Deceit and Other Possibilities

by Vanessa Hua

  The Olsons were always game for whatever Anna proposed, though she caught them giving each other quick looks, raised eyebrows and set mouths, resigned to the evening’s adventures: Ethiopian food. Pilobolus dance. Kronos Quartet. It irked her that they tolerated, rather than enjoyed, her suggestions.

  “Why don’t you ask them what they’d like to do?” Ken asked.

  “I do! But then they ask what we’re up to,” Anna said.

  “Maybe that’s all they want,” he said. “For you to decide.”

  His refusal to take sides or judge others had maddened her more each year. It made her feel low, unkind for having an opinion. Long after his affair, Anna held a part of herself back. She would never give herself completely to him again, and this knowledge had protected her.

  The old fears of Ken cheating returned in the presence of a younger woman. Anna studied them together: did their hands linger when passing the wine? Did they lean close when talking? But when Becky didn’t understand a reference, it was Jack who smiled at Anna, their own little joke.

  Becky had yet to find a teaching job because they were thinking of starting a family. “It wouldn’t be right, to get hired, and then have a baby so quick.” She could resume her career later, in a few years, after the kids were in school.

  Jack called when his wife was visiting her parents and Ken was in New York on a business trip. “Why should we both eat frozen dinners?” he asked. They went to an Italian trattoria, his pick, where the food was bland as she supposed he preferred.

  She flushed in the candlelight, aware of his steady gaze. Afterwards, he leaned down to kiss her by his car, hidden in the shadow of eucalyptus trees. In bed, she ran her fingers along his downy back, where the skin was young and smooth, in contrast to his weathered neck and his arms. For two decades, she had been with no one else besides Ken, and she reveled in discovering a new body. She stroked the hairless patch on his thigh, rubbed bare by blue jeans. This was also where she caressed Ken. Disorienting, to see the same purring effect on another man.

  The thought of having children panicked Jack, she suspected, just as it had stricken her. He married a young wife to put off fatherhood and never suspected Becky would be so eager to start trying. Anna had long tried to understand her husband’s infidelity, and was learning through this deception. The first encounters were excitement and pleasure and discovery. Without commitment or expectations, you had none of the problems in your marriage. You despised the person you were cheating on and blamed your spouse for driving you away. She wanted Ken to see Jack look at her with longing. To remind him of what he had and of what he stood to lose. Ken was as powerless as she once was. As lacking.

  ~~~

  Every few hours, she left the tent to dig the snow away from the sides and to pack it to shield the walls from the cutting wind. Snow slid into her boots, melting and soaking her feet. The wind knifed through her, each gust pushed her further past the limit of what she thought she could endure. Each slap proof that her numb face could feel still more pain. Snow fell faster than she could keep it away. She feared the tent would break, collapsing into a blue shroud onto her face.

  Stupid, stupid. Why did she leave behind her foul-weather gear?

  She ran her tongue behind her teeth, across the roof of her mouth, but could summon no saliva. She tilted her water bottle back, desperate for a few drops. Unable to wait for the snow to melt in her bottle, she stumbled to the edge of the lake, where she broke through the crust of ice with a kick. She drank deeply, shuddering from the chill. For dinner, she ate a bit of dry oatmeal and a lick of peanut butter. Her stomach knotted in hunger and she turned her head away from the dwindling food, resisting the temptation to eat it all. Now she regretted what she had wasted on this trip, the spilled trail mix and the two dinners she did not finish. She craved a vanilla milk shake, cheeseburger, and curly fries from Ikeda’s, the roadside stand along I-80. And to share the meal with Ken, who let her eat his fries. Indulging her. At this, she wept, the tears stinging her marble cheek.

  ~~~

  Wednesday afternoon, after the storm let up, snow drifted higher next to the tent. As night fell, the temperatures dropped and ice, her condensed breath, built up inside and outside of the tent. She tried to be still. When she touched the wall, ice fell and melted, making everything wetter. She thought of her parents, who died three years ago, within months of each other. Her mother of stomach cancer, her father of a heart attack. They died without ever speaking of what happened at camp. Not until college did Anna discover stories about the barbed wire fences and the tarpaper barracks in the high desert. Searing summer heat. Bitter winter wind. Snow swirling on frozen mud. Pain swallowed. She had learned her silences from them, the silences that lengthened like shadows between her and Ken.

  She rubbed her hands along her cheeks, her neck, her ribs, her thighs and her feet, to check the wholeness of her body. Each breath, a second. Sixty breaths, a minute. It was impossible to judge how much time had passed. How much longer she would remain clenched. How close she was to dawn. She watched individual drops of water track down from the roof and along the side of the tent, wiggling snakes.

  An airplane whined above. She ran out of the tent, waving her orange sleeping pad in the air, and shouting. She unscrewed her flashlight and held the mirror to the sky, trying to catch its attention. The airplane flew past. Too high. She staggered back. She was going to die. Snow would drift over the tent, and she would succumb to sleep. Hikers would find her body in the spring. Rotten, bloated, black—or the bones picked clean.

  She tried to conjure specific memories of Ken. To bear witness. The first time they met in college, when he asked to borrow her notes. His shy smile. His concentration when he made gnocchi, the fat larvae falling off the spoon into boiling water. How defeated he looked after his father died.

  ~~~

  Some details, she will never forget.

  Just before she began her affair, Anna had thought she was entering menopause. At forty-four, she suffered hot flashes and night sweats, and sometimes her period skipped a month or two. She was relieved that she would no longer have to deal with the monthly mess, or bother with awkward condoms or diaphragms.

  When she went in for a check-up, her doctor told her that she was pregnant. Almost two and a half months along. A change of life baby, and she and her husband should consider genetic testing. Her husband. Judging from when the baby was conceived, it was not his. They had not slept together in October; they were down to having sex once a month or every other, and on special occasions.

  She did not want to mislead Ken, to play father to a bastard, nor did she want to escape into a life with her lover that seemed much like the one she already had.

  “You seem distracted,” Ken said. They were in bed, spooning for a few minutes before sleep.

  Her appointment for the procedure was the next day. She felt the baby roll and spin within, even though she knew it was impossible at this stage. Less than two inches long, but with a miniature brain, fingers and feet and lips and eyes—eyes!—beginning to develop. Her last chance to be a mother, to reverse the failure of her miscarriages a decade ago. Maybe Ken knew about the affair, and was waiting for her to tell him. She imagined the bolt of anger ripping across his face. Her tears. She would have said she wanted to hurt him. To make things even. She was sorry and now knew that they belonged together.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. Although she kept this secret to protect him, she hadn’t realized it would distance them. How she would flee from him, over the years, into other rooms, for a walk, into the car for long drives. At times, she despised him for not guessing and leaving her heavy with this burden.

  In the last year, she had come to wonder if Ken’s early death was retribution. Why was he taken from her? A life for a life. It seemed the only reasonable explanation.

  What if she kept the baby, and never told Ken who the father was? Her boy would have been nine this year. She had decided it would have been a boy. He may hav
e even looked like Ken. He and her lover had the same broad shoulders and broad noses. She and her son would huddle to outlast the storm. Or her son, back with friends in the Bay Area, would alert authorities that she was lost in the snowstorm. Or, the three of them would still be together. Ken, with a son, would be more cautious, would have gone in for more check-ups to catch the condition that killed him. But no. She had made different decisions that led to today.

  Her attempts at an explanation were misguided, Anna had come to see. Foolish. Her miscarriage—divine will, or nature’s? His affair—whose fault? Her affair? Her abortion? Impossible, to judge if her good intentions hit their mark, or the worth of her sin. She could not imagine who was keeping track, and why she would matter. Only this she knew: she would die alone.

  ~~~

  Friday afternoon a helicopter whump-whump-whumps in the thin mountain air. Weak as she is, she climbs out on wobbly legs. “Help, help!” She beats the pans together. The helicopter passes again overhead. It circles twice, and she knows she will be ok. She sinks to her knees. The reflected sunshine is blinding and beautiful. Snow glistens on tree branches and boulders, soft, fluffy, pristine, and harmless as cake frosting. The granite peaks in the distance are tipped in snow, in sharp relief against the sky, as if outlined with a black pen. A ladder falls down from the sky and a man is helping her get in a basket. He is wearing mirrored sunglasses in which she can see a tiny haggard reflection of herself. He extends a hand covered in a puffy blue glove and as she reaches up, she stumbles and falls against him. She feels the moist heat of his breath against her ear. “Easy now,” he says. “We got you.” Up, up they go, up the beanstalk, up the charmed rope into the sky.

  Strapped into her seat, she gulps down an energy bar and a sports drink. The rescuer covers her with a blanket, and slips headphones over her ears, so she can hear them above the shaking roar. They are talking about the lost ranger, who set off from the same trailhead. He is missing.

  “Where to?” the pilot asks.

  “Not sure. The ranger told the station that he was going to check out some lakes, and there’s several in the area.”

  “I saw him,” she says. “On the trail.”

  The rescuer turns to look at her. “What did you say?”

  “I saw him. Billy.”

  “Where?”

  “To Pear Lake. Then Bodie Lake.”

  He nods and points out to the right. The helicopter wheels back around, and she closes her eyes. The rumbling whirling is rocking her to sleep. She is slipping away when she hears him cry out—“There, there!”

  A life saved. Surely, it meant something.

  THE DEAL

  They were besieged upon arrival. “Sir, sir,” the touts shouted. “This way, sir! Come with me! I will carry.” Pastor David Noh scanned the airport, looking for a driver with a sign. Perhaps the man in the orange baseball cap, or the one in aviator sunglasses? Their guide, Justus, had said he would meet them, e-mailing David the final details along with a photo of himself, but he was nowhere to be found.

  It was three weeks before Christmas. They had been traveling for twenty-eight hours, on flights departing from San Francisco and connecting through Amsterdam to Dubai. Already they had lost a day, Saturday skipping straight to Monday, before they even started their mission.

  The volunteers swept past the touts, lean men in rumpled button-down shirts and narrow ties, who fell upon other deplaning passengers. David felt unsteady, his head foggy from travel. “Get a shot of this.” He swept his hand over the crowd.

  Gene panned the video camera over businessmen toting laptops, tourists in khaki safari jackets, matrons in embroidered velvet sweat-suits, and advertisements promoting wildlife tours and beach resort hotels on the Indian Ocean. Clad in rugged boots, lightweight hiking pants, and moisture-wicking shirts, the volunteers would have blended in with the international tribe of backpackers but for their suitcases and duffles piled on the luggage carts. They weren’t traveling lightly. Their guide had promised to take them to a village in East Africa unreached by other missionaries. David and his four volunteers would install water filters, teach English, and introduce the word of God. With stirring footage and photos from the trip, he could convince his flock to pledge their stock options, tithe their salaries—and rescue their church.

  Bountiful Abundance had taken root among Korean American lawyers, software engineers, college students and activists, the children of immigrants: strivers, all. The church had a different style of worship, not so serious, not so Korean.

  “We’re here!” Lily had applied powder and lipstick just before landing.

  Eunhee flung her hand into the air. “Group high five!”

  “Sir, sir, what’s the name of your tour company?” A tout jammed his face into David’s. He was wiry, with a scar shaped like a fishhook carved across his right cheek. His pungent scent was overwhelming, and David pushed the man away. The tout fell backward to the ground.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” the other touts shouted, and a few lurched forward, fists raised. Someone screamed—Lily maybe. David braced himself, squaring his shoulders and lowering his head, ready to take the nearest one down. He had been an excellent wrestler, with the right build and temperament. A shrill whistle sounded, and the crowd parted for two policemen in sunglasses.

  “We have a few questions for you. Come with us.”

  The tout David shoved had slipped away, and those who remained glowered, shaking their heads and shouting what sounded like accusations.

  “Unless you want to pay the fine here.”

  “How much?” David had heard bribes were common here, and he prayed it wouldn’t be much. Their trip money, kept in a heavy pouch around his neck, was barely enough to cover their expenses.

  “$20 U.S.” Considerate, as if the policeman did not want to inconvenience David with a visit to the currency exchange counter.

  David paid, trying to keep his hands from trembling, and ushered his volunteers to a cafeteria. At the counter, where the tile floor was sticky with spilled drinks, he ordered sodas and sandwiches. “My treat.”

  The cashier swiped his credit card. Once, twice, it didn’t go through. He had been financing the trip on that card, and his debts had caught up with him at last.

  “Try this one.” He took out his emergency credit card. This one failed too. He imagined his wife, Esther, trying to buy groceries. She would stare at the declined card with her head cocked, biting on her lower lip. So she would pay with cash. Maybe she would have to leave certain items behind. Naomi would fuss, demanding that dried cranberries and apple juice be put back in the cart. “No, Mama, no!” At home, Esther would put Naomi down for a nap, call the credit card company, and discover his secret.

  “Sometimes credit card companies block charges in other countries.” Immanuel opened his wallet and slid out two $20 bills. “I can get it.”

  One crisis solved. Or at least postponed.

  Much bigger problems loomed. Bountiful Abundance had been forced to leave a site David leased in a residential area, after neighbors complained to authorities about the traffic. He hadn’t obtained the proper permits, and as a result, incurred a substantial fine. The church moved into a vacant storefront flanked by liquor stores. After multiple muggings and car break-ins, the congregation relocated to an office park by the Oakland Coliseum. In total, Bountiful Abundance owed more than $100,000 in rent, equipment, renovations, and other expenses. $100,000! A debt that multiplied while collections from the congregation dwindled. The previous two sites sat empty because David was unable to find anyone to sublet. Worse yet, fundraising for the mission trip hadn’t gone well, and he’d financed the shortfall. He told no one, not even Esther.

  At the table, Immanuel pulled apart the gummy pieces of white bread and tore out the pale lunch meat. “Airport food is terrible in any country.” At thirty-five, the doctor was the old man of the volunteers—five years younger than David—and he spoke with a gravitas that made people listen closely.


  “You can have mine.” Lily pushed her sandwich at David and ripped open the gold wrapper of an energy bar. “My dad gave me a box.”

  David tried not to fume. The sandwiches were each $5, the bribe $20: wasted money they could have spent on supplies.

  Lily was watchful and gentle, with a round face and pale skin, a traditional Korean beauty.

  “I can’t wait to try local dishes.” Eunhee flipped to a list in her guidebook. She was worldly in a way that Lily was not, although they’d had an almost identical upbringing, blocks apart in Oakland. The difference was that Eunhee had graduated from Cal with a streak of social justice—and purple hair. She had a radical’s self-assurance that David often envied.

  “I always go local when I travel. Nothing’s worse than craving something from home and getting a bad version of it,” Immanuel said.

  “Like hamburgers in Iceland,” Gene said. “This one place seemed like they re-created everything from a photo. Instead of tomato, they used slices of red pepper. Instead of pickles, cucumber.”

  A bite of sandwich stuck in David’s throat, and his palms felt papery, dried out from the long flight. The three of them were well-traveled, and he felt small, naive as Lily, unworthy somehow. He had been to Mexico three times on missions, but what did he know of the wider world?

  After lunch, David changed $30, enough for the taxi ride and tip. He’d read that the money counters at the airport were a rip-off, and he would ask their guide where to exchange the rest. He looked around one last time, but did not see Justus. Maybe the guide had had a last-minute emergency, or suffered an accident? Or had David misunderstood the instructions? No. He’d memorized the e-mail during the flight, not wanting to fumble with the printouts like a tourist upon arrival. Justus had been the only guide available on short notice, and at a bargain price, after the original one cancelled.