The Expatriates (21 page)

M
ARGARET
IS
DREAMING
. G is nuzzling her, she can feel the solid, sweet shape of his head on her arm, rubbing as he used to. She used to call him her kitten, the way he would purr up to her and rumble with the simple pleasure of being near his mother. She would press his temples with her two palms while kissing his forehead, squeeze his butt cheeks, rub his chubby, perfect stomach with its adorable knot of a belly button. There is nothing like children to bring out the animal in you.

She picks him up and hugs him, smelling him, then wakes up, with the hard plastic wall of the airplane on her cheek. There is a little drool on her mouth.

It is a dream, and she is awake, and she is on an airplane, although Mr. Park said she shouldn't come yet, that it might all be nothing, but of course, as soon as she heard there was anything, she had to go to the airport right away.

Clarke had come to the phone after his assistant got him out of a meeting, and she had been sobbing. He hadn't been able to understand her.

“They think, they think, maybe . . . ,” she had managed to say. “Maybe, a boy, the right age . . .”

“Oh, my God,” he said. “When can we go?”

She had told him she would go first, because Mr. Park had said it would take a few days to get the boy to Seoul, but he had needed some more information from her, and he shouldn't have called her so early, but he knew she would want to know, even if it turned out to be nothing. A rural village, a single woman who suddenly had a child, a nephew
she was raising, she said, because her sister had died. A suspicious neighbor had finally called the police, and it turned out the child wasn't the woman's and that she didn't have a good explanation as to how he had come to her house. He was the right age, around five or six, and his Korean wasn't too good, and his English was much better.

She had booked the black-eye, the flight that left Hong Kong at 1:00 a.m. and got in at 5:00 Korea time. Clarke would be on the first morning flight. Luckily, the plane had been half-empty, and she got a window seat with no one next to her. She had left a message at the police station that she would be arriving the next day, so Mr. Park would expect her. He had told her to wait in Hong Kong, but how could she have?

The Hong Kong airport at that midnight hour had been spooky, with carpet-cleaning machines whirling and dark, empty shops. She had nursed a cup of tea in the food hall, waiting for the flight to board. Around her, tired travelers checked e-mails, read newspapers, drank beer. She moved to the gate area and sat down. When the call came, the travelers all gathered up their things and traipsed to the gate, almost zombielike in their slow, sleepy gait.

Her body is awake now, immediately, when she realizes where she is. She is tingly, alive, painfully so. Her son might, might, be on the other side of this flight. She will fly across this ocean, go to this different country, check into the hotel and take up vigil again, so that she might feel his body nestle against hers, smell his sweet breath.

The cabin is dark. They switch off all the lights after takeoff, and most passengers are sleeping before the plane even gets off the ground. She was so wired that she thought she would never fall asleep, but it happened without her knowing. She is grateful for the rest. She looks at her watch: 3:00 a.m. She slept for a couple of hours and now has a few more hours of flight time.

It's been seventeen months. Seventeen months since October break when they went to Seoul and G was lost. Seventeen months since she has seen her baby.

When they land, she and her fellow travelers are regurgitated,
rumpled and disheveled, into a giant hallway. She goes through immigration and out into the still-quiet arrivals hall, it being a mere six in the morning. Outside is freezing—early spring can still be cold in Seoul—and her breath puffs out as she walks to the cab line. This city is the color of smoke—all gray concrete, cinder-block buildings, and morning sky—but turns into neon frenzy at night, with pulsating lights and the red and white streaks of passing cars. She gets a taxi to the hotel and lies back, exhausted, against the vinyl seat, seeing the flat gray of the Han River, the billboards announcing new electronics, and pretty girls advertising Korean shampoo. Stripped trees line the banks of the river, bare silhouettes until suddenly she sees one with a nest on it. She allows herself to imagine the return trip, with G beside her, surely looking a little bit different, certainly quiet, subdued, but back with her, back next to her. Will this vision come true? Will this gift be given to her? She doesn't pray. She has prayed so much she is exhausted and not sure if she wants to believe in it, just as she doesn't want to say she doesn't believe in it just in case God is vengeful. How many bargains has she struck with the world in these past seventeen months? How many deals has she made with the devil or whoever she thinks might sway destiny? Too many that have come to nothing.

M
E
ETING
C
HARLIE
FOR
sushi at a small place on Jervois Street the next day, he is cheerful, ebullient, a puppy eager to please.

“I thought you were one of those girls who only like to go out with white guys,” he says, grinning. He assumes all is well, can't read her hesitation. She is out with him, hence she must be into him. He is that young. When do boys catch up to girls? she wonders. Maybe never.

“I don't really have a policy,” she says.

“But you dated mostly white guys in college, right?” he asks.

“I didn't date all that much,” she says. “More like hook up. Nothing serious.”

This boy is earnest and sweet. He wants a girlfriend. “You're not drinking,” he says.

“I'm hung over,” she says, which is true. She wonders if she's already scrambled the cells of her unborn child.

“Did you have fun last night?” He pours himself some more sake from the small porcelain flask. He knows enough to order it cold.

“Yeah,” she says. She spent the day with her mother, making Korean
banchan
from the groceries her mother had bought from the Korean market in Tsim Sha Tsui.

“What did you do today?”

Parrying his questions is so easy it's like child's play. “Such a boring topic!” she declares. “How's work?”

And instead of saying, “And that's not boring?” he starts telling her about work.

She listens. It is not unpleasant, being here with Charlie, having
small pieces of fish set in front of them at intervals. This is another life, one she should be having.

But still, Charlie is so . . . unsophisticated. He didn't hang out with her crowd in college and is so unknowing it makes her cringe sometimes.

His parents are middle class, his father a math teacher at a high school and his mother a lab technician.

“How'd you find your way to Columbia?” she asks.

“Recruiters came to my local school. I never thought about going abroad, thought that was only for rich people, but this woman said I could apply for a scholarship. Some tycoon families in Hong Kong give aid to local students, and that's what I got, because it's hard to get financial aid for international students.”

“You must have done really well in school,” she says. “Did you get a full ride?”

“Yes, full scholarship. But we still have to pay some items, like the airplane and all the things I need for living.”

His English is still a little bit foreign, with a bit of an accent that surfaces from time to time and grammar that can be off. He doesn't get some jokes, doesn't know anything about American television from the eighties and nineties, doesn't understand colloquialisms but can speak pretty good English, so he seems like a blurred facsimile of an American.

“And you are from New York, right?”

“Queens,” she says. “Not Manhattan.”

He's not surprised. He doesn't expect anyone he knows to be from Manhattan.

“Big Koreatown there,” he says. “We used to go for Korean food sometime. Love the
bulgogi
.”

She debates telling him about her aunt's restaurant. Maybe he's been.

“And Chinese,” she says. “Lots of Chinese places. And Irish pubs.”

He looks blank. “Irish?”

She doesn't explain. “But yeah,” she says. “My dad was in
‘business'”—she makes quotation marks in the air—“and my mom worked sometimes, so I needed a scholarship too.”

He nods.

“You know Philena, right?” she asks.

“So rich,” he says, dunking sushi in the soy sauce. He puts the rice side down in the soy sauce, incorrectly. You're supposed to put the fish side in. “Her family owns all the buildings in Causeway Bay.”

“Did you know her before?”

“No, no,” he says. “Just meet in the U.S. And sometimes see her here but not much.”

“I was her roommate for a few years,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says.

So he knew of her then, even though she didn't know about him. Her crowd was known at school as the fast crowd, the party crew, the cool ones. She remembers her old boss at the listings magazine telling her, “You may be twenty-five and think you know everything, but I am forty-three, and I am here to tell you that life is high school over and over again.”

After dinner, she wants to go home, but he doesn't want the night to end. He suggests a drink.

“How about the Mandarin?” he says. It is not far, so they walk. She's getting more and more antsy, not wanting to be there, walking next to the perfectly nice young man she can sense is wondering whether or not to take her hand. Thankfully, he doesn't.

They get to the bar, all smoky mirrors and dark velvets, and he orders a gin martini and she orders a club soda. The alcohol, mixing with the sake he's already had, makes him voluble, and he tells her about his family and childhood.

“My parents live in a three-hundred-square-foot apartment,” he announces. “I live in a flat that is twice the size of theirs.”

“How does that make you feel?” she asks.

“I don't know,” he says, wheezing. His eyes are glassy, and he is
starting to slur. This is reason enough to drink, so you don't have to see others being idiots and have to tolerate them.

“They must be proud of you,” she says. “I think my parents are proud of me, and I don't even have a job.”

“Proud because of Columbia?” he asks. “You were at Columbia, right? Not Barnard?”

“Yes,” she says. “And it's not the same thing.” She expected him to join in as she said it, being such a familiar chorus, but he looks at her blankly. They teach a lot at Columbia, but what they can't teach is irony and sophistication. What poor Charlie doesn't realize is what potent currencies they are. All his hard work and intelligence are only going to take him so far.

“My parents didn't even dream I could go to college in America,” he says. “I had to make it happen. I had to tell them it was possible.”

“And now you live in an apartment that's twice the size of theirs,” she says.

The bartender shakes the martini and uncaps the flask, pouring the clear liquid glinting with slivers of ice into a chilled glass. He sets the remainder down next to the glass and replaces their nuts with a fresh bowl.

“Amazing service,” she says. She is starting to hate Charlie. It is a relief to feel this, as she has spent such a long time worrying that people hate her.

He takes a sip. “My parents act like they are not as good as Americans or British,” Charlie says suddenly. “So when you ask how I feel about the fact that I live in a larger place than them at the age of twenty-seven, I guess I feel that you have to believe in yourself if you want to succeed.”

Callow. The word floats into her head. Charlie is callow. Unknowing. Naïve. Earnest. And if she can see him for all those things, what does that make her?

They end up back at his place, an enormous apartment complex of tiny flats in Pok Fu Lam, filled with young professionals, a dorm
of sorts for the financial sector. After he paid for the drinks, they got into a cab, and she did not disagree when he told the driver his address. His building has a health club, a swimming pool, and a dining room you can rent out for dinner parties. He shows her all the facilities with pride, as if he owns them.

He is starting to sober up.

“Want to go swimming?” she asks.

“The pool is closed,” he says.

“That's not what I asked,” she says. “I said, would you like to go swimming?”

“Sure.” He nods. He tries the door. “It's locked,” he says.

“Who has the key?” she says. This is what she's good at: breaking rules, behaving badly. She can take the lead.

He doesn't know, of course.

“Where is the office?” she asks. “One where there's someone on staff all night?”

He tells her.

“You stay here,” she says. “You look drunk. It won't work with you there.”

She goes and charms the young, bored security guard into giving her the access code with a story of how she has left her phone by the pool. He offers to escort her, but she manages to push him off, saying he has to keep doing a good job guarding the building.

Charlie is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall when she comes back, checking his BlackBerry. She inputs the code, and they go in and turn on the lights. Their sounds echo around the walls, the humid air redolent of chlorine.

“How did you get the code?” he asks.

“Years of experience in bad behavior,” she says.

She can see him thinking about what they will swim in, so she strips down to her bra and panties. She looks down. Her stomach is still flat.

“Now you,” she says.

He tries not to look at her. This makes her like him a little bit more.

“Okay.” He shuffles off his pants, unbuttons his shirt. Soon he is in his boxers. At least he is in boxers. She had thought of him as a tighty-whitie guy.

The water is bracing, perfect. It moves against her skin like cool velvet. She forgets how wonderful it can be to be in water, weightless. She comes up like a seal, hair plastered to her skull, to find Charlie watching her.

“You are very beautiful,” he says.

She melts a tiny bit more. All his annoying traits—his lack of irony and sophistication, his tendency to overstate his accomplishments—seem dissolved into the cool water. Unclothed, he is a tabula rasa, without his annoying FOB tics or telltale sartorial mistakes. He has a lean body, with muscles that ripple just under the skin. The handsomest of Chinese boys are—she hates to say it, but it's true—almost feminine, with big, moist eyes and dark, thick hair. Charlie is handsome unclothed, almost beautiful. He needed this, to be without any identifiers.

Later he will ruin it by buttoning his shirt up too high, by wearing jeans and white sneakers when they go out for brunch on a Sunday, but right now, in the pool next to her, glistening and wet and practically naked, he is Adonis, sculpted out of a smooth alabaster flesh that feels almost perfect. Here she can take him as he is, as he was when he entered the world, without complexes, without issues, without all that hard-won knowledge to hinder him.

This is why she urges him to unclothe completely, why she slips out of her bra and underwear.

“I've never skinnied before,” he says.

“Skinny-dipped,” she corrects.

And they take off their last remaining slips of clothes, feel the water envelop them totally. It is intoxicating and sobering at the same time (certainly for him). The erotic charge of being naked with water's shifting cover is so strong, Mercy feels her body prickle with anxiety, with anticipation. She closes her eyes and dives to the bottom, just to
hover, weightless, as if she is going back to some primordial, preexisting state. When she surfaces, there is Charlie, waiting.

When they sleep together later, she will be surprised. He is skillful, assured. People are different in different realms. The boy who sat across from her in class and questioned the TA with a knowing erudition; whom she would see later at a college mixer, leaning against the wall, social anxiety palpable, stripped of all confidence in this different arena. Even as they are intertwined, all skin on skin and exposed nerve, she imagines him practicing on bespectacled girls, eager to shed their virginity, their innocence, to enter the adult world.

What is this new creature, this boy/man who transforms into something else every time he turns in the light, every time he emerges in a new world? Is this someone who is for her? Is this how someone becomes yours?

She doesn't know, so after he has fallen asleep, she wriggles out carefully from under his arm, all the time looking at his face, lit in the bent light from the living room, so at peace, his scent already a little familiar. She goes home at 2:00 a.m. to her mother, sleeping in her bed, her insides clanging with confusion and, yes, this, her baby.