Suki Kim - The Interpreter

“Then she told me she was getting married. She said that it was a secret from everyone, more like eloping, because they wanted to do it quietly, especially with her parents gone. Of course, everyone remembers about her parents. I asked her then whom she was marrying, although I’ve heard about the guy picking her up in a fancy car lately, which I have to say I found inappropriate, these young people showing off money, especially on public-school grounds. She told me not to worry, ’cause he was like a new family for her. I asked her if he had a proper job, which concerned me, you know, since he’d been coming around in the middle of afternoons. She said that he was in the music business, which I found odd. I can’t remember why I found it odd, but I did. She then said that she was planning to announce it when she came back, but until then I was the only one she was telling. Poor girl, she was still crying. My heart just went out to her, a single girl getting married finally, without a family to help her, it must be overwhelming.” Ms. Goldman’s eyes flicker at Suzy, as if she blames her for Grace’s tears, as if asking, Where the hell were you when she needed you? Then she quickly adds, “So I felt sorry for her and told her that I’d take over her class, just for two weeks, though, not any longer!”

Grace.

Married.

It never occurred to Suzy.

Surely one of them would marry first, someday with someone. Yet Suzy never thought of it. Suzy never imagined that Grace would one day start a new family. But why go away to do it? Why in secret? Why would Grace suddenly confide in this woman?

“Did she leave any contact address or number? His phone number, or his name, anything about him?” Suzy can just about muster the question. There’s the sudden loosening, the hollowness inside.

“No, I thought of getting an emergency number, but then I thought it would be better to leave the girl alone through this. Let her have this moment, I said to myself.” Ms. Goldman lifts her chest a little, as though she is touched by her own magnanimity, and then she whispers, as if she just remembered, “I know nothing about him, although, when I asked her if his family minded the wedding being so sudden, she told me that he was alone too. What a lonely wedding, I thought, and asked her how come he was so alone, and she said that he was an orphan, just like her.”

Ms. Goldman is now studying Suzy a bit closer, contemplating her hair, all stringy from the sink water, and her overcoat still wrinkled from the bus. Too bad , her eyes seem to be saying. A sister? You don’t quite measure up to Grace Park, do you?

Before Suzy thanks the woman, she writes down her own phone number and hands it to her. “Just in case Grace gets in touch,” she tells her. “She’s all I’ve got.”

Although she is the one who insisted on sparing no more than fifteen minutes, Ms. Goldman appears to be in no hurry to end their conversation. It’s probably been the biggest drama in this whole week of her otherwise single, paper-grading teacher’s life. As though still jittery from all the excitement, Ms. Goldman knocks over the mug while getting up from her seat. Instantly there’s brown liquid everywhere, spilling over Ms. Goldman’s tan PBS tote bag and the piles of papers. Suzy immediately reaches over and pushes the papers off the table.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, did it get to your coat? Let me go find some tissues.” Ms. Goldman scowls, running to the kitchen.

Too bad the mug was full. Ms. Goldman never even touched it.

Squatting on the ground, Suzy begins picking up the papers. Essays for the ESL class. Each cover sheet bears the student’s name followed by “Miss Grace Park,” underlined. Strange to see Grace’s name typed so neatly. Then “ Assignment #3 ” in italics, many with a single “s,” which seems to be the common spelling error. It is then that Suzy notices their titles. “MY PERFECT HOUSE,” says one. “MY SWEET FAMILY,” says another. Slowly, Suzy surveys the papers strewn around her. They are all about one thing. The glorifying, larger-than-life capital letters celebrating home. “MY AMAZING FATHER.” “MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER.” Then, finally, “MY GOOD SISTER.”

THE WATER looks burnt again. The color of weak coffee, twice run through a filter. It’s not good for a bath. She should not be lying in it.

On some days, the water turns strange. Something about the rusted pipes and the clogged drain. When it first happened, Suzy called the super in panic. Wait a few hours, he told her, groggy from a nap. The clear water did come back, about seven hours later. Suzy waited, eyeing the pile of dishes in the sink and the empty pitcher of Brita on the table. It kept happening, though, every few months, only just as she’s stepping into the shower or about to rinse the toothpaste out of her mouth. She has never gotten used to the burnt water, which has become a source of mystery. Why should it happen? What’s going on inside the pipes? She asked Michael about it once. He had no idea. He’d never lived in an old tenement. Pipes? he asked. What do you mean by “burnt”? Suzy changed the subject. She didn’t want to get into it. She would have to invite him over if she wanted to explain better. But that seemed wrong, Michael in her apartment. He would look awkward. He wouldn’t fit.

She sinks lower. The tub is so small that she has to bend her knees to get her shoulders wet. Her body looks almost tanned under this water, like the bikini-clad blonde from this morning’s billboard. From the minute she got out of the bus at Port Authority and into the taxi downtown, she was desperate to reach her apartment. She ran up the stairs. She was trembling when she stepped inside. But the water that trickled out of the tap was hazy brown. She jumped into it anyway. She lay in it. It seemed necessary.

Already, Fort Lee feels distant. Not even noon yet. The whole day before her.

Grace.

Detective Lester.

Mr. Lee.

Kim Yong Su, the guy out in Queens, as if half the Koreans do not live in Queens. Where has she heard that name before?

The water is cushiony, almost velvet. She must be imagining it. Her headache is lurking. She recalls the girl who thought that English was a headache-inducer. Why would Grace tell her that? Where did Grace go? Did she stop in Montauk to see her parents one final time before the wedding? Did she sail out into the sea for their permission? Would Grace fill her wedding with white flowers, as she had the funeral? Would she stand tall and make a vow, not once breaking into tears?

Suzy has never imagined herself married. By the time Damian’s divorce was finalized, it was too late. They never brought up marriage. For Damian, it reminded him of Yuki Tamiko and the life he’d left. Suzy felt it was wrong. She kept hearing her father’s last words. Whore, hers was the life of a whore. Marriage was never an option, which might have been why she chose Damian.

Suzy saw Professor Tamiko just once more, at the Greenwich Village apartment that belonged to Damian’s friend who was out of town on sabbatical. It was Suzy’s first day there. She had not quite intended to move in, although she arrived with a suitcase. Now it occurs to her that he might have set it up. She had thought then that it must be chance. An awful, unfortunate chance. Yuki Tamiko had known, though. She had seen it coming. She might have wanted to warn Suzy, but she also knew that the younger woman would never listen. It was the end of January. It had all happened too fast.

They had slept together once. Back in November. Then, right afterward, he was gone. A research trip to Asia. She only found out from reading the Spectator , which ran a small article on the upcoming expansion of the East Asian Wing at the Metropolitan Museum, for which a few experts had been selected to form a research committee. That is where she saw his name. Damian Brisco—Former Chairman of the East Asian Department at Columbia University, Professor of East Asian Art, on leave for the past three years. He was gone, somewhere, some city in China, Japan, even Korea. She could not stand it. He had told her nothing. He had held her afterward. She had lain in his arms, thinking about the blood, thinking it might have stained Professor Tamiko’s sheets. Dusk was setting when they walked to Riverside Park. They didn’t speak much. She was no longer a virgin.