A Small Revolution Page 7

  BUT ONCE WE’RE OUT OF THIS ROOM, THEY’LL SHOOT ME.

  I speak to the Lloyd I remember from Korea. “You’ve got to leave this room somehow. The president is not walking in here. Be realistic. What did you think was going to happen?”

  IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THIS WAY.

  “If you didn’t come in here with guns and Daiyu looking like this, I would have gone with you.”

  He stares me down.

  “Okay,” I say. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have, but now I believe you. You’ve made me believe you. I needed to hear you say it. You’re right. I’m listening now. Tell me about your proof.”

  Lloyd walks to the desk and takes out scissors. He knows where everything is in this room. He moves in this jerky fashion, so I can’t help but flinch as he approaches, unsure what he’s about to do, stab me with them or—and then he grabs my feet and cuts through the tape around my ankles. He’s in a hurry, looking back at the window, and doesn’t seem to register how the tape doesn’t go completely around my ankles. I hold out my wrists so he can cut them too because he’s going to release me, isn’t he? Instead he shakes his head and picks up the phone and yells into it. I WANT A CAR TO TAKE ME TO THE AIRPORT. ME AND THE GIRLS. ONE WAY TO WASHINGTON, DC. AND I WANT TO MEET THE PRESIDENT. CLOCK IS RESET TO ONE HOUR. GET ME THE CAR. A CAR AND MONEY. WE’LL NEED MONEY. A THOUSAND DOLLARS. A CAR AND A THOUSAND DOLLARS. I JUST WANT TO TALK TO THE PRESIDENT.

  I can feel a glimmer of hope spread throughout the room. Between the car and the airport, there’s bound to be a way to free us from this lunatic. And he thinks I won’t run.

  42

  You and I were sitting against the chain-link fence in Incheon. The tour group was in the hotel, but we had snuck out. We were returning to Seoul the next day. “Do you believe in curses?” you said. Your question surprised me. You were practical about everything but this.

  “It’s 1985, Jaesung. Curses are old superstitions. People hurt people.”

  “My father lost his lower leg in a tractor accident when he was a kid. His brother died of smallpox. His father died in his sleep.”

  “Any family, especially back in the day, had someone die of things like that. One of my mother’s sisters died of smallpox, another one of pneumonia. Surviving childhood was a feat. I’m sorry—those things are horrible, but I wouldn’t call that a curse.”

  “My great-grandfather married a woman who was really sick. It was probably leprosy, my dad said. He cured her of it, which shocked everyone—probably not a cure, but that’s what he called it—then he left her to study in China. He wanted to be a scholar and never came back. He was actually detained by a Chinese official, we found out later, but his wife thought he’d run away to start a new life, and she killed herself, cursing him and any children he’d have. There’s been nothing but tragedy in every generation since. Like that song ‘Arirang,’ where the woman says if you throw me away, your feet will get diseased and you won’t be able to walk any further.”

  “But how did he have children if his wife died?”

  “He returned to Seoul eventually and married and had two children before he died of a mysterious illness.”

  “Every illness was mysterious back then.”

  “True,” you said with a laugh. Then you were serious again. “But it’s always been that way. As if fate or some monstrous thing was determined to make my family suffer, each one of us. And I know it always will be.” You said it so softly, as if you expected the ground to open and swallow you whole for such an admission. As if not saying it too loud would keep it from happening. But then nothing happened, and I tugged at the arms you’d crossed over your chest, and you opened them and pulled me in. And you said, “I want my life to be useful.”

  And I said, “You think you’re going to die?”

  “We’re all going to die, Yoona.”

  “But you promised me and Lloyd you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself that way.” My eyes started to tear.

  “Hey,” you said and kissed them. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You promise?” I said.

  You nodded, and better than a kiss was pressing my cheek against yours and memorizing the way it felt. Our arms around each other. Listening to our breaths. We nestled together against the wind coming off the ocean. “I’m holding you to that promise,” I added.

  “Do you have something you’ve never told anyone?” you said.

  “Mine is boring,” I said. I didn’t know about fate, but there were real monstrous things out there to be feared, and they came in the shape of real people doing terrible things to other real people. Not just pronouncements of curses. Someday, I reasoned, someday you’d meet my parents, and I didn’t want you to feel sorry for my mother. She’d made me promise not to tell anyone. I could picture it, you meeting my parents, meeting my sister, Willa.

  “Boring to you might not be boring to me,” you said.

  “Trust me, you’ll find it boring,” I said.

  You pressed your cheek farther into mine, and we clung to each other, the clinging becoming a burrowing and hunger and kissing that didn’t say enough of what we wanted to say. I wanted to chase that stupid idea you had about the curse out of your head. I wanted to show every bit of you that I had the power to change your mind, because isn’t there a saying about that? About curses being broken by love, small and big gestures, small and big love? As long as the real-life monsters stayed away, we’d be safe. I wanted to break the barrier of clothes and skin between us, and you were about to pull my shirt over my head, we would have had sex there on the beach against that chain-link fence, except Lloyd’s voice sounded through the billowing wind in the dark. Your name, my name, calling to us. We paused for a second, but then kept going, your mouth on the rise of my breast. My lips on the back of your neck. And I wished for just a few more minutes with you before Lloyd found us. Your hands beneath my skirt. Could Lloyd look for us in the opposite direction? And then I felt the spray of sand on my bare legs, and Lloyd stood in front of us in his sneakers, his hands on his knees, peering down at us. You leaned back, pulled my shirt down. I smoothed my hair out of my eyes, brushed sand off my knees. He said the guides were going room to room, taking attendance.

  43

  WAIT. Lloyd scrutinizes me. AT LEAST ADMIT WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO. Lloyd’s chest rises, and then it caves, and he puts his head in his hands. His hair is wet with sweat, and I resist recoiling as he sits with a sigh beside me, rests his head on my arms, which are still bound at the wrists.

  Now that my feet have been released and he’s talking calmly to me, anything is possible. “Lloyd, let’s talk about it another time. Let’s get out of here. I’ll explain to Sax or whoever.”

  JUST ADMIT IT FOR ONCE.

  “If you have proof, show me.”

  DO YOU THINK HE’LL FORGIVE YOU WHEN I TELL HIM WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO?

  “Do you really have proof he didn’t die in Seoul?”

  YOU STILL WON’T TELL THE TRUTH.

  “I don’t know what you mean. If you’re trying to free Jaesung and want to speak to the president about it, then focus on that, but please cut this tape off me.” I hold out my wrists to him. He pats the scissors in his right hand against the side of the shotgun. Eerie silence, with only the click click click of metal on metal. But I ignore it. It’s going to be fine now. I can feel his body relax beside mine.

  This will be the shortest crisis Sax has every faced. I’m almost delirious, the high I feel. Relief surges through me. All I had to do was apologize and pretend I believed you were alive. Lloyd is a child throwing a tantrum because no one will give him the toy that he wants. The guns made it a potentially deadly tantrum, but then again, we’ve been through gunfire before. You, me, and Lloyd. We’ve seen people suffer around us.

  “You have to be reasonable. If they think you’re crazy, they’re not going to let you near the president,” I tell him and try to picture what proof he might have.

  YOU’RE STILL LYING TO ME.r />
  “Was it Serena’s contact at the embassy? Was it the journalist I met in New York?”

  He jerks his head up, jumps to his feet, and whirls toward me. Too close for me to stand up and speak out. YOU STILL PLAN TO DO IT.

  “You sound crazy again,” I say and look up at him. The angle strains my neck.

  YOU’RE TRICKING ME.

  “I do believe you, if you have proof . . .” I extend my hands out to him.

  The scissors are open in his hands, and I see he’s gripping them by the blades, and they cut him. YOU’RE STILL LYING TO ME.

  “No, I wouldn’t—look, you’re hurting your hand,” I say.

  WHAT?

  “Your hand, Lloyd. We were having a good talk. Sit back down,” I tell him even as my heart has picked up its pace at the threat in his voice.

  YOU CUT ME, YOU BITCH. He throws the scissors against the wall opposite us with the force of his entire body. I duck—we all duck as they bounce back and fall to the floor. Then he turns to me.

  “I didn’t do that. How could I? Look, my hands.” I hold out my wrists to him again.

  “She’s telling the truth,” Faye calls out.

  YOU’RE ALL TRYING TO TRICK ME. He raises the shotgun and points it at me. BUT THEY DON’T KNOW, DO THEY? THEY DON’T KNOW YOU’RE PLANNING A MURDER.

  “She didn’t do anything to you—you did it to yourself,” Heather shouts. Lloyd aims the gun in the direction of her voice.

  YOU THINK YOONA IS SUCH A SAINT. SHE’LL LET YOU DIE RATHER THAN TELL THE TRUTH.

  I was wrong. He’s erratic and makes no sense. All the progress I thought I’d made evaporates. I can see in his eyes that in his desperation he will kill all of us.

  What have I done? And then I know this can’t be the way it ends. You wouldn’t give up. You would reason with him. I’ve seen my mother reason with my father. From her place on the floor where my father pushed her down, she would beg for our lives. I don’t know why, but that’s what comes to me now, this image of her.

  “Lloyd, think about Jaesung,” I tell him.

  YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIM. YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYBODY BUT YOURSELF.

  “That’s not true. You said you brought Daiyu in here because you knew I cared about her and Heather and Faye.”

  JUST SAY IT, YOONA.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  TELL THEM WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO TODAY.

  “So this isn’t about Jaesung at all.” Tears rise in my eyes. For a few minutes I’d begun to hope. If Lloyd had proof that you were alive—I hadn’t let myself hope again until today.

  SAY IT. I’LL KILL HEATHER TO MAKE YOU SAY IT. YOU KNOW I WILL.

  Heather and Faye and Daiyu are whispering and looking from him to me.

  “This isn’t about Jaesung being alive at all. You don’t even want to speak to Reagan.”

  I’VE GOT TWO MORE GIRLS TO KILL AFTER HEATHER TO GET TO REAGAN. FIRST, YOU ADMIT WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO, AND SECOND, YOU SAY YOU AREN’T GOING TO DO IT NOW BECAUSE I WON’T LET YOU.

  “Do you really have proof he’s alive?”

  I WANT YOU TO SAY IT.

  “You want me to keep the baby. Fine. I’ll do it. We’ll do it. We’ll raise this baby together.” My voice breaks.

  Heather takes a sharp breath. Faye says, “What are you saying?” Daiyu is silent. But I’m watching Lloyd. He squints his eyes at me.

  Yes, there’s a baby.

  44

  I believed the end of the tour didn’t mean the end of us. I don’t know why I was confident of that. We kissed on the bus all the way back into the city. Lloyd cleared his throat a few times when the tour guides walked down the aisle, and we separated, but then when the coast was clear, we returned to it. Swollen lips and heavy breathing and hands under each other’s clothes.

  “I’ll see you soon. Sooner than you want, probably,” you said in my ear. We were standing on the sidewalk with our bags at our feet. You stepped back because people were crowding us on the sidewalk. You held up the piece of paper where I’d written my aunt’s address and her phone number. I didn’t trust my voice, or how suddenly my eyes flooded with tears, and turned toward my aunt’s car. There was no reason to believe I wouldn’t see you again, and I scolded myself for doubting it.

  We sped off, and I kept my head down. The chauffeur had come for me. I was relieved my aunt was too busy to pick me up herself.

  I noticed different things this time around. Soldiers stood in groups on the corner on the campus of Yonsei University. They wore black fatigues and had semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders as casually as book bags. The chauffeur explained to me in Korean when I asked about them that men in Korea have to serve three years in the military. The men looked like recent high school grads, like me, young and oblivious. And smoking. Like the college students walking around them, they had cigarettes between their fingers. Nearly everyone college age smoked. I saw students being stopped and their bags pawed through by police. I thought I saw you in that crowd even though I knew I’d left you back at the buses.

  The next day I went shopping with my aunt. All day I worried you had tried to reach me at my aunt’s house. I counted the hours until I would see you again. If we weren’t home when you came by, then how would I reach you? My aunt insisted on stopping at a restaurant to introduce me to her friends. My aunt’s three friends talked and talked as if they hadn’t seen each other in years when in fact they’d visited just days earlier. Finally, we were back in the car, headed to her house. I couldn’t tell her about you. There would be so many questions. “Are you catching a cold?” she asked in Korean. I denied it.

  “I’m fine,” I told her.

  “I’ve got so much planned for us. We’ll meet your uncle in Busan this weekend—”

  Panic scattered through my bones. “Auntie, I traveled so much on this tour that I’d just like to stay here in Seoul,” I said in as firm a voice as I could.

  She looked startled. “But how will he see you otherwise? This job has him spending half the week—”

  The chauffeur turned suddenly at an intersection, forcing me to lean left into my aunt’s shoulder and interrupting her words. Behind us I saw a cloud of dust and people running our way. The chauffeur apologized, making yet another sudden turn. More people ran. There were loud explosions and shouting. We sped up, squeezing between other cars on that street. A few young men in all-black clothes ran alongside us, banging on the roof and side of our car. They had white paste under their eyes and noses. I asked what they had on their faces, and the chauffeur said it was toothpaste, to cut the sting of the tear gas. “Hurry,” my aunt urged him.

  The chauffeur said under his breath, “Usually they give them a way out of these political demonstrations.”

  My aunt told him, “Concentrate. Get us out of here.”

  “Third one this week,” the chauffeur said when we were in the clear. My aunt was incredulous. But she called my parents and made the mistake of telling them about the demonstration. “I’ll keep her safe,” she promised. “What can happen? We won’t go to that part of the city again. And Busan by the weekend. Oh, I didn’t hear that. Yes, Busan is having demonstrations too? We’ll stay here . . .” I was relieved. Maybe the demonstrations would work in my favor, and she would not insist on going south.

  But then the demonstration we had driven into appeared on the American evening news, and the phone rang the next morning. My parents had moved up my flight. I begged to stay at least the week, but they said they’d already changed my ticket to the next day. I had no way of reaching you. And now it was the third day since I’d seen you. Maybe you’d lost my aunt’s address.

  “Tomorrow or next week, honestly what danger are you in? I don’t know why your mother married such a stubborn man,” my aunt said. “Why aren’t you eating anything?”

  “I’ve been inside all day,” I said. “Need to go out. Would that be okay?”

  She put down her napkin. “Of course. Your u
ncle is going to be so sorry he missed seeing you, but these business trips. And . . .”

  The maid came in to say my uncle was on the phone. As the maid brought the phone to the table for my aunt, I stood up and headed for the door. I had to convince my parents and my aunt that I couldn’t leave. Not now, not without you knowing. I told myself I’d see you in the States in the fall. You’d told me you’d be a sophomore at Cornell. That was probably only a handful of hours from my school in Pennsylvania. We’d see each other. But the panic wouldn’t dissipate. I had to breathe fresh air. Or maybe it was something else, something I knew. Everything inside me told me to go outside.

  My flight was leaving the next morning. In my head was a rising refrain: “You’ll never see him again. You’re leaving, and he doesn’t know, and you’ll never see him again.” I knew it was unreasonable. We’d both be back in the States by the fall. But I couldn’t picture you and me together there, and I didn’t know why.

  My aunt’s house had a wall around it. There was a doorbell at the gate. I walked to it and opened it, looking down the quiet street to my left and then to my right. And walking toward me in a black shirt and jeans was you, walking with your head down. I couldn’t believe it could be you, at just that moment, with me at the gate. I ran to you, and you caught me in your arms, and we kissed. And I remember thinking, Of course, this was always going to happen. Why did I doubt you?

  “Where’ve you been?” I said into your neck.

  “Remember the cook from the tour, Tongsu Cho? He’s here. I ran into him at a meeting.”

  “What meeting? I don’t understand. I waited for you.”

  You took my hands and held them between us and looked at me. “You won’t believe what’s going on, Yoona. Things are going to change. They’re organizing at every level. It’s a real revolution. Unbelievable, but it’s real, and it’s going to change. All of it, this country, Yoona. I’ve got to show you—you won’t believe it.”