“Mrs. Choi, your silence is not helping,” Judge Williams interrupts finally. “You do realize that, in the case of a green-card holder, an aggravated felony is grounds for removal?”
Without a glance at the bench, Mrs. Choi responds, “I’ve served almost three years in jail. I’ve lost everything. My husband, my daughter, my store. If that didn’t kill me, nothing else will.” It is the most she’s spoken so far. But self-destructive. No use confessing her heart to a judge who never grants relief, or to the trial attorney sent by the INS. Yet Suzy has no choice but to translate.
Her lawyer then puts the cap back on his pen with an obvious look of irritation and fatigue. “I have no further questions,” he sighs. Pointless trying to establish her as the victim, as the one who’s lived here for a quarter of a century, whose husband and daughter are still very much alive in this country, for whom being removed permanently means being torn away from a home.
Then the INS attorney perks up, grabbing her notes: “I have a few questions.” Suzy winces as she translates her words—the trial attorney from the INS, the source of everything that had gone wrong with her parents. “Madam, where is your daughter?”
Mrs. Choi then raises her eyes for the very first time. Dead eyes. Nothing there, Suzy notices. Nothing left over.
“Isn’t it true that she ran away from home when she was seventeen?”
The question shoots out of nowhere and sticks. Suzy stumbles, as though it is her mother being examined, accused, sentenced. Isn’t it true that your daughter abandoned you because she couldn’t stand you?
“Isn’t it also true that, before she left home, she had filed a complaint against your husband, Mr. Choi, for physical abuse, in which she alleged that he beat you as well?”
Mrs. Choi’s face reveals nothing. Theirs was not a happy home, obviously, which is exactly what the INS attorney wants Judge Williams to consider. No one’s breaking their home. They did that for themselves. Green cards were never meant for such undesirables.
“And isn’t it also true that you have not once seen your husband, Mr. Choi, since the day you stabbed the girl in your store, almost three years ago?” The INS attorney fixes her gaze on Mrs. Choi for a few seconds, and then turns to Judge Williams. “Your Honor, I have no further questions.”
The INS attorney spoke the truth on her cell phone earlier. Judge Williams’s ruling is only a formality. Relief was never a possibility. Deportation had begun the minute she stabbed that girl. She should’ve known better. Immigrants are not Americans. Permanent residency is never permanent. Anything can happen. A teenage thief on one unlucky night. A pair of INS informers eyeing your store. A secret murder that is not so secret anymore. And Suzy, sitting across from the INS attorney on the twelfth floor of the INS building, about to translate a deportation sentence for a Korean woman exactly her mother’s age.
When Judge Williams announces the removal date, Suzy chokes. Her voice is suddenly gone. She inhales deeply and then swallows once, twice. All faces are on her. Then she hears it again. The quiet murmur from Mrs. Choi.
Namuamitabul Kuansaeumbosal.
It’s the Buddhist chant Mom used to utter when Suzy got sick. It always made her feel better. A lullaby. A dead woman’s song.
23.
“HELLO, this is the Interpreter Hotline Services.”
“Hello, this is a message for Korean interpreter Suzy Park.”
“Hello, Suzy Park, please report to Job Number 009.”
She presses “Delete” after each message. It is no longer possible. An interpreter cannot pick sides. Once she does, something slips, a certain fine cord that connects English to Korean and Korean to English without hesitation, or a hint of anger.
For the past three days, the phone kept ringing while she lay in bed. Michael, pleading into her machine. Even in her deepest dreams, she heard his sighs. He would fume, demand that she answer. Then, half an hour later, a softer, sweeter, Suzy, please. His calls stopped overnight, which could mean only one thing. He must be back in Connecticut. Even Michael would not dare calling his mistress during a Thanksgiving dinner.
A half-dozen messages have been left by Detective Lester. Suddenly he is eager to get to the bottom of the case. With each call, he seems increasingly confident that he is closing in, although the three ex-KK suspects are still claiming that it was a setup. He has no doubt that he could convict the gang of firstdegree murder, although he seems unaware of their link to the Korean grocers. He never lets Suzy in on her parents’ backdealings with the INS, or with the police.
The girl from the accountant’s office has called more than once. “Grace is missing,” she squealed into the machine. “Grace still hasn’t come by to sign the papers. Please call us back as soon as possible.”
What is curious is how unmoved Suzy is, how unmotivated she is to pick up the phone. Instead, she is overcome by sleep. Her insomnia seems to have been miraculously cured. All she does now is sleep. No cigarette break. No water break. In between come those voices trailing off into the machine, voices from far away, voices belonging to dreams. The dream of the interpreter who no longer remembers her language.
“Hello, Miss Park?”
A woman, with a Jersey accent.
“Hi, this is Rose Goldman. I’m not sure if I have the right number.”
Ms. Goldman. The English teacher subbing for Grace. Suzy reaches for the receiver.
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad time. I thought I’d just leave a message. I was sure you’d be gone for Thanksgiving.” She must realize that Suzy, like Grace, has no family. “Oh, Koreans don’t celebrate our Thanksgiving, please pardon me. I have so many Korean students, I should know.” Ms. Goldman seems embarrassed at having been caught alone on Thanksgiving, although she is the one who called.
“Have you… heard from Grace?” Suzy asks, unable to shake off the persistent fatigue.
“No, not yet. But with Thanksgiving and all, the school’s out until next week anyway.”
Suzy is not sure why she is relieved. No news must be good news. Or is it?
“But yesterday, I remembered something. It’s really nothing, but it bothered me. I don’t know why, just a silly little thing.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember how I told you that I found it odd that her boyfriend was in the music business?” Rose Goldman sounds almost bubbly now, like a suburban housewife flipping through her copy of Redbook. “I finally remembered why. I remembered some kids saying that he was missing a finger on his right hand. And being a musician—although, now that I think about it, he could be a producer or something—but a musician with a missing finger is a bit strange, don’t you think?”
They once each cut off their little fingers to honor their brotherhood, copying that crazy Yakuza ritual.
Closing her eyes, Suzy counts to three before firing the question: “Was it the little finger he was missing?”
“How did you know? Yes, that’s what the kids said, like those famous gangsters in Hong Kong movies!”
DJ.