The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(24)

“You know I hate that name,” he said, without looking up from the book. “Why don’t you call me Guto, like everyone else?”

Calling the boy by his Christian name was Zoe’s one needling indulgence. She called him Augustus after reading the obituary of Charles Dickens’s scandalous brother of the same name, who eloped to America with a mistress when his wife became blind. When Augustus Dickens died, his final postscript read: He was competent enough, but addicted to intemperance to a degree that practically blighted his usefulness. What he might have become, if of correct habits, no one dared to predict.

What Guto might become, Zoe didn’t dare to predict either. But whatever it was, she was certain it would be a bitter brew of malevolence, heartlessness, and guile.

“I don’t know. You just seem more like an Augustus to me,” Zoe said with an innocent shrug. “Is my book of poetry hereabouts?”

Guto ignored her request. “Did you know that Aladdin was Chinese?” He lifted the book so she could see the title, One Thousand and One Nights. “It says here, ‘He was born to a poor tailor in the capital of one of China’s vast and wealthy kingdoms.’ I never knew that China even had wealthy kingdoms. The world is a queer thing, I suppose.”

I knew that, Zoe thought, and so does he. “My book, please?”

Guto frowned as he closed the book and set it aside. Beneath it was a smaller, newer hardback, which he opened and pretended to read. He nonchalantly licked his thumb and turned the page. “Oh, this one?”

Zoe read the title. Sappho by T. G. Tucker. She stepped closer. In Mrs. Bidwell’s class, their book of classic Greek poetry listed Sappho in the table of contents, but when you turned to her section of the book the pages were blank.

“That’s in tribute,” Mrs. Bidwell had said. “Because we know so little about her. She was the greatest poet of her time. Regarded as the Tenth Muse. But now most of her poetry has been lost. All that remain are bits of crumbling paper. Ah, but those bits—those bits—will take your breath away.”

Zoe had been intrigued ever since. “That’s mine. Please give it to me.”

Guto scratched the inside of his right nostril and then used that finger to turn another page. “This is quite humorous, this book, I took a hard look at it. Did you know this Sappho woman was married to a man named Kerkos?”

“I would if you’d let me read it.”

“It says here her husband’s name was a joke. Kerkos translates to Dick Allcock. That she wasn’t really married and her make-believe husband lived on the Isle of Man.”

Zoe felt herself blushing.

Or was it furious anger that colored her cheeks?

“This is quite the book.” Guto looked up above the margins, smiling. “Apparently the author had some irregular habits when it came to—shall we say—desires of the flesh.” His eyes traced the curves of Zoe’s young body, from chin to toes, then back again, lingering on her youthful, womanly features.

He closed the book and rested it on the counter, his hands crossed atop of it. “I’ll give it to you if you give me a kiss.” Guto smiled.

Zoe felt her skin crawl.

She tried not to show her revulsion, knowing it would make this even harder. She looked at his face, his pitted, acne-scarred cheeks, the whiff of hair beneath his nose, his earnest attempt to grow a mustache.

Zoe did the split-second calculus in her head, weighing the derivative of their lips touching for a brief second versus the function of him giving her the book. The differential, she hoped, would be him leaving her alone for the rest of the week.

If I just give him what he wants, he’ll go away.

“Fine,” Zoe said. She leaned forward, tilting her head.

Guto smiled as she closed her eyes.

She felt his lips for a moment, cold and rough. Then she felt a hand on the back of her head as he pressed harder, parting her lips with his sluglike tongue, his mouth wide as she felt his breath through his nose on her face. She whipped her hand up to knock his away with a loud smack. She stepped back, wiping her lips with the fabric of her shirt, then realized he was looking at her bare midriff and stopped. She wanted to spit on the ground but held back. She felt a rush or fear and anger and confusion.

Guto smiled. Then he pushed the book forward until it dropped from the counter, tumbling to the wooden floor where it landed with its pages spread open.

“Enjoy,” he said as he licked his lips.

Zoe knelt and collected the book and what was left of her dignity.



* * *



On Sunday, the entire student body regrouped in the dining hall—kids of all ages—from the littles, with their bare feet, restless energy, and uncombed hair, to those who would graduate this year. The faculty gathered as well, along with the janitor, the school cook, and the groundskeeper, all former students. Zoe smiled at Mrs. Bidwell, thinking of the book and how she’d read it every day since. Her teacher smiled and nodded at her before taking a seat. Lastly the headmaster, A. S. Neill, meerschaum pipe dangling from his mouth, waded through the crowd of children sitting on the floor, the chairs, the tables. Some of the students lay in each other’s arms, in couples and small groups, more platonic than romantic.

Zoe imagined for a moment that this gathering was a tribunal, a legal body gathered to convict Guto of his social crimes before banishment. But as she caught his eye and he blew a kiss from across the room, she knew that was not the case.