Suicide Club

by Rachel Heng

  “Just reflecting, George,” Lea said, flashing him a measured smile. “Friends, mainly, companionship like what we have. That’s what I’m grateful for. The WeCovery Group.”

  “Of course. And you have lots of friends watching out for you, don’t you?”

  There was no mistaking the note of warning in his voice. Did he know about Todd?

  Suddenly her nerves seemed to light up; her vision narrowed, a white-hot sensation, her fist clenched in her lap. An old, familiar anger. She paused, forced herself to exhale silently, counting to ten. It was that, rather than anything George could possibly say, that made Lea afraid. She exhaled silently, counting to ten.

  Susan was still muttering pitifully. Lea could just about make out something about a puppy: poor puppy was sick, Greg was upset about the puppy, so it was important that she, Susan, was there for them all. The glue that held them together.

  “Of course,” Lea said, still bright. “Friends.” She looked around. Anja, too, was sitting silently on the other side of the circle, the two beside her having turned away, their hunched forms symmetrical as wings.

  Lea dragged her chair across the musty carpet toward Anja. She thought of all the lung-clogging particles and microorganisms being roused from the ground. Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella, she recited mentally.

  “So, how do we do this? What are you grateful for?” Lea was aware of George’s eyes on them, watching and assessing. She strained for the right words, hoping Anja would play along. But her eyes gave nothing away. The way she breathed was unsettling—long pauses between breaths, abrupt, slow intakes of air as if she had suddenly remembered the need.

  “Yes,” Anja said. “Gratitude.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Lea cut in. “As in, you never know when it’s going to hit you. Since there are always so many things to be grateful for.”

  Anja narrowed her eyes. She seemed to shake herself, and her gaze settled on Lea as if she were noticing her there for the first time.

  “Music, I guess,” Anja said. She stopped.

  Lea nodded, chin pressed against the heel of her hand. She had no idea what Anja was talking about, but she was acutely aware of George’s eyes on them. The fluorescent lights seemed to shine straight through the skin pulled taut over Anja’s cheekbones.

  “That’s what I’m grateful for. Music.”

  “What instruments do you play?” Lea asked.

  “I play the violin,” Anja said. She had a way of looking at things as if they gave off a glaring light; that was how she looked at Lea now.

  “And?” Lea asked.

  “Don’t you know? Oh, of course you don’t,” George said.

  Anja seemed to solidify. As if the cells that made up her body suddenly drew together, eliminating the empty, misty spaces between them.

  “Our Anja here is famous. A celebrity.”

  “I am not,” Anja said. Her voice was calm, but the air around her seemed to grow heavy.

  “Her mother, too,” George said. “Even more famous. Used to sing at Carnegie Hall.”

  He pronounced “Carnegie” as if it were a French word, his thick wet lips curling grotesquely around the last syllable. Anja was silent.

  “I don’t know why you’re so shy about it. Not the healthiest profession, of course. Probably why you’re here now. We get a lot of ‘artistic’ types. Used to have a painter; now, he was a lost cause, ended up in a detention center, takes all his nutrition intravenously. At least he’s alive.”

  George pressed the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. Then he turned back to Susan, who had spent the last minute tapping his elbow.

  Anja didn’t move. On impulse, Lea reached out and placed her hand over Anja’s. She rarely touched strangers, but there was something about the look on Anja’s face that made her do it. Despite their icy paleness, Anja’s hands were warm, almost hot, trembling invisibly.

  “She was actually famous,” Anja said, so softly that Lea wasn’t sure she’d heard.

  “Does she still perform?” Lea asked. A thousand other questions raced through her mind—what kind of singer, were there even live performances anymore, why would anyone knowingly choose to be a musician, given the stats?

  “No. She doesn’t.”

  Lea shot a sideways glance at George. He sat with his head close to Susan’s, nodding seriously every now and then. The solid trunk of his thigh was pressed up against her knee.

  “What is it with him?” Lea asked in a low voice. Lea wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but Anja cocked her head as if she understood. She shrugged.

  “Some people have callings, I suppose,” she answered. “I don’t think he means harm.”

  Lea looked around again. Everyone else was still deep in conversation.

  “It got worse. After the last session. The Observers—they showed up at my apartment, in my living room. Can you believe it?”

  Anja’s expression didn’t change. There was a calm, blank quality about her features, a kind of emptiness that Lea felt compelled to fill. Maybe that was why she was still talking.

  “And then I found out my fiancé was reporting on me. I think it was him, George,” Lea went on, glancing at George. “Who else would it be? And the way he talked to you. He’s out of line. He has too much power.”

  Anja turned to look at George. She looked at him as if appraising a piece of furniture. George dispensed words to Susan with a grave air, making deliberate hand gestures that looked like he was screwing in a lightbulb.

  Suddenly Lea saw him through Anja’s eyes: a bespectacled, crumbling man. When he spoke, his lips were thick and fleshy. A small rust-colored stain marked the collar of his carefully ironed shirt.

  “George is just like us. He gets visits from them, too. It’s not George. It’s everyone.”

  It made no sense. Lea realized her hand was still pressed over Anja’s, the pale translucence of Anja’s fingers stark against Lea’s tan skin. She drew away.

  “So what’s the point of this? All the talking, the meetings, this?” Lea waved one hand at the plaques on the wall, their gold surfaces glaring in the harsh light.

  Anja shrugged again. The gray woolen shawl she wore slipped down one thin shoulder. “What about you?” she asked.

  “Me?”

  “What are you, you know, grateful for?”

  “Why are we even talking about this? Does any of it matter?” Lea crossed her arms, wrapping her hands around her torso. Through the fabric of her blouse, she felt out her ribs with her fingers and began counting them in her head.

  Anja let out a long, hissing sigh.

  “I paint,” Lea said in a low voice. She paused.

  “Is that what you’re grateful for, then?” Anja looked up.

  “No! I mean, they came to my house. Where I keep my paintings. And they saw my music collection.”

  No reaction from Anja. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it. Though, if she herself was a musician, Lea thought, this would hardly shock her.

  “I’ll never get off the List if they find out,” Lea went on, almost to herself now.

  Anja looked up. “What List?”

  “The Observation List?”

  Anja’s lips parted to release a high, hacking noise, like a cat trying to get rid of a fur ball caught in its throat. It was only when she glanced at Lea, her eyes crinkled and wiry, that Lea realized she was in fact laughing.

  “Do you like music, then?” Anja asked at last.

  “Music?”

  “You said you had a collection.”

  Lea scrutinized Anja’s face, but it was as blank as before, without the slightest trace of laughter.

  “What kind? Pop? Rock? Jazz? Funk? R&B? Classical?” Anja persisted.

  “Classical,” Lea said, just above a whisper. She looked around—everyone was still wrapped up in their rapturous confessional states. No one seemed to have heard. “Bach’s Passions, you know,” Lea mumbled.

  Anja nodded approvingly. She brought
one fingernail to her front teeth and bit down. She seemed to be thinking.

  “But, back to gratitude,” Lea said. “My boss too, he’s a great guy. Never gives us too hard a time, not even when—”

  “Can I come listen to it?”

  Lea stopped. “What?”

  “Your collection. You said you had the Passions. Can I come listen to them? At your place?”

  Lea shook her head. Was Anja crazy?

  “Please,” Anja said. “I haven’t heard music, proper music, in such a long time.”

  Lea was about to shake her head again when she remembered what Anja had said. It’s not George. It’s everyone. The way she had laughed when Lea talked about getting off the Observation List. Perhaps Lea could talk to her. Perhaps Anja knew something.

  SIXTEEN

  It was only when they were standing awkwardly in her living room that Lea wondered what she had done. Anja’s gaze darted about, dwelling on the high white ceilings, the full-length windows, the spotless linen curtains hanging straight and just so.

  Lea cleared her throat. “Would you like a drink?” she said.

  Anja shook her head. Now she was examining the bookshelves at the far end of the living room, reaching out one hand to touch the matte gray rectangles that emitted soft chirps and gurgles.

  “‘Rainforest Medley Number 235,’” Lea said. “I can change it, if you like. It’s automatic. The latest technology. Detects our moods as we walk in through the door, and then picks the right track for optimal oxidative replenishment.” What was she saying?

  Anja walked over to the window, standing so close that her nose touched the glass. Usually Lea would be thinking about the smudge it would leave, obsessing about the moment when she would be alone again and could go at it with a clean lintless cloth. But this time she didn’t mind. She wondered what Anja was looking at.

  “Where do you live?” Lea said. She sat down on the sofa. Perhaps if she pretended this were a perfectly normal visit, it would be.

  Anja pointed down. “Somewhere there,” she said. “Behind one of those buildings, the dark brown ones.”

  The last remaining projects. The ones that they couldn’t knock down because so many tenants had been in the first wave of experimental Replacement programs, so many that had gone wrong in some way or another. The buildings were stolid, all dark brick and stingy windows.

  Anja turned to face Lea. Backlit against the window she was a shadow, the outline of her head silver in the diffused rays, loose strands of hair catching the light like sparks.

  “So,” Anja said. “What are you doing in WeCovery?” As she said it, she threw her hand out at the windows, as if it was Lea’s doing, as if she was responsible for the city that lay beneath.

  Lea ignored the implication behind Anja’s gesture. “Well,” she said. “I was in an accident, of sorts. And then they started following me around—Observers; they came to my office, my apartment. They sat here.” She pointed to the cream sofa, trying to convey what it meant, how it felt, to have them appear in her home. “They talked to Todd. He showed them my music.”

  “Todd?”

  “My fiancé. Ex,” she corrected herself. “He doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “So you live alone?” Anja asked, lifting her head to stare at the ceiling, taking in the far corners of the room.

  “Yes,” Lea said. “It’s a company apartment, part of my package. I wouldn’t rent a place like this on my own. Well, you wouldn’t be able to. They’re all held by corporations, anyway.” Why was she justifying herself to Anja? “How about you?” she asked.

  “I live with my mother,” Anja said.

  “Oh, that must be nice.”

  Anja only nodded. Then she smiled, but it was a small, hard smile.

  “Does your mother know that you’re under Observation?” Lea asked.

  “No,” Anja said. “She doesn’t.”

  “Of course, she must be pretty busy.”

  Again, silence from Anja. Suddenly, she perked up. “Do you have a swimming pool here?” she asked.

  Lea turned to follow her gaze. Anja was staring at Lea’s navy swimsuit that lay draped over a radiator.

  “Yes, on the top floor,” Lea said. And then, something in her face made Lea ask: “Would you like to go for a swim? I have an extra bathing suit.” She regretted it as soon as she asked. Anja would say no, Lea was sure of it.

  But then Anja smiled. It was a smile that lit up her eyes and lifted her shoulders, that seemed to draw her whole body up to stand.

  “Could we really? I’d love to,” she said, a quick delight curling at the edges of her voice. “Can we go now?”

  * * *

  The pool level was empty when they arrived. Lea placed the tote bag on a deckchair and turned, uncertain, to Anja.

  Anja’s head was hidden in a cloud of white as she struggled with the T-shirt. Finally it came off, and she was grinning underneath.

  “Wow,” she said, surveying the length of sparkling blue, still as glass. Above them, sunlight streamed in through a vast skylight. Anja dipped one toe in. “It’s warm,” she said, sounding almost disappointed.

  Then, in one smooth arc, she launched herself into the air. There was barely a splash as her body sliced into the glassy surface, hands outstretched in a prayer above her head. She swam fast but silently, as if afraid to disturb the water. Lea watched as Anja went back and forth, back and forth again. Wearing Lea’s blue swimsuit, her light hair in a dark wet slick at the base of her neck, she almost looked like a paler, fainter version of Lea.

  Outside, the sun was beginning to set, salmon rays filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The skyline glowed orange, and Anja swam, back and forth, back and forth. When Anja stopped, Lea could hear her breathing. She paused, staring out at the city.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, still slightly breathless. “I never thought the city could be this beautiful.”

  “It is. The view’s even better from my office. We’re farther downtown and higher up.”

  Her office. Lea’s insides contracted, and the softness disappeared. GK and AJ were still visiting her at work, but now when they came, they sat with Jiang in his office for long hours at a stretch, laughing and patting each other on the back when they emerged. Jiang barely talked to her anymore.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Anja asked, wiping the water from her face.

  Lea nodded and eased herself into the pool. The water was cool to her skin. It slipped under her knees and between her thighs and into the small spaces between her fingernails and flesh. Lea dipped her head beneath the surface, then emerged, pushing her hair back into a wet helmet. Goosebumps prickled her skin.

  “Warm?” Lea gasped at Anja, who was still hanging onto the side of the pool.

  Anja shrugged one shoulder. “It’s a lot colder back home.”

  “Sounds awful,” Lea said, shivering.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Anja’s face cracked into a smile. “We used to go in the morning, just after waking up. It was so cold you couldn’t feel your legs. But somehow they keep moving, even if you can’t feel them. My mother loved swimming.”

  Loved. Anja’s use of the past tense hit Lea in the gut. Suddenly she thought of her own mother, now long gone. Uju had not loved swimming. She had not seemed to love many things after Lea’s father left.

  But more than that, Lea heard the loss in Anja’s words. Suddenly she saw the fine lines under Anja’s eyes, the red rims that were perhaps caused by the pool water, but made her look like she had been crying. There was something vulnerable in the pallor of Anja’s skin, the thin, bony shelf of her collarbone, the wisps of wet yellow hair that stuck to her forehead. Suddenly, Lea saw her pain. Perhaps they had more in common than she’d thought.

  “I lost someone too,” Lea said quietly, into the water. Her feet, rippling and shifting through the water’s surface, seemed to belong to someone else.

  Anja was looking at Lea now, her face flushed orange in the evening lig
ht. Drops of water sat in the alcoves of her clavicle and on the smooth bridge of her nose. Lea’s swimsuit was too small for her lanky frame, and the straps cut into her thin shoulders. Lea saw the red marks they would leave when Anja took the swimsuit off later that evening.

  “Tell me,” Anja said.

  * * *

  So Lea did. She told Anja about her own mother, Uju. How she’d had wiry, delicate hands that could build a mail-order sofa or take apart a broken dishwasher so deftly it was as if she was playing an instrument, how those same hands could turn into hard paddles when Lea disobeyed her as a girl. How when she’d met Lea’s father, she had been working for a social enterprise, a mechanical engineer designing portable toilet systems for informal settlements. They always said it was her father who had changed after the Second Wave, but her mother had changed, too. She left her engineering job to join a human resources firm. It didn’t matter that it was human resources, that it had nothing to do with her experience or interests; all that mattered was that it was Ministry-linked.

  Lea told Anja about Samuel’s death. How it drove a wedge into the crack that had already appeared between her parents, how it solidified her mother’s new convictions, her father’s disillusionment. How Kaito began to eat more and more, avoided physical activity, seemed to want to spite the world that was getting on with the business of immortality. How Lea found him once, standing stock-still in the doorway of Samuel’s room, how he didn’t move for a full hour.

  She alluded to her father disappearing, but she didn’t tell Anja why he’d left. She didn’t tell Anja about how her father had come back, how she was afraid the Observers would find him.

  Anja didn’t say very much in response, only nodded and made soft noises of encouragement as she bobbed in the water. At times she’d ask a question, but mostly, she listened.

  When Lea finished talking, the sun had set, and a cool artificial light was now flooding the room. The sky outside was a purple bruise, the last rays of the sun vanishing between thin streaks of clouds.

  They stayed like this, hanging onto the edge of the pool in silence for a while. Now that Lea no longer felt compelled to fill the quiet, she felt comfortable in it, as if all her words had been spent.