Esmé Wang - The Border of Paradise

“Hello,” Marianne said. She seemed as though she had just woken from an unsatisfying but much-needed nap.

They were in the same room now. Daisy came in and stood next to me, while Marianne sat on the sofa with her knees tightly pressed together, one hand atop the other in her lap. Daisy looked at me. “This is who?” she asked.

Marianne told my wife her name, and said that she was an old friend.

“Ah,” Daisy said.

“This is Daisy,” I said to Marianne. “Sweetheart,” I added, “could you please go play with William? I need to speak to Marianne alone.”

Daisy squeezed my arm, hard. “Okay,” she said.

When she left the room Marianne said, “She doesn’t know, does she?” and I was aware that my wife might be in the hallway, listening.

“No,” I said.

“I didn’t think so.”

“No.”

She rested her hand on her belly in a way that I recognized from my wife long ago, so that Marianne didn’t have to say it, but she said it anyway: “I’m pregnant, David.”

“Oh,” I said, and I had no excuse for two fools who had hoped themselves untouchable.

She said that she had left the convent. I did not say the word procedure, though that was what came to mind. I knew that she would never have one, regardless of whether she was in the convent anymore.

She looked like something that had been hollowed out and stuffed with wet feathers.

She said again that she didn’t know what to do.

And yet in my state I could think only about what the baby would look like. It would be a girl, and she’d be beautiful. But what did that matter to Marianne, who was pregnant and seated before me, whom I still loved and wanted to embrace in joy as the mother of my child?

“I’ll give you money,” I said. “I’ll write you a check right now.”

Marianne looked around the room, taking in her surroundings with her hand still resting on her belly. I realized that my checkbook was in the kitchen, and I didn’t want to leave the living room if Daisy was spying in the hallway. I preferred to remain ignorant, and the pregnancy was enough to contend with. Instead I reached for my wallet and sifted through it. There were five twenty-dollar bills, which I gave to her, and then I asked, “Where are you staying, if not at the convent?”

She said that she had just left the convent that day and had nowhere to go. I realized that she had come in with no suitcase and was likely to have no possessions. I had no idea who it was that had driven her to my home, or how she had determined my location. She was in my home because she’d earned the right, through my poor judgment, to trespass.

“I’ll write you a check right now,” I said, though I had said the exact same words before, and then I got up and barreled into the hallway, where Daisy stood illuminated by the hallway light. I avoided her eyes. I walked past her into the kitchen. As I sifted through the drawer where I kept my checkbook, my hands were fluttering of their own accord, reminding me of Matka’s winglike hands with their long fingers, and my mind spun with how fucked up everything was and what would my mother think? No matter what I did — even if I spent the rest of my life performing acts of goodness — here would always be the fact that I’d ruined Marianne’s life; perhaps worse, and selfishly, there would be an emptiness in me that could not be filled by anyone but Marianne.

I took the checkbook and Daisy was not in the hallway, but Marianne was still in the living room.

I said, “I’ll write you a check for…” and I scrambled for a number that seemed appropriate, but what was an appropriate number for this type of situation, anyway? It seemed farcical. “… four thousand dollars. You can find somewhere to stay for a while.”

She took the check, not looking at it, and stuffed it into her dress pocket.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“I went to St. Joseph’s,” she said, “and found someone who could drive me.”

She was so beautiful. I had to let go of her now, truly; I have had to let go of her and everything else.

“Is there anything else you need?” I asked. “Is there anything at all that I can do for you?”

There was a long silence.

Marianne crossed the room. As she passed me I smelled the dark odor of her body, and a lingering trail of the oil from her hair, but neither of us made the effort to touch. I heard the wooden door open, and then the screen door. I heard both doors shut, and with the sound of their closing I didn’t allow myself to cry. Instead I went to the sofa and sat. I waited for Daisy to come. I am sitting now and waiting for — I’m not quite sure what I’m waiting for.

I have one last story. Jia-Hui and I were in the firefly village on the outskirts of Kaohsiung, where the ponds and banana trees were plentiful, and where my blood was being sucked out of me by mosquitoes that whirled and wheedled everywhere we went. It had taken more than two hours of walking to reach this village. I’d found the trip eerie; unlike the ramshackle, noisy, cosmopolitan Kaohsiung, the borderlands of the city were silent, and we heard nothing but our own footsteps as we traveled. The firefly village was far, Jia-Hui had said, because the bugs with blinking lights could not meet where there were so many people.

“Here there are many kinds,” she said, meaning the fireflies. “They come different times.”

And yet I didn’t see any as we stood on a small bridge, staring into the darkness with her small hand in mine. I supposed aloud that perhaps the recent rain had something to do with it. Maybe, I said, the fireflies wouldn’t come out if it had been raining.

“No, no,” Jia-Hui said, “firefly use umbrella.” She let go of my hand to mimic opening an umbrella over her head, and I laughed. She was going to marry me. I didn’t know what had changed her mind, but she would be mine.

She’d wanted me to see the firefly village before flying to New York the next day. It was important, she said, for me to see the most beautiful thing in her country before we left it and got married in my country. In the meantime, I was still trying to think of a fitting American name for her. I thought something floral might be appropriate.

A spark. A shimmer. “See”—as the world lit up around us—“so, so much firefly,” Jia-Hui said.

Amen.

Years ago I was putting William to bed when someone came to our home, but no one ever did, not then and not now. The three of us lived far from the nearest neighbor, miles up the mountain from town, and the voice seemed like nothing. But then I heard David. He said, “Marianne.” After William settled in, I came into the living room and there was a white woman in a brown dress, sitting on the sofa with her hands in her lap. She introduced herself as Marianne.

“This is Daisy,” David said. “Sweetheart, could you please go play with William?”

“Okay,” I said, but I didn’t. I went to the hallway instead, and I listened with my big ears. This is how I learned that the flat-bellied woman carried his baby inside of her. When I heard this, I quickly gathered my senses. I said to myself, You can’t shatter open. Instead of crying, I stumbled to the kitchen and made chamomile tea. When the water boiled I pressed my finger against the hot kettle, and I left the finger there for a few seconds before removing it. The skin was then bright pink, and a shape lifted from the flesh to form a proud, puffy blister. I sat with my teacup at the table and lifted it to my mouth. My tongue burned to sandpaper, which shocked me out of numbness. So what was this? What did it mean, to be woken to this life here?