Suki Kim - The Interpreter

“I understand,” the ADA is pleading now. “I can see how you fire your workers, but tell me again about the hiring process; is there any contract which you or your employee enter into, a written contract, I mean?”

A written contract? Has he forgotten that no one, neither the one who does the hiring nor the one who is hired, speaks, never mind reads, a word of English?

Suzy turns to Mr. Lee without meeting him in the eyes. She is afraid that he will see the resemblance, find her father’s face in her lowering gaze. She is afraid to ask further.

Tell me, who do you think was responsible for their death?

Mr. Lee snickers as he barks, “The brave one. Someone so righteous that eliminating them would’ve been a necessity. Even the police wouldn’t touch the case. Random shooting, my ass; what idiot would believe that?”

Suzy believed, and Grace. Or maybe they wanted to believe.

Turning to the ADA, she tells him no, no written contract, no such thing. It is shocking how she manages to maintain her calm through all this. It is shocking how easily she lies.

James Richards appears exasperated at last. The questioning is going nowhere, or going so smoothly that his answers will haunt the trial as falsifying evidence.

“I am asking you one final time, Mr. Lee, are you claiming that you have always paid your workers the minimum wage?”

Suzy translates the last question quickly, wanting to be done with this.

“Yes,” Mr. Lee shouts back with a vengeance. “You can see from all the record.”

He’s lying. He has clearly broken the minimum-wage law. It’s her instinct. An interpreter knows almost instantly when a witness is lying. She is the most astute listener in the world. She listens between the lines, between the words. Nothing goes unnoticed. The first time Suzy interpreted for a lying witness, she was surprised how much it hurt. It happened at a trial, before a judge and a jury. Suzy stumbled, causing the entire room to stare at her. An interpreter must be neutral, and anonymous. It is not up to her to make judgment. Except the bitterness was on her tongue, and Suzy was not sure if she would be spared with her heart intact. Afterward, she could not help noticing that it was the lying party that won.

But now Suzy wonders how much of her averse reaction might be due to his confession about her parents. She repeats his answer, which fools no one.

Shaking his head, James Richards declares that the questioning is over. Closing his file, he tells her what a great job she did. Knowing two languages so well, that cannot be easy, he says. You need to interpret not only the words, but every nuance, don’t you? Yes, every nuance, Suzy replies. Every goddamn nuance, so I might know much more than I was meant to.

It is Marcos who leads them out at last. The corridor is a maze. Suzy wants to lose Mr. Lee in its tangles. He’d hated her parents, although, according to him, there are more, many more people out there, who hated her parents even more passionately than he did, who hated them enough to risk everything in their bravery, their righteousness, whatever he declared was the motive for wanting them dead. She is dying to get out of here. When Mr. Lee calls after her “Thank you,” she runs past the door without looking back.

Kim Yong Su, the guy from Queens. Where has she heard that name before? Where has she met him?

“SUZY, MY DARLING, you’re looking way too ravishing for an old maid!”

Caleb is grinning when she opens the door. She has not seen him in a few months, not since he started his first nine-to-five job at a gallery in Chelsea. “A bitch shopping mall,” he whispered on the phone after the first week of working there. Caleb at twenty-six, much changed from the shy art-school graduate Suzy met outside Astor Place Stationery. He’s let his hair grow out, gentle ginger waves down to his shoulders. “It’s the Botticelli look,” he tells her with a wink. “The curator adores it, and those Eurotrash buyers keep saying ‘divine’ in their phony accents.” She pours him a glass of red wine while he looks around the apartment as if expecting to find an improvement since the last time he was here. “Suzy, my God, we need to get you a subscription to Martha Stewart, fast!” Suzy laughs and gives him the warning look, which he once said reminded him of his great-aunt, if he had one. When he finally sits down before her, Suzy remembers how nice it is to have someone here. Another person sitting with her, listening to her voice, to her breath, to her silent walks around the kitchen. It’s been so long since anyone’s stepped into her apartment. She has almost gotten used to being alone.

“So the admirer strikes again!” Caleb points to the irises in the Evian bottle.

“It’s that time of the year, remember?” Glancing at the drooping petals, Suzy realizes that she should throw them out.

“No, I didn’t remember, but obviously somebody has.” He takes a sip of wine from the glass, still looking at the irises. “So any idea who’s the anniversary freak? I mean, it’s grossly old-fashioned, and getting a bit creepy too.”

“Maybe I’ll never know, maybe I’m not meant to.”

Suzy opens the plastic bag he handed her upon entering. Inside are small yellow balls with glimmering surfaces. The bag is filled with all kinds of cheese wrapped in cellophane. Blue cheese, goat cheese, Brie, Gouda, Swiss, Stilton, even fresh mozzarella. “What’s all this?” Suzy turns to him, her black eyes wide.

“Call me the cheese fairy; oh no, that sounds so fag. ” Caleb chuckles, happy to see Suzy’s face brighten. “I would’ve gotten you crème brûlée, but gallery openings don’t do desserts, since you know the art groupies don’t eat, and there’s nothing close to a pastry shop on Tenth Avenue.”

Leaning over, she kisses him on the cheek and then begins unwrapping the cheeses onto a plate, one by one. “Blue cheese is good,” she says without looking up. “It’s sad somehow, almost melancholy. I can never eat it, really.”

“Darling, I don’t think you’re getting laid enough. When a piece of cheese in Saran Wrap makes you cry, you know it’s time.”

“Michael’s coming back soon.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. I never know until the day before. He doesn’t know himself usually.”

“Oh, please , let him feed that one to his wife.”

It is true. Michael never knows his schedule. Suzy has no doubt about it. But she does not protest when Caleb rolls his eyes. It is more fun that way, to pretend that the man who is cheating on his wife is also cheating on his mistress. Michael left three messages today. He sounded irritated, impatient, the way he gets when she is not where she is supposed to be.

Hey, pick up the phone, I know you’re there.

Then, Suzy, pick up the fucking phone, where the fuck are you?

Finally, Suzy, babe.

She’d left the court by four, but did not arrive home until half past six. She had not planned it. It was an impulse. She was on the Number 4 train, a downtown express from the Bronx, forty minutes maximum. The familiar drone announced Grand Central. Change here for the 5, 6, 7, and the shuttle to Times Square. Watch out for the closing door! It was the Number 7 that stuck out at her. Flushing-bound, passing through inner Queens, which she used to take to visit home from college. She got out almost automatically. Grand Central. A little past five in the afternoon. Its crowd heading to Metro North instead of the Long Island Rail Road, to upstate New York, the mountains and rivers instead of the ocean. Grand Central was more civilized, its corporate-sponsored orchestra playing Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. The fresco of constellations on its vaulted ceiling shone in lime green with freckles all over, as though these comings and goings made sense, a divine sense. It must make the commuters feel better, to rush along with the universe hovering above. That’s why Suzy preferred the drab Penn Station, where a commute remained a commute, a train a train, nothing more, nothing even remotely artistic or celestial.