A Small Revolution Page 3

  “What does she mean?” I asked him.

  The woman’s hand, calloused, stroked mine on the sill of the car door.

  “She thinks you look like Yuk Yeong Su, President Park’s wife. Park was president before President Chun. You have the same complexion, white like powder. She was a beauty. Too bad about her death.” Then he said to the woman, “My dear, we must go. Careful now,” in such a gentle voice I thought they must secretly rendezvous at this light every day.

  When the car lurched forward, my stomach jumped to the back of the seat. I swallowed. We cruised easily down the street, one of a million of those tiny cars, to my aunt’s apartment in Seoul. She had two maids: one who lived in the apartment with her and another who came every day to help out. They cooked and cleaned. I thought my aunt treated them well. She said everyone had at least one person who worked for them. “It’s not like America,” she said.

  She had two children, both a handful of years older than I was, both married. She insisted I take a short nap before we went out for lunch. I was surprised at how quickly I fell asleep. She had laid out a bed for me on the floor, a yo, a thick futon with layers of blankets on it and then a thin cotton comforter to pull up over myself. The rest of the hardwood bedroom floor was covered in a large green bamboo mat that felt cool to my feet. The smell of bamboo after the smoke and exhaust from city streets was calming. I fell asleep imagining I was lying in a cool wooded hollow.

  22

  I used to climb out of my window to sit on my roof and watch the car lights go up and down the avenue. Where were they going? Inside my house came sounds of furniture being overturned. I’d tried once to stop my father’s rage by calling the police, but when the patrol cars pulled into our driveway, the furniture was right side up again and the door was opened to reveal a pleasant set of parents. Upstanding citizens. They explained it was a misunderstanding. A wayward child. A child on punishment who was playing a prank. I watched the whole encounter from the landing of the staircase. The police officers didn’t call me down to question me. My father offered them tea, and my mother went to the kitchen to prepare it. He was careful never to strike her on the face.

  I went back upstairs, clambered out through my bedroom window, and huddled on the roof under the branch of the oak tree. I could picture it: the fall forward on the sloping roof of my old house and the feel of the sparkly shingles on my head and back and arms as I rolled down, hit the gutter and the yard. Not high enough to be fatal, but it made me think I should stop fighting.

  23

  The phone rings. Lloyd grabs it and is at attention, listening to every word, the handset pressed against his ear. Is President Reagan on the phone right now? Then he thrusts the receiver at me. TELL HIM I HAVEN’T HURT ANY OF YOU.

  Faye, Heather, and Daiyu hold their breaths. Heather’s cheek has stopped bleeding.

  “Lloyd?” I can hear Sax’s voice, and he sounds friendly.

  “He hasn’t done anything to us,” I reply.

  “He’s not forcing you to lie, is he?” Sax’s voice is tentative.

  Lloyd presses his head closer, which rams the phone against my ear, which makes me call out in surprise and pain, and Sax says, “What’s going on?”

  “No,” I say louder than I mean to. “He’s not making me say anything. We’re fine.”

  Lloyd pats my back, the gun in his hand. GOOD.

  Sax says, “What sorts of weapons does he have?”

  FUCKING TELL HIM I WANT THE PRESIDENT. I’VE DONE MY PART—NOW MAKE HIM DO HIS. DAMN IT.

  “A lot. He has a lot. Please let him talk to the president.”

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “My name?”

  Lloyd takes the phone away from me. WHY DOES THAT MATTER? WHERE’S REAGAN?

  Heather, Faye, and Daiyu call out their names toward the phone. Lloyd pushes me toward Faye, and we topple like dominoes. It would make anyone laugh until they saw our bound hands and feet and the desperation in our eyes.

  WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME?

  “We do, we do, Lloyd.” Sax’s voice comes through. He’s speaking in a loud voice. A firm, loud voice that comes through the handset into this room that is blisteringly quiet otherwise. “Calm down. I’ve been on the job for twenty years, and I’ve never lost one of these. We’ll help you, I promise.”

  I’LL ONLY TALK TO THE PRESIDENT ABOUT IT. EVERYONE IS IN ON IT. EVEN YOU. THE WHOLE POLICE DEPARTMENT, THE CIA. EVERYONE. I WILL ONLY TALK TO PRESIDENT REAGAN.

  “And don’t forget the leaders of North and South Korea.”

  YES.

  “I’m paying attention, Lloyd. Don’t you worry about it. But listen, the flight alone from DC is going to take several hours to arrange.”

  YOU’RE A LIAR. BESIDES AIR FORCE ONE FLIES AT SUPERSONIC SPEED.

  “That’s not quite true, Lloyd. What about a phone call with the president? Will that help your friend Jaesung Kim?”

  IN PERSON. DO IT. GET HIM HERE. I CAN SHOW HIM JAESUNG KIM IS ALIVE.

  “And the leaders of North and South Korea will arrive tomorrow. How’s that? Once we get you out of there, we can put you up in a hotel, and you can wait for them comfortably. Arrange a nice visit, a real high-level meeting.”

  I TOLD YOU AN HOUR—NOW IT’S FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OR ELSE THE FIRST GIRL DIES.

  24

  After eight days with my aunt in Seoul, I was ready for the student tour. I settled in my seat on one of three buses with my headphones on. Several of us sat by ourselves, while many more sat together talking as if they already knew each other. I was used to it, not having many friends back home. I didn’t expect to make friends here. The doors of the bus were nearly closed when they abruptly reversed, and the two boys I’d seen in the airport bounded on board. We all looked up and watched them make their way down the aisle. I was seated in the middle row of the bus, on the right-hand side, by a window. I returned to listening to music. It was a cassette of songs by Yong Pil Cho that I’d bought while shopping with my aunt.

  I looked out the window. I remember how hot it was that day, hot enough for the humidity to cloud the streets, and here we were on an overly cooled bus. I pulled my sweater over my bare legs to warm up. Like all the students from the States, I was wearing shorts. So I wasn’t paying attention when these boys who got on the bus late asked for something. And then they were in my row, and I heard the tour guide up front tell them just to sit down, anywhere, the bus had to depart.

  One of the boys said, “All right, all right,” and took an aisle seat across from me. But the other one kept asking, his hand on the seat back beside mine, and I noticed his pinkie was missing its upper half, no knuckle or nail portion above the first knuckle. I looked to see if it was folded over, but when he moved his hand, I could see clearly that it was shortened.

  No one was willing to give up a window seat. “Just sit,” the boy who had taken a seat said to the one standing. “We’ll be across from each other.”

  I pulled my headphones off and picked up my sweater and my book. “I’ll switch,” I told him.

  The boy in the seat across the aisle said, “Thanks, but it’s fine.” That was Lloyd. But you, you were the other boy, and you gave me the most grateful smile. “Would you really?” you said. I slid out of my row, and you made room for me and then told Lloyd to take the window seat where I’d been seconds ago.

  “You were on the plane. I remember you,” you said, leaning over the aisle after you settled into your seat next to Lloyd. I was about to put my headphones back on. Instead I said, “What happened to your finger?”

  You held up your left hand. “You mean this?” you said, then lowered it again. “I was born with it.”

  “Sorry, it’s none of my business.” I felt my face flush from embarrassment.

  “Usually takes people a while to ask.”

  “Maybe they think it but don’t ask,” I said.

  “I don’t care what other people think. What are you listening to?” you as
ked, looking at my Walkman.

  I showed you the cassette cover, and you told me you hadn’t heard Cho or much Korean music. The relatives you were staying with had shared Swedish music they liked. We leaned across the aisle between us. I didn’t want it to stop. You translated the lyrics for me; your Korean was better than mine. You’d asked your father to teach you how to read, and from there you’d read whatever you could get your hands on, though most of your parents’ Korean books had been decades old.

  You said things I’d never put into words but had felt myself—about wishing for context, wanting some idea of who we were and if it even mattered. That was the same day I told you about the chauffeur’s comparison of my face to President Park’s wife’s.

  You shuddered at the mention of President Park. “Admired for being a dictator. I don’t get it,” you said.

  “The chauffeur was talking about his wife. Said she was beautiful and I looked like her.”

  “He was hitting on you.”

  “No way. There was a woman on the street who—”

  “Yeah, figures.”

  “No, it was about her skin—no one said I was beautiful in Lakeburg, and—”

  “Definitely hitting on you. Did he ask you out?”

  “No, he’s way older. He works for my aunt.”

  “So?”

  “That’s weird.”

  “You’re weirder.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  You laughed, and I had to join you. You had that effect on me. I couldn’t help it. You made me feel as if everything could be all right.

  We talked nonstop the whole ride out of Seoul about wanting to know more about Korea. I was surprised at how comfortable I was talking to you. We were alike. You were eager to soak it all up. Being born in the States, in North Dakota, had made you feel isolated. We leaned across the aisle and talked as if no one else existed on that bus. I’d never talked as easily before with anyone. And you asked questions about the future. “What do you want to do, Yoona? With your life, I mean. Isn’t it crazy we have to know right now? But do you? Do you know?” And I agreed, the future loomed. No one else seemed as aware of it, but I was worried. I couldn’t imagine myself any older than I was. I didn’t want to be, and you said you understood that. You couldn’t see it either and wondered how others did, how others were clear about what the future had in store for them. You must have known somehow that you wouldn’t be around to see what happened.

  25

  We’ve righted ourselves now and huddle together on the edge of the bed. Lloyd has returned to the window, looking out and muttering to himself. There’s no way President Reagan is meeting with a stranger with a gun. A chill even colder than I thought possible seeps deeper into my chest. He said he’d kill one of us. Faye says over and over again, “Oh my god, oh my god.” Heather whispers, “Shh . . . it’d be stupid, he needs us alive.”

  Daiyu whispers back, “There’s four of us, Heather. He doesn’t need all four of us.”

  “Stop, he’ll hear you,” I say to them, but he has heard already, and he bounds over to us. I DECIDE. ME. I DECIDE WHO LIVES AND DIES. YOU GET IT?

  He can’t mean it, he can’t mean he’ll do it, but I would never have believed we’d be here like this if you’d told me. You would know how to persuade him.

  He hauls Daiyu to her feet. “No, no, no, no,” she squeals. COME ON. He pulls. I wonder if I can move my feet just enough to make it to the door. Watching her head hanging in front, I feel pity and then have a burst of hope for her. Run, Daiyu, I urge silently. As if I’ve said it aloud, she looks back, and there’s nothing but fear in her eyes. I realize that she thinks he’s going to shoot her, thinks that he meant her when he said the first girl would die. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? He jerks her arm so she turns around, faces the window. “Don’t kill me, please,” she says.

  Run, Daiyu, I think. Pull away. Hit him with your bound fists and run for the door, push away the desk and the chair. If you’re fast, Daiyu, he won’t have a chance to shoot you. “Daiyu!” I call to her.

  SHUT UP. Lloyd shoves her in front of the window.

  Lloyd sweeps one half of the curtain aside with an arm, avoids standing in front of it himself. The sunlight is shocking. Like on an airplane when you’re flying in the dark and dawn arrives through someone’s window. I raise my wrists to keep the light from hurting my eyes. Heather and Faye turn their faces. He holds Daiyu in front of the window but stays off to the side himself. Daiyu flinches from the light and whatever is on the other side. Line of fire. “Duck down,” I yell to her. She bends, and he jerks her back up. He could break her arm, snap it, she protests. She says he’s hurting her. Her shoulders are shaking. He tells her to hold up her hands so they can see he’s taped them. He holds the handgun against her temple.

  “Someone’s in the hall, Lloyd, don’t.” Words like this tumble from my mouth, and I hardly know I have the breath to speak.

  FUCK. He throws Daiyu to the floor and slams the curtain closed, then runs to the side of the door. It’s dark again in the room. BACK UP, FUCKING BACK UP, OR I’LL KILL ALL OF THEM RIGHT NOW.

  26

  You and Lloyd used to go running when the rest of us were laid out under the giant fans in the Great Hall, massed together the way we were in Korea that summer. Lazy American teenagers who didn’t know how to cope with tropical weather, the humidity cloaking our bodies. I saw Lloyd. I saw the way he replied to your questions about political factions in the Korean government, about North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung. I saw him wave his hands and explain. You told me something about Lloyd, about his childhood, but I didn’t pay attention. I wanted to know about you, only you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. What have I done?

  27

  I didn’t believe my father when he told me his version of love. “You kill for it sometimes,” he said. “I would kill for your mother, you, and your sister. I’ve seen people kill for less.”

  We were driving in the car, and he pointed to a smokestack in a city like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and he said, “Yoona, tell me, what does that smoke coming up over there tell you about the direction of the wind?” I was six years old. Willa made a face at him. “No fair, you asked me that two years ago, and Yoona heard your answer.”

  “I don’t remember what you said,” I told her.

  “Stupid,” Willa said.

  “You’re stupid,” I returned.

  “I see a rest stop,” my mother interrupted. “Who needs to use the bathroom?” She told my father to pull over, and when he did, my mother insisted Willa get out of the car with her while my father and I waited for them. He turned on the radio, which was a relief because he never said anything to me when my mother and sister weren’t around anyway, and I didn’t have to answer his question about smoke. The announcer said someone had murdered someone with a knife over an insult in a parking lot. “That’s stupid,” I said aloud. That’s when my father said Americans have no patience and then added Koreans know about suffering. Long-term suffering. “You have to be patient. You have to endure for people you love. I’d kill to protect your mother, your sister, and you. That’s what war shows you. You kill to survive. To survive, you’d eat a handful of uncooked rice, even.” I didn’t ask him where his patience was when he lost his temper in our house. I knew better. He was the kind of person who believed his own lies. Other people confused me, but not him. Many people confused me. My mother, for example. Why did she stay with my father?

  28

  I didn’t know how much you’d understand about my family. And I couldn’t tell you, not when you thought I was like you. You would never have let your father beat your mother. You would have thrown yourself between them. I never did that. Why didn’t I do that? Instead I pleaded from a distance. Many times I was too late. Just before I got on the plane to Korea, I came home to find my mother in the kitchen, her hand on a drawer handle by the stove and my father standing over her. He walked off when I entered, and I helped my mother to her feet, and we gathered he
r coat and car keys, and I drove her down the driveway and away from him forever. I told her it was forever, and she agreed she’d never return to the house. And then as we neared the town limits, she said she had to go back. She’d left soup on the stove, and she had to go back to turn off the heat. I ignored her, driving on, but she insisted. At a stop light she even opened the door, and I turned the car around, telling myself it was only for the soup. But I knew I’d failed to save her.

  29

  “Someone’s in the hall, Lloyd,” I repeat. Watching Lloyd by the door listening to see if I’m right shows me I could have a plan. I can convince him of whatever I want. Heather must understand, because she says, “I heard it too.”

  Lloyd kicks the door. GET ME THE PRESIDENT, DAMN IT. GET OUT OF HERE. I’LL SHOW YOU I MEAN IT.

  There’s silence on the other side.

  In another minute, he’ll start shooting through the door. I start talking. “You showed them you aren’t stupid. And you showed them Daiyu—you’ve done your part,” I tell him.

  He whirls toward me. I’LL SHOW THEM A DEAD GIRL. THAT’LL PUT PRESIDENTS ON A PLANE.

  The phone rings, and Lloyd lunges for it. But this time he crouches down, huddling on the floor by me as if he thinks they’ll storm in and the bed will shield him. Daiyu remains underneath the window, a whimpering lump. Heather and Faye are as still as statues.

  WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING? Lloyd shouts into the phone.

  “No games, Lloyd. I’m trying to reach the president, just like you asked. He’s a busy man. It takes time to work these things out. What were you doing at the window with that girl?”

  GET YOUR MEN OUT OF THE HALL.

  “No one’s in the building, Lloyd. It’s been evacuated. That’s the protocol. We get you your demands, and you free the girls, and everyone goes home safely.”