Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

But this Charter was even better. In fact, it was hard to believe. It was the last gasp of the afternoon as they slowly drove, the sunlight angling through the voluminous hardwood trees, their broad leaves tittering and waving with a coolish breeze, the stately houses and sleek, jazzy condos set well back from the road rather than built right on top of it like our airless, chockablock row houses. There were tallish, attractive people of various races and ethnicities going about (no pets, of course), some striding quickly in fancy exercise clothing, arms a-rowing, some smartly dressed for office work, others carrying little shopping bags full of goodies one couldn’t see. There were nannies, generally darker skinned and squatter, either pushing prams or leading a pack of colorfully jumpsuited toddlers, but they, too, seemed somehow light of heart and tender and happy enough in their mobile sphere of cry and babble. Where the shops were more concentrated it was busier but no less tidy, the windows of the businesses sparkling enough that you had to look twice to see the exquisite displays of women’s bags and dresses or elaborately iced cakes or the mock-up of a luxurious bathroom festooned with speckled soaps looking good enough to eat and towels so fluffed and white they made you want to bathe. It was still too early for dinner but the all-black-clad waiters of the restaurants were setting the outdoor tables with splendid burnished cutlery and massive wine goblets and tastefully spare bouquets of tiny wildflowers, the plush-lined bars within already mirthful with the cocktail hour. She saw the same around every curve, this unbroken continuum of soft, prosperous light and richly textural detail and the unerring sensation that this would be a moment lovely and eternal.

In a word, it was beautiful. A bit unusual, yes, with the living and shopping so fully integrated, but beautiful nonetheless. She hadn’t been hoping for it to be any particular way but she hadn’t been expecting this. It almost made her feel nauseous, but it wasn’t illness so much as an upending awe, neither exactly good nor bad, a state of being she realized she had never experienced back in B-Mor, where routine is the method, and the reason, and the reward.

If Quig and Loreen did not appear to be impressed — they’d seen plenty of Charters before — their lackadaisical attitude was likely due more to their still miserable condition; Quig was driving tentatively enough that he was attracting attention, people on the sidewalk staring at the dusty old-model car with a mismatched wheel that squeaked at low speed, one of them, Fan was certain, now making a dour-faced call to village security. Quig soon turned off the main street and drove through a clearly special neighborhood of single-family homes, all very large but in differing styles (if perhaps designed in the same way behind the façades, with prominent center halls and matching wings for bedrooms and vehicles) and with front lawns completely cleared of trees to afford the fullest view of the homes from the street. There were no fences or walls or gates, everything wide open save for the side yards between the properties, which were left densely wooded.

They found the right house number on the mailbox and went up the driveway, Quig parking before the triple garage doors. It was a Mediterranean-style villa, beige-stuccoed and topped not by stone but terra-cotta tiles, and as they stood before the front door, they realized music was being faintly broadcast from speakers hidden in the eaves — a famous aria from an ancient Italian opera, Quig noted. When the door opened, a petite middle-aged woman in a light gray service uniform greeted them. She was clearly expecting them and led them to a suite of bedrooms on the second floor. Quig and Loreen took one room and Fan, to her surprise, was given the other, equally large, which was furnished with a king-sized bed and an overstuffed reading chair and antique writing desk and a bathroom with two washbasins and both a shower and a tub. The soaps and shampoos were arrayed just like in the shop displays, along with cotton balls and swabs and a packaged toothbrush on the vanity, and the thick towels on the tub surround were stacked three high, a child-sized robe splayed out beside them. The helper, named Mala, invited them to wash up and rest before having dinner with Mister Leo and Miss Cathy at eight o’clock.

Fan ran the tub right away, pouring some of the bubble soap into the water, as she’d never tried that before. She stripped off her dirty clothes and looked at herself in the mirror, especially her belly, to see if there was a change. Was there the tiniest bulge? The light was different from when she’d peed on the road, and in the mirror it was evident. She sucked in her stomach and it didn’t go away. Still, she looked mostly like she always did, nothing too out of the ordinary. She was going to brush her teeth — it had been before the Nickelmans when she last did — but a funny feeling crept over her and she quickly slipped into the bubbly water, despite how hot it was. She scanned the ceiling, the seams in the molding, even the artwork on the walls, to see if there was an eye of a vid cam, but she couldn’t find one. When she was done scrubbing and washing her hair under the cover of the bubbles, she plucked the robe while sitting in the water and quickly stood up and put it on.

After cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair, she tried the bed. She was shocked how pillowy-soft it was, so unlike her firm cotton-batting mattress back in B-Mor and about five times as large. She lay down in various orientations and parts of the bed until she got back to the appropriate position, and she was going to shut her eyes for just a minute when suddenly she was slowly floating down a river, past a burning Who Falls Inn, before going over the lip of an artificial ledge into a deep pool, where Trish and Glynnis were swimming. They were splashing and gay, and it was all fine and easy with Fan showing Trish how to stay vertical underwater while keeping her feet above the surface. Quig was not present but for some reason Loreen was, complaining as usual about something from the water’s edge. But the three of them were ignoring her and Fan was on to showing Trish another trick, this one for twirling underwater, when the girl began to sink deeper and deeper. Fan couldn’t understand what was happening but she was sinking herself, or more like being drawn toward the bottom with greater and greater force, just like what happened to Joseph. Fan was a strong swimmer and could just escape the flow, but Trish couldn’t resist and dropped away into the depths. Fan let herself get drawn down right after her, and when she neared the bottom, she saw Glynnis pressed against a very wide metal grate, already drowned. Trish was stuck against the grate, too, fiercely struggling, and Fan kept trying to pull her from the main drag of the flow but it was no use. The poor girl couldn’t hold her breath any longer and opened her mouth, her body instantly rebelling against the water filling her lungs. She relented; then she was gone. Fan let herself get drawn in, too, and though she knew she could hold her breath a while longer, she was thinking maybe she should just give up, let the water cool the burning inside her lungs, when the flow suddenly ceased and she floated upward to the surface, Loreen’s voice coming clearer.

It’s quarter to eight, Loreen was saying, looming above Fan as she lay in bed. It’s time for dinner. Loreen said to get dressed right away. She looked mostly recovered, her face no longer so terribly pale like soap, and having washed and combed her hair and put on a beaded necklace, she looked almost glamorous, even with the shapeless, smocklike dress she was wearing. As Fan changed in the immense walk-in closet (into clothes Penelope had given her for the trip, a simple blouse and long skirt borrowed from another family), Loreen reminded her how important this meeting was, for Mister Leo was going to give them the geno-chemo Sewey needed, as well as the drilling equipment for the compound. When Fan stepped out, Loreen had her sit beside her on the bed, so she could brush Fan’s hair. Loreen took her time, running the brush gently through her short locks and pinning up one side and the other and then both, finally pulling all the pins and brushing her hair out again.