Preview of The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland
Preview of The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland
Now
THE LAST TIME they caught me at the airport, I panicked.
The decision I’d made an hour earlier, to drive straight there like any regular woman and buy a ticket, was more than reckless; it was unequivocally selfish. In my defense it happened in a moment so op‑ portune that I can still taste it on the sides of my tongue. How was I supposed to resist?
The service were drinking, their collars loose, cigarettes and play‑ ing cards between their fingers. I knew where Marie kept the keys to her rusted Peugeot. She was vacuuming upstairs. Everybody thought I was passed out for the night. It was so easy. Really—I almost did it just to see if I could. Is that a good enough explanation? As I was tying my scarf, a gift from his mother, the one with the interlocking Fs, over my prickling scalp—and the plastic of my sunglasses was cold against the tops of my ears—the hem of my car coat scratched my legs—sweat dripped into my underwear—it was a moment of, there’s no other word for it, possession. I was possessed. I was Sleeping Beauty moving toward the spinning wheel, eyes dilated, holding my breath; I was Linda Blair in a nightgown screaming on the M Street steps. I was every woman who had ever seen a way out, and I grabbed at the moment so desper‑ ately that I left my children behind.
I wedged a manila folder into the bottom of my handbag and made it through four courtyards to Marie’s car, parked on gravel, near the stables. I shifted it into gear, feet working the pedals from memory, left hand skimming the door until I found the plastic handle, rolling the window down. I pulled out of the inner driveway, punched in the code at the iron gate—it was agony, watching it open, so slowly, on its own time, doing what its motor always did—and with an inch to spare, I ripped out onto the road, barreling hard on first gear until the engine whined. I found the sweet spot in the clutch and shifted again. The little Peugeot jerked into second, and then third.
A grin stretched across my face.
Fifteen minutes later I was on the coast road, cutting a diesel streak to the commercial airport. Or rather, I hoped I was, because I hadn’t driven a car in years. It was west, I thought, and so I drove west. When I spotted a sign reading Aeroporto, I jerked the wheel and followed it.
It took forty‑five minutes to get there. I kept the window down the whole time.
Wind blew against my veneers; wet beads of mascara dripped into the hollows below my eyes. My bare legs splayed out beneath my coat. The four remaining hairs on my knee, the ones that refused to submit to the laser, were long, from weeks of growth. I yanked one out—I re‑ member that. But mostly I remember the air: sputtering diesel; the sweet‑sour scent of Marie’s car from her gardenia perfume and men‑ thol cigarettes, fat Italian ones that she hoarded (how long had it been since I had discovered the smell of something as personal as someone’s else’s uncleaned house or car? years! years!); and the damp, salty smack of the ocean.
I don’t recall much else, besides a vague awareness of the fact that as I drove the sun went down and the headlights had to be turned on. I don’t know if there was traffic; I don’t think there was. I simply drove along the road with everyone else, another animal in the pack, heading northwest. And then I was turning into the parking lot, taking a ticket; pulling onto the ramp; nosing the dirty bumper into a space. I do re‑ member wanting the parking job to look really nice and even. I didn’t want Marie to be worried about her car, or to feel mistreated.
I tucked her keys into the visor and headed for the terminal, passing through the airlock of automatic doors into the cold embrace of the airport. It was the physical embodiment of white noise, a place de‑ signed to move you along. In bejeweled lilac mules, I fell into step be‑ hind a family. My coat was a blue cotton rimmed with white piping, lined in pine‑colored silk. The scarf was still knotted very tightly around my head, though my wig was falling off in the back. My sun‑ glasses, cream with olive lenses, took up half my face. Naturally, no one else was dressed like this. They had on zip‑away cargo pants and money belts and leggings.
I made it halfway to the counter before they shouted my name. “Caroline!” a girl’s voice sang. Phone out, eyes wide. “Caroline!” Me. My name.
Other people turned. I saw it forming on their lips. My name, my name, my name.
With that, my caper was over. The world went from black‑and‑ white—an adventure of my own making—right back to smooth‑motion, full‑color, high‑definition hell.
I died inside. Caroline, Caroline.
The sound of my name, my name.
I turned right and walked my corpse to the nearest desk. Stared blankly at the logo, a tinny noise ringing in my ears, like there had been an explosion—and there had, I had died, it was the sound of my death— while the desk agent, a polite young woman with thick eyeliner and a patterned hijab, stared back at me.
“Your Serene Highness,” she said, “it is a pleasure to serve you today.”
She did not look me up and down as I would have done if our roles were reversed. Now I realized she must have spotted me long before we spoke, when people called my name as I loped across the cold tile floors, tan legs stretching for miles beneath the short coat, a head taller than everyone else. I opened my mouth to reply and paused instead to breathe. The desk agent said nothing. In this moment, I was supposed to say something, obviously. To explain why I was there, make a plan, move forward. On the departure board Riyadh was the only word I saw.
“Riyadh?” I said, almost a question, asking her permission: Can I go there, now?
“That flight departs in seventy‑five minutes. It’s possible. I will try?”
I nodded. “One first‑class ticket to Riyadh, please,” I said, hiding my shaking hands by rooting around in my bag for my credit card and old South African passport. I noticed, as I handed it to her, that the pass‑ port would expire in three weeks.
To her eternal credit, she didn’t question the dates and began typing furiously, polished nails pummeling the plastic keyboard in front of her. Etihad, read the sign behind her.
In retrospect, it wasn’t a terrible idea. Saudi Arabia, like everybody else, invested in our real estate; Finn was away with our airplane. Taking a trip to Riyadh on the national airline of the UAE could be a political act, if you squinted. And if I could get on a flight—any flight—I could make it to London, where Zola might help me.
I kept looking around, thinking the service would emerge from the cracks in the walls. They’d corral me like a bull, spear me with knives wrapped in ribbons as I roared in pain. And like a bullfight, everyone would watch and nobody would do a thing about it.
Days before our wedding, they caught me here. I didn’t see it com‑ ing that time. I thought I could go home. But they cornered me, swal‑ lowed me up. It wasn’t a scene. Things were different then; easy to destroy the security footage, pay off the gate agents. Sure, there was a nasty rumor, but nobody had proof and that was all that mattered.
Today, the service were nowhere to be seen.
“Mmm,” the desk agent uttered, peering at the screen. “You are con‑ firmed on Flight Fifty‑Six. The plane will have a layover in Doha and continue on to Riyadh. It will be most convenient. You do not need to exit the airplane at the layover. I have a very nice suite for you.” I thought she might pick up the phone, but no. She looked at me with expectant satisfaction; she had done something for me, and I was sup‑ posed to say yes.
Yes. I nodded and said thank you. I think I did, anyway. If I didn’t: Thank you. Thank you, wherever you are. You were the first person to help me in so long.
She swiped my card; I signed the slip. She did not ask about baggage—
another polite gift. The ticket stuttered out of the printer and she handed it to me. I took off my sunglasses and stared up at the security camera. Hello, I mouthed, knowing it would be watched, again and again. Goodbye.
Off I went through security, hands shaking, waiting with every step to be taken aside—but nobody stopped me. Alone for the first time in years, I walked to the gate. After my ticket was scanned, I walked directly onto the plane and was cocooned in a private room. A butler wearing white gloves brought a glass of champagne. He offered to take my coat. As I wasn’t wearing anything beneath it, I shook my head. He opened a compartment and pointed to a pair of silk pajamas folded inside. I nodded, thanked him, and curled up into a ball.
Six hours later, Doha. Another hour, in the air again. Soon we landed in Riyadh. By then the pajamas were beneath my coat, covering my legs. The cashmere blanket from my chair was wrapped around my head, doubled and pinned in place with safety pins from the travel kit. The butler’s white gloves covered my bleeding cuticles.
The round door of the 747 popped open with a depressurizing sigh, and as was customary, I was the first to exit the plane. Three steps into the Jetway and I found myself in the waiting arms of the service. Of course. I knew they would be there. When had they left me alone, ever? Never. They would never. Roland took my passport from my hand, and then my purse, with its folder of purloined paperwork. He held my arm as I walked up the Jetway. Otto and Dix—they were always together and looked so haunted, so Germanic—flanked us from the rear. I followed Roland automatically.
It was a relief, in a way. Before that day, I hadn’t been alone in public for seven years. The service were as normal as being dressed. I was, at my core, truly convinced that I’d be harmed if they left my side— security will do that to a person, persuade you of their necessity. Especially if you cannot be incognito, which I was clearly incapable of being. I still cannot believe I went to the airport in underpants and a cotton car coat and a goddamned silk scarf with my husband’s family name on it. It was so foolish.
I am such a fool.
Seventy‑two hours later, toting a new suitcase stuffed with overpriced luxury goods, a syringe of Ativan coursing through my veins, I re‑ turned to the marble prison that held my children, my husband, and me—and then I cried for two days. Jane and Henry (Jeanne and Henri to everyone else) came to my bedside. Their seashell fingernails pressed into my arms, their plump fists wrapped around hanks of my hair, but I did not look up or stop crying. I pushed them away. Go to nanny Lola, I told them. Maman is having a bad day. Maman is sick. You mustn’t see Maman like this.
They went. They always did what they were told. I was ashamed, and I was heartbroken.
It was the closest I’d come to freedom since before we were married. The mere proximity to the knife‑edge atoms of independence sliced open my scars, remaking me into a seeping wound.
I lay in bed for two days. I grew infected with sorrow and regret and hatred.
For two days my children cried, and I did not go to them. I was destroyed. I was destruction itself, a specter of their mother, a rotten wraith left in her place.
Yet, I was—finally—on my way to becoming something else.
Three mornings after my botched escape, the curtains were drawn. I opened my eyes to the sea, winking and foaming like it always did, under a bright blue sky and a thoughtless yellow sun. Puffy clouds floated across the horizon like nothing was wrong. I yanked the curtains shut.
I started the bath, turning the gold taps to scalding, easing under the shower’s thundering spray. I stayed there, water drumming on my skull until scrubby nubs of dead skin began to flake off, a snake shedding herself. I wrapped myself in yards of towels, then coated every inch of reddened skin in coconut oil, scooping it from a porcelain bowl. I re‑ moved the chipped polish from my nails with a linen napkin. Wasteful, of course, but I hated how cotton crumbled in acetone, found it viscerally disgusting. I was accommodated in so many ways, you see; I was precious, I was to be accommodated. When my nails were clean, the stained napkin went into the trash; when my skin was dry to the touch, I abandoned the towels in a heap on the floor. I strolled naked to the red lacquered room where they kept my clothes.
It was more holding area than closet. Thousands of dresses passed through there, encased in thick plastic, to be worn exactly once before being shipped to the archive with a sheaf of notes about what my body had done and said and who it had stood next to while wearing that dress. A pretense at accountability. The clothing that stuck around was more day‑to‑day but still absurdly impractical, appropriate only for a life of luxury in this seaside nation. I tucked a white shirt into seer‑ sucker shorts, laced up white cotton tennis shoes. Then I drew a net skullcap over the damp remains of my thinning hair and looked for a wig.
I chose a blond ponytail with heavy bangs. I ran a brush through the ends, my other hand gripping its foam skull, and walked to the window. I pictured myself opening the casement and falling out of it— past the blue cliffs and into the sea, the ponytail still clutched in my fingers. I saw the golden locks washing ashore, tangled, the lacy scalp catching on a rock, coated in blood.
Then I remembered my children.
The foam neck broke in half. I looked down to find it was my own hands that had strangled it into cracking. My own hands that chose everything.
I pinned the wig in place. Blinked mascara, dusted a garish swirl of blush over sunken cheekbones, then opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
The service waited there for me, but they are shadows; they have no depth, I don’t acknowledge them. I swept down the hallway, gliding across the silk carpets, past the floor‑to‑ceiling windows dating from 1355 and their heavy draperies, past paintings of other dead women and children, turning to the right and the left and then up some stairs to the playroom where my Jane and Henry spent their days.
The playroom had everything. There was a dollhouse version of the Talon, the prison we lived in, constructed out of the very same marbles, silks, now‑extinct woods, and so on, with lifelike figurines of the families who’d lived there, including us. There was a zoo‑quality habitat for a family of bunnies. There were two iguanas, both named Jerome. There was a wall of bookshelves with every children’s series on the market— Five Children and It and Narnia and Redwall and Boxcar Children and Ramona and Fudge and Harry Potter and so on—and a textured globe, mountains raised in relief and rivers glassed in with blue water, that spanned three feet across, dotted with tiny flags to mark the places that Jane and Henry wanted to go. There was a miniature drum kit and a babies’ baby grand piano, and a costume corner where the children could “shop” for Jane‑ and Henry‑sized commissions from the costumers for the West End production of Wicked.
The playroom had absolutely everything, but at the moment, it didn’t have my children. I texted the nanny: Where are they? She did not reply. I texted Marie, the housekeeper whose car I’d stolen. She did not reply, either. I wondered if she had been fired. I returned to the hallway and asked the service about my children.
“They are not here, signora,” said Otto uncomfortably. “Where did they go?”
“They are with signore,” he replied. “You must contact him.”
It was no use fighting with Otto. He was made of stone. I pulled out my phone and called Finn, who answered with a chilly “Pronto.”
“Where are my children?” I asked, trying to sound reasonable, and failing.
“We took a trip,” he said simply, choosing not to tell me where. “They’ll be with my mother until you are well again.” He paused, let out a long sigh. “You upset them very much. Henri especially.”
I felt pure shame, a hot burst of it, exactly as he intended. “There’s really no reason to take the children,” I said, but it wasn’t convincing. “Everything is perfectly fine.”
“You’re so selfish,” he whispered. I closed my eyes. “How could you leave them? To go to Saudi Arabia, of all places?”
Because I feel that much hate, I did not say. “What difference does it make?”
“Why do you talk like that?” he asked, painfully—a rhetorical question I refused to answer.
“You’re so comfortable with the conclusion that our life doesn’t be‑ long to us,” I muttered, the words thick, my tongue numb. Dr. Sun had told us that it was possible to transition into a near‑vegetative state as a result of depression. Watch her speech patterns, she’d said to my husband, like I wasn’t in the room. Make sure she is awake at least twelve hours a day. Measure her cognitive abilities at least once a week. You don’t want her to atrophy.
Atrophy.
My favorite word: the destruction of a trophy.
“You don’t get to resent this life,” he sighed. “This is how it has al‑ ways been. It is a gift.”
I tried pleading. “Please don’t take my children.” “We’re giving you time to get well,” he told me.
“I am well. I’m fine,” I said, but it didn’t sound right. I wasn’t fine and we both knew it.
“I love you, Caro.” It was the first time he’d said he loved me in months—no, years. “I’ll be home tomorrow. I’ll spend tonight with them.”
“I love you, too,” I replied automatically, and then I hung up. A moment later he sent me a text: Please eat some lunch.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Finn once loved me very much. I’d loved him, too—and I loved my children. I think about the days after Henry stopped crying, when we lay in bed with him and read aloud, Jane sleeping between us in her blue jumper. We drank black coffee and listened to the birds. The room smelled like baby shampoo and sweat, like sour milk and coffee. Is there a greater love available to us? Does God give us more?
The problem is not how much I loved them. The problem is that I loved them at all.
There were days when I, too, thought all of this was a gift. When he gave me a yellow diamond ring and sailed me into this port; when I crossed a green velvet carpet toward a decrepit priest, ready to wrap us in the bounding lines of matrimony; when he locked a collar of pearls around my neck, led me down a balustrade like a dog on a leash, and we waved to ten thousand people; even when he shut the door on me for the first time; still, throughout all of it, this had looked like a gift. This life had looked so special. I would have done anything to keep it.
Now?
Now I would do anything—anything—to leave.
1
Then
ONCE UPON A TIME I was the fastest woman on earth. I was extraordinary: a rising mountain and the tiger who jumped over it like it was nothing. I ate when I was hungry and slept when I was tired, and in the hours between, I ran. My body was a vessel for my will‑ power; my body put other people to shame; my body proved what was possible.
When I think about that body, I’m homesick in the pit of my stomach. There is no word special enough to describe its singularity. It was carved from volcanic rock and brought to life with the force of a thou‑ sand goddesses. It carried me to the top of the highest wooden box and placed a golden weight around my neck, and it did all of that by the time I was twenty‑one years old.
Two hours, twelve minutes, eight seconds. 2:12:08. The record for the women’s marathon, set at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Then my body failed.
Eighteen months later, as I trained for Athens, home of the marathon.
Of course it failed.
No body could stay that perfect, so exhilarating in its function, not for long—definitely not a woman’s body—and so nobody, except me, was surprised when my hips grew another half inch, spreading over‑ night, changing the rhythm of my legs while I slept. The next day, running faster than I had ever run before, I was flying. There was a rocket attached to me, wind at my back and wings on my shoes. My body reached its apex, nearly. I was so close to ecstasy.
It would have been a two‑hour, ten‑minute marathon.
Would.
Because of my hips, the traitors that spilled out in the night— because of them my gait was newly wrong, incorrect, and because of that, I stumbled.
I didn’t know what was happening because I’d never been incorrect in my life. My gait had long been the very definition of the word. But what goes up must come down, and so at long last the mechanics failed me— one loose joint—my leg extended—I didn’t lift it high enough—it didn’t leave the ground—so I tripped, I stumbled—and as I put my weight on it again, the femoral head of my left leg, the ball that sits atop the thigh‑ bone, rotated forward and out of the socket of the hip, separating itself from the wall of my iliac bone.
Yet I was still in motion. I stepped again, right then left. I landed with all my force and speed, on this extended series of bones that had moved out of their home, and with that pressure the femoral ball ripped from the hip socket completely. My leg couldn’t hold the weight. It crumpled along all the joints, limp and ragged. It folded like a piece of paper in your hands.
My cheekbone hit the ground first. It shattered in what they later called a spiderweb fracture, a beautiful name for what it was, which was the particular, craterlike demolition of the left side of my face. The rest of me followed, and with that, my running career was over.
The reason for my fall, the diagnosis: osteoarthritis, a degenerative condition that wears away the cartilage between the joints. Arthritis. It’s banal. The very word arthritis conjures visions of the elderly eating muesli with gnarled hands, struggling to open plastic bottles. A disease for the frail, not the strong. It can be inherited, or in my case, acquired as a result of severe overuse.
I remember the doctor telling me that the spread of my hips was minor, normal even. It wouldn’t have been a problem for a regular woman. But my athleticism itself had made me fragile. In a cruel twist, the degradation of my legs was what in turn had helped them, over the past several years, fly so fast. The joints of my body wore out, became loose enough to respond to my muscles first—stronger and more powerful than my tendons—and so the tendons absorbed nothing, and the padding around my bones wore away, like frosting being scraped from the side of a bowl by a spatula. The pummeling force of eleven years and thousands of miles had rounded out brittle hollows that could separate and break with that one wrong step.
Combined with a sharply decreased rate of bone accretion through‑ out my adolescence—resulting from hormonal deficiencies caused by low weight and excessive exercise—I’d been decaying invisibly, and inevitably, for years.
I was in pain, of course. I was in pain all the time. But how was I to know that pain was too much pain? I thought everyone was in pain. I thought everyone’s joints felt like they were on fire, because running is hard. I thought every muscle cramp was supposed to be agony. I thought it was normal—because of what it paid! I could go anywhere; I could do anything. Wasn’t that supposed to cost you something?
I never knew what the cost would be until I paid it, because I was never examined deeply enough; I never had an MRI or even an ultra‑ sound, because I never complained. All I did was run.
Preview of The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland
