Free Food for Millionaires (44 page)

2
STEAM

D
OUGLAS SHIM REACHED FOR HIS OVERCOAT
from the long row of hooks along the bumpy concrete wall of the church basement. He’d already put on his walking cap. He patted his suit pocket and felt the hand-drawn map of where Charles Hong lived.

Apparently, the choir director had the chicken pox. As chair of the church hospitality committee, Douglas traveled to the homes of the infirm and elderly each Sunday. In these visits, however, there were times he wished he weren’t a doctor. Even as Elder Shim reminded the bedridden parishioner that he was an eye surgeon and didn’t specialize in whatever ailed him—liver, pancreas, gallbladder, prostate, the list went on—he found himself having to play the doctor anyway and listen to the patient describe his illness and treatment in a muddled fashion. Douglas was routinely asked to render a second opinion for which he felt unqualified. Elder Joseph Han and his wife, Deaconess Cho, were accompanying him to Brooklyn today, and he scanned the room to find them.

Leah approached him by herself, as ever, her steps small. Her braided hair was pinned into a bun, and her head resembled a white flower on the stem of her neck. She wore a simple tan-colored coat.

Douglas broke into a smile. “Ah, Deaconess Cho. We didn’t have a solo from you today. It’s too sad, don’t you think, when I have to hear your perfect voice get swallowed up by those toads in that choir of ours?” He grinned like a naughty child waiting to be chastised.

Leah was incapable of responding to his teasing. Her friend Kyung-ah would have known what to say, but she was on the other side of the basement, drinking coffee with her sister.

“Where’s the elder?” he asked. Elder Han usually walked ahead of his wife, with the deaconess following closely behind.

Leah swallowed before speaking. “Tina had her baby.”

“
Uh-muh.
I didn’t know she was pregnant.” Douglas smiled broadly. The doctor had a great fondness for children.

Leah turned a bit. She hadn’t told anyone except for Kyung-ah and some of the girls in her
geh
that her younger one had gotten pregnant in what must’ve been within days of her wedding. Very much the time frame in which Casey had been conceived. But for Tina and Chul, the condom had broken, and they hadn’t wanted an abortion.

“And she’s still in medical school?” There was concern in his voice.

“She finished the first semester of her second year, but she’s taking a break for now. Until things get a little easier. Chul is finishing his third, and this is an important year for him.”

“It’s important for both of them to finish,” Douglas said with a deep nod for emphasis. The deaconess’s expression grew more reticent. “So is Elder Han visiting the baby?”

“Yes.” Leah anticipated the judgment. It would’ve made more sense if she had gone to California to help with the baby, but she would not travel. The last time she’d been on a plane was when she’d first come to America. “He went to California on Thursday. I stayed here to take care of the store. One of us had to. Stay, that is.”

“Of course, of course.”

“It’s a boy,” she offered.

“How nice for you.”

“Yes, finally. A boy.”

Douglas raised his eyebrows. He’d never wished for a boy. Ella was a wonderful daughter to him.

“They named him Timothy. After the young man who helped St. Paul.”

“Yes, yes. A fine name.. . . Deaconess Chung can’t come with us today,” Douglas told her. He was a little nervous about this but didn’t want to show it.

“Oh?” Leah blinked. She’d never been alone in the car with Elder Shim.

“She had to take her son to his chemistry tutor. Stanley’s going to take his Regents exam in June, and she said he’s failing everything. I thought she might start to cry.” Douglas made a worried face. “He’s always giving her trouble with his schoolwork. You see, sons are not so wonderful,” he said.

Leah smiled. Elder Shim was being nice, because she didn’t have any sons. Her husband, too, had never complained that she hadn’t given him a son.

Douglas motioned toward the exit near the parking lot and paused. He wanted her to walk ahead of him, so Leah took the first step.

Douglas drove a dark green Subaru station wagon. He opened the passenger door for her. Leah smelled Japanese air freshener—something like grapefruit or orange. There was a tin of pink waxy deodorizer by the cup holder.

“What are you carrying?” he asked, buckling his seat belt. On her lap, the deaconess was holding three stacked metal containers wrapped in a large packing cloth. It had been a long time since he had seen
do-si-rak
containers—what day workers in Korea would have used to carry their lunch.

“Soup and some fish I made last night.”

“How nice,” he said. In the back of the car, he kept cases of canned fruit juice for sick parishioners. The choir director would get a case.

“Oh, the fish.” Leah wrinkled her nose. “Should we open the window?” she asked, anxious that the smell of soy sauce and garlic from the fish might bother Elder Shim.

“It smells wonderful. The choir director will get better right away after he eats your food,” Douglas said. He was humming as he shifted the gear from park to drive. “Do your daughters cook?”

“Not really. I wanted them to study for school,” she said. “Ella cooks wonderfully. I remember her cookies. The ones she baked for the older parishioners. They were delicious.”

“Ella is a gourmet cook. But she doesn’t make much Korean food. Says the cookbooks aren’t very good. But she knows how to make kimchi. She found a recipe in
The New York Times
. Isn’t that funny?”

Leah nodded, feeling sorry that there had been no one to teach his daughter.

“I’ll let her know. What you said about the cookies. Maybe she’ll send you a batch.”

“Oh no, no. I mean, I’m sure she’s so busy. With. . . with all the work and her baby—”

She didn’t know if it was okay to talk about Ella. With the divorce and all.

“Ted is a fool. An absolute fool,” Douglas muttered. He looked ahead at the road. The thought of his son-in-law upset him, but he was a cautious driver, and he kept his foot light on the accelerator. He hadn’t spoken to anyone at church about the divorce, not even when the minister had asked him about it. But somehow it felt all right to talk to the deaconess—perhaps it was being alone with her in the car or the fact that she, too, had a daughter Ella’s age. Douglas missed his wife most when he had concerns about Ella.

“Is everything okay with your granddaughter?” She said the word
okay
in English. Her Korean words felt too specific.

“Irene is perfect. Just like my Ella.” His granddaughter was a smiley baby, full of laughs and easy to please. She didn’t cry except for when she needed a diaper change, was tired, or was hungry. His office desk was covered with framed photographs of her and Ella together.

“And how is Ella?” Leah finally ventured to ask.

“She’s doing very well.” Douglas wanted to correct the last image that the deaconess might have had of his daughter: when the ambulance had to take her away to the hospital from Tina’s wedding. “She went back to work at that school, and there’s a very nice nanny and housekeeper still working for her.” Douglas grew quiet, having had to say out loud that his daughter was raising her child in the same way he’d had to after his wife had died—as a single working parent. “She’ll be twenty-six in November.”

Leah watched his face as he drove, how it softened with grief.

“She will marry again,” Leah said. “Ella is the most beautiful girl and so very kind.”

“Ted is a fool,” he repeated.

“Then”—Leah paused before continuing—“it’s good that she got rid of him sooner than later.” Her sister-in-law had once told her that a woman’s life was completely determined by the man she married. And in her experience, this was true. All the women she knew who were happy had made good marriages to nice, hardworking men. “Ella will find someone better. Because now she has. . .” Leah thought about it a bit. “Life experience.”

Her words surprised Douglas, but he could tell she meant them.

“Whatever she wants to do is fine with me,” he said, his tone confident. Yet that wasn’t entirely true. He still regretted not having pushed her to wait to marry Ted. He could’ve said no. His daughter was a mild child with a gentle disposition. Even in this day and age, she would have listened to him; he felt certain of this. But things like infidelity usually didn’t show up until the marriage was well under way. Douglas tried to imagine Irene’s face, her pretty eyelashes and gurgly laughs—how she lit up when she heard Ella’s voice. She was a year and five months, but already she was stringing words together. Irene called him
ba-buh,
short for
hal-ah-buh-jee
. If it weren’t for Ted, there would be no Irene. He would focus on the good, Douglas told himself—to possess joy and peace in Yesu Christo.

Douglas rang the doorbell—a low, quiet chime. Almost pleasant. But no one answered. He pulled out the scrap paper with the map and address. They were at the right place, standing on the limestone stoop, six tall steps above street level. There was another entrance at the street below the staircase. The facade of the Federalist house was imposing. Douglas rang again.

Leah shifted her food package from one hand to the other. Would he like her cooking? she wondered. There were houses similar to this in Sutton Place, but she’d never been to Brooklyn before. She was impressed by the size of the home and understood from rumors that he came from a prominent
boojah
family, but it was oddly disappointing to see him live so prosperously. She had pictured him in a small, unheated apartment, suffering for his music. He was supposed to be a composer, and she’d imagined him sitting on a hard stool, despite his illness, writing sacred music on a makeshift desk. There were a few customers at the store who were artists—one painter who worked as a waiter had given her and Joseph a small watercolor of a golden carp because he couldn’t pay to have his uniform cleaned one week. That wasn’t allowed, but Joseph put money in the register from his own wallet to pay for the cleaning.

“One more time,” Douglas said, pressing the bell. “Maybe he’s okay after all and stepped out.”

But they heard footsteps approaching. The old brass knob turned from inside. The immense wooden door opened.

Charles appeared shocked, almost as if he didn’t recognize them. He was wearing a blue sweater, gray sweatpants, and no socks. His face and neck were spotted with red blisters. The living room behind him, however, was filled with the brilliant sunlight of the early Sunday afternoon. He invited them in, shaking his head.

“There was no need for you to come all this way.” Charles spoke to them in Korean. He felt embarrassed to be seen like this. He tried not to look at Leah.

The door shut behind him. The piano and the stereo that the insurance broker had mentioned the day Charles had first started the job were beside the Palladian windows facing the street. The tall windows were unshaded and looked grimy. Since the broker’s visit, Douglas’s father had come to New York and bought him two Le Corbusier sofas and a Noguchi coffee table now piled high with books and sheet music. Dustballs collected in the living room corners like miniature tumbleweeds.

“I brought the soloist. Maybe Deaconess Cho will sing for you. That might make you well,” Douglas said with a straight face.

The elder couldn’t be serious, Leah thought.

Charles glanced at Douglas, then Leah. “The doctor is undoubtedly right. Do you think you can give us a song?” He smiled at her.

Leah flushed from her neck to her forehead. Without removing her shoes, she rushed to the nearest chair and sat down to pray. Even in his condition, the choir director was handsome to her, and she felt guilty. Douglas smiled genially at Charles, then went to sit on the sofa. Silently, he gave thanks that he was able to serve God in this capacity, also for their safe arrival.

When Leah finished her prayers, she opened her eyes.

“May I put the food in the kitchen?” she asked.

Charles hesitated, knowing the condition it was in. But there was nothing he could do but comply. He pointed in the direction of the kitchen.

Leah picked up the food she’d brought and followed him. The kitchen smelled of cigarettes and tuna fish. The sink was full of dishes and frying pans and the counter littered with empty Vienna sausage tins and opened cereal boxes. It was a kitchen that was used every day but hadn’t been properly cleaned in what might have been weeks, perhaps months. The space was enormous, however, nearly the size of her apartment minus a bedroom. The old cabinets had been painted so many times over, they looked as if there were a layer of cake frosting over them. Leah admired the expanse of the old marble counters. It would be easy to put up a dozen bottles of kimchi in a kitchen this size, she thought. The fact that the kitchen was dirty and cluttered didn’t bother her—in fact, the amount of work needing to be done made her feel better, and oddly, standing there, she felt comfortable. Leah rested her package on the kitchen table and removed her coat, laying it over a chair. She started to drop the empty sausage cans and bottles on the counter into the waste bin.

The men didn’t know what to say as she began to clean. It didn’t seem possible to stop her, and even Douglas, who was in a better position to relieve her from this, knew better than to keep her from it. The work had to be done—that was clear enough—and growing up in Korea, men like them had had women to do it. For both of them, it had been some time since a Korean woman had been in either of their kitchens in this kind of intimate way, and in their wonder and surprise at being cared for by someone else’s wife and mother, who reminded them of other women in their past lives, Douglas and Charles found that they could hardly say anything, hoping not to diminish the moment. For this was love, wasn’t it? To have someone clean up after you, to think about you when you were sick, to not walk away when there was nothing to be gained for the labor required. Yet the task was also enormous; it would take a person all day to clean up this kitchen. Douglas thought he should try to help her. He took off his coat and put it over hers.