Chang-rae Lee - The surrendered

“Mrs. Tanner?” said a voice behind her.

It was Min, leaned up on an elbow in his cot. Despite what had happened to his foot he had remained the target of pranks by the three boys who were adopted by the Stolzes. He was the only boy who used to come to the knitting group; he told her he wanted to make a present of scarves for whoever eventually adopted him. The boys kept teasing him and he stopped coming before he could finish, and Sylvie had had to complete the second one for him. But the teasing had still continued, particularly by the just-departed trio. Once she’d had to wash his hair, which was full of ants, as they’d dribbled some syrup in the lining of his cap. Hector made the boys help him shovel out the latrines as punishment.

“You are okay, Mrs. Tanner?”

“I’m checking the fire,” she whispered. “I’m sorry to wake you. Please go back to sleep.”

“I am not sleeping,” he whispered back. “You are cold?”

“I’m fine.” She crouched down beside him, covering her chest and knees with her arms. She realized she wasn’t even wearing a robe over her thin nightgown, that her hair was an unruly, matted mess. It had been nearly a week since she had bathed. “Are you cold?”

He shook his head. She cupped his cheek but he wouldn’t lie down again, his face full of concern. He said, “You are sick, still?”

“Not so much anymore. I feel better.”

“I am happy,” he said. “I am waiting for you yesterday.”

“What for?”

He swung out his legs and quickly ducked beneath the cot and tugged out a canvas bag. From it he pulled two neatly folded scarves, both camel-colored, and handed them to her.

“For you and Reverend.”

“Oh, no,” she said. She tried to give them back but he immediately understood her fear of their implication and so he insisted, if somehow confusingly, “Not for me. Not Min.”

There was stirring, and murmurs from some boys nearby, and Sylvie took one of his blankets from the cot and led him out of the room. It was cold in the vestibule and she wrapped him in the stiff woolen throw, then wound one of the scarves about his neck. She tried to hand him back the other but he pushed away her hands.

“You must keep it, Min. Please. They’ll be wonderful presents, just as you intended.” She paused, carefully measuring his eyes. “Whoever is lucky enough to become your parents will cherish them.”

“No.”

“Please. This scarf can’t be for me.”

“I am not needing them anymore,” he said. “I am staying.”

“For the moment, yes, but not forever. The children who just left, you’ll be leaving someday just as they did.”

“You and Reverend are leaving first.”

“Yes.”

“I know you must go.”

“Yes.”

“I wish they are staying,” he said.

“The other children?”

He nodded.

“Even the boys who left?”

“Yes.”

“Truly? They were not always the kindest. Especially to you. Things will be better now. No more surprises.”

“I don’t care about that,” he said, with a perfect equanimity. “I wish they are not happy. I wish they are here.”

She didn’t know what else to say. He held out the scarf to her and she took it; she wrapped it around her neck. She bent down and hugged him and kissed him on the crown of his head and he suddenly clung to her, his bony little arms strong enough to press painfully against the back of her neck. It surprised her, how much it hurt, like something would fracture, even snap: chalk against chalk. But she didn’t steel a grain of herself, or try to shed him, letting him clamp her with all his might. She lifted up but he wouldn’t let go and he was hardly anything, or else everything; like every child here he was an immeasurable mass, and she cradled him for what seemed a very long time, waiting him out until he was drained of all force. His shoulders sank and then his head lolled on her, like he was suddenly asleep, like he was lifeless, or wanted to be, but when she turned to carry him back inside, gathering the end of his blanket in her free hand so they wouldn’t trip, a flash of pale in the darkened vestibule caught her eye. A hand or half-hidden face. She expected the sharpest glare. But glancing at the girls’ door, she saw there was nothing there, it was fully shut, and she took Min inside and settled him into his cot.

“I’ll keep this for now,” she whispered, tucking the blanket beneath his chin.

“Present.”

“But I’m going to give it back to you.”

To this he shut his eyes.

“Okay? Before we leave. Please promise me.”

But the boy pinched his eyes tighter, and then slipped beneath the covers, making his wafer of a body disappear in the well of the cot.

THE REST OF THAT DAY was the coldest of the year yet. At most forty degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the open skies and the clarifying brilliance of the unimpeded sunlight it seemed only to grow colder as the hours progressed, winds from the north racing intermittently through the compound. In danger of dispersal were the fallen leaves and pine needles all the children had gathered just yesterday into several large piles that were to be collected and composted for the gardening next spring. Reverend Kim, who had arrived mid-morning and given the lunch prayer with Sylvie standing tall beside him with a new woolen scarf banding her throat, idly paged through a newspaper inside the main classroom while everyone else tried to sweep and rake them now into a central, mountainous pile. There were no classes this Saturday, with Reverend Tanner gone.

But as if the winds had some deep objection to their efforts, each time they came close to clearing the ground once again a fierce gust would shoot across and instantly erode the top third of the new pile. The winds died down and they raked quickly, but another hard gust blew through and made a sail of the thin canvas tarp with which they were trying to blanket the pile, the muslin-colored sheet kiting wildly up in the air. It ended up festooning the peak of a short, lone pine at the far edge of the field. In frustration one of the boys gave a feral, guttural shout and ran and dove headfirst into the still-huge pile. He went in practically to his calves. Hector, who had been directing the work silently and joylessly, stepped forward to pull him out, but perhaps on seeing the boy’s feet waving comically, and the children cheering him on, he relented and dropped his rake and let himself fall as stiffly and heavily as a dead man, hands at his sides. The children shouted with joy. A boy followed, next two of the girls, and soon the rest of them were jumping in, paddling and writhing in the crinkly mass of leaves.

Soon even June wanted to take a turn and after waiting for the others to clear out set her feet for the run. There was no cheering as with the others. But Sylvie clapped for her and June sprinted, sliding headfirst into the dispersed pile, which at that point was barely knee-high. When she got up, the knees of her trousers were scuffed reddish from the ground. Her face was tight with a strained smile, and as the others began collecting the scattered leaves to rebuild the pile she drifted away with her arms crossed, her hands tucked tightly in her armpits. Hector tried to see if she was okay but she kept them hidden and walked off. Sylvie caught up with her as she headed toward the dormitory.

“June? Are you all right? Look at your poor trousers.” There were dirt-smudged rips in the fabric and Sylvie knelt and brushed them off. “Are you hurt?”

Sylvie lifted her pant cuff but June drew her leg away, and it was then that Sylvie saw the condition of her hands. They were torn and bleeding, tiny black pebbles embedded in the fat part of one of her palms, a triangular flap of skin on the other roughly peeled back, exposing raw tissue.