by Sonya Chung
In her translations there were words Hannah encountered and clung to: essence was among her favorites. It meant spirit, the heart of the thing; also gasoline, fuel for the journey. Hannah would go, to the place of essence. And to the place of bien-aimés.
She would go; her sentence was over, she’d done her time. Madame understood this. Pourquoi pas? Madame would finally write her historical novel, Hannah would help with research.
The bus pulled into the loading bay, ready for boarding. Just before hanging up, Monique said, “You are sure, Ah-nah? Your parents, your teachers, they all want you to go to college, bien sûr.”
Hannah considered, for an instant, what her parents would say. It was easy enough to imagine: nothing. They would say nothing. What could they say. At some point an alternate plan had crossed her mind: go home for the summer, live the next three months in their house, lifeguard and wait tables. Pretend she was going to college. Hannah thought how easy it would be, this deception. How deep and wide the gap between her and them, how little possibility for friction or discovery. A part of Hannah had relished this plan—feeling the gap fully, inhabiting it. She had submitted to their banishment; she could play it out to the very end. It would be a kind of preparation, fueling up. She would be pleine d’essence before leaving and never turning back.
No. She would go now. Her boxes were getting on a plane. Hannah had said a final good-bye to the boy, without him knowing.
“A toute à l’heure, Monique,” she said, then hung up. It was the first time Hannah had called Madame Glissant by her given name.
The bus was only half-full. Hannah relaxed into her seat and leaned on her duffel bag. Three hours to DC. She slept lightly and dreamt fitfully of the ocean—the salty air, sun high and strong, her body aloft and riding the massive wave’s velocity all the way to shore. What did I do to deserve this, and why so long in coming.
8.
There was the question of Veda, which kept Charles awake nights but did not keep him from going forward. One step at a time, no commitments just yet. There would be training trips over the summer—Vegas in June, North Carolina in July; Vancouver in the fall to seal the deal. Rhea and Marcus would stay at the house. Charles had told them the training was for the stadium—a new government requirement for venues that drew high-volume crowds. Bart had told him what to say.
Veda had her own busy life now—friends, school clubs, dance classes and recitals. It was the year of clothes and makeup and hanging out, which Rhea would manage better anyway. Veda would be okay, Charles told himself. Will you be okay? he asked her. Dad, Veda said, rolling her eyes then rolling over on her bed to dial someone’s number. Charles had let her have a phone in her room. She was getting so tall, her toes nearly reaching the edge of the mattress. She’d be okay, he told himself.
Alice was gone. Charles had been thinking things over, planning on Vegas, but he wanted everything else to be cleaner, clearer, before proceeding. Wanted Alice out, and told her so. (A legal divorce would be next, he thought, but one thing at a time.) But who knew she would disappear? She hadn’t taken her things, though evidently she’d come by the house to get them. Charles went to Dupont Circle but didn’t know the apartment number. He stood in the lobby and asked a few people; no one knew Alice, no one knew anything. Charles couldn’t remember the name of the old woman she worked for. Chung, or maybe Park? Maybe he never knew. He wondered if he should call Nick Jr. The whole thing was bizarre, an ominous shadow.
Even so, Charles felt relieved. Alice had been leaving them for a long time; now, finally, she was gone. She didn’t want to be found. When Charles told Veda, she asked was there a note or anything. There wasn’t. Charles saw that for Veda there was a difference—between Alice’s half-presence and her complete absence. He didn’t know was it a big difference or not. He was sorry for it.
It hadn’t taken long for Bart Sheridan’s proposition—after its first ridiculous clang—to resonate. Dennis was the clincher. Dennis laid up like that, tubes and machines, it spooked Charles. Like he’d been waiting for it and it made no fucking sense at the same time. But Bart was making sense. The whole thing was wacko, so Charles trusted it. Over steak and lobster on the terrace at Phillips, Bart told Charles about his illustrious career, pre-alcoholic meltdown, in paramilitary; his migration to private security once he’d sobered up; his eye on Charles over time as a potential recruit. You heard about it at Yongsan, side comments from higher-ups, about hired guns and soldiers for rent, the black market of national security. But as Bart explained it, it was less cloak-and-dagger and more money-and-lifestyle. “It’s a no-brainer for guys like me. Like you. Salary, benefits.” Bart paused when the waiter came, as if on cue, to replace the plates piled with lobster carcasses with sparkling new ones. “Even flexibility. You can say No. I couldn’t fucking believe it at first. ‘No, I’d rather not go to Tora Bora next week; but Tangier next month sounds good.’ It’s a life, and not a bad one.” Bart sat back, looked up to admire the big blue sky over the Potomac. Ordered another club soda.
Glasses clinked around them. Sweat beaded on Bart’s forehead. A patch of summer had come early, it was May and ninety degrees. Charles squinted at Bart through his aviators. Bart could apparently see, or detect it. “You’re wondering why the stadium job.” Bart had been at it now ten years, and Charles was in fact wondering. “At first I needed it. My sponsor said a regular schedule was important. Then it was a good cover. I was leading trainings mostly anyway. Then my kid had a kid. My kid hates my guts, but he said, ‘You can be grandpa if you’re actually going to be around. Reliable.’ So now I recruit on the side. I’m a contractor for the contractor.”
Charles asked what had to be asked: how dangerous was it; why him. Surely there were more seasoned MP types, or Navy SEALs. “At Tier 2, you’re more the shepherd than the hunter. It’s a lot of sitting and watching. Sometimes it’s hand-holding assets, getting them from A to B. Or straight body-guarding for guys with significant enemies. The point is you’re invisible, they barely know you’re there. Safety means not having to think about danger; you’re the one paid to think about it. Keep everything steady and easy. I’ve seen you. I think if you had to you could balance a china teacup on each shoulder while the circus stampeded through here.” The MPs, the SEALs, former Special Ops guys, they were geared toward Tier 1—black ops, hard core. Bart’s firm was building up Tier 2, for overseas work. “You got a lady friend or anything? Someone who’ll ask questions about where you’re going or where you’ve been?” Evidently Bart knew he and Alice had split. Bart knew a lot of things he hadn’t let on. “Swear to Jesus, it’s not the Russians or the Iranians who give us the hardest time, it’s the wives and girlfriends.”
Charles hadn’t seen Angela in a while. She’d finished her MBA and taken a job with ruthless hours. Veda was probably more disappointed than he was; Nicole was in high school now, she didn’t see much of either of them.
“A sister,” Charles said. “And my daughter. But they’re … they’ll be all right.”
Rhea had said: Three trips in six months? Hasn’t V had enough upset? She needs you home. Charles couldn’t say, No, she really doesn’t. Rhea would balk, might refuse to step up while he was gone if he said that. What V needed Charles couldn’t precisely say, but it wasn’t him waiting with dinner salads and checking her algebra. Rhea and Marcus would be just enough of what she needed. For now.
The money would help. Charles was doing fine enough, but a college fund would be nice. It wasn’t the money, though. He would do it because he wanted to. Dip his toe in, anyway. Bart said, Start with the training: no obligation, no guarantees. Both sides are trying each other out. If the training clicks, everyone knows it’s a go; then you quit the day job. “I’ve seen guys rush in, all Rambo and adrenaline, pumped up to fight the bad guys. They don’t last long. It’s not what they expected.” Bart grinned a yellow-toothed grin. “But you might like to know I’m a top recruiter these days. It seems I have the eye.”
Sure,
he would try it, see if it clicked. One thing at a time. But Bart was making sense, and Charles knew it in his gut. Three weeks later, he was off to Vegas. The day before leaving, Charles sat at his desk at 2:45 and wrote another letter.
June 1988
By my count, you’ll be graduating. I’m glad for that, though I can’t presume whether or not you are. So I won’t say, “Congratulations.” What I mean to say is that you’re finishing something you didn’t choose to start. It doesn’t mean you didn’t make good on it. But it’s over now, so that’s something.
One way or another, you’re starting new. At your stage of life, that can be exciting. I wish I had had more wits about me when those moments came. Those moments of change and decision.
Often you don’t feel like you’re making a decision at all, but when you look back you see that you did. It was yours to make. With a little different thinking or influence, you could easily have decided different. No, not easily. If it were easily, then life would be much simpler.
I’m about to start new, too. I’m going away soon. A new job. It’s going to be a different kind of life. The one I think I was supposed to live. I’m ready for it. It took a long time and some half-aware decisions along the way. But anyway it feels like finally I am both making a decision and aware of making it.
I have felt that way about decisions I’ve made in relation to you. Somehow that’s true. Every time I write I seem to know better, somewhere inside but apart from the words, why that is. Maybe someday I’ll find the actual words.
You haven’t written to tell me not to write. I believe the letters are reaching you, so you are either reading them when they arrive or not reading them. Both possibilities seem reasonable to me. When I think about it, I can’t predict which it is. Where I’m going I’ll always be able to find you, so I’ll keep writing. It means something to me. That you know I’m writing. Every letter a decision.
In the Nevada desert, there were a dozen of them, a few around Charles’s age, but most on the far side of forty; one woman. They’d all served overseas, except for one, who made clear his past was off-limits. The training was relentless, dawn to dusk, later for night tactics. There was little small talk, meals were quick and silent; everyone seemed to prefer this. A short bony-faced guy called Mitt, the woman, and Charles were the top performers in almost all the exercises. On the last night, the three found themselves congregated in front of the dorms. They were up on a hill; the lights of the strip flashed in the distance. The woman said, That was nice work. She meant the motion-sensor exercise. Charles had completed the course without tripping a single light, and had detected an IED that no one was expecting. You, too, Charles said. Her defensive tactics—her ability to get out of any hold by any aggressor—had prompted applause. Mitt said, So what mess are you guys trying to get away from? The woman harrumphed. Mitt grinned and moved his eyebrows up and down. Seems to me this is a lot like witness protection, but the pay is a whole lot better. Neither Charles nor the woman confirmed or denied this. Mitt put out his cigarette and said, Well, I hope never to run into either of you out there, and went to bed.
In between trainings Charles had to maintain, and up, the fitness. It wasn’t easy. But it felt good. Charles felt how, at thirty-six, there were only two options: soup yourself up, stronger than the nineteen-year-old you were, or go soft in the middle, an old man in a wifebeater. School was out, but Veda got up early with him to go to the track, clicked the stopwatch. They took turns, for fun. Veda was a natural, fast and graceful.
A week before Charles had to leave again, Dennis woke up. Charles went to see him every day. Dennis was groggy from the painkillers but he wanted to talk. He spoke slowly, and said uncanny things.
I gotta get outta all this. Get away.
Where’s the fuckin window that’s supposed to open when the door slams.
Sometimes it’s like I just wanna disappear, off the grid; some desert island. He joked, Like witness protection, man. Find me someone else’s crime to witness.
I worry about Lawrence. What’s gonna happen to him. All this mess. Where’s his fuckin window.
One day, after he’d talked and talked, Dennis seemed to remember Charles; everything that had happened.
You had it all, man. You were on track, it was gonna work out for you. Stupid bad luck. Or else holy wrath. Seems like what’s the difference anyway. Reverend Haywood was dead a year now, went peacefully in his sleep.
Charles wondered if he could tell Dennis the truth. A part of him wanted to. Felt like he owed it to him. One in two. He was the one. Not Dennis. Dennis laid up. Dennis paralyzed on his left side. Charles had a window, and he was jumping out. Jumping in. Whichever.
The truth was: it wasn’t bad luck. It was good luck.
Charles woke before dawn the morning he left for North Carolina. He tapped Veda’s door open and watched her sleep for a few seconds, noted the neatly folded pink T-shirt and baseball cap she’d laid out on the chair: today she was starting her first job, scooping ice cream at Mazza. She and her friends were too young for the jewelry or clothing jobs, but they liked the upscale mall, and the pink uniforms. He closed the door and silently headed out. Rhea was up. She handed him a thermos of coffee and crossed her arms over her bathrobe.
The drive would be long, but Charles didn’t mind. About halfway, he stopped for breakfast at a diner in a small town outside Roanoke. Main Street was flanked with American flags. Charles knew the town, had written its name on at least a dozen envelopes by now.
The last one had come back: RETURN TO SENDER, ADDRESSEE NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS. He guessed the private schools finished earlier than the public ones; or maybe Hannah hadn’t checked her mail at the end.
Charles ordered oatmeal, ate quickly while it was still warm, and when he paid the check he asked the waitress where the school was. She pointed at the window that faced up the hill. “You’re a little late,” she said. “Or early. It’s pretty deserted up there. The summer school doesn’t start up until after the holiday.”
All the flags: probably a parade this weekend for the Fourth. He nodded. “Just wanted to take a look around.”
The day was humid and overcast. Charles parked near a building that looked like an athletic complex—sprawling and metal-roofed. He made his way to the main quad. The buildings there were red brick, one with white columns and a portico, which he assumed was the main hall. He walked toward it and stood in front, then turned a slow 360.
Charles saw pale green lawn with tufts of straw-yellow, muddy-brown brick under the muted sky. No trees or plantings. White shades were drawn in all the windows, like eyes with no pupils. A bronze statue of a man with chin up and hand tucked into breast pocket stood atop a dry fountain and seemed intended as the tableau’s centerpiece; but it was too small.
Charles clenched his jaw and inhaled. The humidity should have brought out smells, but there weren’t any—nothing teeming, beneath or beyond. He swallowed a gulp of tasteless air.
A fly buzzed overhead, too close. A small gray bird with a blue chest flitted over the quad, looking for a tree branch; finding none, it settled on the statue’s upturned chin. The fly buzzed in Charles’s ear and he let it.
Hannah was nowhere here, and Charles wanted to know, somehow, that she’d survived this. That they hadn’t gotten to her. Erased her. That somewhere she’d found an open window, maybe even broke one to pieces. This place was like an insensible ghost, uninformed of its own death.
With a pang Charles suddenly envisioned Hannah standing outside on Kenyon Street the day they buried the boy—at the bottom of the steps, head lowered, hair tied back too neatly and dressed in a borrowed black dress. The house would have looked just like this place from where she stood—like nothing. Dumb and proud and bloodless. Pretending to do honor; upholding something or other.
If she’d actually come, Charles would have gone out to stand on the sidewalk with her. Would have lifted her chin and said, You’re all right and You’re supposed to be alive.
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br /> A cement path wove toward the far corner of the quad and threaded between buildings. Charles made his way briskly across and out. He emerged into another, smaller quad, much the same, and beyond that was a path that led downhill. He wanted to wander a little longer, keep looking for her, some sign or sense, but he was running short on time, had to make Asheville in under four hours if he was going to arrive at the training site by 5 PM sharp (no excuses). He looped back to his car and drove the ring road in the opposite direction. Past some other buildings, beyond a large parking lot and a maintenance building, the campus seemed to open up onto something green—deep, rich green, with textures. Tiny flashes of gold. Charles rolled down the window and craned his neck to see as far as he could. He stuck his nose out and sniffed like a dog. Charles thought he detected a sweet scent, pine or cedar. The hint of something floral.
He hoped he wasn’t inventing it.
Charles gunned the accelerator and drove on.
He decided to believe in the scent and hold to its consolation—the proximity of the forest and its enchantments—like a kid staring at his night-light to quiet the monsters under the bed. He clung too to the fact that, once he started the new work, it would be easy enough to find her. And he would. He would always find her. He’d said so, in the letter that was in his briefcase, that would soon be in her hands. And Charles meant, always, to tell Hannah the truth.
BOOK THREE:
L’Essence
Sarang Pyong-hwa Nursing Home,
Silver Spring, Maryland
Spring 1992
The arrangements have all been made; everything in writing.