On Beauty

by Zadie Smith

  ‘Look, I don’t need to explain myself to you,’ said Kiki, but then immediately went on to do so. ‘You know what it is? Sometimes I feel it’s always the same viewpoint in this house. And I’m just trying to get all points of view. I don’t see how that’s a crime, just trying to expand your – ’

  ‘In the interest of balance,’ said Howard in the nasal voice of an American TV commentator.

  ‘You know, Howard, all you ever do is rip into everybody else. You don’t have any beliefs – that’s why you’re scared of people with beliefs, people who have dedicated themselves to something, to an idea.’

  ‘You’re right – I am scared of fascistic loons – I’m – my mind is boggling – Kiki, this man wants to destroy Roe v. Wade. That’s just for starters. This man –’

  Kiki stood up and started shouting. ‘That is not what this is about – I don’t give a rat’s ass about Monty Kipps. I’m talking about you – you’re terrified of anyone who believes anything – look how you treat Jerome – you can’t even look at him, because you know he’s a Christian now – we both know it – we never talk about it. Why? You just make jokes about it, but it’s not funny – it’s not funny to him – and it just seems like you used to have some idea of what you . . . I don’t know . . . what you believed and what you loved and now you’re just this –’

  ‘Stop shouting.’

  ‘I’m not shouting.’

  ‘You’re shouting. Stop shouting.’ A pause. ‘And I don’t know what on earth Jerome has to do with any of this –’

  With two bunched fists Kiki thumped the sides of her legs in frustration. ‘It’s all the same thing, I’ve been thinking about all of this – it’s part of the same . . . just, veil of doom that’s descended on this house – we can’t talk about anything seriously, everything’s ironic, nothing’s serious – everyone’s scared to speak in case you think it’s clichéd or dull – you’re like the thought police. And you don’t care about anything, you don’t care about us – you know, I was sitting there listening to Kipps – OK, so he’s a nutcase half the time, but he’s standing up there talking about something he believes in –’

  ‘So you keep saying. Apparently it doesn’t matter what he believes in, as long as it’s something. Will you listen to yourself? He believes in hate – what are you talking about? He’s a miserable, lying –’

  Kiki stuck a finger right in Howard’s face. ‘I don’t think you want to talk about lies, OK? I do not think you want to sit there and dare talk to me about lies. If he’s nothing else, that man is a more honourable man than you will ever be –’

  ‘You’ve lost your mind,’ muttered Howard.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ screamed Kiki. ‘Don’t undermine me like that. God – it’s like . . . you can’t even . . . I don’t feel I even know you any more . . . it’s like after 9/11 when you sent that ridiculous e-mail round to everybody about Baudry, Bodra –’

  ‘Baudrillard. He’s a philosopher. His name is Baudrillard.’

  ‘About simulated wars or whatever the fuck that was . . . And I was thinking: What is wrong with this man? I was ashamed of you. I didn’t say anything, but I was. Howard,’ she said, reaching out to him but not far enough to touch, ‘this is real. This life. We’re really here – this is really happening. Suffering is real. When you hurt people, it’s real. When you fuck one of our best friends, that’s a real thing and it hurts me.’

  Kiki collapsed into the couch and started to weep.

  ‘Comparing mass murder to my infidelity seems a tad . . .’ said Howard, quietly, but the storm was over, and there was no point. Kiki cried into a pillow.

  ‘Why do you love me?’ he asked.

  Kiki kept on crying and did not answer. A few minutes later he asked her again.

  ‘Is that some kind of trick question?’

  ‘It’s a genuine question. A real question.’

  Kiki said nothing.

  ‘I’ll help you out,’ said Howard. ‘I’ll put it in the past tense. Why did you love me?’

  Kiki sniffed loudly. ‘I don’t want to play this game – it’s stupid and aggressive. I’m tired.’

  ‘Keeks, you’ve been holding me at arm’s length for so long, and I can’t remember if you even like me – forget love, like.’

  ‘I have always loved you,’ said Kiki, but in such a furious way that words and sentiment disconnected. ‘Always. I didn’t change. Let’s remember who changed.’

  ‘I am honestly, honestly not picking a fight with you,’ said Howard wearily and pressed his eyes with his fingers. ‘I am asking you why you loved me.’

  They sat and said nothing for a while. In the silence, something thawed. Their breathing slowed.

  ‘I don’t know how to answer that – I mean, we both know all of the good stuff and it doesn’t help,’ said Kiki.

  ‘You say you want to talk,’ said Howard. ‘But you don’t. You stonewall me.’

  ‘All I know is that loving you is what I did with my life. And I’m terrified by what’s happened to us. This wasn’t meant to happen to us. We’re not like other people. You’re my best friend –’

  ‘Best friend, yes,’ said Howard wretchedly. ‘That’s always been the case.’

  ‘And we’re co-parents.’

  ‘And we’re co-parents,’ repeated Howard, chafing against an Americanism he despised.

  ‘You don’t have to say that sarcastically, Howard – that’s part of what we are now.’

  ‘I wasn’t being . . .’ Howard sighed. ‘And we were in love,’ he said.

  Kiki let her head flop back on the couch.

  ‘Well, Howie, that was your past tense, not mine.’

  They were silent again.

  ‘And,’ said Howard, ‘of course we were always very good at the Hawaiian.’

  It was now Kiki’s turn to sigh. Hawaiian, for reasons private and old, was a euphemism for sex in the Belsey household.

  ‘Actually, we excelled at the Hawaiian,’ added Howard – he was out on a limb and he knew it. He put a hand to his wife’s coiled hair. ‘You can’t deny it.’

  ‘I never did. You did. When you did what you did.’

  This sentence – with its overabundance of ‘dids’ – was problematically comic. Howard struggled to rein in a smile. Kiki smiled first.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said.

  Howard took both his hands and put them under his wife’s cataclysmic breasts.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she repeated.

  He brought his hands round to their summits, and massaged the handful he could manage. He touched his lips to her neck and kissed her there. And again on her ears, which were wet from tears. She turned her face to his. They kissed. It was a burly, substantial, tongue-filled kiss. It was a kiss from the past. Howard held his wife’s lovely face in both of his hands. And now the same journey of so many nights over so many years: the kiss trail down her throat’s chubby rings of flesh, down to her chest. He undid the buttons of her shirt, as she attended to the hardy clip of her bra. The silver-dollar-sized nipples, from which occasional hairs sprouted, were the familiar deep brown with only a hint of pink. They protruded like no other nipples he had ever seen. They fitted perfectly and properly into his mouth.

  They moved on to the floor. Both thought of the children and the possibility that one of them would come home, but neither dared go to the door to lock it. Any movement away from this spot would be the end. Howard lay on top of his wife. He looked at her. His wife looked at him. He felt known. Murdoch, in disgust, left the room. Kiki reached up to kiss her husband. Howard pulled off his wife’s long skirt and her substantial, realistic underwear. He put his hands under her lovely fat ass and squeezed. She let out a soft hum of contentment. She sat up and began to unwind that long plait of hers. Howard lifted his hands up to help her. Coils of long afro hair came free and sprang wide and short until the halo from the old days surrounded her face. She undid his zip and took him into her hands. Slowly, steadily, sensuously, expertly, she manipulated him
. She began whispering in his ear. Her accent grew thick and Southern and filthy. For reasons private and old she was now in character as a Hawaiian fishwife called Wakiki. The fatal thing about Wakiki was her sense of humour – she’d bring you to the edge of abandon and then say something so funny that everything fell apart. Not funny to anyone else. Funny to Howard. Funny to Kiki. Laughing hard now, Howard lay back and pulled Kiki on top of him. She had a way of hovering closely there without putting all her weight on him. Kiki’s legs had always been strong as hell. She kissed him again, straightened up and crouched over him. He reached out like a child for her breasts and she placed them in his hands. She lifted her belly with her own hand and then pushed her husband inside herself. Home! But this happened sooner than Howard had expected, and he was partly saddened, for he knew like she knew that he was out of practice and therefore doomed. He could survive on top, or behind, or spooning, or any of the many other marital familiars. He was a stayer in those positions. He was a champion. They used to spend hours spooned next to each other, moving gently back and forth, speaking of the day, of funny things that had happened, of some foible of Murdoch’s, even of the children. But if she crouched above him, the giant breasts bouncing and developing their coating of sweat, her beautiful face working intently on what she wanted, the strange genius of her muscles clasping and unclasping him – well, then he had three and a half minutes, tops. For ten or so years, this was a cause of enormous sexual frustration between them. Here was her favourite position; here was his inability to withstand the pleasure of it. But life is long, and so is marriage. There came a breakthrough one year when Kiki found herself able to work with his excitement so as to somehow stimulate new muscles, and these sped her along in time with him. She once tried to explain to him how she did this, but the anatomical difference between our genders is too great. The metaphors won’t work. And who cares, anyway, for technicalities when that starburst of pleasure and love and beauty is taking you over? The Belseys got so good at it that they grew almost blasé, more proud than excited. They wanted to demonstrate the technique to the neighbours. But Howard did not feel blasé just now. He lifted his head and shoulders off the floor, grappled with her backside and pulled her tighter on to him; he apologized to her as his release came early, but in fact she joined him seconds later as the last ripples of the thing went through them both. The back of Howard’s head connected with the carpet, and he lay there breathing frantically, saying nothing. Kiki moved off him slowly and sat cross-legged like a big Buddha beside him. He reached out his hand, the open flat palm awaiting hers, the way they used to. She did not take it.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said instead. She picked up a cushion and buried her face in it.

  Howard didn’t hesitate. He said: ‘No, Keeks – this is a good thing. It’s been hell –’ Kiki pushed her face further into the cushion. ‘I know it has. But I don’t want to be without . . . us. You’re the person I – you’re my life, Keeks. You have been and you will be and you are. I don’t know how you want me to say it. You’re for me – you are me. We’ve always known that – and there’s no way out now anyway. I love you. You’re for me,’ repeated Howard.

  Kiki had not raised her face from the cushion and now she spoke into it. ‘I’m not sure you’re the person for me any more.’

  ‘I can’t hear you – what?’

  Kiki looked up. ‘Howard, I love you. But I’m just not interested in watching this second adolescence. I had my adolescence. I can’t go through yours again.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I haven’t had my period in three months – did you even know that? I’m acting crazy and emotional all the time. My body’s telling me the show’s over. That’s real. And I’m not going to be getting any thinner or any younger, my ass is gonna hit the ground, if it hasn’t already – and I want to be with somebody who can still see me in here. I’m still in here. And I don’t want to be resented or despised for changing . . . I’d rather be alone. I don’t want someone to have contempt for who I’ve become. I’ve watched you become too. And I feel like I’ve done my best to honour the past, and what you were and what you are now – but you want something more than that, something new. I can’t be new. Baby, we had a good run.’ Weeping, she lifted his palm and kissed it in the centre. ‘Thirty years – almost all of them really happy. That’s a lifetime, it’s incredible. Most people don’t get that. But maybe this is just over, you know? Maybe it’s over . . .’

  Howard, crying himself now, got up from where he lay and sat behind his wife. He stretched his arms around her solid nakedness. In a whisper he began begging for – and, as the sun set, received – the concession people always beg for: a little more time.

  11

  Spring break arrived, budding pink and violet in the apple trees, streaking orange through the wet sky. It was still as cold as ever, but now Wellingtonians permitted themselves hope. Jerome came home. Not for him Cancún, or Florida, or Europe. He wanted to see his family. Kiki, tremendously touched by this, took his hand in hers and led him into their chilly garden to witness the changes there. But she had other motives besides the simply horticultural.

  ‘I want you to know,’ she said, bending down to pluck a weed from the rose bed, ‘that we will support you in each and every choice that you will ever make.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jerome mordantly, ‘I think that’s beautifully and euphemistically put.’

  Kiki stood up and looked helplessly at her son and his gold cross. What else could she say? How could she follow him where he was going?

  ‘I’m joking,’ Jerome assured her. ‘I appreciate it, I do. And vice versa,’ he said, and gave his mother the same look she’d given him.

  They sat on the bench under the apple tree. The snow had peeled the paint and warped the wood, making it unsteady. They spread their weight to settle it. Kiki offered Jerome a portion of her giant shawl, but he declined.

  ‘So there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Kiki, cautiously.

  ‘Mom . . . I know what happens when a man puts his thing in a woman’s – ’

  Kiki pinched him in his side. Kicked him on his ankle.

  ‘It’s Levi. You know that when you’re not around he’s got no one . . . Zora won’t spend any time with him, and Howard treats him like some piece of – I don’t know what – moon rock. I worry about him. Anyway, he’s got in with these people – it’s fine, I’ve seen them around – it’s a big group of Haitian and African boys, they sell things on the street – I guess they’re traders.’

  ‘Is it legal?’

  Kiki pursed her lips. She had always been sweet on Levi, and nothing he ever did could be completely wrong.

  ‘Oh, boy,’ said Jerome.

  ‘I don’t know that it’s especially illegal.’

  ‘Mom, it either is or it –’

  ‘No, but that’s not . . . it’s more that he seems so involved with all of them. Suddenly he has no other friends. I mean, in a lot of ways it’s been interesting – he’s a lot more politically aware, for example. He’s in the square pretty much every weekend with leaflets helping this Haitian support-group campaign – he’s there now.’

  ‘Campaign?’

  ‘Higher wages, unfair detention – a lot of issues. Howard’s very proud of course – proud without actually thinking about what any of it might mean.’

  Jerome stretched his legs out across the grass and crossed one foot over the other. ‘I’m with Dad,’ he had to admit. ‘I don’t see the problem, really.’

  ‘Well, OK, it’s not a problem, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Don’t you find it a little strange that he’s so interested in Haitian things? I mean, we’re not Haitian, he’s never been to Haiti – six months ago he couldn’t have pointed to Haiti on a map. I just think it seems a little . . . random.’

  ‘Levi is random, Mom,’ said Jerome, standing up and moving around to get warm. ‘Come on, let’s go in, it’s cold.’

  The
y walked quickly back across the grass, through squelchy mounds of blossom forced off the trees by the previous night’s rainstorm.

  ‘Will you just hang out with him a little, though? Promise? Because he tends to go all in for one thing – you know how he is. I worry that all the crap that’s been going on in this house has been . . . throwing him off balance somehow. And it’s an important school year.’

  ‘How . . . how is all the crap?’ asked Jerome.

  Kiki put her arm round Jerome’s waist. ‘Truthfully? It’s damn hard work. It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done. But Howard’s really trying. You have to give him that. He is.’ Kiki noted Jerome’s doubtful face. ‘Oh, I know he can be an almighty pain, but . . . I do like Howie, you know. I may not always show it, but –’

  ‘I know you do, Mom.’

  ‘But will you promise that, about Levi? Spend some time with him – find out what’s up with him?’

  Jerome made the typical maternal promise casually, imagining that it might be casually attended to, but, as they stepped back into the house, his mother revealed her true face. ‘Yes, he’s down there right now, in the square,’ she said, as if Jerome had asked her. ‘And poor Murdoch needs a walk . . .’

  Jerome left his packed bags in the hallway and obliged his mother. He clipped a lead to Murdoch, and together they enjoyed the pretty walk through the old neighbourhood. It was a surprise to Jerome how happy he was to be back. Three years ago he had thought he hated Wellington: an unreal protectorate; high income, morally complacent; full of spiritually inert hypocrites. But now his adolescent zeal faded. Wellington became a comforting dreamscape he felt grateful and fortunate to call home. It was certainly true that this was an unreal place where nothing ever changed. But Jerome – on the brink of his final college year and he knew not what – had begun to appreciate exactly this quality. As long as Wellington stayed Wellington, he could risk all manner of change himself.

  He walked into a lively late-afternoon square. A saxophonist playing over a tinny backing track alarmed Murdoch. Jerome picked the dog up. A small food market had been set up on the east side, and this competed with the usual chaos of the taxi rank, students at a table protesting the war, others campaigning against animal testing and some guys selling handbags. Near the T-stop, Jerome saw the table his mother had described. It was covered with a yellow cloth embroidered with the words HAITIAN SUPPORT GROUP. But no Levi. Jerome stopped at the newspaper concession outside the station and bought the latest Wellington Herald. Zora had sent three e-mails urging him to buy a copy. He stayed in the relative warmth of the newsstand and flicked through the paper, looking for a tell-tale Z. He found his sister’s name on page 14, heading the weekly campus column ‘Speaker’s Corner’. The mere name of this column aggravated Jerome: it smacked of that wearisome Wellingtonian reverence for all things British. The British flavour spread to the contents of the column itself, which, no matter the student who happened to be writing it, always retained a superior, Victorian tone. Words and phrases that the student had never before had cause to use (‘indubitably’, ‘I cannot possibly fathom’) came from their pen. Zora, who had been in Speaker’s Corner four times (a record for a sophomore), did not waver from the house style. The arguments of these columns were always presented as if they were motions being put before the Oxford Union. Today’s title, ‘This Speaker Believes that Wellington Should Put Its Money Where Its Academic Mouth Is’, by Zora Belsey. Just below this, a large photo of Claire Malcolm in medias res, animated, at a round table of students, in the foreground of which photo was a handsome face Jerome faintly recognized. Jerome paid a dollar twenty to the guy in the newspaper booth and walked back into the square. Whitherrealaffirmative action? read Jerome. That is the question I put before all fair-minded Wellingtonians this day. Are we truly steadfast in our commitment to the equality of opportunity or no? Do we presume to speak of progress when within these very walls our own policy remains so shamefully diffident? Are we satisfied that the African-American youth of this fair city . . .