Dinaw Mengestu - The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

In my monthly letters and phone calls to my mother and brother in Ethiopia, I tell them only that I own my own business, and that business is okay. Never good. Never bad. Simply okay. Could be better. Grateful it’s not worse. I send them money once every few months when I can afford to, even though I know they don’t need it. I do it because I am in America, and because sending money home is supposed to be the consolation prize for not being home. For Christmas last year my mother sent me a money order worth three hundred dollars more than all of the money I had ever sent. I still have the receipt in the nightstand next to my bed from when I cashed it.

At six p.m. the temperature is still hovering near eighty, a definite sign of an impending hot and brutal summer. The few people who pass through at this time of day come in with their faces red and shiny with sweat. They stock up on bottled water before returning to their early-evening strolls and centrally air-conditioned homes. I make a mental note to myself: if possible, buy more water. I watch an old, beat-up Chevy drive around the circle three times, looking for something or someone that is no longer there. The sun makes the leftover rain on the roof sparkle as it winds around the block. There is a slow, lumbering quality to the day. I keep the air conditioner off and the door open.

Joseph and Kenneth come to the store together this time. They arrive almost an hour earlier than usual. Kenneth is still dressed in his suit and Joseph’s wearing jeans with a University of Michigan sweatshirt that’s far too heavy for the warm May night. Joseph kisses me once on the cheek. With the store still open, Kenneth has nothing to say, so he shakes my hand vigorously while trying out his new English accent.

“How you doing, ol’ chap? Life treating you well these days?”

The two of them stand on opposite sides of the counter, leaning against the glass panes while flipping through the day’s newspapers. By most accounts, it has been a decent day for the world. Inflation is low. Countries all across the globe are negotiating deals, hammering out truces, while their leaders shake hands on the cover of the Washington Post under headlines of restored hope and promises of cooperation. Even Africa has done well for itself today.

“Look,” Kenneth calls out, holding open a copy of the newspaper so we can see the picture of Laurent Kabila that he’s tapping proudly. “Laurent is coming through.” He reads the brief article with an ironic enthusiasm. There are only a hundred and fifty words to the entire piece.

“You could learn something from him, Jo-Jo. That Kabila’s a good man. A role model for all you Congolese.”

“You said the same about Mobutu,” Joseph says.

“That was just a joke. It was only because I liked his last name. Sese Seko. Sese Seko. I could say it over and over. But Kabila’s a man of his word. He’s the future of Africa’s leaders.”

“He will be dead within a year. Or he will never leave. It is always one or the other.”

Kenneth leans his elbows back against the counter and stretches out his long lanky legs. “Help me out here, Stephanos.”

“Dead within two years,” I tell him.

At seven-thirty I close the doors to the store. Neither Joseph nor Kenneth asks me why I’m closing early, or whether it’s been a good day, since no one has entered since they arrived. I don’t add up the register because I’ve already done the math in my head. I know just how little I’ve earned. I pull a handful of bills out of the drawer and stuff them into my pocket, as if they were inconsequential.

Kenneth throws his arm around my shoulder and says, “Come on, Stephanos. It’s time to leave.” He squeezes my shoulder once, firmly, for encouragement.

Without asking or worrying about where we’re going, I get into Kenneth’s car with the two of them and we pull away from the store. We drive past my house, and what’s left of Judith’s, without pausing at the stop sign on the corner. The idea is to leave this neighborhood and store as quickly as possible, to rush headlong into the sun, which is just now setting. The entire flat skyline of the city is tinged with a pinkish hue that hardly seems real. We roll our windows down. In the backseat, Joseph puts his feet up and closes his eyes as the wind whips over his face. We all breathe in deeply. Kenneth cuts down one narrow side street after another to avoid traffic; the trees, flowers, and bushes are all in bloom. There is something unsettling about spring in D.C., a cautionary tale of overindulgence and inflated expectations that seems embedded in the grass and in the trees. I thought I had long since learned to keep those expectations in check, but it happens anyway, doesn’t it? We forget who we are and where we came from, and in doing so, believe we are entitled to much more than we deserve.

In just a few minutes, we pull up in front of the Royal Castle, which from the outside still looks like the Chinese restaurant it had once been. The red awning and generic Asian typeface cast against a gold background stayed even after the menu had been reduced to buffalo wings, french fries, and hamburgers, and the large circular booths with the lazy Susans were replaced with stages, poles, and a row of chairs that remind me of a high school auditorium.

Instead of arguing or protesting, Joseph and I follow Kenneth in. We take a table in the back of the club, which is entirely empty except for us. Our isolation feels ridiculous. There’s no one else to share our shame with, and when a topless waitress comes over to take our order, none of us can muster enough courage to look her in the face.

“Why are we here, Ken?”

“Because, Stephanos. This is what people do at the end of a hard day.”

As if to prove his point, he undoes the top button on his shirt and loosens his tie a few inches. I’ve never met his boss, but I can hear his voice ringing in the back of Kenneth’s head. “Still fighting the good fight, Kenneth?” it says.

We order three scotches, drink them quickly, and order three more. Women come and go off the stage every three and a half minutes, dancing halfheartedly to the ’80s pop songs I used to love listening to in my store. Prince. INXS. The Cure. When they finish dancing they saunter over to our table and introduce themselves. They all have names from Greek and Roman mythology: Venus, Apollonia, Aphrodite — names that promise an unattainable bit of love and heaven. Before they can offer us anything, we hand them two singles each, and Kenneth tells them all that they’re beautiful.

“Beautiful,” he says, with his lips pursed, eyes turned to the ceiling in a feigned state of ecstatic reverie.

The drinks are ten dollars, and each one lasts for exactly three songs, which is equal to three dancers, which means we’re spending about a dollar a minute, and that in sixty-eight minutes, I will have spent all the money I earned that day.

I take my last eight dollars out of my pocket and lay it on the table.

“Once that’s done, so am I.”

Joseph slides the bills back toward me. “Keep it,” he says. “The rest of the evening is on me.”

Kenneth pours back his scotch and slides the glass across the table so it almost falls on my lap. “No,” he says. “The rest of the evening is on me.”

They go back and forth for several minutes, each one insisting repeatedly that the “evening is on me” even though it’s been clear from the start that Kenneth will be the one to pay. Still, what matters just as much as the outcome is how they get there. With the decision settled, Kenneth hands control over the rest of the night to Joseph, who places one hand on each of our backs and says, “Gentlemen, it is time for us to go.”

There is nothing left of downtown D.C. by the time we walk outside. The city has emptied itself of its bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, secretaries, diplomats, lobbyists, and bankers. The shutters are pulled down in front of all the storefronts, and graffiti has been scrawled all over them. Beso. Crazy Nigga. East Capitol Crew. The only people we pass on the street are all well dressed and well heeled, on their way home to the suburbs of Virginia or to one of the handful of luxurious restaurants that stand as clearly isolated from one another as a pair of trees in an open plain. The Capitol’s white dome seems to hover in front of us, and if I turn just a little to the right, I can see the red eye sitting at the peak of the Washington Monument. There is no mystery left in any of those buildings for us, and at times I wonder how there ever could have been.