A Small Revolution Read online

Lloyd points the handgun at each of my friends in turn and finally lands on Heather. But then he picks the scissors off the floor and cuts the tape off her feet. She reaches down to rub her ankles with her bound hands.

  Lloyd moves to Faye and cuts her feet apart too, and she sighs. I see him wince and hope he doesn’t change his mind, but he steps back. EENY, MEENY, MINY, MO. WHY SHOULD I LET YOU GO?

  “Pick me, Lloyd. I have to go. We worked on the sit-in together, remember? It’s tomorrow, remember all our plans? Daiyu’s the one who lies all the time. She pretends to like everyone, but she—” Faye says. She’s pushed herself to a standing position. “You can’t let this derail the sit-in. Think about everything you did for it. And I know you believed in it, it’s just like this Korea thing. If you let me out of here, I can—”

  SIT-IN? YOU THINK I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THAT? YOU AND ALL THE KIDS HERE WORKING TO END APARTHEID WHEN THE ONE WHO WOULD SAVE THE WORLD IS BEING TORTURED. YOU’RE OBLIVIOUS TO WHAT REALLY MATTERS. YOU’RE MANIPULATED BY WHATEVER THE MAINSTREAM PRESS TELLS YOU IS IMPORTANT. WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT APARTHEID? YOU’RE A RICH WHITE GIRL FROM CHICAGO. THE APARTHEID MOVEMENT WILL BE FINE WITHOUT YOU. YOU’RE THE MOST SELFISH PERSON I’VE EVER MET.

  “I’m not selfish,” Faye says.

  There’s silence, and Faye seems too close to Lloyd, and I’m afraid he’ll swing at her or worse. He stares at her even though she’s looking at the floor now, still standing but wavering. Heather must have sensed it too. She says, “Look, I never did anything to you.”

  Lloyd whirls toward her. He waves the gun in Daiyu’s direction. BUT YOU DIDN’T HELP ME. DAIYU HELPED ME. Daiyu sits on the desk by the door.

  “That’s a lie. She was afraid of you,” Faye says, re-energized, it seems.

  “I wasn’t.” Daiyu stands.

  “Faye, we were all afraid, but she did help him at first,” Heather says. “All that time Yoona was sleeping with him.”

  “But I never . . .” I know I’m sputtering and can feel everyone’s eyes on me, especially Lloyd’s, and he looks at each of us in turn. I have to be careful here.

  “I told you they were together,” she continues.

  “She told me she hated him. I was the one who told her to help him,” Faye says, and she’s sitting up again.

  “We both told her to stay away, and if she’d listened to us, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Heather says.

  “Stop it, stop fighting! Can you hear yourselves?” Daiyu shouts.

  “We wouldn’t be here if we’d never met Yoona,” Faye says. There’s silence as everyone looks at everything in the room but me.

  “Lloyd, this is between you and me. Let all of them go. Sax will be so relieved, he’ll give you whatever you want if you do that,” I tell him.

  THAT’S A LIE.

  “He’d be a hero, he’d think he’s the best hostage negotiator around—just give him the girls, and I’ll stay with you. I’ll make sure we get what we want.”

  Lloyd taps the gun against his forehead. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

  “We have to seem reasonable. Be diplomats. We can do it, but not with so many hostages in this room. It doesn’t make us look good. Jaesung wouldn’t want it this way.”

  He jumps to his feet, snatches the phone, and speaks into it. DETECTIVE? YOU THERE? I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANY OF YOUR MEN AT THE DOOR WHEN SHE GOES OUT. OR ELSE YOU’LL BE PICKING UP A BODY OUTSIDE THE DOOR. DO YOU HEAR ME?

  I feel faint upon hearing his words. He’s going to free one of them.

  “We’re working this out, Lloyd. Why would you think I’d try something like that? You still would have three girls inside after you release one. I’d be very bad at my job if I did something like that.”

  Lloyd nods as if it makes sense to him. LET PRESIDENT REAGAN KNOW I NEGOTIATED. I GAVE HIM ONE. I’M REASONABLE. He grabs Daiyu by the arm and pushes the gun into her back. GO. GET OUT OF HERE, BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND.

  Lloyd opens the door a crack and peers through, then goes back to Daiyu and holds on to her like a shield. She looks back at us, Heather, Faye, and me, sitting on the bed, farthest from the door.

  GO AND TELL THEM I DIDN’T HURT ANY OF YOU. Lloyd pushes the gun into her back.

  “We’ll be okay, Daiyu,” I call out to her.

  She blinks and nods. Faye lets out a sob, and Heather shakes her head back and forth.

  57

  Serena walked with me to Intro to Asian Literature and then, in her usual manner, left me to sit by herself, aloof and alone. It was just the way she was. She didn’t feel comfortable in crowds. It was not a huge lecture, but fifty was too large for her even though the auditorium could seat two hundred and fifty. I sat up front. Julian Wong was my favorite professor. But today I sat in class and heard nothing he said except for a poem by Hwang Chiu called “Even the Birds Are Leaving the World”:

  A flock of white birds

  Leaving the field of reeds

  Fly in one, two, three files,

  Honking, giggling

  Carrying their own world,

  Separating their world from ours

  I was sorry I was late again with an assignment, but I couldn’t concentrate. I waited after class for Professor Wong and then walked with him, explaining I’d drop off my paper the next day. We were outside by then. He said he had a meeting across campus, but he listened. You would have liked him. Even when he was busy, he seemed interested. When more students joined us, clamoring for his attention, I moved aside. I picked up my pace and recommitted to writing that paper I owed him.

  With all the students on campus spilling out to the quad between classes, I wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed, but somehow that morning I did. A boy was standing in the middle of the walkway with a backpack on one shoulder, like so many students on campus, but something was different about him. He stood by the statue of the founder in the middle of quad, where the four paths converged. I made a move to cut across the grass, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that he’d taken steps too, off the grass, into my path. I knew right then that it was Lloyd.

  He put down his backpack as if he had something breakable inside while keeping his eyes on me. I was in front of him in seconds, dropped my book bag on the ground at my feet, and we hugged each other. There was only one awkward moment, when he turned his face one way and I turned the same way, and he kissed me on the lips.

  “I’m sorry it took so long to get here,” Lloyd said. He looked the way I remembered him but with slightly puffier cheeks, as if he’d been crying or up all night. Dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing a green T-shirt and jeans. It was only September, but we’d already had frost that morning, and it was less than fifty degrees. I wondered if he was cold.

  “What’s this new look?” he said, apparently noticing what I was wearing too.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I said.

  I pulled at the gray sweater that I wore over a white button-down shirt. Serena and I had found a secondhand store downtown last week and bought vintage men’s shirts, long black skirts, and combat boots. A modernized interpretation of a hanbok.

  “Jaesung wouldn’t recognize you.”

  “I’m not so different,” I said and ignored his stare. “What’d you find out?” I said and took his arm, steered him forward. The quad was emptying out. The next class period had started, but I couldn’t think of going now that Lloyd was here. Across the quad by the library was the shantytown where Heather and Faye were working on their house. The sound of hammers pounding in nails carried across the quad.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “Talk to me. What’s going on?” I said.

  “It was terrible. I have nightmares about it.” Closer now, I could see his face was wet with tears.

  I put my arm around him, and he put his around me, and we walked, huddled together like that. “What happened?” I asked. “Take your time, I’m here.”

  “You’ve got to believe me,” he said. “You’re the only one who would believe me.”

 
; “Of course I believe you.”

  I felt hope bloom in my chest. It had been a little seedling, but now that Lloyd was here with me, I felt we would find you. Wherever you were, you weren’t able to get back to us, but you were alive. As long as you were alive, I could wait. He returned my hug, and I thought, We have to stick together, him and I. Wherever it would lead. We’d find you. Me and your co-secretary of state or the one who would be secretary of state before you became one. You had trusted Lloyd. So I would too.

  58

  When Daiyu walks through that open doorway away from us, I hold my breath. Surely Detective Sax will use this opportunity to bust through and rescue all of us? I brace myself, and I nod at Heather and Faye to do the same. Even though Faye has said things to save herself, I will try to forgive her, even though it stings, even though neither she nor Heather look at me with anything but disgust.

  Daiyu walks out and closes the door behind her, and we hear her steps fade down the hall.

  “You’ll go next,” I whisper to Heather. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Her head is turned toward the door. “You too.” I lean back so I can see Faye, who is staring at the spot where Daiyu just stood. If Lloyd let her leave, then he’ll let us too. This is going to be over soon—I feel it.

  59

  You and I loved the winds. The buses circled up and around on ribbons of roads beside the rice field–skirted mountains. At sporadic intervals, the tour guides would let us get off the bus and stretch our legs. Three busloads of American teenagers with our hair and shirts and skirts billowing out. The winds, cool enough to keep us from sweating, warm enough to prevent us from being chilled, wrapped us in tall gusts. The guides listed what we couldn’t see hidden in the thick pine-, fir-, and oak-filled valley below us: wild boar, roe deer, musk deer, elk, gorals, black bears, yellow-throated martens, three kinds of weasels.

  We stood behind waist-high stone walls and looked into a series of valleys, and even when the thermostat read 98 degrees Fahrenheit, the winds would blow so hard we could hardly hear the person who was beside us talking. There was a disturbance above us, and you pointed. In the sky, banking sharply in the air, wide ribbons of birds swooped and circled and then departed. I envied them their separateness from everything but themselves.

  Someone asked what kind of birds they were, and a guide called out, “Orioles.” Someone asked what kind, and another guide said we would call them black-naped orioles and then pointed into the valley. “Down there are special birds—cranes. Red-crowned cranes, white-naped cranes, hooded cranes,” he said.

  When Lloyd and the others went back to the bus, you and I stayed. You climbed up and looked out, then offered your hand to me. On top of that wall, it was as if we had stepped out into air and hovered with wings.

  60

  When Lloyd appeared on campus that first day, we walked and talked for hours. I made him repeat what he remembered about the last time he saw you. There was smoke. There were fire trucks. You and Lloyd were invited to a meeting by these students who drove you in separate cars, and on the way there was an accident. “But Jaesung’s father said you were in the same car.” I stopped him.

  “That’s a lie. I don’t know why they told him that. We were separated, and Jaesung told me we should do what they said—meet up later. They were taking precautions in case they were followed.”

  “Who was following you?”

  “Jaesung wanted to go with them. We agreed to whatever they said.”

  “And then?”

  “It was only my car, Yoona. My car was in the accident.”

  “Your car caught on fire?”

  “There wasn’t a fire. That was what was weird.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “God, I’m tired,” he said.

  “We could go to my room. Do you need to lie down?”

  “You know what, actually, I’m more hungry than tired. Could I eat first?”

  I took him to the dining hall, and we found Heather, Daiyu, and Faye. They welcomed him with curious but warm smiles. “They’ve got chocolate chip,” Heather said, holding out her cone to me.

  Lloyd draped his arm around my neck. I squeezed his waist. No need to be nervous, I wanted to tell him. My friends made room for us at their table, but I didn’t sit down right away.

  “We should get some food,” I said. “What’s good?” I looked at my friends’ trays. Remnants of mashed potatoes and roasted chicken were on one of them.

  Daiyu stood up. “More cookies for me,” she said and came over, hooking her arm through mine. I expected Lloyd to follow. “Oh god, he’s cute,” Daiyu whispered as we walked toward the entrée line. “You never said how cute he was.”

  We watched girls glance at him, and Daiyu giggled. I looked at Lloyd anew. I’d never thought of him that way. Without you taking the spotlight, maybe Lloyd was getting a chance to shine.

  Lloyd didn’t leave after dinner. Daiyu needed his help. Since I’d met her, she’d cut open the skin on her shin from falling down the stairs in the student union, sprained her thumb, and burned her arm with hot coffee. I’ve never seen anyone have so many accidents. She cut her hand on a piece of glass in the dining hall that evening, and Lloyd had Neosporin and bandages in his backpack. He patched her up like a medical professional. Daiyu was so grateful she invited him to a party in the student union, and he accepted. “Free beer is exactly what I need,” he said. I wanted to talk to him some more about what had happened to you, but a few hours at a party wouldn’t hurt. As we headed to the party, Lloyd talked to my friends, and I didn’t say much. I was still mulling over what Lloyd had said about you earlier in the day. It didn’t make sense, but what else did I have to hold on to?

  As soon as we entered the large hall of the student union, Daiyu and Faye were called out to the dance floor by some friends. Heather and Lloyd went to see what beverages were available. I stood by myself. You and I had never gone dancing in Korea. The tour hadn’t organized parties. Heather and Lloyd returned with large red plastic cups of beer and handed one to me. She said something to Lloyd, and he laughed, bobbing his body to the music pounding around us. Daiyu came dancing over to us and pulled Heather to the dance floor. I thought Lloyd had gone with them, but he was back with another cup of beer for me, and when I raised my cup to show him I still hadn’t drunk mine, he downed both. “It’s too loud,” I told him.

  “It’s a party,” he said as if I didn’t understand this.

  “Shouldn’t you take it easy?” I said, indicating the empty beer cups in his hand.

  He replied by nesting one in the other. “It’s a party,” he repeated.

  He started goofing off, dancing in place.

  “Yeah, but aren’t you tired?” I said.

  “Don’t want to think about anything right now, know what I mean?” he said.

  I nodded, but I didn’t entirely agree.

  “Drink up.” He nudged my cup to my lips. “Show me your moves,” he said.

  I reasoned if I did, we could get out of there sooner. The beer was surprisingly cold. When I looked back at Lloyd, he was fully involved in the music. “You’ve got me beat,” I said, motioning to how he was dancing. He laughed at that, his head entirely thrown back. Just then Daiyu was back, and she synced her dance moves with Lloyd’s. I didn’t remember seeing Lloyd as relaxed and entertaining as he was now, flirting with Daiyu.

  “Come on, let’s go, dance, dance, dance,” he said in my direction. After all he’d gone through, a night of dancing seemed to be a small respite.

  I drank my beer and joined in. I don’t know how long we were dancing. A few more beers replaced the one in my hand as Lloyd kept handing me full cups. Faye, Heather, and their friends joined us. Someone sloshed beer on my shirt, everyone oblivious. It snapped me back to reality. I looked at everyone dancing and laughing and drinking too much, and I had to get out of there. A wave of grief washed over me. Everyone was having fun meeting people, and I didn’t want any of them, only you.

  I left them dancing and drinking, the
lights pulsing and the music throbbing. I walked out to a terrace beside the hall and then all the way to the railing and looked down at the waters of the gorge rushing below. What had happened to you? Your parents thought you were dead. How could they be so certain? But they were certain. I thought of your father’s voice and of the fatigue in it. What else but a son’s death could bring on that kind of crushing weight on every part of his being? But then there was Lloyd, who said you were still alive. You had to be alive. He was the last one who saw you.

  In a trick of the moonlight and the shadows of the trees, I thought I saw someone standing below me, near the water’s edge. Something about him made me think of you. It couldn’t be. I knew it couldn’t be. I tried to tell my legs to slow down. The stone steps were slippery in the dark, wet with leaves, but I went faster and faster. My heart was in my throat. But when I reached the bottom, no one was there.

  Lloyd found me sitting on the steps in tears. He sat next to me. “Kind of cold, don’t you think?”

  “Headache.” I didn’t wipe my eyes in the dark. He wouldn’t know I’d been crying.

  “I get those too. Migraines. They should rename them something that means ‘shoot me now because it would feel better than this.’” He laughed at his cleverness.

  I let out a half laugh to join him.

  He edged closer to me. “I think I drank too much.”

  “Probably.”

  “Your friends are nice. Daiyu and Heather and Faith.”

  “Faye. Her name is Faye, not Faith.”

  “Right, Faye.”

  “I need you to tell me more about that last day with him.”

  “He told me once, I guess it was on the tour, he said you guys were alike. You wanted to be in the service of other people, life goals, you know. He said, If you want Yoona to do something, tell her someone else will be hurt if she doesn’t do it.”

  “What? You’re making that up. He never said that.”

  “Maybe I’m drunk.”