Suki Kim - The Interpreter

Between the hills emerges a face. An exquisite face behind a chunk of hair. The eyes seem familiar, such sad eyes, they bring tears to her own. The lips are painted in red, so opulent that it hurts to look at them. The fingers between the strands are painfully delicate; she wants to gather them in her palms and kiss each fingertip. Such a luminous face that there must be night surrounding it.

What remains is the heat that will not let go. What remains is the girl who will not lie still. The girl who remembers nothing.

Four rings.

The phone’s been ringing all night.

On the wooden floor, next to the futon, are several banana peels and an empty bottle of water. Someone must have carried her up the stairs. Someone must have found the key in her coat pocket. Someone must have laid her feverish body on the futon. Someone must have put the hot towel on her forehead and watched her fall asleep before slipping out the door. Bananas and water. Enough to keep her afloat for days. Bananas; she has no recollection of chewing through their yellow meat.

Who was it?

Damian?

Grace?

It’s been days, she is sure of it. A flood of sunlight poured in through the cracks between the blinds, only to slide away several hours later. A clock radio clanged with the familiar 1010-WINS chime. Doors have slammed at consistent intervals, as though the neighbors leave for work at the same time only to return exactly eight hours later. Cats meowed just around midnight, serenading the moon. Even in her deepest exhaustion, she was surprised that such things signaled the passing of time with an astounding accuracy.

But the heat is insufferable.

Now comes another face. The same black hair. The same heartbreaking eyes. The same pursed lips, across which a finger makes a cross to say hush. Now two where there was one. Two identical faces floating parallel. It is not clear which one was first. Upon a closer look, they no longer seem identical. A slight incongruence, although it is impossible to pinpoint what. She thinks she recognizes the one on the left. She is almost certain that one of them is her own, but which? She keeps turning from one to the other. What could be more terrifying than failing to identify one’s own face?

White is the color of sadness.

A premonition.

A creepy joke.

Each dried-up bulb is her mother watching.

Dead inside.

Like fucking a ghost, Michael grunted after their first night.

The phone startles her again. The exactly four rings, beckoning her from the world outside. Michael is there. So is Damian. Detective Lester. Kim Yong Su. All those Korean immigrants whom her parents had betrayed, who gathered together one morning to plot their murder. The only way they can get to her now is by dialing the seven-digit number. Instead of whispering her name, instead of kissing her face so gently, they must dial the number first. They must keep on dialing to catch her. She is no longer nineteen. She’s learned a trick or two. She’s buried herself between the hills from which the faces look on a girl drowning. No one will find her here. A perfect hideout.

But wait, there’s someone else. Who’s over there by the lighthouse, reading a book? What’s she reading? The one book in the world to ward off the dead? Suzy runs up to her to break the news. Look, she’s about to say. Look what I’ve found out, look what I know now. Look who killed Mom and Dad!

When Suzy opens her eyes, her breath catches at the stillness of the room. The radiator has been banging through the night, steaming in excess. Outside is the creeping blue, the first shade of dawn. She can feel her stomach pulling at her with shocking emptiness, the sort of hunger so raw that it has nothing to do with food. She does not bother switching the light on when she stands before the kitchen sink. Turning the faucet, she puts her hands under the running water. She stands still for a minute or two as her fingers get cold. She lowers her face to drink from the tap before reaching for the glass on the shelf. Just then, as she is turning, the glass slips from her grip. Shards bounce off in all directions, over her bare legs. It is then that she becomes aware of the wrenching noise coming from her throat. All air has been choked out of her. Neither the heat nor the hunger, but an uncontrollable sob from the inside. She crumbles onto the floor, burying her face in her hands, lowering her forehead onto her drawn-up knees. It’s been years since she cried last. It’s been so long that she cannot seem to stop at all.

SUNDAY MORNING IN NOVEMBER. The third Sunday of the month. The Sunday before Thanksgiving. FORT LEE NEW JOY FELLOWSHIP CHURCH. The sign outside looks almost garish, the sweeping gold strokes befitting its status as the largest Korean denomination in New Jersey. Unlike others, who rent their service time from American churches, they actually own their three-story building. It’s been five years since she was here last, or in any church, for that matter. Not since her parents’ funeral. Not since they took away the coffins to the crematorium. Suzy would have preferred open caskets. The decision had already been made when she arrived at the church. Gunshot wounds. Must not have been easy to clean up. Yet she would have liked to see her parents one last time. She would have wanted nothing more, even though the thought scared her. How could she have faced them? What would she have said to them? Grace might have been wise to block the last viewing.

The church appears different somehow. The altar behind which the two coffins had been placed five years ago is now empty, with only the towering candelabra flanking the pillars. The vaulted ceiling scoops high in an uneven angle, as though displaying the relic of an ancient cathedral. The stained-glass windows do not reflect sufficient light; their reds and blues seem to have faded in time. The mahogany pews on either side are filled with faces, mostly young, about Suzy’s age or younger.

The service is in full swing when she finds an empty seat in the back. Three young women are standing on the pulpit singing a hymn. An easy-to-follow tune that seems to repeat the magic words: worship, praise, seek, follow. People all around begin singing along, some clapping, some muttering “amen” over and over. Suzy cannot bring herself to join them, although the words are right there on the hanging screen behind the singing trio. Glancing around the room, she wonders why everyone seems so young. It must be the youth hour. Grace is supposed to be in charge of the Youth Bible Study. Although the oldest members appear to be no more than in their late twenties, many are couples with toddlers. Koreans marry early. A woman is expected to choose her match right out of college. By the time she hits twenty-five, the “old maid” label sticks fast. Over thirty, the best she can hope for is a much older man on the lookout for a second wife.

Now the song seems to be reaching its climax, or just the high-pitched refrain: “Lord, you’re my all, Lord, you’re my joy, Lord, you’re my righteousness.” Suzy cannot recall when she ever believed in anything with such conviction. Damian, she once followed him blindly. But it was love, or at least she thought it was. This church, the Bible— this is all Grace had.

As the choir takes a bow, a short, chubby guy in his early twenties strides up to the pulpit. He introduces himself as Presider Kang. “In charge of this segment of service,” he shouts into the microphone as though he were Phil Donahue following cues from the audience. He reminds her of the Korean boys at Columbia who roamed the engineering building at all hours, carrying bulging bags on their back and dragging their feet as if sleepwalking. They always wore a set of black plastic eyeglass frames and a pair of white Adidas sneakers. As a literature major, Suzy was never brought anywhere near their circle. Yet, each time she saw one of them, she felt such a desperate need to run, as though their heavily accented English, their awkward disposition, their palpable loneliness threatened her own faltering position on that American campus. Their unmistakable Koreanness seemed to spin her right back home.