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“I said I would come.”
“I asked you not to,” she said, pushing off his hands.
“So you don’t want to see me anymore?”
“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow!” Hector cried, the instant thunder in his voice surprising even him.
She was silent. “Please, Hector. You can’t be here now.”
“Why? Because you’ve changed your mind?”
“I’ve never changed my mind. Not about you. It was never a question of that.”
“Then what was it a question of? Would you tell me? Because I’m stupid. I’m confused. Are you in love again with your husband?”
“I’ve always loved him,” she murmured.
“You’ve always loved him,” he scorned her. “I guess you were loving him right from the begi
“I didn’t come to you tonight,” she said.
“It’s because you’re strong,” he said. He was standing now, glowering as he angled his words sharply down at her. Had he not had a voice he might have actually struck her. “You don’t pace around your room like an animal in a cage. But I’m an animal that’s too awake. Before you showed up I didn’t care one way or the other about anything. But now here I am, waiting to be petted and fed. Told how much I’m loved. Here,” he said, holding his open palms before her. “What if I need comforting? What if I need some ministering to? What will you do for me, Mrs. Ta
She didn’t move. She was silently crying, the tears ru
Sylvie didn’t answer. But a different color had now risen in her face. She said, “My mother once told me something. I never quite understood her, but I think I do now. She said there was a surplus of benevolence in this world. Of loving mercy. Surely too much of it went begging. But it was worse, she said, when it was misspent. Because then it was no good at all.”
“I don’t care if it is,” he said, fiercely gripping her shoulders. “Misspend it on me.”
She took his hands then and had them cup her face, blot her eyes. She turned them over and kissed his palms. She kissed his fingers and his wrists. He kissed her madly in return and began pulling off her robe but she said not here and so they made their way slowly across the yard to his room, Hector bracing her. Once inside they made love. Or a kind of love. He was overwrought. It was as if the entire army of him had fallen upon her, overru
Outside, the smell of kerosene oddly prevailed. But it was a car that made her halt. It was rolling up through the gate, following the path that went around the field and then led in front of the buildings. It was too late to be Reverend Kim. The glare of the headlamps swept across her like a harbor light as she stood in Hector’s doorway and the car imperceptibly slowed, as if the driver momentarily had taken his foot off the gas, before resuming speed again. Sylvie stepped off the stoop and onto the ground but she didn’t move. The car had turned and was tracking straight for her and for a second Hector was certain it was going to run her over. But it stopped just short of her and when the driver came out it was too dark behind the bright beams to see but of course he knew it was Ta
“Sylvie,” Ta
Sylvie stood barefoot in her white robe directly in front of the car, the stars above them gone out for her brightness. She was clearly naked beneath. She drifted toward him, her hand outstretched, but Ta
Hector made a short sprint and rammed him, knocking him to the ground. Ta
“My God,” Sylvie said, getting to her feet. “The children!” Though faltering, she ran to the chapel. Ta
“She’s not here!” one of the children said. “Neither is Min!”
“Where are they?”
“They were in the chapel,” Byong-Ok said.
“But why?”
“They were bunking there together.”
“Oh, my June!”
Sylvie was headed in but Ta
Hector went in after her. The vestibule was choked with smoke. He bent down so he could breathe and when he pushed through to the chapel there was a blast of heat. The roof timbers were aflame. The front pews were on fire, as were the altar table and the cross, which had fallen to the floor. The back wall of the chapel was burning, part of it fallen away or blown out where the woodstove had been, and nearby were Sylvie and Ta