by Sonya Chung
Hannah nodded. “Monique considered her for the next novel. She housed refugees in the attic, right?”
“I think so. She had this huge idea of family. Everyone was family. But then she died pretty much alone and broke.” Veda sighed. When Rhea told this story, she swooned. Veda didn’t want to burst her aunt’s romantic bubble, but she figured the takeaway was that love and idealism could go completely wrong.
“You should go,” Hannah said. “If you have time.”
“Maybe.” In fact, Veda had nothing but time for the next few weeks. It made her nervous to think of it.
The lights flickered. An announcer urged them to take their seats. Veda and Hannah found their way to the lower mezzanine and sat between a man and a woman, who motioned over their heads.
“They want to sit together,” Veda whispered. Hannah spoke to the woman, who thanked her profusely, Merci, merci, c’est gentil, as they shuffled around each other.
“These are good seats,” Veda said, once they’d resettled. They were front and center.
The musicians were warming up. Hannah took off her coat and folded it into her lap. The program was a modern dance medley, called EsSense. “I think this is going to be good,” Hannah said.
Veda flipped through her program. She hoped so.
There was an awkward delay while the musicians retuned. Hannah asked Veda about college. Veda said, “They’re starting a new dance major this year. I’m excited about that.” She meant it. The thought of starting college was newly comforting. “They recommend double-majoring. I’m interested in science; but the history department is the strongest. They’re big on the whole sankofa thing.” The lights flickered one last time, and a hush came over the hall, now full.
Hannah leaned over to whisper a question (sankofa?), but, too quickly, the darkness swallowed the light.
The curtain rose. A drum went boom, the brass section blared. The woman who’d switched seats hooked her arm into the man’s and nestled her head into his neck. Veda looked over at them, then leaned back in her seat.
Veda and Hannah both sat very still, transfixed. Hannah hugged her coat. The dancers strode across the stage, their bodies fluid and sensual.
As they watched, Veda and Hannah did not speak, or touch. In the darkness, they lost themselves in the beauty of the movements. Questions went unasked, and unanswered, and yet both felt proximal, together, in some way.
Wheaton, Maryland
December 1992
She has been thorough, methodical, attentive. Still, she pauses for a moment, sits on the edge of the bed by his side. Watches his chest rise and fall—slow, rattling. Chong-ho spoke his last words two days ago. Yesterday, darkness swallowed his vision. The end came quickly, the illness did not prolong; as he would have wanted it.
She holds his hands, clammy and very cold now, searching his face one last time. His eyes are open, pupils large and cloudy. She waits, and watches. Perceives no struggle, no eleventh-hour doubt—Call the doctor. Take me to hospital. Save yourself. Their resolve came simultaneously; plans made with a word and a nod. In the week past, all has held.
In the bath, he was docile, calm, while she scrubbed his skin. He offered up his limbs as she dried and dressed him.
The bed is made. Soon-mi pulls the spread just over his knees. Now straightens the tie of his hanbok, straightens the bow of her own. Licks her thumb, presses down a rogue strand of hair along his temple.
Outside the sky is indigo, the night cold and clear.
Two vials, two needles. Two rubber ties. Two pills. Easily acquired by her from the nursing home. One pill between his lips, back of the tongue. A sip of water, tip his head back slightly. Swallow. One minute, two for good measure. Her hand on his chest, the other clenched to brace her nerve. The second pill in her own mouth now. Swallow. The bitterness.
Ties his arm above the elbow. The vein presents itself, plump and royal blue. Needle in; plunge. Her lip quivering. Steadies her hand, finger pressing, needle out. Gently.
Careful to lay out everything on the nightstand: needle, vial, pill bottle, rubber tie. No doubts, no mysteries or complications. Their final word: their love everlasting.
To the other side of the bed. Much easier to administer her own, no trembling or hesitation.
In the lamplight she leans over, kisses his mouth, a long kiss. Switches off his light, then hers. Lies back, hands stacked on her breast. She should lie still, lie flat, most dignified this way. He would have wanted that. But she can’t. She reaches under the blanket, finds his hand. Together, again, they die, together, again. This time without violence. Outside the moon shines bright, silent.
WINTER 1992–1993
1.
In November, the heat in the building was out more than it wasn’t. Hannah worked downstairs at Monique’s, portable heaters blowing at their ankles. Monique worked on early chapters about the painter’s youth—Rilke, cats—while Hannah focused research on Thérèse Blanchard, Balthus’s infamous child model. Thérèse was the neighbor’s daughter, age eleven when she first posed. There was little information. She died of “unknown causes,” age twenty-five. Hannah studied the paintings in books—angular Thérèse in provocative poses. It was hard to say if she was warm or cold, vital or ruined. It’s none of your business, the girl seemed to say. Don’t try to appraise. Perhaps her refusal to be gauged was her essence. Or was it the artist’s.
Once or twice, Monique inquired about Veda. Quelle jolie fille, she sighed, already nostalgic somehow. Hannah had nothing to report. She did not expect to hear from Veda again. But after Veda left—probably for the south, she hadn’t quite decided—an old memory rose to the surface of Hannah’s mind: she’d been in town, on her way back to campus from the diner; a city bus turned a corner too fast. There was a rollerblader in the crosswalk. A young girl stood on the curb alone, waiting for her mother, and screamed. An awful scream. A familiar scream. Hannah had walked quickly in the other direction.
There was a series of calls from James, the messages progressively urgent: It’s Appah. He isn’t doing well. A new prognosis. Getting worse. I’m flying home. Call me. Call me, Hannah. Hannah didn’t call. She would. Soon. More likely after. It had started six months before, the illness. It had been wait and see back then, neither hopeful nor dire. She knew what it was, and understood what was now happening. She didn’t share James’s need to participate. Just let it happen. What else is there to do.
The mother of the twins knocked on the door one evening in December. “Your phone is ringing, all day long. Every thirty minutes.” She wore an apron, and there was flour in her hair; she’d been baking her bûche de Noël.
Hannah went upstairs and dialed, but she got James’s machine. Her phone rang early the next morning.
“Both of them,” James said. His voice was eerily subdued.
It was 4 AM: heavy charcoal sky and stone quiet. Still, Hannah sat down at the kitchen table, put a finger to one ear and pressed the receiver into the other. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
“They did it … she … together.” A pause and an audible swallow. He was laboring toward normal volume. “I found them. In their bed.”
Hannah released her finger. She’d heard him. She stood up. Her front teeth began to chatter. A biting draft was coming through cracks in the rickety window. Why hadn’t she asked the porter to seal it before the winter chill arrived. Paris autumn was so mild, it was easy to believe it would last forever.
James continued. He uttered the words “homicide” and “suicide” and “lawyer.” He said, Your plane ticket is waiting. Hannah hung up and started moving. She took a very hot shower. Got dressed, packed a bag. Made coffee then sat and watched the sun come up. Her mind was a blank white sheet.
She waited until just before leaving to knock on Monique’s door. With her coat on and bags at her sides, Hannah explained that she was leaving. She said “accident,” and she was sure Monique heard something hollow in her voice.
Hannah’s plane la
nded late afternoon. It was the first day of winter—a watery daytime moon was out by the time Hannah stood on the curb. The airport shuttle took her straight to the house. James had been there all morning. The EMTs, police, a trial lawyer, all come and gone. James was sitting at the kitchen table with another lawyer—the estate lawyer—when Hannah walked in.
James halted in mid-sentence and stood. Squawking chair on linoleum. Bed hair, unshaven. The two stepped to each other. James hugged Hannah tight. Hannah smelled fast food grease and something antiseptic. The large prim woman in tweed smiled thinly.
“My sister,” James said. The woman closed her eyes; offered dramatic sympathy. Hannah made no response. “Excuse us a minute.” James led Hannah to the living room. He held her by the shoulders. “You’re all right?”
Hannah squinted slightly. James looked wiry, like he’d been digging ditches instead of selling software for the last six years. His hair was thinning. Bloodshot eyes. “Are you alone?” she asked.
“Grace and the kids are at The Sheraton.” There was a new baby; Hannah had yet to meet either.
They sat down on the lumpy sofa. James said: “He wouldn’t go to the hospital. They could buy time, the doctor said. I really thought Ummah would help me convince him. We came to talk sense into him. But when I got here …”
Hannah tasted something acrid in the back of her throat.
“It was all quiet. Everything was normal. They looked like they were just resting.” James’s lower lip trembled. His first show of emotion, Hannah guessed. “She’d bathed him, combed his hair. The blanket was pulled up.” James took in a breath and blew out hard, brow furrowed, like an athlete readying to launch.
“Did you … what did you …” Words came up; Hannah didn’t know where from.
“I didn’t touch anything. Suddenly I realized.” James was working hard at telling her. At not skipping anything. “I realized. What she’d done. How she’d done it. I went downstairs. Called the ambulance. I didn’t touch anything. I waited. Then they all came. They took over.”
Hannah said nothing. Her mind still a sheet. Blinding, blank. After a few moments, she looked around the room. “Is there … anything else?”
James shook his head then leaned over his knees, fingers laced behind his neck. The woman in the kitchen coughed. James lifted his heavy head and said, “Ummah went to see her—” he gestured with his eyes “—a month ago. There is one thing, though.” He sighed. “The ashes.”
James finished with the lawyer, and Hannah sat on the sofa and waited. She barely moved. The lumps were worse than she remembered, and this made her sit even more still. The hushed voices in the next room sounded like the tapping of muted keys. Hannah listened as if from underwater.
They went for dinner nearby. James told Hannah what the police had told him. Mostly, he made sure she knew that it had been deliberate, consensual. They’d been careful to leave no doubt. Then he said, “We’ll go for Christmas. Grace and the kids can visit family in Seoul. You and I can go south to their village and … do this thing.”
Hannah said all right. She picked at her noodles. Then she said, “I want to go back to the house for the night.”
James tried to talk her out of it. “When we get back we’ll pack everything up, throw stuff away.” Really, he was too tired to argue.
“I know,” Hannah said. She felt herself darkening into an ink blot, opaque and impenetrable. “Just one night.”
Hannah moved methodically through the house, turning lights on in every room. Everything was the same. She knew it would be. The kitchen was spotless. An orchid bloomed on the counter, the spider plant hung near the sliding doors. Hannah tapped the moss in the orchid pot: still damp. On the stove was the large pot—the one with the red electrical tape holding the handle in one piece—where her mother kept clean frying oil. She lifted off the top. Empty. Scrubbed clean.
The wall clock ticked, its gears whirred. All the sounds still muted and watery in her ears.
Upstairs, the bedroom doors were closed. By the police? By James? The synthetic carpet felt scratchy, even through her socks, and everything felt small, like a child’s playhouse. Hannah went to their bedroom at the end of the hall. Opened the door slowly. The bedspread hung off the side of the bed; the pillows were smushed to one side. On the velveteen bench beneath the window, someone had left a blue rubber glove, an empty Newport soft pack, a plastic grocery bag. The disorder annoyed Hannah, then angered her. She rushed in, picked up the glove at its wrist edge with thumb and forefinger, tossed it into the plastic bag. Tossed the cigarette pack in after it. Tied up the bag tightly. She proceeded to make the bed, smoothing and tightening the tuck of the sheets, then she stopped: No. She yanked the sheet hard, gathered and stuffed it under her arm, pulled off the fitted sheet and pillowcases. Made one big ball and rolled it toward the door.
In the bathroom, a night-light glowed. All was immaculate but for the smudge of a large shoe print on the tile. They could have taken off their shoes, Hannah thought. They should have. They come with badges and gloves and “sir” and “ma’am” but don’t bother to honor the household’s ways. Her instinct to defend these ways surprised her. Remove your shoes. Bow your head. Never speak aloud of tragedy or shame. She could hear the technicians’ and policemen’s too-loud, flat voices, describing each part of the scene to one another—like a sports match, or a soap opera.
There was a shower chair in the tub, and a bedpan. Who are—were—these aged people, these frail bodies? She didn’t know them. Neither did she know them when they were young, alive to the world, if ever they were. Sadness filled Hannah like sleeping gas, smothered her sense of purpose. She would try at least to finish what she started. Plastic bag in one hand, bedsheets hugged to her chest, Hannah went to the basement.
A dusty smell. The hum of a dehumidifier set low and still going. Hannah loaded the bedding, set the cycle. The plastic bag hung from her wrist. She went back upstairs, slid her feet into the slippers by the door, walked out to the street. The neighbors had rolled their bins to the curb. Hannah opened one and dropped the bag inside.
From the street the house looked neat, and peaceful. By the neighbor’s floodlight she made her way through the side yard to the back. There it was completely dark, save the illuminated picture of the kitchen framed by the glass doors. Hannah shivered. She stood at the edge of the patio, looking in. She knew that from inside, at night, you could see only yourself, reflected. Hannah crossed her arms tight and turned to survey the yard, covered now in a thin layer of icy white. Her eyes adjusted: at the far end, near the property line, stood her father’s greenhouse; halfway to the patio, six rectangular wooden boxes, covered in frozen leaves and snow.
Neat and peaceful. Outside, a world of ordered growth; inside, only night blindness.
She heard a rustling in the trees. A raccoon, maybe, plotting with masked eyes. Or a lost fawn, foraging alone.
Back in the basement, Hannah sat on the washer and waited. Eight more minutes. Her father had erected a metal standing shelf—paint cans, rollers, and Mason jars on top; gardening tools, plant food, cracked clay pots in the middle.
On the bottom shelf, a cardboard box. It was covered in shipping stickers—like a cartoon trunk heading for an around-the-world tour. Hannah came off the washer and stepped closer. She saw her name, followed by the school address, in her mother’s childlike mix of print and script: in the zip code, a 2 looked like a 7, the 3 like an 8. She had not written the name of the school, or Hannah’s box number. NO FORWARDING ADDRESS, PAYMENT UPON DELIVERY, ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN were scrawled all over the box, each with a black line slashed through. Hannah squatted and spun the box around, saw that it had been re-taped a few times and shipped to four different addresses: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana. Several postmark stamps, the dates faded. Hannah lifted the box off the shelf—its corners were crushed and soft, but intact—and placed it on top of the dryer. Under the single overhead bulb, Hannah found the most recent label: RETURN TO
SENDER. It was addressed to “Ummah,” what was written on the original return address. April 18, 1991. Almost two years ago.
The washer began to whir, airy and rhythmic.
Spinning, whirring, faster, faster, frantic. Then quiet. Still. Hannah leaned over the box and sniffed. She couldn’t identify the smell, only that it was unbearably familiar.
Hannah noticed that the top of the box bulged slightly. The tape had been sliced. She pulled the flaps open and removed several softcover notebooks that appeared to have been stuffed into the box later. She stacked the notebooks carefully, then removed the rest of the box’s nested contents, one item at a time. Not the mice, nor the moths, nor the US postal system, nor any act of nature, had damaged or destroyed a single thing.
In the morning, before James came to pick her up, Hannah sat at the kitchen table and paged through the notebooks. They were filled with the familiar Korean characters she’d seen on the spines of her father’s books but couldn’t decipher. She would show them to James later; he’d be able to read at least some of it.
The notebook on top was only half-filled. Hannah turned to the first blank page and stared at it for some time. She reached for a pen from the jam jar by the phone. She wrote, Dear—
Then there was a honk outside, James’s rental car. Hannah tore out the page, carefully, and tucked it in her purse with the pen.
2.
Charles was now used to spending the holidays in transit. Buses, trains, taxis. One year in Tunisia, on a camel under a gigantic orange sun. That was something Charles would never forget. Rhea always made her honey ham, and Charles called from wherever he was, but this year, since Veda was also traveling, he wouldn’t bother. He did send his annual gift to Dennis—a check. First for medical bills and physical therapy. Then, after he got back on his feet, Charles had said to Dennis: Fuck drug rehab. Go back to school. Get a lawyer, get your son back. Dennis did. He was finishing his bachelor’s. Thinking about a master’s in education and teaching high school. He saw his son every other weekend now. Sherisse had kicked out the man who’d supposedly shot him; who knew why. Charles never told Dennis, in so many words, that he felt lucky. The checks were his way of telling him.