The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

somewhat formally again until she surprised them both by pulling him in and hugging him. Habi momentarily stiffened but then he embraced her, too, his arms wiry and strong. He smelled faintly of machine oil and something spicy, like cinnamon, and though she breathed in deeply her heart suddenly sagged, as if the air was of great weight. She didn’t want to cry. A loud knock on the heavy glass door separated them. A man stood outside with a white plastic bag in each hand, raising the bags up for them to see. Habi opened the door and a warm autumn draft rushed in along with the sweet, garlicky scent of Chinese food, and while the man kept repeating “10-B, 10-B,” and Habi was buzzing the apartment, June slipped out the door and walked as fast as she could to the street to catch a stopped taxi, Habi’s voice trailing her, his call of
Bon voyage
like a somber, gentle siren.
     
    BON VOYAGE. For several days afterward June tossed about the notion, wondering if such a journey was truly possible for her. But why not? Certainly her affairs were in order: the apartment closing went smoothly, the last of the furniture was delivered to various dealers and to Habi, and the lease on her shop, renewed five years ago, was expiring in a week. The timing was miraculous. For the last month she had been steeling herself for the trip, consciously conserving her energy, and there was no reason it shouldn’t prove to be a good one, kindly to her person, even fulfilling. She had just poured water from the electric kettle for roasted rice tea when there was a knocking at the glasspaneled door of the shop. She had covered the door, as well as the inside of the front window, with white butcher paper, and so she could make out only a large looming shadow against the fading light of the early evening. No doubt it was the investigator-for-hire; no one else would assume there was anyone inside. He had called the shop that morning, saying he had detailed news of her son. For a long moment she sat still in the rickety oak swivel chair, a part of her dreading the creak that would betray her presence: this was her last chance to let it all just be. But then a stouter knock rattled the glass and she rose with what seemed an external propulsion, as if she had been fitted with invisible wings that knew nothing else but to beat. She opened the door to a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a dark suit and striped tie and gray overcoat and holding a bulky briefcase in one hand. He might have been a typical New York businessman were it not for the terrible roughness of the skin on his cheeks, the likely result of a childhood pox. The scarring was severe and, unfairly or not, it made him appear tensed, stricken.
    “Mrs. Singer? I’m Clines.”
    She let him into the poorly lit shop. He appeared even taller when he stepped inside, and without being conscious of it she placed herself between him and the door. He had long pale hands and long legs, which ended in narrow, boatlike black shoes. He looked around the rectangular room of the shop, and she wondered if he was calculating the odds of her ability to pay him for his services. So far she’d only sent him a check for five hundred dollars as a retainer, and it was quite clear the sum value of what was left in the near-empty shop wasn’t close to that figure: there was the oak desk chair with its rusty wheels and a chipped glass coffee table topped with prescription bottles that served as a nightstand for the twin-sized mattress and box spring placed on the floor next to it. There was a floor lamp on the other side of the bed and beside that a warped drop-leaf table with an electric hot plate on which the kettle was wheezing ever so softly as the heat of the coils died down. Her clothes were folded and simply stacked in two opened suitcases against the wall, which was unadorned except for the few picture hangers that had been left up and the more numerous holes made by former ones. She could have been a