by Paul Yoon
Later in the day, Henry visited her room. She had been using the sewing machine and he sat at the edge of the desk and placed his clipboard beside her. A small bandage covered her arm, her skin sore from an injection they had given her. She continued to sew, feeding the fabric through the machine. He looked down at her fingers. “Careful,” he said, and smiled.
“You have lists,” Miya said. “Like Miss Hara.”
“That’s right,” he said. He showed her a piece of paper with her name at the top and a paragraph in his handwriting that he would not let her read. There were dates along the margins as well. 1951 was the first.
“You haven’t been taking your medicine,” he said.
“I don’t have headaches,” she said, cranking the wheel.
“Sometimes you have them without realizing, Miya. That’s why you should take the medicine. It’s for your health that I give them to you. I wouldn’t do it if I thought otherwise. Over two years it’s been. Since you came. Since we’ve known each other.”
She finished a torn shirt and moved on to a pair of pants. “You’re a great help to us,” he said. “You help the wounded. You always have. And always will. I am indebted. But it’s getting worse, you see. I think you know that. Each time. Promise me you’ll take them.”
She listened to footsteps in the corridor. Henry rubbed his face and she saw his tiredness again.
“There should be paintings,” she said. “In the hallways.”
“There aren’t any,” he said. “I’ve told you this. And there isn’t a blind child either. Now promise to take your medicine.”
She hesitated, then agreed.
“Good,” he said, and handed her a small tin cup. He watched her take them, swallow, and then he leaned down and carelessly sifted through her fabrics. “We wouldn’t like it either,” he said. “To be thought of as someone else.”
He settled the nurse’s cap on her head and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ears. He stood to go but paused at the door and watched her. She pretended not to notice. When the American couple had brought her here, she clutched the sewing machine against her stomach, unwilling to part with it. “A volunteer,” Henry had said. “Help is always needed.” Together they watched the couple leave by car down the road. “It isn’t far,” Henry said, and patted her shoulder. “Just across the hills.”
One night after the woman came for her son, Miya saw the blind boy. She was in her room, unable to sleep, and heard a strange sound coming from outside the window, not unlike something being dragged across the dirt. She rose and placed her elbows onto the ledge and scanned the lawn, the footpaths, and the gate.
The boy was directly below her. He sat on a bicycle. Its frame seemed to engulf him. The handles were wide and his arms were outstretched, clinging to the bars. He circled the courtyard, the wheels creating a circle in the dirt, which he followed without error.
“There you are,” she said quietly against the windowpane.
She undressed and slipped into the clothes she had worn when she first arrived here, a pair of old pants and a shirt Miss Hara had given her on a birthday. It was imprinted with flowers and she had said it came from England. Miya took out her satchel from under the bed and placed her comb and Miss Hara’s teacup into it. She couldn’t find her shoes, so she left barefoot and tiptoed down the corridor and down the stairs. At the ward she paused by the door and heard Benson muttering. Through a space in the curtain she saw the comatose patient lying with a blanket tucked under his chin. The man’s mother was sitting on a chair beside him. Her posture was straight and she held a book out in front of her, reading under a lamp.
Miya left them and walked down the hallway to the main entrance. She pushed the door open and stepped outside, her body caught by a breeze. The entire courtyard was lit by a heavy moon above the hills. The snow on the far ridges had begun to melt. It was quiet, save for the gears of the bicycle. She approached the boy, who stopped pedaling and placed his feet on the ground. Tonight, he was wearing a cotton engineer’s cap that drooped past his ears.
“Hey, Miss,” he said. “Want to ride?”
He waved his arm behind him. She raised a leg and sat on the seat. He took his cap off and placed it on her head. “Hold on to my waist,” he said. He was thin and she felt his hipbones push up against her palms. Like before, he carried a pouch tied to his belt loop. She lifted her feet. He stood and began to pedal and the bicycle swayed from their weight. She clung to him. “Miss,” he said. “Not so tight.” She relaxed. Soon, they were moving down the driveway.
“I pedal,” the boy said. “You tell me where we’re going.”
They reached the end of the hospital property and passed under the gates. “Left,” she said, and the boy swerved and she held him and began to laugh. “Stop!” she called. “Stop.”
“You’re not very good at this,” the boy said, braking.
She got off the bicycle and walked to the fences. She twisted her hair up and hid it underneath the cap, lowering the brim to just above her eyes. A few of the windows of the main hall were lit and she could distinguish the silhouettes of the nurses walking through the wards. She used to take Junpei here, in those days after they had posed for the painter. She would help him climb the fence, holding his waist. They would shout, “Give us back our faces!” And if anyone approached them, they would run away.
The blind boy tugged on her sleeve. “We go on?”
“We go on.”
They continued down the road, following the fences and the hills. The hospital began to shrink from view. Stars gathered along the crests of the distant mountains. They could smell the sea. He pedaled faster. Their bodies pulsed in the darkness. She wondered, as she did sometimes, whether her parents were still underground. A city rebuilt on top of them. It seemed possible.
“Hey, Miss,” the boy said. “War’s ending.” He tapped his earlobe. “Listen.”
THE HANGING LANTERNS OF IDO
AT DUSK THE IRON LANTERNS on the arches above the boardwalk began to light, one by one, starting at the wharf and trailing west along the northern coast of the island. Dim at first, they soon pulsed, like a multitude of hearts, until at last their glow turned continuous. They had been installed months ago, in the spring, the first of the many renovations planned for the port city in the new millennium. And like all the days since, from one season to the next, the visitors came steadily throughout the evening. They moved slowly down the wide path, in pockets, browsing the stalls where the merchants sold an assortment of goods, including tapestries, jewelry, and kites. Lines were formed for hot tea and noodle soups. Children, having had their share of fried dough, gathered on the shore, counting ships. The sun receded, and from the point of a promontory a lighthouse illuminated the sea.
It was October. A Saturday. This was the neighborhood of Ido in Solla City. And among the pedestrians at this hour was a young couple who had been married for several years. Their names were Isun and Taeho. They were dressed in the popular styles of that autumn, the woman wearing a long pale coat, her husband in a brown two-button suit. From afar, you would not have noticed them among the crowd. In their appearance they were no different from the other modern couples who had, in the past ten years, gained from the island’s flourishing economy and who were now enjoying the evening on the boardwalk. Isun was a manager at the Lotte Hotel, which loomed above the coast. Taeho was a bookkeeper for the island’s tourism bureau.
Every so often they paused beside the stalls, where miniature domes of steam hovered over the vendors as they cooked and placed their food on warm plates for display. A man wearing plastic gloves cupped a dumpling shell in his palm and scooped two fingers full of ground pork and vegetables into the shell’s middle. He then lined the edges of the shell with egg yolk and closed the dumpling, pinching the ends together. He repeated the process, creating a dozen with speed and confidence, and then dropped them into a pot of boiling water.
“Do you wish I could do that?” Isun leaned toward Taeho’
s ear. She asked this whenever they came here, referring to her limits in the kitchen. “Admit it,” she said. “A part of you wishes I could.”
“Every evening,” he said, and she poked his stomach with her finger.
“You’re awful,” she said. “An awful, awful man.”
They continued their walk heading west, unhurried, Taeho with his hands clasped behind his back. Isun slipped an arm around his. The sky had finished its transition, revealing stars. The night colors arrived: office lights and streetlamps, the fluorescence of blinking storefront signs. There was a wind but they did not mind it. The walk was a habit they had formed during the weekends, a routine that marked their times of leisure. They were now deciding on where to have dinner, whether to stop at a stall or return to the boulevard in the city center. Passing under the lanterns their faces brightened then shadowed and brightened again. It was, so far, an ordinary Saturday.
In the end they decided on a Thai restaurant not far from their apartment, one they dined at often since their marriage. They were now familiar with the place. The corner booth, in their fantasies, theirs. Out of formality they opened their menus even though they already knew what they wanted. When a waitress approached them they pretended to consider the daily specials, printed on an extra sheet of paper.
And it was only when they heard a voice, “Could I get you something to drink?” that they raised their heads, and Isun said, “Iced tea, please,” and Taeho realized, as his wife spoke, that the girl was new. Their eyes met and he smiled and she hesitated. “The same,” he said. “Please.” The girl did not reply. She stood there looking at Taeho and he continued to smile, amused, admitting that she was pretty with her small nose and dark eyes, her hair tied back and falling past her narrow shoulders. He repeated himself in case she had not heard and was waiting for him to order a drink. He spoke a third time and then a sadness fell over the girl’s face, the way her lips pressed together and her eyes seemed to bare themselves and dampen.
“I’m sorry,” Taeho said. “Is everything all right?” He glanced at Isun, who had returned to reading the menu and only now brought her attention upon the situation.
The girl continued to stare at him. After a moment, she said, “It’s you.”
“It’s you,” she repeated, and lifted her hand to cover her mouth as if she had spoken when she shouldn’t have or that she herself was surprised at what came forth, this loosening of her tongue, the unexpected forming of words, released, and within them a recognition.
In some ways it was a simple case of mistaken identity. Taeho resembled a man whom she once knew. Just like him, the girl said. But he was dead. He had been on a motorbike. A delivery truck was ill-prepared for the coastal roads. This was in Phuket, in Thailand. Two years ago.
As Taeho listened, his chest went hollow. She spoke all this in haste, as if it were an afterthought. Then she stopped and said nothing further about the man. Instead she wrote their orders down on a small pad of paper and left. “Poor girl,” Isun said, when they were alone. “She thought you were a ghost.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed. She shook her head, saying, “That’s terrible. What an awful thing,” and he said, “Yes. Awful,” and they were silent.
Above them hung a framed photograph of an aerial view of the Phuket coast. Taeho studied it for some time, the translucent water that was emerald in some portions, the color of the sky in others. The sand was pale, the land curved and speckled by tiny shapes that he guessed were sunbathers. They had thought of spending their honeymoon in Phuket, when it seemed everyone was going there. But they had changed their minds and remained in Solla, driving to the southern coast, visiting the waterfalls, the caves, and the hill town where they browsed the crafts stores and toured the watchtower at its crest. It seemed so long ago, right then, staring at the photograph on the wall. He could no longer recall why they had decided against it.
“I hope we haven’t put her in an awkward position,” Isun said. “I’d hate that. Do you think she’ll work the other tables instead?”
“I think she’ll be fine,” he said.
“Yes, I suppose so. And then we’ll leave and by tomorrow she’ll forget it ever happened.”
“Maybe it happens often,” he said, wondering if the man the waitress once knew haunted her like this, in the guise of others.
“Like a recurring dream,” Isun said. “A bad one. Look. There she is.”
They both averted their gazes, Isun glancing at two businessmen sitting by the bar, their shoulders hunched, tall Japanese bottles of beer beside them. Taeho returned his attention to the photograph.
The Thai girl approached them, carrying their dinner on a large tray. She had washed her face and her skin shone and was blushed around her eyes and Taeho imagined her excusing herself to the boss and entering the rear restroom for the employees. He thought this but was surprised to find that he did not pity her. It wasn’t that. So what was it then? He stiffened his back as she smiled professionally. She told them to be careful because the plates were hot, and he held his breath until she returned to the front of the restaurant where she spent a few minutes joking with another waitress. He watched her. Isun began to eat. She mentioned the food was what they had ordered. The girl hadn’t made a mistake.
And throughout their dinner the waitress was, as Taeho had said, fine. As if it had never happened. She came often to the table to see how they were. She was courteous. When they finished she bowed and said, “Come again,” in a cheerful manner and walked them to the door, waving.
They walked home down the boulevard, under the trees, the city dark and lit by shop windows and traffic. From a car radio came an American song Taeho recognized but could not quite place: a man’s voice, a slow guitar. They passed a woman leaning out of a third floor window, laughing, the ash from her cigarette glowing for an instant like a firework. In the park a boy sat alone on a bench, sharing his hamburger with his dog. Taeho kept his hands in his pockets and rubbed his thumb against the teeth of his apartment key. Isun rested her head on his shoulder. She told him they were lucky. He wrapped an arm around her. And then it appeared as though she, too, forgot about the incident. She did not speak of it again.
They lived on the twelfth floor of a high-rise and later, as they prepared for bed, she used the bathroom first and he listened to her brush her teeth. “Don’t brush so hard,” he said, when she came out. She rolled her eyes at him. He ignored the gesture. He shut the bathroom door and looked at himself in the mirror. He traced the outline of his jaw with his fingers.
It had happened a few times, people thinking he was someone else, a person tapping him on the shoulder. It happened to everyone, he assumed. It was, usually, a cause for a brief moment of embarrassment. But afterward he didn’t think anymore about the incident and he was quite sure the person who had approached him didn’t think anymore about it either. But this was different, although he wasn’t sure how or why. Perhaps because the man whom he resembled was dead. Or perhaps it wasn’t that at all. Perhaps it was the girl herself. The phrase, “It’s you,” and the expression of her face that spoke of the possibility that perhaps she had been wrong, that he had been alive all this time. He felt those words and her conviction, which had lasted only for an instant but nonetheless remained with him like an extra layer of skin.
When he joined Isun in bed she shut off the bedside lamp. She fell asleep quickly. He smelled the mint of her breath. He shut his eyes. He thought perhaps that all that luck meant was that you weighed your own life against someone else’s and yours turned out to be better. And where was the good in that? And what would his wife have done? If he was the one who was now gone? Would she find a man who resembled him? And what would happen then?
He watched the minutes pass on his bedside clock. He had a sudden urge to talk to Isun but chose not to wake her. He wanted to tell her, as if she hadn’t heard, that he resembled a man a world away and two years dead. He wanted to tell her that he had never ridden a motorbike. Not even a scooter or a m
oped, though there were so many on the island. He wanted to ask her whether his life would be different if he had done so. He tried to picture this man; it should have been easy—it was his face, after all—but the harder he concentrated the more he felt it slipping. As a child, he would try to grip the mist that clouded the harbor. He thought you could. He moved his hand into it and made a fist and what lay in his palm felt like feathers.
At the tourism bureau the following week all the employees were discussing the provincial government. In the coming month, it was reported, they would announce a proposal for turning the island into a visa-free territory. This would allow foreign investors unrestricted access to build their own tourist venues, such as casinos and hotels, and even to establish schools. It had been a plan that had, at first, seemed bold and ambitious to Taeho. But now he was no longer sure of its intentions and the more his colleagues discussed the profit of such a venture the less interested he became in its details.
It was still early in the morning. He had retreated into his office. He pressed the back of his hand against the window to feel the cold from this height and saw that the day would be beautiful. On the horizon a cruise liner, the color of a stone, was making its way through the strait and out toward the great body of the Pacific. He wondered who it held. From where they embarked. Where they were going.
In the office next to his was the bureau’s library, filled with guidebooks on various countries. They kept track of the reviews and recommendations, the development of trends, the hotels that offered free yoga classes, entire sections devoted to sushi restaurants. A fluorescent light hung from the ceiling giving the space a bright glow that appeared independent of time; in there it could have been morning or evening, it did not matter.
He found the books for Thailand. He chose the thickest one, its spine unblemished, although it was older, dust along its edges, the pages faded. A telephone rang somewhere on the floor. He heard the wheels of the mail crate rumble past his office. He flipped through the book until he came to a set of photographs of Phuket. The first was of the town, its gray buildings much like Solla. The other was of a coastal hotel, tall and wide, with rectangular windows, each with its own balcony. He was about to turn the page but stopped. At a corner window, up toward the right, there was a figure. Or part of one, the rest behind a curtain. He saw a bare leg, an arm, he was sure of it. He looked closer. Half a face. Man or woman, he couldn’t tell. The hair blended against the dark of the hotel room, the body—or what he could distinguish of it—too distant. Perhaps the person had seen the camera. Perhaps it was a holiday, a tryst, a honeymoon. Perhaps the person was alone.
