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 asked, 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