The Surrendered

by Lee, Chang-rae

  "I guess it was," Hector answered, one hand propped on the steering wheel. The other was cradling a bottle of beer. That he was drinking while driving didn't concern her in the least. He was calm. He wasn't sullen or angry, and for the first time she thought he looked almost contented, if a little tired, as though the long night into day he'd spent dealing with Nicholas had in fact been a worthwhile effort for him. Perhaps something he would be glad for always.

  "I'm so happy he was healthy," she said. "His leg seemed completely healed."

  "Uh-huh."

  "You don't sound so sure."

  "Don't listen to me," he said. "Nick's going to be fine."

  "I'm sure you told me already but I forget. Did you talk a lot with him?"

  "Not so much."

  "He must have asked many questions. Especially about you."

  "A few."

  "I assume you didn't tell him you were his father?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "I think he suspected something, anyway."

  "How's that?" Hector said, taking a long sip from the bottle.

  "When Nicholas finally came back, when you brought him to me again very early this morning, I asked him the same thing. I asked him what he thought of you. And do you know what he said?"

  Hector shook his head.

  "He said, 'You have a decent man there, Mother. He'll look after you. I think you should keep him around.' "

  "Nick is some kind of boy."

  "You keep calling him Nick. I like the sound of that. It's nice to hear."

  "Sure," he muttered, though suddenly sounding to her as though he wanted to change the subject. But she wasn't yet ready to let it go. At the moment there was hardly any discomfort in her body, even the expansion joints of the road giving her none of the usual painful tremors as they sped over them. And her mind suddenly felt right again, or at least geared in, her thoughts interlocking, turning forward, exerting some force.

  "Maybe you'll check in on him sometimes."

  "I doubt it."

  "But why? You don't ever have to tell him anything. You could just be his friend. Someone he could contact, if necessary. He obviously respects you."

  "It won't happen."

  "Why not? Because you don't want the responsibility? There wouldn't be any. He'll have enough money. You wouldn't have to do anything. What I'm thinking is that you'll just be someplace he could find you. If he wanted to talk to you. That you'll tell him, or at least my attorney, where you might be."

  Hector suddenly braked, slowing down enough that she had to hold out her arm and brace herself against the headrest of the front passenger's seat to prevent going face-first into it. They were on the shoulder of the roadway but it was very narrow, as they had been crossing a long bridge. They were stopped midway across the two-lane span, the valley and planted fields receding majestically below them. He shut off the engine and got out and opened the rear door. A truck thundered by at full speed, blaring its air horn and only missing him, it seemed, by inches. Yet he didn't flinch or even seem to notice, his glare trained only on her as he bent down to speak.

  "You have to stop talking about him and me," he said sharply. "Or this can't work. I found him for you but that's all I'm going to do."

  "Don't you have any feeling for him? Any feeling at all?"

  "I don't want to see him, okay?" he shouted, with as much vehemence as he'd displayed since being with her. "I don't want to think about him anymore. He's gone his way and we've gone ours."

  "We could go back for him."

  "Is that what you really want?" he cried. "I'll turn us around and take you. I'll do it right now. Well?"

  She couldn't say anything and she thought he was going to slam the car door and walk off forever but instead he crouched on his haunches in the opened doorway, his head cast down with the kind of exhaustion that she had always counted on engendering for her own benefi t. But she didn't want to see it now. A car shot past, again too closely.

  "Please don't stay out there!" she pleaded. Two more cars careened by, in either direction, each honking at him in ire for impeding the road. "Please, Hector! I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt. I couldn't even drive you to a hospital. Please!"

  Finally he got back behind the wheel. He drove them to the other end of the bridge and pulled off onto the grassy shoulder. He cut the engine and got out of the car, wandering off into the woods. She was going to tell him how sorry she was for upsetting him, that she was deeply grateful for his efforts, that he had been quite wonderful to her when all she was offering him was this toilsome, perhaps disturbing errand, but her body was once again rudely alive, shuddering with pain, and before she could summon any words he was gone.

  When he hadn't returned after fifteen minutes she wedged her swollen feet into her flats and lifted herself out of the car. She followed his direction, fi nding a deer path that snaked through the high weeds and into the woods. The undergrowth was brambly and dense at fi rst and she didn't think she could make it through, but then the brush gave way to firs, the higher canopy looming dark and cool above the open forest floor. The ground was covered with soft needles, and as it sloped steeply toward the valley floor she had to step sideways so as not to slide down or fall. Her legs were quivering and the pains from her belly and up her back and neck jolted her with each measured step, but she clenched her teeth and told herself as she had throughout her life whenever she needed to persevere that it was wartime again, those days between what happened to her siblings on the train and when she met Hector on the road, when every last cell of her was besieged by hunger and fear but was utterly resolved not to fl ag, and never did. Yet a terrible feeling about Hector was overwhelming her and she quickened her pace and stumbled over a tree root in the path. She fell on her hands. An ugly, sharp squeal flew up from her throat. Her left wrist felt shattered. She tried to squeeze away the pain. On looking up she thought she could see something through the silvery green of the trees and she got up again, ignoring the pain--or, better, forcing herself to meet it differently, as if it were the embodiment of her own harsher self, the one that had mostly ruled her life, this cold, cruel woman she had relied on and befriended and to whom she would now lash herself in punishment.

  The stand of firs thinned and the slope bottomed out to more level, open, arid ground and she found herself pushing through some large wild rosemary bushes to see an exposed ledge of rock. To the right of her was visible the long bridge they'd just crossed, at the same level as she, but before her was just air, in the distance a lovely expanse of dry rolling hills and verdant farmland and terra-cotta-roofed houses, the vista like any of the third-rate landscape paintings she'd periodically sold in her shop, except that this one was dotted by a single brush of dark, reddish hair in the foreground, the crown of a man's head floating somehow out beyond the ledge. What was he doing? Suddenly a panic speared her chest and she called out his name, but he didn't answer. She stepped gingerly to the platform of the rock, but once there she had to drop to her knees for the sudden attack of vertigo, the high clouds in the sky twisting about her. She had to crawl to the edge. Below her on a short spit of outcropping Hector sat with his legs hanging over the steep hillside that fell away below him. He took a last slug from the bottle of beer he'd taken with him, then tossed it into the chasm. It made no sound that she could hear.

  "Please, Hector," she said, fearfully gripping at the weather-worn face of the granite. Though it was only slightly canted she was certain she was about to slide off. Her mind was racing, desperate not to focus on the horizon. "Please climb back up. We still have many miles to go to Solferino. I won't talk about you and Nicholas anymore. I'll shut up, I swear. Let's go now, all right? Please, Hector? I don't like it up here. . . ."

  She started to cry, the sudden flood of which took her by surprise, for there was no calculation or aim behind it, no stratagem, just the involuntary release of someone who was genuinely spent. Her cheek lay against the warmed rock, this giant headstone. A marker for them
both. She was going to witness him disappear, fall away from existence. But then he stood up and without the least regard for his precipitous position or the poor footing he simply turned and hauled himself up onto the ledge.

  "Okay, now," he said, his hand heavy on her back, "take it easy."

  "I'm so sorry for what I've done."

  "You've done nothing to me."

  "I have!"

  "I'll handle it."

  "It's not about Nicholas!" she gasped. She was going to say more, to tell him everything, but she was coughing hard, just as she had begun to over the past few days, the one store of energy left to her, hacking violently enough that some blood was starting to come up, and he gathered her in his arms and held her up so she wouldn't buck herself against the rock.

  "What is it, then?" he murmured, his eyes wide but lit inside by a fl icker of dread. "Is it about her?"

  But she could not talk, could hardly breathe, and he kept patting her gently on the back, caressing her, and it was in this instant that she decided not to speak another word, retracting herself into the everslackening coil of her body. This pile of frayed rope. She shut her eyes, trying to fill her lungs, fill them again. He hoisted her up and she could feel the strength of him as he piggybacked her up through the trees. She would not open her eyes, fearing she might be sick. He lowered her into the pillow-strewn backseat of the car. He started the motor and rolled onto the road, heading again in the same direction. The ride was smooth, which calmed her. He said he could stop at the next town and look for a doctor but she shook her head. There was no more time to pause. She could recall very little of the past thirty-six hours, could not even remember if she had said farewell to Nicholas. But she knew this: she was being borne on this swift raft, the taste of blood like that of an old coin on her tongue. Would she be allowed to cross over? Would her family be awaiting her? The Tanners? Her parents had not practiced any faith, nor had she, but it seemed reasonable that there should be simple questions now about all that one did in one's life, and whether those commissions were on balance decent, humane. Whether she would do them again, or else they were regrettable enough to disavow, to try once more to forget.

  H E C T O R G L A N C E D in the rearview mirror every twenty or so kilometers to see if June was awake, but all he saw was her mouth hung open or shut depending on the depth of her slumber, her head lolling back to one side or the other. He was skeptical of her regret for whatever she had "done" to him, figuring she was characteristically angling to get her way, contriving to move him forward, yet her outburst had seemed as genuine as her physical misery, which he knew from both wartime and peacetime (if the hours at Smitty's could ever count as the latter) was as good a truth serum as anything else. Had she told Dora something hurtful about him? Taunted her with the fact of their brief union, and the existence of Nicholas? She was defi nitely capable of that. He wanted to be angry with her and a flush of heat rose up in his neck but it wouldn't build to rage, or anything else. What was there, really, to be concerned about now? It was just the two of them from here on in, a pair of souls in a barrel floating down the last stretch of the river, twirling in one of the quieter eddies before being drawn into the chute toward the falls.

  In truth, he ought to be asking for June's pardon, for that fi nal night. His selfishness and need for Sylvie's love had caused him to neglect his nightly duty of checking the stoves in the orphanage, and one of them had erupted into flames. His lame mode of apology to June was their sorry marriage and even sorrier tryst, which he should have known then would only lead to further difficulties. It was easy for him to imagine how she would have had an entirely different existence, had he simply stayed clear: a chance at a full and relatively benign adolescence; a decent family and husband; and then an enduring bond with Sylvie herself, who would be nearly seventy years old by now, certainly a doting grandmother, or great-aunt, to June's children, who, in that reality, would never have dreamed of running away. But in the present reality, in this dwindling timeline, June had ended (by her choice or not?) back with him, pitiably dependent on a person who in the span of a single breath could decide to step away from the perch he'd sought in pure desperation just moments before.

  So he felt at least right, if not righteous, for bringing Nick again to her for a final time. Back in Siena, he had met up with Bruno in the piazza. He told him how after talking to him in the cafe Nick had doubled back to the hotel to get there before him and had June sign over the traveler's checks. Bruno nodded, not even asking what Hector wanted to do, and said he had an idea where they might find him: there were some clubs that were popular hangouts for students and younger revelers. In the hotel, June had risen and slept and risen again, Hector getting her another gelato before putting her down for the rest of the night with another heavy dose. He had begun drinking in the room, a four-pack of beer to fill his empty belly, but he wasn't yet sated in the way he needed, which was the feeling of being completely sodden, like some corpse long suspended in the water. He was drinking because he wanted to be sure that he wouldn't hesitate when he saw the young man again, so that he wouldn't decide to let him go without leaning on him, maybe like any disappointed father; he wanted to eye the boy once more, too, offer a last word, but here his impulse was not to reform but rather to be the bearer of ill tidings, a malediction from the world.

  The first club they tried was mostly empty and quiet, as it was still early, only eleven p.m. By midnight Bruno said they ought to try the other club, which was nearby. When they got there it was more crowded and smokier than the last, the dance floor spilling over with people, which kept him and Bruno from moving too far inside. They stood in one of the vaulted nooks near the entrance of the underground club. They got drinks and stood where those entering had to pass by to get to the bar. But after another hour Bruno shouted over the music that they should try another place and Hector agreed. He was finishing the last of his drink when Bruno tapped him.

  It was Nicholas, striding in with Laura, the young woman from the gallery. Bruno stepped forward but Hector cuffed him and had them stand back in the shadows. Something made him want to observe the boy for just a few beats longer. Was there a certain smug gleam in his face? A wholly remorseless light? The couple looked contented, even happy, as though they had no great worries; or at least Nicholas did. He seemed taller, more upright than earlier, as if he were rigged inside with new girding--the prop of fresh funds. Hector could tell that Laura didn't know a thing about it from the way she brightened when he kissed her, perhaps more deeply than he would have on another night, and as Nicholas ordered drinks for them and made a toast, Hector could figure this was the eclipse of her as far as Nicholas was concerned. He would be leaving her, along with everyone else.

  At the side of the short bar a scuffle suddenly flared up, two men in brightly colored shirts pushing and taunting each other; they were from different contrade, by their shirts. The men tipsily grappled with each other, not punching or kicking, as if there was an acknowledged code of battle, rather clasping each other in a palsied, theatrical manner, like in a silent film. But they rolled back hard into Laura and made her spill her entire drink onto Nicholas; a large splotch bloomed darkly on his light-blue shirt and white linen pants. The contrada man was very short and built thickly and he held up his hands in clear apology, but Nicholas kept shouting at him, tugging to show him his soaked shirt, and the scene would have been over quickly enough had Nicholas not become instantly, unreasonably, furious; he even brusquely dismissed Laura's attempt to blot his shirt as he accosted the man. Standing much taller, Nicholas hotly scolded him as he would a child, and in a lull in the music Hector could hear that he was doing so in English, though this time with a much sharper British accent, and though Hector didn't know enough of the world to place it or give it a name he would have said it was a workingman's tongue, what you'd hear dockside or in an alleyway bar.

  This confused Hector; maybe Nicholas was an accomplished and elusive thief (this gleaned from the papers in
Clines's folder) but this openly volatile temper didn't quite jibe, not to mention how sensitive and quiet and artistic June always said he was. He wasn't someone who would strike a match in a place he shouldn't. To his momentary credit he was impressively aggressive, enough that both contrada men and their respective mates were initially silent, slightly amazed that this lone foreigner would address them so; but then, soon enough, as Nicholas persisted, they pushed in around him with anger in their faces. This was a locals' club, after all, and as locals' clubs went, Hector could see from how the bartender and bouncers now stepped back without pause that this was a serious one, intramurally run, a place where a certain kind of visitor could get himself in trouble. Laura evidently knew this and had stepped forward to get between him and the local men, pleading with all for calm, but from behind her Nicholas got right up in the faces of them, and they right at him, the shouting escalating into finger-pointing, nudging, hands raised and ready. Hector instinctively approached now, Bruno close by. Someone behind the contrada men shoved forward, jamming one of them hard against Laura and Nicholas, and it was then it began, perhaps because Nicholas saw Hector, while Bruno tugged Laura away as the first punches were thrown.

  Hector approached to help, given that he was here to retrieve him, but in the mess of the moment, in the mayhem of fists and grunts and flying sweat and spit, a region in which most decent folk perceived only senseless blurs and flashes but was pacific and deep-etched for Hector, a life-sized diorama he could move about in at his own pace and pleasure, he decided that the extent of his help would come in the form of not allowing Nicholas to be maimed or blinded. He had no issue with the contrada boys, doing the same as they plenty of times at Smitty's, and he only had to pull off one of them from doing uncalledfor damage, the others allowing him (this gentleman-appearing tourist) to move in and cover the offender from more kicks and blows. When they stopped, he hustled Nicholas out to the street. Bruno and Laura quickly trailed them. Nicholas, who was propped over his shoulder, tried to break from him and run but caught his foot on a raised cobblestone and fell. He rose to get away but suddenly a very different impulse compelled Hector to trip him, sending him hard to the ground. He lay there prostrate, and instead of helping him up Hector pressed his knee on the back of his neck.