Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

As the youngest chief of emergency medicine the Charter medical center had ever appointed, Vikram Upendra seemed to have already attained an enviably advanced status. He lived in a smartly outfitted two-bedroom apartment in a top condo development in the village. He spent liberally on hi-tech athletic clothes and specialized kitchenware and the globals he took for long weekend vacations with his girlfriend, Ludmilla, a crack management consultant who literally never stopped working and whom he practically only saw on late-night calls from her hotel in some far-flung locale, the padded headboard behind her ever different but enough the same, too, for him to feel comfortable if they felt like getting intimate.

The last time they were physically together for more than a few hours was in the private sleep suite they got upgraded to on the global back from Angkor Wat, this a full two months before. And although they agreed and understood that they were committed to not being serious, quite recently she had recommended that if they were to get married it should be in the near to mid term, if only, as most other young professionals did (he was thirty-two, she twenty-seven), to pair up and pool resources early in order to borrow enough for a starter villa and begin accumulating wealth for the countless expenses a typical Charter family must incur. Charter property and income taxes are curiously negligible but everything else, from refuse pickup to primary school tuition to the neat bundles of kale and rainbow chard, carries a dear price. He didn’t disagree with her assessment but both were too busy to pursue the issue, tabling it for their next holiday.

It was the fact that Ludmilla was never actually around that allowed Vik to even consider Fan’s startling request, which she made after the tumult of Four’s and Five’s admission and initial treatment at the medical center. The two of them had watched the girls get rolled through the doors of the intensive care ward, and Vik, now ready to go home, casually offered to give Fan a ride back to Miss Cathy’s or wherever else she wished — he’d noticed how the woman had literally looked the other way when Fan left the villa with him and the EMTs. Once they were in his coupe, he waited for her to speak and in the awkward pause he must have been unconsciously hoping for some nearby direction because when she said, May I stay with you today? he didn’t even flinch, clicking the car into gear and pulling away.

At his condo he showed her the full bath and the linen closet by the front door and how the loveseat in the study/second bedroom pulled out into a bed, and even though it was still daytime, he then simply retired to his bedroom for a nap; he had been up for two days. Fan sat in the living room, taking in the rest of the place, which looked to her just like the Charter homes in the evening programs, lined by burnished wooden and metallic and stone surfaces with hardly anything else in the way of decoration or objects. She heard the shower in his en suite bathroom start and cease and then a murmur of his quick conversation with someone and finally his snoring, which was wheezy but low and chesty.

She then washed her own face and hands and feet, pausing to examine herself in the mirror before pulling on the nightshirt one of the Girls had packed for her. Her belly looked fuller, but the rest of her had filled out ever so slightly, too, which made it seem less prominent. She certainly felt a thickening, as if she were lined inside with dense icing, and as oddly healthful and happy as this made her feel, she was also struck by how suddenly drained she could get for no reason at all. Her body now had its own aims, flipping on and off new switches. She quickly made up the loveseat bed. She wasn’t planning to sleep, but lulled by the steady saw of the young doctor’s snoring, she drifted off — she had not gotten much sleep herself — without any dreaming, at least until she was sure she was back at her row house in B-Mor with the scent of cooking from down in the kitchen funneling straight up to her room via the air shaft of the stairs.

When she awoke, she was drooling. It was now dark outside, the only light coming from beneath the study door. When she opened it, Upendra was at the prep space of the open kitchen, where he was now preparing some food. She came out and sat on one of the stools set before the counter cooktop. She could see he was making mapo tofu, something he no doubt figured a B-Mor would like. He had also steamed some jasmine rice and had a small pot of chicken broth on simmer.

Are you as hungry as I am?

Fan nodded.

He ladled broth into a coffee mug for her. It was rich and chickeny, gingery and salty, too, and although it was hot, she couldn’t help but take full sips of it, not caring that the soup was half scalding her tongue. She wasn’t scared that he might have laced it, either, for of course she was the one who had asked to be here. But it wasn’t simply that. She had seen how forceful he had been at the medical center in commanding the staff, who at first were confused and perhaps even reluctant about what to do with such keeperless patients. He had them care for the girls like they were any deserving Charters, glaring at one of the doctors who seemed to balk, ordering batteries of tests for Four, then hooking Five up to a breathing machine himself.

He’d even assured the sour-faced medical director that he would cover the costs, which at that moment was still a possibility, for Miss Cathy had merely deferred in having them transported, never specifically agreeing to anything, and of course had not accompanied them. The medical director said she would hold him responsible, and it impressed Fan how unstinting Vik was, how duly fixed — an appreciable tilting of his head, an upcurl of his bottom lip. Aside from his studious, painstaking manner, he was otherwise, from what she had witnessed, squarely decent and kind. He did not seem devious or sneaky or lecherous, signs of which she was by now extra-vigilant for, given all she had endured.

When the dishes were ready, he set two places side by side at the counter. She finished two full plates and half of a third, every motherly cell of her leaping, yawing wide like a starved mouth. For dessert he peeled and sliced a pear, and after they finished that, she must have looked unsatisfied, because he offered her some ice cream. He spooned her two large scoops. When she was finally done, she took a deep breath and realized he had been closely watching her the whole time, as one might do when feeding a stray cat.

I will leave in the morning, she told him, mistaking his silent regard for disdain.

Whatever you like, he said. Nobody is your keeper. Do you know where you’ll go?

She wondered if her brother’s house was similar to this one. But she still didn’t know where it was. Where he was. Or Reg. She touched her hand to her middle.

You’re pretty far from B-Mor, he said. But you don’t want to go back there, do you?

She shook her head.

Well, you can do what you want. There’s the extra room and I’m hardly here. But I don’t mind either way.

Okay, she told him.

Okay, he answered. During the meal, he had asked various questions about her life, though unlike Sewey or Mala or Miss Cathy, Vik was clearly familiar with the basics of settlements such as B-Mor; he focused mostly on the particulars of her work in the tanks, being more curious about the details of the fishery, its engineering and operational processes, than her personal experiences or feelings about the job. It was the same with his probing of her household, his queries having to do with the number of floors and rooms in the house, and how its members were situated, depending on age and family relation. Unlike everyone else she’d met the last few weeks, he seemed to know how old she really was. He did not ask why she had left, or where else she had been before finding herself imprisoned on the other side of the village at Miss Cathy’s.