Because She Is Beautiful

by Cameron Dougan

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART I: A GIRL

  PART II: WORK

  PART III: RESIGNATION

  PART IV: PARIS

  About the Author

  About AtRandom.com Books

  Copyright Page

  FOR HELENA

  perhaps it is to feel strike

  the silver fish of her nakedness

  with fins sharply pleasant, my

  youth has travelled toward her these years

  or to snare the timid like

  of her mind to my mind that i

  am come by little countries to the yes

  of her youth.

  And if somebody hears

  what i say—let him be pitiful:

  because i've travelled all alone

  through the forest of wonderful,

  and that my feet have surely known

  the furious ways and the peaceful,

  and because she is beautiful

  e. e. cummings

  PART I

  A GIRL

  That Sunday Kim lit a candle for her mother and prayed that her father would die. There was no war now for him to go to, where he might get shot, where his patriotism would mean something and he'd be a hero.

  "To be brave like him," her mother said.

  Kim watched her unwrap the blood-flecked paper bundle that her father had brought home. They ate filet mignon once a week whether they could afford it or not. Her father insisted on proving his expensive taste.

  Kim sat on the floor while her mother cooked. She'd move and still be underfoot. They'd spent the previous afternoon at Woolworth's going through the racks. Her mother had bought a pretty new coral blouse specially for Sunday dinner. Her father drank scotch in the other room with the television blaring, an announcer's voice like a siren rising and falling to the pounding of horses' hooves. Her father shouted and her mother stopped and called out but he didn't answer. He'd been talking to the television.

  At dinner he barked out grace and cut into his steak. He took a bite and chewed. He cupped a napkin to his mouth, then folded the napkin and set it down.

  "Rare means rare," he said.

  He threw the slab of meat off his plate. It hit the wall, leaving a mark, a trail of black flecks like running mascara. He grabbed her mother's arm and squeezed, knuckles white, tendons rising on the back of his hand.

  "Three good pieces ruined," he said, staring at Kim.

  She was only seven.

  "You see what she does? You see?"

  The front door slammed behind him. The sleeve of her mother's new blouse was grease-stained. She dropped the steaks in the garbage and stood at the sink with soap on her hands, the tap running, staring out the window for a while. Then she came over and rested her hands on Kim's shoulders. Her fingers smelled like lemons.

  "I cooked the meat too long," she said, and left the room to put on a clean blouse.

  Long after sunset, he sat with Kim on the stoop, staring hawk-eyed at nothing. Kim couldn't move until he gave permission.

  "Did you see that?" he said, pointing across the street to some bushes that shot up at the back of an unused property. A full moon lit the ground.

  "Did you see it move?" he said.

  She focused all her energy, and finally she thought she did but wasn't sure.

  "I hate the moon," he said.

  She gazed at the flat white circle and the haze that spread across the sky. It made the crabgrass, the broken bits of wood and debris that littered the lot, silver between shadows.

  "We all hated it," he said. "You could never tell in that light if something moved. You'd lie in a foxhole with your ears ringing, clawing at your eyes. When a tank was coming the bushes would start to shake."

  Kim could see the Big Dipper. She traced it to the North Star. She stared again at the bush. She sat very still and waited. The bush never moved.

  "There!" he said. "Did you see it?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  He cursed fields of lush windswept grass, deceitful rolling fog, and God's bitter stars dangling in a smiling heaven. He told gruesome stories that her mom said she was too young to hear.

  "She has to," he would insist. "To understand."

  He'd tell how his best friend, John Consella, got his stomach shot out while playing cards. The sniper's gunfire ripped his side open. There was nothing there to bandage. He could have reached in and held the man's heart. Consella's cards were still fanned in his limp hand—three eights. He coughed and tried to speak. Blood splattered her father's cheek as he knelt. "I had you," Consella said. Her father had thought he'd been bluffing. For two months he didn't wash his face.

  "Now do you see?" he said to Kim. "You really understand?"

  "Charlie," said her mom.

  He shot up a finger. "Why am I telling you these things?"

  Kim looked from her mother back to her father.

  "You don't understand?" he said. "You haven't heard a single goddamn thing."

  "Charlie, I baked an apple pie this afternoon."

  Again the finger, training on her. Kim watched her mother take a cardboard container of ice cream from the freezer and set it on the counter. She took down bowls from the cupboard and peeled the foil off the pie and licked her finger.

  "I'll cut you an extra big piece," she said. "Is this big enough?"

  She held up a slice. Her father's stare did not relent.

  "What was Consella's hand?" he said.

  "Eights," said Kim.

  "How many?"

  She couldn't remember.

  "Go to your room," he said.

  "But—"

  "No dessert."

  His hand tightened around his drink, the fleshy bulge at the base of his thumb wet where it choked the glass.

  "I want you to think about what you've done here."

  Her mother put one of the bowls back in the cupboard.

  "You heard your father."

  Kim ran to her room, swinging the door shut behind her. She flopped on the bed and pulled her hair into her face to cover her eyes. In seconds the door flew open.

  "Don't ever do that again," he said, flashing the back of a hand. "No slamming doors. Do you hear me? Clear? Now, no dessert for a week."

  He closed the door so hard the dresser shook.

  If only she knew what bluffing meant.

  It sounded soft, like stuffing, clouds or downy pillows, a drift of snow nestling against the side of a house. Somehow it had to do with her father's friend getting shot. She ought to know.

  She fell asleep in her clothes and woke to her mother's coaxing voice. She sat up sleepily and straightened her arms so that her mother could pull the dress over her head. Then she lay back. Her mother tucked the blanket around her chin and kissed her forehead.

  She woke again to a hand on her shoulder, the steely fingers of her father. "Shhhhh," he said, and motioned for her to follow. "Hup-two, get out of bed."

  All the lights were out. She wobbled down the hall, rubbing her eyes.

  "What is it, Daddy?"

  Moonlight spilled across the kitchen counter, the dark shape of a bowl with a spoon sticking out. "Sit," he said. He carried the bowl to the table—two scoops of ice cream. He sat across from her and nodded for her to eat.

  "Be very quiet," he said. "If your mother catches us, we won't be able to have ice cream for a month."

  Her lips closed on the end of the spoon and she pulled it out slowly, shaping the ice cream to a fine point.

  "Good, huh?" His smile was so broad she could see the fillings in the back of his mouth.

  "Ummmm," she
said.

  "Our secret."

  He went to the sink and looked out the window. He pulled his pajama sleeves up to his elbows and leaned against the metal edge of the counter. The muscles in his forearms shifted as he rocked forward on his feet. He looked tired.

  "Dad, what's bluffing?"

  "It's when you pretend, Princess. When you make someone believe something that's not true."

  John Consella hadn't been bluffing. He hadn't been pretending and then he got shot. Was that the point—that he should have been? It didn't make sense.

  "Do you see tanks, Dad?"

  "What?"

  "The moon."

  "Oh. . . . No tanks, Precious. Hey, did I ever tell you the one about ol' Bert the cowboy dog? One day he comes into the saloon, his big ol' ears a-floppin' "—he put his hands at either side of his head—"ambles up to that ol' bar, tail a-waggin' "—he took a bowlegged step toward Kim, making his voice twang—"and orders himself a cold sarsaparilla."

  "What's that?"

  "What ol' cowboy dogs drink. Kinda like root beer. Now, turns out he can't hardly hold the mug, and that's when the bartender notices and says, 'Bert, what happened?' Ol' Bert looks down at his leg like so and says, 'Someone shot my paw!' Get it? Pa! You finished? We better get back to bed. Give me the bowl."

  She got up.

  "What are you forgetting?" he said.

  He knelt and she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. His chin was scratchy and she didn't want to let go. He hugged her back and she wanted to curl up in his arms, to sleep right there in the kitchen with the moon shining in and everything still about her.

  "Okay, okay," he said.

  She squeezed even harder.

  "Okay," he said. "Enough. Time for bed. Shhhhh."

  He had a smile that could stop time.

  Her father trained men. Their family moved often, but things stayed the same: uniform houses with square, neatly mowed lawns. Wire fences kept the world out.

  "Top secret," her mother would whisper.

  Airplanes streaked the sky. They'd fly in tight formation, like praying hands.

  One time her father planted a birch tree in the front yard. It took him a whole afternoon.

  "Just like a foxhole," he said, shoveling the dirt, his undershirt dark at the chest from sweat.

  She watched from the shade and kept his beer cold and brought him one when he called for it. When he was through, he took his undershirt off and wiped his forehead with it. He came over to where Kim was sitting and put an arm about her and admired the work. The dirt was patted down around the tree's slender base. The black and white stripes on the trunk were clearly delineated. He had always wanted a house with a birch tree, he told her, and now they had one. It would grow and sway in the breeze.

  And then they moved again.

  Those weeks after a move were the hardest—her mother unpacking, cleaning the new house. One time she caught Kim on the floor, surrounded by picture books, her Bible opened to an illustration of Noah's Ark, clouds billowing as though all the world were ablaze, water rushing in to swallow the earth, people hanging from treetops, a man on the highest branch pulling his hair, his open mouth a black hole, the darkest spot in the painting. Two of every animal were supposed to fit on the boat, but it didn't look big enough. Why two and not one?

  "Looking at scary pictures?" her mom said, kneeling. "You should be outside making friends."

  She closed the Bible and led Kim to the front door, prodding her out. Up the block, three girls jumped rope, two swinging the long cord in wide loops, the other, a flutter of white dress and hair ribbon, hopping from one foot to the other.

  "See? Now go introduce yourself."

  She gave Kim another push.

  Kim walked slowly, knowing that her mom was watching, not looking back. She sat on the curb. The girls seemed to take no notice. She listened to the rope swiping the pavement, the girls' counting, singing. "Peach pie, berry pie, custard, and apple."

  The girl in the middle looked over at Kim.

  "Get-two-three, your-two-three, own," she huffed.

  Kim didn't move. After a while the girls dropped the rope and came over to stare at her. One had a yellow dress with an orange daffodil stitched on the front. Her hair was drawn back in a long tight braid, which she pulled around and hooked under her nose like a mustache. She squatted and stared at Kim's shoes.

  "They're like strawberries," she said, her voice nasal from the mustache trick. The other two girls got down beside her, careful not to let their clean, unwrinkled dresses touch the dirty street, and peered at Kim's shoes, their flushed faces twisted.

  "Strawberries are sweet."

  "Sugary."

  The girls smelled of soap, rosy shampoo like the kind Kim's mom used.

  The girl with the braid whispered, "She has strawberry shoes because she likes to lick her shoes."

  She stared down her pointy nose and beamed at her friends. Their smiles were triumphant.

  Kim clapped her hands. She'd seen an old woman on a park bench once shoo pigeons this way: confusion. Kim jumped up and clapped her hands forcefully.

  The girls scrambled to their feet in a rush and charged to the door of the nearest house, bumping into one another, a tangle of bows and braid, fighting for the knob, stumbling through into the dark. The door slammed.

  Kim waited. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a curtain move. They'd left the jump rope lying in the street and were probably worried, watching to see what she'd do. Several minutes passed. Finally the door opened: one inch, then wider. The girl with the braid came creeping out. As she got closer, Kim stomped and clapped her hands again. The girl grabbed one end of the rope and dashed back to the house, bounding up the step. The door banged shut behind her, catching the rope. It went limp across the stoop. All was quiet. Then the door clicked open, and the rope slithered in. Now the girls were watching Kim from the window.

  The front door opened again, but this time it was a woman. She had on an apron and baking gloves and she glared at Kim through thick dark-rimmed glasses.

  "Stay off our lawn," the woman said.

  Kim got up and walked across the street and sat on the opposite curb, waiting for the sun to sink so she could go home.

  When her mom let her into the house, all the books were put away and the floor had been vacuumed. "Did we play well?"

  It was her mother's idea to make lists of reasons why their new homes were better than the ones before. They would remind Kim of the good things when it seemed like there weren't any.

  "We'll stick this list to the refrigerator for when your dad gets home," she said, tearing a piece of paper from a note pad and handing Kim a pen.

  They sat at the kitchen table and her mother stared at her, waiting for her to write.

  "Only good things," said her mom.

  Kim wrote:

  A bit of tar with a shoe print.

  Squirrels don't get dizzy. They like candy.

  Two white cars and then a red car.

  Flat stones are good fairy tables.

  Sometimes a road has no line on it.

  Cleveland Avenue has two.

  I don't touch the lines.

  She gave the paper to her mom, who read it and crossed her arms and looked away.

  "What about your new friends?" she said.

  Kim said nothing.

  "I don't like you playing near Cleveland Avenue. It's dangerous."

  "I wasn't near there."

  Her mother looked away again, then handed back the paper.

  "We'll do it another time," she said.

  "May I go to my room?"

  "Yes, you may."

  Kim went to her room and shut the door. She took a book from her nightstand and climbed into bed and opened it. There was a picture of a fairy, kneeling on a lily pad. She had dragonfly wings and long brown hair, bunched and braided and loose all together, falling to touch the water. She was leaning over the edge of the lily pad to stare at her reflec
tion.

  Kim folded the piece of paper and stuck it in the book to mark her place. She went to her window and opened it a crack. While sitting on the curb, she'd found an acorn, and she took it from her pocket and placed it on the outside edge of the sill.

  "In case you get hungry," she whispered, and shut the window.

  She watched until she got tired. She'd read that fairies liked acorns.

  Kim's bedrooms would always have just enough space for a bed, dresser, and nightstand. Her father would inspect her clothes to make sure they were stored in orderly fashion.

  One night the ceiling light startled her awake. For a moment she couldn't see. She could hear someone rattling hangers in the closet. Her father emerged and went to the dresser and started pulling out drawers, throwing clothes to the floor.

  "What's wrong?" she said.

  He rushed to the bed, the bulb of the ceiling light eclipsed by the dark of his looming frame. She pulled the blanket to her eyes. He smacked the side of her head.

  "Look at me. Look at me."

  He wrenched the blanket free and stuck his finger in her face.

  "How many times?" He pinned her hands and slapped her cheek. "How many—"

  Her mother was suddenly between them, a windmill of arms.

  "Charlie, stop!" She got a hold of him. She fastened to him. "What did she do?"

  His face twitched, shoulders heaving. His breathing slowed and he stared dumbly, bubbles of saliva at the corners of his mouth. His chin was wet.

  After they left, Kim sat with her back to the cold wall, the thin blanket pulled over her legs. Pink shirts, ruffled socks, and flower-print dresses littered the room. She hated her clothes.

  In the other room, her father was vomiting.

  Kim's door opened a crack and her mother looked in, as if she'd expected Kim to be asleep. She came in and began picking up the clothes.

  "Go to sleep, love," she said.

  She tried to get the drawer back into the dresser. Her robe fell open. The light glared off her sagging white breasts.

  If she wanted to, Kim could go days without talking.

  Her mother promised that he was sorry, pleaded for her to forgive him. Kim clamped her mouth shut and stuck out her chin.