Chang-rae Lee - The surrendered

Hector didn’t answer her, but Nicholas did, surprising them all by telling her to go away. His face was swollen, his lip puffed and cut. His entire head of hair was sopping with sweat and he was breathing heavily. Laura was still yelling at Hector and not listening but Nicholas now screamed at her, cursing her, so cruelly and profanely dismissing her that one could believe he could have slit her throat in a slightly different moment. She stepped back, horrified, incredulous, perhaps waiting for him to explain himself or try to amend his words, and Bruno took it upon himself to take her by the arm and accompany her home. But she wouldn’t let him touch her and she began cursing Nicholas in Italian, stomping on his legs, trying to kick Nicholas in the groin, spitting at him, Hector collaterally receiving a part of her fury, which was no doubt trebled by what she had likely suspected of Nicholas from the beginning but had not heeded and was now wretchedly taking the full measure of. Finally Bruno was able to corral her and lead her away, though she kept her eye on him as they went, as if she were still unsure of what had occurred, wondering if Nicholas might still call for her, say everything was a mistake, that nothing was what it seemed.

“Get the hell off me,” Nicholas cried, getting up after they had gone. “Get off me!”

Hector did, pushing him forward with a firm hold on his shoulder.

“Where are we going?”

“To the hotel.”

“The traveler’s checks are already gone. I sold them, to pay my debts. I’ve got a couple of hundred from the cash you gave me, that’s all.”

“Give it over.”

“Those checks were mine, you know, she said they were mine.”

Hector punched him hard in the kidney, Nicholas buckling as if he’d been shot.

“What the fuck?” he groaned, down on one knee. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Here, here, just fucking well take it!” He threw Hector his wallet. “Now leave me alone.”

“You’re coming with me,” Hector said, lifting him up by the shirt collar.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he cried, struggling to keep up as they walked. “I’m not him. I’m not her son.”

“I know.”

“You want to know my name?”

“Isn’t it Paul?”

“That one’s fake. It’s Nick.”

“Nick?”

“That’s right. Isn’t that a laugh?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

“But what for? She must know I’m not him.”

“You’ll tell her where Nicholas is.”

“She knows where he is! He’s dead. He’s been fucking dead since last year. We were decent enough mates, I suppose. He was a pretty good player, really. Maybe a little soft, a little too nice where our marks were concerned, but I was getting him into shape. We were getting to be a fantastic duo, really. We were up at some nouveau lord’s hall in Sussex. Full of primo stuff. But Nicholas fucking fell off a horse and broke his leg and in the hospital a clot got up into his lung and killed him.”

“But you’ve been writing to her as him.”

“Just once. But she kept on, like he was alive. Didn’t she know? So I wrote back, and was flooded with letters from her, saying this and that. How sorry she was for treating him like dirt all his life. Well, boo hoo. I wrote that it was okay. I wrote that I forgave her. I forgave her for him, and that’s all it took. And when I answered that I had her book, she sent a lot of money. Lucky for me. I had kept it only because Nicholas always had it with him.”

“What book?”

“Some stupid book about an old battle up north, in Lombardy. I stopped there, actually, when I first got to Italy. Nicholas said it was a special place. But it was nothing much, in my view. I half hoped there was something to be got there.”

“You still have it?”

“The book? What if I do? What’s it worth to you?”

“You’ll see.”

“Why have a go at me? I only gave her what she wanted. What the fuck do I care, if she wants to pretend? She was still pretending when I saw her this afternoon.”

Hector pictured her there, this ripple in the bed, talking to the blur holding her hand, the blur riding her conscience and memory.

“How about giving me back my wallet, then, huh? If she doesn’t care, why should you?”

But Hector thought he did care, and in a way that surprised him, and with a sudden, furious grip on the back of Nick’s neck he made him march, march to wherever his apartment was, and then march to the hotel.

“What do you want? What else is there? For God’s sake, I’ve told you all there is!”

Hector didn’t answer, for there was nothing more he needed to know. Nothing more June needed to know. And yet he felt it would be best if her son Nicholas made a final visit with her. Brought a lemon ice for her parched throat. Returned her book. Sat with her for as long as she could manage, him telling her all she wanted to hear.

IN THE DAYS AFTER SHE SLEPT tucked beside Sylvie, June crept about quietly as she dusted in the cottage, departing without saying a word. Sylvie was distant and distracted, staying and reading in the bedroom while June did her chores in the front, and then whenever she was outside it seemed she would allow herself to be surrounded by other children, who instantly formed about her like a buzzing hedge. June was afraid that she had somehow defiled their bond, had imperiled everything she had been planning. She didn’t dare ask if she could stay overnight again, not wanting to remind Sylvie in the least of what might have happened.

For what had happened? She wasn’t sure herself, save for the imprint of Sylvie’s body on her hands, the arid, smooth skin that had been almost burning to the touch, if perfectly stilled, solid, this live ingot. It was only at night, in the girls’ dorm room, well after the lights were extinguished and the other girls finally fell asleep after their incessant chattering, when she was on the threshold of slumber herself, that a seam of pressure pushed up through the trunk of her body, this ache coursing through her arm and to her hand, and which made her reach again for Sylvie, though there was only herself. Throughout the bunks there was stillness, but in her own cot there would be movement, shifting, the tiniest travel in the cot’s metal feet, and in the morning she’d awake enervated and bewildered and loathing herself yet again for pushing away the only person she loved. Her desire, she could see, was only ruining her chances for the future. She must only be a good daughter. She knew the grip of her thoughts had better be as steely as ever, as though she were alone again on the road, when her body was wild with hunger, every last cell of her about to burst in all directions with its emptiness but her mind furiously gripping at the rails. She had to be the implacable train. The unswerving force. She must do whatever she had to, to keep moving ahead.

One night, when June thought Tanner was still away, she’d awoken by habit in the early hours and peered outside to check for any lamplight from the cottage and on seeing a faint glow stole to the back to see if Hector was there. She crept beneath the window along the wall and listened for any sounds. The night air was frigid but she held herself tightly so as not to shake. But it was Reverend Tanner’s voice-he must have returned very late, contrary to plan, perhaps even to check on her-and to June’s surprise he was speaking without a stitch of suspicion or anger, in fact quite tenderly, his voice a high, soft reed.

“You’re only thirty-four, dear. Other women we know have had children as late as that. My mother gave birth to my brother at thirty-six.”

“Dorothy had six of you, before him.”

“She lost several, too, you know.”