by Min Jin Lee
“Why?” she asked, trying to appear tough. She pulled her body away from his and propped up her face on bended elbow.
Hugh stroked the curve of her hip bone. “Who can explain it?”
Casey thought he could have said many things. Hugh was a good talker, after all. He was an institutional salesman. He could have said he liked her, her body, that she was pretty, that he liked her smile, her eyes—the crap men said to get sex. He could have delivered the words with some half-felt admiration. But he hadn’t. He didn’t know why he wanted to fuck her, and he wasn’t even going to try to pretend. Maybe she could have been anyone to him.
“You really can’t stand me?” This time, Casey was sincere.
“No, silly girl. I like you quite a lot. I couldn’t make love to someone I didn’t like. Unlike you, my dear, who can.”
Casey stared at him, stumped.
“I should go to bed,” she said, wanting to be alone. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. Was he now being kind, or was he telling the truth? And he wasn’t wrong: She had slept with men she didn’t like. But she did like Hugh, although now she didn’t feel like saying it.
“Will you go back to him?” he asked. Normally, when Hugh conducted an affair, he never brought up the husband or the lover, but he felt that with Casey, it wouldn’t work this way. She wasn’t someone who pretended not to see things. At worst, she would not say the thing, but she knew what was going on.
Casey turned to him, and he cupped her small breasts in his hands. With his thumbs, he massaged her nipples.
“Cut it out, Hugh,” and as she said it, she heard the assonance of the names Unu and Hugh. They both had the long u vowel sound. Jay had taught her about assonance, consonance, and other aspects of prosody. It was like being in bed with all three of them. Casey got up finally and put on her robe.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“I’m sleepy,” she said.
“Should I go, then?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Hugh.”
“Very well.”
The drive back to New York on Sunday felt even shorter. Casey talked to Walter most of the time. Walter noticed the change in the car but didn’t say anything. He didn’t believe that Hugh would stoop so low as to seduce Casey. That would arguably be sexual harassment, since Casey was a junior employee. When they stopped to fill up the tank near Hugh’s parking lot in midtown, they decided to park his car and take taxis back home. Walter lived in Brooklyn, so they gave him the first one they hailed.
“I’ll drop you off,” Hugh said when the next cab appeared.
Hugh gave the driver instructions, and not a minute later, he began to feel her up.
Casey removed his hand from the inside of her thigh. “No, Hugh. No more of this.”
Hugh turned from her and faced forward. “Why?” he asked calmly in his work voice.
“Because I feel like a jerk. I’m such a hypocrite.”
And she couldn’t tell him that it was Sunday, and all she could think about was how God must think she was a shit, because she was a shit. If God was God, He probably didn’t mince words. She was no angel, but this was very low even for her.
“You should leave him.”
“What?”
“You could stay at my place for a while. Till you get your bearings.”
“You don’t live with women.”
“I didn’t say live with me. You’re my friend. You can crash whenever you want.”
Casey closed her eyes.
“Unu is a loser. His gambling is no longer normal. You’re hooking up with someone who has no future.”
“Unu is a good person. He’s incredibly honest.”
“Yeah, but nice guys—”
“Shut up,” she said. “He’s a much better person than I’ll ever be.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me or anything or even to go out. I’m just trying to be a friend to you.”
“Thanks.” Casey nodded. The only man who’d ever wanted to marry her was Jay, and she had determined that his will was too weak, and now she saw that her will was weak, too. Unu didn’t believe in the concept of marriage, so did that mean he just wanted to fuck her on the steady? And to be honest, it wasn’t that she wanted to get married now, but every girl felt the insult not to be considered. Wonderful, she thought. She was officially a bad girl—the kind you didn’t bring home to Mother. She didn’t like to cook or clean, and she wasn’t much good at making money on a regular basis. She was able to show up for work, reread classics, and make hats. And as for children, she felt neutral about them at best. What was the point of her being a woman, anyway?
“I don’t see what the big deal is. You said he wouldn’t marry you.”
“He said he didn’t believe in marriage. And I don’t want to get married, either.” Casey didn’t know why she bothered to make that distinction except to cover her injured pride. “I couldn’t leave him now. He’s got no job. No car, no watch even.”
“And his girlfriend is screwing another guy,” he said, wanting to make her angry.
But it had the opposite effect. Casey grew silent, and whatever good feelings she had left for the day evaporated. She looked out the windshield. It wasn’t dark yet.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. Casey looked irretrievably sad. “I’m an asshole. I mean it.”
“That makes two of us,” she said. “I’m a horrible person.”
“Yeah, but we’re all horrible. And occasionally, we’re not.” Hugh kissed her for a long time, and Casey let this feeling of warmth come over her.
The taxi stopped in front of the building. George, the doorman, approached the car and tapped on the trunk. He saw Casey brushing back her hair with her hands, the man’s hand on her breast, and her pulling away slowly.
Casey got out of the car without saying good-bye.
“I’ll call you,” Hugh said.
She nodded. George had seen them together. Hugh had just had his hand inside her jeans and the other on her right breast, his tongue in her mouth. She could still smell his aftershave on her skin.
“Hi, George,” she said, and looked into his eyes.
George said nothing back, just nodded. He would pretend that he’d seen nothing. That was part of his job. In his work, he had seen more women cheating than men. All the talk about men being dogs seemed like bullshit compared with single girls who fucked a lot of guys at once. Unu’s girl was a whore as far as he was concerned. All her nice clothes and fancy talk in that college-girl accent didn’t mean a thing to him. George put the golf bag in the elevator for her and asked, “You all right with that?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Casey pushed the elevator button to her floor.
9 SEAM
JOSEPH HAN HAD NEVER SPOKEN to the new choir director. Deacon Kim, a whispy mechanic and baritone, had told Joseph that the young man worked hard to support himself even though he came from a boojah family and could have easily sponged off his father’s wealth. Joseph approved of this. He himself had been born into a rich household but had labored since youth. Occasionally, he wondered what would have happened to him if it hadn’t been for the war—would he have gone to the university like his elder brothers or stayed home and loafed as the youngest son? Joseph had not become rich in America, certainly, and didn’t have much to show for his life, but he had worked diligently since he was sixteen. He liked the looks of Charles Hong: thin and sober looking. He didn’t wear a necktie or a suit. Leah had mentioned that he didn’t even own a car.
Joseph had come to the choir rehearsal room this Sunday to talk to Charles Hong, because of Leah, of course. This was the fourth Sunday in a row that she had missed church. She’d been going to work, doing mostly sewing, because she’d lost her voice and couldn’t talk to the customers. She’d had a terrible cold the first half of the month, then lately she had been suffering from a stomach virus. This past week, he had made her stay home on Thursday and Friday, because she had been looking wan and feeble. She had lost weight.
If she didn’t get better soon, he would get permission to close the store and take her to the doctor himself.
This afternoon, Tina, Chul, and the baby boy, Timothy, were flying into New York, and Casey and Unu were coming to the house. Timothy was finally coming. Ever since Joseph had gone to San Francisco to see his grandson, he had been feeling more hopeful. But oddly, Leah had been worsening. It wasn’t like her to go to work and skip church when she wasn’t feeling well. In their twenty-six years of marriage, she might’ve missed church only a handful of times, if that. Even Elder Shim had noted her absence. He had asked about her.
Joseph hadn’t always wanted to go to church. It was Leah’s faith that had moved him to accept Yesu Christo as his personal savior and redeemer. Joseph’s first wife had not been a Christian. But she had been a fine person, and perhaps she might have become a believer. The minister said that the only people who were saved were those who accepted Jesus and turned their lives from sin. Before she had the chance to hear the gospel, she had been taken from him. What happened to her? Joseph had always wanted to ask his minister that but lost his nerve whenever he had the opportunity.
Joseph entered the choir room, and several people greeted him right away. He bowed back at them. Charles was seated in the front part of the room behind a small wooden desk—a rough-hewn thing salvaged from the street.
Charles heard the approaching footsteps and looked up. He could hardly believe whom he saw. The man’s serious face appeared pleasant enough. It had been a month nearly since he had last seen Leah—though he’d hardly thought of anything but her since then. In his mind, she had become an imprisoned angel. All this time, he had been trying to figure out how to free her without putting her in danger. He might have thought that her husband could have killed her or taken her away but for the fact that for the past four Sundays, including this one, the soprano Kyung-ah Shin had explained that Leah was sick. It wasn’t possible to ask the friend anything beyond if she was all right, and Kyung-ah had volunteered no extra information. In the midst of his frequent reveries, Charles would occasionally come to his senses and recall that she was a long-married woman, someone who’d known nothing of the world except for her husband and two grown daughters. But she was evidently in love with him—Charles felt sure of that. But doubts surfaced inevitably: If she were the kind of woman who’d leave her aging husband after a lifetime of marriage, then would she be the woman Charles would or could love?
When had he fallen in love? Was it when he’d first heard her sing? No, not really. Could you point to a moment, or was it an accretion of impressions? It might have been when she had come to his house with that doctor who was obviously in love with her, too, that he had started to think of her as the woman he had yet to meet. Leah wouldn’t have naturally entered into his world. She was of peasant birth, with little formal schooling, and she worked as a tailor at a dry-cleaning store in New York. But she was also a beautiful lark disguised in the body of a woman. The fact that she could read music had been a revelation to him. Some attentive nun had taught her back home. Her existence at all had made him question everything.
Why was Joseph here? Charles tried to calm his thoughts, all jumbled with questions and fear. If Joseph shot him dead, he would have deserved it. Another man’s wife was sacred. This was an obvious notion, yet it had never stopped him before. But in his experiences with sleeping with several married women, they had been happy to keep up the affair, to not leave their situations, and the women were pissed off only when he’d wanted to end it. And it was always he who had to walk away. For the first time, he wanted a woman to leave her husband. But she had not called him once. How ridiculous. There was no God, he thought. Only a big joker.
“Elder Han,” Charles said, rising from his chair. He clasped his hands behind his back to steady himself.
Joseph bowed his head lightly to acknowledge the younger man. Charles bowed deeper from the waist.
“My wife. . . ,” Joseph began.
“Yes?” Charles answered too abruptly. “How is she?”
“She isn’t feeling well. Her cough isn’t so good. And she’s been having some stomach ailments,” Joseph said.
“Deaconess Shin has told me that your wife has been suffering with a cold. That she lost her voice. Is it serious?”
“She was very sorry to miss her solo last month.”
“Everything worked out,” Charles assured him. Kyung-ah had taken over that morning. It had been fine, he’d thought then. But that morning, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on much of anything.
“Her throat is bothering her a great deal. She can’t even hum. It’s strange not to hear her—” Joseph felt foolish for talking. He didn’t know why he had come exactly. She hadn’t asked him to. He just knew that the choir was the most important thing to her.
“Has she been to the doctor?”
“She won’t go. But she was able to go to work for the first three weeks even though she was sick. She doesn’t have to talk to customers so much when she’s sewing.” Leah had tied a cotton scarf around her neck. For hours, she had worked quietly over her sewing machine without a word. “But this week, I told her to stay home for a few days, because she seemed so tired. And the coughing.”
Charles nodded, not knowing what to say. He felt a sharp ache in his chest imagining the silence of her days. He gave a grimace of pain without intending to.
“Is there something I can do? May I call her at home?”
“Oh.” Joseph brightened, grateful for the man’s kindness. “That would be wonderful. I think she would be honored if you could find the time to—”
“No, no, not at all.” Charles waved his hand. “I’d be happy to call. Can she talk on the phone?” He stroked his Adam’s apple.
“Oh yes. Probably not long, though. She has a persistent cough. She has been feeling low, I think.” Joseph felt relief at confiding this to someone who cared about her. The young man was responsible and warmhearted to be so concerned.
Joseph wrote down his home number on the back of a church program for the choir director. They bowed good-bye.
As he was heading out of the choir room, Kyung-ah Shin called out to him and sprang up from her chair.
Joseph nodded curtly. She came and stood close to him. He jerked back a little. The choir stared at them, then looked away. Charles pretended not to notice and looked over his sheet music.
“Elder Han,” Kyung-ah said. “Elder Han,” she said again breathlessly. “I was wondering how your wife was doing. This morning when she said she couldn’t make it to church again, I was really worried. Is she getting better? She sounded so quiet. I could barely hear her. A cold can turn into pneumonia. Maybe she needs X-rays.” She stared boldly into his eyes—his expression was detached and cool. He didn’t like her very much. That was obvious. Kyung-ah’s own husband was a shy man who worked hard and stayed out of her way. He was a good father to their children. But he was so dull that she often forgot he was in the room with her. Marriage was a necessary thing, Kyung-ah thought, but unnatural.
“She’s resting today. I think she’ll go to the doctor next week.”
“She said her grandson is coming.” Kyung-ah smiled at him. Most men liked her, and it bugged her that he didn’t. Clearly, he preferred the white-haired sexless type. “That will cheer her up.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling quickly before putting on his hat. He had to go to the Korean mart to pick up some feast food that Leah had ordered for lunch.
“You must be busy,” she said. He wanted to go, and she was keeping him from it. “You better go home to take care of her. I’ll phone her later.”
Joseph nodded. He had never understood why his wife even talked to a woman like her. Her lipstick was blood colored so that it looked as though she’d eaten a rat.
Leah was in the kitchen by herself. Before he left, Joseph had made her a pot of ginseng tea, and she had promised that she’d drink some, but the smell of it bothered her so much that when she brought it
close to her lips, the few spoonfuls of bop she’d had for breakfast almost came up. She was so tired that she could barely stand, and she coughed some more. Her coughing was often so violent that she had to sit down afterward. It felt as if someone were punching her in the chest.
The children were coming today, and she hadn’t cooked anything. Joseph had forbidden it. So for the first time in her life, she had ordered prepared food from a store. Kyung-ah had told her that Mrs. Kong’s catered meals were perfectly good enough and to forget making lunch. “Don’t be a dumdum,” her friend had said.
Leah left the kitchen and went to the living room to lie down on the sofa. When she was alone and still, her thoughts drifted to the professor. There were guilty moments when she wished she were sitting with him in that diner, listening to stories about singers he had known, concerts he’d attended. He’d talked passionately about the song cycle commission he was writing, his inexplicable interest in organ music: “Widor is astonishing. You must’ve heard it. At least the fifth movement of his Organ Symphony number five? The toccata. At weddings, it’s often performed.” Excited, he had hummed a few bars. Leah didn’t know any of it but wanted to. There was so much she didn’t know, and being with him had awakened her to the idea that there was something else out there in the world, rhythms she now craved. In her ear, she could hear his voice—when he was stern or excited—and it swam back to her when she was by herself. In the car, he had been so soothing and urgent. She had fallen into his voice despite her terror. At one point during the dinner, he’d pronounced with a kind of finality, “Rachmaninoff is sentimental,” as if that were a kind of curse.
It must be something to make judgments like that, to be able to say such things with confidence. It was impossible to imagine a woman being that way. He had said to her, “Your voice is unlike anyone I’ve ever heard. I’m only sorry we hadn’t met when you were a girl.” He hadn’t said it to be cruel, she thought; it was just a fact that he was a teacher and she was a singer who had missed her chances. That’s all. Yet he thought she was a real singer rather than another member of a church choir in Woodside. When she put all that out of her mind, however, she recalled what else had happened in the car. The thing she could never take back. She would be an adulterer forever. The man had entered her body, and when a man and a woman came together to form one body, then everything was different. Sex was the gift a woman gave to one man—her husband. Men needed that like water. Everyone knew that. She had been frightened and stimulated by the recognition that a man as worldly and sophisticated as her teacher could desire her. No, she’d said. Please. She had asked to go home. Yet she must have enticed him. And that was a serious offense against God. The impossible thing was: Leah had never believed that she was capable of seducing a man. No one but Joseph had ever wanted her before, not as far as she knew. In a way, that belief had been her protection. She should never have gone to the diner with him. Leah wanted to die.
