If I Had Your Face(69)

I gather that she is pregnant and she is talking about her baby.

“I heard that if something is wrong then they will save the mother over the baby and I don’t want that to happen. If my baby is going to die then I’ll just die with her.”

I look down at her and I understand. I nod and bring her some tissues from a box on her kitchen table and she blows her nose. I kneel next to her and start stroking her hair, which is wet from sweat. Even the tensest of my clients tend to relax when I do this, so I hope it helps if only just a little.

I glance around the apartment curiously. It is only slightly bigger than ours and it does not look at all like an apartment for a married couple. Not that I have ever been to a young married person’s house, now that I think about it, but the ones I have seen on TV have frilly lace curtains on the windows and blown-up wedding photographs and matching blue and pink mugs and slippers and stuff.

But this apartment, there are no photographs or paintings or frills—it is as stark and muted and neutral as a hospital waiting room. No books or plants either. The only thing that is personal at all is a small bookshelf of CDs in the corner. What a curious woman she must be, not to have a single decoration in her house. Even at the salon, where we each have the little acreage of one chair in front of a mirror, everyone is trying to decorate the hell out of the thirty centimeters of shelf space in front of the mirrors. And she’s having a baby! Not a single baby thing anywhere, although I did hear that people do not like buying things early for fear of bad luck…Tempting the gods with assumptions of happiness.

My phone starts buzzing, making us both jump. It’s Miho calling. She must be very frazzled, to be calling me. “Ara, it’s me. Check your texts!! Text me back!!” she says when I pick up, then she hangs up.

I open the texts and see that she has texted me a bunch. “Where are you??? Are you ok???? I just knocked on your door and you are not here!!”

I text her back. “Downstairs in 302. Lady in a lot of pain. I’m fine!”

Perhaps ten seconds later, I hear a knock on the door.

“Who’s that?” says the woman weakly, and I run to the door and open it.

Miho looks relieved when she sees me. Her long hair is in two flowing braids and she has paint on her hands and arms as usual.

“You scared me!” Miho says in a chiding voice. “You can’t do that! Just text and go silent!”

I crinkle my face in apology.

“I called the police,” says Miho. I shake my head. “Call them back? Tell them not to come?” she asks, and I nod.

“Who is it?” calls the woman from the living room, and Miho walks in with me.

“Hello, are you okay?” Miho asks gently when she sees the woman lying down. “My friend Ara here texted that she heard screaming and then she didn’t text back so I got nervous.”

The woman sits up slowly, gingerly touching her stomach.

“I was in a lot of pain,” she says. “My husband…is not here.” She says this hesitantly, then rubs her stomach in a circular motion. “I actually think I am feeling better. It still hurts but less now. I’m pregnant.” She says the last part a bit defiantly.

“Do you need to call your doctor?” Miho asks. The woman shakes her head and looks at me. I touch Miho on the arm and shake my head.

“Well, at least you are feeling better,” says Miho. “That’s good! I’m Miho, by the way. This is Ara. We live upstairs.”

“Yes, I am sorry,” the woman says. “It’s very late and I disturbed you. I am surprised the whole office-tel is not pounding on my door.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” says Miho. “Ara is just special. She hears things more acutely than most people. I’m sure everyone else is asleep.”

“When is your husband coming back?” I type.

She looks at my text and shakes her head once. And then Miho jabs me in the back to tell me to stop asking.

I go to the kitchen table to check on the hot water I have poured into the mug. It’s a drinkable temperature now, so I bring it to the woman and she sips.

“Thank you so much for bringing hot water. It’s very thoughtful.” She holds the mug with both hands and then places it on her belly.

I smile weakly. It’s just as well that she doesn’t know I thought she was being raped and I was going to fling the boiling water in her rapist’s face.

“It’s so late. I feel quite terrible for keeping you up. Please return home and go to sleep. I feel so much better, really.” To illustrate her point, she stands up and smiles tremulously.

Miho and I look at the clock, which now reads 4:05 A.M. We both shrug. Miho keeps her own hours and can sleep in as late as she likes.

I have to be at work by 9:30. I haven’t had a dedicated assistant since Cherry never came back after that night; I’ve been laying low and haven’t asked for another one yet.

I take the woman’s hands in mine and squeeze them. They are bony and soft at the same time.

“Thank you,” she says, her eyes cast down to the floor in embarrassment. Miho murmurs good night to her and we leave together, closing the door softly behind us.



* * *



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THE NEXT DAY at work, I am thinking about the lady. I can’t stop thinking about her desperate eyes—how, even despite her pain, she was unwilling to go to the emergency room because they might take the baby out of her.