The Surrendered

by Chang-Rae Lee

  Clines parked and came around to help her out of the car. She was about to tell him not to bother in case Hector might see her needing assistance (she wanted no pity) but was instantly glad when Clines took hold of her shoulder and arm, as she might not have been able to lift herself from the deep, soft-cushioned seat.

  “Which apartment is it?”

  “Number sixteen, I think just there on the right. Will you be all right, Mrs. Singer?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.”

  But she didn’t feel fine, for if stable and straight to the outward eye she was as good as gone; Clines somehow saw this and caught her arm when she lost her balance and nearly toppled. Despite an appreciative tingle in her chest she tried to shrug him off. Clines was insistent and walked with her, gripping her tightly enough that she could believe she was tugging him along. Some large tree branches were strewn about the scraggly, patchy lawn and she saw herself as the dead limb of a tree, at once ponderous and fragile, barely appended over the hard, unyielding ground. With the next good gust. Just before they reached the entryway she pushed away from Clines and bent over and gagged, nothing coming out of her except for a curdled slick of bitter, chalky spittle. The pills. It was as though her body were refusing amelioration, steadfastly denying her any comfort in order to make her cease, but rather than give in, June scolded herself and stood up straight, ignoring the shocks firing up and down her spine. She was still a relatively young woman, and if she had to die she was going to die on her feet, in beat of her own march.

  Clines grasped her arm and she pulled it away.

  “I’m fine.”

  “We can’t do this, Mrs. Singer. I thought it when we first met but I’m absolutely sure of it now. There’s no point. This man Brennan isn’t the issue anymore. It’s you. You’re not capable of doing this. How much more obvious does it need to be? If you insist on flying out with me I may have to quit.”

  “Then quit,” she said sternly, wiping her mouth. She tried to swallow the awful taste on her tongue. “Give me the files you have, and the plane tickets, and I’ll pay you for what you’ve done so far.”

  “You’ll accomplish nothing over there,” he said. “You’ll waste precious time. You won’t be able to find your son quickly enough, if at all.”

  “I’ll find him with or without you. I know that. You know how much I’m proposing to pay you, so you should decide right now whether it’s worth your trouble. Or your daughter’s, for that matter. Now, what are you going to do?”

  Clines looked down stiffly, his eyes narrowed with a palpable anger. But he spoke to her calmly. “Okay, Mrs. Singer. We’ll follow your wishes. I won’t bring this up again.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “But please know this. While I will do everything that I can to do the job, it will be you who directs me. I will make recommendations, but it’s your responsibility now. You’ll determine our success.”

  She nodded. He asked if he should wait in the car and she told him that was fine. But as he turned she felt unsteady again and then completely parched and she asked him if he had any water in the car.

  “No, but I can go and get some. There was a gas station on the main road.”

  “Okay. Go get it and then come back and then wait for me,” she told him. “I’ll see if he’s here now.”

  Even though it was only one step up, she had to pause to catch her breath on the exposed landing for the apartments (they were set off in pairs), the thirty or so yards they had traversed feeling like three hundred. The landing itself was littered with cigarette butts and crushed beer cans and reeked sharply of cat spray. Gnats ticked nervously about the weak entryway bulb. Behind her, out in the street, Clines drove off, and for a second she wondered if he would in fact return. Perhaps he would decide to abandon her here. The metal door of number 16 was scarred and dented and there was nothing at all to indicate that anyone lived on the other side, or ever ventured out. She looked for a buzzer but there was none, nor a push-bell or clapper on the door. She tried to knock, but as with the rest of her joints, her knuckles and fingers felt like spun glass and so she rapped softly with the flat of her hand. There was no answer or any sound from inside and she tapped again.

  The door opened and there before June was a woman loosely draped in a bedsheet. She looked like a life-drawing model, earthy, shapely, her full breasts pushing out against the thin fabric.

  “Did you forget the key…?” the woman said, trailing off on sighting her. She was sleepy-eyed. “Oh, excuse me. Can I help you?”

  The woman wasn’t so much beautiful as she was beautifully present, animate, with her tousled reddish-brown hair, her décolletage speckled with ruddiness, the smooth globes of her shoulders shining and delicate. She was perhaps the same age or even slightly older than June but June suddenly felt like a dried, buckling veneer in the face of the woman’s lushness, this outer layer that you could chip away without effort.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is June Singer. I’m looking for Hector Brennan.”

  “Oh.” The woman held the sheet tightly around herself with one arm, the other crossed in front of her, her hand gripping the knob. Her expression had instantly hardened. “He doesn’t want to work for you again.”

  “Again?”

  “He doesn’t want to see you. He made that clear already. So I think you should get on now.”

  “Please,” June said, suddenly feeling like she ought to brace herself. “Please. It’s too much to explain, and I want to speak to him now.”

  “I can listen. Explain to me.”

  “How can it matter to you?” June cried sharply, both of them surprised by her harshness. The woman instinctively stepped back but June leaned in before she could shut the door.

  “I’m very sorry,” June said wearily. She felt as though she were slipping inside herself, her outside stiff but her soft tissue melting away within. Her condition had now become apparent to the woman, whose eyes flashed on the realization that this insistent, brittle person standing before her was in fact very ill.

  “I’m very sorry,” June said. “May I ask your name?”

  “It’s Dora.”

  “Please excuse me, Dora. I’m sorry. I very much wish to speak to him. That’s all.”

  “He’s not here,” Dora told her. She examined June closely. “He was just here a little while ago. I don’t know where he went.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “I’m sure soon,” Dora said, partly opening the door now. “But I don’t know. Listen, are you okay?”

  June faltered at that moment, perhaps more intentionally than she consciously knew or would admit, but with enough sudden gravity that Dora had to step quickly forward to grab hold of her arm; she would have fallen hard otherwise, or even let herself fall.

  “I’m all right,” June said, “but thank you.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not well, are you?”

  June answered by letting Dora fully hold her up; her embrace was strong but still gentle, careful.

  “How did you get here?”

  June said she was driven, but then she felt her legs give way again, forcing Dora to hold on to her even more tightly.

  “You better come inside,” Dora said, guiding her into the apartment. “Hector will be back soon enough, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  Dora helped her into an old armchair and excused herself, saying she was going to the bedroom to put on clothes. When she returned, she was holding a glass of ice water.

  “Here,” Dora said. “It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Thank you.” June took a drink and the water helped to steady her. She watched as Dora poured herself the remains of a bottle of red wine, coaxing the very last drops to fall. She had put on a nice-looking if slightly too colorful striped summer dress. Clothed, Dora appeared more ordinary-looking to her now, a middle-aged woman who had thickened around the middle, around the neck, in the upper arms, t
hough certainly not in an unpleasing way. Life, gathering. The apartment was small but tidy and there were the remnants of what looked like a nice dinner on the table, an almost whole fruit pie. A twinge of jealousy unwound in June’s gut, which was ridiculous, as she could expect nothing from either of them, but the sight of their shared domesticity made her feel that much more alone and desiccated.

  “Have you been together for a while?”

  “Me and Hector?” Dora said, sitting across from her with her already empty glass in her hands. “Not really. I mean, no, not long at all. I don’t know what we’re doing yet, exactly. But it’s good. I guess you’ve known Hector a long time.”

  “Yes,” June said. “A long time.”

  “And you want his help again?”

  “Well, yes. Did he say if he would?”

  “He has a job he likes. Or at least that he doesn’t mind. I don’t know that he’d switch jobs.”

  June didn’t quite understand and let Dora talk further and she soon realized that Dora was under the impression that he’d been some kind of handyman for her, and without any hesitation June found herself telling her that Hector had worked for her at the antiques shop, delivering furniture to customers. She didn’t care that Dora might find out the truth later; it was now or never, for tomorrow they would have to leave if they had any hope of finding Nicholas. But all she made up about Hector seemed within possibility, given what Clines had found out about him, and Dora didn’t question anything she said; in fact the more June began to tell of how reliable he had been, how careful he was at transporting and handling the pieces, how well liked he’d been by the customers, the more this widened view of him seemed to relax and please Dora, to ratify what she was clearly thinking and hoping about him. It was manipulative and cruel on June’s part, yet here was Dora beginning to smile a little, warming to her, and because she felt her own strength waning June couldn’t help but keep elaborating, saying how he’d been a skilled handyman (which he had been, at the orphanage), a tireless worker. It was only when she closed her shop did he move on, and she was lucky to have found him again, after all these years.

  “You respect him, don’t you?” Dora said. “You consider him a good man.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Dora lowered her eyes, peering down into her glass. “Were you lovers, once?”

  “No,” June said firmly, deciding she wasn’t lying to her at all on this; there had been the single instance, yes, but it was another for whom she and Hector had been yearning. “Not that.”

  “You’re not very convincing.”

  June couldn’t help but smile, but she didn’t say any more about it. She said instead: “You love him.”

  Dora sighed. “He’s not too selfish, like a lot of men I’ve known. He’s certainly not mean, even if he rarely shies from a fight. He can be surprisingly funny. And very generous, even though he can’t have much more than a few hundred dollars to his name. I suppose all that’s good enough for me.”

  “Yes. You could do much worse.”

  “I have, plenty of times.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re nice to say that. So will you tell me now what you want from him?” Dora asked her, staring straight into June’s eyes. “Please don’t lie. And I’m sorry but you’re sick, anyone can see that. You obviously don’t really need him for your business. So how do you want him to help you?”

  June paused to take a sip of water.

  “I want him to come on a trip.”

  “A trip? What kind of trip?”

  “It wouldn’t be for too long, a week, or maybe two, at most.” She added, if more to remind herself: “It can’t be longer than that.”

  “But for what reason?”

  “I’m looking for my son.”

  “Your son?” Dora said, with alarm. “What does Hector have to do with him?”

  June tried to calculate whether it would be advantageous to tell her. But she was tired and muddled and she said, “Nothing. Nothing.”

  “Then why do you need him to go with you?”

  “I just do.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good reason.”

  “Maybe it’s not,” June said, her weariness now spilling over into irritation, anger. The little shatters of pain were expanding, the small world of her was fracturing, and she wished she had shot herself with the kit in the car, the arms of her thoughts now stretching there, desperate for the clear vials. But then she realized-or was it fantasy?-that she had a vial of morphine and a syringe in her handbag.

  “Well, I don’t believe you!” Dora gasped. “I don’t believe you at all. There’s something else. Isn’t there?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You must have something on him. He must owe you. Otherwise I can’t see why he would ever agree. Not the man I know.”

  “Maybe you don’t know anything about him,” June said harshly, hearing herself utter it as would the woman she once was, who could easily wield a cold, sharp steel. “Not one true thing.”

  “I want you to leave now,” Dora said, rising. “Right now. I mean it.”

  But June replied, “I’ll wait here.”

  “No, you won’t!”

  “I will.”

  Dora took her by the arm and though she didn’t grab her very roughly June gasped with the pain, this hot charge clawing and scrabbling beneath her skin, her flesh. She tried to resist, but her strength was a mere child’s to this woman’s and it seemed that if Dora wanted to she could crush her bones with a hard squeeze of her hand. Instead Dora tugged and June pitched forward onto the floor. Dora shouted at her to get up but June could not rise. She was kneeling, and although the floor was carpeted, her kneecaps felt like cracked glass, strums of icy pain conducting instantly up her legs, through her spine, fanning out to every last cell of her, whether good or renegade. Dora was still pulling on her and her arm felt as if it would come off easily, like a leg twisted from a roast chicken, and she cried out so loudly that Dora released her, the woman actually stepping back and covering her mouth. June was groaning, and coughing, and now retching again, spitting up the water she’d just drunk, her tears marking the worn-flat pile of the carpet, wetting her hands, her only thought being that she had better get up on her feet, that if she stayed down she might remain down forever.

  “Please help me,” she whispered.

  “Oh, God,” Dora said, mortified. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I’ll go. Just help me, please. I’ll go. My car should be back by now.” Dora first tried to lift her from beneath her arms but it hurt too much and she had to crouch and kneel herself in front of June and hoist her almost onto her back to get her up on her feet. June grabbed her handbag. They trudged this way for a few feet, until June got her legs working again, and then Dora tucked her shoulder beneath hers and it was all June could do to keep up as they walked out of the apartment. It had rained, the air moist and heavy. Dora kept asking where her car was but June couldn’t answer. She was the simplest creature now, a beast trotting dumbly forth. Paradoxically, it was the pain that was now holding her up, this most rigid of infrastructures, as if she only existed through its searing lines. But she wanted to recline, if just for a moment, to feel the cool damp grass of the apartment lawn that now wove through her sandaled feet. Or was that elsewhere? Was it the pain, secretly, that she lingered upon?

  So let me lie down.

  Have the briefest rest.

  Here…

  Dora barely caught her, struggling to keep her upright. June was on her knees, being held up by the woman’s warm, soft arms. She had to lie down. “My bag,” she murmured to Dora. “I need my bag.”

  Dora took it quickly and splayed it out for her and June found the vial and little syringe. Her hands suddenly grew calm. She plucked off the protective cover and drew some liquid from the vial. It was too dark to try to read the lines.

  “Should you do this right here?” Dora asked, standin
g what seemed many miles above her. “Should I help you?”

  June didn’t answer. She was on her side in the weedy grass, trying to open the alcohol pad. She fumbled it and Dora retrieved it for her but June couldn’t wait and hitched up her skirt and blindly stuck herself, the tiny bee sting blooming into a wide, clean coolness that reached all the way up to her throat, her mouth, a temperature that she could almost taste.

  And then washing back down over her was the flooding warmth, this lush, weightless blanket.

  The world shifted, clicked back. Dora asked her if she wanted to get up and she said yes and without any pain-or perhaps there was pain, if unrequited-she was able to stand up. There was no sign of Clines or their car but June didn’t mind, for at the moment she had misplaced her purpose for being here. All she knew was that this woman holding her was Dora, and that Dora was goodly, was basically kind, and that she would very much like to remain in her arms. The streetlamp above them went on and June had to cover her suddenly sensitive eyes from its bright, tinny light by tucking her face in Dora’s neck and hair as the two of them trudged past the sidewalk and stepped off the curb into the street. The three dogs from earlier were scampering about them now, sniffing and baying playfully at their heels, each vying for their attention. Dora shooed them away. Several blocks down the wide, two-way street, headlights appeared in the distance. “Maybe it’s yours,” Dora said, and waved at it, and the car replied with a flash of its lights. It sped up.

  “I don’t want to go yet,” June said, but the sounds she made surprised her, by how weak and deformed they were. She was near mute. She felt herself slipping from Dora’s hold and so Dora leaned them up against the trunk of a parked sedan. Dora was turned to the approaching car, so she could not see what June saw, that behind them and across the street, beyond the cast of the streetlamp, a man with two white plastic shopping bags in his hands was strolling in his own penumbra, contented in his posture and step, maybe once and for all. Was it he? June murmured, “Hector,” and Dora simply answered that she would have to leave now. The car was fast approaching and this was the end. She could see the driver behind the wheel, glasses on. But the dogs, like June, had noticed the man, too, perhaps picking up the good scent in his bags, and the three bolted across the road, directly in front of the car. The car swerved and just missed the trailing dog, but then lost control and shot wildly forward on the slick pavement, striking Dora where she stood at the back of the parked car.