Elder Ahn’s beseeching grew louder and faster, and in her watery Kyung-sang-do accent, she panted to her dear Ah-buh-jee in heaven. One of the tenors clocked her at twelve minutes forty-three seconds on his gold Rolex Perpetual. The service was only half over, and the choir had to remain seated in their white partitioned pews, their black-haired heads bobbing just above the wainscoted church walls. The choir was only a few feet away from the lectern. The sermon was up next. Though it was only seventy degrees outside, in the sanctuary it felt like eighty-five. The air conditioner hadn’t worked all summer. Naturally, jokes had been made about how this must be a foretaste of hell. The Kim brothers pulled on their neckties. Their duet with Deaconess Cho and Mrs. Shim was already sung. They were dreaming of cold beer. There was no amen in sight.
The strong morning sun streamed in through the tall windows—wide blocks of light fried the unlucky parishioners seated beneath them. Elder Ahn was now praying for those named in the prayer request cards dropped in the offering plate the previous week. The seventy-four-year-old female elder who’d sold boiled corn on the streets of Seoul for three decades to send her children to school, but now lived in her own fully-paid-for brick house near Corona Boulevard, paid careful attention to each ailing parishioner needing a communal prayer, not failing to embellish the specific ailment with words of urgency. It was the least she could do, she felt, for her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. “Have mercy on Deaconess Sohn, who has been suffering with agonizing arthritis pain in her hands and legs. Have mercy on her, dear Father in heaven. . . oh, my Lord, my God, have mercy on your daughter.” The chubby alto, his hair darkened with Grecian Formula, seated beside Kyung-ah tried to amuse her by counting the requests thus far: twelve.
Kyung-ah was now making a rapid spooling gesture with her hands, not entirely hidden in the wide blue sleeves of her robe. But nothing would disturb Elder Ahn, who was reaching an ecstatic pitch. Tears flowed. Several congregants were evidently moved by her passion. Only twelve women were installed as elders in the congregation numbering five hundred; each gave one prayer per year. This was not a privilege Elder Ahn took lightly. Both her daughters and her one son, none of whom attended the Woodside services regularly, had come today at their mother’s request. Kyung-ah widened her eyes and pinched Leah jokingly. Thankfully, Kyung-ah and Leah were sandwiched in the middle of the three rows, so the congregation could not see Kyung-ah’s antics. Leah’s father used to say whenever her brothers teased the pious grandmothers of their church, “One day, you too will be very old, and only God will matter.” Leah glanced reprovingly at her friend, yet this had no effect. Kyung-ah smiled prettily and fanned herself with the program.
Charles sat with the congregation in the first row, on the seat nearest the aisle. He looked particularly attractive today, Kyung-ah thought: well shaven, the white linen shirt and dark cotton pants coolly refreshing compared with the others wearing dark suits and cheap ties. Kyung-ah raised her sable-colored eyebrows at him suggestively. After the evening rehearsal, she was supposed to meet him at an Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street. No one they knew would spot them there. In making their plans for tonight, he’d asked her to sleep over, and she’d said casually, “We’ll see.” But yesterday she’d gone to Macy’s and purchased a three-hundred-dollar Natori peignoir set in champagne-colored lace. Her husband thought she was staying at her sister’s.
At last, Elder Ahn cradled her head with her knotty brown fingers. She was rapturous—her grief consoled—certain that her prayers were heard by God. She stepped down from the lectern, grasping her gray metal cane that had been leaning beside her all that time. On cue, Miss Chun, the summer organist, played the beginning bars of “When Morning Gilds the Skies.”
Leah stood up with the choir, air filled her lungs, and she opened her mouth to praise God with her song. The first two lines of the hymn were gorgeous. The rise of the music almost lifted her bodily. This was why she had gotten dressed that morning, though she had felt the pull of her bed, the weight of her shame at having to face the professor again, the leaden lump of sin in her chest. What else was music but a miracle? What she could never say in speech, she could sing in verse, expressing the depth of her passion for her Maker. She’d never be capable of praying like Elder Ahn or be as eloquent as Reverend Lim, the best preacher of the ministry staff. “My heart a-waking cries, May Jesus Christ be praised! A-like at work and prayer, To Jesus I repair; May Jesus Christ be praised!” Leah closed her eyes, her head lilting with the tune. But a thrust of nausea clutched her stomach violently. Liquid gushed out of her, drenching her L’eggs panty hose. Had she peed? Her ankles were dark red, as were the edges of her robe. A large puddle of blood spread across the floor. The blood had reached even Kyung-ah’s shoes and those of Miss Oh, who sat next to her. Leah gasped, then fell down. Kyung-ah shrieked out loud, “Call an ambulance!” Charles bolted out of the sanctuary to get to the church office phone.