The Surrendered

by Chang-Rae Lee

  “You mean here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is his name?” Bruno asked.

  “What do you want with him?” she said, her voice suddenly less friendly. “Has he done something wrong?”

  “This man is aiding a lady who seeks him. She is his mother.”

  “I see,” she said, this time inspecting Hector carefully. “His name is Nick Crump.”

  They both looked at Hector and he acknowledged he was the one. But he was unsettled by how quickly they located him: it was as though Nicholas were hoping to be found, making no effort to obscure his trail. At the other shops Hector thought he was prepared to come upon him, but now his natural impulse was to turn and head for the street, to get out of there before any serious complications set in, everything having revved up too rapidly to full, messy speed. Bruno asked if he was working today and Laura said he was out delivering a purchase to a hotel. He would be back soon enough. They each looked after the gallery four days a week, overlapping one day; “Nick” had apparently taken the semester off from graduate study in art history in Bologna. Somewhat coolly she asked Hector how he knew his mother, and if he lived in London as well. He didn’t know how he should answer, as she clearly had a more intimate interest than just that of a fellow employee. He could only manage to say he was a family friend. But he muttered it lamely and she wasn’t impressed.

  She then stated: “It’s terrible, isn’t it, how she and her attorneys are trying to disinherit him? After his father dies, and still she can be so horrible to him. Is this why she is seeking him? Is she regretful now?”

  “No,” Hector said, again for lack of anything better, impressed by the passion Nick’s apparent storytelling had inspired in this intelligent, attractive woman.

  “Then what is it? Do you have a message for him? Something final?”

  Hector’s non-reply frustrated her, only stoking her indignation, and after an uncomfortable silence in the gallery, Laura walked to the door in her clicking high heels and held it open.

  “I am sorry, but I feel I must ask you to leave now. If you tell me which hotel you are staying at, I will let him know and perhaps he will contact you. But that is up to him. I don’t feel, however, that you should stay any longer, as you are not here as a customer of the gallery. Please respect this and understand.”

  Bruno began rattling away at her in a sharp Italian, but of course Hector did understand, and motioned, him to cease. All he had hoped to do was to locate Nicholas, to let him know his mother wished to speak to him and wait to see if he would agree; if he didn’t, there was really nothing Hector or anyone else could do, no matter what June wanted. Yet what exactly was Hector wanting? Certainly not this. Not this at all. The prospect of having to talk to Nicholas face-to-face at any moment was making him feel as though his insides were being carved out like a gourd, which was the reciprocal sensation of wanting to fill the hollowness with a week’s worth of booze, to raise a small cask of some local liquor to his mouth, to make a river of his throat.

  He motioned Bruno to the door and had already turned when a tall, slim young man on a pale-green-and-white motor scooter rolled up and parked in front of the plate glass. He wore dark aviator sunglasses, dark slacks, a blue-and-white-striped dress shirt. Sleek, polished loafers. He pushed the scooter up onto its kickstand and approached Laura, who was still standing in the open doorway. He looked inside, in the direction of Hector and Bruno, but could see nothing for the reflection in the glass, and as he entered, Laura met him, and he touched her hand, only briefly, smoothly unclasping it when he saw there were customers present. Otherwise he surely would have kissed her. Laura glanced back at them and muttered a few words in his ear, but his expression didn’t change; if anything, his jaw seemed to ease, and he took off his sunglasses and approached them directly.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Hector, extending his hand, his accent tinged British, or maybe vaguely Continental. Hector shook his cool, bony hand. Nick leaned forward and said, quite softly, “Could we chat elsewhere? All right? There’s a café around the corner.”

  He kissed Laura lightly on the cheek and they whispered a few words in Italian. He led them down the street to the corner café. Bruno had a coffee at the bar while Hector and Nick took a table inside. Nick immediately lit a cigarette; he was a distinctive-looking person, his cheekbones jutting out quite sharply, his nose narrow and delicate. He had wide, large brown eyes and wavy dark hair that he wore in a long, loose style, the ends tucked back behind his ears. He could certainly be Eurasian, in Hector’s opinion, though he didn’t much look like his old photograph. Hector couldn’t see much of himself there, or June either, but then what did he really know? The only varieties he was expert in were the various clans of his family’s tiny Irish-blooded universe, and then maybe the demi-human strains that flourished in the dank, lightless ecology of Smitty’s, identifiable by the bulbous, angry nose, the mustardy pallor, the sorry teeth and hair. Nick was very handsome, but in a perfectly original way. At the orphanage there had been a number of mixed-blood kids, a natural consequence of the war. They were sometimes teased or shunned by the others, but to Hector they looked like no one in creation with their wide, petaling eyes and buttery, earthen coloring. Yet despite their beauty and hybrid vigor he couldn’t help but see them as being somehow vulnerable, too, doomed to their singularity, their species of one, which mirrored, strangely, how he had always felt inside. They could also appear so different from moment to moment, shape-shift when not even meaning to, as Nick was now, the mixing inside him veiling and unveiling this feature and that, depending on the angle, or the light. But one could make the argument: Nick was just about his height, if not build; and he thought he could see something of June’s mouth in the set of his, that certain crimp in her lip, that utter resolve.

  The waiter brought their order, a coffee for Nick, nothing for Hector. But Nick didn’t drink his, just smoked and rolled his knuckles on the table. He wasn’t looking at Hector, either, but rather glancing over at Bruno, who was standing at the bar, then to the door in the back, as if calculating what it would take to get away.

  “Well, are we going to do this?” he finally said. “I’m not going to say anything more until I have a lawyer.”

  “I’m not a cop. I know about the stealing, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “You can cut the bullshit.”

  Hector didn’t reply, just looking at him.

  “So who the hell are you?”

  Hector only told him what he’d said to Bruno, to Laura-that he was his mother’s helper.

  “Well, Jesus Christ!” Nicholas said. He nodded toward Bruno, who was watching the soccer match on the television behind the bar. “What about him?”

  “He’s a taxi driver.”

  Nicholas shook his head. He chuckled at himself and drank his espresso. Then he rose to leave. Hector got up and gripped his shoulder, firmly pressing him back down. Nicholas’s eyes flashed in anger and his neck tensed but he instantly mastered himself, Hector almost feeling through his fingers how the young man geared himself back.

  “So what does she want?” Nick said, lighting another cigarette. “And why did she send you? This is all very bizarre,” he added, intoning the word like a Frenchman. Every other word of his sounded as though he had grown up in a different place. Then he said, with an attitude of propriety, “We’re getting along just fine writing letters. If this is about the money she’s sent, I’m sorry, but it’s all spent. I’m quite broke, in fact.”

  “She wants to see you. That’s all. She’s here in town.”

  “Now?” He said it as a boy would say it, more non-wishing than disbelieving. “Where is she?”

  Hector told him the name of the hotel.

  At this, Nicholas just smoked for a few moments, then put the cigarette out.

  “I can’t see her,” he said. “I’ve been away from her for this long, and it’s better to stay away. Tell her I’ll keep writing her, though.”
>
  “You think she’ll keep sending you money?” Hector said.

  “Is that some kind of threat?”

  “No,” he said. “Just telling how it is. She’s sick. She’s dying.”

  “You’re just saying that. She never wrote of anything like that.”

  “It’s true,” Hector said.

  Nicholas asked what was wrong with her, and Hector described what he knew of her condition, suddenly hearing himself as if he were indeed some lame, defeated dad come calling on a prodigal son, finally armed with the saddest ultimatum. He was better suited to defending himself, or at exacting revenge, than to this soft task of convincing. Nicholas listened in silence, his tongue slowly working inside his mouth. He stared morosely into his empty coffee cup. Hector said they should go now. But then he answered, “No. I can’t see her. I really can’t. I’m sorry she’s so sick, but I can’t.”

  The sentiment was disturbing, but perhaps equally disturbing to Hector was that he was beginning to feel Nick was offending him (this when he believed he could never be offended), offending him to the core with his callousness of course but also because of the fact of their shared blood. It was a terrible new feeling. He wanted to grab him by the throat, shake him silly, maybe even punch him. Their first contact, and this is how he’d play the father: to rough up his own.

  Hector said: “I won’t tell her what you said. It doesn’t matter to me what you do. You can write her all you want. But you should know, we’ll only be here today. Tomorrow we’re moving on. Then you’ll probably never see her again.”

  He got up and at the bar he paid for the drinks from the rolled wad of cash he was carrying, while Bruno told Nicholas on which piazza the residenza was located. He didn’t appear to be listening. They were heading back for the hotel when Nicholas caught up with them a few blocks later on his scooter.

  “Listen,” he said. “What’s your name. Hector?” His tone was now less mellifluously worldly, settling into something squarely lower-brow, as if he now better understood the person he was appealing to. “Listen, Hector. I’m sorry about what I said. I can see you think a lot of my mother and I appreciate that. I was freaked out that you found me. I wasn’t thinking straight. Now I’m wondering about the other people who might be looking for me. I know I’m going to have to leave soon. But listen. I’ll come and see her. I want to. I’m busy at the shop now with a few more deliveries and don’t have any time tonight. But I’ll come tomorrow, tomorrow morning, before the races. You know about the races, yes? Okay? But can you do me a favor? I told you I’m broke, and I’m not going to lie. I’m in some trouble here. I owe money from the race last month. I wrote to her last week to wire fifteen hundred dollars but obviously you were on the way here. She’s never not sent money when I’ve asked. I’m sure you know this. Do you think she would give me some now, if she were here? Do you think so?”

  “I don’t know,” Hector said.

  “Come on, I think you do. She’d give me what I need. We both know she would. So would you be a good fellow and front me some? I see you have a lot of cash. I’m sure she’ll cover whatever you can give me.”

  “It’s all hers, anyway.”

  “Well, then. I had asked for fifteen hundred. You may not have that much, but if you can give me a thousand for now, I’d be grateful.”

  “Here,” Hector said, peeling off some bills. He didn’t want to deal anymore with this, with him. Nicholas quickly counted it: the equivalent of four hundred dollars.

  “Can you spare another two or three? I’ll come tomorrow, I will. I want to see her. I have to. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Although he had enough, Hector didn’t give him any more money, telling him he should ask for it himself. His expression must have hardened, for without further plea or argument Nick nodded, even extending his hand to Hector before peeling away in a puff of blue scooter smoke. Hector had taken it, but grudgingly, the truth already clear to him as he walked back to the hotel with Bruno: he would never have any feeling for the kid. No feeling at all. Hector thanked Bruno for his help, paying him for his time, and asked for his telephone number in case he needed him again. Bruno gave it to him but said he was rarely at home, promising to come by the hotel several times before the next day was up. He had not said a word while they were walking, but when he got behind the wheel of his taxi he stated plainly, “Forgive me, signore. But I must say this to you. That is a fright of a man. I would stay far away from him.”

  Hector lightly rapped the top of the taxi and sent him off. Nick was not just a liar and a cheat, a world-class shit; he was a warning embodied, this alarm-in-the-flesh, a herald of no good that made even Hector’s own worn-down heart gallop and shudder. He should tell June he hadn’t found him, that there was no sign or further clue, and just take her straightaway to Solferino, where she could wait out her fast-dwindling time in peace. The boy would only bring her unhappiness. What struck him was how Nick didn’t in the least try to hide the fact from him, as if he believed that they were somehow allied in regard to his mother, that Hector, too, was angling for something. Had Nicholas picked up on their connection, some whiff of their relation? Or was it something equally evident in Hector, his tumbled, blunted self, ludicrously wrapped in a brand-new creased shirt and cuffed trousers, this fellow masquerading as someone who could help fulfill a dying woman’s hopes?

  He passed the residenza office and the woman inside called after him as he ascended the stairs; she spoke only Italian and he assumed she was telling him about the laundry, for she gestured upstairs and then down. He thanked her and she kept talking as he went up. But when he reached the second-floor landing he realized that the laundry couldn’t possibly have been both washed and dried already, for he’d been gone just over an hour. And then he saw what she must have been talking about: the heavy door of their room was ajar. He could see light from inside casting a weak beam on the carpeting of the darkened corridor. He pushed inside.

  The draperies of one of the tall, grand windows directly opposite the door had been drawn back a few inches. Their mostly emptied bags were as he’d left them in the sitting area, set between the sofa and armchair, but he noticed her purse was not on the coffee table where he had last seen it. He was holding most of the cash, but she had all the traveler’s checks. Across the lengthy space of the suite he could dimly make her out on the bed, lying on her side with her back to him. When he approached her he saw the purse on the night table. It was open, and though her wallet was still there, the envelope containing the traveler’s checks was gone.

  “Are you back already?” she murmured, turning to him, her eyes heavy with sleep and with the drug. Her words were blunted and slurred, running together. “Did you get one for yourself, too?”

  “Get what?” Hector said.

  “Oh,” she said, staring at him as if she had forgotten his name, even his face.

  “It’s Hector,” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, though she still didn’t seem to register him. “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Nicholas. He said you sent him right over. He’s gone to get me a treat. It seemed like a dream but I’m sure it was real. Do you think it was a dream?”

  “No,” he said, his anger at himself burning inside his chest. Nicholas must have ridden right over on the scooter while he and Bruno had walked back.

  “He didn’t have any money for the gelato,” she said. “I gave him a traveler’s check. I signed it for him.”

  “More than one?”

  “Yes, I guess so. I don’t know. Do you think they’ll let him use them?”

  “They might.”

  “I hope so. God, I’m so tired,” she groaned. “I want to wait for him but I have to sleep. I’d love some gelato. Will you make sure to let him back in? Please wake me up when he comes. Will you? I’m so hungry.”

  “Okay.”

  She closed her eyes. She shivered a little, and so he folded the quilted bedspread from one side of the bed over h
er. Then he closed the draperies and sat near her in the dark for a long while, thinking about what he would do. He’d search out the nightclubs, as Bruno suggested. He would find him, and not to retrieve any money. Let him have the money. It was by all rights his, anyway. There was no lesson to be offered; Nicholas was certainly beyond any instruction, or shaming. Still, when it came time, he wondered whether he would lose control and try to beat some decency into him. He’d never raised his fists for something as righteous as that. And he kept hearing again his father’s high, rye-soaked voice chirping into his ear while he shouldered him home. You think you’re going to get away with it, boy? You think it doesn’t apply to you? Hector had never bothered asking what exactly his father meant by it, but now, seeing June’s utter frailness, the sad, blunted topography of her beneath the bedspread, her desperate need to believe, he thought he understood at last what his old man had been talking about: life.

  Life, still undefeated. Not just for June but for him, too. He had never gotten away with anything, could point to most every instance in his days as evidence of such. His odd father had madly suspected he was some kind of immortal, if a lowly one, but maybe his peers (in the army, at Smitty’s) had like notions after certain miraculous escapes, the almost instantly healing wounds; maybe some unlucky women had caught an aura gracing him, this gleam of persistence. But any persistence, he knew, wasn’t his own doing. He’d never asked for such endurance. All concerned would have been better off had he perished during the war, or in the orphanage fire, or under the bumper of Clines’s car, instead of innocent Dora. And so now, at this sojourn’s end, eyeing June’s demise, he was ready to cast off whatever mantle had been mysteriously bestowed on him. He would disappear along with her. To hide wouldn’t be enough. Another good person would happen across his dooming path, start the cycle again. While driving them here he had circled around the way it would happen, but now he was settling on the idea. His was juvenile imagining but he knew it would have to be catastrophic: accelerate before a tight hill turn and burst through the railing. Wind heavy chains around his ankles to bury himself at sea. Drape his head over the steel train track and listen for the clang. He had tried in earnest, in fact, soon after Sylvie died, looping a rope over a tree limb far away from the orphanage (so no kids would have to see him), cinching the noose, but when he kicked away the stool he’d brought with him the cords of his neck sprang up in protest and jacketed his windpipe and after a while he had to cut himself down, his skin abraded in a mocking necklace of futility, his heart sodden with the full deadweight of defeat. For what was worse than dying, if not being able to die?