The Revisionists

by Thomas Mullen

  Hana liked Sari to comb her hair as she stood in front of the mirror and imagined herself a princess, or a movie star, or a president. She had said she was going to be all of these things when she grew up, and Sari never knew how to respond. Such confidence. To imagine the world as a series of banquets to which one is always invited. And to be right.

  The previous night, Sari had spoken to her own mother while she was sleeping. Her mother had not come in days, and Sari was beginning to worry she had done something to offend her, had dreamed unclean thoughts that pushed her away. But while she was dreaming about being in Java, the background suddenly turned to sand and fell away, the grains cascading down, and all was dark except for her mother’s unmistakable form in the middle.

  Well, she said simply. Are you doing better, daughter?

  Sari thought about this. Yes, Mother.

  Don’t lie.

  I didn’t think it was a lie, Mother. I wanted it to be true.

  Do you think I liked working for those Chinese people? she asked. I hated their filthy shop. No matter how many times I cleaned it, it was still filthy. The Mings were not charming people, Sari, but neither were they terrible employers. I managed.

  And died for them, Sari almost said, but she kept it to herself.

  Yes, so I did, her mother said. Sari had forgotten that here her mother could hear her thoughts. They aren’t the ones who killed me, of course. Don’t forget that.

  Yes, Mother.

  Listen: You had the wrong expectations when these people invited you here. You thought working in America would be different from working in Korea, but that house is Korea.

  It’s worse than Korea. I could come and go in Korea. I knew other Indonesians in Korea. I could quit my employer if I needed to in Korea.

  True. But you took the job, so you have to get through it. His appointment is only two years.

  Her mother’s face was no more wrinkled than the last day she had seen her; in death she did not age. But it had been so many years now (Sari had no photographs of her) that she wondered if she had the face right at all.

  I met a man yesterday. A white man who spoke Bahasa.

  I know, child. I was there with you.

  I want to try talking to him again.

  Are you asking my permission? You don’t need that.

  If Sang Hee were to find out, she’d never let me out of the house again.

  True. You need to be careful. And you need to be quick; her ankle will heal eventually, and she won’t need to send you out anymore.

  I know. I think I’ll call him tomorrow, after everyone is asleep.

  I’ll try to watch Sang Hee for you. I’ll let you know if she’s spying.

  Thank you. I wish sometimes her ankle would never heal.

  Her mother issued a mischievous smile that Sari had never seen on her face before. I’ll see what I can do.

  Sang Hee usually typed on her laptop until lunch, in the parlor or in her bedroom. Then she would leave to visit with other diplomats’ wives or to get a manicure and shop. If she came home early enough, she would sit in front of the television and watch DVDs of Korean soap operas that she had someone mail to her.

  At eight thirty each morning a man in a Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of the house, and a woman got out of it and took Hana to preschool.

  Later that morning Sari was in the kitchen warming bottles; the twins were napping, and Sang Hee was upstairs showering. Sari hesitated, then picked up the phone. She’d been afraid the slip of paper with Leo’s name and number would be discovered, so she had memorized the number and thrown the paper out the SUV window on the way home that night.

  It rang five times, then his recorded voice said something in English. The machine beeped at her, and she hung up. He must be at work during the day; she should have expected that. She returned to the bottles and ran hot water over them, wondering what she would say if she reached him.

  The first few days had been so strange, passing in a blur of jet lag and sleeplessness, that Sari barely noticed the restrictions they placed on her. The fourteenth day had come and gone, and so had a few more, when she finally asked about money. Wasn’t she supposed to be paid every two weeks?

  “Don’t trouble me with your complaints,” Sang Hee had said. Sari had just finished feeding Seung in his high chair while Jung entertained himself with plastic blocks on the kitchen floor. Sari stood to address Sang Hee. This was before her mistress had broken her ankle, and she was wearing sweat clothes, having returned from a jog through a park Sari had never seen.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s been more than two weeks, ma’am,” she said. She hated conversations like this but had learned to stand up for herself through her other bad jobs in Seoul.

  “We’ll pay you when we pay you,” Sang Hee said, then took a long drink of water. “Are you implying we’re cheating you? Is that what you’re saying to me?”

  Sari considered for a moment. Seung coughed in a small orange burst, then smiled even as his eyes watered.

  “No, ma’am. But I do worry about my sisters in Korea, and I was planning to send some money to them. So if I could—”

  She had been looking at one of the babies while she spoke, so she didn’t know what happened at first, only that she had to blink and gasp, and she was wet. Water ran down her face, soaking her shirt. Sang Hee’s glass was empty.

  Then Sang Hee put her glass down and slapped Sari’s face. Sari gasped again; her hand covered her cheek. Only later would she wonder, How did she know it would hurt so much worse on a wet cheek?

  “Shut up! If it’s so important, I’ll talk to my husband about it. I’ll tell him you think we’re cheating you. I’m sure he’ll love to hear what you think of him. And I don’t want to see you wearing those tight pants anymore, always bending over for things around him. Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

  She didn’t respond, just kept her hand on her cheek to ward off another blow. The babies were staring but seemed not to have formed an opinion yet.

  “There’s water on the floor,” Sang Hee said as she left the room. “Get the mop.”

  Two days after that incident, Sari had accidentally knocked over a glass vase she’d been dusting. Sang Hee had rushed in at the sound. Sari was kneeling on the floor, trying to pick up the pieces, when Sang Hee started cursing and hitting her. The first blow landed on her shoulder, startling her more than hurting her, but the next one found her neck. She hunched defensively and slipped on the hardwood floor, gashing her knee on one of the shards of glass. Sang Hee was strong for such a small woman. Sari was too stunned to even say Stop. Sang Hee finally decided Sari had been punished sufficiently, and she left the room, telling Sari to clean her mess.

  She was slapped other times, once for spilling some juice on the newspaper Sang Hee had been reading, once when Sang Hee declared that one of her blouses had been destroyed in the laundry, other times for indiscretions Sari couldn’t remember. She was more and more nervous in the mistress’s presence, making mistakes, becoming clumsy, inviting the attacks.

  Sang Hee got at least one manicure a week, sometimes more. Her nails were always new colors, always shining, her skin smelling of mangoes or strawberry or lavender. It took a while for Sari to see that the hands themselves were calloused and scarred. A line ran across the knuckles of her right hand, and her left pinkie finger didn’t seem to straighten all the way. She sometimes wore thin blue or white gloves around the house, something Sari had initially thought was an odd stylistic affectation, but now she wondered.

  Sari had no one to explain her situation to or ask for advice. Time passed and her mood darkened.

  She could fight back, of course, but she worried about what would happen. Sang Hee reminded her that they had her papers, that she had even less status here in America than she did in Korea, where she’d been a reviled “guest worker.” Sang Hee dropped hints that if they weren’t pleased with their servant’s work, she could be sent back to Indonesia, or even to some
sort of detention camp. As could her two sisters.

  Two nights after meeting Leo, Sari put Hana to bed. Sang Hee was upstairs writing, and Hyun Ki was working late, as he often did.

  Hana pulled the covers to her neck, her fingertips slowly peeking out like worms after rain. “Tell me a story.”

  “All right,” Sari said, willing her voice not to sound tired. Sang Hee sometimes stood outside the door to listen, so she could not afford to be short with the girl.

  “A story about the ocean.”

  Lately Hana’s requests had become distressingly specific, flitting about in accordance with her whims. Sari had been asked to tell a story about a butterfly and a monkey, a story about a little boy with a kite and a panda bear, a story about a comet and ice cream. In these brief, soft minutes illuminated only by the night-light, Sari’s storytelling skills were taxed as much as the rest of her was during the day.

  “A story about the ocean. All right.” Sari missed the ocean, missed the way sunlight moved upon its breathing body like a sheet over a sleeping child, missed the salty brine and the cry of birds circling the fishing boats. She had recently spied a map of Washington in the newspaper, and if she understood it correctly, they were not far from the ocean. But even if this house were half a kilometer from a beach, she would still be living in the middle of a desert.

  “Many years ago, like now, the ocean was rising,” she said, remembering something she had seen on television in Seoul only a few months ago, about South Pacific islands that were disappearing as the polar ice caps melted. She remembered the faces of the islanders as they spoke in some jibberish language to the camera, the look of people who were being erased. She understood them now. “Because of this, many islands were being flooded, as each day the waves rose higher and higher, covering first the beaches and then the dunes and then the woods. The people on one island had seen this coming, but they hadn’t known what to do. The ocean continued to rise, so the people left their houses to move as many belongings as they could carry to the mountains. But the ocean rose higher still.”

  “What happened to their houses?”

  “They were consumed by the ocean. One day the people on the mountains could still see their old houses’ roofs, but then the next they were covered by waves.”

  “I don’t like this story.”

  “Wait, you will.” She couldn’t tell the truth about the island from the television show, of course. What had the island been called? she wondered. What vanishing language had those people spoken? “One day, a young girl whose family had moved to the mountain had an idea. She thought that—”

  “What was her name?”

  “It was Oogaloogamoogadooga.”

  Hana laughed. “No, it wasn’t!”

  “It was a long time ago, so the people had very funny-sounding names to our ears. Anyway, the girl had an idea. The mountains were getting crowded and the ocean was rising further. Soon they would have to live on the lip of a volcano, which no one wanted to do. And everyone was sad because they’d had to leave many of their things behind. So Oogaloogamoogadooga thought of all the things that the people still had. One thing they had—though they were running out—was hope. So she and her friends traveled to all the people on the mountains and asked them to put their hope together and put it underneath the island, because hope is buoyant—that means it floats. So they all—”

  “How did they get it under the island?”

  “They had special underwater boats. The people pooled all their hope together and were amazed at how much they had after all, and when they put it under the island, the island rose a bit. Their houses were still underwater, but they could see the roofs. Then Oogaloogamoogadooga went to all the people on the mountains and told them they needed to get rid of their fear—fear is very heavy, and it was weighing down the island. So all the people, before going to sleep that night, took out their fear and gave it to some fishermen, who then put the fear in boats—they needed many boats for all the fear—and the fishermen let the boats sail away without any captains. The boats drifted, and before reaching the horizon they sank into the ocean. They’re still there now, many leagues beneath the surface; giant squids live in them. And without all that fear weighing the island down, it rose again. Now the people’s houses were not underwater, though the beaches and some of the low areas still were.”

  Hana’s eyelids were heavy, but she wasn’t asleep yet.

  “Then the next day Oogaloogamoogadooga told everyone to have a good, full dinner so they would have many wonderful dreams at night. The next morning, she and her friends collected all the dreams, which are like kites, attached them to strings, and tied the ends of the strings to the island’s four corners. The wind was very strong that day—a typhoon had passed nearby—and the wind blew the dreams so forcefully that the island was raised up higher still. It was now the way it had been before.”

  “Were the houses okay?”

  “Yes. It was sunny for many days, and they dried out just fine.”

  “Did their pets drown?”

  “On this island they had no pets. The fish and dolphins were like pets to them. Anyway, now everything was back to normal, but because the people had survived such a difficult ordeal, they felt even stronger than ever, and had more hope than before, more than anyone really needed, so Oogaloogamoogadooga decided that each week she and her friends would collect all the extra hope and have the special boats put it under the island, in case the oceans ever rose again. With more and more hope, the land was lifted higher and higher, and the island grew and grew and grew. It became nearly a thousand kilometers long.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Java. Where I was born.”

  Hana’s voice was heavy, sinking into sleep. “But Omma says people in Java are lazy and stupid.”

  Sari’s mind followed the silence through the open crack of the bedroom door, along the hallway, and down the stairs, searching for Sang Hee.

  “Yes, I know she does. Now go to sleep.”

  Hours more were spent doing dishes, cleaning, preparing bottles for the morning, and then soothing the twins, who woke again. Afterward, Sari made her way to the kitchen. She stood at the phone, listening for any sounds of movement from above. The oven clock told her it was past midnight; master and mistress had gone to sleep an hour or two ago.

  She picked up the phone.

  He had followed her around two grocery stores—clearly, he was interested in her. She was used to fending off clumsy advances, and despite the joy of being able to speak her language with him, she’d felt she had to dispatch him and get back to the house before she roused Sang Hee’s suspicion. Only at the end of her shopping had she realized that, at worst, he might provide a badly needed distraction from her predicament, so she’d asked for his number.

  Maybe he could offer even more than a distraction.

  She dialed Leo’s number, each press of the receiver’s buttons too loud. They glowed so brightly, half the room was illuminated a sickly green, but when she held the phone to her face the room disappeared.

  After three rings, she heard a man’s voice harshly demand “Hello?,” one of the only English words she knew.

  His tone gave her pause. Maybe this was a mistake? She should hang up. No, she needed to be brave, and friendly. More than friendly. She steeled herself, then said, in Bahasa, “Hello, is this Leo?”

  “Yes,” he replied in Bahasa after a pause. His voice softened with the language, the inflection rising. But it wasn’t just the language. She could tell already that she’d been right, and he was delighted she’d called.

  “I’m sorry to call you so late.”

  “That’s okay.”

  She was nervous about being overheard and wondered if she should try to sound less nervous. Or maybe he liked nervous women? “It was good to talk to you the other day. If you’d… if you’d like to work on your Bahasa sometime, maybe we could meet again?”

  “That would be great.”

  “How
about on Wednesday evening—can you meet me at the same place at seven o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  She felt so self-conscious, but he was responding naturally, as if he received such calls every night. Or dreamed of them.

  “Okay. I must go, sorry—I’m not supposed to be on the phone. But I’ll see you on Wednesday?”

  “Sure. Great.”

  She smiled, hoping she would also sound like someone who was smiling, and said, “Good-bye.”

  She hung up and stood there listening, her heart loud, surely so loud she wouldn’t have noticed the sounds of Sang Hee creeping around a corner or eavesdropping on the line. Maybe she’d made a horrible mistake. What was she really expecting from the American?

  But still, there was this: her quickening heart, the feeling of flight beneath her toes as she stepped to her room, the fact that she existed, and had proven this existence to another person. It gave her something to look forward to, a horizon. And beyond that? She wasn’t sure yet. But she was close to something, and she needed to get closer.

  8.

  Leo’s parents lived in Bethesda, less than two miles from him, in a smaller, empty-nester version of the house where he’d grown up. He saw them about once every other month and spoke to them on the phone only slightly more often. He didn’t think of this lack of communication as unusual; it was how they’d always lived their lives.

  He met them one night for dinner at a sushi place they’d been patronizing since he was a kid. As was his personality, and as had been drilled into him by his time at the Agency, he was five minutes early. His father, Alan Hastings, was deposited by cab ten minutes late. Leo already had a sake in him by then, and he figured his dad had picked up a little something in whatever business meeting he’d just left.