When had he fallen in love? Was it when he’d first heard her sing? No, not really. Could you point to a moment, or was it an accretion of impressions? It might have been when she had come to his house with that doctor who was obviously in love with her, too, that he had started to think of her as the woman he had yet to meet. Leah wouldn’t have naturally entered into his world. She was of peasant birth, with little formal schooling, and she worked as a tailor at a dry-cleaning store in New York. But she was also a beautiful lark disguised in the body of a woman. The fact that she could read music had been a revelation to him. Some attentive nun had taught her back home. Her existence at all had made him question everything.
Why was Joseph here? Charles tried to calm his thoughts, all jumbled with questions and fear. If Joseph shot him dead, he would have deserved it. Another man’s wife was sacred. This was an obvious notion, yet it had never stopped him before. But in his experiences with sleeping with several married women, they had been happy to keep up the affair, to not leave their situations, and the women were pissed off only when he’d wanted to end it. And it was always he who had to walk away. For the first time, he wanted a woman to leave her husband. But she had not called him once. How ridiculous. There was no God, he thought. Only a big joker.
“Elder Han,” Charles said, rising from his chair. He clasped his hands behind his back to steady himself.
Joseph bowed his head lightly to acknowledge the younger man. Charles bowed deeper from the waist.
“My wife. . . ,” Joseph began.
“Yes?” Charles answered too abruptly. “How is she?”
“She isn’t feeling well. Her cough isn’t so good. And she’s been having some stomach ailments,” Joseph said.
“Deaconess Shin has told me that your wife has been suffering with a cold. That she lost her voice. Is it serious?”
“She was very sorry to miss her solo last month.”
“Everything worked out,” Charles assured him. Kyung-ah had taken over that morning. It had been fine, he’d thought then. But that morning, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on much of anything.
“Her throat is bothering her a great deal. She can’t even hum. It’s strange not to hear her—” Joseph felt foolish for talking. He didn’t know why he had come exactly. She hadn’t asked him to. He just knew that the choir was the most important thing to her.
“Has she been to the doctor?”
“She won’t go. But she was able to go to work for the first three weeks even though she was sick. She doesn’t have to talk to customers so much when she’s sewing.” Leah had tied a cotton scarf around her neck. For hours, she had worked quietly over her sewing machine without a word. “But this week, I told her to stay home for a few days, because she seemed so tired. And the coughing.”
Charles nodded, not knowing what to say. He felt a sharp ache in his chest imagining the silence of her days. He gave a grimace of pain without intending to.
“Is there something I can do? May I call her at home?”
“Oh.” Joseph brightened, grateful for the man’s kindness. “That would be wonderful. I think she would be honored if you could find the time to—”
“No, no, not at all.” Charles waved his hand. “I’d be happy to call. Can she talk on the phone?” He stroked his Adam’s apple.
“Oh yes. Probably not long, though. She has a persistent cough. She has been feeling low, I think.” Joseph felt relief at confiding this to someone who cared about her. The young man was responsible and warmhearted to be so concerned.
Joseph wrote down his home number on the back of a church program for the choir director. They bowed good-bye.
As he was heading out of the choir room, Kyung-ah Shin called out to him and sprang up from her chair.
Joseph nodded curtly. She came and stood close to him. He jerked back a little. The choir stared at them, then looked away. Charles pretended not to notice and looked over his sheet music.
“Elder Han,” Kyung-ah said. “Elder Han,” she said again breathlessly. “I was wondering how your wife was doing. This morning when she said she couldn’t make it to church again, I was really worried. Is she getting better? She sounded so quiet. I could barely hear her. A cold can turn into pneumonia. Maybe she needs X-rays.” She stared boldly into his eyes—his expression was detached and cool. He didn’t like her very much. That was obvious. Kyung-ah’s own husband was a shy man who worked hard and stayed out of her way. He was a good father to their children. But he was so dull that she often forgot he was in the room with her. Marriage was a necessary thing, Kyung-ah thought, but unnatural.