Chang-rae Lee: The surrendered

“Oh, sweetie,” Sylvie said, now trying to hug her. “I didn’t need any of it. Not a bit.”

“I have to go,” June gasped, and then pulled herself away, just quickly enough to open the back door and retch onto the ground. It smelled almost good, simply like food, but she coughed up some more. Sylvie was now holding her shoulders as she stroked her back, the hollow feeling in June’s belly strangely confirming to her that this was the state in which she felt most honed, elemental, most purely alive.

“Are you feverish?” Sylvie asked her. “Are you feeling sick, otherwise?”

“No, no,” June said. “I should not eat your dinner. I am sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize for that,” Sylvie said. “Never for that.” They stepped back inside, Sylvie limping but bracing June as if she were the one who needed help walking. She pulled up a stool for herself and had June sit on the edge of the bed. She clasped June’s hands. “I’m glad you came here tonight. We haven’t talked very much of late, have we?”

“No.”

“I’ve missed spending time together.”

June didn’t answer, for she realized she had not come here to speak but rather to hear what Sylvie would say to her, to hear her utter what she of course knew was the truth. Yet all at once June found herself beset by a great flowing rush of tears. She did not feel sad or afraid and yet here she was with her face awash, her eyes burning, its salty run trickling into her mouth.

“Please don’t cry,” Sylvie said, gently wiping June’s face with her hands. “Please, sweetie. You’re going to break my heart.”

June steeled herself, rubbing her eyes. She was not going to falter. She was not going cede to childish need, to weakness. “I am sorry, Mrs. Tanner,” she said, in her clearest voice. “I am fine.”

Sylvie said, “Of course you are. May I tell you something? These months that Reverend Tanner and I have been here, they’ve been the most joyous times in my life. The reason is being with all of you children. There’s nothing else that has given me more happiness, and I’m sure nothing ever will. But above all, most precious to me has been our friendship.”

“What about Hector?” June said, unable to help herself.

Sylvie bowed her head. She looked at June and said, “I’ve done many regrettable things, here as in the rest of my life. I don’t know if I’ll be forgiven. Perhaps you can someday forgive me, but I will not ask you for that. I deserve nothing of the kind. I simply hope you know something about yourself. Early on, I didn’t know if I was being unfair to the other children by spending more time with you. My husband certainly thought I should have gone about things differently. But you have always lifted me up. And I see now how much you’ve grown and changed, in such a short time. I’ve been watching you the last weeks. You’ve been so thoughtful, and kind, and wonderfully willing to help some of the younger girls, and I notice how you’ve now taken Min under your wing. When we were playing the game earlier today, I was so pleased that you wouldn’t let Byong-Ok provoke you. You don’t even seem to have your famous temper anymore! You’ve become the girl I always believed you were. And I know only a small bit of that is because of me. It’s more because of this place, and everyone’s hard work and care, but most of all, it’s because of you. No matter what you do or where you go in this world, your undying spirit will see you through. You have a singular perfection, that way. Nothing will ever halt you. But you should know something else, too. You have a great and passionate heart, June, one as capacious as you are strong. Soon, I know, and forever, it’ll be full of love’s riches.”

Sylvie reached over to the shelf that served as a night table and pulled out a book and gave it to June. “I was hoping that you might like to have this. Would you accept it from me? Would you keep it safe, after Reverend Tanner and I have gone?”

June stared at the thin volume in her hands. It was the one covered in blue cloth, the one of the long-ago battle in the long-ago war. Here was the sole possession of Mrs. Tanner’s she had truly wanted, and had once stolen, and had given back. And so this is what she would have. This was her prize.

“Yes,” she said, gripping it tightly. “Thank you.”

She rose to leave. Sylvie hugged her and almost fiercely held on but June did not yield a hair to the embrace, a breath, even a prickle of her skin. How quickly she could check herself. She was only a child but she was a right hard stone. When Sylvie released her, June did not have to look at the woman’s face to know that it looked as if it had just been struck, brutally smashed.

June left the cottage. In the twilight the children were coming out of the mess hall, chattering and running around in the last weak lamp of daylight. They streamed past her as she carried the tray of empty bowls, the book pinned under one arm, staring at her for a moment and then fluttering by like the tiny, carefree birds that nested in the bushes and small trees around the orphanage and under the eaves of the buildings. During the summer there had seemed to be scores of the mouse-brown wrens perched about, hundreds of them, but now their numbers had rapidly thinned, culled by the growing scarcity of the season. After returning the tray, June watched the other children, and she thought how their numbers were thinning, too, but rather because of their character, or young age, or plain luck, and that those who remained would be only less fortunate, and grow older, simply settle ever deeper into the fixed molds of their selves, the selves that had already been passed over.

When the bell rang once again, the children scattered and dashed about in a final frenzy before being ushered inside by the aunties. June stayed outside in the leading shadow of the darkness. She crouched on her haunches well beyond the far end of the field, right by the rickety gate, her hands and neck and face steadily stiffening in the chill. One of the aunties called out for her and waited for an answer but didn’t call out again. They had become accustomed to not bothering with her. The kerosene lamps were now lighted in the dormitories, the windows aglow on both the boys’ and girls’ sides. In recent weeks she had indeed helped the youngest girls brush their teeth and dress for bed and had even read to them a few times, but tonight she would stay out until she couldn’t bear the cold. Or maybe she would simply remain here, lie down on the hard, gravelly dirt and close her eyes and hope that this would be the night that brought forth winter in its first full, harsh form. She remembered sleeping on the train with the twins, the same icy fingers grasping at them as they had huddled tight, and how she had hoped they might get all the way to Pusan without having to march again, to eat again, without fearing any more misery and privation. It was June’s decision to climb atop the overcrowded train. Since that night she had often wondered if it would have been better to wait for the next one, or to have taken their chances on foot, or else steered the twins and herself far off the main road without any provisions and simply waited for the one merciful night that would lift them away forever. The twins would not have suffered and she would not be here now. For what had surviving all the days since gotten her, save a quelled belly? She had merely prolonged the march, and now that her new hunger had an altogether different face, it was her heart that was deformed, twisting with an even homelier agony.

She was just about to lie down on her side when a kerosene lamp emerged from the main dormitory door, swinging to and fro. From the clipped gait she could tell that it was Min. She didn’t move or speak, and she could see him stepping back and forth in the dark, lifting up the lamp to try to see. He headed back to the building but a wind whistled past the sign at the top of the arch and the sound made him turn around and venture out past the field. He must have seen her shape against the thin lines of the gate door, for he lowered the lamp and approached her quickly.