Paullina Simons - A Beggar’s Kingdom

Hours passed. Julian, exhausted and sore from walking bent at the waist, collapsed next to Ashton. “I don’t understand why I can’t find it. It was so easy. Down the hill, in a straight line from the nave’s last window, three feet off the ground. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, that’s the part that doesn’t make sense.” Ashton shook his head. “Just for a second, step out of your skin and think about how you appear to me. Hunched over for the last two hours, pacing up and down the same stretch of wall, mumbling to yourself.”

“You think I’m nuts.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Julian. Mentally ill.” Ashton wasn’t smiling.

“You think I’m obsessing over a girl and you’re afraid that eventually that obsession is going to drive me insane.”

“Eventually? And not a girl. A coin .”

Persuasion #6: One Sunday Julian took Ashton to Greenwich. To show him the telescope, to introduce him to the guard.

“Hello, Sweeney. This is my friend, Ashton.”

“Hello, Ashton,” Sweeney said, turning to Julian. “And who are you?”

“The guy who threw up a few months ago,” Julian said. “You had to call me an ambulance, remember?”

“I don’t remember the ambulance, but so many people pass this way, mate, and I’m terrible with faces, sorry. Me memory’s really the pits. One time, there was a bloke who appeared in my Transit Room nekkid! I have no idea how he got through security with his junk hanging out.”

“Maybe it was so small they didn’t notice,” Ashton said to Sweeney, and to Julian he said, “ Naked ?!”

“Don’t know what that guy is on about,” said Julian.

He and Ashton stood for a few minutes in front of the well, the stairs, the railing, the glossy Transit Circle. They looked up at the gray sky through the retracted roof. Julian told Ashton about noon and infinite meridians and the blue halo opening to another dimension. They visited the gift shop, walked around the soaked gardens, stood on the stone plaza with the panorama of London laid out before them, today glum and obscured, the oaks heavy with rain, the river in a mist.

Ashton didn’t speak on the train back home.

IN MAY, A MORE OR LESS HEALED JULIAN RETURNED TO Nextel. Reuters’ interest in buying the news agency intensified, and Ashton and Julian worked long hours trying to make the business efficient and profitable so that they could sell it. At night they went out drinking, sometimes even with Roger and Nigel.

Working was good.

Drinking, too.

It made time pass.

Something had to.

When he felt well enough in his body to no longer ignore the remorse in his soul, Julian went to Quatrang one morning before work to make peace with Devi. Not wanting to go by himself, he dragged Ashton along. “Why do we have to go see that man? You said yourself you were done with him.”

“I am,” Julian said. “But I want to apologize for the way I acted. I was rude. Plus I want to show you some things.”

“Unless it’s naked girls dancing, I don’t want to see anything.”

Devi was happy to see Julian. He said nothing when Julian walked in, he didn’t react, not smiling or even joking, but there was something in the way he had glanced up when the door opened that made Julian think the cook had been hoping Julian would return.

Ashton and Devi were even less impressed with each other on the second day of their acquaintance. They shook hands, but they may as well have been drawing swords. Barely able to fit inside the tiny Quatrang, Ashton stood in the corner by the window, tense and uncharacteristically awkward.

“You’re just in time,” Devi said. “I trust you two haven’t had your first meal of the day yet? I’ve been simmering a mohinga in a cauldron in the back. Would you like some?”

“What’s a mohinga?”

“Catfish soup with banana tree stem,” Devi said cheerfully. “A squeeze of lime, dried chilis, crispy onions. Very delicious. Can I bring you two a bowl?”

“For breakfast ?”

“Of course. When else would you eat a mohinga?”

Julian shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“It’s the most popular breakfast dish in Burma,” Devi said, sounding offended for Burma.

“Devi, how about some eggs? French toast?”

“What am I, the Waffle House?”

“I’ll try this mohinga,” Ashton said.

“Look at you trying to impress him,” Julian said after Devi disappeared behind the curtain.

“What I’m trying to do is get out of here,” Ashton said. “I’m giving this thing a half-hour. Like lunch with my old man.”

“Speaking of your father,” Devi said, carrying out two bowls of strong-smelling fish soup, “how is he?”

“Um, he’s … fine?” Ashton squinted at Julian with a sideways glare that Julian did not return.

“He must be happy having you in London with him, working with him?”

“He’s semi-retired, but … I guess.”

“You and your father have had some difficulties in the past, yes? Is it better now?”

Ashton shook his head. “Whatever. Not really. Maybe a little. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t want what I haven’t got.”

For a moment, the three men sat in silence, absorbing this. Julian wished he could say the same.

“Your father, does he have other children besides you?”

“What, Julian forgot to mention that part? No,” Ashton said. “I was his only child, and I still wasn’t his favorite.”

“Oh, I am certain that’s not true,” Devi said. “He is your father. You’re his only son.”

“Well, that he knows of,” interjected Julian.

“No, no,” Ashton said. “I’m pretty sure I’m it.”

Devi wouldn’t let it go. “Do you spend time together? Do father and son things?”

“Father and son things? We don’t fly kites if that’s what you’re asking. We have lunch once a week.”

“Well, that counts!” Devi said. He seemed happy it was so. “He must enjoy that very much.”

Ashton glanced at Julian by his side, as in what the hell.

In the uncomfortable hush that followed, Julian took the opportunity to apologize to Devi. He hoped there were no hard feelings.

“Apology not necessary,” Devi said. “I’m used to it.”

“I bet you are,” muttered Ashton.

“I was so angry,” Julian said.

“You still are,” Ashton said.

Devi nodded. “Stage two of grief: anger. It’s to be expected. No one should take it personally.” That sounded directed at Ashton. Certainly, that’s how Ashton took it because he scowled. They finished the mohinga, had kimchi and a banana cake with brandy. Gratefully Julian drank two glasses of the proffered murky tiger water. Ashton was given sake.

“So what’s wrong with him?” Ashton blurted to Devi after a second helping of the banana cake. “What really happened to his body? I’ve never seen anything like his injuries. Smoke inhalation? Electrocution? Multiple foot fractures?”

“Possibly by traveling into another dimension,” Devi said, “he had accumulated and stored a tremendous amount of energy, and on his improbable return, all of it was released as he was hurled through the physical universe at incredible speed.”

“Can you just stop it,” Ashton said. “Can’t one of you give me a straight answer for once?”

“That wasn’t straight enough for you?” Devi said. “He’s lucky to be back in one piece. He’s doing quite well, all things considered.”

“You think this is doing well?”