Authors: Suki Kim
The Interpreter (15 page)
“Thirteen years … seems like yesterday,” he adds, contradicting what he said earlier. Suzy cannot help noting the coincidence. Thirteen years ago, he’d known her parents. Thirteen years ago, his wife committed suicide. Suzy was sixteen then. A junior in high school. They were living in either Jackson Heights or Astoria.
“I understand,” she says softly, surprised at her own confession. Sometimes tragedy throws people together, even when they must stand on opposing sides and guard their ground.
He glances at her for a while and then lowers his eyes again. He taps the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray. Not because he really needs to, but because it gives him something to do, a slight motion of fingers, a scatter of ashes.
Suzy takes note of his every move. It is a habit. An interpreter must listen always, even when no words are being spoken. Language comes in all forms. A witness’s sighs and hesitations might determine the tone in which she interprets his claim.
“A brave woman, but not brave enough maybe,” he says as if to himself. It is obvious that just the mention of his wife brings him home, if only for a moment. Suzy says nothing. She knows that this is his moment, that his mind has drifted far from here.
“Some guy once told me that the airport is where the American dream begins. It’s all up to whoever picks you up there. If it’s your cousin who owns a dry cleaner, you go there and learn that business. If it’s your brother who fillets fish for a living, you follow him and do that too. With me, it was my wife who’d come before me and found a cashier job at a fruit-and-vegetable store. Women are harder than men. The only thing I thought she knew how to do was be a housewife. She was eighteen when we got married right after I was released from the army. I never doubted that we’d grow old together. People who marry that early, they often do.”
In his mind, he is a young soldier stationed at a remote
country near the 38th Parallel. Every night, before falling asleep in his barracks, he takes out his wallet to steal a glimpse at a photograph. Even in the wrinkled black-and-white photo, he can tell that her lips are the shade of a cherry blossom, the ribbon in her hair is a matching pink. A bashful girl smile. Anticipating her lover’s gaze, she forgets the usual reserve before a camera.
country near the 38th Parallel. Every night, before falling asleep in his barracks, he takes out his wallet to steal a glimpse at a photograph. Even in the wrinkled black-and-white photo, he can tell that her lips are the shade of a cherry blossom, the ribbon in her hair is a matching pink. A bashful girl smile. Anticipating her lover’s gaze, she forgets the usual reserve before a camera.
“It was always the two of us, from the beginning, all the way until …” His voice is a bit shaky now, as though he is overwhelmed by the rushing memory. “We’d never had any children. She couldn’t conceive. Neither of us knew when we got married, and later, when we found out, my wife was more terrified than me. She thought it was a sin. She even said that I should divorce her. In Korea then, and maybe even now, those things mattered a lot, having kids, carrying on a family name. Sure, I was upset. I never thought that I’d be without a son, or even a daughter. That was what one did, get married, have children. But then, once I accepted the fact, I wasn’t so bothered. I even told my wife that it worked out better, imagine dragging children through the pain of it all, of leaving Korea and getting here. My wife, I don’t think she ever got over it. She felt forever like a sinner. She thought she’d wronged me by not producing a son. Sometimes I think that might’ve been why we left Korea. Leaving a homeland, it cuts into you like nothing else. It’s like an illness, haunting generations. But I wonder if we hadn’t also hoped that America might make us forget, that in this new country a tradition wouldn’t shun you because you’re a middle-aged couple with no children.
“I’d been a manager at a small trucking company in Korea. I was forty-one when they went bankrupt overnight and left me with nothing, no severance pay, no workers’ compensation. Jobs were scarce then. It was the late seventies. They say that it was our economy-building era, but I tell you, the only economy
that was building was for the rich, Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, the megacorporations,
chebul,
you know. It was the rest of us, the working people, who paid for it. No small company survived. Bank loans, mortgage rates, trade regulations—everything worked against you. It was the time. There wasn’t much any of us could do, except wait for a better time, or get out, which is what I did.
that was building was for the rich, Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, the megacorporations,
chebul,
you know. It was the rest of us, the working people, who paid for it. No small company survived. Bank loans, mortgage rates, trade regulations—everything worked against you. It was the time. There wasn’t much any of us could do, except wait for a better time, or get out, which is what I did.
“I’d heard of a guy who’d moved to a place called Brooklyn in America and made a good life. Korea is a small country; once you lose your chance, there’s nowhere you can run to and start over. So we looked for ways of getting to America. Not legally, of course, because obtaining the American visa was even harder than finding a job. We found a broker who hooked my wife up with this church group whose yearly choir tour to New York was due in just a few months. I followed, about a year later. The same broker got me in through the Canadian border. Fake papers, fake names, it’s a miracle what those immigration brokers can fix. I landed at JFK in the fall of 1980. My wife wept at the airport. I couldn’t believe how much older she looked in just one year. Those first years were hard, the things I saw and did when I first got here, this country called America, this number-one country in the world, it had nothing to do with home.
“I started out as a setup guy at the Bronx store where my wife was working. The owner was a good man, hiring me when he could’ve gotten anyone much younger. It was a favor to my wife. She was an honest worker, and he knew that. In a few years, I was basically managing the store. A tiny store, just my wife and I, and a few Mexican kids. The work was hard, but we were happy. We were building something together, finally a new life in a new land. I wonder sometimes if that wasn’t the happiest time of my life. She and I, starting a life together for the second time, like newlyweds almost …” He pauses suddenly, as if struck by the image of the two together. An early morning, and
the sun gloriously shining upon the stalls of fruit. The ripe yellow of plantains, the green hills of Hass avocados, the firm blush of McIntosh apples. Fruits were a sign of home then. A different kind of home from what he had known before, from what he knows now, not this studio apartment he crawls into for sleep.
the sun gloriously shining upon the stalls of fruit. The ripe yellow of plantains, the green hills of Hass avocados, the firm blush of McIntosh apples. Fruits were a sign of home then. A different kind of home from what he had known before, from what he knows now, not this studio apartment he crawls into for sleep.
All Suzy can do is listen. She is afraid of breaking his spell, although she cannot quite make sense of his story. Was that why his wife committed suicide? Because she could not conceive? But why thirteen years ago? The woman must have been in her late forties by then. What does this have to do with her parents?
“Sometimes I think maybe she was right. If we’d been able to have children, she might not have been so rash, or so heartless,” he mutters as if to himself, as if he’s reached the limit of his memory. He never talks this much. He never gets visitors. He is sucking on his Marlboro as though it is the only life left in him. He then says without looking up, “But that didn’t help your parents, did it, to have you and your sister.”
Suzy is startled by this sudden turn. She stares at him, although she cannot see his eyes. Finally, she asks, “What makes you say that?”
“Because you wouldn’t be here otherwise. You wouldn’t be so sure they’d wronged me.”
It only occurs to her now how odd it is for her to be here, to show up at the house of someone who might have had reasons to hurt her parents. Why did she come to him instead of notifying the police? Why was she so quick to believe Mr. Lee’s claim? Why didn’t she give her parents the benefit of the doubt? By showing up here, by asking this strange man for an explanation, she seems to have already made up her mind. Behind the murder, the guilt lay with her parents.
Whose side is she on?
The air feels stuck. Its lumpy clouds surround her, and she can barely breathe. She walks over to the sink. She takes two
glasses from the shelf and fills them with water. She puts one glass in front of him before sitting down.
glasses from the shelf and fills them with water. She puts one glass in front of him before sitting down.
“Thank you,” he says, reaching for the glass. He looks exhausted. Aged, she thinks. It is clear that he is done talking. Almost three o’clock, long past his bedtime. Although, today, it does not seem likely that he would be able to fall asleep. The cigarette has burned itself out, the ashes drooping limp and long, still hanging on to the filter. The room has gotten much darker, as though the sun outside has given up. And the two mourners in their devastated corners.
Neither will speak. He won’t speak anymore. He is waiting for her to leave.
Why is she here?
She suddenly becomes aware of her parents gazing at her from all corners. She can almost hear them, feel their eyes on her. She rises abruptly, as if fleeing. With her right hand, she brushes back a strand of her hair falling in her face.
“I should’ve recognized you right away,” he says, walking her to the door. “You take after your mother, more than your sister does.”
Suzy pauses, turning to face him.
“Has Grace been here too?”
“Yes, several years ago, a few months before your parents’ deaths maybe. She wasn’t like you, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had only one question.” He smiles faintly, his hand around the doorknob. “She asked where my wife was buried. Montauk, I told her.”
IT IS AFTER FOUR O’CLOCK when Suzy finds herself sitting on a bench at Bryant Park, on 42nd Street. The wind is cold against her skin, crisp, refreshing. Darkness sneaks in with a tinge of green, the way it does when autumn turns to winter overnight. The trees are drained of color. Suzy prefers the parks in winter. Their bareness comforts her.
It’s been a long day, from the morning bus ride to New Jersey to the trip to Queens. She would have been happy to go straight home. But while waiting for the R train at Rego Park Station, she noticed Mr. Lim on the opposite platform, their next-door neighbor when they lived in Flushing many years ago. He and his wife had shown up at her parents’ funeral, which surprised Suzy because she vaguely recalled a sort of falling-out between him and Dad. He did not exactly acknowledge her then. He seemed aware of the circumstances in which she had shamed her parents. Korean elders never look kindly at daughters whose filial piety is in question. His wife tried to meet her
eyes a few times, but Suzy pretended not to notice, not feeling up to polite greetings.
eyes a few times, but Suzy pretended not to notice, not feeling up to polite greetings.
Mr. Lim had also been a truck deliveryman. During his early years of delivery work, Dad used to call him for tips. The selection of fruits and vegetables depends on the neighborhood. Harlem stores needed more bananas than others. The ones in the Hispanic neighborhoods couldn’t do without yucca roots and plantains. And the Manhattan stores, the Upper East Side especially, carried the most expensive fruits, like mangoes and raspberries and papayas. The trick is to figure out which wholesalers carry the best grapes, and which ones to avoid for melons. It was Mr. Lim who showed Dad where to go for half-priced bananas on Friday mornings, and whom to enlist for extra help during Thanksgiving seasons. But then, at some point, Mr. Lim bought a store on Lexington Avenue. Manhattan, Dad exclaimed, where rents are steep and employees cost a fortune! After visiting his store, Dad couldn’t stop talking about his impeccable salad bar. From grape leaves to California rolls to vegetable tempura to
kimchi
, imagine charging as much as $4.99 per pound! Whoever knew Americans would develop such continental taste buds? You’d think they had never lived without salmon maki or chicken tandoori! Koreans are responsible for that, you know, the craze over world cuisine at your fingertips, it all started with our salad bars! But then, soon afterward, Dad stopped calling Mr. Lim. In fact, the mere mention of his name made Dad twitch in anger. Something to do with money. Dad needed a loan, and Mr. Lim seemed to have refused.
kimchi
, imagine charging as much as $4.99 per pound! Whoever knew Americans would develop such continental taste buds? You’d think they had never lived without salmon maki or chicken tandoori! Koreans are responsible for that, you know, the craze over world cuisine at your fingertips, it all started with our salad bars! But then, soon afterward, Dad stopped calling Mr. Lim. In fact, the mere mention of his name made Dad twitch in anger. Something to do with money. Dad needed a loan, and Mr. Lim seemed to have refused.
Suzy was about to wave at him across the track when she noticed something strange. A group of boys and girls were straggling around him, as though a nearby school had just let out for the day. Amidst the giddy teenagers in oversized parkas and baggy jeans, he cut a lonely figure, huddled in a dark overcoat, facing the black tunnel from which a train might come hurtling
any minute. He hadn’t seen her yet, or if he had, he was pretending not to have. She had been only nine or ten when she last saw him in Flushing, and at the funeral she barely paid him any attention. But now, in the dimness of the underground, she noticed something oddly familiar about the way he stood with his head cocked to one side, about thirty degrees to his right. What was he doing here anyway, on a subway platform in the middle of the day? Why wasn’t he at work? Has he moved to this part of Queens now? At that very moment, the R train flew down the track with a roar, landing at her feet. She jumped in automatically, quickly turning to the window to find him still on the other platform. She thought she saw him turn to stare directly at her as the train gained speed. And it was not until a few stops later—between Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, where the train got stuck for fifteen minutes—that it dawned on her that Mr. Lim’s peculiar posture had reminded her of the man who’d stood by the Montauk lighthouse in the rain.
any minute. He hadn’t seen her yet, or if he had, he was pretending not to have. She had been only nine or ten when she last saw him in Flushing, and at the funeral she barely paid him any attention. But now, in the dimness of the underground, she noticed something oddly familiar about the way he stood with his head cocked to one side, about thirty degrees to his right. What was he doing here anyway, on a subway platform in the middle of the day? Why wasn’t he at work? Has he moved to this part of Queens now? At that very moment, the R train flew down the track with a roar, landing at her feet. She jumped in automatically, quickly turning to the window to find him still on the other platform. She thought she saw him turn to stare directly at her as the train gained speed. And it was not until a few stops later—between Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, where the train got stuck for fifteen minutes—that it dawned on her that Mr. Lim’s peculiar posture had reminded her of the man who’d stood by the Montauk lighthouse in the rain.
Montauk, I told her.
Kim Yong Su’s last words, circling in her head. What could it mean? A few months before their death … did her parents send Grace there? ,
Montauk.
Where her parents’ ashes are scattered.
Where Kim Yong Su’s wife is buried.
Where Suzy two days ago walked to its lighthouse, where a strange man had stood watching, a man resembling Mr. Lim, the next-door neighbor from her childhood.
Where Grace had shown up last Friday to rent a boat. Kelly’s boat, over at the dock. A tiny sloop. Two-person, max. And Grace can’t even swim. And the secret wedding. Somehow Suzy is not convinced. Just a gut feeling. No evidence to the contrary, no reason to disbelieve …
“Sorry, have you been waiting long? What a dreary day!”
Jen stands before Suzy, carrying a brown paper bag in her arms. She’s gotten older, Suzy notices for the first time, but in just the right way. Her blond hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail; the light-mauve lipstick complements her creamy glow. Looking at Jen bundled in a knee-length camel coat, Suzy can see a woman reaching her prime in her thirties. Jen has never looked more radiant, Suzy thinks. So confident, so knowing, so perfectly compassionate. The same does not apply to Suzy herself, of course. Linear age eludes her. With her parents’ sudden death, Suzy skipped her youth entirely.
“Thank God, I was worried you might’ve gotten us coffee too.” Jen slides by Suzy’s side and takes out two large cups from the bag. “Decaf. I didn’t think you’d want the caffeine kick so late in the day.”
Suzy recalls how they had both been such fervent coffeedrinkers in college. They spent most of their junior year huddled in the dark corner of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, sipping double espresso while writing their Eighteenth-Century Novel papers. They were both literature majors. Back then, they would have sniffed at the mention of decaf, as though caffeine were the sign of a true soul. And now nothing is that absolute, nothing evokes such a conviction. Must be the years. Comforting to know that they are gaining in years together.
“Soooo nice to be outside!” Jen takes a deep breath, handing Suzy one of the paper cups. “I didn’t know that I’d end up wasting all of my twenties in a cubicle.”
Earlier, when Suzy called from the subway station, Jen sounded flustered, even slightly panicked. Meet you at the park in twenty minutes; any excuse to leave the office for a bit, Jen groaned. The writer for the cover story was a total control freak, which explained the painful late hours this week. But that could not be the reason for her panic, Suzy thought, detecting a slight tremor in Jen’s voice, which suggested trouble.
“You love it. You’ll say the same thing when you turn forty,” predicts Suzy, taking the hot cup with both hands. The heat is nice. Half the fun of hot coffee is holding the mug.
“Maybe not …” Jen looks away at the pair of musty pigeons tottering along the green patch nearby. “So how was your day?”
Suzy can tell that something is wrong. Jen always defers the subject to another when something is bothering her.
“I went to see Grace today.” Suzy does not elaborate. It is obvious that Jen has a load on her mind.
“And did you see her?” Jen looks surprised, and intrigued. She has never met Grace, but she has never approved of Grace’s hostility toward Suzy.
“She wasn’t there. She’s gone off to get married, supposedly.”
“And you don’t believe that anyone would want to marry her?” Jen is being cynical. It is a sign that something is definitely wrong.
“I don’t know what I believe. I haven’t seen her in five years. More like ten, if you count those years she was at Smith and I … took off. Ten years, then—I guess people must change a lot, no?” Opening the lid, Suzy blows on the coffee once before taking a sip. The hot liquid trickles down her throat, warming the inside. The park is a good place at this time of the day. The late-autumn sun is setting.
“Have we changed in ten years? Am I different now than I was in college?” Jen asks without taking her eyes off the pigeons.
“No, I guess not, because you still can’t hide anything. What’s the matter?”
“Is it that obvious?” Jen gives up pretending. “Nothing too serious. Just a job thing.” Jen smiles, trying to appear nonchalant. Suzy remains quiet. This job means a lot to Jen. Suzy knows from having worked there herself, although for just a few months.
“There have been reports about me. The insider report, because
only the insider could know the stuff, even though they’re a bunch of silly lies really. How I purposefully leaked the Baryshinikov feature to the Sunday
Times
. How I’ve been assigning articles to one particular writer since his wild book party last April. How I’ve been ripping off the story ideas from freelancers. They all sound just absurd enough to get me weird looks. I don’t know who’s making these up, but I don’t like it. It makes me feel … trapped.” Jen pauses, taking a sip of her coffee. “I mean, the magazine world isn’t innocent. Editors fuck writers, and writers fuck their subjects. That’s the way mass journalism works. But these rumors about me, I’m not sure. Actual e-mails were sent to the editor-in-chief’s private address, although no one knows from whom. At least that’s what I was told by my assistant, who’s up on office gossip. Who knows, maybe everyone knows who it is and is not telling me. Maybe no one’s telling me the truth. Sure, someone could be jealous, someone could want me out.” Jen turns to Suzy with a tight smile. “But I’m no longer sure who’s on my side.”
only the insider could know the stuff, even though they’re a bunch of silly lies really. How I purposefully leaked the Baryshinikov feature to the Sunday
Times
. How I’ve been assigning articles to one particular writer since his wild book party last April. How I’ve been ripping off the story ideas from freelancers. They all sound just absurd enough to get me weird looks. I don’t know who’s making these up, but I don’t like it. It makes me feel … trapped.” Jen pauses, taking a sip of her coffee. “I mean, the magazine world isn’t innocent. Editors fuck writers, and writers fuck their subjects. That’s the way mass journalism works. But these rumors about me, I’m not sure. Actual e-mails were sent to the editor-in-chief’s private address, although no one knows from whom. At least that’s what I was told by my assistant, who’s up on office gossip. Who knows, maybe everyone knows who it is and is not telling me. Maybe no one’s telling me the truth. Sure, someone could be jealous, someone could want me out.” Jen turns to Suzy with a tight smile. “But I’m no longer sure who’s on my side.”
Whose side is she on?
When Mr. Lee testified that her parents’ death was not random, that someone must have had a reason to plan and execute the killing, she did not doubt him. When he claimed that half the Korean community didn’t mourn their deaths, it did not surprise her. When he swore that her father had had it coming to him, she did not defend her father. Instead, she sought out Kim Yong Su, as if to confirm her suspicion.
“Funny how life turned out much simpler than it promised to be in college,” says Jen, smoothing the wrinkled end of the white silk scarf which wraps around her neck a few times to drape down to her lap. It is a dramatic sort of look, not quite Jen’s style. Suzy wonders if that is why she suddenly noticed Jen’s beauty, not because of the scarf itself, but because of such a subtle change, which seems no longer so subtle. “It was never about
Faulkner or Joyce or even Derrida or whatever they jammed into our brains for four years. What a superb con job, feeding us a fantasy for our hundred thousand dollars’ tuition! Literature and semantics don’t make us cry. It all comes down to such basic fights, like holding on to a job despite an infantile enemy, sucking up to the editor-in-chief for a higher profile. The survival has nothing to do with your brain. It’s about who has the thicker skin. It’s about shedding all the ethics and righteousness that we learned in college. It’s about the resilience of your needs and fulfilling them even if it costs all your moral conviction.
Faulkner or Joyce or even Derrida or whatever they jammed into our brains for four years. What a superb con job, feeding us a fantasy for our hundred thousand dollars’ tuition! Literature and semantics don’t make us cry. It all comes down to such basic fights, like holding on to a job despite an infantile enemy, sucking up to the editor-in-chief for a higher profile. The survival has nothing to do with your brain. It’s about who has the thicker skin. It’s about shedding all the ethics and righteousness that we learned in college. It’s about the resilience of your needs and fulfilling them even if it costs all your moral conviction.
“You might’ve been smarter after all, Suzy. To cut out when you did, when you followed your asshole Damian to the ends of the earth. At least you stuck to your heart. You did what you wanted to do, no matter how you reproached yourself afterward. Who’s to say what’s right and wrong? Who’s to say the right path is so right after all?”
Suzy stops biting the rim of the paper cup and stares at Jen. It is unlike Jen to be so filled with doubt. Jen has always been confident, and right. She has always been the image of what Suzy was not, what Suzy could never be—the ultimate emblem of the American dream. It was Jen who begged her to stay when Suzy packed her bag in her senior year. “This isn’t love,” Jen repeated with unflinching certainty. “You don’t love him; love shouldn’t make you run.” Four years later, when the escapade with Damian was over, it was also Jen who took her in without asking any question. She cleared her study so that Suzy could sleep through those unfathomable weeks following her parents’ murder. Jen always knew exactly what to do. It is not fair, Suzy thinks, for Jen to retreat like this suddenly. It is not fair for Jen to break down before her.
What do you want after all, do you want me to tell you?
Damian had struck the right chord. The impossibility of desire might have been at the core of their union. The escape with
Damian, why did it happen? Did he manipulate her into their reckless affair, as Professor Tamiko had once suggested? Did he claim nineteen-year-old Suzy in order to punish his wife, whom he failed to love? Would he have wanted her still had she not been Asian, so much younger than Yuki Tamiko, and definitely less fierce? What Suzy had wanted in return is still not clear. Neither an act of courage nor mindless passion. In fact, it was very mindful, each step measured. It had to be Damian. It could only have been Damian. No one would have claimed her with such absolute disregard.
Damian, why did it happen? Did he manipulate her into their reckless affair, as Professor Tamiko had once suggested? Did he claim nineteen-year-old Suzy in order to punish his wife, whom he failed to love? Would he have wanted her still had she not been Asian, so much younger than Yuki Tamiko, and definitely less fierce? What Suzy had wanted in return is still not clear. Neither an act of courage nor mindless passion. In fact, it was very mindful, each step measured. It had to be Damian. It could only have been Damian. No one would have claimed her with such absolute disregard.
“But I had no choice.” Suzy is not sure how to continue this, how to explain the inevitability of the past. “The difference between you and me is that you’ve always been on the right side. You say that you’re not sure anymore. But you are. Because you’re outraged still. Because you’re sad, not for fear of losing your job but for its injustice. You search for explanation. You won’t give up until you find the way. You have the eye to discern what is good and what isn’t. You can point a finger and tell me where and when and why. You’re confident in that knowledge. You’re secure. No one can take that away from you.” Suzy draws a quick breath and glances at Jen, who is quietly listening. Jen has one thing Suzy could never have: a sense of entitlement, the certainty of belonging. It was not a quality Suzy could learn to adopt, or even pretend to assume. Jen belonged, Suzy didn’t. It was as simple as that. If Suzy had resented Jen for it, she would have hated herself, because it was easier to blame the one who lacked. And such resentment would have been so lonely that Suzy could not have borne it. Jen, Suzy knows, would understand this.
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