Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

This last fact sounds most unsavory, as well it should; there is nothing laudable about it. And yet it must be noted that no decree came from Quig. He was not the sort of man, it turned out, to force himself on anyone, which he could have easily done. Nor was there any punishment for not making a visitation. The practice arose on its own, and from the women themselves, a schedule drawn up each month by Loreen. It is not certain that he even liked the practice, for often enough one of the women would go up to the main house on her appointed night and come right back again. According to Sewey, Loreen had not been with him that way for many years, though she would still sometimes harangue him to take her into his suite, if only to remind him of her willingness. If there was anyone who was allowed to stay whenever she went up to the main house, it was Eli’s mother, Penelope, who was tall and slender, bone pale like her son though not as freckled, and then quite young. She didn’t look like a counties person, her prettiness not yet worn away. But it seemed it was her whole person that he favored, for she always had to take along one of the handscreens with her, apparently so they could discuss whatever book in its memory they were reading together, and then it wasn’t every time that she would spend the night.

On those that she did, Sewey and Fan stayed over with Eli and his siblings. The three boys would sleep in one bed, with Fan in Penelope’s bed with the little girl, though all of them were pretty much jumbled together. We can only imagine how it must have been for our Fan, to be in such close quarters with children who could bathe only infrequently, if ever, their innate creaturely sweetness masked by layers of dried sweat and grime, nibs of soured grease clinging to the corners of their mouths. She must have become quickly accustomed to that sharp stink, and nestled down as she did without concern for the rampant bedbugs and lice to lie together like dogs in a den, with air just enough to breathe. The little girl, Star, clung fast to her all night, a slick of her drool settling in the well of Fan’s throat, but Fan didn’t mind or even move; in fact, she went half limp, inviting the girl to embrace her even more. And surprisingly, Fan was not thinking of the child growing inside her, for though she well knew that it existed, it was still purely a figment for her, a vague promise of something that made her think of Reg instead of some specklike being, an image of her lover rendered with a blunted glow, like a portrait done in memorial mode. Fan was not sentimental, we can say that now for certain, her blood running the same temperature as the cool waters of the tanks, and yet here she was encased in the humid nest of these shallow-breathing children with their limbs and hair splayed messily about her, and wishing simply that Reg was with them, his endless arms bundling them all tight. She did not, in fact, miss the people of her household, even though they were her beloved, this including her mother and father, who were perfectly fine parents but no more nor less dear to her than her aunts and uncles, her nieces and nephews and in-laws, for in essence everybody was like a cousin, which is the way we wish it, and so cast it, which is how we are certain B-Mor functions best.

She realized that if she did miss anything it was the household itself, the narrow, high-ceilinged rooms whose air was layered with the aromas of stale cooking oil and the earthy gas of the trooped footwear lined up inside the front door, the tall windows onto the opposing row houses more like mirrors than clear panes, the treads of the steep stairwells worn down in the middle by generations of bare and slippered feet. There were people moving about at all hours, snacking or showering or watching programs, and from the rooms of the younger couples, one could sometimes hear the murmurings and cries of passion, reports of B-Mor maybe everlasting, and it was this unitary vitality that was the girding of her feeling, its tireless, self-tuning motor.

Yet here at Quig’s, she was finding herself becoming strangely and particularly attached, of course, to Sewey but also, for example, to little Star, who was slightly walleyed and talked in a stiff, robotic voice but who was magical with figures (she could correctly figure non-whole square roots almost instantly), and to Eli, who in his sleep scolded himself in the voice (presumably) of his deceased father, chiding himself for not being, oddly, more fleet of foot ( Damnit, son, just run! ), and to the other children who stopped by, their grubby mouths of chipped and misdirected teeth grinning madly for nothing other than the arrival of a just-bartered, unopened plastic sleeve of tennis balls, peering at them wide-eyed like they were gigantic furry candies. She was even warming to Loreen, who had accepted the idea that Fan was here to stay, at least as long as Quig was concerned, and had stopped being harsh to her for some consecutive days now, even allowing her to manage the patients’ line by herself when Sewey was laid up for two days with an especially bad fever. And Fan found herself slipping out and trailing Penelope whenever she gathered her things to go up and spend her appointed night in the main house, watching her as she entered Quig’s wing and appeared inside with the handscreen glowing and ready, his long shadow flicking across her face. Was her expression one of well-masked dread? Of hard-feigned interest? Or was it, in fact, a reflection of Fan’s own feeling, this unlikely welling of what she couldn’t help but admit was gratitude, surely measured, but tinged warm all the same?

A few weeks after Fan left B-Mor, while she was making a place for herself in Quig’s compound, the number of us here who were bringing up discomfiting questions had grown to the extent that the directorate even issued a reminder notice about the undesirable nature of nonofficial public gatherings.

A particular incident that occurred in one of the parks may have prompted the general notice. Various sundry B-Mors were enjoying their free-day. There was nothing out of the ordinary, no strange weather blown in, no special anniversary from our history, or anything having to do directly with Fan and Reg.

Apparently, it began with a set of parents and their young boy, who, suddenly tired of the crème-filled wafer cracker he was eating, chucked it into one of the ponds in the park. Ponds grace all of our parks and they are all stocked with fish, not the fast-maturing and easy-eating varieties that are grown for commerce, but rather the more colorful types of grouper and carp that can become immense over time, and are duly admired and prized. They are believed to be wise. These fish are primarily meant to be ornamental but are also inspirational objects, as their majestic way of arcing and gliding through the fastidiously maintained water, accented with picturesque lily pads and stone outcroppings and aeration fountains that are lighted at night, expresses the ideal shape of our exertions.

Every other year there’s a select culling of these fish, with an associated celebration and feast, when all of B-Mor streams out to the various parks and scores of temporary food stalls are set up for deep-frying the flesh and making a special soup from the head and bones that supposedly boosts the blood’s capacity to store oxygen, and which is known as milk broth, though, of course, there is no milk or cream in it. You see everyone walking about with a paper cone of golden-brown fish morsels and a cup of broth, and with the string lights and music coming over the speakers, the festival is one of the most cherished events on our calendar. It goes without saying that we appreciate the symbolism of the ponds and understand the importance of keeping the fishes’ pelletized diet, formulated for optimal health and color, strictly dosed and unadulterated, which means monitoring by us and us alone, a concerted, communal vigilance being always more effective than any round-the-clock workers.