Finally, I heard the sound of muffled voices. A low one and a higher one in tone.
Another man came on the line. Sounded older somehow. A deeper voice. He spoke more slowly. “I’m sorry, I’m Jaesung’s uncle. There was a car accident on August twenty-first, sometime in the evening, not only a collision but a car fire, and Jaesung didn’t make it. We’re asking for a little privacy for the family. Friends of his can contribute to a scholarship fund at Lewiston High School and—”
August 21 meant the day after the protest.
I hung up as if the receiver had caught on fire.
47
Your face in the window of the taxi. I’ll see you soon, I promise. Those had been your words. You closed the door of the taxi. You said you’d find me. You closed the door with your hand on the open window frame of the car, and you said you’d find me. We’re intertwined in that little room with radishes on the floor. You said you’d find me. Sophomores don’t need orientation week. Freshmen have to suffer. I’ll see you soon.
48
I remember stillness. Your uncle was wrong. It was as if he’d said I was dead, not you. His words cut my lifeline, and I fell through stillness, fell through space, rolled and rolled, and there was no ground to save me.
49
I sat up all night going over and over it again in my head. I checked and rechecked the phone number I had for you. I called directory assistance and asked them to verify the number I had. And then I called the number again, and the man at your house answered again. Not your uncle, your father. He was kind. He complied. He told me they were all in shock. He said you had many friends. I wanted to shout at him that I wasn’t just your friend. I wasn’t any friend. “If you want to know, there was no pain. They say it was instantaneous. The car hit them from the side.”
“Them?”
“Another boy was in the car with him. He was driving. Jaesung’s side was hit, and then the car caught on fire, but they say he was unconscious. He didn’t feel any pain.”
“Who, who was it? In the car? Who was in the car? Was it Lloyd? Someone named Lloyd?”
“Excuse me a moment.” I heard him say something to someone beside him. I heard someone sobbing in the background, noises like sobbing. I heard your father say with his hand over the receiver, “Time for another, darling, doctor said take two pills, good,” and then come back to me. Your father gave me the phone number of the other person in the car. “I need to go now. My wife needs me, but thank you for calling.” And then he hung up.
Even as I dialed the number, I knew it would be Lloyd’s house. Lloyd answered the phone, static breaking up his voice.
“Sorry, do you have a phone number for Jaesung?” I said to Lloyd. “He’s supposed to call me, but I haven’t heard from him, so I wondered if you had. And could you tell him to call me, I mean, when you talk to him?” I said, hearing myself scratch for answers.
“Yoona, they’re wrong.”
“He was supposed to call me. I think we still have a bad connection, what did you say?” But I didn’t really want to know.
His voice suddenly became louder. “Don’t believe them.”
“No, I just thought he had trouble reaching me, and if you had a number for him—”
“Yoona, he’s not dead. I’ve been trying to figure it out—there must have been a clerical error of some sort. There was an accident, but it wasn’t Jaesung who died in it.”
“Oh.” Relief washed over me. My feet felt to be on solid ground again. Of course there was an explanation. And the mistake would be cleared up. So why hadn’t you called me? I told Lloyd about the man I’d spoken to. So that was the reason he thought you were dead. Mistaken identity. Korea was busy and confusing, and it was easy to make a mistake like this.
“Do they know? I can call them right now and ask them about it. They just accepted it, but if they knew the truth . . . ,” I offered.
“If I could have stayed longer, I could have shown them.”
“His parents will believe you.”
“He must be part of something—something big. There was secret service at the meeting we went to, I could tell. They had guns. They could be listening in right now.”
“What would they want with Jaesung?”
He was talking rapidly now. “Just promise me that you’ll go to your classes and do everything you know he’d want you to do. Promise me. Life as usual. Don’t let on that you believe anything other than the official story. Okay? Yoona? His life might be in danger, or we’ll be in danger. I’ve got to go. He’s part of some revolution. I saw it, at the meeting.”
“Lloyd—”
“Promise me, as far as you know, the official story is he died, okay? Don’t let on that you know any different. But there’s more, and I’m going to find out. Trust me. Do you trust me?”
I didn’t recognize this person who claimed to be Lloyd. His voice sounded like Lloyd’s voice, but there was something else too. His voice went flat a few times, as if he wasn’t completely there. “Were you in the car with him?”
“I can’t get into it now. They could be listening.”
“Who’s listening?”
“Remember the official story,” he repeated.
I told him I would wait.
“Good. If I need your help, will you help me?”
“If it wasn’t him in the car, then where is he?”
“We were on our way to a meeting—Jaesung said it was important. Things were going to change because of it, everyone was nervous. So you can’t say anything to anyone, promise me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“I promise.”
“Good. Okay, I’ll be in touch.” And then he hung up.
I didn’t sleep that night, but in the morning I went to my classes as Lloyd had said to do. I was numb. But I knew what I’d heard. Lloyd had said you were alive. I held on to that. I didn’t feel as if you were gone. I didn’t feel a vacuum in my heart like I knew I would if you were dead. Your father’s and your uncle’s words—those felt like lies to me. By the way, I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t know I was pregnant. I thought the weepiness I felt was because of you, the pitch and roll of the bed when I was lying in it before I closed my eyes—all that, I thought, was because of you.
50
“Let go of me,” Faye shouts at Lloyd.
He holds her one second longer as if to show he can and then throws her away from him. “You’re next after that one.” He points to Heather.
“A baby, shit, no wonder,” Heather says and covers her face with her bound hands.
“No, Lloyd, you can’t. If you hurt them, they’ll never let us out of here,” I plead.
I DON’T CARE IF ALL OF US DIE.
“Yes, you do. How are we going to raise this baby, how are you going to save Jaesung and raise this baby if we die in this room? Come on, Lloyd.” I have to convince him.