The Incendiaries

by R. O. Kwon

  22.

  WILL

  I half-ran through Platt courtyard, taking the diagonal path. On the frozen lawn, a small group huddled around a picnic table, cigarette tips burning. I rushed past while someone slung a girl across his back. Help, she wailed. I paused, uncertain. Put me down, you big dolt, she said, but then she let out a howl that rolled into a laugh. I kept going. I made it to the Hilcox gate with less than a minute left. I’d switched a night shift to be here. I opened my coat to let in the cold. It was several minutes past the assigned time, then six. Fifteen. Don’t be late, he’d said. White disembodied masks floated toward me, cloaks rustling.

  Close those eyes, Will.

  I was blindfolded, wrists tied behind my back. Instructed to walk, I took a few steps, hesitant. I was pushed, lifted into a tight space. I touched rough, short-piled fabric, then a metal ridge: I’d been put in a car trunk. The chilled glass of a bottle nudged my palm.

  Drink this.

  I forced down a harsh liquid, and then I was told to tuck my head in. The lid banged shut. The engine surged, then settled. Tasting bile, I held it back. I’d attended Jejah meetings a month before John Leal said I could be initiated. In all this time, I’d taken part in nothing more alarming than long-winded Bible studies. I hadn’t heard a single confession. No one dug holes, and even John Leal’s talk of hearing God sounded like orthodox delusion, the usual born-again cant. But if Jejah evinced signs of being less fanatical than I’d thought, I wasn’t relieved. I intended to be let in. If I could learn what, exactly, had attracted Phoebe, which conjuring tricks he’d used, I’d be able to prove his show wasn’t real. Watch his hand, I’d explain. That flick of a wrist. I’d practiced His illusions, as well; expert, I could pull Phoebe free.

  The car stopped, and then the trunk opened. I had trouble staying upright. I swayed, blind, while invisible hands impelled me forward. I felt a rush of warmth: we’d gone inside. Sounds echoed; voices, chanting. I listened to find Phoebe, but I couldn’t. Still clothed, I was led into a lukewarm pool. I was told to take a deep breath, and strong hands pushed my shoulders down. I plunged in. The blindfold slipped. I saw the light-spangled tiles, John Leal’s blue-veined feet. It was peaceful, the water like soft glass. When he let go, I almost wished he hadn’t.

  I knew, of course, the substance of what Phoebe longed to find. The loss restituted, a vital hurt made whole. But I’d been a kid when I tried to attain the same result; then, because I had to, I’d grown up. John Leal tapped my head. I surfaced, listing close to him. I caught my reflection in his pupils, but he fixed the blindfold back in place.

  * * *

  –

  It didn’t seem like much of an initiation: a routine alcoholic hazing, I thought, at first. It wasn’t unlike what I’d done to join Phi Epsilon. Even the baptism had its parallel. In Gibb fountain, along with the other pledges, I’d stripped down to bright pink fishnet tights. I hula-hooped while shouting the college anthem in pig Latin.

  In hindsight, though, the Jejah initiation draws a dividing line. The meetings lengthened; activities changed. With John Leal’s urging, we whirled in circles until we fell. To spin us out of the head, he said, and into a waiting Lord. He assigned tasks to stipulated hours, psalm-based chants we had to recite. While my time with Jejah predated John Leal’s best-known penalties, I did spend a long evening in the Litton Street backyard digging a hole, then filling it back in. Since I was the newest initiate, I had the most to do. I was prideful, he said. I required breaking down. In the morning, I ran a prescribed five miles along the Hudson. I’d have liked to swim with Phoebe instead, but he kept the tasks separate.

  I followed his assignments, even in private. I intended, I thought, to avoid being found out. Since I was inauthentic, a fraud, I had to put on a good act to prove otherwise. With Phoebe, too, I hid what I was thinking. It wasn’t all lies, though. In giving my first confession, for instance, I tried to be truthful. I was asked to confront my failings: to cultivate openness before Jejah, he said, so before God. Sitting in the middle of the circle, I told them I hadn’t wanted to lose my faith. I’d proselytized to anyone who’d listen. I went house to house, selling Christ: a fanatic, and proud of it. I told them about the Beijing mission trip, then the shock of my father’s betrayal. I’d tried to help the parent I still had, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I’d knelt in the bedroom, asking one last time for a sign. Thin curtains fluttered, gauze-white, and I waited until I couldn’t, then I got up. It became hard to live at home. The walls were thin. In bed, I heard my mother’s frenzied petitions to God, asking Him to heal me. I thought of my father’s lot, atheist in a household bent on bringing him to Christ. It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but I could touch the edges of his solitude. Like him, I fled. I came here. I realized I had to lie—

  Oh, had to lie, John Leal said, impatient.

  I believed I had to lie, I said. I felt as if I didn’t exist. Nietzsche says shame is inventive, but—

  I don’t care what Nietzsche said. Will, I don’t want you to try to impress us, parading borrowed quotations—don’t tell us why, after having read Nietzsche, you think lying happens. Tell us why you lied.

  I was ashamed, I said. I wanted a new life, so I invented it. It helped, too. I wish I hadn’t lied to you, Phoebe, but with anyone else, if the option came up, I’d do it again.

  I paused until I saw him nod. Keep going, he said. I didn’t look at Phoebe, though I felt she was listening. I pointed everything I said in the single direction of my girlfriend, sitting with the others. This went on, lasting hours at a time. I kept explaining, while they’d interrupt. They’d ask questions, pushing me to tell more than I intended—in principle, they. Most often, though, it was him. Nights ended with John Leal pacing the hearth, agitated, his odd, zigzag gait picking up speed as he preached. He told us that, while still enrolled at Edwards, he’d founded a Christian group that pulled in hundreds of students; he implied he’d led large-scale rallies, charismatic revivals. Since the gulag, he’d lost interest in big crowds. Instead, the Lord had called him, His apostle, to this more private kind of service. Here, he said, like this. With us.

  But I could picture his stage act. He’d have flaunted how close he felt to the Lord. It was, I realized, one of his principal tricks. I want to tell you about God, he said, then did. He performed his religion, discalced, talking to Christ. Mid-sentence, he broke into ecstatic song. Filled with the Spirit, he said. Tall firelight lapped at the ceiling while he signaled to each of us in turn; he shouted, flinging up his arms. Most would-be Christians, he said, insist too much on faith. But all God looks to find in us is desire. If we want Him, belief spills in. It rises to His level, and it will fill the void. Isn’t that right, Lord. Real faith isn’t about laws, moral prohibitions. No, Lord. He cited early Christians, the saints who’d received His visions. Like them, he heard God’s voice. He’d seen His face, and lived. But all this could be made available to us, if we tried.

  * * *

  –

  Even before she joined Jejah, I valued what clues I could find. I’d studied, for instance, the handful of old novels she’d brought from L.A. Soft with use, they proved Phoebe’s claim that she used to love reading. She’d underlined words, filled margins, the penciled notes fading. I asked why she’d stopped; I lost interest in it, she said. I’d examined the glyphs as I might have a coded map, directions to Phoebe’s shining, inmost psyche, that visible opacity, which showed itself in allowing me to sight it hiding. Privation is lust; isolation, desire. I craved what she withheld. I always wanted to know more about how it felt, being Phoebe.

  Then, Phoebe took up Jejah, and I sat in the circle while she divulged secrets: more, often, than she’d let slip with me. He raised questions; obedient, she replied. I tried to believe she was also talking in my direction, but it was obvious she wasn’t. If, alone, on the way home from a meeting, I alluded to what she’d said, she’d give me a quick kiss, a
laugh. No, let’s talk about you, she said. I haven’t had a minute with you all night. Tell me about the lunch shift. Did you find out who hid the pipe in the trash?

  * * *

  –

  In the Seoul before you and I lived, John Leal told us, a unified land, everyone learned the same songs. It wasn’t unusual, he said, in this city of Phoebe’s birth, to have one person begin singing a ballad in public. Others would join in. He loved to picture it, the heads lifting to sing in chorus. If this Seoul hadn’t existed, he still wanted to think it had. Korea dispatched more Christian apostles abroad than any nation but the U.S. Per capita, it placed first. It could well take the lead. The next fount of revival, he called it. No one was more spiritual than Koreans could be; no believers, more devoted. It was a land of purists. He talked about present-day Seoul, where lit-up, blinking signs jutted out like flags on a pole. You’ll have to see it, he said.

  * * *

  –

  I’m not sure when I began to suspect the act had turned real, that I was staying in Jejah as much to help myself as Phoebe. If I was going to put this time into the group, I thought, I might as well give it a chance. It felt like the last attempt. Often, I thought of an afternoon I’d spent evangelizing in San Francisco. In the evening, before driving home to Carmenita, I met with my cohort of Jubilee students to hold closing prayers on Fisherman’s Wharf. Docked boats shone in fading light. We raised linked hands, calling out in tongues. People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation, a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn’t forget was the joy I’d known, loving Him. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing—the old, lost hope revived. I was tantalized with what John Leal said was possible: I wished him to be right.

  * * *

  –

  She’d always been more Julian’s friend than Phoebe’s, and it was Julian who called with the news. There wasn’t a final note, no sign of intent. No one could tell if she’d slipped on the Midwest ice, if it was an accident, but Liesl had fallen from a third-story attic windowsill of the St. Paul house. It wasn’t a long fall. She should have survived; instead, she cracked her head open on a fence post. Within hours of arriving at the hospital, she’d died.

  Edwards students flew to St. Paul for the funeral, Phoebe included. I said I’d go along. Don’t, she said. She spent the night in a hotel, with Julian. He then decided he’d stay an extra night in St. Paul, so I picked Phoebe up from the airport. She looked exhausted, ponytail unwashed. I have a fresh pot of lentil chili, I said. I’ve ordered laziji, too. It should be here in minutes.

  She tried to smile. I don’t have much of an appetite, she said. Maybe in the morning.

  I asked what I could do. I’ll be fine, she said. She went to bed. It’s not that I believed Phoebe, but I did think that, if she wanted to be alone, I shouldn’t intrude. She and Liesl, I’ll repeat, hadn’t been at all close. But during the next Jejah meeting, I glanced up to see Phoebe talking quietly to John Leal, crying. She pushed a hand to her open mouth, almost covering it. He took hold of Phoebe’s chin: he tilted it until she was forced to look at him.

  * * *

  –

  She started talking about hoping to visit Seoul. I should be able to picture it, she said. But I left when I was an infant, and I haven’t visited it once. People tell me I’m the whitest Asian girl they’ve met. I think they figure it’s a compliment. I’ve heard it as one. Will, I used to take pride in knowing so little about what I’m from. John Leal calls it self-hatred, and it is. He’s right. I don’t want to be this kind of a person.

  I nodded, though I had trivial points I might have raised. Small cavils I left unvoiced. The fact that she’d hop on a plane to go to Seoul, but not to visit me, in Beijing, as she’d promised: that was one. I also could have brought up, but didn’t, the fact that he wasn’t even Korean.

  His mother, she’d object. She—

  He’s half.

  Well, yes. But still.

  * * *

  –

  The more I heard of Phoebe’s confessions, the less certain I felt as to how I should respond. Exhibit 1.1: the lineup of men. I hadn’t known. They’d predated me, she said, but I couldn’t help seeing the oil of all the hands, like starfish prints, staining Phoebe’s skin. I trusted Phoebe, I did; I also noticed, though, that she looked at him as if at a riddle she had to solve. I told myself I was mistaken. I’d had a newlywed friend at Jubilee, Ivan, whose wife had trouble being faithful. His wits love-honed, he learned to predict who she’d pick next. She had a specific type, he explained. Baseball-capped toughs with stiff posture, the kind of shits who start parking-lot fights. Before long, he could tell before she did. It was what ended the relationship: he accused his wife of sleeping with a best friend’s husband. But she hadn’t, not yet. He refused to believe the denial, until, giving in, she turned to what he’d pointed out.

  * * *

  –

  John Leal told us we’d have to attend a protest in Manhattan, a pro-life march. It’s taking place this Saturday morning, he said. I know it’s not much notice, but Christ is asking us to be with Him. John Leal outlined a plan he’d established with local churches, to drive to New York with people, supplies, and then he swept into one of his wild soliloquies, telling us again about the time he’d helped a desperate girl in the gulag abort a half-foreign child. Though he saved the girl’s life, he still wept if he thought about the fetus he pulled out, its recognizable fist.

  It was close to midnight when I walked home with Phoebe. She’d lent the car to Julian. He was in New Haven, visiting old boarding-school friends. The night was mild. I’d fallen behind with studying, and I was tired. I hadn’t slept; I wished to be home. I’d have proposed calling a taxi, but, the previous evening, I’d discovered I didn’t have my half of the month’s rent. I was still working a partial load at Michelangelo’s, a few night shifts each week. Ling had offered me a follow-up research position, a role extending the last project; I turned it down, since I had no time. I referred him to a fellow Phi Epsilon. Short of options, I had to activate a credit card I’d once received, unsolicited, in the mail. I didn’t want the debt. I’d learned what harm a credit habit might inflict. I’d kept the card just in case, for emergencies, positive I wouldn’t use it. But then, last night, I’d pulled a label off the plastic, the adhesive giving up its hold with sickening ease: like mother, like son.

  What’s more, if I went to the march, I’d have to switch Saturday’s shift for a less profitable slot. More cash lost. The trip would involve spending, too. I wanted to quiz Phoebe as to what she thought of it. By the time I joined Jejah, they’d stopped picketing Phipps clinic; why, she hadn’t known. She’d never protested the clinic, she’d said, but she believed, as I did, that abortions should remain legal. I didn’t think she could have changed her mind. We waited at the light. Instead, while a flesh-pink neon sign, Tivoli, fizzed behind us, I asked about the first gulag story he’d told. The pregnant girl, I said. Lina. Mina. She was kicked in the stomach. You told me about it: she died, then trailed him. Is this one girl?

  I saw a taxi turning, its sign lit. No, they couldn’t be, Phoebe said, at last.

  I flagged down the cab. In silence, we rode home. I’ve examined this night, Phoebe. I’ve rethought what I said to you, and I’m still sure of this much: I kept quiet a long time, then I asked a single question.

  23.

  JOHN LEAL

  He wasn’t just his Lord’s child: he often had to be His substitute. Proxied liaison, latest in the line of soloist prophets. In His service, there wasn’t a single opening he wouldn’t exploit. No gambit existed that he’d have fancied beneath him; he would give, if it helped, anything. The Lord had peeled the flesh off His corpse. He had spread it as a bloodied veil upon this earth, a flailed red carpet to ease His people’s fall. Others might ask how long, but he could wait. Faith is a long patience. Minutes trembl
e, he told his group, with the hope of revelation. Each particle of dust breathes forth its rejoicing. The stripped Noxhurst trees spelled out the Lord’s writing, if they’d learn to see it. God is, not was. He, John Leal, had called them as heroes. The Lord had laid His hand upon their heads.

  24.

  PHOEBE

  The night I came back to Noxhurst from Julian’s, Phoebe said, I tried calling Will. He was still in his office, in Beijing. The call wasn’t scheduled, but he picked up. He asked what was wrong. Nothing, I said, and he hesitated. He thought I sounded upset. Well, it’s hot, I said. Maybe that’s what you’re hearing. If you’re sure, he said. I told him I was, but I came home the next afternoon to find boxed peonies in the hall, a gift from Will. The lush, open-lipped petals, flaring signal-red, indicated he thought I’d lied. I left the bouquet in place. Outside, the light was harsh, startling. A high-bodied bus listed past, piping exhaust. I imagined going right, angling into its path. But I wasn’t going to walk into traffic; foolish, then, to pretend otherwise.

  * * *

  –

  I still had peonies spoiling in the hall the June morning I opened a one-line email from John Leal, inviting me to his house again. Since the first time, I’d declined his invitations. Instead, to be polite, I’d had a drink with him, the occasional lunch. I’m not religious, I told him. I know that, he said. I’m just hoping to be friends. This time, though, I felt alone. I said yes. It wasn’t until I attended the third house meeting that I asked what had inspired him to persist so long. The first language of God is silence, he said. You’ll have to sweep the temple steps awhile before He’ll call to you. But He will. Phoebe, believe it or not, God tells me you’ll be essential to His plan. It’s the truth. In His name, yours will be magnified.