Dinaw Mengestu - The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

Judith sat through the speeches with her legs crossed and her chin resting on her hand. Every time someone spoke I turned around farther than necessary just so I could catch a glimpse of her. She kept tucking and untucking that same strand of hair behind her ear. A few times she caught me watching her. I wanted her to wave or smile at me, but instead she quickly turned her head in another direction, as if she knew that I would have done exactly the same.

She was implicated in every recrimination. No one addressed her directly, but more than a few of the people who spoke that evening turned toward her. Finally Judith raised her hand to speak. It wouldn’t have been like her to sit passively through any debate.

She stood up to address the crowd.

“I’ve only lived in the neighborhood for less than half a year now,” she began. “But I share the same concerns as you.”

She didn’t get any further than that. She paused just long enough in between her sentences for someone in the crowd to yell, “Shut up.” She wavered for a second. She gripped the chair in front of her and seemed briefly poised to continue on with whatever she was going to say, but the moment passed. She sat back down and crossed and uncrossed her legs. All eyes, including my own, were still trained on her. Mrs. Davis hurried to resume the meeting by announcing that a petition to the city council had been drawn up. She asked everyone to read it carefully before signing.

We, the long-time residents of Logan Circle, oppose the further exploitation of our community by developers. We demand that the city council oppose any further development in Logan Circle that jeopardizes the livelihood of the current residents. We demand that the city council investigate the illegal evictions by corrupt landlords.

The petition circulated quickly around the room. No one had to read beyond the first sentence. When the petition reached Judith, she graciously received it and passed it back to the woman sitting a row behind her.

Another meeting was announced for the second week in February. Mrs. Davis assured the crowd that if there were enough signatures on that petition, the mayor himself would be here for that one.

There was no distinct ending point to the meeting that night. People just began to stand and walk around the room as the petition circulated from one hand to the next. Judith gathered together her coat and purse and briskly walked out. No one but me seemed to notice or care. After she left, and everyone in the room except me was standing, Mrs. Davis came over to me and kissed me on the cheek.

“I wish it hadn’t gone that way,” she said. “That woman’s going to go home and think we’re a bunch of ignorant fools.”

“No, she won’t,” I told her. “She’s better than that.”

I left Mrs. Davis with the intention of taking a slow, long walk home around the circle. When I neared my house, though, I saw that Judith’s porch light was on. Its warm glow stood out from the harsh streetlights and extended over just barely onto my house. She was sitting on the top of her steps, bundled up in a coat, smoking a cigarette whose smell cut straight through the cold emptiness of the air.

“I thought you had quit smoking a long time ago,” I said.

“I did. But sometimes you get lonely and there’s no better company in the world.”

“I didn’t know you were back in town. You should have come by the store and said hi.”

“I got in a few days ago, but I’ve been busy. I’ve barely been home at all since I got back. Naomi was having such a nice time with my sister and her kids that I didn’t want to rush back here. I forget sometimes that she’s just a kid.”

“Is she already asleep?”

It’s funny the gestures we come up with to avoid saying what we already know to be true. Before answering, Judith dutifully extinguished the cigarette into a bowl by her side. She rubbed it into a pulp and then blew the last stream of smoke into the steps. She cast aside a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face.

“I left her in Connecticut,” she said. “I transferred her to a boarding school up there.”

I didn’t try to hide my disappointment, but even if I had it wouldn’t have mattered. It would have shone through anyway.

“She wanted me to give you something.”

She stood up and went into her house. I followed her only into the hallway. She came back a second later carrying the large white box with the red bow that Naomi’s father had sent her.

“Naomi already opened it,” she said. “She wanted to give it to you right away but I wouldn’t let her. I didn’t think it would be decent. Once we decided she was going to stay in Connecticut I couldn’t refuse.”

“It’s from her father.”

“She hardly knows him anymore. And what she’s seen, she’s not too fond of. According to her, he has bad breath. He met us in Connecticut. I told him about you and Naomi in the store together and he said, ‘Fine, let him have it, if that’s what she wants.’”

“Does he?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Have bad breath?”

Judith smiled.

“He likes to smoke cigars. He was the perfect academic that way. A terrible husband, but a great economist.”

Judith handed me the box. It was heavier and felt more expensive than I had expected.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Go ahead and open it.”

I put the box down on the stairwell and untied the ribbon for the second time in that present’s life. Judith had even gone to the trouble of putting new packing paper inside the box.

“It’s a typewriter.”

“Not just a typewriter,” she said. “Look closely at the keys.”

Each key was a different animal, and each animal was framed by a different color. I looked closely and counted one animal for every typing finger. There was a bird, a bear, a dog, a duck, a pig, an elephant, a mouse, and a cat. A procession of increasingly large elephants lined the space bar. It was a beautiful typewriter; antique, in perfect condition, solid black with the word “Corona” etched elegantly in gold in the center, and again at the top.

“They made it in the thirties to teach kids how to type. That’s what the animals and colors are for. The bird was the pinky finger, the elephants the thumbs. You get the picture.”

It was a perfect present for a child like Naomi.

“I don’t think I can take this,” I said.

“I know. But I promised Naomi that I would at least make the offer. Someday I hope she’ll want to look back and remember her father for something more than his bad breath, but she was very fond of you.”

There it was again. Judith’s use of the word “fond,” echoing her “sweet” from a month ago. It was the sensitive, proper word in both cases. Naomi was fond of me, just as she was fond of her stuffed animals and bedroom and some of her teachers. I realized, however touched I might have been by her presence in my life, just what an insignificant role I had played in hers.

“I was fond of her too. She’s the only child besides my little brother that I’ve ever been attached to.”

“She wants you to write her at school. I think that’s why she wanted you to have this typewriter. It would have obligated you to write her. She said, ‘Tell Mr. Stephanos that he has to write me while I’m away.’”

“I would have written her anyway.”

“I know. That’s what I told her.”

We both began to miss Naomi in our own possessive and competitive way, and had I not changed the subject, we could have just stood there awkwardly staring down at that typewriter until we couldn’t stand to be near each other.

“I’m sorry about what happened at that meeting,” I said.

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I know how these things go. You didn’t do anything.”