On Such a Full Sea: A Novel

by Lee, Chang-rae

  Still, it was decided that Three should do it, as she was the most outspoken of them, and because it was her turn to sleep out in Miss Cathy’s suite anyway. But when she slipped back inside their room the next morning, she was as upset and shaken as any of them had ever seen her, telling them how instantly cross Miss Cathy had become, and then deeply hurt by the idea that the Girls were even considering that she had anything but their best welfare in mind. Fan was a part of them now forever. In fact, Miss Cathy decided that no one would stay out with her for an entire week, effectively barring all of them. This caused an immediate panic in the group, for she had never done such a thing before, and poor old Two, who was perhaps the most fragile of them, became so anxious that she had to be given nighttime ibuprofen dissolved in some ginger tea to stop her obsessive throat-clearing, which is how her nervousness expressed itself. Miss Cathy had, of course, taken off a week or two when she and Mister Leo went on a rare vacation, but she had never been home without having one of them sleep out.

  While they were all comforting Two as she sipped her tea on the circular sofa, Fan told them that they should not concern themselves with her plight and that she would somehow find a way to reunite with Reg. They protested, bemoaning her lot, though finally assented with kindly murmurs and exhortations, hugging her in turn. Of course, their aim of liberating Fan was not in the least diminished. And after years of intimate domiciling, a shared glance among them was enough to cement the understanding that only they would constitute the solution.

  The first attempt was mostly exploratory. Six and Seven, perhaps wanting to be daring, intentionally ate some moldy Korean rice cakes they had unearthed in the back of the pantry closet, in the hopes that they’d become ill enough for Miss Cathy to call the medical center for help. An ambulance had come a couple of years before, when Three suffered an attack of appendicitis, with the EMTs waiting outside Miss Cathy’s suite; the doors were briefly unlocked for them then, several girls carrying Three to the gurney in the corridor. But now Six and Seven only got ill enough from the dduk to throw up and suffer a half day’s bout of diarrhea, after which they felt fine. Miss Cathy could not even be alerted.

  The second try was more serious. Four and Five, who most often prepared the meals, were making a cold bean salad for a lunch. But when Four opened one of the cans of kidney beans—it was slightly bulged on the bottom, so that it wobbled as she clipped the can opener onto it—a horrific, apocalyptic smell filled the small kitchen. They had to turn on the hood fan, though it did little good; the smell was practically vicious, similar to the awful odor last summer when an animal died in the venting for their room, but ten times as potent, sickly sharp and alive. We can imagine them holding their noses, and looking at each other to see if one of them might be willing to eat it. But it was far too foul. Finally, Four was about to zip up the can in a plastic baggie to throw out when Five suggested that they make a spicy curry out of it for themselves. They got to work, adding a good can of beans to the fry, trebling the dry spices and chilis, until the dish became in fact somewhat edible, being at least intense and fiery. Indeed Five kept saying how they ought to make it this way always, even ladling a second helping on her slice of bread.

  The two waited. But nothing happened. Nothing happened during the afternoon or when they were cleaning up the dishes or while they played their nightly game of hearts. They’d served everyone else instant ramen. After the cards, everyone got ready for bed, each taking a turn at the toilet and then the basins to floss and brush her teeth and wash and lotion her face and hands and brush each other’s hair. It went exactly as it did every night, an orderly march through the stations. Nothing went wrong through the night.

  Instead, the trouble began the next morning, when Five suddenly lost her balance and had to prop herself on the counter of the vanity. She kept insisting she was fine, she just felt light-headed, taking a drink from the faucet with her cupped palm, when Four leaned over the very same basin and retched so forcefully that the spew splashed up and flecked the mirror. They told the rest what they’d done. Five had to lie down, but Four felt better and the rest of them decided they would get on with the day and their work at the wall. But within an hour both girls had to get up and run to the bathroom to vomit, each looking heavy-lidded and talking in a funny way, like they had a little square of cloth stuck on their tongues. Five was unable to keep her eyes open, even though she wasn’t sleepy at all. Her shoulders felt stiff and tingly. She was very thirsty but had no fever. And while she seemed sound of mind, she said she was seeing two of everything. Or maybe three.

  Two of the girls went to the suite door and urgently knocked for Miss Cathy. When the door finally opened, it was not Miss Cathy but Mala, which surprised and pleased them, as they saw her only every other month, when she was allowed to come up and visit for a while. At the moment Miss Cathy was out in the garden with Mister Leo, and the frantic raps on the door had compelled Mala to open up, despite how angry Miss Cathy would surely be were she to find out. Mala asked what was happening and they told her, saying Four and Five needed a doctor.

  When she came inside, she gave Fan and the others a quick embrace. Then she examined the stricken ones, checking them, Fan thought, with the same care she would her very own daughters. She tested each girl’s forehead with her lips, took a sniff of their breath, then gently pinched their arms to see how dehydrated they were. Four clung to her, moaning her name pitiably as if from underwater; Five was too weak to do anything. Mala gently assured them that they would be all right. To the rest of them, however, Mala did not say anything afterward, simply telling them to wait. It was not quite an hour later that she returned. This time it was with a man, a lean, fit, tall young doctor from the medical center.

  The fellow—stitched into the breast pocket of his scrubs was V. UPENDRA, M.D.—seemed put out at first for having to make this outcall, and then by who the patients turned out to be, his chin stiffening at the strangeness of the large, open bunk room. But once he began examining Five, who could now hardly raise her chest to inhale, he camped beside her on both knees, his eyes narrowing as he took her pulse and temperature and listened to her heart. He asked what exactly they’d ingested and when. He processed the information with full attention and gravity. Then he asked Mala to have the owner of the house come up right away, and she went down to fetch Miss Cathy.

  While they waited, he looked about the room, Fan getting some water for the sickened girls. The five other girls—two of whom were older than he was—had retreated to one arc of the circular sofa, bunching together. They had not encountered any outsiders since Three’s appendicitis, and perhaps no one else for years before that, and so they were thoroughly unsettled by the presence of this man, who was unshaven and looking like he was at the end of a double shift in his wrinkled scrubs, though still certainly handsome. In fact, they could hardly look at him, keeping their gazes lowered, all except for Six, who snuck long looks at him.

  Fan couldn’t help but think he was similar to Reg, at least in frame, bony-shouldered and bony-elbowed, though, of course, he had commanded the room when he had first come in, merely by the ease and authority of his posture, something Reg—or most any other B-Mor—couldn’t do if he tried. Or perhaps it was simply a Charter thing.

  What’s that? he asked Fan. He was looking at the wall.

  Fan told him it was what the others were doing, not sure now how else to describe it.

  Not you?

  Fan said she was only helping a little. He walked to the wall and surveyed it, instinctively beginning at the corner and following its progression around to the second wall. The Girls nervously tittered as he viewed it, for they suddenly realized that a stranger was perusing their innermost thoughts and dreams. Two covered her face entirely and then all the others did the same. The young doctor was not paying any attention to them, however, despite the fact that he could have easily matched a scene to a girl. He was clearly fascinated by the wall,
its many shapes and colors, and when he reached the panels in which Fan first appeared, he seemed to pause, checking back for her in the previous images. He stood for a while before the largest scene of her being pushed upward.

  What’s your name? he asked Fan, and she told him.

  You’re not one of them, are you?

  Our Fan offered neither expression nor word.

  I figured, he said, regarding her intently. Did she feel a thrum in her chest when confronted so? Was it his light brown skin? His blue eyes, almost like Reg’s, as deep as a sparkling island sky? His lips full but defined, the head of densely dark wavy hair? Yet there was something about him, not at all superficial, that spoke to her of Reg. Perhaps it was a core of sanguine innocence beneath all the Charter self-assurance, a node of vulnerability that had not been trained away, dissolved.

  You don’t move like the others, he said, glancing over at the Girls. They were peeking now at him again. They go around like they’re following something. Little heeding steps. You’re not a Charter, though. That’s obvious. But then you’re no counties person, either. You’re from a facility, aren’t you? Which one?

  But before she could answer, or not answer, Mala and Miss Cathy appeared. The Girls instantly rose and schooled about Miss Cathy, and for some reason they began to cry, shaken perhaps by the sudden and unprecedented fullness of the gathering. Miss Cathy, who didn’t appear put out or perturbed at all, spanned them with her arms, her manner that of an all-loving school headmistress, patting each girl on the head to try to calm her. Once done, she broke from their ranks and in her willowy dressing gown fluttered to the beds of Four and Five, practically ignoring the young doctor until the moment she spoke to him.

  So why can’t you help my girls? she said.

  They can’t be treated here, he replied, clearly annoyed by her tone. But this didn’t deter him from explaining the situation to her fully; their lack of fever was a clue, and that while only lab tests at the medical center could confirm it, he suspected it was botulism, which was something that occurred rarely, and then only out in the counties. They were breathing poorly as well, and if it was indeed botulism, they might eventually require a ventilator.

  A ventilator? Miss Cathy said.

  Yes, the doctor told her. They could lose the ability to breathe. They could die.

  Miss Cathy nodded. Then she asked him to arrange to have ventilators delivered, and have the testing done here, as she didn’t want the Girls to be separated. But he said that was not possible.

  Then please ask your superior.

  I’m the superior, he told her. Apparently he was the ER chief, and had only come because the outcalls resident had suddenly taken ill. It was a simple choice; she could have them transported, or they would remain here.

  Miss Cathy said, It’s my decision, yes?

  Assuming you’re their keeper.

  I’m their keeper, she answered.

  We know, of course, that Miss Cathy deemed the two would remain in place, to which the rest of the girls, shaken as they’d never been before with real confusion and fright, could only assent. It was happier for all of them, especially Miss Cathy, to believe that the sickness would pass. Even Four and Five tried to agree, waving from their beds. It had been most difficult, Miss Cathy now recalled for them, when Three developed an infection from the burst appendix and had to stay at the medical center for a week. With one of them missing, they couldn’t sleep. They couldn’t eat. Even the wall work went badly. Nothing was right.

  Mala asked Miss Cathy to reconsider, but the woman literally blocked her ears, no doubt startled to hear such questioning from her helper. It may have been the very first such instance. Mala pleaded some more and Miss Cathy finally shouted, Enough! Mala shrank. Miss Cathy now mentioned to the Girls that she had been planning to bathe and wondered if they wished to be with her afterward, to do their hair and nails. They cooed in happy panic; it was a rare treat to be invited for a beauty session in her suite. Before leaving, they all kissed the sickened girls, Miss Cathy telling Fan to stay and watch over them and call the doctor if necessary.

  Upendra, who had been gathering his things, reiterated that it would only be an ambulance returning to transport them to the medical center, as there was nothing more here for any doctor to do. Miss Cathy didn’t respond, though her tight huddling with the Girls reminded one and all that they were in one another’s care, just as they always had been, just as they always would be. They disappeared into her suite. Mala had to go downstairs, so she would let Upendra out. But before he left the Girls’ room, the young doctor took Fan aside, handling her by the elbow, kindly but with grip enough that she could distinctly feel each pad of his fingers pressing on the joint and bone.

  You don’t have to stay here if you aren’t hers to keep. You know that, right?

  She nodded.

  He waited for her say something, perhaps to ask him for help, but she remained silent.

  Okay, then, he said, seemingly unsettled by the moment. He was going to say something else but then he simply left. The Girls’ room door was locked shut. Fan must have known, if anyone would, that she wasn’t Miss Cathy’s to “keep.” She wasn’t anyone’s to keep, perhaps not even Reg’s, which is in part why we admired her so. Yet there are times when one must simply endure, as was the case now, with Fan alone watching the two sick dear girls, their color already going to slate.

  There is an old B-Mor saying that one hears a lot these days. Or so it would seem. It came over with the originals, surely, and like many of their sayings, notions, traditions, it has remained in currency. It goes like this:

  Behold a fire from the opposite shore.

  For the originals, it was advice to be taken literally, for back where they came from there were indeed real fires raging (whether by accident or design or negligence), plus constant plumes of lethal smoke from the primitive industrial processes, not to mention the attendant spews of fouled waters, and countless megakilos of buried waste products that eventually poisoned the entire subdistrict. You had best stay back, suggested the sage. Or flee.

  Proverbially, of course, it means to indicate that one can rightly look after one’s own, that you are not obligated to address the plight of others. This may strike us as inconsistent with what we think of as the primary ethos of our community, namely, that it is a community, right down to our slippers, in which we shall labor and prosper together, or else tread at our lonely peril.

  Sayings are employed for a purpose, reflecting what we want of them and the larger world, as well as the very time of that wanting. Everyone knows a truth can be a falsehood (or vice versa) depending on the context. So, too, with the recent frequency of this “fire.” Are we afraid of what seems to be happening, and so are justifying a retreat into ourselves? Or is it being spread by people secretly working for the directorate, for the same reason? Either way, we have begun to feel the rends in our finely spun society with each outbreak of vandalism and impromptu public protest and then the rash of the newest graffiti, spray- or hand-painted with what must be a widely distributed stencil.

  FREE REG

  No matter if we agree. And we do agree, as does everyone else we know. Is even the directorate in opposition? But it’s the fact that the sentiment is being duplicated, in most every hue, with both the faint smudge of haste and the meticulous intricacy of design, which unnerves. It’s gone wide. One example that we saw the other day clearly looked as if a small child was barely able to hold up the stencil before messily overspraying it, the part outline of his or her stout little hand floating faintly above the drippy letters. It was practically heartbreaking—and disturbing—to think of that innocent young person wholly caught up in this broad surge of feeling.

  But it is a genuine surge, and like all surges that rise up and tide and maybe threaten the bulwarks, it will eventually recede. What it shows of us when it does is difficult to say. We are not accus
tomed to thinking too far ahead, no doubt because of our longtime security and prosperity. We are engaged in the regular business of our living, as always passing the hours mostly hived in our households, though these days, despite the cooler weather, you see more and more of us outside, just as we would be on especially hot summer nights.

  Though now, instead of the children playing their games of tag and hide-and-seek, and the adults arrayed on the stoops fanning themselves and drinking iced tea and smoking, we are milling about on the sidewalk or in the street. The children are actually aware of us, awaiting our next move. Most everyone is standing. Maybe there’s a food hawker, maybe there’s a reader of palms or cards, but even these are behaving with politeness and reserve, just as though they had set up outside a row house holding a viewing, to serve any craving mourners. They’re acting this way because we are murmuring to one another, and not of garish happenings on the evening programs, or of the unusually pronounced bitterness of the bitter melons at market. We are sharing a different kind of report: of ongoing shift reductions at the facilities; of ever-increasing class sizes at the schools; of a spate of postponed overseas retiree tours, with no further word of rescheduling. And along with these and other observations and gripes, which have all been made before (if privately), what’s arising are the exhortations people are giving to one another to bring about change. And whether or not that change is possible does not seem paramount, at least not yet. It’s the very practice of our talk that warms enough, how we face each other and speak.