Authors: Suki Kim
The Interpreter (7 page)
But of course it cannot be Grace walking ahead. Grace must be tucked safely back in her Godly New Jersey home. What happened at Smith? What happens at her church, where Grace must spend all her time now? In the spring of 1991, over nine years ago, when Suzy chose Damian over everything, Grace had just moved back home from Northampton, where she had tried a few jobs with not much luck. Suzy was surprised when she learned that Grace was home. Suzy thought that Grace, more than anyone she knew, would have some grand plan waiting for her upon finishing college. Moving back to her parents’ house seemed like a desperate decision. Grace was living in New Jersey when her parents were shot in their Bronx store in November 1995. She taught ESL at Fort Lee High School. Most of her students were Korean kids who had recently landed in America, whose parents were often gone, working overtime. The same kids also attended Fort Lee New Joy Fellowship Church, where Grace was in charge of the Bible study Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons. Grace was a good teacher supposedly, exceptionally competent and quick with her lessons. That was her style, never sentimental, never messy. Suzy overheard all this on the bus after the funeral. The older women who sat opposite Suzy must have been the parents of Grace’s students. “So what about the other daughter?” one of them asked. “Shhhh.” The second woman made a hush motion with her finger on her lips, glancing at Suzy.
Definitely not Grace up ahead. Someone entirely different, a stranger with his back toward Suzy. Quite a distance separates the two, and with the rain and all, Suzy can barely make out the shape of the other. The rocks are getting sharper, and from here on, there is no choice but to follow the steps to the road, which
continues for a few more miles parallel to the shore. The path is uphill, slippery. Whoever’s ahead must be heading in the same direction. Whoever’s ahead keeps an even distance without once turning around, or perhaps it is Suzy making sure that she keeps up. Perhaps there are other ashes scattered from the lighthouse; perhaps it is the locals’ favorite burial spot. Why scatter the ashes from the lighthouse? Whose romantic notion was that? Suzy, of course, had been left out of the decision. It seemed like a good idea, a comforting idea, but definitely not her parents’. But, then again, what did Suzy know about her parents?
continues for a few more miles parallel to the shore. The path is uphill, slippery. Whoever’s ahead must be heading in the same direction. Whoever’s ahead keeps an even distance without once turning around, or perhaps it is Suzy making sure that she keeps up. Perhaps there are other ashes scattered from the lighthouse; perhaps it is the locals’ favorite burial spot. Why scatter the ashes from the lighthouse? Whose romantic notion was that? Suzy, of course, had been left out of the decision. It seemed like a good idea, a comforting idea, but definitely not her parents’. But, then again, what did Suzy know about her parents?
Barely two in the afternoon; the darkness is menacing. When she first came here five years ago, she saw nothing. All she could focus on was the urn Grace was carrying, in which her parents’ ashes were mixed together. Dome-shaped, wrapped in stiff white linen, the way the dead were kept in Korea. Suzy could not stand looking at the thing that held her parents, and was relieved when Grace assumed all responsibilities for handling it. Neither cried. Suzy was still in shock, and Grace, being in charge, seemed unable to cry. Suzy had no doubt that once they found themselves finally alone in their respective apartments each would burst into tears. Afterward, Grace must have gone straight to church; Suzy packed her bag and left Damian’s house immediately. He was not around when she left. During their final six months, she had stayed at his Berkshire house while he spent much of his time abroad. She left without a note, and he did not try to find her. She went straight to Jen’s apartment and slept for several weeks. When she was finally able to get up and walk outside, she wandered into the East Village and found the apartment on St. Marks Place. And still Suzy had not cried.
The path cuts into the main road, where the sign reads “Montauk Highway.” Definitely not the smartest thing to walk along the highway, not in this rain, not alone, not dreaming of
tears. But Suzy is determined; so is the person ahead. Hardly any cars pass. The road may continue this way, and Suzy will have circled the edge of New York, down to its rocky bottom.
tears. But Suzy is determined; so is the person ahead. Hardly any cars pass. The road may continue this way, and Suzy will have circled the edge of New York, down to its rocky bottom.
Then, suddenly, without warning, emerges the lighthouse, up there in the distance, beaming into the brooding sky. The white.tower is forlorn and majestic, fenced in from all sides. Its silence seems so repressive that for a second Suzy is afraid for her parents, who lie beneath the cliff. Even in this rain, the flag hangs from the pole on its left. The gray colonial house has been turned into a museum with a gold plaque at its entrance which reads “Montauk Historical Society.” She soon finds the spot where Grace stood five years ago, holding on to the urn before finally opening its lid. Nothing there now except a lone bench behind a rusty viewfinder.
Tell me what happened, Mom, Dad, what really happened to you?
One thing Suzy has learned in the last five years is that nothing follows death, no revelation comes into play. Death is silent, heartless, heart-wrenchingly unfair. Each time Suzy comes here, sometimes twice, three times a year, she realizes how stock-still everything is, how immutable the lighthouse, how infinite the Montauk sky, how constant the rain, how absolutely unforgiving the water appears from where she stands. Each time Suzy stands here, she cringes at the way the watchtower looms over everything, as if it suggested man’s ultimate power over nature, and the star-spangled banner at the edge of the eastern coast, as if this very cliff were the helm of the American dream. And each time, she becomes certain that time has played tricks on her, and those five years—during which Suzy floated from job to job, from one married man to another—happened only so that she might stand and wait for someone, anyone, to step in and say, Look what you’ve done, look what you’ve been left with, look what you are, is this what you wanted?
What do you want after all, do you want me to tell you?
Damian had pleaded in his final message.
Damian had pleaded in his final message.
But she is not alone. Someone else is here, over in the distance by the drenched flag, now facing her direction. It is hard to see the face buried beneath the hooded raincoat under the black umbrella, and so much rain between them. It is a man, she can tell that much. She takes a step toward him. An Asian man. Something about him strikes her as being familiar, the way he stands with his head tilted slightly to his right. She takes another hesitant step. She wants to shout something, say hello, excuse me, anything, but she seems to be choking and no words will come out. He stands there watching her, or perhaps watching beyond, toward the ocean. She follows his gaze and finds the angry sea gaping at her and wonders if it is a signal from her parents, a sign, a code she cannot understand. The sky is burning gray, almost red at its edges. Suddenly frightfully cold, Suzy tightens the opening of her coat. This overly chic trench coat—Michael had brought it from his last trip to London. Michael, whom she never thinks about when he is not around, which he never is. Odd that she should recall him now, so inappropriate, almost irreverent to her parents, who would weep for their daughter, who, after all these years, is hiding with another man who will never be hers.
My dear Suzy, my girl, my poor daughter, where have we gone wrong, where did we go wrong with you?
Mom might plead, which cannot be true, since she would never say anything so self-deprecating, would play dumb instead, avoid Suzy’s eyes, turn to Dad, who would take one final look at Suzy with a disgust, an anger that should never be directed by a father toward his daughter, words that should be swallowed instead, erased, so Suzy will not stand here five years later, five long, grueling years that brand her with the echo
—Whore, you whore to a white man, a white married man, don’t ever come back.
My dear Suzy, my girl, my poor daughter, where have we gone wrong, where did we go wrong with you?
Mom might plead, which cannot be true, since she would never say anything so self-deprecating, would play dumb instead, avoid Suzy’s eyes, turn to Dad, who would take one final look at Suzy with a disgust, an anger that should never be directed by a father toward his daughter, words that should be swallowed instead, erased, so Suzy will not stand here five years later, five long, grueling years that brand her with the echo
—Whore, you whore to a white man, a white married man, don’t ever come back.
But death is silent. Suzy shuts her eyes to the lashing waves.
She still cannot cry, nothing will make her cry. Then, turning back, she notices that the man in the distance is no longer there.
She still cannot cry, nothing will make her cry. Then, turning back, she notices that the man in the distance is no longer there.
The train back to Penn Station departs at 5 p.m. No time for a drink at McSwiggin’s. Twice in one day, Bob might become too familiar with her face, Grace’s face, whichever he takes her to be. The taxi pulls up exactly at four-thirty. The driver, with a bright-yellow T-shirt that says “Montauk Taxi,” looks no more than sixteen, and she wonders if the kid even has the proper license to be driving a commercial vehicle. He speeds on Montauk Highway along Napeague Bay, passing the dock with its fishing boats and a few bars with rooms upstairs where the fishermen blow the last of their sea-winded dollars. It takes less than ten minutes to get to the train station, and Suzy hands the driver the fourteen dollars before turning around and trying, for the hell of it, “Hey, happen to know who Kelly is?” The kid gingerly counts the dollar bills before replying in the thickest Irish lilt, “Sure, everyone knows Kelly, he rents boats out over at the dock, tiny sloops, two-person max. Why, you need a boat?”
THIRST IS WHAT GETS HER. The clock points to 4 a.m., which is inevitably the hour when she is awoken, breathless. She lingers in bed for a while before dragging herself to the refrigerator. The water is cool, a clean break from sleep. She fell asleep with the light on again. It is hard to believe that she slept at all under such brightness. There was no dream. The night was a black, soundless tunnel. Nothing interrupted her, no crying girl by the shore, no unknown hand shaking her home.
It is a terrible habit, to wake up in the middle of the night and reach for a cigarette. But the world is claustrophobic at 4 a.m., nothing comes to the rescue. The irises on the table still look serenely white, even if there’s a hint of wither, the writhing of petals. Averting her eyes, she notices the blinking red light on the answering machine. Several messages. Must be Michael. Suzy wonders why he calls her constantly, if he calls his wife also. The conversation is most often one-sided. He runs through everything he has accomplished that day, most of which Suzy
does not really understand. He needs to report to someone, to anyone, to any ear that will listen. He talks about the conference calls with Germany, the merger meeting that busted, the additional clauses in the newest contract. Each feverish rant ends with the inevitable chuckle, “All it means, babe, is that they’re suckers and I’ve got you for love.” She wonders if he is lonely, if he ever thinks about being lonely.
does not really understand. He needs to report to someone, to anyone, to any ear that will listen. He talks about the conference calls with Germany, the merger meeting that busted, the additional clauses in the newest contract. Each feverish rant ends with the inevitable chuckle, “All it means, babe, is that they’re suckers and I’ve got you for love.” She wonders if he is lonely, if he ever thinks about being lonely.
The first time she slept with Michael, he got up at five in the morning to catch his train home. His wife and their five-month-old son lived in Westport, Connecticut. He had not seen them in two weeks, and Suzy could tell that he missed them. When he turned on the light to dress, Suzy pretended to be asleep. It was easier that way, and she preferred waking alone in the hotel room. She enjoyed lounging in the strange surroundings, which would become no longer strange, since Michael had a habit of always returning to the same room, 755 at the Waldorf-Astoria. The checkout was at twelve, and Suzy would take a long bath in the marble tub, whose enormous size seemed right out of a fairy tale. Afterward, she would wrap her body in the luscious terry-cloth robe and wait for the room service that Michael had ordered for her before leaving—the poached eggs with hollandaise sauce, a basket of freshly baked scones and croissants, and a tall glass of fresh carrot juice. The ritual seemed to be a good one; it had nothing to do with what she knew.
Except Michael was married, which seemed crucial. Jen, when Suzy told her about the affair, looked at her aghast. “Why?” asked Jen. “You know your parents are no longer watching, there’s no audience anymore.” Jen said nothing further and stopped introducing Suzy to those hopelessly Ivy League, defensively arrogant, devoutly bookish young men who passed through the magazine where she worked. None of them took to Suzy anyway. They would come along for a drink with Jen, which Suzy knew was all for her benefit, and ramble on about
another young author on the verge of fame. Their tales of the author’s propensity for run-on sentences and waify poet girls bored her. Most of all, she could not stand the tinge of jealousy in the bookish man’s voice as he repeated, with a vengeance, the exact numbers of the six figures that the author’s first book had garnered. Suzy remained silent, trying her best to suppress a yawn, and Jen would play the moderator by cracking jokes, which was not her style. Suzy was relieved when Jen stopped her matchmaking gestures.
another young author on the verge of fame. Their tales of the author’s propensity for run-on sentences and waify poet girls bored her. Most of all, she could not stand the tinge of jealousy in the bookish man’s voice as he repeated, with a vengeance, the exact numbers of the six figures that the author’s first book had garnered. Suzy remained silent, trying her best to suppress a yawn, and Jen would play the moderator by cracking jokes, which was not her style. Suzy was relieved when Jen stopped her matchmaking gestures.
“Getting older, Suzy, means just getting more selfish all the time. Does my heart break anymore because you’re fucking another Damian? What if you’re hiding with another asshole? What can I do really, how does that change my life?” Jen cried one night when they had emptied half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s that had been sitting on Suzy’s kitchen shelf for several months.
But nothing changes my life either, nothing touches me
. Suzy may have mumbled in a drunken stupor. The night was vague and easily forgotten.
But nothing changes my life either, nothing touches me
. Suzy may have mumbled in a drunken stupor. The night was vague and easily forgotten.
No Jack Daniel’s tonight, nothing at all but this empty kitchen and the Evian bottle of wilting irises. Why did Grace want a boat? Did she sail out into the shallow sea to mourn their parents? Has Grace become lonely over the years? For a second, Suzy is tempted to reach for the phone and dial Grace’s New Jersey number. Over the years, Suzy tried calling Grace a few times during afternoons when she was sure Grace wouldn’t be home. Each time, she secretly hoped that Grace might have stayed home from school by some sisterly telepathy and would pick up the phone. Instead, the machine clicked on with no outgoing message whatsoever, just a plain, long beep, and Suzy would hang up immediately. Perhaps Grace never answers her phone either; perhaps the sisters have that in common.
Sleep is impossible. Not quite the night, and interminably far from the morning. But Suzy is used to this sort of wait, a
meander, a break with no end in sight. The ring of smoke casts a mournful veil around the flowers. A perfect white on white, but death over life really, as if the smoke is seeping through each pore of the iris.
meander, a break with no end in sight. The ring of smoke casts a mournful veil around the flowers. A perfect white on white, but death over life really, as if the smoke is seeping through each pore of the iris.
The sisters wore white
hanbok
on that day in Montauk. They gathered their hair back with white cloth pins, following the Korean tradition for immediate mourners.
White is the color of sadness, the color of remembering, of home
, Mom had told Suzy when she asked why she wore a white cloth pin in her hair on each anniversary of her own parents’ death. The delicate silk of their dresses appeared almost transparent against the lighthouse towering above. They must have looked hopelessly small on that day, two newly orphaned girls in white carrying the urn, their blackest hair rippling in the wind, suddenly alone amidst a vast country. Watching Grace scattering the ashes, Suzy thought that her sister seemed more Asian than she had ever remembered. Had it rained that day also? Did her parents disappear into the Atlantic, which kept calling her through that day and each day after?
hanbok
on that day in Montauk. They gathered their hair back with white cloth pins, following the Korean tradition for immediate mourners.
White is the color of sadness, the color of remembering, of home
, Mom had told Suzy when she asked why she wore a white cloth pin in her hair on each anniversary of her own parents’ death. The delicate silk of their dresses appeared almost transparent against the lighthouse towering above. They must have looked hopelessly small on that day, two newly orphaned girls in white carrying the urn, their blackest hair rippling in the wind, suddenly alone amidst a vast country. Watching Grace scattering the ashes, Suzy thought that her sister seemed more Asian than she had ever remembered. Had it rained that day also? Did her parents disappear into the Atlantic, which kept calling her through that day and each day after?
To an insomniac, night crawls in secret. Suzy can hear each second tick so loudly that the anticipation of the next second makes her heart beat even louder. Sleep eludes her. It comes either all at once or not at all. During her first year in this apartment, Suzy slept all the time. She would watch TV and sleep. She had no trouble at all. She would close her eyes, and then, upon waking, she would realize that it was the next day. And then she would turn on the TV again, the continuation of programs from the previous day, and then, so naturally, a soft, smooth sleep would engulf her. Day by day, month by month, in fact, that whole year went by with a blink, as if she were not there at all, as if it were not she who slept. and ate and watched TV with such mechanical efficiency. And then, at some point, almost overnight, she found that nothing would happen when
she shut her eyes. Just as she could not bear to watch TV one day, sleep also failed her. No matter how hard she tried, as now she had to make a conscious effort to will herself to sleep, nothing came. And soon sleep missed her at all hours. It would come suddenly and grip her. She would collapse onto bed, often fully dressed, as though she were under a spell, a forgetting spell that would wipe her out. Such flickering, intensely invasive sleep never lasted long, never sank into her, and here she sits at 4 a.m. wide awake at a kitchen table, making herself smoke a cigarette because there is nothing else to do.
she shut her eyes. Just as she could not bear to watch TV one day, sleep also failed her. No matter how hard she tried, as now she had to make a conscious effort to will herself to sleep, nothing came. And soon sleep missed her at all hours. It would come suddenly and grip her. She would collapse onto bed, often fully dressed, as though she were under a spell, a forgetting spell that would wipe her out. Such flickering, intensely invasive sleep never lasted long, never sank into her, and here she sits at 4 a.m. wide awake at a kitchen table, making herself smoke a cigarette because there is nothing else to do.
Michael helps. Sex helps. Suzy wonders if that is why she so willingly accepted his suggestion of a date when she first met him. Even he seemed taken aback when she said yes without a glimpse of hesitation. Suzy served as the interpreter at one of his joint-venture meetings with the executives from a giant Korean corporation. The Korean side brought their own translator, but Michael’s firm had hired Suzy as a backup. It was one of Suzy’s first interpreting jobs, and she masked her nervousness with cool detachment. During the lunch break, Michael turned to her and asked, “Ms. Park, are you not allowed to smile on duty?” Suzy looked at him for the first time then and noticed that he was attractive, the way men are when they are successful, late-thirties, and obviously married. His angular, almost square face was deeply tanned, as though he had just returned from a weeklong vacation somewhere tropical, and his sandy-blond hair set off his mischievous green eyes, which made him seem younger than he actually was. He was much shorter than he had appeared sitting down, about five feet nine perhaps, which might make him feel self-conscious, because he had a very tall air about him, which Suzy could not help but find endearing as she stared back at him without an answer, still with no smile. At the end of the meeting, Michael tossed his card at Suzy with, “Call me if you wanna show me your other face,” which was not exactly romantically
inspired, as he admitted later, but more like a dare, a brutish proposition, to see if this rigid, aloof girl would break rules for him, on whose fourth finger a wedding ring shone like a big fat warning sign. Instead, Suzy shot back at him with, “Forget the call, how about tonight?” She might have been waiting for someone like him, so bold, so crudely unseductive, so unlike Damian, that love never came into the question.
inspired, as he admitted later, but more like a dare, a brutish proposition, to see if this rigid, aloof girl would break rules for him, on whose fourth finger a wedding ring shone like a big fat warning sign. Instead, Suzy shot back at him with, “Forget the call, how about tonight?” She might have been waiting for someone like him, so bold, so crudely unseductive, so unlike Damian, that love never came into the question.
Michael found Suzy’s acquiescence intriguing. He took her to the “21” Club that night, not the sort of place a married man should take a girl whom he had just picked up on a job. He gazed at her over the preposterously priced salmon zapped with mint-flavored sauce and said, “You’ve got issues, but I don’t wanna know about them, not because I’m an asshole, but because you think I am.” Suzy reached over and kissed him then, a light, fleeting kiss, and remembered that it had been years since she had kissed a man. He broke into laughter as if to cover his embarrassment. “You’re a funny girl, Suzy Park; that clears it, we’re not gonna fuck tonight.” Michael was a romantic in his own way, Suzy thought. She went along with whatever he wanted, and it bothered him, she could tell. It took a few more dinners before they finally slept together. He wanted a bit of resistance, something befitting a mistress, some temper, some tears, but Suzy gave none, and he turned to her afterward and said, “That was like fucking a ghost, a very sexy one, but a ghost nonetheless.” He kept coming back, though. He liked her. He admired her, even. He was a generous lover, and Suzy slept well afterward.
Yet here she sits still, listening to the radiator tap again, as it always does at this hour, an ambulance siren, a train engine, an evenly paced knock that will not stop, which she has gotten used to through the years, which comforts her on winter nights, as though its hissing noise were the only sign familiar to her, the closest thing to a home. The heat comes on slowly, and she is no
longer sure if it is Michael she craves or the kind of warmth only another body can offer, the embrace afterward as his hands curl into her arms, as his breath caresses her neck, as his thighs are wrapped into her own. It is sleep she wants, perhaps, the sleep of a spent body, sleep buried in the body of another who’s been so close, who’s entered so far, who’s moved back and forth with such insistence, emptying her of anything she might still remember.
longer sure if it is Michael she craves or the kind of warmth only another body can offer, the embrace afterward as his hands curl into her arms, as his breath caresses her neck, as his thighs are wrapped into her own. It is sleep she wants, perhaps, the sleep of a spent body, sleep buried in the body of another who’s been so close, who’s entered so far, who’s moved back and forth with such insistence, emptying her of anything she might still remember.
Of course, Michael never holds her like that. He always rushes off afterward, to a meeting, to an airport, to his family. On the rare occasions when he dozes next to her, he will kiss her once with a note of finality, then turn to the wall and be fast asleep. Theirs is not that kind of intimacy. She knows that it would be false for them to cling to each other afterward. She knows that she would leave him if he ever reached out that way. She knows this because she lies next to him recalling another’s hands, which had held her afterward, which had stroked her face so precisely, as though making sure that her eyes were closed now, that her lips were smiling with the sated ripple of what had just occurred, and her fingers still following his as if reluctant to let him go, as if her body had finally found the right angle, the right corner where it might rest until she would awake again and again find him whose hands had held her no matter how often she tried to leave, how far she ran, as far as this 4 a.m. apartment where she sits alone with a dying cigarette, wanting Michael instead, wanting Michael again and again, as though dispelling the dream of another’s hands.
Four a.m. is a haunted hour.
Suzy, come back to bed
, Damian would plead upon finding her on the porch. She often did that then too. She would awake at this exact hour and retreat so easily into where Damian could not enter. He hated it. He hated seeing Suzy lost in what he dismissed as a “purgatorial suspension of guilt,” for neither he nor she should suffer for what they
had to do.
Suzy, I need you back in my bed
. He claimed her, the way she sought him above anything else in the world, above her parents, her college, her youth, and it was this desperate claim that made her feel uneasy, almost doomed.
Suzy, enough
. He was never afraid to say what he wanted. He was fearless. Most of all, he was fearless with her, which she thought could only be love.
Suzy, come back to bed
, Damian would plead upon finding her on the porch. She often did that then too. She would awake at this exact hour and retreat so easily into where Damian could not enter. He hated it. He hated seeing Suzy lost in what he dismissed as a “purgatorial suspension of guilt,” for neither he nor she should suffer for what they
had to do.
Suzy, I need you back in my bed
. He claimed her, the way she sought him above anything else in the world, above her parents, her college, her youth, and it was this desperate claim that made her feel uneasy, almost doomed.
Suzy, enough
. He was never afraid to say what he wanted. He was fearless. Most of all, he was fearless with her, which she thought could only be love.
The same unending night, the same uncertain hour in which Suzy sat in the wicker chair on Damian’s porch many years ago, afraid of the ghosts who were living then, who had such short lives left before them, who have now returned as though they’ve been waiting inside her all day, watching her along the Montauk shore, riding beside her on the Long Island Rail Road, fighting through the evening crowd of Penn Station, hailing a cab to downtown, following her up the steps back to her apartment, and finally settling into this repose where nothing seems familiar except their darling daughter and a bouquet of white irises.
Suzy climbs between cold sheets, back in her futon, which floats like a tiny boat burying her inside the room. Is this what Grace sought? Out there in the sea? A burial for her who cannot swim?
Two shots only; the gun had fired exactly twice and pierced their hearts.
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