The Revisionists (21 page)

“Good evening, Sari,” he said in Bahasa. He wore a light gray dress shirt tucked into black slacks. He was even taller than she remembered, and just as handsome.

“Hello,” she said, and realized she had no idea what to say next. She turned to free a shopping cart from the long chain while she tried to think. What exactly was she doing, and what was she prepared to do? Was she stringing him along for company and conversation, or for help? But what kind of help could some random American provide?

Or perhaps she was just attracted to him and acting stupid. Being in his presence again threw her, and she worried she was setting in motion things she couldn’t control.

“So… you want to shop?” he asked slowly. She wondered if perhaps he wasn’t as fluent as she had thought.

“Yes. I only have thirty minutes, and I have a lot to buy. They time me. Um… Would you like to shop with me?”

“They time you?”

“They are very strict.”

He paused for a moment. “There’s a café across the street. Let’s just sit for a moment, then I’ll help you shop so you aren’t late. Okay?”

It was a reasonable request, but her situation was so unreasonable. She had heard that Americans were insistent; this was her first experience with it. Still, her initial plan of chatting with him while shopping now seemed absurd. It would be nice to sit and talk, if she could relax.

They stepped outside and she shivered. Despite her years in Korea she still had not gotten used to the cold. But the shiver felt welcome on her skin. It was proof that she was outside, proof that she existed. The pedestrians passing her on either side were talking in a language she didn’t understand, but still it was wonderful to hear them: people in a city, running to countless adventures. She missed other people’s voices.

The young black people behind the coffee shop’s counter wore green aprons with matching visors. Up-tempo jazz played on the speakers but the customers at the tables moved with an air of lethargy if they moved at all; a few people sat alone, reading or typing on computers; two young lovers held hands while sharing a secret; an old man in a tattered gray coat sat with his eyes shut. Hanging on the wall above each table was a framed, colorful photo of smiling Filipinos selling their wares from narrow boats.

“Can I get you a coffee, or some tea?” he asked. His Bahasa was heavily accented and sometimes he used the wrong prefixes, but she always knew what he meant.

“Thank you, I’m fine.”

Leo ordered his coffee and they sat in the back. He took the chair facing out, leaving her to face him and a brick wall. He asked her how she was, and she lied.

“How did you come to be working in America?” he asked.

“I lived in Korea for the last eight years. The family I worked for most recently didn’t need me anymore, but they knew someone who did.” She tried not to sound bitter when she added, “I was nervous about the travel, but the money they offered was good.”

She hadn’t put on any makeup, as Sang Hee surely would have been suspicious. And she wished she had something more attractive to wear than this baggy sweatshirt and these unstylish jeans. She reminded herself that she had looked just as disheveled the last time they’d met, and he hadn’t seemed to mind then.

“So you must have left Indonesia right around when Suharto was overthrown.”

It was always interesting to hear how people described it. Sometimes Suharto was “overthrown,” sometimes he “stepped down,” sometimes he was “exiled,” sometimes he was even “voted out.” She wondered what most Americans knew of the transition and the accompanying violence, if they even knew of it at all.

“A little while after.”

“That must have been quite a time. I wasn’t there yet, but I… heard a lot about it.”

“It was difficult. Protests and riots and police everywhere. The students would come in and make noise and then the police would punish everyone else for it.”

“Is that why you left?”

She didn’t like to talk about these things, but it felt different to be asked by someone so removed from her past, sitting in a place so far away. Or maybe it was because she hadn’t spoken about it in so long that retelling it finally made her feel some power over her own story.

“I left for many reasons. It’s hard to give just one.” Was that really true? There had been the one overpowering reason, but she couldn’t confront this right now. “I followed my sisters, so that made it easier. We had some relatives who had moved to Seoul, and they told us good things about it.”

“And they were wrong?”

“By the time we got there, the economy was slowing down. And they don’t like non-Korean workers there.”

She wanted to change the subject. She wasn’t wearing a watch and couldn’t see a clock from where she was sitting. She should tell him that she needed to go, but even though she was risking much just sitting there, it felt too good to get up. So she asked where else he had traveled in her country.

He described the tourist spots that everyone in Java visits, and it was like hearing a travel brochure of her homeland read aloud. She knew everything he was talking about better than he did, but she was happy to let him describe the golden shine of the temples and the acrid smell of the volcanoes, to reminisce about the street-side
warungs
selling
saté
and hot milk with honey. When she blinked, she let her eyes stay shut an extra moment so she could see it again.

“Do you miss it?” he asked.

“I miss the food. I miss the ocean. I miss many of the people I left behind. But there are things I don’t miss.” Then she asked him what time it was, and she recoiled at the answer—she had already spent half of her allotted time.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to shop. Want to come with me?”

“Of course.” She thought he was going to stand, but he stayed still, looking directly at her. “You asked me to come meet you tonight. Was there something you wanted?”

Yes, but she wasn’t sure what. There were too many answers.
I wanted you to describe that volcano. I wanted to hear you mispronounce our words for
automobile
and
financial.
I wanted to stare at your light hair and still eyes. I wanted to feel your eyes falling to my shoulders and chest, trying to find where my body hides in this ill-fitting outfit. I wanted to see your forefinger rub the bit of coffee that escaped onto the lip of the plastic lid over and over, the one sign of nervousness your body allows itself. I wanted to see if you remembered my name.

Yet she was compelled to do her job and avoid a beating for tardiness.

“Can we talk while we shop? I really must hurry.”

“Okay.” He followed her out. She stopped for a moment in front of Sang Hee’s SUV. The keys in her pocket suddenly felt so heavy. Then they walked into the store.

She pulled out a cart and Leo grabbed one of the plastic baskets. She translated into Bahasa the fruits and vegetables on her list; he grabbed some oranges while she looked for a grapefruit. Like the grocery stores in Seoul, the produce section amused her; it was designed to look like the outdoor markets she had grown up with, yet its quiet and orderliness emphasized how bad an imitation it was.

Several shoppers had headphone wires dangling from their ears and others were talking on their phones, everyone devising ways to pretend he or she wasn’t actually here. Whereas getting out to the store was the highlight of Sari’s week. “Do you see any durian?”

“That’s difficult to find here,” he said. “Americans aren’t fond of it.”

“How is that possible?”

“Really, Americans haven’t heard of it.”

She wheeled her cart into the next aisle. The signs were no help to her, so she had to glance at the contents on each shelf to get an idea of what she might find.

“The people you work for, what do they have you do?” Leo asked. He was so persistent, seemingly emboldened by her attempts at evasion. His American directness—homing in on the one thing she shouldn’t talk about—left her unsure how to respond. And then suddenly it all came out.

“I’m their cook, and their maid. Also the nanny for their three children. Sometimes their gardener as well. And now, because the wife has broken her ankle, I shop for her. I work sixteen or seventeen hours a day. And I’m up half the night with their babies.”

People were all around them, but because no one spoke the language, she and Leo might as well have been invisible. It felt both frightening to talk about this in public and liberating, the thrill of crossing an unguarded border.

“You don’t like them very much,” he said.

“I don’t like them at all.”

“Are my questions bothering you?”

“No. It’s good to be able to talk to someone. To let someone know.”

“Can I ask you another one?”

“Yes, if you help me find the fish sauce and shrimp paste.”

He turned, and three seconds later the items were in his hands.

“Are you working there against your will?”

She pushed the cart and he followed. “I’m not sure of my will sometimes. I don’t know what to do. At least I can talk and you can hear me talk. Maybe that’s my will. Maybe I just want you to hear me. Where is the green tea? I couldn’t find any last time and she went crazy.”

He found it for her, and they walked to the next aisle, trailing another woman in headphones. America was invisible voices, singing.

“They have my passport, my papers. There’s nowhere for me to go. Plus, they could do something to my sisters. The diplomat is important in Seoul, and he could get them in trouble.”

Leo was watching her very carefully. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was dodging his questions or doing the opposite, leading him exactly where she wanted him to go. For the next five minutes he stopped asking anything, obediently locating the final items on her list. But always she felt his eyes on her, even when he was facing away. How did he do that?

In the checkout line, he stood beside her like he was her husband. Surely people were watching them, the foreign woman with the tall white man.

“I’m sorry if I’ve acted strangely tonight,” she said. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how to act with people I don’t work for.”

“Does she give you the shopping lists in advance?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The grocery list—does she give it to you just as you’re leaving, or earlier in the day?”

What a strange question. But his voice was so calm and orderly, as if he weren’t so much asking a question as telling her what to do.

“Earlier in the day.”

“Once you have the next list, call me. You can read it to me, and I can buy everything in advance. That way you’ll have time to meet me somewhere else, without her being suspicious.”

She was confused for a moment. Then she thought she understood. Did Americans always proposition each other so bluntly? She’d made a mistake to call him.

Or maybe she’d picked exactly the right person? Because, yes, it was a tempting thought.

Still, she was about to object, for propriety’s sake at least, when he noticed the expression on her face. Leo held out a palm and spoke in a gentler voice than before.

“I’m not planning anything”—he seemed to search for the word—“
wrong
by you. I’m trying to help.”

It was almost her turn at the register. “I’m not even supposed to use their phone. If they had overheard me calling you…”

“You’ll have to make sure they don’t overhear you—call at night, when they’re asleep. And don’t use their phone. I put a cell phone in your shopping cart; it has my number programmed into it. It’s turned off now. Just turn it on when you need to make the call, then turn it off immediately. That’s important. Hide it someplace they won’t find it.”

She glanced at the cart and saw it there, nestled among packages of noodles. Its charging cord was wrapped neatly beside it. When had he put them there?

“I know this is difficult to understand,” he said. “But it’s the best way to get you out of this.”

He stood there an extra moment, perhaps waiting for her to say the thank you that she was too shocked to say. Or perhaps he was equally unsure how they should part.“Okay,” he said. “Call me. Good night.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

His lips were warm and dry. She was so startled she didn’t move, and she felt the color rushing to her face. As if ashamed of his own act, he didn’t look at her as he pulled back, just turned and walked past the other customers. The automatic doors pulled open and he was gone. Her eyes tried to follow him through the windows, but she could see only her own reflection and the dazzling colors of the store behind her.

Z.

Again night finds me a few blocks from the White House, surrounded by bland office buildings, their windows glowing yellow. Perhaps the local restaurants do big business on power lunches between lobbyists and their quarries, but the sidewalks are nearly empty as I take a preliminary recon walk.

It’s only a few hours after my protection of the most recent Event. I’m still not sure what to make of the hag’s warning that they had learned from their mistakes. I try to stay alert for tails, something I’ve lost the habit of doing in my time with the Department since I’m always the one following them.

Was that a hallucination I had, that man claiming to know who I was, even calling me
Troy?
Did something else go berserk when my GeneScan broke the other night? My head is pounding as I walk, a headache like the one I woke up with the day before yesterday.

The last thing I should be doing is going out on a date. But despite the Department’s strict rules, I’m not the only Protector who’s done this. The temptation is too great, after being trapped in these gigs long enough. You crave a human touch, something other than the violence of subduing your prey. So you find someone, someone your files assure you is not of historical importance—preferably someone who is going to die soon anyway. It’s like setting up a perfect and untraceable crime, but really it’s the opposite—it’s a rare opportunity for a person in the Disasters Division to bring someone pleasure instead of pain.