The Revisionists

by Thomas Mullen

  She tried to contain her anger while he turned his eyes to the window to admire two young Asian women bouncing past in sleek running outfits. Who the hell was this guy? What parallel universe had he transported over from?

  The joggers passed and his eyes went back to her. The smugness there, the obnoxious confidence in his tone, and the way he hadn’t even bothered to hide his ogling of those women, struck another chord in her. She realized that she was actually sitting across from someone from that much-imagined, never-before-seen world: the right-wing military-industrial machine that had consumed her brother. For months she’d been raging and raging at an amorphous, seemingly intangible foe, but here was one of its representatives in the flesh. Maybe this wasn’t such a terrible thing.

  “Well,” she said, hoping her minor change in tone wouldn’t be too obvious, “since you seem like such a well-informed guy, I want a little something from you too.”

  “We’re prepared to pay, but that’s—”

  “I don’t mean money—yours probably all comes from laundering Afghan drug deals, right?”

  “Sure, that and overthrowing leftist governments and raiding their national banks.”

  So he had a sense of humor. “What I want is information, about my brother.”

  “Specifically?”

  “How he died. Where, when, all the contributing factors.”

  “The army hasn’t shared anything with you?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t believe it. I want to know everything”—she raised her eyebrows at the pun—“such as why his blog was taken down a week before he died and why he never sent any e-mails that last week. I want to know if something Marshall posted online pissed off some commanding officer or some suit at the Pentagon. I want to know if anyone in the chain of command gave any orders that placed him in harm’s way because of something he wrote or said.”

  Leo thought for a moment. Tasha knew she wasn’t in a position to make demands, but part of being a good negotiator was acting as if you were.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “But military intelligence isn’t exactly my turf. Us spooks don’t play together as nicely as we should.”

  “Yeah, we all noticed that with 9/11.”

  He eyed her for a moment, then grinned, as if granting her the point. “For the record, I was in a different line of work then. But I will see what I can do for you. Your brother was a hero, and if anyone in the army has lied to your family about him, I won’t like that any more than you do.”

  “So we agree on something. How nice.”

  “I think we agree on more than you realize.”

  Her heart was still beating too fast but the sourness in her stomach was gone. She hated this guy, but she could use him just as he used her. She wasn’t sure how yet—she’d need time to replay the conversation and figure the angles—but this was what she’d always excelled at, from debate club through law school and up to the few trials that the firm had let her handle: finding her adversary’s weak points, the flaws in his logic, and outmaneuvering him. And just plain being smarter than him. Because who was Leo but some obviously low-level security-firm hack? If he were a superspy, he wouldn’t be in D.C. tailing activists. Yet surely he had connections, and these she could make use of. She still felt violated by his entrance into her life, but her fear faded as she got a better take on him. She would play along with him to get what she needed, for a while at least.

  Leo leaned back again and took a celebratory swig of his drink. Then he told her how he envisioned their relationship working and where he wanted her to start.

  Finally, he looked at his watch and apologized for how long he’d kept her from her important clients. He put the folders back in his bag and said good-bye, dismissing her, but staying in his chair. Apparently he wanted them to leave separately, her first, which seemed an odd bit of clandestine tomfoolery, considering they’d been sitting together in public beside a window for an hour now. Which only confirmed her opinion of him; he’d probably been a damned TSA baggage checker before winning a promotion.

  It had started raining and she’d didn’t have an umbrella. She hailed a cab, needing to be alone with her thoughts so she could puzzle out the immensity of her conversation. The middle-aged Eastern European driver stopped muttering into his earpiece cell phone and asked, “Where to?” She told him, and like that the guy pulled a U and resumed his call in some Slavic tongue, speaking softly, as if afraid she’d overhear his conversation and understand it. Asking after his kids or the political situation in Ukraine, maybe, or talking soccer, or complaining about work or the weather or this damn city where the spoiled kids drink all night. It was easy to tune it all out when you didn’t know what they were saying.

  11.

  Sari was more nervous than usual as she wound her way through Washington’s chaotic streets. The SUV was three times larger than anything she had driven before, and she thanked the gods for helping her steer it without running over another car. She also thanked her mother, whom she knew was watching her. At a red light Sari let her eyes wander, and there in the distance was the Washington Monument glowing in the dark; someone honked, and she saw that the light was green again. The wheel was too big for her hands—it would have been too big for an ape’s hands, and she didn’t understand how Sang Hee, who was no taller than herself, could enjoy handling something like this. No, of course she understood—the mistress loved power.

  Sari didn’t have an American or even a Korean driver’s license, but Sang Hee said that didn’t matter.

  The other cars sped along with a sort of impersonal professionalism, hurrying to their important destinations. Frightened pedestrians huddled on street corners, aware of their low status. Still, it felt so good to be out, not just out of the house but here in a city, even if an unfamiliar one. She’d lived in urban areas all her life and was used to noise and commotion. The noise was different here—no whine from motorbike engines, no street vendors calling out—but still the vibrancy charged her.

  She knew that Sang Hee was timing her, so she could not afford any wrong turns. She followed the primitive map the mistress had drawn, only the relevant streets noted, along with an occasional landmark. The drive from their house in Mount Pleasant was short, and the clock told her she had been gone only ten minutes when she pulled to the curb in front of the store. She had been told not to worry about understanding street signs, that the diplomatic plates gave her license to park anywhere.

  She walked inside. The automatic doors pulled open and there Leo was, standing in front of a display of freshly cut flowers. She smelled lilac and rose, and he smiled.

  “Good evening, Sari,” he said in Bahasa. He wore a light gray dress shirt tucked into black slacks. He was even taller than she remembered, and just as handsome.

  “Hello,” she said, and realized she had no idea what to say next. She turned to free a shopping cart from the long chain while she tried to think. What exactly was she doing, and what was she prepared to do? Was she stringing him along for company and conversation, or for help? But what kind of help could some random American provide?

  Or perhaps she was just attracted to him and acting stupid. Being in his presence again threw her, and she worried she was setting in motion things she couldn’t control.

  “So… you want to shop?” he asked slowly. She wondered if perhaps he wasn’t as fluent as she had thought.

  “Yes. I only have thirty minutes, and I have a lot to buy. They time me. Um… Would you like to shop with me?”

  “They time you?”

  “They are very strict.”

  He paused for a moment. “There’s a café across the street. Let’s just sit for a moment, then I’ll help you shop so you aren’t late. Okay?”

  It was a reasonable request, but her situation was so unreasonable. She had heard that Americans were insistent; this was her first experience with it. Still, her initial plan of chatting with him while shopping now seemed absurd. It would be nice to sit and talk, if she could rela
x.

  They stepped outside and she shivered. Despite her years in Korea she still had not gotten used to the cold. But the shiver felt welcome on her skin. It was proof that she was outside, proof that she existed. The pedestrians passing her on either side were talking in a language she didn’t understand, but still it was wonderful to hear them: people in a city, running to countless adventures. She missed other people’s voices.

  The young black people behind the coffee shop’s counter wore green aprons with matching visors. Up-tempo jazz played on the speakers but the customers at the tables moved with an air of lethargy if they moved at all; a few people sat alone, reading or typing on computers; two young lovers held hands while sharing a secret; an old man in a tattered gray coat sat with his eyes shut. Hanging on the wall above each table was a framed, colorful photo of smiling Filipinos selling their wares from narrow boats.

  “Can I get you a coffee, or some tea?” he asked. His Bahasa was heavily accented and sometimes he used the wrong prefixes, but she always knew what he meant.

  “Thank you, I’m fine.”

  Leo ordered his coffee and they sat in the back. He took the chair facing out, leaving her to face him and a brick wall. He asked her how she was, and she lied.

  “How did you come to be working in America?” he asked.

  “I lived in Korea for the last eight years. The family I worked for most recently didn’t need me anymore, but they knew someone who did.” She tried not to sound bitter when she added, “I was nervous about the travel, but the money they offered was good.”

  She hadn’t put on any makeup, as Sang Hee surely would have been suspicious. And she wished she had something more attractive to wear than this baggy sweatshirt and these unstylish jeans. She reminded herself that she had looked just as disheveled the last time they’d met, and he hadn’t seemed to mind then.

  “So you must have left Indonesia right around when Suharto was overthrown.”

  It was always interesting to hear how people described it. Sometimes Suharto was “overthrown,” sometimes he “stepped down,” sometimes he was “exiled,” sometimes he was even “voted out.” She wondered what most Americans knew of the transition and the accompanying violence, if they even knew of it at all.

  “A little while after.”

  “That must have been quite a time. I wasn’t there yet, but I… heard a lot about it.”

  “It was difficult. Protests and riots and police everywhere. The students would come in and make noise and then the police would punish everyone else for it.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  She didn’t like to talk about these things, but it felt different to be asked by someone so removed from her past, sitting in a place so far away. Or maybe it was because she hadn’t spoken about it in so long that retelling it finally made her feel some power over her own story.

  “I left for many reasons. It’s hard to give just one.” Was that really true? There had been the one overpowering reason, but she couldn’t confront this right now. “I followed my sisters, so that made it easier. We had some relatives who had moved to Seoul, and they told us good things about it.”

  “And they were wrong?”

  “By the time we got there, the economy was slowing down. And they don’t like non-Korean workers there.”

  She wanted to change the subject. She wasn’t wearing a watch and couldn’t see a clock from where she was sitting. She should tell him that she needed to go, but even though she was risking much just sitting there, it felt too good to get up. So she asked where else he had traveled in her country.

  He described the tourist spots that everyone in Java visits, and it was like hearing a travel brochure of her homeland read aloud. She knew everything he was talking about better than he did, but she was happy to let him describe the golden shine of the temples and the acrid smell of the volcanoes, to reminisce about the street-side warungs selling saté and hot milk with honey. When she blinked, she let her eyes stay shut an extra moment so she could see it again.

  “Do you miss it?” he asked.

  “I miss the food. I miss the ocean. I miss many of the people I left behind. But there are things I don’t miss.” Then she asked him what time it was, and she recoiled at the answer—she had already spent half of her allotted time.

  “I’m sorry, but I really need to shop. Want to come with me?”

  “Of course.” She thought he was going to stand, but he stayed still, looking directly at her. “You asked me to come meet you tonight. Was there something you wanted?”

  Yes, but she wasn’t sure what. There were too many answers. I wanted you to describe that volcano. I wanted to hear you mispronounce our words for automobile and financial. I wanted to stare at your light hair and still eyes. I wanted to feel your eyes falling to my shoulders and chest, trying to find where my body hides in this ill-fitting outfit. I wanted to see your forefinger rub the bit of coffee that escaped onto the lip of the plastic lid over and over, the one sign of nervousness your body allows itself. I wanted to see if you remembered my name.

  Yet she was compelled to do her job and avoid a beating for tardiness.

  “Can we talk while we shop? I really must hurry.”

  “Okay.” He followed her out. She stopped for a moment in front of Sang Hee’s SUV. The keys in her pocket suddenly felt so heavy. Then they walked into the store.

  She pulled out a cart and Leo grabbed one of the plastic baskets. She translated into Bahasa the fruits and vegetables on her list; he grabbed some oranges while she looked for a grapefruit. Like the grocery stores in Seoul, the produce section amused her; it was designed to look like the outdoor markets she had grown up with, yet its quiet and orderliness emphasized how bad an imitation it was.

  Several shoppers had headphone wires dangling from their ears and others were talking on their phones, everyone devising ways to pretend he or she wasn’t actually here. Whereas getting out to the store was the highlight of Sari’s week. “Do you see any durian?”

  “That’s difficult to find here,” he said. “Americans aren’t fond of it.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Really, Americans haven’t heard of it.”

  She wheeled her cart into the next aisle. The signs were no help to her, so she had to glance at the contents on each shelf to get an idea of what she might find.

  “The people you work for, what do they have you do?” Leo asked. He was so persistent, seemingly emboldened by her attempts at evasion. His American directness—homing in on the one thing she shouldn’t talk about—left her unsure how to respond. And then suddenly it all came out.

  “I’m their cook, and their maid. Also the nanny for their three children. Sometimes their gardener as well. And now, because the wife has broken her ankle, I shop for her. I work sixteen or seventeen hours a day. And I’m up half the night with their babies.”

  People were all around them, but because no one spoke the language, she and Leo might as well have been invisible. It felt both frightening to talk about this in public and liberating, the thrill of crossing an unguarded border.

  “You don’t like them very much,” he said.

  “I don’t like them at all.”

  “Are my questions bothering you?”

  “No. It’s good to be able to talk to someone. To let someone know.”

  “Can I ask you another one?”

  “Yes, if you help me find the fish sauce and shrimp paste.”

  He turned, and three seconds later the items were in his hands.

  “Are you working there against your will?”

  She pushed the cart and he followed. “I’m not sure of my will sometimes. I don’t know what to do. At least I can talk and you can hear me talk. Maybe that’s my will. Maybe I just want you to hear me. Where is the green tea? I couldn’t find any last time and she went crazy.”

  He found it for her, and they walked to the next aisle, trailing another woman in headphones. America was invisible voice
s, singing.

  “They have my passport, my papers. There’s nowhere for me to go. Plus, they could do something to my sisters. The diplomat is important in Seoul, and he could get them in trouble.”

  Leo was watching her very carefully. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was dodging his questions or doing the opposite, leading him exactly where she wanted him to go. For the next five minutes he stopped asking anything, obediently locating the final items on her list. But always she felt his eyes on her, even when he was facing away. How did he do that?

  In the checkout line, he stood beside her like he was her husband. Surely people were watching them, the foreign woman with the tall white man.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve acted strangely tonight,” she said. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how to act with people I don’t work for.”

  “Does she give you the shopping lists in advance?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The grocery list—does she give it to you just as you’re leaving, or earlier in the day?”

  What a strange question. But his voice was so calm and orderly, as if he weren’t so much asking a question as telling her what to do.

  “Earlier in the day.”

  “Once you have the next list, call me. You can read it to me, and I can buy everything in advance. That way you’ll have time to meet me somewhere else, without her being suspicious.”

  She was confused for a moment. Then she thought she understood. Did Americans always proposition each other so bluntly? She’d made a mistake to call him.

  Or maybe she’d picked exactly the right person? Because, yes, it was a tempting thought.

  Still, she was about to object, for propriety’s sake at least, when he noticed the expression on her face. Leo held out a palm and spoke in a gentler voice than before.