Suki Kim - The Interpreter

“I called the whole fucking day!” He is fuming now.

“Michael, it’s early.” Her head is caving in. She is not up for this battle.

“I’m tempted to just get on the next fucking flight to see you.

He can be such a child, so wildly different from Damian. Is this what Jen meant by “hiding”?

“So why don’t you?”

Suzy is good at handling his moods. That must be why he calls three times in a row. He knows she will never humor him. He knows she will never let him in.

“Four-point-three million, Suzy. Four-point-three fucking million on the line. Germans are fucking snakes. Everything’s all ready to go, and, boom, they need another fucking meeting, another fucking review, another big fucking waste of my time. And I’m fucking stuck here rather than fucking you, tell me the logic.”

Michael hates Germany. He hates almost everything, but he hates Germany more than most things. He thinks all Germans are Nazis and penny-pinchers. Suzy has no idea where his resentment stems from; she’s never quite bothered to ask. He is stuck in Frankfurt and can’t bear it. Thus his petulant mood. Suzy could see Michael lounging at a hotel lobby, a cell phone in one hand, with the other stirring two sugar cubes into his espresso. The top button of his shirt would be undone. No tie, since he would have taken it off immediately upon storming out of the meeting earlier. His feet up on the table. His eyes glancing at the Herald Tribune as he rants into the phone. Suzy suddenly misses him.

“I’ve got my period. We can’t do it anyway.”

That gets the abrupt silence, and then a chuckle. He’s already better, she can tell.

“ Christ, Suzy, is that all you can say?”

“No, there’s more. I also have a pounding headache.” She pops two tablets of Advil into her mouth.

“A hangover?” He sounds doubtful. A bit suspicious, a bit jealous. But all an act, Suzy knows. Jealousy is not a part of their arrangement.

“Umm. I celebrated my twenties, the passing of it, I mean, or that’s what Caleb said at least.” Suzy is grinning. She might still be a little drunk.

“But your birthday is not for another two weeks?”

Of course he would remember. He would probably send her a dozen long-stemmed roses, boxed. He would make a reservation at the Rainbow Room. He would slide across the table a blue Tiffany case in which there would be a set of sparkling diamond earrings. He would do everything so that she would feel the weight of a mistress.

“I began celebrating early. I wanted to be happy yesterday.”

Maybe that’s what Suzy wanted. Maybe that’s why she circled on the Number 7 train for two hours. Maybe she was doing everything she could to stop the gushing sadness. Half the Korean community didn’t exactly shed tears when they heard about his death! Mr. Lee did not spare his words. So many people had hated her parents. One of them might have hated them enough to want them dead.

“Babe, you listening to me?” Michael is shouting. He’s forgotten about her headache.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, save your celebration for me. I said, wait.”

It is a game for Michael, to pretend to claim her. Suzy goes along with it because she knows what happens when it isn’t a game, when the claim is for real, when the claim takes over and plays out. Damian would never have asked her to wait. He would have taken it for granted. He would have expected nothing less. And she would have, almost indefinitely, if he had asked.

“I’ll wait, I promise.”

“ Christ, I’m really fucking dying to see you.”

When Suzy puts the phone down, it is still early, too early for anything. But Grace would be up. She would be getting ready for school. A little after seven. Suzy cannot remember anymore when high school starts, probably eight, or maybe eight-thirty. Teachers always come in before students, or at least they should, although, as Suzy recalls from the schools she attended in Queens and the Bronx, kids were often made to wait for teachers who sometimes didn’t show up at all. Grace wouldn’t be like that. Grace would show up on time. Her lessons would be well prepared, all set to go. Her hair would be neatly trimmed and coifed, and her dark-navy two-piece suit freshly pressed and buttoned. Or at least that’s how Suzy pictures her.

Grown-up Grace, born-again Grace, thirty, the ESL teacher at Fort Lee High School—her only family.

It must be an impulse. Or last night’s alcohol still in her blood. There is no other explanation for such courage, such longing to hear her voice. Suzy begins dialing the number. 7:15 a.m., what is she thinking? There’s the ringing, once, twice. Something lurches inside her. Her heart seems to be made up of tiny wings which all begin to flap at once. The sudden ocean inside. The waves breaking. She can feel the tightening in her throat. They have not spoken in years, not since the funeral, not since she was twenty-four and Grace twenty-five. Suzy keeps counting age, as though each year pushes her farther away from her parents.

The voice that comes on is unexpected.

The computerized operator.

“The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

So Grace has moved once more. Like their parents, she never stays at one address long. Each time Suzy has tried calling her, the operator would come on instead with the new number, which Suzy imagines is a sign, a message from Grace telling her that she has not completely given up on Suzy. Although Suzy also knows that Grace, as a teacher at a public school and a church, needs to have her number listed. But this time, Grace didn’t. Nothing, no further information available. Suzy dials the operator. Grace Park, she insists. I need a number for Grace Park. Yes, the area code 201, Fort Lee, her last name is Park, my sister. The operator tells her, no, nothing; there’s Grace Park in Edgewater, Grace Park in North Bergen, but not in Fort Lee, no one under such a name. Maybe Grace has moved to a town nearby. Maybe she has found a deal in one of those riverfront rentals along the Hudson. 7:30 a.m., not a good time for a wrong number, not surprising that they would hang up: Grace Park? I am Grace Park. I don’t have a sister; you’ve got the wrong person; do you know what time it is? The school, then, she must try the school. Fort Lee High School. Surely the school must be listed. Surely there would be a secretary who would take the call and deliver the message. It is then that the thought flashes across her mind— why not go? Why not just go there, why not tell Grace in person that there might be more to their parents’ death, that it might not have been random after all, that a guy named Lee had known their parents, that another guy named Kim out in Queens might know even more, and that Detective Lester, he called for the first time in five years, he might know something, he might even have found a clue?

But then Suzy is not so sure. Grace would surely just walk away. She would pretend not to have seen Suzy and hop into a car with one of her colleagues. Who’s she? the colleague would ask. No one I know, Grace would answer without once glancing in Suzy’s direction. Worse yet, she might get mad, furious. She might drive off after telling Suzy never to come near her. Do me a favor, Suzy; leave us alone . Those were Grace’s parting words at the funeral.

Suzy throws her coat on anyway. It has not occurred to her that Grace would move without leaving a number, or that Grace might one day become unreachable. It is as if the phone number, or just having the phone number, or the possibility of the phone number, affirms Grace’s presence in Suzy’s life.

The headache seems to be getting worse. A bit of fresh air might not be such a bad idea. Fresh air, who’s she kidding? Fort Lee, a half-hour bus ride from the Port Authority, not the freshest outing. Before she loses courage, she is out on First Avenue, waving down a cab to Port Authority, where the Number 156 departs every twenty minutes.