by Roger Herst
While behind the wheel, she discovered answers to none of her questions, but was amused how fast she moved to boot up her computer once at home. Kye's response was the first of seven messages.
There's a good korean restaurant a mile from here. I'll stop and get a few things I doubt you've ever tasted. we eat spicy foods, but i'll have the chef take it easy on the chilly peppers. promise not to disrupt your studies. i have work to do on my laptop. Send me your address and i'll come as soon as possible.
Kye
Her eyes dropped over three volumes of Democratic policies on the desk. How much she would be able to read this evening was doubtful. Yet, it didn't seem to matter. Her skin felt flushed with excitement. A rush of chores came to mind, beginning with a need to freshen up in the bathroom, set the table and put a bottle of white Riesling in the freezer for instant chilling. Beer? Plenty in the fridge. Candles? No. Definitely no candles. To her personal chagrin, she found herself speeding. Perhaps before he arrived there might be time to browse through DNC policy papers. Valuable time was lost experimenting with three different place settings and two sets of placemats and their matching cloth napkins.
When Kye arrived with cartons of Korean foods, he planted a friendly kiss upon her cheek, which she acknowledged by canting her head to accept it. In the vestibule, he apologized for looking like the unwashed homeless vagrant he was. Straight black hair matted against his skull looked as though combed with a stiff hairbrush. Dark whiskers remained unshaven.
"The surviving remnants of Politics… live like animals," he explained as she squired him toward the kitchen. "We've got two temporary generators working, but PEPCO still won't provide electricity. There's a block on our account and the local representatives won't tell me who's responsible for putting it there. No doubt somebody in high places who doesn't want us back on our feet. We've scaled down from fast foods to canned beans. What we need now is another pizza angel. I can't tell you what your gift meant. We were in the doldrums, sinking into despair. Cold, isolated, and alone. Then, unexpectedly, a delivery of hot, wonderful pizza arrived. The kids knighted you with a name that seems to have stuck; they refer to you as The Pizza Angel. Somebody outside Politics cares about us! You know how cruel Washington can be. When you're on top everybody wants to be associated with you. Now people won't even answer my phone calls. For the time being, Politics has slipped off everybody's radar screen. What is it they say on the Hill? When in office you're Mr. or Ms. Jones. When you leave the post you're Mr. or Ms. Who?"
She regarded him with a combination of admiration and pity, helping to settle the food cartons on her black Egyptian granite countertop, then took his hand in hers, rubbing cold fingers. "This must be a nightmare for you, Kye. When I think of you guys working in the dark and living in the cold, it makes me humble. Whoever did this to you is a skunk. That you've retrieved a portion of your data is the only encouraging thing I've heard so far."
"It isn't enough to do the job we anticipated. We're now a far smaller operation. Our competitors will use the opportunity to grab my clients."
She continued to rub his fingers, massaging coarse skill around the knuckles. "But you will continue, won't you?"
"Absolutely. Only now we must target our resources better. More than ever, we need a success to show Washington our potential. If you beat Toby Ryles, the Republicans can't sit on their hands. They'll have to come aboard, too."
"Can you have two competing patrons?" she asked.
"We're a for-profit commercial venture. Democrats want us to help them garner Republican votes and Republicans, Democratic votes. If we become partisan we're of no value to either party."
She removed serving bowls from a shelf. The cartons were marked with a black felt marker in han'gu'l, the traditional 16th century Korean alphabet. "What did you bring?" she asked, innocently sniffing the aroma of garlic and unrecognized spices.
"I didn't know whether you eat non-kosher meat, so I played it safe and ordered all vegetarian. My favorite buckwheat noodles, some shredded radishes, cucumbers in koch'ujang, red pepper sauce. I hope it isn't too spicy for you."
"The fact is I can eat anything I want and occasionally cross over the line to taste small morsels of even the forbidden foods. I know that might sound like heresy, but there's a purpose to this madness. There's nothing intrinsically harmful in these things. That makes abstinence a bit more meaningful. Does that sound crazy?"
"Moi? I'm skeptical about religious decrees written thousands of years ago. On the other hand, if they're entirely voluntarily, then perhaps they're okay."
At Gabby's dining table, they sat opposite one another. For easy serving, she deposited the food between them. Kye sipped a Diet cola and Gabby, her favorite porter beer brewed in Frederick, Maryland. After a long interval in which nothing was said, she lifted her eyes to find his plate still empty but his eyes upon her.
"I want you to know," he said, "how wonderful I felt sitting beside you in your chapel on New Year's Eve. The city around us was frolicking, but in the chapel you could almost hear the quiet. I don't know when I've felt more comfortable. You have a calming manner, Gabby. In Korean, we call that state que nyan que rae. Sometimes I yearn for a monastic life to balance out what I do for a living. Technology is addictive. It's a treadmill you can't get off. The more you have the more you need. In my field, if you're not on top, you get buried below. So I find myself chasing all the time. It's exhausting."
Her dimples deepened as she said, "I'm just an actor, Kye. Inside, I'm as unsettled as you. I may look composed, but my stomach seldom is. I medicate myself with prayers and meditation. I'm not sure they're effective. Pepto-Bismol works better. Until now, fortunately I've been able to stay away from drugs stronger than that. To slow down sometimes I just stop and sit, letting my mind wander wherever it wants. Then the phone rings and I'm off again to the races."
"It goes in wonderful places."
"I'm flattered," she said, picking up a set of chopsticks and pointing at the food getting cold. "I admire you, too. We live in different worlds, but I like what I see of yours. I've always believed that it takes different types of people to make this world function."
He reached with his chopsticks to snatch a dollop of pickled radish. "You may not have such a high opinion when you understand how I've let my people down. They were counting on me to make Politics a financial success. I promised more than I delivered. And as things stand at this moment, I'm committed to making my creditors whole, but I'm not sure I can. In the old days they used to put debtors into prison."
"No one can blame you for an act of sabotage."
"The papers hint that I engineered the back surge to avoid paying my debts. I can't prove I didn't."
"Of course you can't prove a negative."
"Until the police find out who's responsible I'm toast. The movies make heroes out of detectives and police inspectors. But I can't name a single law-enforcement officer, other than the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General. People who go into law enforcement haven't the expertise to track down the thugs who crippled me."
"I still don't believe people will blame you for what happened. But they do admire the way you're fighting back."
His eyes again fell upon her as he gently laid down his chopsticks. "When you showed up on New Year's Day, I was cold, lonely, and terribly frightened. Your hug warmed me inside. As soon as you left, I went back to work. Twenty-five minutes later, we stumbled on the key that helped restore part of our data. Shortly before you arrived, I was about to give up. If I failed to say it before, thanks for coming. It made a difference."
The smallness of her contribution embarrassed her. To hide this she said, "Better start eating before this stuff tastes like yesterday's leftovers. I don't know about Korean cuisine, but Chinese food has a short shelf life. Day one, it's great. Day two, it tastes like warmed over shoe leather."
He offered, "Cooked by friends from my church who own two small Korean restaurants. One in Silver Spring, the other i
n the District on twelfth street."
After dinner she assembled wood and kindling for a fire in the living room fireplace. Two attempts to ignite the kindling failed. Eventually, he knelt beside her to introduce fresh newspaper and reshape the kindling into a miniature log cabin.
"You seem quite confident with your concoction," she pointed to the pyre.
"It's a question of air flow and heat convection. Prepare for both and you've got a winner. I'll wager that once you ignite the paper below, the fire will burn."
"Testing to see if I can actually strike a match this time?"
"You told me why you had trouble at the Greenbrier. This is different."
"What's the wager?"
"That if this fire burns you'll answer a question I've wanted to ask since New Year's Eve."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then you ask of me whatever you want?"
A mischievous grin grew on her cheeks. An instant later, she put a match to tailings of newspaper and watched the dancing flames. Fire transferred easily from the newspaper to nearby small twigs. It looked as if the blaze would consume the twigs, but suddenly, they retreated leaving large branches lightly scarred but unburned. In a corner a small pocket of fire simmered, then a few minutes later flared where branches intersected
"That's where the heat is," he declared.
They sat on the floor beside each other watching what Kye claimed to be a victory. She believed his optimism to be premature, but the hot spot continue to burn, eventually transferring to nearby branches.
"You won the bet," she conceded defeat. "So, what's your question?"
His head bent slightly toward her as he whispered. "On New Year's, you said you were in the sanctuary to remember someone, a friend by the name of Joel. Tell me about him."
This took her unprepared. "Why do you want to know about Joel?"
His teeth glistened in the firelight. Dark eyes fell over his lap. "He obviously meant a lot to you. Since that night, I keep asking myself if I knew more about Joel I'd know what kind of a man captured your heart."
Her immediate response was to protect the privacy she enjoyed with Joel. But an instant later her perspective changed. What Kye asked, though personal, was nevertheless forthright. No one had ever inquired of that. "He was a wonderful man. A dentist by profession. Dedicated to young people. Absolutely honest. Not particularly handsome. A bit overweight and balding up front. Unlike many of my friends, he was utterly at peace with himself."
"Know him for a long time?"
She shook her head, "No. Not long at all. But there was still wonderful sharing between us. He was shot dead while trying to save my life. Without him, I wouldn't be here at this very moment. Every time this thought comes to my mind, I get teary-eyed. How can one person owe so much to another? I hold myself partially responsible for his death. Had I not bulled my way into something that wasn't my business, Joel would be alive today."
"He must have loved you very much."
She nodded. "Yes, I suppose that's true. Beware, Kye Naah, I'm dangerous."
Kye's breath was heavy. "I'm sorry, Gabby. This must be a burden for you."
"Yes. In some ways. But in others, it provides me with perspective. I feel sometimes I live for Joel and myself. And that adds a dimension to everything, as though I live not one but two lives. Does that make any sense?"
Their eyes remained fixed on the tips of flames jumping from branch to branch and marrying one another. After a long silence, he asked, "Do you think Joel would resent me in your life?"
Her head jogged sharply to the left to let her eyes rest on him for an instant before returning to the flames. "He wasn't that kind of man. He would want me to have a good friend."
"And how do you feel about a Korean-American getting close?"
"As a woman or a rabbi?"
"Both."
"I admire you, Kye. You have qualities I lack. That's Gabby talking. But as Rabbi Lewyn, I can't afford to get involved with a wild technology geek of Korean decent and a member of the Protestant community. You know that, don't you?" His lips touched her cheek and remained close to her ear. "No, I don't, friend. At least I don't want to know it. I want to believe that this is America where everything is possible, where intelligent folks see through ethnic differences. Perhaps I'm a dreamer."
She took his hand in hers, holding it firmly. "I'm a dreamer, too, Kye. But my dreams have cost me dearly. Let's be friends."
"That's not my first choice, Gabb. But I learned long ago it take two to tango and you don't dance. If friendship is all I can get, what alternative have I? But don't close me out of your life."
She deflected. "As I told you, I've got to read the material Lyle sent me. Otherwise, I won't get a single vote."
Still holding his hand she climbed to her feet, dragging him after her.
"I've got my laptop in the car," he said. "Can I bring it in and work here while you're reading?"
That was exactly what she wanted. "Do you need to go online?"
"It would be helpful. We're streamlining code for sorting what's left of our data."
After settling Kye at the kitchen counter in a good wi-fi location, Gabby gathered her volumes of DNC papers and returned to the fireplace. Whenever possible, she liked to sit on her thick Berber carpet with her legs scissored beneath and read. With a pair of narrow reading glasses low over the bridge of her nose, she turned her attention to Volume One, Page One – the beginning of what looked like a long, boring journey. Should she read sequentially or skip around? Underline or annotate? Many pages were printed in different scripts, some double-spaced, others single-spaced, giving the impression that an editor had employed the CUT and PASTE functions of his software. The majority of papers in Volume One dealt with Social Security, a subject about which admittedly she knew little but had strong convictions. The summary suffered from too many words plastered together with too many comas and semi-colons. After a half-dozen pages she found herself glancing through the hallway at Kye, whose eyes appeared intently glued to his computer, his fingers hunt-and-pecking over the keyboard. His intensity filled her with envy. However much she attempted to duplicate this mental focus, her mind worked differently, by nature rambling from one subject to another. Consolation for this shortcoming came in the form of a rabbinical adage, asserting that God created people different, elu v'elu… in order to promote diversity among his creatures.
The ring of the kitchen phone near Kye interrupted her reverie. For a moment, she considered ignoring it, but habit forced her to answer nearly all calls. Legs that fallen asleep under her torso felt like cotton and she barely manage to hobble to the kitchen, feeling particularly clumsy when she noticed Kye watching her.
On the other end of the line, she heard, "Gabby, it's Asa here."
She could usually tell by the crispness of a voice if a speaker was in trouble. In the synagogue, conversations with Asa were frequent, but generally not after hours, unless there was an emergency.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm with Anina at Georgetown University Hospital and there's something I'd like you to see."
Asa normally avoided hospitals and this puzzled her.
"Anina's partner went to a treatment planning session for Tybee Morgenstern. Anina brought me here so I could get a first-hand understanding of what's in store for Tybee."
"Isn't that a bit irregular?" Gabby expressed her astonishment at Anina's willingness to breach a wall of medical privacy.
"You bet. But she knows I'm not going to misuse what I learn. If you're available, Gabby, I'd like you to see the CT scans and X-rays, along with two life-size models of her face and a set of treatment masks. Any possibility you can come here now? Anina will explain it to you."
Gabby expelled air through her teeth, then inhaled heavily. This was not how she planned to spend the evening. Being around sick adults never bothered her, but suffering children was another matter. The thought of their living long lives with severe disab
ilities filled her with horror. Still, she had no desire to avoid Tybee Morgenstern's disfigurement – or to deflect it upon Asa. Such dreadfulness needed to be shared. "Where are you exactly, Asa?"
"In a staging room near the operating theaters on the third floor. I'll meet you in the main lobby."
Gabby looked with exasperation at Kye. "I've got a friend with me. Can I bring him along?" she asked.
Mild surprise caused Asa to pause. Gabby almost never mentioned male friends as though the matter was off-limits. "I guess so. Only, he can't talk about what he will see."
"Not to worry. My friend's in a business that requires secrecy. It will take us about thirty minutes to get there."
When Kye and Gabby arrived at Georgetown Hospital, Asa was pacing the reception area, not reading a pocket-book, as was his habit while waiting for people. Gabby had spoken of Politicstoday, but had not mentioned its CEO and president. She reckoned he was too preoccupied with Tybee to suspect a relationship with a Korean entrepreneur. The introduction was cordial, almost businesslike.
A few moments later, they rendezvoused with Anina, dressed in a smart gray skirt, beige lamb's wool sweater and black leather Italian pumps, outside the Surgical Unit and she led them to a conference room to view a plaster models of Tybee's face and sets of X-rays attached to backlit viewing boxes lining the wall.
Gabby found the life-sized replicas grotesque. Burnt flesh she would have expected to be hidden under bandages was naked and exposed. Crenulated ridges imitated Tybee's cindered skin; an ugly pit with protruding bone represented a destroyed left cheek. She glanced at Asa to register his horror, an instant before Anina placed her hands on the plaster deformity as though a loaf of bread, positioning it for better viewing. "The first thing we must do in a burn is to stabilize the injury, which means fighting infection and giving the surgeon a clear view of the surviving bone and epidermis. What you see here is scarred but functional skin. Tybee's doctors are planning a series of skin movements and replacements. A child presents both difficulties and opportunities. Tyebee's doctors much anticipate the future growth of her cranium. We need to refashion her facial features so that her skull can grow into them, so to speak. Here's where science stops and art begins." Her finger pointed to parts of the model where acute attention to detail was required.
