked meal. But I can see your face as I type this, so I'll stop. Other news: Monty has honed in on the great Belsey lack: logic. He's trying to teach me chess, and today was the first time in a week when I wasn't beaten in under six moves, though I was still beaten of course. All the Kippses think I'm muddle-headed and poetic -I don't know what they would say if they knew that among Belseys I'm practically Wittgenstein. I think I amuse them, though -and Carlene likes to have me around the kitchen, where my cleanliness is seen as a positive thing, rather than as some kind of anal-retentive syndrome .. . I have to admit, though, I do find it a little eerie in the mornings to wake up to this peaceful silence (people WHISPER in the hallways so as not to wake up other people) and a small part of my backside misses Levi's rolled-up wet towel, just as a small part of my ear doesn't know what to do with itself now lora's no longer screaming in it. Mom mailed me to tell me that Levi has upped the headwear to FOUR (skullcap, baseball cap, hood ie, duffel hood) with earphones on -so that you can only see a tiny, tiny bit of his face around the eyes. Please kiss him there for me. And kiss Mom for me too, and remember that it's her birthday a week from tomorrow. Kiss lora and ask her to read Matthew 24. I know how she just loves a bit of Scripture every day. Love and peace in abundance, Jerome xxxxx P.S. in answer to your 'polite query', yes, I am still one .. . despite your evident contempt I'm feeling quite fine about it, thanks . . . twenty is really not that late among young people these days, especially if they've decided to make their fellowship with Christ. It was weird that you asked, because I did walk through Hyde Park yesterday and thought of you losing yours to someone you had never met before and never would again. And no, I wasn't tempted to repeat the incident . .. To: HowardBelsey@fas.Wellington.edu From: Jeromeabroad@easymail.com Date: 19 November Subject: Dear Dr Belsey! I have no idea how you're going to take this one! But we're in love! The Kipps girl and me! I'm going to ask her to marry me, Dad! And I think she'll say yes!!! Are you digging on these exclamation marks!!!! Her name's Victoria but everyone calls her Vee. She's amazing, gorgeous, brilliant. I'm asking her 'officially' this evening, but I wanted to tell you first. It's come over us like the Song of Solomon, and there's no way to explain it apart from as a kind of mutual revelation. She just arrived here last week -sounds crazy but it true!!!! Seriously: I'm happy. Please take two Valium and ask Mom to mail me ASAP. I've got no credit left on this phone and don't like to use theirs. Jxx 'What, Howard? What am I looking at, exactly?' Howard Belsey directed his American wife, Kiki Simmonds, to the relevant section of the e-mail he had printed out. She put her elbows either side of the piece of paper and lowered her head as she always did when concentrating on small type. Howard moved away to the other side of their kitchen-diner to attend to a singing kettle. There was only this one high note -the rest was silence. Their only daughter, Zora, sat on a stool with her back to the room, her earphones on, looking up reverentially at the television, Levi, the youngest boy, stood beside his father in front of the kitchen cabinets. And now the two ofthem began to choreograph a break­fast in speechless harmony: passing the box of cereal from one to the orher, exchanging implements, filling their bowls and sharing milk from a pink china jug with a sun-yellow rim. The house was south facing. Light struck the double glass doors that led to rhe garden, filtering rhrough the arch that split the kitchen. It rested softly upon rhe still life of Kiki at the breakfast table, motion­less, reading. A dark red Portuguese earthenware bowl faced her, piled high with apples. At this hour rhe light extended itself even further, beyond the breakfast table, rhrough rhe hall, to the lesser of their two living rooms. Here a bookshelf filled wirh rheir oldest paperbacks kept company with a suede beanbag and an ottoman upon which Murdoch, their dachshund, lay collapsed in a sunbeam. 'Is rhis for real?' asked Kiki, but got no reply. Levi was slicing strawberries, rinsing them and plopping them into two cereal bowls. It was Howard's job to catch their frowzy heads for the trash. Just as rhey were finishing up this operation, Kiki turned the papers face down on the table, removed her hands from her temples and laughed quietly. 'Is something funny?' asked Howard, moving to the breakfast bar and resting his elbows on its top. In response, Kiki's face resolved itself into impassive blackness. It was this sphinx-like expression that sometimes induced their American friends to imagine a more exotic provenance for her than she actually possessed. In fact she was from simple Florida country stock. 'Baby -try being less facetious,' she suggested. She reached for an apple and began to cut it up wirh one of rheir small knives with the translucent handles, dividing it into irregular chunks. She ate these slowly, one piece after anorher. Howard pulled his hair back from his face with borh hands. 'Sorry -I just -you laughed, so I rhought maybe something was funny.~ 'How am I meant to react?' said Kiki, sighing. She laid down her knife and reached out for Levi, who was just passing with his bowl. Grabbing her robust fifteen-year-old by his denim waistband, she pulled him to her easily, forCing him down half a foot to her Sitting level so that she could tuck the label of his basketball top back inside the collar. She put her thumbs on each side of his boxer shorts for another adjustment, but he tugged away from her. 'Mom, man .. : 'Levi, honey, please pull those up just a little .. . they're so low . . . they're not even covering your ass.' 'So it's not funny: concluded Howard. It gave him no cheer, digging in like this. But he was srill going to persist with this line of questioning, even though it was not the tack upon which he had hoped to start out, and he understood it was a straight journey to nowhere helpful. 'Oh, Lord, Howard: said Kiki. She turned to face him. 'We can do this in fifteen minutes, can't we? When the kids are -' Kiki rose a little in her seat as she heard the lock of the front door clicking and then clicking again. 'Zoor, honey, get that please, my knee's bad today. She can't get in, go on, help her -' Zora, eating a kind of toasted pocket filled with cheese, pointed to the television. 'Zora -get it now, please, it's the new woman, Monique -for some reason her keys aren't working properly -I think I asked you to get a new key cut for her -I can't be here all the time, waiting in for her -Zoor, will you get olfyour ass -' 'Second arse of the morning: noted Howard. 'That's nice. Civilized.' Zora slipped olfher stool and down the hallway to the front door. Kiki looked at Howard once more with a questioning penetration, which he met with his most innocent face. She picked up her absent son's e-mail, lifted her glasses from where they rested on a chain upon her impressive chest and replaced them on the end of her nose. 'You've got to hand it to Jerome: she murmured as she read. 'That boy's no fool . . . when he needs your attention he sure knows how to get it: she said, looking up at Howard suddenly and separating syllables like a bank teller counting bills. 'Monty Kipps's daughter. Wham, bam. Suddenly you're interested.' Howard frowned. 'That's your contribution.' 'Howard -there's an egg on the stove, I don't know who put it on, but the water's evaporated already -smells nasty. Switch it off, please.' 'That's your contribution?' Howard watched his wife calmly pour herself a third glass of clamato juice. She picked this up and brought it to her lips, but then paused where she was and spoke again. 'Really, Howie. He's twenty. He's wanting his daddy's attention -and he's going the right way about it. Even doing this Kipps internship in the first place -there's a million Internships he could have gone on. Now he's going to marry Kippsjunior? Doesn't take a Freudian, I'm saying, the worst thing we can do is to take this seriously.' The Kippses?' asked Zora loudly, coming back through the hallway. 'What's going on -did Jerome move in? How totally insane ... it's like: Jerome -Monty Kipps: said Zora, moulding two imaginary men to the right and left of her and then repeating the exercise. 'Jerome . .. Monty Kipps. Living together.' Zora shivered comically. Kiki chucked back her juice and brought the empty glass down hard. 'Enough of Monty Kipps -I'm serious. I don't want to hear his name again this momlng, I swear to God.' She checked her watch. 'What time's your first class? Why're you even here, Zoor? You know? Why -are -you -here? ah, good momlng, Monique: said Kiki In a qUite different formal voice, stripped of its Florida music. Monique shut the front door behind her and came forward. Kiki gave Monique a frazzled smile. 'We're crazy today -every­body's late, running late. How are you doing, Monique -you aK?' The new cleaner, Monique, was a squat Haitian woman, about Kiki's age, darker still than Kiki. This was only her second visit to the house. She wore a US Navy bomber jacket with a turned-up furry collar and a look of apologetic apprehension, sorry for what would go wrong even before it had gone wrong. All this was made IO more poignant and difficult for Kiki by Monique's weave: a cheap, orange synthetic hairpiece that was in need of renewal, and today seemed further back than ever on her skull, attached by thin threads to her own sparse hair. 'I start in here?' asked Monique timidly. Her hand hovered near the high zip ofher coat, but she did not undo it. 'Actually, Monique, could you start in the study -my study: said Kiki quickly and over something Howard was starting to say. 'Is that OK? Please don't move any papers -just pile them up, if you can.' Monique stood where she was, clutching her zip. Kiki stayed in her strange moment, nervous of what this black woman thought of another black woman paying her to clean. 'Zora will show you -Zora, show Monique, please, just go on, show her where.' Zora began to vault up the stairs three at a time, Monique trudging behind her. Howard came out from behind the pro­scenium and into his marriage. 'If this happens: said Howard levelly, between sips of coffee, 'Monty Kipps will be an in-law. Of ours. Not somebody else's in-law. OllTS.' 'Howard: said Kiki with equal control, 'please, no "routines". We're not on stage. I've just said I don't want to talk about this now. I know you heard me.' Howard gave a little bow. 'Levi needs money for a cab. If you want to worry about something, worry about that. Don't worry about the Kippses.' 'Kippses?' called Levi, from somewhere out of sight. 'Kippses who? Where they at?' This faux Brooklyn accent belonged to neither Howard nor Kiki, and had only arrived in Levi's mouth three years earlier, as he turned twelve. Jerome and Zora had been born in England, Levi in America. But all their various American accents seemed, to Howard, in some way artificial -not quite the products of this house of.his wife. None, though, was as inexplicable as Levi's. Brooklyn? The Belseys were located two hundred miles north ofBrooklyn. Howard felt very close to commenting on it this morning (he had been warned by his wife not to comment on it), but now Levi appeared from the hallway and disarmed his father with a gappy smile before biting the top off a muffin he held in his hand. 'Levi,' said Kiki, 'honey, I'm interested -do you know who I am? Pay any attention at all to anything that goes on around here? Remember Jerome? Your brother? Jerome no here? Jerome cross big sea to place called England?' Levi held a pair of sneakers in his hands. These he shook in the direction of his mother's sarcasm and, scowling, sat down to begin putting them on. 'So? And what? I know about Kippses? I don't know nothing about no Kippses.' Jerome -go to school.' 'Now I'mJerome toor 'Levi -go to school.' 'Man, why you gotta be all . , . I just ahks a question, that's all, and you gotta be all .. .' Here Levi provided an inconclusive mime that gave no idea of the missing word. 'Monty Kipps. The man your brother's been working for in England,' conceded Kiki wearily. It was interesting to Howard to see how Levi had won this concession, by meeting Kiki's corrosive irony with its opposite, 'Seer said Levi, as if it was only by his efforts that decency and sense could be arrived at. 'Was that hard?' 'So is that a letter from Kippsr asked Zora, corning back down the stairs and up behind her mother's shoulder. In this pose, the daughter bent over the mother, they reminded Howard of two of Picasso's chubby water-carriers. 'Dad, please, I've got to help with the reply this time -we're going to destroy him. Who's it for? The RepubliC?' 'No. No, it's nothing to do with that -it's from Jerome, actually. Getting married,' said Howard, letting his robe fall open, turning away. He wandered over to the glass doors that looked out on to their garden. 'To Kipps's daughter. Apparently it's funny. Your mother thinks it's hilarious.' 'No, honey,' said Kiki. '[ think we just established that [ don't think it's hilarious -I don't think we know what's happening -this is a seven-line e-mail. We don't know what that even means, and I'm not gonna get all hepped up about -' 'Is this serious?' interrupted Zora. She yanked the paper from her mother's hands, bringing it very close to her myopic eyes. 'This is a fucking joke, right?' Howard rested his forehead on the thick glass pane and felt the condensation soak his eyebrows. Outside, the democratic East Coast snow was still falling, making the garden chairs the same as the garden tables and plants and mail-boxes and fence-posts. He breathed a mushroom cloud and then wiped it off with his sleeve. 'Zora, you need to get to class, 0 K? And you really need to not use that language in my house -Hup! Hap! Nap! No!' said Kiki, each time masking a word Zora was attempting to begin. 'OK? Take Levi to the cab rank. I can't drive him today -you can ask Howard if he'll drive him, but it doesn't look like that's gonna happen. I'll phone Jerome.' 'I don't need drivin',' said Levi, and now Howard properly noticed Levi and the new thing about Levi: a woman's stocking, thin and black, on his head, tied at the back in a knot, with a small inadvertent teat like a nipple, on top. 'You can't phone him,' said Howard quietly. He moved tacti­cally, out of sight of his family to the lefr side of their awesome refrigerator. 'His phone's out of credit.' 'What did you say?' asked Kiki. 'What are you saying? I can't hear you.' Suddenly she was behind him. 'Where's the Kippses' phone number?' she demanded, although they both knew the answer to this one. Howard said nothing. 'Oh, yeah, that's right,' said Kiki, 'it's in the diary, the diary that was left in Michigan, during the famous cOllference when you had more important things on your mind than your wife and family .' 'Could we not do this right now?' asked Howard. When you are guilty, all you can ask for is a deferral of the judgement. 'Whatever, Howard. Whatever -either way it's me who's going to be dealing with it, with the consequences of your actions, as usual, so -' Howard thumped their icebox with the side of his fist. 'Howard, please don't do that. The door's swung, it's ... every­thing'll defrost, push it properly, properly, until it -OK: it's unfortu­nate. That's if it really has hilppened, which we don't know. We're just going to have to take it step by step until we know what the hell is going on. So let's leave it at that, and, I don't know ... discuss when we ... well, when Jerome's here for one thing and there's actually something to discuss, agreed? Agreed?' 'Stop arguing: complained Levi from the other side of the kitchen, and then repeated it loudly. 'We're not arguing, honey: said Kiki and bent her body at the hips. She tipped her head forward and released her hair from its flame-coloured headwrap. She wore it in two thick ropes of plait that reached to her backside, like a ram's unwound horns. Without looking up, she evened out each side of the material, threw her head back once more, spun the material rwice round and retied it in exactly the same manner but tighter. Everything lifted an inch, and, with this new, authoritative face, she leaned on the table and turned to her children. 'OK, show's over. Zoor, there might be a few dollars in the pot by the cactus. Give them to Levi. If not, just lend him some and I'll pay you back later. I'm a little short this month. OK. Go forth and learn. Anything. Anything at all.' A few minutes later, with the door closed behind her children, Kiki turned to her husband with a thesis for a face, of which only Howard could know every line and reference. Just for the hell ofit Howard smiled. In return he received nothing at all. Howard stopped smiling. If there was going to be a fight, no fool would bet on him. Kiki -whom Howard had once, twenty-eight years ago, thrown over his shoulder like a light roll ofcarpet, to be laid down, and laid upon, in their first house for the first time -was nowadays a solid two hundred and fifty pounds, and looked twenty years his junior. Her skin had that famous ethnic advantage of not wrinkiing much, but, in Kiki's case the weight gain had stretched it even more impressively. At fifty-two, her face was still a girl's face. A beautiful tough-girl's face. Now she crossed the room and pushed by him with such force that he was muscled into an adjacent rocking chair. Back at the kitchen table, she began violently to pack a bag with things she did not need to take to work. She spoke without looking at him. 'You know what's weird? Is that you can get someone who is a professor of one thing and then is just so intensely stupid abour everything else? Consult the ABC ofparenting, Howie. You'll find that if you go abour it this way, then the exact, but the exact opposite, of what you want to happen will happen. The exact opposite.' 'But the exact opposite of what I want: considered Howard, rocking in his chair, 'is what always fucking happens.' Kiki stopped what she was doing. 'Right. Because you never get what you want. Your life is just an orgy of deprivation.' This nodded at the recent trouble. It was an offer to kick open a door in the mansion of their marriage leading on to an ante­chamber of misery. The offer was declined. Kiki instead began that familiar puzzle ofgetting her small knapsack to sit in the middle of her giant back. Howard stood up and rearranged himself decently in his bathrobe. 'Do we have their address at least?' he asked. 'Home address?' Kiki pressed her fingers to each temple like a carnival mind­reader. She spoke slowly, and, though the pose was sarcastic, her eyes were wet. 'I want to understand what it is you think we've done to you. Your family. What is it we've done? Have we deprived you of something?, Howard sighed and looked away. 'I'm giving a paper in Cam­bridge on Tuesday anyway -I might as well fly to London a day earlier, ifonly to -' Kiki slapped the table. 'Oh, God, this isn't 19IO -Jerome can marry who the hell he wants to marry -or are we going to start IS making up visiting cards and asking him to meet only the daughters of academics that you happen to -' 'Might the address be in the green moleskin?' Now she blinked away the possibility of tears. 'I don't know where the address might be: she said, impersonating his accent. 'Find it yourself. Maybe it's hidden underneath the crap in that damn hovel ofyours.' 'Thanks so much: said Howard and began his return journey up the stairs to his study. A tall, gamet-coloured building in the New England style, the Belsey residence roams over four creaky floors. The date of its construction (1856) is patterned in tile above the front door, and the windows retain their mottled green glass, spreading a dreamy pasture on the floorboards whenever strong light passes through them. They are not original, these windows, but replacements, the originals being too precious to be used as windows. Heavily insured, they are kept in a large safe in the basement. A significant portion of the value of the Belsey house resides in windows that nobody may look through or open. The sole original window is the skylight at the very top of the house, a harlequin pane that casts a disc of varicoloured light upon different spots on the upper landing as the sun passes over America, turning a white shirt pink as one passes through it, for example, or a yellow tie blue. Once the spot reaches the floor in mid morning it is a family superstition never to step through it. Ten years earlier you would have found children here, wrestling, trying to force each other into its orbit. Even now,as young adults, they continue to step round it on their way down the stairs. The staircase itself is a steep spiral. To pass the time while descending it, a photographic Belsey family gallery has been hung on the walls, follOWing each tum that you make. The children come first in black and white: podgy and dimpled, haloed with curls. They seem always to be tumbling towards the viewer and over each other, folding on their sausage legs. Frowning Jerome, holding baby Zora, wondering what she is. Zora cradling tiny wrinkled Levi with the crazed, proprietorial look of a woman who steals children from hospital wards. School portraits, graduations, swimming pools, restaurants, gardens and vacation shots follow, monitoring physical development, confirming character. After the children come four generations of the Simmondses' matemalline. These are placed in triumphant, deliberate sequence: Kiki's great­great-grandmother, a house-slave; great-grandmother, a maid; and then her grandmother, a nurse. It was nurse Lily who inherited this whole house from a benevolent white doctor with whom she had worked closely for twenty years, back in Florida. An inheritance on this scale changes everything for a poor family in America: it makes them middle class. And 83 Langham is a fine middle-class house, larger even than it looks on the outside, with a small pool out back, unheated and missing many of its white tiles, like a British smile. Indeed much of the house is now a little shabby -but this is part of its grandeur. There is nothing nouveau riche about it. The house is ennobled by the work it has done for this family. The rental of the house paid for Kiki's mother's education (a legal clerk, she died this spring past) and for Kiki's own. For years it was the Simmondses' nest egg and vacation home; they would come up each September from Florida to see the Color. Once her children had grown and afrer her minister husband had died, Howard's mother-in-law, Claudia Simmonds, moved into the house permanently and lived happily as landlady to cycles of students who rented the spare rooms. Throughout these years Howard coveted the house. Claudia, acutely aware of this covetousness, determined to pervert its course. She knew well that the place was perfect for Howard: large, lovely and within spitting distance of a half-decent American university that might consider hiring him. It gave Mrs Simmonds joy, or so Howard believed, to make him wait all those years. She tripped happily into her seventies without any serious health problems. Meanwhile, Howard shunted his young family around various second-rate seats ofleaming: six years in upstate New York, eleven in London, one in the suburbs of Paris. It was only ten years ago that Claudia had finally relented, leaving the property in favour of a retirement community in Florida. It was around this time that the gallery photograph of Kiki herself, a hospital administrator and final inheritor of 83 Langham Drive, was taken. In the photo she is all teeth and hait, receiving a state award for out-reach services to the local community. A rogue white arm clinches what was, back then, an extremely neat waist in tight denim; this arm, cut off at the elbow, is Howard's. When people get married, there is often a battle to see which family -the husband's or the wife's -will prevail. Howard has lost that battle, happily. The Belseys -petty, cheap and cruel -are not a family anyone would fight to retain. And because Howard had conceded willingly, it was easy for Kiki to be gracious. And so here, on the first landing, we have a large representation of one of the English Belseys, a charcoal portrait ofHoward' s own father, Harold, hanging as high up the wall as is decent, wearing his flat-cap. His eyes are cast downward, as ifin despair at the exotic manner in which Howard has chosen to continue the Belsey line. Howard himself was surprised to discover the picture -surely the only artwork the Belsey family had ever owned -among the small bundle ofworthless bric-a-brac that came his way upon his mother's death. In the years that followed the picture has lifted itself out of its low origins, like Howard himself. Many educated upscale Americans of the Belseys' acquaintance claim to admire it. It is considered 'classy', 'mysterious' and redolent in some mystifying way of the 'English character'. In Kiki's opinion it is an item the children will appreciate when they get older, an argument that ingeniously bypasses the fact that the children are already older and do not appreciate it. Howard himself hates it, as he hates all representational painting -and his father. After Harold Belsey follows a jolly parade of Howard hitnself in his seventies, eighties and nineties incarnations. Despite costume changes, the Significant features remain largely unchanged by the years. His teeth -uniquely in his family -are straight and of a similar size to each other; his bottom lip's fullness goes some way towards compensating for the absence of the upper; and his ears are not noticeable, which is all one can ask of ears. He has no chin, but his eyes are very large and very green. He has a thin, appealing, aristocratic nose. When placed next to men of his own age and class, he has two great advantages: hair and weight. Both have changed little. The hair in particular is extremely full and healthy. A grey patch streams from his right temple. Just this fall he decided to throw the lot ofit violently forward on to his face, as he had not done since 1967 -a great success. A large photo ofHoward, towering over other members of the Humanities Faculty as they arrange themselves tidily around Nelson Mandela, shows this off to some effect: he has easily the most hair of any fellow there. The pictures of Howard multiply as we near the ground: Howard in Bermuda shorts with shocking white, waxy knees; Howard in academic tweed under a tree dappled by the Massachusetts light; Howard in a great hall, newly appointed Empson Lecturer in Aesthetics; in a baseball cap pointing at Emily Dickinson's house; in a beret for no good reason; in a Day-Glo jumpsuit in Eatonville, Florida, with Kiki beside him, shielding her eyes from either Howard or the sun or the camera. Now Howard paused on the middle landing to use the phone. He wanted to speak with Dr Erskine Jegede, Soyinka Professor of African Literature and Assistant Director of the Black Studies Department. He put his suitcase on the floor and tucked his air ticket into his armpit. He dialled and waited out the long ring, wincing at the thought of his good friend hunting through his satchel, apologizing to his fellow readers and making his way out of the library into the cold. 'Hellor 'Hello, who is this? I am in the library.' 'Ersk -it's Howard. Sorry, sorry -should have called earlier.' 'Howard? You're not upstairs?' Usually, yes. Reading in his beloved Carrel 187, on the upper­most floor of the Greenman, Wellington College's library. Every Saturday for years, barring illness or snowstorm. He would read all morning, and then convene with Erskine in the lobby at lunchtime, in front of the elevators. Erskine liked to grip Howard fraternally by the shoulders as they walked together to the library cafe. They looked funny together. Erskine was almost a foot smaller, com­pletely bald, with his scalp polished to an ebony sheen and a short man's stocky chest, thrust forward like plumage. Erskine was never seen out of a suit (Howard had been wearing different versions of the same black jeans for ten years), and the mandarin impression he gave was perfectly completed by his neat salt-and-pepper beard, pointed like a White Russian's, with a matching moustache and 3-D freckles around his cheeks and nose. During their lunches he was always wonderfully scurrilous and bad tempered about his peers, not that his peers would ever know it -Erskine's freckles did incredible diplomatic work for him. Howard had often wished for a Similarly benign face to show the world. After lunch, Erskine and Howard would part, always somewhat reluctantly. Each man returned to his own carrel until dinner. For Howard there was great joy in this Saturday routine. 'Ab, now that is unfortunate: said Erskine upon hearing Howard's news, and the sentiment covered not orily Jerome's situation but also the fact that these two men should be deprived ofeach other's company. And then: 'Poor Jerome. He's a good boy. It is surely a point he is trying to prove.' Erskine paused. 'What the point is, I'm not sure.' 'But Monty Kipps: repeated Howard despairingly. From Erskine he knew he would get what he needed. This was why they were friends. Erskine whistled his sympathy. 'My God, Howard, you don't have to tell me. I remember during the Brixton riots -this was '81 -I was on the BBC World Service trying to talk about context, deprivation, etcetera' -Howard enjoyed the tuneful Nigerian musi­cality of'etcetera' -'and that madman Monty -he was sitting there opposite me in his Trinidad cricket-club tie saying, "The coloured man must look to his own home, the coloured man must take responsibility." The coloured man! And he still says coloured! Every time it was one step forward, and Monty was taking us all two steps back again. The man is sad. I pity him, actually. He's stayed in England too long. It's done strange things to him.' Howard was quiet on the other end of the phone. He was checking his computer bag for his passport. He felt exhausted at the prospect of the journey and of the battle that awaited him at the other end. 'And his work gets worse every year. In my opinion, the Rembrandt book was very vulgar indeed: added Erskine kindly. Howard felt the baseness ofpushing Erskine into unfair positions such as this. Monty was a shit, sure, but he wasn't a fool. Monty's Rembrandt book was, in Howard's opinion, retrogressive, perverse, infuriatingly essentialist, but it was neither vulgar nor stupid. It was good. Detailed and thorough. It also had the great advantage of being bound between hard covers and distributed throughout the English-speaking world, whereas Howard's book on the same topic remained unfinished and strewn across the floor before his printer on pages that seemed to him sometimes to have been spewed from the machine in disgust. 'Howard?' 'Yes -here. Got to go, actually. Got a cab booked.' 'You take care, my friend. Jerome is just ... well, by the time you get there I'm sure it will have proved to be a storm in a teacup.' Six steps from the ground floor Howard was surprised by Levi. Once again, this head-stocking business. Looking up at him from beneath it, that striking, leonine face with its manly chin, upon which hair had been growing for two years and yet had not confidently established itself. He was topless to the waist and barefoot. His slender chest smelt of cocoa butter and had been recently shaved. Howard stretched his arms out, blocking the way. 'What's the deal?' asked his son. 'Nothing. Leaving.' 'Who you on the phone to?' 'Erskine.' 'You leaving leaving?' 'Yes.' 'Right now?' 'What's the deal with this?' asked Howard, flipping the interroga­tion round and touching Levi's head. 'Is it a political thing?' Levi rubbed his eyes. He put both arms behind his back, held hands with himself and stretched downwards, expanding his chest hugely. 'Nothin', Dad. It's just what it is,' he said gnomically. He bit his thumb. 'So then .. : said Howard, trying to translate, 'it's an aesthetic thing. For looks only: 'I guess,' Levi said and shrugged. 'Yeah. Just what it is, just a thing that I wear. You know. Keeps my head warm, man. Practical and shit: 'It does make your skull look rather ... neat. Smooth. Like a bean: He gave his son a friendly squeeze on the shoulders and pulled him close. 'Are you going to work today? They let you wear it at the wotsit, the record shop?' 'Sure, sure ... It's not a record shop -I keep telling you -it's a mega-store. There's like seven floors ... You make me laugh, man,' said Levi quietly, his lips buzzing Howard's skin through his shirt. Levi pulled baclt now from his father, patting him down like a bouncer. 'So you going now or what? What you gonna say to J? Who you flyin' wid?' 'I don't know -not sure. Air miles -someone from work booked it. Look ... I'm just going to talk to him -have a reasonable conversation like reasonable people: 'Boy . . : said Levi and clucked his tongue, 'Kiki wants to kick your ass .. . An' I'm with her. I think you should just let the whole thing go by, just go by. Jerome ain't gonna marry anybody. He can't find his dick with two hands: Howard, though duty bound to disapprove of this, did not completely disagree with the diagnOSiS. Jerome's lengthy virginity (which Howard now presumed had come to an end) represented, in Howard's opinion, an ambivalent relationship to the earth and its inhabitants, which Howard had trouble either celebrating or understanding. Jerome was not quite ofthe body somehow, and this had always unnerved his father. If nothing else, the mess in London surely ended the faint whiff of moral superiority that had so far clung to Jerome through his teens, 'So: someone's about to make a personal mistake,' said Howard, an attempt to widen the conversation, 'A terrible one -and you just let it "go by"?' Levi considered this proposition for a moment, 'Well, , , even if he does get married I don't even get why marrying's so like the bad thing all of a sudden, , , At least he got some chance ofgettin' some ass ifhe's actually married, , : Levi released a deep, vigorous laugh that in turn flexed that extraordinary stomach, creasing it like a shirt rather than real flesh, 'You know he ain't got no chance in hell right now: 'Levi, that's, , : began Howard, but up floated a mental picture ofjerome, the uneven afro and soft, vulnerable face, the women's hips and the jeans always slightly too high in the waist, the tiny gold cross that hung at his throat -the innocence, basically, 'What? I say somethin' that ain't true? You know it's true, man­you smiling yourself!' 'Not marriage per se,' said Howard crossly. 'It's more compli­cated. The girl's father is " . . not what we need in this family, put it that way: 'Yeah, well, . : said Levi, turning over his father's tie so the front was at the front. 'I don't see what that's got to do with shit: 'We just don't want Jerome to make a pig's ear of-' 'We?' said Levi, with an expertly raised eyebrow -genetically speaking a direct gift from his mother. 'Look -do you need some money or something), asked Howard, He dug into his pocket and retrieved two crushed twenty-dollar bills, screwed up like balls of tissue, After all these years he was still unable to take the dirty green feel of American money very seriously. He stuffed them in Levi's own low-slung jeans pocket. "Preciate that, Paw,' drawled Levi, in imitation of his mother's Southern roots. 'I don't know what kind of hourly wage they pay you at that place. , : grumbled Howard, Levi sighed woefully. 'It's flimsy, man, .. Real flimsy.' '[fyou'd only let me go down there, speak to someone and-' 'No!' Howard assumed his son was embarrassed by him. Shame seemed to be the male inheritance ofthe Belsey line. How excruciat­ing Howard had found his own father at the same age! He had wished for someone other than a butcher, for someone who used his brain at work rather than knives and scales -someone more like the man Howard was today. But you shift and the children shift also. Would Levi prefer a butcher? '[ mean: said Levi, artlessly modifying his first reaction, 'I can handle it myself, don't worry about it.' '[ see. Did Mother leave any message or -?' 'Message? I ain't even seen her. I got no idea where she is -she left early.' 'Right. What about you? Message for your brother maybe?' 'Yeah ... Tell him: said Levi smiling, turning from Howard and holding on to the banister either side of himself, lifting his feet up and then parallel with his chest like a gymnast, 'tell him ''I'm just another black man caught up in the mix, tryna make a dollah outra fifteen cents!''' 'Right. Will do.' The doorbell rang. Howard took a step down, kissed the back of his son's head, ducked under one ofhis arms and went to the door. A familiar, grinning face was there on the other side, turned ashen in the cold. Howard raised a finger in greeting. This was a Haitian fellow called Pierre, one of the many from that difficult island who now found occupation in New England, discreetly compensating for Howard's unwillingness to drive a car. 'Oi -where's Zoor?' Howard called back to Levi from the threshold. Levi shrugged. 'Eyeano: he said, that strange squelch ofvowels his most frequent response to any question. 'Swimming?' 'In this weather? Christ.' 'It's indoors. Obviously.' 'Just tell her goodbye, all right? Back on Wednesday. No, Thursday.' 'Sure, Dad. Be safe, yo.' In the car, on the radio, men were screaming at each other in a French that was not, as far as Howard could tell, actually French. 'The airport, please,' said Howard, over this. 'OK, yes. We have to go slow, though. Streets pretty bad.' 'OK, not too slow, though.' 'Terminal?' The accent was so pronounced Howard thought he heard the name of Zolo' s novel. 'What's that?' 'You know the terminal?' 'Oh ... No, [ don't ... ['11 find out -it's here somewhere -don't warty ... you drive -['11 find it.' 'Always flying,' said Pierre rather wistfully, and laughed, looking at Howard via the rear view. Howard was struck by the great width of his nose, straddling the two sides of his amiable face. 'Always off somewhere, yes,' said Howard genially, but it did not seem to him that he travelled so very much, though when he did it was more and further than he wished. He thought ofhis own father again -compared to him, Howard was Phileas Fogg. Travel had seemed the key to the kingdom, back then. One dreamed ofa life that would enable travel. Howard looked through his window at a lamp-post buried to its waist in snow supporting two chained­up, frozen bikes, identifiable only by the tips of their handlebars. He imagined waking up this morning and digging his bike out of the snow and riding to a proper job, the kind Belseys had had for generations, and found he couldn't imagine it. This interested Howard, for a moment: the idea that he could no longer gauge the luxuries ofhis own life. Upon returning to the house and before entering her own study, Kiki took her opportunity to look into Howard's. It was half dark, with curtains drawn. He'd left the computer on. Just as she was turning to leave, she heard it waking up, making that heaving, electronic wave-machine sound they produce every ten minutes or so when untouched, as ifthey're needy, and now sending something unhealthy into the air to admonish us for leaving them. She went over and touched a key -the screen returned. His in-box, with one e-mail waiting. Correctly presuming it was from Jerome (Howard e-mailedhisteachingassistant.Smith J. Miller, Jerome, Erskine Jegede and a selection of newspapers and journals; nobody else), Kiki refreshed the window. To: HowardBelsey@fas. Wellington.edu From: Jeromeabroad@easymail.com Date: 21 November Subject: PLEASE READ TH IS Dad -mistake. Shouldn't have said anything. Completely over -if it ever began. Please please please don't tell anybody, just forget about it. I've made a total fool of myself! I just want to curl up and die. Jerome Kiki let out a moan of anxiety, then swore, and turned around rwice, clenching her fingers round her scarf, unril her body caught up with her mind and ceased its trouble, for there was nothing whatsoever to be done. Howard would already be negotiating with his knees the impossible closeness of the seat in front, torturing himself about which books to retain before placing his bag in the upper storage -it was too late to stop him and there was no way to contact him. Howard had a profound fear ofcarcinogens: checked food labels for Diethylstilbestrol; abhorred microwaves; had never owned a cellphone. When it comes to weather. New Englanders are delusional. In his ten years on the East Coast Howard had lost count of the times some loon from Massachusetts had heard his accent. looked at him pitiably and said something like: Cold over there. huhl Howard's feeling was: look. let's get a few things straight here. England is not warmer than New England in July or August. that's true. Probably not in June either. But it is warmer in October. November. December. January. February. March. April and May -that is. in every month when warmth matters. In England letter-boxes do not jam with snow. Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble. It is not necessary to pick up a shovel in order to unearth your rubbish bins. This is because it is never really very cold in England. It is drizzly. and the wind will blow; hail happens. and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody. but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England's got to give. Howard knew this. and so was suitably dressed for England in November -his one 'good' suit. topped by a lightweight trench coat. Smugly he watched the Boston woman opposite him overheating in her rubber coat. the liberated pearls of sweat emerging from her hairline and slinking down her cheek. He was on the train from Heathrow into town. At Paddingron the doors opened and he stepped into the warm smog of the station. He wound his scarf into a ball and stuffed it in his pocket. He was no tourist and did not look about him. not at the sheer majesty ofinterior space, nor at that intricate greenhouse ceiling of patterned glass and steel. He walked straight out to the open air. where he might roll a cigarette and smoke it. The absence of snow was sensational. To hold a cigarette without wearing gloves. to reveal one's whole face to the air! Howard rarely felt moved by an English skyline. but today just to see an oak and an office block, outlined by a bluish sky with no interpolation of white on either, seemed to him a landscape of rare splendour and refinement. Relaxing in a narrow corridor of sun, Howard leaned against a pillar. A stretch of black cabs lined up. People explained where they were going and were given generous help lugging bags into back seats. Howard was taken aback to hear twice in five minutes the destination 'Dalston'. Dalston was a filthy East End slum when Howard was born into it, full offilthy people who had tried to destroy him -not least of all his own family. Now, apparently, it was the sort of place where perfectly normal people lived. A blonde in a long powder-blue overcoat holding a portable computer and a pot plant, an Asian boy dressed in a cheap, shiny suit that reflected light like beaten metal -it was impossible to imagine these people populating the East London of his earliest memory. Howard dropped his fag and nudged it into the gutter. He turned back and walked through the station, keeping pace with a flow ofcommuters, allowing himself to be bustled by them down the steps to the underground. In a standing-room-only tube carriage, pressed up against a determined reader, Howard tried to keep his chin clear ofa hardback and considered his mission, such as it was. He had got nowhere with the vital points: what he would say, how he would say it and to whom. The matter was too deeply clouded and perverted for him by the excruciating memory ofthe following two sentences: Even given the extreme poverty of the arguments offered, the whole would of course be a great deal more compelling if BeIsey knew to which painting I was referring. In his letter he directs his attack at the Self Portrait of1629 that hangs in Munich. Unfortunately for him, I make it more than clear in my article that the painting under discussion is the Self Portrait with Lace Collar of the same year, which hangs in The Hague. These were Monty Kipps's sentences. Three months on they clanged, they stung, and sometimes they even seemed to have an actual weight -the thought of them made Howard's shoulders roll forward and down as if someone had snuck up behind and laden him with a backpack filled with stones. Howard got off the train at Baker Street and crossed the platform to the northbound Jubilee line, where the compensation of a waiting train greeted him. And ofcourse, the thing was that in both ofthese self-portraits Rembrandt wears a white collar, for Christ's sake; both faces emerge from murky, paranoid shadows with a timorous adolescent look about them -but no matter. Howard had failed to note the differing head position described in Monty's article. He had been going through an extremely difficult time personally and had let his guard down. Monty saw his chance and took it. Howard would have done the same. To enact with one sudden tug (like a boy removing his friend's shorts in front of the opposing team) a complete exposure, a cataclysmic embarrassment -this is one of the purest academic pleasures. One doesn't have to deserve it; one has only to leave oneself open to it. But what a way to go! For fifteen years these two men had been moving in similar circles; passing through the same universities, contributing to the same journals, sometimes sharing a stage -but never an opinion -during panel discussions. Howard had always disliked Monty, as any sensible liberal would dislike a man who had dedicated his life to the perverse politics of right-wing iconoclasm, but he had never really hated him until he had heard the news, three years ago, that Kipps too was writing a book about Rembrandt. A book that, even before it was published, Howard sensed would be a hugely popular (and populist) brick designed to sit heavily atop the New York Times bestseller list for half a year, crushing every book beneath it. It was the thought of that book, and of its likely fate (compared to Howard's own unfinished work, which, in the best of all possible worlds, could only ever end up in the bookshelves of a thousand art history students), that had pushed to him to write that terrible letter. In front of the entire academic community Howard had picked up some rope and hanged himself Outside Kilburn Station Howard found a phone-box and called directory inquiries. He gave the Kippses' full address and received in return a phone number. For a few minutes he hung about, examining the prostitutes' cards. Strange that there should be so very many ofthese ladies-of-the-aftemoon, tucked away behind the Victorian bay windows, reclining in post-war semis. He noticed how many were black -many more than in a Soho phone-box, surely -and how many, if the photos were to be believed (are they to be believed?), were exceptionally pretty. He picked up the handset again. He paused. In the past year he had grown shyer of Jerome. He feared the new adolescent religiosity, the moral seriousness and silences, always somehow implicitly critical. Howard took courage and dialled. 'Hello?' 'Yes, hello.' The voice -young-sounding and very London -threw Howard for a moment. 'Hi.' 'Sorry, who's this?' 'I'm ... who's that?' 'This is the Kipps residence. Who's that?' 'Ah -the son, right.' 'Pardon? Who is this?' 'Er ... look, I need to -this is awkward -I'm Jerome's father and -' 'Oh, right, let me just call him -' But Howard continued. 'Poor bastard needs all the support he can get, as far as j'm concerned. One of the great unappreciated composers of the last millennium .. .' Jerome, ignore him, honey. Levi'lllike it -we'll all like it. We're not animals. We can sit for half an hour like respectable folk. ' 'More like an hour, Mom,' said Jerome. 'Who likes it? Me?' asked Levi urgently. The mention of his own name was never an occasion for irony or humour for Levi, and, like his own avid lawyer, he took a personal interest in every mention or misuse of it. 'I don't even know who he is! Mozart. He's got a wig, right? Classical,' he said with finality, having satisfied himself that he had diagnosed the correct disease. 'That's right,' agreed Howard. 'Wore a wig. Classical. They made a film about him.' 'I've seen that. That film eats my ass .. .' 'Quite.' Kiki began to giggle. Now Howard let go of Zora and held his wife instead, gripping her from behind. His arms could not go entirely around her, but still they walked in this manner down the small hill towards the gates of the park. , This was one of the little ways in which he said sorry. They were meant to add up each day. 'Man, look at this line,' said Jerome glumly, for he had wanted the evening to be perfect. 'We should have left earlier.' Kiki rearranged her purple silk wrap around her shoulders. 'Oh, it's not that long, baby. And at least it's not cold.' " couldjump that fence like that,' said Levi, pulling at the vertical iron rods as they walked beside them. 'You wait in line, you're a fool, seriously. A brother don't need a gate -he jumps the fence. That's street.' 'Again, please?' said Howard. 'Street, street,' bellowed Zora. 'It's like, "being street", knowing the street -in Levi's sad little world if you're a Negro you have some kind of mysterious holy communion with sidewalks and corners.> 'Aw, man, shut up. You don't know what the street looks like. You ain't never been there.' 'What's this?' said Zora, pointing to the ground. 'Marshmallow?' 'Please. This ain't America. You think this is America? This is toy-town. I was born in this country -trust me. You go into Roxbury, you go into the Bronx, you see America. That's street.' 'Levi, you don't live in Roxbury,' explained Zora slowly. 'You live in Wellington. You go to Arundel. You've got your name ironed into your underwear.' '] wonder if I'm street .. .' mused Howard. 'I'm still healthy, got hair, testicles, eyes, etcetera. Got great testicles. It's true I'm above subnormal intelligence -but then again , am full of verve and spunk.' 'No.' 'Dad,' said Zora, 'please don't say spunk. Ever.' 'Can't I be street?' 'No. Why you always got to make everything be a joke?' " just want to be street.' 'Mom. Tell him to stop, man.' " can be a brother. Check it out,' said Howard, and proceeded to make a series of excruciatiog hand gestures and poses. Kiki squealed and cf,lvered her eyes. 'Mom -I'm going home, , swear to God ifhe does that for one more second, I swear to God .. .' Levi was trying desperately to get his hoodie to cover the side of his vision in which Howard was persisting. It was surely only seconds before Howard recited the only piece of rap he could ever remember, a single line he'd mysteriously retained from the mass oflyrics he heard Levi mutter day after day. 'Igot the slickest, quickest dick -' began Howard. Screams of consternation rose up from the rest of his family. 'A penis with the IQ ofa genius!' 'Oat's it -I'm gone.' Levi coolly jogged ahead of them all and tucked himself into the swarm going through the gates into the park. They all laughed, even Jerome, and it did Kiki good to see him laugh. Howard had always been funny. Even when they first met, she had thought of him, covetously, as the kind of father who would be able to make his children laugh, Now she tweaked his elbow affectionately. 'Something I said)' asked Howard, satisfied, and released his arms from their folded pose, 'Well done, baby. Has he got his cell on him)' asked Kiki. 'He's got mine,' said Jerome. 'He stole it from my room this morning.' As they filed in behind the slow-moving crowd, the park gave off its scent for the Belseys, sap-filled and sweet, heavy with the last of the dying summer. On a humid September night like this the Common was no longer that neat, historic space renowned for its speeches and hangings. It shrugged off its human gardeners and tended once more towards the wild, the natural. The Boston primness Howard associated with these kinds of events could not quite survive the mass of hot boclies and the crepitations of the crickets, the soft, damp bark of the trees and the atonal tuning of instruments -and all this was to the good. Yellow lanterns, the colour of rape seed, hung in the branches of the trees. 'Gee, that's nice,' said Jerome. 'It's like the orchestra's hovering above the water, isn't it? I mean, the reflection from the lights makes it look like that,' 'Gee,' said Howard, looking towards the flood-lit mound beyond the water, 'Gee gosh. Golly gee, Bo diddley.' The orchestra sat on a small stage on the other side of the pond. It was clear to Howard -the only non-myopic member ofhis family -that every male musician was wearing a tie with a 'musical notes design upon it. The women had this same motif printed on a cummerbund-like sash they wore around their waists. From an enormous banner behind the orchestra, a profile ofMozart's miser­able, pouchy hamster face loomed out at him. 'Where's the choir?' asked Kiki, looking about her. 'They're underwater. They come up in like a .. .' said Howard, miming a man emerging with a flourish from the sea. 'It's Mozart in pond. Like Mozart on ice. Fewer fatalities.' Kiki laughed lightly, but then her face changed and she held him tightly by his wrist. 'Hey ... ah, Howard, baby?' she said warily, looking across the park. 'You want good news or bad news?' 'Hmm?' said Howard, ruming round and finding both kinds of news were approaching from across the green and waving at him: Erskine Jegede and Jack French, the Dean of the Humanities Faculty. Jack French on his long playboy legs in their New England slacks. Howald was this man? The question had always troubled Howard. Jack French could be fifty-rwo. He could just as easily be seventy-nine. You couldn't ask him and ifyou didn't ask him you'd never know. It was a movie-idol face Jack had, cut-glass architecture, angled like a Wyndham Lewis portrait. His sentimental eyebrows made the shape of rwo separated sides of a steeple, always gently perplexed. He had skin like the kind of dark, aged leather you find on those fellows they dig out, after 900 years, from a peat bog. A thin yet complete covering of grey silk hair hid his skull from Howard's imputations of extreme old age and was cut no differ­ently than it would have been when the man was rwenty-rwo, balanced on the lip of a white boat looking out at Nanrucket through one sun-shading hand, wondering if that was Dolly stood square on the pier with rwo highballs in her hand. Compare and contrast with Erskine: his shining, hairless pate, and those story­book freckles that induced in Howard an unreasonable feeling of joy. Erskine was dressed this evening in a three-piece suit of the yellowest of yellows, the curves of his bumptious body narurally resisting all three pieces. On his small feet he wore a pair ofpointed Cuban-heeled shoes. The effect was of a bull doing his initial two-step dance towards you. Still ten yards away, Howard had a chance to switch his position with his wife -quickly and unobserved -so that Erskine would naturally veer towards Howard and French would go the other way. He took this opportunity. Unfortunately French was not given to duologic conversation -he addressed the group, always. No -he addressed the gaps betwern the group. 'Belseys en masse,' said Jack French very slowly, and each Belsey tried to ascertain which Belsey he might be looking at directly. 'Missing ... one, I believe. Belseys minus one.' 'That's Levi, our youngest -we lost him. He lost us. To be honest, he's trying to lose us,' said Kiki coarsely and laughed, and Jerome laughed and Zora laughed and so did Howard and Erskine and after all of them, very slowly, with infinite slowness, Jack French began to laugh. 'My children,' began Jack. 'Yes?' said Howard. 'Spend most of their time,' said Jack. 'Yes, yes,' said Howard, encouragingly. 'Contriving,' said Jack. 'Ha, ha,' said Howard. 'Yes.' 'To lose me at public events,' said Jack finally. 'Right,' said Howard, exhausted already. 'Right. Always the way.' 'We are anathema to our own children,' said Erskine merrily, with his scale-jumping accent, from high to low and back again. 'We are liked only by other people's children. Your children for example like me so much more than they like you.' 'It's true, man. I'd move in with you if I could,' said Jerome in return, for which he got the standard Erskine response to good tidings, even minor ones like the arrival of a new gin and tonic on the table -both of Erskine's hands placed on his cheeks and a kiss on the forehead. 'You will come home with me, then. It is settled.' ·Please, take the rest too. Don't dangle carrots,' said Howard, stepping forward and giving Erskine a jovial slap on the back. He then turned to Jack French and put out his hand, which French, who had turned to gaze upon the musicians, did not notice. 'Wonderful, isn't it?' said Kikii '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 our 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. 'Mllnicipal 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 lectl/rers and speakers and research fellows -myself and my mends, we're just really psyched about this semester. And ofcourse Dad's giving his incredible art theoty class -which I am so taking this year -J'mjust 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 progtessive stage. I think the college is really moving in a positive direction, which it needed, I think, afrer that dismal power struggle in the mid-to-Iate 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 eIdson. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. 0. Beauty 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 ofthe 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 ofa Professor N. R. A. Gould carefully guided her through each movement. Poor Zora -she lived through foomotes. It was the same in Paris: so intent was she upon reading the guide book to SacTl!-Cceur 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 ofbreaking 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 ofblack 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 ofjerome, 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 ifit'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: saidjerome, waving towards a tree a hundred yards away. 'Hey -Levi!' 'Well, I thought it was amazing: pressed Kiki. 'It's obViously the work ofa 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. '[ think the kids were quite moved: she said, squeezingjerome's arm lightly but saying no more. She would not expose him to his father's ridicule. 'And I was very moved. [ 7' 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 taiking about. It's like God's music or something.' 'I rest my case,' said Howard, and now tnrned from her and waved at Levi, who was stnck 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 ofa 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 ofinformation -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, bra.' '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 hear Zora say: 'Don't be ridiculous -I'm not giving some friend of yours my player -get offme -' '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, ifyou 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, twenry 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 ofher 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 [ check it out -I'm all into that.' 'I guess .. .' Tm Levi.' 'Car!.' 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 Me if you can listen to his Disonan? 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 hlimbly 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. Levi suggested they swap cell numbers, and they did so by an oak tree. Just, you know ... next time you hear about a show in Roxbury . . . You can call me or whatever: said Levi, rather too keenly. 'You live in Roxbury?' asked Carl doubtfully. 'Not really ... but I'm there a lot -Saturdays, especially.' 'What are you, fourteen?' asked Carl. 'No, man. I'm sixteen! Howald are you?' 'Twenty.' This answer immediately inhibited Levi. 'You at college or .. . ?' 'Nah ... I'm not an educated brother, although .. .' He had a theatrical, old-fashioned way of speaking, which involved his long, pretty fingers turning circles in the air. His whole manner reminded Levi of his grandfather on his mother's side and his tendency to speechify, as Kiki called it. 'I guess you could say 1 hit my own books in my own way.' 'Scene.' 'I get my culture where 1 can, you know -going to free shit like tonight, for example. Anything happening that's free in this city and might teach me something, I'm' there.' Levi's family were waving at him. He was hoping that Carl would go in another direction before they reached the gate, but of course there was only one way out of the park. 'Finally,' said Howard, as they approached. Now it was Carl's turn to grow inhibited. He pulled his baseball cap down low. He put his hands in his pockets. 'Oh, hey,' said Zora, acutely embarrassed. Carl acknowledged her with a nod. 'So I'll call you,' said Levi, trying to bypass the introduction he feared was moments away. He was not quick enough. 'Hi!' said Kiki. 'Are you a friend of Levi)' Carl looked distraught. 'Er ... this is Carl. Zora stole his Discman.' 'I didn't steal any -' 'Are you at Wellington? Familiar face,' said Howard distractedly. He was looking out for a taxi. Carl laughed, a strange artifidallaugh that had more anger in it than good humour. 'Do 1look like I'm at Wellington?' 'Not everybody goes to your stupid college,' countered Levi, blushing. 'People do other shit than go to college. He's a street poet.' 'Really?' asked Jerome with interest. 'That ain't really accurate, man . .. I do some stuff, Spoken Word -that's all. I don't know if I be calling myself a street poet, exactly.' 'Spoken Word?' repeated Howard. Zora, who considered herself the essential bridge between Wellington's popular culture and her parents' academic culture, stepped in here. 'It's like oral poetry . .. it's in the African-American tradition -Claire Malcolm's all into it. She thinks it's vital and earthy, etcetera, etcetera. She goes to the Bus Stop to check it out with her little Cult of Claire groupies.' This last was sour grapes on Zora's part; she had applied for, but not been accepted into, Claire's poetry workshop the previous semester. 'I've done the Bus Stop, several times,' said Carl quietly. 'It's a good place. It's about the only cool place for that sruffin Wellington. I did some stuff there just Tuesday night past.' Now he put a thumb to the brim of his cap and lifted it a little so that he might get a good look at these people. Was the white guy the father? 'Claire Malcolm goes to a bus stop to hear poetry .. .' began Howard, bewildered, busy looking up and down the street. 'Shut up, Dad,' said Zora. 'Do you know Claire Malcolm?' 'Nope ... can't say I do,' replied Carl, releasing another one of his winning smiles, just nerves probably, but each time he did, you warmed to him further. 'She's like a poet poet,' explained Zora. 'Oh .. . A poet poet.' Carl's smile disappeared. 'Shut up, Zoor,' said Jerome. 'Rubens,' said Howard suddenly. 'Your face. From the four African heads. Nice to meet you, anyway.' Howard's family stared at him. Howard stepped offthe sidewalk to wave down a cab that passed him by. Carl pulled his hoodie over his cap and began to look around himself. 'You should meet Claire,' said Kiki enthusiastically, trying to patch the thing up. It's remarkable what a face like Carl's makes you want to do in order to see it smile again. 'She's very respected -everybody says she's very good.' 'Cab!' yelled Howard. 'It's going to pull up on the other side. Come on.' 'Why do you say it like Claire's a country you've never been to?' demanded Zora. 'You've read her -so you can have an opinion, Mom, it won't kill you.' Kiki ignored this. 'I'm sure she'd love to meet a young poet, she's very encouraging -you know actually we're having a party -' 'Come on, come on: droned Howard. He was in the middle of the traffic island. 'Why would he even want to go to your party?' asked Levi, mortified. 'It's an anniversary party.' 'Well, baby, I can ask. can't I? Besides. it's not just an anniversary party. And hetween me and you: she added faux confidentially to Carl. 'we could do with a few more brothers at this party.' It had not escaped anybody's attention that Kiki was flirting. Brothers! thought Zora crossly. since when does Kiki say brothers? 'I got to be going: . said Carl. He passed a flat hand over his forehead. smearing the droplets of sweat. 'I got your man Levi's number -we might hang out some time. so -' 'Oh. OK .. .' They all waved vaguely at his back and said bye quietly. but there was no denying he was walking away from them as fast as he could. Zora turned to her mother and opened her eyes wide. 'What the hell? Rubens!' 'Nice boy: said Kiki sadly. 'Let's get in the car: said Levi. 'Not bad-looking either. huh?' said Kiki and watched Carl's retreating figure tum a comer. Howard stood on the other side of the road. one hand on the open mini-van door. the other sweeping from the ground to the sky. ushering his family inside. The Saturday ofthe Belsey' party arrived. The twelve hours before a Belsey party were a time of domestic anxiety and activity; a watertight excuse was required to escape the house for the duration. Luckily for Levi, his parents had provided him with one. Hadn't they gone on and on about his getting a Saturday job? And so he had got one, and so he was going to it. End ofdiscussion. With joy in his heart he left Zora and Jerome polishing doorknobs and set off for his sales associate position in a Boston music mega-store. The job itself was no occasion for joy: he hated the corny baseball cap he had to wear and the bad pop music he was compelled to sell; the tragic loser of a floor manager who imagined he was the king of Levi; the moms who couldn't remember the name of the artist or the single, and so leaned over the counter to tunelessly hum a little bit of the verse. All it was good for was giving him a reason to get out of the toy-town that was Wellington and a bit of money to spend in Boston once he got there. Every Saturday morning he caught a bus to the nearest T-stop and then the subway into the only city he had ever really known. It was not New York, sure, but it was the only city he had, and Levi treasured the urban the same way previous generations worshipped the pastoral; ifhe could have written an ode he would have. But he had no ability in 'that area (he used to try -notebook after notebook filled with false, cringing rhymes). He had learned to leave it to the fast-talking guys in his earphones, the present-day American poets, the rappers. Levi's shift finished at four. He left the city reluctantly, as always. He got back on the subway and then the bus. He looked out with ·dread at Wellington as it began to manifest itself outside the grimy windows. The pristine white spires of the college seemed to him like the watchtowers of a prison to which he was returning. He sloped towards home, walking up the final hill, listening to his music. The fate of the young man in his earphones, who faced a jail cell that very night, did not seem such a world away from his own predicament: an anniversary party full of academics. Walking up Redwood Avenue with its tunnel of cemuous wil­lows, Levi found he had lost the will even to nod his head, usually an involuntary habit with him when music was playing. Halfway down the avenue he noticed with irritation that he was being watched. A very old black lady sitting on her porch was eyeing him like there was no other news in town. He tried to shame her by staring her out in tum. She just kept right on staring. Framed by rwo yellow-leaved trees on each side of her house, she sat on her porch in this bright red dress and stared like she was being paid to do it. Man oh man, but didn't she look old and papery. Her hair was really not tied back properly. Like she wasn't being taken care of. Hair every which way. Levi hated to see that right there, old people not taken care of. Her clothes were crazy too. This red dress she had on didn't have a waist; it just went straight down like a queen's gown in a children's book and was held together at the throat by one big brooch in the shape of a golden palm leaf. Boxes all around her on that porch filled with clothes and cups and plates .. . like a bag lady, only with a house. She sure could eyeball, though .. . Jesus. Isn't there anything on TV, lady? Maybe he should buy a T-shirt that just had on it YO -I'M NOT GOING TO RAPE you . He could use a T-shirt like that. Maybe like three times each day while on his travels that T-shirt would come in handy. There was always some old lady who needed to be reassured on that point. And check it out . .. now she's struggling to get out of the chair -her legs like toothpicks in sandals. She's gorma say something. Aw, shit.