The Interpreter (11 page)

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Authors: Suki Kim

BOOK: The Interpreter
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The only regular interaction between the sisters concerned chores, as though they were two strangers with one thing in common—the house rules. Grace, being older, was in charge of most housework, while Suzy helped with whatever was left unfinished: vacuuming, dusting, taking out trash, preparing rice.
Grace was quick with everything. The house was spotlessly clean by the time she stood at the door in a skirt too short for a fifteen-year-old, telling Suzy, “The rice is rinsed. Stick it in the cooker in ten minutes. The rooms are vacuumed; make sure you put away the vacuum cleaner in the broom closet. Tell them that I’ve gone to the AP-English study group.” That was the extent of their conversation. Sometimes, in the morning, Suzy would ask her where she had gone on the previous evening. “The study group,” Grace would snap before walking out the door.
Then there was the interpreting. Neither of her parents had spoken much English, which meant that they relied on the girls to break the language barrier. But almost always the job fell on Grace, because she was the older one, and smarter. Grace, since she was little, had to pore over a letter from the bank trying to make sense of words like “APR” or “Balance Transfers,” or call Con Edison’s 800 number for a payment extension. Suzy would sit by her side, scared and anxious. There was something daunting about undertaking what should have been delegated to an adult. Not only was it nearly impossible to understand the customer-service representatives, but often they would not release information unless it was the account holder calling. Grace would plead, to no avail, that her parents were at work and that they did not speak the language. Sometimes Mom and Dad would sit by the phone, dictating exactly what Grace should say. But often such demands did not work, because their request was so anachronistic that it defied translation. After all, their understanding of such transactions was steeped in Korean ways. Finally, Dad would scream at Grace, “Tell them no late fee, they’ll get their money by next week!” Then Grace would look helpless as she repeated, “But he said that the balance was due last week, so next week will be considered late!” At those times, Dad never seemed grateful for Grace’s instant interpreting service. He seemed frustrated, even suspicious. He was certain that if he
could speak the language he would resolve all matters with a quick phone call. He seemed to resent Grace for relating to him what he did not want to hear, that the debts must be paid instantly, because that’s what most of those calls were about—money owed in one form or another. But most of all, he seemed angry at his own powerlessness. The ordeal of having to rely on his young daughter for such basic functions humiliated him. He never seemed to forget that humiliation.
Their parents’ lack of English and the family’s constant relocation only made things worse. There were always red-stamped notices in their mailbox. Once or twice a month, Grace skipped school to accompany Mom and Dad to the Department of Motor Vehicles or an insurance company or some other bureaucratic nightmare. They were often gone all day. Afterward, their parents went back to work while Grace returned home alone. Suzy would often notice the red in Grace’s eyes, as though she’d cried all the way. Almost always, upon arriving home, Grace would confine herself to the upper bunk without speaking to Suzy. Or she would stay out and come home much later. Curiously, on those nights, Dad never said anything. He pretended not to notice that Grace was missing at the dinner table. Suzy never asked Grace about the exact nature of those interpreting tasks—because they seemed so scary to little Suzy, and because Suzy felt guilty for letting Grace do all the work.
“You know, I sometimes wonder …” Caleb’s voice turns suddenly low, almost flat, the way it gets when he is serious.
Suzy keeps her eyes on the cigarette burning in the ashtray. The red wine, the plate of cheese, the smoke slowly rising.
“I wonder … why you never talk about your parents.” Caleb is cautious, uncertain if he should bring it up at all.
She had told him about her parents once, briefly. But that was it. Nothing more. No heartfelt anecdotes, no tearful monologues. Suzy avoided the topic, and he had never asked. Instead,
Caleb would chatter on about his parents, his lovers, his uncertain careers, and Suzy would laugh. They have grown comfortable with that.
“
My parents
—I never think about them.”
Suzy holds the cigarette between her index and middle fingers without actually bringing it to her mouth. She is hesitant. She is not sure what else to say, although Caleb is quiet, listening.
She recalls how she had abandoned them in their final years. She recalls the last time she saw them and how Dad had called her a whore, just once, but it was enough to slash her. She makes up little stories in her head about how happy the family would have been had she not run off with Damian, had her parents not been at the store on that final morning, had her sister forgiven her. Yet she cannot remember the sound of Dad’s laugh. She never longs for Mom’s Nina Ricci perfume. She never craves the empty late afternoons when Grace had gone out and her parents were still not home from work. She can barely picture her parents’ faces in daylight; she rarely saw them before dark.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Suzy lets out a small sigh, so thin that it sounds like a gasp. “I can’t stand myself for letting them go that way. I blame Damian. I blame myself for choosing Damian. But at the end of it all, they’re not here. I can’t stop thinking about it. That they’re gone, that they disappeared while I wasn’t even looking, while I hadn’t yet had a chance to solve anything, solve me, solve Damian, solve why I had to run away all those years. I thought I was the one leaving them, but parents, they always have the last word, don’t they? Still, I never think about them. Not really. What I’m not sure of is if I miss them. I’m not sure if I can honestly say that. I’m not sure if guilt has much to do with love.” Suzy is glad that there is a cigarette. She is glad that she is not here alone. “I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?”
Caleb does not respond. He is playing with the plate of
cheese, separating the mozzarella into little braids, making the holes in the Swiss bigger. Finally, he piles the bits of blue cheese into a little heart shape before pushing the plate toward Suzy.
“Sagittarius? In two weeks, the 24th?” Caleb’s eyes are on her now. Soft eyes. He wants to say something clever, something that will ease the moment. “The stars are in your favor, darling, you can’t be horrible. Nope, they won’t let you.”
The night is deeper. The wine bottle is nearly empty. The heart-shaped blue cheese looks ruffled and strange, like the map of the universe on the Grand Central ceiling. It feels good to be with Caleb.
“So you think Michael’s lying to me?”
“Absolutely.”
“What a scum.”
“What a two-timing bastard!”
They both start laughing when the phone starts ringing. Four times. Exactly. Then the click. Suzy is almost relieved. Whoever has been waiting. Whoever is still watching. Whoever is not letting go.
MICHAEL, IT CAN ONLY BE MICHAEL at this time of the morning. The phone is an alarm. Seven a.m. Probably lunchtime wherever he is. A miracle that he’s even waited until now. He probably thought to let her sleep a little. He is being considerate.
“So where were you yesterday?”
He is not happy, Suzy can tell. His voice is tight. Something’s up. He never gets so tense unless it has to do with his work, the nature of which Suzy barely understands.
“The case took longer than usual. I was stuck at the DA’s office.” Balancing the receiver between her right ear and her shoulder, Suzy opens the refrigerator and takes out the Brita pitcher to fill a glass. Her head sways with pins and needles. The wine last night took its toll. They had opened another bottle after the first one. She vaguely recalls Caleb urging,
Why not, drink it up before thirty!
He kept pouring more, and Suzy kept giggling, emptying each glass much more quickly than she should have.
“I called the whole fucking day!” He is fuming now.
“Michael,
it’s early.” Her head is caving in. She is not up for this battle.
“I’m tempted to just get on the next fucking flight to see you.
He can be such a child, so wildly different from Damian. Is this what Jen meant by “hiding”?
“So why don’t you?”
Suzy is good at handling his moods. That must be why he calls three times in a row. He knows she will never humor him. He knows she will never let him in.
“Four-point-three million, Suzy. Four-point-three fucking million on the line. Germans are fucking snakes. Everything’s all ready to go, and, boom, they need another fucking meeting, another fucking review, another big fucking waste of my time. And I’m fucking stuck here rather than fucking you, tell me the logic.”
Michael hates Germany. He hates almost everything, but he hates Germany more than most things. He thinks all Germans are Nazis and penny-pinchers. Suzy has no idea where his resentment stems from; she’s never quite bothered to ask. He is stuck in Frankfurt and can’t bear it. Thus his petulant mood. Suzy could see Michael lounging at a hotel lobby, a cell phone in one hand, with the other stirring two sugar cubes into his espresso. The top button of his shirt would be undone. No tie, since he would have taken it off immediately upon storming out of the meeting earlier. His feet up on the table. His eyes glancing at the
Herald Tribune
as he rants into the phone. Suzy suddenly misses him.
“I’ve got my period. We can’t do it anyway.”
That gets the abrupt silence, and then a chuckle. He’s already better, she can tell.
“
Christ,
Suzy, is that all you can say?”
“No, there’s more. I also have a pounding headache.” She pops two tablets of Advil into her mouth.
“A hangover?” He sounds doubtful. A bit suspicious, a bit jealous. But all an act, Suzy knows. Jealousy is not a part of their arrangement.
“Umm. I celebrated my twenties, the passing of it, I mean, or that’s what Caleb said at least.” Suzy is grinning. She might still be a little drunk.
“But your birthday is not for another two weeks?”
Of course he would remember. He would probably send her a dozen long-stemmed roses, boxed. He would make a reservation at the Rainbow Room. He would slide across the table a blue Tiffany case in which there would be a set of sparkling diamond earrings. He would do everything so that she would feel the weight of a mistress.
“I began celebrating early. I wanted to be happy yesterday.”
Maybe that’s what Suzy wanted. Maybe that’s why she circled on the Number 7 train for two hours. Maybe she was doing everything she could to stop the gushing sadness.
Half the Korean community didn’t exactly shed tears when they heard about his death!
Mr. Lee did not spare his words. So many people had hated her parents. One of them might have hated them enough to want them dead.
“Babe, you listening to me?” Michael is shouting. He’s forgotten about her headache.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, save your celebration for me. I said, wait.”
It is a game for Michael, to pretend to claim her. Suzy goes along with it because she knows what happens when it isn’t a game, when the claim is for real, when the claim takes over and plays out. Damian would never have asked her to wait. He would have taken it for granted. He would have expected nothing
less. And she would have, almost indefinitely, if he had asked.
“I’ll wait, I promise.”
“
Christ,
I’m really fucking dying to see you.”
 
 
When Suzy puts the phone down, it is still early, too early for anything. But Grace would be up. She would be getting ready for school. A little after seven. Suzy cannot remember anymore when high school starts, probably eight, or maybe eight-thirty. Teachers always come in before students, or at least they should, although, as Suzy recalls from the schools she attended in Queens and the Bronx, kids were often made to wait for teachers who sometimes didn’t show up at all. Grace wouldn’t be like that. Grace would show up on time. Her lessons would be well prepared, all set to go. Her hair would be neatly trimmed and coifed, and her dark-navy two-piece suit freshly pressed and buttoned. Or at least that’s how Suzy pictures her.
Grown-up Grace, born-again Grace, thirty, the ESL teacher at Fort Lee High School—her only family.
It must be an impulse. Or last night’s alcohol still in her blood. There is no other explanation for such courage, such longing to hear her voice. Suzy begins dialing the number. 7:15 a.m., what is she thinking? There’s the ringing, once, twice. Something lurches inside her. Her heart seems to be made up of tiny wings which all begin to flap at once. The sudden ocean inside. The waves breaking. She can feel the tightening in her throat. They have not spoken in years, not since the funeral, not since she was twenty-four and Grace twenty-five. Suzy keeps counting age, as though each year pushes her farther away from her parents.
The voice that comes on is unexpected.
The computerized operator.
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.”
So Grace has moved once more. Like their parents, she never stays at one address long. Each time Suzy has tried calling her, the operator would come on instead with the new number, which Suzy imagines is a sign, a message from Grace telling her that she has not completely given up on Suzy. Although Suzy also knows that Grace, as a teacher at a public school and a church, needs to have her number listed. But this time, Grace didn’t. Nothing, no further information available. Suzy dials the operator. Grace Park, she insists. I need a number for Grace Park. Yes, the area code 201, Fort Lee, her last name is Park, my sister. The operator tells her, no, nothing; there’s Grace Park in Edgewater, Grace Park in North Bergen, but not in Fort Lee, no one under such a name. Maybe Grace has moved to a town nearby. Maybe she has found a deal in one of those riverfront rentals along the Hudson. 7:30 a.m., not a good time for a wrong number, not surprising that they would hang up: Grace Park? I am Grace Park. I don’t have a sister; you’ve got the wrong person; do you know what time it is? The school, then, she must try the school. Fort Lee High School. Surely the school must be listed. Surely there would be a secretary who would take the call and deliver the message. It is then that the thought flashes across her mind—
why not go?
Why not just go there, why not tell Grace in person that there might be more to their parents’ death, that it might not have been random after all, that a guy named Lee had known their parents, that another guy named Kim out in Queens might know even more, and that Detective Lester, he called for the first time in five years, he might know something, he might even have found a clue?
But then Suzy is not so sure. Grace would surely just walk away. She would pretend not to have seen Suzy and hop into a
car with one of her colleagues. Who’s she? the colleague would ask. No one I know, Grace would answer without once glancing in Suzy’s direction. Worse yet, she might get mad, furious. She might drive off after telling Suzy never to come near her.
Do me a favor, Suzy; leave us alone
. Those were Grace’s parting words at the funeral.
Suzy throws her coat on anyway. It has not occurred to her that Grace would move without leaving a number, or that Grace might one day become unreachable. It is as if the phone number, or just having the phone number, or the possibility of the phone number, affirms Grace’s presence in Suzy’s life.
The headache seems to be getting worse. A bit of fresh air might not be such a bad idea. Fresh air, who’s she kidding? Fort Lee, a half-hour bus ride from the Port Authority, not the freshest outing. Before she loses courage, she is out on First Avenue, waving down a cab to Port Authority, where the Number 156 departs every twenty minutes.
 
 
It takes all her concentration not to get sick on the bus. The constant lurchings, the reek of gasoline, the jammed traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel—none of it helps. It does not seem to matter that the bus is moving in the opposite direction from the Manhattan-bound traffic. The tunnel keeps spinning. Suzy holds her breath, thinking that it might keep her stomach from rising up again. Two bottles of wine, not so smart to get on an interstate bus the first thing in the morning. A man on the other side of the aisle keeps fumbling with the paper bag in his lap. He takes something out and begins nibbling it, exuding a distinctly crunchy noise. Hash browns, wrapped in the McDonald’s cover. Soon he takes another out. Suzy wonders how many are in there. How many hash browns can a person eat at once? The sudden pungent smell of its microwaved, fried grease rushes up
her nose, and Suzy swallows hard, pressing her forehead on the cold windowpane to push the nausea away.
The hard surface against her skin seems to help a little, but then a gigantic billboard emerges on which lies a striking blonde in a neon-green bikini that looks electric against her implausibly copper tan. WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY, it says across the top of the blonde. It is impossible to tell what the advertisement is for exactly, but the bus swerves past before Suzy can study more closely. Suddenly it is not clear if the chill in the air signals the winter’s coming or leaving. Could the summer be just around the corner?
She hasn’t had enough water. She wonders if Hash Brown Man has some spare water in his paper bag. She wonders if he will share it, although she can’t decide if she wants water that has been stuck in there with all of his other fried snacks. She is thirsty, shivering. The summer is definitely nowhere near, she thinks, huddled in her coat with her face pressed back against the window.
It is impossible for her to raise her head. When the driver tells her that this is Fort Lee High School, this is where she should get off, Suzy inhales once before running out, holding her face in her hands. Then she is not exactly clear how she pushes through the main entrance, bypasses the security, makes it up the stairs, finds her way down the corridor, and finally, bending over a toilet bowl in the first-floor ladies’ room, heaves up the contents of her stomach, her hair stuck on her wet face.
Her mouth tastes sour—that is the first thing she remembers thinking. After flushing the toilet, she staggers out of the stall, turns on the tap, and dunks her face in the cold water. Something gives inside her, a horrible knot, a twisted froth. She swallows the water, and it is surprisingly refreshing, this tap water in the ladies’ room at Fort Lee High School. Then Suzy lifts her
face with water dripping from her wet hair, only to see that she is surrounded by a roomful of young faces peering at her.
“You okay?” One of the girls steps forward, offering her a piece of brown paper towel from the dispenser.
“Yes, fine now, I’m fine. Thank you.” Suzy wipes her face, and feels suddenly wide awake. The first period must not have begun yet. Around her are a group of girls, now scattering back to their corners to wait in line for a stall, to stand before mirrors , holding aluminum cans of spray to their highlighted hair or applying another layer of lipstick, mascara, eyeliner on such youthful faces. A commotion. Teenage girls all getting ready at once. Suzy had been like that, long ago, so impossibly long ago. And Grace. Of course Grace. What would Grace say if she knew, if she saw her right now? The thought alarms Suzy, and she quickly rinses her mouth again and smooths her hair. It is better now. The sick feeling has passed. And most of all, she is finally here, at the Fort Lee High School, where her sister must be standing before a class, before a roomful of boys and girls who are now rushing out at the loud thud of a bell.
“Wait, please!” Suzy calls after the one who offered her the towel. The girl turns around, the glitter on her eyelids twinkling under the fluorescent gleam. “Do you know where I can find Miss Grace Park? She teaches ESL.”
The girl turns to the group around her as if to say, Do you know? No one seems to know; their faces are blank. Of course, ESL, only for the kids whose English is not fluent. Then a tiny voice pops out of nowhere and volunteers in Korean, “I do.”
Suzy turns around to find a small, round girl to her right, who seems to have been standing there all along. She is curiously short, barely over four feet tall. She is alone, unlike the other girls, who all seem to be traveling in groups.

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