47 pages • 1 hour read
Dinaw MengestuThe Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Five months earlier, Sepha finds a letter in his mailbox from Naomi and Judith inviting him to dinner. While getting ready, Sepha puts on his father’s cuff links; although he never actually saw his father wear them, they are the only things he has left of him: “They were just cheap cuff links from an old, decaying regime, but you hold on to what you can and hope the meaning comes later” (50). Sepha dresses in his best clothes and goes next door for dinner. He is struck by the opulence of Judith’s home and concludes: “It was all so solid, comfortable, and familiar, as if Judith had deliberately picked only pieces of furniture that had proven their ability to withstand time” (52). Naomi, who normally hates having people over, is excited that Sepha is their guest. Judith, a professor of American history currently on sabbatical, claims she should have taught a class on “races” because Americans are always racing to get somewhere. At the end of the evening, Sepha and Judith exchange a “gentle press” that is not quite a kiss, and Sepha goes home to his humble apartment. Once there, Naomi tries to play a light game with him from her window across the yard. Sepha briefly engages with Naomi, and then leaves her disappointed in the darkness.
When Sepha tells Kenneth and Joseph about his dinner with Judith, Joseph says he dated a white American woman when he lived in Zaire. This woman lives in DC now and sometimes comes into his restaurant, but they never acknowledge each other. Joseph says it is because he was “beautiful” and skinnier then, and she no longer recognizes him.
Chapter 5 Summary
It is May 4, and Judith and Naomi have been gone since early January. Stephanos awakes with a new attitude to take control of his life and not let anyone or anything get him down: “I am going to open my store early. I am going to catch the morning rush-hour commuters and make them mine” (65). When Sepha opens the store door, he finds a white envelope. It is an eviction notice giving him 30 days to vacate the premises. He says aloud to himself: “This is no longer my store” (68). He calls and tells Kenneth, who accuses him of wanting this to happen. He does not let Kenneth offer to help bail him out; instead, he cuts him off and launches into another round of their game of dictators. Kenneth plays along, and Sepha hangs up the phone before the conversation can turn back to anything substantive. He does not open his store to customers until almost 11 am. The first customers to arrive are an elderly tourist couple. He decides to follow them as they leave his store and share in their adventure. He leaves his store open and unattended as he anonymously trails behind the couple. He walks behind them until DuPont Circle, where they sit on a bench and Sepha sits on the grass. When they get up to go, Sepha waves at them enthusiastically.
Chapter 6 Summary
Walking home, Sepha sees Judith for the first since having dinner at her house. Several days have passed, and he sees her on her stoop, searching for her keys in her purse. Despite his instinct to run to her, he instead stops dead in his tracks and does not move for the five to 15 minutes it takes Judith to get into her house. Then he walks past his house and hers and heads to a bar, where he drinks until he is sure all his neighbors have gone to bed. Three days later, Judith shows up at Sepha’s apartment and asks why he ignored her when he saw her on the street. Sepha lies and says she looked busy, and he didn’t want to disturb her. Judith tells him more about herself over a scotch, and she eventually rests her head on his shoulder while they sit on the couch. Sepha remains paralyzed throughout the encounter until she finally leaves. The next day, Naomi visits his store by herself and brings some library books for them to read together. Sepha and Naomi decide to read The Brothers Karamazov together. Although the system is obsolete, Sepha tells her she should write her name on the library card inside the book so everyone will know she once read it.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters set up the possibility for a romantic relationship between Judith and Sepha. Sepha is interested, but he is powerless to advance the cause. His inertia results from his awareness of their distinct dissimilarities. Sepha’s lack of self-confidence amplifies these dissimilarities, and he perceives Judith’s situation as better than and incongruent with his own. He admires and even desires this “better” life, but his cynicism prevents him from acting on those desires. This internal conflict is presented during his visit to Judith’s house, where he is awe-struck by the luxury of the rooms, furniture, and boxes of books. Although Judith’s desire for Sepha is evident when she tries to kiss him, he does not kiss her back. As an immigrant who has lost everything—his father, his home, his sense of agency—investing in another thing that can be lost, especially something he sees as inherently good, is untenable for Sepha. Ultimately, Judith’s life is also simply too foreign for Sepha. Even in the intimate space of a family dinner, Sepha is artificial and detached from the scene. He sees himself in this alien interior and watches himself performing throughout the visit. Unlike the furniture in this place, he knows he will not stand the test of time.
Later, when Sepha learns that Joseph also dated a white woman who now comes into his restaurant in DC, Joseph says they do not acknowledge each other because she does not recognize him. In truth, she does not see him. He is invisible to her like so many other people of color and immigrants are to white Americans. This encounter contrasts with Sepha’s dinner with Judith because she does seem to truly see him, but it is unclear whether he will allow himself to be truly seen by her. On some level, he fears Joseph’s experience is a premonition of his own and, again, he is reluctant to pursue a path that could leave him vulnerable. Joseph’s encounters with this woman also emphasize the disconnect between the three friends’ memories and current circumstances and their occupancy of a place in between the two.
Sepha is not able to sustain any authentic human relationships beyond the superficial or performative; when Judith shows up on his doorstep, they literally turn the event into a performance and enact her arrival a second time. And so Sepha’s relationship with Judith is over before it even begins. Even when Judith provides blatant bids for Sepha’s affection, such as leaning her head against his shoulder, Sepha is not excited or aroused but paralyzed by the weight of such an insinuation. As with his store, Sepha is unwilling to invest the effort such a relationship would require, especially because of the foreign nature of their two existences. He regrets this decision before he even makes it: “I didn’t need Mrs. Davis or anyone else to tell me what I looked like chasing after Judith as she walked up the steps of her house. I knew that already, and yet still there it was, regret, fully formed and ready to wash over me as soon as I realized that I wasn’t going to take one more step” (80). Sepha is unable to take any steps toward happiness or connection. Despite Sepha wanting this relationship to move forward, he is incapable of exercising any agency on his own behalf.
Naomi becomes the safe boundary between Sepha and Judith. Although Sepha feels largely out of place in America, especially in his rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, Naomi finds in him some sense of belonging. With an absent father, Sepha represents not only the father she is missing, but the Black culture she lacks as a biracial child raised by a white woman. When Sepha tells her she should write her name on the library card inside The Brothers Karamazov, he passes on one of his most poignant values, despite being unable to embody it himself: one should leave their mark on the world. It is a lesson he learned from his own father and wants to pass down as a father figure to Naomi. Sepha values the concrete and tangible reminders of one’s existence, even as he floats listlessly and aimlessly through a world that still feels foreign to him. It is not important to read the book, it is important to perform the act of filling out the library card to lay claim to having read the book.
Just when Sepha decides to reclaim his sense of agency, vowing to run his store professionally, he receives his eviction notice. As with the traumatic losses throughout his life, Sepha is reminded again of the audacity of hope and the hoax of autonomy. With no control of his own life, Sepha once again slides into the familiar, detached, and anonymous place, caught between two worlds. Following the tourist couple allows him to remain a voyeur with no commitments, invisible, isolated, and drifting aimlessly in a sea of humanity.
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