Author: anmly_mpusod

Fish Tank Creatures

by Dorothy Tse, translated from the Chinese by Natascha Bruce and Nicky Harman

      I’m not talking about those streamlined aquatic creatures covered in glistening scales; I mean something transplanted from its original domain and ensconced naked and unadorned in a glass container. For example: a middle-aged man, minus his crisp, well-ironed business suit.
       Through the clear glass sides of the vessel, we see his male flesh: flabby through long neglect. It has begun to droop in soft pendulous folds from his chest to his belly. Lumps and bumps of fatty tissue on his arms and his thighs have caused a web of pale stretch-marks to erupt on the skin. The man looks uncertain as to why he is there. There is a timid expression in his puffy eyes, his lips have lost all definition and color, and long creases bracket his mouth, giving him a comical look. We are on a street in a bustling downtown district and the man-pet in the tank seems to compel other men strolling elegantly along the street to speed up as they pass, as though afraid to spare such a specimen another glance.
​       In truth, however, the people of V City do not really see these creatures on their streets. It’s only in my dreams that the women in bright-yellow rain jackets drive their heavy trucks along tortuous mountain roads, rocking and swaying down to the city center. There, they skulk in dark corners, huge butterfly nets at the ready, and capture middle-aged men whose facial skin has just begun to slacken – they plan to turn them into decorative pets with atrophied brains but highly developed musculature….
​       It has been raining in V City for more than a month without a break. During this time, middle-aged office workers have been reported missing every day. Sometimes they disappear on the way to the toilet; other times it happens when they go into a back alley for a quick smoke. There is no forewarning, and they leave no trace. These men vanish as if swallowed up in a dark whirlpool. So far, the only clues collected by the black-raincoated police officers are fragments of the city dwellers’ dreams. And even though they’ve stepped up their street patrols, all they find is a uniformly grey city where passers-by bury themselves under mushroom-shaped umbrellas, their hurried footsteps splattering like radio static, making the city sound like a dreamscape broadcast over the airwaves. Amid the chaos, the officers glimpse their own hazy reflections in shopfront windows; they don’t say a word, but seem to accept that, at times like this, it is inevitable that some people will quietly disappear.

***

​       So, it’s only a matter of time before my father disappears, Mr. N’s daughter thinks suddenly. But she is soon distracted by her friends’ chatter and spasmodic laughter.
​       They are in a coffee bar on the top floor of a brand-new high-rise in V City. It is deserted most afternoons except for high-schoolers drawn in by the student discounts. Four girls sit in banquette seats around a table by the window, their identical makeup making them hard to tell apart. If you step closer, however, you will see that Mr. N’s daughter is the only one to sport a ring in her right nostril. Mischievously, she has painted her finger and toe nails a poisonous black.
​       Mr. N’s daughter puts her half-smoked cigarette into the metal ashtray, and flips through the latest fashion magazine, yawning lazily from time to time. The June issue features models in summer outfits practically identical to what the girls are wearing. The difference is that these still-growing girls are bored, and it is to escape this boredom that they have bunked off school.
​       At three in the afternoon, the city is deserted, as if they are its only inhabitants.
​       There’s a momentary lull in their chatter. Mr. N’s daughter seems about to say something more, when the waitress ambles over to them, holding a glass of bright red liquid with both hands. The glass is in the shape of a flower vase, and its rim is stuck full of oddly-shaped fruits. Lips parted, Mr. N’s daughter extends a cat-like tongue to lap the vivid red juice. Her tongue goes numb, and she instantly forgets what she was going to say.
​       Mr. N is a typical office worker, managing to arrive home every day too late to catch his daughter awake. If, by some miscalculation, the pair do bump into each other, Mr. N grabs the chance to trot out his oft-repeated homilies. Even worse, he’s still enthusiastically buying his daughter the same kind of presents he’s been getting her for years. More than once, the girl has complained to her mother: ‘He must think I’m a doll in the children’s clothes department!’ Apart from this, Mr. N makes only the vaguest impression on his daughter. She thinks of him today, not so much because she is concerned for his safety, more because his connection to the latest topic of conversation makes him newly interesting.
​       Her real attachment, however, is to Mr. N’s black molly.
​       On his writing desk, Mr. N has a fish bowl, about as big as his head. It is made of clear glass and wavelets ripple slyly at its rim, threatening to spill over the edge. The sole inhabitant is a black molly, its color the same lustrous black as Mr. N’s favourite suit. When she is bored, Mr. N’s daughter likes to glue a rice noodle to one moistened fingertip, then dip it into the icy water. The fish swims over, its lascivious lips close over her finger and it sucks greedily. If she suddenly jerks away, the fish bangs itself helplessly against the glass. The girl bursts out laughing.
​       Everyone looks forward to summer, but the June rains are annoying. For Mr. N’s daughter, not even her friends are enough to dispel the gloom aroused by the silvery rain that snakes down the window panes. Then she looks outside, where the downpour has blurred the contours of the city.
​       ‘Look! What’s that?’
​       Through the coffee bar windows, the junior high-schoolers can see that the city has been submerged. Only the high-rise where they are ensconced sticks above the waters like the tip of an iceberg. From where they sit, they can see men in business suits leaping from their office windows and fluttering downwards, their hair and ties streaming around them like seaweed. It’s been a long time since they took any physical exercise, and in spite of their frantic efforts to swim, their exhausted limbs are powerless to save them from sinking. Only a very few pale-faced survivors succeed in reaching the coffee bar building.
​       As the men cling desperately to the slippery metal balls that adorn the walls of the high-rise, and beat on the window panes, the girls are overcome with spiteful laughter. In the thick glass, the reflections of their laughing faces precisely overlay the terrified faces of the middle-aged men outside.

***

When Mrs. N awakes from her dream, her bleary eyes settle on the slender body of the black molly, flitting back and forth. The phone must have been ringing for quite some time. The voice on the other end tells her that Mr. N left the office at three pm, and hasn’t been back since.
​       Mrs. N hangs up. She can’t help it: she’s indescribably furious. He must have snuck down for a smoke.
​       Don’t smoke, don’t sneak off by yourself, stick with the others when you get off work… she’s warned him time and time again, but he never listens, just like he always makes up excuses not to eat fruit or fish, or use mouthwash before bed. Mr. N has brought this upon himself, because he wouldn’t listen. Angry tears leak from the corners of her eyes.
​       But, this aside, there’s not much to cry about.
​       Some time ago, she secretly went through Mr. N’s bank records and life insurance policy, which names her as his beneficiary. With the pay-out from that, this disappearance certainly won’t make much difference to her or her daughter (in fact, life might be a little easier). She’s even thought through what to do with his belongings – sell off the suits, finally scrap that shabby, falling-apart old desk of his and put up a full-length mirror in its place, tear down all the grey wallpaper and paint everything a nice, milky white; the curtains could do with replacing, too… Mrs. N dabs at her tears, feeling very content indeed.
​       She glances at the black molly on Mr. N’s desk.
​       He never had any particular hobbies, but every so often he liked to sit at his desk, completely entranced by that fish. Mrs. N has never understood the attraction of keeping a fish; she prefers cats. Cats might be arrogant, but at least you can give them a little kick when you’re angry, and listen to them whimper. Pets behind glass don’t even look at their owners, just swim pointlessly around and around, trapped in their own little worlds. Mrs. N can’t resist poking a forefinger into the tank, swirling the water as though mixing cake batter, slowly beating it into a whirlpool. The black molly doesn’t know what to do with itself, and swims frantically against the current. Mrs. N feels her pent-up frustration unwind.
​       “Never mind about your husband, just get a pet to keep your mind off it.”
​       That’s what Mrs. N has heard the other wives saying, to cheer each other up. Get a pet? She shakes her head; a daughter is trouble enough.
​       At three pm, the doorbell rings. She remembers making a date to go to the mall with two other wives, who live nearby. The end-of-season sales are on and, with her husband’s clothes all gone, she’ll have space in the wardrobe to fill. Hurriedly, she dries her eyes.
​       She’s very well-acquainted with the layout of the mall, and knows the clothes shops are on the second and third floors. But, when they enter the lift, a finger reaches past her and presses the button for the basement.
​       “First, we’re going to buy pets,” says the wife to her right, with a smile.
​       “Pets?”
​       The wife to her left nods. “Where did you think all the husbands went?”
​       The lift doors open, revealing an expanse of flabby flesh. At first, Mrs. N thinks they’ve walked into the meat aisle of a wet market, but then realises it’s a row of fluorescent-lit display windows. Inside the windows are men with paper bags over their heads, their snow-white, fleshy bodies on show for all to see. Quite a few are slapping their palms urgently against the glass, but it’s clearly no use. The two wives walk ahead of Mrs. N, and she listens as they nonchalantly continue to discuss these “pets.”
​       “Mrs. N’s husband isn’t bad, but I’ve always quite fancied the hair color on yours. What should I feed him?”
​       “Stick to quick-cook oatmeal, unless you want him to get fat.”
​       “…”

***

At three pm, when Mr. N leaves his office, he’s only planning to nip to the convenience store opposite, to buy painkillers for his headache. There’s a cheap canteen just next door and, as he crosses the road, he sees a few girls inside, smoking and shaking with laughter, sharing gossip over some guy or another. With the window blocking the sound, their smiling faces look even more exaggerated than usual. Instinctively, Mr. N checks his own reflection in the glass: a middle-aged man with a so-so complexion and sagging muscles, his hairline receding a little. Is something wrong? He hurries into the store, feeling his headache worsen.
​       But once he has his pills, he doesn’t go straight back to the office. Instead, he heads for an abandoned lot nearby – it’s where he parked his car. It’s still raining incessantly, as though it might never stop. He looks up at the gloomy sky, thinking that his head has never hurt like this before. A little rashly, he decides not to phone the office, but neither does he prepare to go home to his wife. He climbs into the car and reclines the driver’s seat.
​       Lying there, he has a clear view of the photo of him, his wife and daughter, which hangs from the rear-view mirror. “They could be sisters,” friends always comment admiringly, whenever he gives them rides. Usually, those pretty faces make Mr. N puff with pride, as though congratulating himself on prime specimens in his collection. But this ferocious headache means he’s out of sorts today. He suddenly feels like he hates them.
​       The photo was taken years ago, back when his daughter still wore the clothes he bought for her. She’s wearing an Alice in Wonderland-style pinafore, and has a sweet, innocent face. He looks years older than his wife, like some old pervert standing there with his arms around the two of them. The longer he stares at their smiles, the more it seems like they’re mocking him. Angrily, he flips over the photo and closes his eyes. Mr. N hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days, but now he falls abruptly into a deep, peaceful slumber, like a princess in a fairy-tale.

***

In his dream, Mr. N turns into a fish.
​       He’s in the glass tank where the black molly used to live.
​       Aside from him, everything seems double its normal size. In the glass, Mr. N sees his muscles, taut again after all this time, and his skin, a rich, glossy black. His waist has become exceptionally small, so tiny it doesn’t seem like a man’s waist at all. He doesn’t find this strange; quite a few breeds of fish change sex at random. He’s more surprised by how huge and innocent the faces of his wife and daughter appear, viewed through the top of the fish tank.
​       As though playing some new and exciting game, they compete to sprinkle fish food into the tank, instantly dyeing the clean water a dark, mossy green. They seem to think he likes those little, fishy-smelling green flakes floating around above him. Mr. N flails his slender legs in protest, splashing their faces, but they just keep smiling their blank, wide-mouthed smiles.
​       Mr. N feels a rush of pride. Now, no one will recognize him. Not his wife and daughter, or his friends, or anyone on the street – not even that woman in the yellow raincoat, still out there waiting on a dark corner, or the patrolling policemen. They think Mr. N’s gone the same way as any other of those unfortunate middle-aged men, disappearing quietly in the V City rain.

Dorothy Tse is a fiction writer from Hong Kong. She teaches literature and writing at Hong Kong Baptist University, and is a co-founder of the literary magazine Fleurs des Lettres. Tse is the author of the short-story collection 《好黑》 [So Black] (2003), which won the 8th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature. Snow and Shadow, a collection of Dorothy’s short stories, appeared in English in May 2014, translated by Nicky Harman, published by Muse, Hong Kong.

Natascha Bruce is a literary translator from the UK. She was a joint winner of the 2015 Bai Meigui Award (Writing Chinese, Leeds University) for translation of a story by Dorothy Tse. She has translated short stories and personal essays for Asia Literary Review, Pathlight, PEN America’s Glossolalia, BooksActually’s Gold Standard 2016 anthology, and elsewhere. At the moment, she is working on Lonely Face, a novel by Singapore’s Yeng Pway Ngon (forthcoming from Balestier). She lives in Hong Kong.

Nicky Harman lives in the UK and is co-Chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors). When she is not translating, she works on Paper-Republic.org, the website promoting Chinese literature in translation, organises translation-focused events, mentors new translators and judges competitions. She won first prize in the 2013 China International Translation Contest with Jia Pingwa’s short story ‘Backflow River’. She tweets as @NickyHarman_cn and China Fiction Book Club @cfbcuk

The Attack of the Zombies, Part 1,523

by Raquel Castro, translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel

There are those who don’t believe in zombies, simply because of the fact that they don’t exist (o people of little faith!). To them I say: fine, zombies might not exist right now wherever you might find yourself, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t exist, a century from now, or a year, or even one minute. Any continued refusals from them will just mean that, when the zombie attack takes places, their denial will make them victims who are easier to devour.
       Then there are others who are completely obsessed with zombies. Their fixation is such that they can’t stop thinking about the living dead. And this, of course, affects their daily life, their romantic relationships, their careers: every night they dream of zombies. It’s pathetic but… what can these poor souls do? Would traditional therapy be the best option? Or should they turn to some alternative discipline?

OPTION A
“Doctor, do you remember me? I stopped coming some seven years ago because I had the feeling that, instead of helping me, you were looking for how to get more and more money out of me. Like when you sent me to that Family Constellations workshop in Tlayacapan that cost more than a vacation in Cancún, or when you had me study herbalism as a way of losing weight and improving my mood at the same time.”
       “Oh, yes, Raquel… of course I remember you. But, didn’t you tell me that you were stopping because you had a scholarship to study Esperanto in Finland?”
       “That… oh yes. That was it. The therapy I abandoned for those reasons I just gave was with another shrink, not you, haha.”
       “And how go your Esperanto studies?”
       “Just listen: Hefloffo. Hofow Arf Youf?”
       “Wow, congratulations, you sound like a native. Now, what can I do for you? Why have you returned to therapy?”
       “I dream of zombies, doctor.”
       “…”
       “…”
       “…”
       “Listen, I don’t imagine you’re a Lacanian, Doctor. Give me something so I’ll stop dreaming of zombies.”

No. Traditional therapy is not an option.

OPTION B
“Kiiiitttttyyyyyyyyyyyy.”
       (Silence.)

       “Here kitty kitty.”

       (Silence.)
       
”Kittykittykittykitty!
       “
(Pitter patter of little footsteps running away.)
       “Damned cat!”
       “Meow?”
       (Of course: it only appears when it thinks I don’t want its company.)
       “Scram!”
       (Of course it doesn’t: instead of leaving, it climbs up onto me and begins its concert.)
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”
       “Blasted cat, it has to be when you want, doesn’t it?”
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”
       (Pet pet pet purr purr purr.)
       “Hmmm. I think this is working. I no longer remember about the… about the…. what was it?”
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”
       (There’s a noise outside: the sound of slow footsteps and a grunt and something that sounds like blood dripping.)
       “Did you hear that, cat?”
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”
       (The noise outside might be children playing; it could be an injured dog; but it might be….)
       “A zombie! It’s a zombie, cat, save me!”
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”
       (Because of my fright I squeeze the cat to me. Because this frightens the cat, it scratches me. Because the scratch frightens me, I slap the cat. The cat turns into a little beast from hell who bites and scratches me until I’m all torn up. I save myself as best I can and discover that, after all, my zombies were the neighbor’s children, who are running around barefoot and fighting and grunting and peeing, which is what that dripping sound was.)
       “Children…”
       (Although my intention is good–to tell them that these are not hours for them to  be playing and making such a ruckus–the kids take one look at me and the blood drains from their faces. They flee from me, shouting, terrified by my post-cat attack look.)
       “Heeeellppppppp us! A Zombieeeeee!”
       (I go back inside, defeated. I lie on the couch. The cat climbs on top of me.)
       “PUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.”

No… felinotherapy doesn’t seem to be a good option, either.

OPTION C
“No, Raquel,” my psycho-enterologist says, “zombies don’t exist, they won’t come for you, you don’t need to put up another gate in front of your house nor construct a tunnel leading to your car. Where would you go, anyway?”
       “Where? To my father’s house, of course. From there, hmmm… I think I would go to the mountains of Puebla. I have a theory that the zombie problem won’t last for very long. But it is vital to escape in the very first moments, which is when the majority of people will die or become infected. All because they don’t have escape routes. Or because they don’t react in time.”
       “This is pure madness. How would you manage to reach your father’s house?”
What a foolish man! The key to everything is to react in time: at the first sign of zombies, I’d get into the car, drive down the Anillo Periférico (preferably on the top level), and not stop until I reached my father’s house.
       “And your cat?”
       “What about my cat?”
       “Didn’t you say the other day that your cat absolutely refuses to enter her transportation cage? That the last time you tried to make her do so, she took out your eye with her claws and that’s why your left eye is made of plastic.”
       “It’s polished glass….”
       “Hmmmm.”
       “…from Murano.”
       “Hmmm…. Do you realize that your story is increasingly less believable?”
       “Do you realize that we’re changing the subject? The problem isn’t for us to talk about my glass eye and filigree apliques: the problem is… the zombies!”
       “The zombies.”
       “Yes. That as soon as they appear they’ll try to get into my apartment and eat my brains.”
       “Hmmm.”
       “And the only solution is to put up another gate and to build a tunnel that goes from my apartment to the garage. Can’t you see that otherwise I am trapped without any escape?”
       “And your cat?”
       “He’ll understand. I have a theory that, as soon as the first zombie appears, Primo will have enough common sense to enter his carrier on his own feet.”
       “Paws.”
       “What?”
       “His own paws.”
       “That’s what I said. And once we’re in the car…”
       “You’ll take the Anillo Periférico and reach Iztapalapa in a heartbeat.”
       “Exactly.”
       “And if Alberto isn’t home when the first attack takes place?”
       (Thoughtful silence.)
       (Challenging silence.)
       “Why wouldn’t he be home?”
       “He sometimes works elsewhere, doesn’t he?”
       (Silence to order thoughts.)
       (Triumphant silence.)
       “Then, are you suggesting that Alberto quit his job, because of some hypothetical zombie attack?
       (Open mouth.)
       (Furrowed brows.)
       (Sobs.)
       “Doctor, I think I need to stop seeing you right now. I’d rather use the money for your sessions to build the tunnel…”
       (Copious tears.)

No. There’s probably no therapy that’s any help for this…

Raquel Castro (ciudad de México, 1976) es escritora, guionista, profesora y promotora cultural. En 2012 obtuvo el Premio de Literatura Juvenil Gran Angular y, dentro del equipo del programa Diálogos en confianza de OnceTV, ganó en dos ocasiones el Premio Nacional de Periodismo. Es autora de las novelas Ojos llenos de sombra (SM/CONACULTA, 2012), Lejos de casa (El Arca Editorial, 2013), Exiliados (El Arca Editorial, 2014) y Dark Doll (Ediciones B, 2014). Escribe sobre literatura infantil y juvenil en la revista Lee+ y platica de libros y gatos con Alberto Chimal en YouTube.

Lawrence Schimel is a bilingual (Spanish/English) author and translator, who lives in Madrid. He has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, for readers of all ages, most recently Una barba para dos y 99 otros microrrelatos eróticos (Dos Bigotes). His most recent translation is The Wild Book by Juan Villoro, the first title from Restless Books’ new imprint Yonder. He tweets in English at @lawrenceschimel and in Spanish at @1barbax2

Born Out of the Front

by Mélanie Fazi (from Le Jardin des silences, 2014), translated from the French by Lynn E. Palermo

       She was born out of the frost, yesterday, on my window.
       Crystals fanned out across the glass panes. Methodically, inside and out. Like a layer of white lichen creeping from the edges in toward the middle. Filtering milky—even brittle—light. Seemed like I should be able to peel it off. A harsh, glacial light that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
       I’d swathed my body in layers of wool, but still it shivered. Shoving up the heat made no difference. Cold was taking over the whole apartment. Seeping into my bones.
       Then a face on one of the panes…took several hours to gain definition. The frost spread out in arabesques too regular to leave room for chance. To melt them, I blew on the glass, with no result. An outline emerged around a still-empty face – a hollow through which I could still make out the street. Light sculpted the raised contours. I hadn’t known that frost could hold so much nuance in silver and white.
       The street disappeared as features completed the face, one by one, in relief. It was a sculpture carved in ice, more than a painting in frost. As if its traits had grown out of the glass itself. Fine, precise, translucent. Silver filaments for hair. A frigid gleam in the eyes. 
       She looked like me.
       I thought it was my portrait, that the panes, or maybe the winter, were talking to me. Which would have been flattering: she was magnificent, everything I’m not.
       Then at last, in the center of the tableau, I saw her mouth emerge. Lips pulled back to expose teeth of glittering frost.
       As she watched me, she laughed. And her laughter was biting.

       She’s living in the mirrors now. Because of me, I think.
       For a long time, I looked myself over from head to foot in the mirror on the armoire. Compared features she’d formed on the window, searching for some resemblance. But I could see only my pale skin and dull, messy hair. Nothing to equal her grace. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering.
       Blowing warm air on the mirror, I covered it with my breath. A hazy pool of mist shrouded my face. I tried to trace her face with my finger, the way I’d drawn on the car windows when I was little.
       But my sketch was crude, clumsy. Not even close to her or to me. Not even approaching the delicacy of her features. The mist faded – the mirror drank in my breath.
       I think that’s the moment when she passed through to the other side: when I blew her into the mirror.
       The other face, the one on the window, faded. First the contours, then the hair, until all that remained was a face carved in the ice, or in the glass itself, and losing its mass. Her laugh was the last trait to dissolve from her hollow, dripping face, just after her eyes. Which had never left me for a single moment.

       When I awoke this morning, I found her in the mirror. As if cut right out of the windowpane and deposited there, on the other side, while I slept. She has devoured my reflection. If I stand in front of the wardrobe, it is she who stands before me. With her winter-colored dress, her long, translucent fingers, and her hair full of icy flakes. Her eyes like frozen pools. Her skin dusted with hoarfrost. And as always, the sharp teeth revealed by her laugh.
       She starts by my movements. Then gradually she disengages from them. I watch her acquire a life of her own, with an elegance that ice should not possess. An elegance that flesh never attains.
       Her movements are growing more fluid. Her gait, less stiff. Her skin is slowly taking on color. She has shed the winter like a molting bird.
       On the pane where she first appeared, frost has veiled the window entirely. The street no longer exists.
       I should probably be frightened. But I don’t know how. My mind has been numbed by the cold.

       She plays at being me: a doll of frost, a doll of blood. In the space beyond the mirror, I see her touching the books, furniture, and knick-knacks, learning their shape and texture. Her fingers are still ungainly. She leaves glinting droplets in her path, sowing a trail of glitter and scales that melt as they touch the ground. Under the layer of frost, her skin is a faint pink. She cocks her head with curiosity, shakes the objects, smiles at the rattle of a jar filled with needles or a box of jewelry.  When she sits on the bed and sinks into the quilt, I could swear I hear snow crunching under her feet.
       Now she’s pulled off her dress with its texture of evergreens hanging heavy with snow. She’s trying on my clothes. Clothes I haven’t worn in years, as the colors are too bright. The cherry red and bright orange stand out against her pale skin. Now that her fingers are more limber, she digs into my make-up. Dabs her face with autumnal golds and browns that turn her face into a clownish mask. Grotesque blots of my nail polish dot her fingertips. 
       Despite the caricature, she’s divine. Beneath her disguise, she’s almost me. Me, if I were beyond human. 
       Since she has no name, I give her my own. We have to name things. It’s the only way to hold onto them.

       Spring has arrived in the other bedroom, the one deep in the mirror. Her skin is now pink and warm. Must be where all the heat has gone. On my side, the frost has worked its way into the locks, jamming the front door. I’ve spent long hours probing the mirror for the crack that absorbed all the heat.
       Last night, she slept in a bed that was the twin of my own. I could hear her breathing over there under the other quilt. For most of the night, I tossed and turned under my covers, not wanting to give in to sleep. I was too afraid of having her dreams. I didn’t want to know what images turned round in her head. She might be dreaming of me.
       If she stays, I’m afraid she’ll end up possessing me. I don’t know how to exorcise her.
       Her arms are now bare. Her skin more soft, supple. Meanwhile, mine has lost its color and my lips are turning blue.
       Her face is almost mine. But I can still see hints of frost in the depths of her eyes. And a harshness in her smile that mine has never had. She’s taken every part of me and crafted it into something else: she’s turned a mouse into a wild animal.
       A little while ago, she was studying herself in the mirror before putting on make-up. I reached out my hand to catch her attention. She imitated me. Our fingers joined, mine thrust into the mirror up to my knuckles. Hers sticking out, free. It felt so warm in there; the contact with her fingers slowly warmed my own. Her ring with its sharp corners dug into my flesh. It looked like a silver scorpion.
       Then she pushed my hand away. A drop of blood formed at the base of my index finger. It had no taste at all.
       She disappeared into the living room. I could hear her moving about in there. I heard muffled music through the mirror. It was one of my albums, but I couldn’t remember which one. She seemed know: I could hear her humming along.

       Ever since then, my fingers bear the mark of her touch. Like an infection. Everywhere I lay my hands, colors grow faint. Textures harden. It spreads before my eyes. Sheets of ice cover the walls. I can still make out the paint in a few places. Not many. I’ve already almost forgotten the color, anyway. The floor crazes under my feet. I’m walking on a frozen lake with a shadowy floor beneath the surface. Going into the kitchen, I leave a tracery of spider webs in my wake. The food in the refrigerator is covered with mold. I’m not sure if that’s my fault or the scorpion’s. But I’m no longer hungry. Or cold. My fingernails are blue, but I feel nothing.
       It’s better that way. The bedroom is freezing. The world has turned white. Everything is covered with frost. A book just shattered when I knocked it off a shelf. It split into two sharp-edged pieces. Now I don’t dare touch anything: I’m afraid of breaking it all. Objects that don’t yield might snap off my fingers, leaving my hands with frozen stumps.
       Once again, I take refuge on the bed. I can’t worm my way under the quilt: the frost has fused it to the mattress.
       I gaze into the depths of the mirror at summer. A square of sunlight on the floorboards under the window. Colors that grow more brilliant as my own fade away. Over there, the walls are salmon. The bedspread is red. The curtains hang in vivid colors. She has decorated it all in her image. She’s dyed her hair a shade of copper. She flaunts her grace as she parades back and forth in front of the armoire.
       Sometimes she raps on the mirror to remind me that she hasn’t forgotten I’m here.

       There are people over there. I hear voices and laughter in the summer apartment. Music and the clatter of silverware. But I can’t see them. They’re in the other room.
My bedroom has turned into a closed-up box: a white box. The keyhole has frozen over and frost has veiled the last window. I no longer leave my bed. Huddled atop the quilt and on the pillow with its frozen wrinkles, I can no longer feel them against my skin. Nothing but the exhaustion pressing me to the bed. I can’t close my eyelids. Immobilized, I listen and watch.
       I thought the frost would make my body hard and brittle, but instead, I’ve lost substance. I don’t dare lift my arms for fear that my hands will stay stuck to the mattress, pull off. My fists have less mass than cotton. I’ll no doubt end up completely dissolved. I no longer have a body, I’m a quilt and some clothing. I’m the winter and the bedroom.
       From this point on, the other one lives her own life. She fills her hours with visits and activities. She’s never alone, never silent. She speaks with my voice. I gave her my name, then forgot it.
       It’s all so far away. On the other side of a mirror that I lack the strength to approach. In an apartment that no longer has the same colors as my own. She moves about in conquered territory.
       Around the edges of this mirror, a fine layer of frost has made its appearance. Little by little, it’s growing toward the middle. Soon, it will build a wall between us. And I will no longer even be her reflection.

Mélanie Fazi is an acclaimed author of French fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction.  She has published two novels in addition to several collections of short stories, her preferred genre.  Fazi is also a literary translator at Editions Bragelonne in France.  Her short stories, novels, and translations have all been recognized multiple times with the Merlin award, the Masterton award, and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.

Lynn E. Palermo, Associate Professor of French at Susquehanna University, translates literary and academic works. Literary translations, some in collaboration with Catherine Zobal Dent, have appeared in journals including the Kenyon Review Online, Exchanges Literary Journal, World Literature Today. In 2015, Palermo and Dent received a French Voices Award for their co-translation, Destiny’s Repairman, by Cyrille Fleischman.  Recent academic translations appeared in the 2015 issue of Dada/Surrealism (University of Iowa).

The Great Beast

By Anne Richter (from The Tenants, Belfond, 1967), translated from the French by Edward Gauvin

Then they turned to me and said, “It’s settled; you’re the one who’ll be going. Don’t think we made this decision lightly; we had lots of reasons for choosing you. For one, to the victor go the spoils; you’re the one who discovered the beast that washed ashore one morning. Really, all we did was witness your discovery. And so, by law, you should make the most of it. But up until now, you haven’t done a thing. There it lies, inviolate, still as a shipwreck. Can’t you see it mocks us? It’s up to you to unravel this living riddle. That gaping mouth, cool as a mausoleum, is all yours, as is that thick carpet of a tongue of indeterminate color. Think of your parents, your village! Go forth without fear. If the mouth swallows you, too bad. You shouldn’t have been playing hooky on the beach. If it lets you back out safe and sound, so much the better. We’ll know more than we do now. Go! Your parents’ wishes go with you.”
       “Oh yes, go my son,” said my parents, hypocritically, “you have to leave home someday. Lots of boys have jobs already at your age. But what could you have hoped for? You’ve always been scrawny. You’d have had a hard time plying a trade! Lying around the house all day, doing nothing—is that a life?”
And they raised their eyes, brimming with tears, rejoicing inside all the while over ridding themselves of the twentieth hatchling of too ample a brood.
       “Go, my friend,” said the little girl who lived next door. “My heart breaks when I think about the future, but I have never doubted you. Go, and remember your childhood friend!”
       And she clasped me to her fragile breast, inhabiting her role, featherbrained as any woman, thinking all the while about how quickly she’d replace me.
       “We have another reason for choosing you,” the elders went on. “You are the youngest. It is appropriate that youth run risks and that respect be reserved for those older in years. Moreover, the elders are wise; who would keep peace and order in the village if they left? Blessed youth, foolhardy age, go forth and do us proud.”
       “I don’t know what to make of all this,” I said slowly and quietly—not without noticing, to my secret joy, the bored, annoyed looks all around me. “Anyway, I run a great risk. God knows what dangers await me in the mouth of the beast. But if I refuse to go, I’ll have you to face. As far as I know, not a single fellow citizens envies me my fate, and if I refused, my dears, you soon stone me in your fear and frenzy. So I must choose between two monsters. Upon reflections, I prefer the one I don’t know.”
       And to much applause, I leapt into the great beast. The carmine rug of his tongue cushioned my fall. A wind was blowing from the south. The beast’s breath was deliciously perfumed. “Uh-oh!” said I, surprised, and from outside came the crafty echo, “Oh! Glory be to God, he’s alive!”
       I planned on staying that way as long as I could, though God had nothing to do with it. What I didn’t know was that life in my new abode would be so pleasant. I’ve never been one for the company of my peers, but the beast’s, I must admit, was captivating: I hadn’t a chance to feel trapped or bored, not even for a second. No sooner was I on my feet than I started exploring the place; my host graciously gave me free rein. Its mouth was carpeted with lichen of various colors, and its palate had a finer shimmer than the bluest sky. The great organs of its whalebones rang out at the slightest touch, but I refrained from abusing them, appreciating more than anything a silence that I, who’d always lived amidst my parents’ drunken bawling, had never known. A mysterious silence hung in the air like a bird in the sky of this massive maw, a calm punctured only by low digestive notes from the deepest depths. These distant borborygmi cadenced my stay, and as the beast ate on a very regular schedule, I fell into the habit of scheduling my activities by this music from the depths. Such activities were few and far between, but very absorbing, the first being to sleep late. Woken all my life at dawn by fraternal howling or a paternal boot to the backside, I’d never known the pleasures of prolonged sleep. I enjoyed myself to the hilt, and the beast seemed accomplice to my pleasure. All morning long, a ruminant, cud-cradling motion traveled its tongue as it remained unmoving on the sand, not even stirring the slightest tip of a fin. But toward noon, I heard cries from outside. Leaping to my feet, I peered out through the hole of the nearest nostril and glimpsed a few fellow villagers tiny in the distance.
       “Ahoy there!” the delegation hailed me distractedly.
       “Ahoy yourself!” I replied.
       “Are you hurt? We called out several times this morning. What are you up to?”
       “I was sleeping,” I said.
       “Sleeping! What a fine speech you made for someone who was just going to sleep in a fish’s belly!”
       “I’m not the one who made a speech,” I said, “and I’m not sure this is a fish yet. I’ve only explored the mouth so far.”
       “Just remember, you’re not there to daydream,” they said sternly. “From now on, keep your eyes open. Keep on the way you do, and that stupid animal could swallow you before you know it!”
       “Don’t worry,” I said, and dove nimbly right into a little lake in its tongue. I swam around delightedly, flooded with a feeling of well-being. The creature’s saliva was cool and rich. I cupped it in my hands and even drank some of that sweet, springwater-tasting liquid. Not so stupid, I thought, plunging into the tonsils’ grotto. A warm darkness enveloped me, and I emerged into a high-ceiling hallway sparking with stomach juices. I began the difficult descent, using the lumpy surface, and the closer I got to the great vital organs, the more the roar of a forge filled my head, and I felt ever more strongly the shaking of the beast’s inner workings.
       The next day, there they were again, sitting on the sand. The elders were with them, looking displeased.
       “You’ve certainly kept us waiting,” they said. “Where were you?”
       “Where you sent me,” I said. “This time, I went down as far as the stomach.”
       “Ah! What did you see?” they asked, moving closer despite their fear.
       “You’ll never know,” I said disgustedly. “You wouldn’t understand, it’s not a sight for people like you. And even though I could describe it for you, I won’t; I don’t want to.”
       “Now fancy that!” said the elders, striking the ground with their staves. “Shouldn’t you thank us for even being where you are? For your sake, we denied ourselves—so youth might have its chance. We are disappointed. This experiment has gone on long enough. Come out now, it’s raining, a storm is on its way. We can’t wait much longer.”
“Go find shelter then,” I said. “I’m staying right here for now. I won’t return to the village.”
       “We’ll see about that,” they shrieked, “Come out or we’ll come after you!”
       And as they started hurling insults, I burst out laughing.
       But that evening, there was a great eddy, and I almost died, smothered under the tongue of the beast when it suddenly flipped up into the air. I caught a glimpse of an elder tossed into the mouth and caught between two fearsome teeth, which hideously ground up dismantled body. An uproar rose outside. The beast, which had so peacefully offered me asylum, refused it to others. I was grateful to it for so radically discouraging any other attempted attacks. While the storm hurled out lightning on the shore, I gave thanks to the great beast.
       From then on, under a diluvian rain that gave no respite, they came in little groups to bombard me with their entreaties. First they sent my parents.
       “Listen, son,” they said, reaching out their arms toward me imploringly. “We know what you want. Yes, it was shortsighted of us to let you leave. Yes, we used to hit you sometimes, in the heat of anger. Yes, we neglected you a bit, since you were the twentieth. But understand—such mistreatment was the fruit of poverty. Look around you—our lands are flooded. Help us, son! Help us to shelter in the mouth of the beast, against water and cold! Save the village!”
       Perching on a tooth, I spat on their heads.
       The rain stopped, and a hellishly hot sun began shooting out its shafts. A swarm of pests burst forth from the fetid waters and invaded the village. So they sent me the little girl from next door. Her eyes were ringed and her cheeks sunken, her pretty shoulders had withered, and great bug bites covered her arms.
       “My friend,” she said, “We waste away, and it is your fault. It is hot, very hot. Drought has destroyed the harvests. The wells have run dry. Children die in their mothers’ arms. O my friend, this cannot be your wish. Let me come seek cool and shade in the belly of the beast.”
       “Go away, the lot of you! You and everyone else!” I said wrathfully. “May the waters wash you off and the sun burn you to a crisp, I don’t care. You rejected us. Too bad for you. Don’t try coming in here. Peace and warmth are mine inside the beast, pleasure and repose. Leave us alone!”
       But the sun’s fury only increased. It burned everything without pity. Overnight, the village went up like a torch. Those who remained began wandering aimlessly, afflicted by hunger and fever. On the shore, the beast ate and drank. Its massive organs went on with their slow work of life. Its impregnable flanks protected my slumber and dreams. Those below grew furious. They accused the beast of causing all their ills, and decided to put an end to it. The beast had brought their woes upon them; if it went, so too would their woes.
       They gathered their flagging forces and erected a great scaffolding by the sea. Then they set to boiling a great many cauldrons of oil and pitch, which they hoisted up on cables. They poured these into the open maw, amidst a terrifying ferment and a pestilential reek of burning meat. Then the fight with the beast began. But, following natural channels, I’d struck out right for the rear exit and come out laughing into the sea.

       “Oh yes, go my son,” said my parents, hypocritically, “you have to leave home someday. Lots of boys have jobs already at your age. But what could you have hoped for? You’ve always been scrawny. You’d have had a hard time plying a trade! Lying around the house all day, doing nothing—is that a life?”
And they raised their eyes, brimming with tears, rejoicing inside all the while over ridding themselves of the twentieth hatchling of too ample a brood.
       “Go, my friend,” said the little girl who lived next door. “My heart breaks when I think about the future, but I have never doubted you. Go, and remember your childhood friend!”
       And she clasped me to her fragile breast, inhabiting her role, featherbrained as any woman, thinking all the while about how quickly she’d replace me.
       “We have another reason for choosing you,” the elders went on. “You are the youngest. It is appropriate that youth run risks and that respect be reserved for those older in years. Moreover, the elders are wise; who would keep peace and order in the village if they left? Blessed youth, foolhardy age, go forth and do us proud.”
       “I don’t know what to make of all this,” I said slowly and quietly—not without noticing, to my secret joy, the bored, annoyed looks all around me. “Anyway, I run a great risk. God knows what dangers await me in the mouth of the beast. But if I refuse to go, I’ll have you to face. As far as I know, not a single fellow citizens envies me my fate, and if I refused, my dears, you soon stone me in your fear and frenzy. So I must choose between two monsters. Upon reflections, I prefer the one I don’t know.”
       And to much applause, I leapt into the great beast. The carmine rug of his tongue cushioned my fall. A wind was blowing from the south. The beast’s breath was deliciously perfumed. “Uh-oh!” said I, surprised, and from outside came the crafty echo, “Oh! Glory be to God, he’s alive!”
       I planned on staying that way as long as I could, though God had nothing to do with it. What I didn’t know was that life in my new abode would be so pleasant. I’ve never been one for the company of my peers, but the beast’s, I must admit, was captivating: I hadn’t a chance to feel trapped or bored, not even for a second. No sooner was I on my feet than I started exploring the place; my host graciously gave me free rein. Its mouth was carpeted with lichen of various colors, and its palate had a finer shimmer than the bluest sky. The great organs of its whalebones rang out at the slightest touch, but I refrained from abusing them, appreciating more than anything a silence that I, who’d always lived amidst my parents’ drunken bawling, had never known. A mysterious silence hung in the air like a bird in the sky of this massive maw, a calm punctured only by low digestive notes from the deepest depths. These distant borborygmi cadenced my stay, and as the beast ate on a very regular schedule, I fell into the habit of scheduling my activities by this music from the depths. Such activities were few and far between, but very absorbing, the first being to sleep late. Woken all my life at dawn by fraternal howling or a paternal boot to the backside, I’d never known the pleasures of prolonged sleep. I enjoyed myself to the hilt, and the beast seemed accomplice to my pleasure. All morning long, a ruminant, cud-cradling motion traveled its tongue as it remained unmoving on the sand, not even stirring the slightest tip of a fin. But toward noon, I heard cries from outside. Leaping to my feet, I peered out through the hole of the nearest nostril and glimpsed a few fellow villagers tiny in the distance.
       “Ahoy there!” the delegation hailed me distractedly.
       “Ahoy yourself!” I replied.
       “Are you hurt? We called out several times this morning. What are you up to?”
       “I was sleeping,” I said.
       “Sleeping! What a fine speech you made for someone who was just going to sleep in a fish’s belly!”
       “I’m not the one who made a speech,” I said, “and I’m not sure this is a fish yet. I’ve only explored the mouth so far.”
       “Just remember, you’re not there to daydream,” they said sternly. “From now on, keep your eyes open. Keep on the way you do, and that stupid animal could swallow you before you know it!”
       “Don’t worry,” I said, and dove nimbly right into a little lake in its tongue. I swam around delightedly, flooded with a feeling of well-being. The creature’s saliva was cool and rich. I cupped it in my hands and even drank some of that sweet, springwater-tasting liquid. Not so stupid, I thought, plunging into the tonsils’ grotto. A warm darkness enveloped me, and I emerged into a high-ceiling hallway sparking with stomach juices. I began the difficult descent, using the lumpy surface, and the closer I got to the great vital organs, the more the roar of a forge filled my head, and I felt ever more strongly the shaking of the beast’s inner workings.
       The next day, there they were again, sitting on the sand. The elders were with them, looking displeased.
       “You’ve certainly kept us waiting,” they said. “Where were you?”
       “Where you sent me,” I said. “This time, I went down as far as the stomach.”
       “Ah! What did you see?” they asked, moving closer despite their fear.
       “You’ll never know,” I said disgustedly. “You wouldn’t understand, it’s not a sight for people like you. And even though I could describe it for you, I won’t; I don’t want to.”
       “Now fancy that!” said the elders, striking the ground with their staves. “Shouldn’t you thank us for even being where you are? For your sake, we denied ourselves—so youth might have its chance. We are disappointed. This experiment has gone on long enough. Come out now, it’s raining, a storm is on its way. We can’t wait much longer.”
“Go find shelter then,” I said. “I’m staying right here for now. I won’t return to the village.”
       “We’ll see about that,” they shrieked, “Come out or we’ll come after you!”
       And as they started hurling insults, I burst out laughing.
       But that evening, there was a great eddy, and I almost died, smothered under the tongue of the beast when it suddenly flipped up into the air. I caught a glimpse of an elder tossed into the mouth and caught between two fearsome teeth, which hideously ground up dismantled body. An uproar rose outside. The beast, which had so peacefully offered me asylum, refused it to others. I was grateful to it for so radically discouraging any other attempted attacks. While the storm hurled out lightning on the shore, I gave thanks to the great beast.
       From then on, under a diluvian rain that gave no respite, they came in little groups to bombard me with their entreaties. First they sent my parents.
       “Listen, son,” they said, reaching out their arms toward me imploringly. “We know what you want. Yes, it was shortsighted of us to let you leave. Yes, we used to hit you sometimes, in the heat of anger. Yes, we neglected you a bit, since you were the twentieth. But understand—such mistreatment was the fruit of poverty. Look around you—our lands are flooded. Help us, son! Help us to shelter in the mouth of the beast, against water and cold! Save the village!”
       Perching on a tooth, I spat on their heads.
       The rain stopped, and a hellishly hot sun began shooting out its shafts. A swarm of pests burst forth from the fetid waters and invaded the village. So they sent me the little girl from next door. Her eyes were ringed and her cheeks sunken, her pretty shoulders had withered, and great bug bites covered her arms.
       “My friend,” she said, “We waste away, and it is your fault. It is hot, very hot. Drought has destroyed the harvests. The wells have run dry. Children die in their mothers’ arms. O my friend, this cannot be your wish. Let me come seek cool and shade in the belly of the beast.”
       “Go away, the lot of you! You and everyone else!” I said wrathfully. “May the waters wash you off and the sun burn you to a crisp, I don’t care. You rejected us. Too bad for you. Don’t try coming in here. Peace and warmth are mine inside the beast, pleasure and repose. Leave us alone!”
       But the sun’s fury only increased. It burned everything without pity. Overnight, the village went up like a torch. Those who remained began wandering aimlessly, afflicted by hunger and fever. On the shore, the beast ate and drank. Its massive organs went on with their slow work of life. Its impregnable flanks protected my slumber and dreams. Those below grew furious. They accused the beast of causing all their ills, and decided to put an end to it. The beast had brought their woes upon them; if it went, so too would their woes.
       They gathered their flagging forces and erected a great scaffolding by the sea. Then they set to boiling a great many cauldrons of oil and pitch, which they hoisted up on cables. They poured these into the open maw, amidst a terrifying ferment and a pestilential reek of burning meat. Then the fight with the beast began. But, following natural channels, I’d struck out right for the rear exit and come out laughing into the sea.

Anne Richter (1939 – ) is a prominent Belgian author, editor, and scholar of the fantastic. Her first collection, Le fourmi a fait le coup, was written at the age of fifteen and translated as The Blue Dog (Houghton Mifflin, 1956) by Alice B. Toklas, who praised her in the preface. She is known for her twice-reprinted international anthology of female fantastical writers, whose introductory essay she expanded into a study of the genre. She has also edited official anthologies of the fantastical work of Meyrink and de Maupassant. Her four collections have won her such Belgian honors as the Prix Franz De Wever, the Prix Félix Denayer, the Prix du Parlement, and the Prix Robert Duterme. She is a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Association of Belgian Writers, and PEN. Edward Gauvin’s translations of her work have appeared in Ann and Jeff VanderMeers’ anthology of feminist speculative fiction, Sisters of the Revolution (PM Press, 2015), and online at The Collagist.

Edward Gauvin has received prizes, fellowships, and residencies from PEN America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright program, Ledig House, the Lannan Foundation, and the French Embassy. His work has won the John Dryden Translation prize and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award, and been nominated for the French-American Foundation and Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prizes. Other publications have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Tin House, and World Literature Today. The translator of more than 250 graphic novels, he is a contributing editor for comics at Words Without Borders, and has written on the Francophone fantastic at Weird Fiction Review. Home is wherever his wife and dog are.

Valentine’s Day

By Xia Jia, translated from the Chinese by Ken Liu

Neither Chen nor Zheng had girlfriends. On Valentine’s Day, as they watched their roommate Huang get all dressed up to go out, they grabbed him by the arms and said, “Come on, pal, how about letting us tap into the feed for your date?”
       “We’re just going to dinner and then taking a stroll together,” said Huang awkwardly. “It’s not very exciting.”
       “If it’s not that exciting,” said Chen, “then you wouldn’t mind if we tap in.”
       “Exactly,” said Zheng. “We just want to take a peek. We won’t give you any trouble.”
       “Besides,” said Chen, “without our excellent advice and selfless service as coaches, do you think Qing would have agreed to go out with you?”
       “A good friend should be generous,” Zheng added.
       Huang was no good at this sort of argument and in the end gave in. He put on his contacts and adjusted the settings to broadcast everything he saw onto the wall of his bedroom. Then he hurried out so he wouldn’t be late for his date.

#

       Huang and Qing met up outside the campus gate and went to a Western-style restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was new, with classy décor and prices to match. Huang had been scoping out the place for a while and finally made up his mind the day before to make a reservation. Holding hands, the two approached the restaurant and saw several well-dressed, potbellied men arguing with the host at the door.
       “We’re regulars!” said one of the men. “We come here almost every week. Why can’t we go in today?”
       The host blocked their way but remained courteous. “I’m really sorry, but you know today is special. Only couples with reservations are allowed. I really don’t have any open tables. Please come back tomorrow.”
       The man’s face grew red, and he was about to start shouting when one of his friends grabbed him. “Forget it. Arguing isn’t going to make any difference. Let’s go somewhere else.”
       Huang watched the disappointed men leave and glanced at Qing, feeling pleased with himself. The host checked the reservation list and welcomed the couple.
       They sat down and ordered. Just as they were finishing their appetizers, the restaurant’s manager came over with a bottle. Huang looked at the label and knew right away that the wine was not cheap.
       “Wait!” he said. “We didn’t order any wine.”
       The manager smiled. “You two have the highest attention rating in the restaurant. From the time you came in, we’ve already taken more than thirty reservations. This bottle is on the house as a token of our appreciation, and you’ll get a twenty percent discount on your bill.”
       Huang was baffled. “Attention rating?”
       “Check for yourself.”
       Huang had a bad feeling about this. He took out his phone and checked the feed from his contacts. Somehow the live feed had been turned into a public broadcast, and tens of thousands were now tapping in.
       Many were leaving comments below the feed:
       – Lucky guy! She’s a 9, or at least a high 8.
       – She needs to see an orthodontist though. Look at that gap in her teeth when she smiles!
       – I know those dudes they turned away earlier! They work in the office next to my company, LOL.
       – I like her shoes, but I can’t tell the brand. Hey buddy, you mind bending down and leaning in so I can get a better look?
       Many of the comments disgusted Huang and made his blood boil.
       “What’s the matter?” Qing asked from across the table, looking concerned.
       Embarrassed, Huang rushed to explain. Then he grabbed her hand. “I’m so sorry about this. Please don’t be mad. I’ll shut off the feed right away.”
       Qing sighed. “I’m not mad. I feel sorry for them, really. They feel lonely and abandoned on Valentine’s Day, and it’s not a big deal that you let them tag along. Let’s just shut it off and ignore them. They’ll get bored and stop soon enough.”
       Huang was moved by Qing’s generosity. He shut off his contacts and his phone, and they continued to chat over dinner.
       As dessert was served, a young man barely in his twenties came over from the next table. He put his hands on their table and leaned down to speak to Huang.
       “Listen, um … I have a proposal. Someone posted a dare online to see if anyone at this restaurant has the courage to kiss your girlfriend. It kind of went viral, and he raised ten thousand yuan in half an hour. Honestly, I don’t care about the money, but it seems kind of fun, right? If you agree, you and I can even split the money. My girlfriend already said she’s fine with it.”
       Huang looked over at the next table. A heavily made-up young woman smiled and waved back. Couples at other tables were all staring at them, and some held up their phones, ready to capture the moment. He looked up at the young man and saw a dim red light winking in his left eye—he had been broadcasting his live feed this entire time.
       Huang felt as though the air around him was filled with people straining for a peek. He was going to suffocate under their gazes.
       Qing stood up and stared at the young man.
       “Get out of my way,” she said.
       After a few seconds, the young man shrugged and stepped back. Qing pulled Huang out of his chair. “Let’s go.”
       They payed at the cash register and left the restaurant. Still holding hands, they ran until they had turned a corner. They stopped and gulped the cold air of early spring.
       “Where do you want to go now?” Qing asked after she had caught her breath.
       Huang looked around at the glass shop displays, the screens filled with ads, and the eyes of other pedestrians—everything seemed to have a dim, winking red light. He frowned, deep in thought, and then his face brightened.
       “Let’s go see a movie.”
       A theater would be dark, and no one would bother them.
       “Good idea,” said Qing, smiling.
       The cinema was also full of couples. They picked a movie that was about to start and bought some snacks and drinks before going into the theater. The lights dimmed and the whole theater went dark. Huang felt himself finally relaxing.
       After the movie started playing, he felt Qing slowly leaning over and resting her head against his shoulder. Waves of sweet joy filled his chest. He looked down, mesmerized by the flickering shadows across Qing’s face. Her lips were so full, like a flower about to bloom. He wondered if he should try to kiss her, but he didn’t want to be presumptuous. He hesitated, waited, and just as he was about to take the leap, the giant screen went dark.
       Huang was confused and didn’t move. Then a tinkling song began to play, and the screen lit up with new images. At first, he thought the movie was continuing, but then he realized that he was wrong.
       Photographs of a baby appeared one after another on the screen: crying, laughing, blurred, hi-def… Edited together, they flowed like some sort of home movie. Gradually, as the child in the pictures grew up, he realized that these were pictures of Qing. From a baby she turned into a girl, than a beautiful young woman. The music built to an emotional peak, and the smiling face of Qing flickered across the giant screen, lovely beyond words. Finally, the last photograph faded away as the music also trailed off. A bright line of text appeared in the darkness:
       Qing, I love you. I love all of you. I love each moment of your existence.
       A pause, and then another line:
       Will you marry me?
       Huang whipped his head around to look at Qing, whose eyes were filled with tears. She swallowed, and tried to speak, “What … what … “
       “It’s not me—”
       The lights in the theater came on. A tiny figure appeared below the giant screen. As he approached them, a spotlight was trained on him. He wore a black suit, and he held a bouquet of ninety-nine red roses. The spotlight was so bright that it was impossible to see his features clearly.
       He stopped in front of Qing, and knelt down on one knee. “Please excuse my behavior. I just wanted to surprise you.”
       Qing’s voice trembled. “I … don’t even know you…”
       “That’s not so important. We all start as strangers, don’t we? I saw you for the first time today on the web, and for some reason, you touched my heart. When I saw you say to the camera, ‘Get out of my way,’ I decided in the very core of my being that you’re the girl I want to marry.
       “I went and searched for images of you and put them together in a hurry so I could come and propose. I don’t care if you’re already with someone, and I don’t care that you don’t know who I am. I just want to tell you, my darling Qing, that I will never marry anyone except you, and I will use everything in my power to love you and to care for you. Please give me a chance! I’ll make you happy.”
       Huang felt Qing’s cold hand slipping out of his palm like a fish. He was soaked in sweat, and he felt he was suffocating again. Red lights flickered around him as everyone in the theater stared at them and recorded them. He felt the world turn surreal. Is today Valentine’s Day or April Fool’s Day?
       He looked at Qing, sitting next to him. Her face was drained of blood, and her lips trembled like the fluttering wings of a dying butterfly. Finally, Qing grabbed a bucket of popcorn from the seat next to her and tossed it with all her strength at the face of the stranger.
       She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Get out of my way, you crazy—”

#

       Huang accompanied Qing back to her residential hall, both in low spirits. Around them, behind trees and bushes, they could see couples with arms wrapped around each other, saying goodbye.
       Qing started to climb the stairs before the building door, stopped, and turned around. She tried to smile. “It’s not a big deal. It will pass.”
       Huang nodded. His head was filled with a buzzing that made it impossible to think straight.
       “Don’t be angry at your roommates,” Qing said. “You still have to live with them.”
       Huang nodded again.
       Qing said, “Stupid people will gossip, and you can’t stop them. But someday, they’ll stop and forget about you and me.”
       Huang nodded.
       Qing said, “Let’s … take a break for a while. We each have to take care of ourselves. Maybe later, after this is over …”
       Huang didn’t nod, and Qing said nothing more. She turned and entered the residence hall.
       A new moon climbed to the tip of the tree nearby, and the branches rustled in the night breeze. Huang stood for a while, gazing up at the moon. Then he slowly began the walk home.

As an undergraduate, Xia Jia majored in Atmospheric Sciences at Peking University. She then entered the Film Studies Program at the Communication University of China, where she completed her Master’s thesis: “A Study on Female Figures in Science Fiction Films.” In 2014, she obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Peking University, with “Chinese Science Fiction and Its Cultural Politics Since 1990” as the topic of her dissertation. Now she is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Xi’an Jiaotong University. She has been publishing fiction since college in Science Fiction World and other venues. Several of her stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. In English translation, she has been published in Clarkesworld and Upgraded. Her first story written in English, “Let’s Have a Talk,” was published in Nature in 2015.

Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translatgor, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he is the author of The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (The Grace of Kings (2015), The Wall of Storms (2016), and a forthcoming third volume) and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016), a collection. In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous works from Chinese to English, including The Three-Body Problem (2014), by Liu Cixin, and “Folding Beijing,” by Hao Jingfang, both Hugo winners.

A Spell to Invoke the White Dolphin

By Jeon Sam-hye, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

They were nine years old, that age when the two of them could roll around the living room floor gorging on the Harry Potter series without their mother telling them they had to get to their after-school hagwon crammer.

Jinwoo had suddenly called out, “Hey, Kim Sunwoo.”

Sunwoo, who’d been reading Volume 2 of Book 4, answered, “I told you to call me nuna.”

While it was true they were fraternal twins born minutes apart, Sunwoo never thought of herself as anything less than an “older sister.” But Jinwoo would never call her nuna unless he wanted something from her.

“Sunwoo, what’s your happiest memory?”

“Happy” was a word they still weren’t quite familiar with. Sunwoo closed her book and said, “Why do you want to know?” Jinwoo pushed the volume he was reading towards his sister. “Look. There’s a spell that works only if you think of your happiest memory. So what’s your happiest memory?”

As Sunwoo mulled this over, Jinwoo answered his own question. “For me it was when we were six and we went to the amusement park and Dad bought us those Hot Wheels. We got the same Hot Wheels and we rolled them around in our bedroom and grandma got mad at us. Said we were leaving scratch marks.” Jinwoo snickered, but Sunwoo couldn’t laugh.

Because she had the same memory as her happiest, too.

The reason that was Sunwoo’s happiest memory was not because she got a shiny blue Hot Wheels car or because she went to an amusement park with her father. It was because that was the only time she could remember when she was allowed to have something that she didn’t have to share with her brother. Sunwoo couldn’t buy so much as a puff of cotton candy without her mother telling her to “share it with Jinwoo” when handing over the money. Whenever Sunwoo begged for toys like Hot Wheels or robots, the kind of toys Jinwoo got to play with, her mother and grandmother would put her down by saying, “you’re a girl,” and push her towards dolls or playing house. Her father was the only person in the house who didn’t force a division of Sunwoo and Jinwoo into girl and boy. But, Sunwoo thought with a sigh, that’s not because Dad likes me better or he’s a feminist. Dad is too busy. He’s just too busy to discriminate between us. Sunwoo fortified herself in advance for the inevitable day when even her father would say to her, “Who do you think you are, you’re a girl.”

And if they both conjured up the same memory, what would happen in that spell? Would its power be halved and the spell rendered useless? If that’s how it worked, would she be forced to make yet another concession to Jinwoo?

“Hey Kim Sunwoo, I said, what is your happiest memory?”

At this urging, Sunwoo put on a wan smile. “Doing the Lucky Dip at the stationary store last week and winning an ice cream.”

A lie.

*

I’m glad we were born when we were. That’s what Sunwoo thought whenever she and her twin brother got into one of their “accidents.” She mused, If we were born decades, or even fifteen years ago, the two of us would’ve grown up being bullied as psychics, mentally unstable, or weirdos. We would’ve been put on TV to make a bit of money, or kidnapped into a circus to live out our lives in misery.

Once a writer in England made it known to the world that such powers as the twins had was actually something called “magic,” the two siblings felt they could breathe a little easier. Not that Sunwoo and Jinwoo’s parents, who had bought them the entire Harry Potter series, bothered to even flip open the cover of any of those books. Sunwoo and Jinwoo, on the other hand, pored over these passé bestsellers over and over to the point of memorizing entire passages. They were nine years old at the time. The Harry Potter series, for nine-year-olds, was a little too much to take in completely, but Sunwoo and Jinwoo had one clear takeaway from these books. And that single takeaway was more important than anything else in the series.

Sunwoo and Jinwoo were wizards.

Thanks to this knowledge, they spent each day waiting for their eleventh birthday, which fell on their fifth-grade year, in eager anticipation. Despite their little accidents such as unwittingly making objects float or trees wilt or walls crack, they could confidently put such mistakes behind them in the wait for their eleventh birthday. It helped that Sunwoo and Jinwoo’s birthday was in May, which was earlier than the month of September when the school year started in Britain. They memorized everything they could find on the Internet that had to do with Harry Potter, and spent the spring vacation of their fifth-grade year bickering over who would get to tear open the invitation when it came.

But because they weren’t living in Britain but in Korea, and in a city full of zealous helicopter moms (although perhaps not as zealous as those of the infamous Eight Schools District in Seoul), their daily lives differed greatly from those of the children in the books. When they came home from school, their grandmother would heat up a snack for them before they started off on their chain of hagwon: math, English, and even essay-writing. Because they were both so-so as students, their parents didn’t try to put them on the admissions track for competitive middle schools. But their parents were still swept up in the frantic mantras that pervaded their neighborhood—”Elementary School Grades Decide What College Your Child Is Accepted To!” or “Elementary Students Should Know the Pythagorean Theorem Like the Times Table!”—and Sunwoo and Jinwoo consequently became more familiar with the insides of their hagwon than with their own home. All the while biding their time until their birthday.

The Harry Potter series gathered dust alongside the self-help books for kids that their parents had bought them, books with titles like: A Twelve Year-Old Takes Charge of Life, I Can Get Into Exclusive High Schools!, or Conquering Princeton. But their hearts were already set on the school for wizards.

So they weren’t surprised when the young man in a neat suit, who looked like he sold insurance or student workbook subscriptions, came looking for them one day. Their birthday had passed a week earlier. No owl had come, but when they saw a white envelope peeking out of their mailbox, they could barely contain themselves with joy. Except Sunwoo, unlike Jinwoo, had a bad feeling that wouldn’t go away, even in the moment the man sat down at their kitchen table and took out a pamphlet.

*

Pretending to have made a mistake, the man slid the English-language pamphlet of that school to one side. Not forgetting to make sure, of course, that Sunwoo and Jinwoo’s mother had glimpsed the full-color photographs of the castle. He then brought out the Korean-language pamphlet, one that featured slogans like “An optimal English-only learning environment” and “A global learning experience.” The school had localized marketing down pat.

The man adjusted his thin horn-rimmed glasses and blithely cast his bait. “This is a study abroad program connected to Sunwoo and Jinwoo’s English hagwon. Seeing how your children are doing, I daresay they could benefit from a program such as this one.” His words were clear and articulate. Even his bit where he gave the slightly cramped apartment a brief once-over was perfect. Sunwoo and Jinwoo went to their room and pretended to do their homework as they hung on every word that slipped through the cracked-open door.

“Because this program isn’t just for, well, so-called rich kids. You see how it says they aim to provide a global learning experience? The school is in Britain, so it’s true there are a lot of British students. But they try to make a point of providing opportunities for children all over the world. Many students from around the world, regardless of whether they’re from an English-speaking country or not, attend our school under this program. This tradition of helping these disadvantaged but talented students passed down from Ms. Helga herself, who was no less than one of the founders of our school.”

“Ms. Helga” no doubt referred to the founder of the least impressive house among the school’s four. Sunwoo pressed down the tip of her pencil onto her math notebook and suppressed a giggle. Not even J. K. Rowling would’ve imagined such a scholarship track existed. Jinwoo had given up on the pretense of homework and was peering through the crack in the doorway. They heard their mother’s voice.

“I’m sure it’s a good opportunity for Sunwoo and Jinwoo but Britain is such a faraway country… and as for studying with children from other countries, I do wonder if that’s really the best for them…”

Cue the type of feigned indifference their mother rolled out whenever she was halfway convinced. Sunwoo sighed. Mother always thought herself a master at bargains. She knew how to seem receptive before pretending to retreat, a surefire way since time immemorial towards getting a better deal. But the man didn’t seem to be in a rush. Of course he was calm. He wasn’t an insurance or milk subscription salesman, he was a wizard.

“I understand your concern, but even in Britain there aren’t many dormitory schools offering full supervision for years one through seven. We also take considerable care to acclimate our students to global manners and the polite customs of England. This is why we insist on having our students room with housemates throughout their years at our school.”

The man tapped his finger on the pamphlet photo of smiling Asian and white eleven-year-olds. “Your children are in grade five. If they were smart enough for the exclusive middle and high schools, their talent would be obvious by now. And if they’re not going to make it here, anyone can see that they might as well go to England and learn the Queen’s English. You do know that British English and American English are quite different?”

As if he had just remembered something, the man plowed on. “According to a recent study, a child’s synapses around the age of eleven are set to the language that they most often use. This is why our school’s entrance age happens to be eleven. Children who are younger need the care of their parents more than anything else. But once their synapses are set, well… there would be no point in having the children go through an English dormitory life.”

The man smoothly lifted the cup of juice on the table before him and took a sip. “In other words, this is not only the best chance your children have, it is their last. But of course, nothing matters more than the motivation of the individual student and the judgment of their parents. Because no one understands a child better than his mother.”

Their mother seemed to hesitate before calling for Sunwoo and Jinwoo. “Sunwoo, Jinwoo. Could you come out here, please?”

Her voice was unusually pleasant. Jinwoo jumped out of the room, but Sunwoo rose slowly. She already knew. Her mother sounded pleasant when she was happy, but also when she wanted one of them to give something up for the other. In their family’s three-bedroom rental apartment, Sunwoo and Jinwoo shared a room, but it was already agreed upon that once they entered middle school, Jinwoo would have his own room and Sunwoo would have to share with their grandmother. She thought, If the main character of Harry Potter had been a girl, Mom and Dad never would’ve bought us the entire series. Sunwoo dragged her heavy feet and sat down at the table. The man gave her a wink. That’s not going to help either of us, she thought. She bowed her head low.

“So,” said their mother, “I’ve been listening to what this gentleman had to say, and I do think this will be a good opportunity for you. Studying abroad isn’t cheap, but even a household like ours…”—their mother’s eyes quickly scanned them both—”… can afford to send at least one of you. It’s not going to be easy going back and forth between Korea and England. It’ll be pretty difficult, actually. But if you still want to go, I’ll let you go.”

Forget about it. You don’t know what it’s like, mother, but the school is another ten-hour train ride from London into the wilds of Scotland. I don’t want to endure seven years of British food. Sunwoo deliberately steeled herself against the idea. Her grades were slightly higher than Jinwoo’s. Like their grandmother said, they were “not high enough to hurt Jinwoo’s pride but just enough for the runt to eke by.” Before Sunwoo could even open her mouth, Jinwoo shouted, “I’m going!”

“Oh my, I guess that settles it for you, Jinwoo.”

Mother gave Sunwoo a look, one that said, And what about you? Sunwoo fixed her gaze down on the rings of condensation left by the man’s cold juice glass, and slowly said, “I don’t really want to go… I don’t want to say goodbye to my friends, and I don’t want to be away from you and Dad, either.” Don’t want. Of course she wanted it. No matter how much she hated something, how could she hate something more than to lose the opportunity to become a wizard? But Sunwoo forced herself to smile. Just like always. Trying to hypnotize herself into thinking that she probably wasn’t missing much, anyway. Struggling to tell herself, that place was always meant for Jinwoo, anyway.

If anything, it was the man who seemed disconcerted at this turn of events. “But we are more than ready to accept both students…”

“No, I really don’t want to go.” Sunwoo got up. “Mother, I forgot I had an extra class at math hagwon. Can I go?”

“Tsch, it wouldn’t do for a girl to be so careless. Fine, don’t be late.”

Sunwoo’s heart was heavy as she returned to her room and packed up for an extra math class that didn’t exist. The man tried to meet her eye, but Sunwoo refused to even look in his direction. She only concentrated on being glad. Now that she wasn’t going to learn magic, she wouldn’t have to hear things like, Why don’t you let Jinwoo have your happiest memory.

*

Once Jinwoo left, the house was quiet. Mother and grandmother constantly worried over Jinwoo’s health. But Sunwoo wasn’t lonely. For the five years that passed since he left, she practiced magic in her room all by herself. Things like half-heartedly making things levitate or flipping cards without touching them. They said wizards who were minors were not allowed to use magic outside of school, but how were they going to go after someone who had never been their student? All the way here in Korea, no less.

There was another good thing. Two years ago, fooling around alone with magic on the playground, someone had suddenly appeared behind her and become her friend.

This was Sao. A friend she didn’t have to share with Jinwoo.

*

“You too, huh?”

Sunwoo was making two pebbles levitate and bump into each other when a wry voice came over from behind her shoulder. A voice from a somewhat exotic face, with slightly darker skin. Sunwoo realized it almost as soon as she turned around. A mixed-race kid. Southeast Asian? Without invitation, the boy came over and plopped down on the empty swing next to hers. He snatched away her floating pebbles and tossed them in the air, catching them and tossing them up again. “Isn’t it the school year in Britain right now? Were you expelled?”

“No, I never entered. We don’t have the money.”

“How mature of you.”

An eighth grader. He had the same jokey way of talking like the boys in Sunwoo’s middle school, which made her smile. He had his regulation name tag pinned to his uniform jacket. “Sao.” A foreign name, but his surname was… oh, it was Ha. Ha Sao. What a name. Sensing a friend, she began telling him things he didn’t even ask her about. Because his saying, “You too, huh?” meant he was also a wizard or something similar.

“I’m a twin. I didn’t go, just my twin brother. He’s been over there for the past three years.”

“Doesn’t he ever come home? He just stays there?”

“I guess. I know he visits London with his friends sometimes, he posts pictures on Facebook.”

“Wait, did you say you ‘didn’t go’ or ‘couldn’t go’?” Sao frowned. “So you’re also a wizard but they only sent your brother?”

Sunwoo nodded.

Sao was annoyed. “I know this is the first time we’ve met and all, but I think your family has a really shitty sexual discrimination problem.” He threw his head back and laughed.

Sexual discrimination. How different those words felt, coming from a mixed-race boy. Trying to hide her blushing, she turned the tables on him. “And you?”

*

Sao was born to a Vietnamese mother and Korean father. His family used to live in the country but they had sold off their property as soon as his grandparents had passed, and came up to the city. Sao’s father’s business was doing better than expected.

“But hey, that Weasley guy in the Harry Potter books? They’re super poor but they sent like five kids to that school. It’s stupid that you guys can’t do that with just two.”

“Please. They have a big house with a garden, right? And their father is a civil servant at the Ministry of Magic? They’re not ordinary people like us. My dad can lose his job at any moment and we live in fear of our landlord raising the rent. Or if the Weasleys are ordinary, they’re British ordinary.”

Sao was possibly resentful of having to live in Korea. He seemed fine with it at first, but if Sunwoo showed any sign of regret when they talked of the school of magic, he’d get angry for her. It was the first time someone was completely on her side. But it was strange and a bit uncomfortable having someone be angry in her stead. So Sunwoo always tried to finish off with a joke.

“If I’d gone too, you would be super lonely. I mean, do you think there’s another wizard in this neighborhood?”

“Eh. The girl’s got a point.” Sao scratched the back of his head.

Sunwoo smiled. “You mama’s boy. You’re the one who’s staying behind because you didn’t want to leave your mom all alone.”

“Can’t you say I’m the epitome of filial piety instead?”

*

Sao was—there was no way around it—a problem student. Along with his dark skin, his hair was always waxed to the hilt. He told her, his expression alternating between embarrassment and pride, that he was bullied in school when he was younger for being small, and that when he moved out of the provinces he had wanted to transform himself into a completely different person, and so became mean. His eyebrows, which were normally scrunched from his making an intimidating expression, would gently relax when he was with Sunwoo, something that she never failed to think was cute.

“Oh, there’s actually one really good thing. Since Jinwoo left, I get to have my own room. If Jinwoo was in Korea with us, I’d have to share a room with my grandmother and he would get a room to himself.”

“Your own room, huh. Well that’s just dandy, Pollyanna.”

Sao was called a chink in school. Despite his protests that Vietnam was an entirely different country from China, the students still called him a chink. Why is that, he would mutter, was it because they were both Communist? Were the North Koreans chinks, too, and the Cubans as well? What a bunch of idiots. As Sao went on and on, Sunwoo lifted some fallen leaves with magic and piled them on his head. Two years had passed since they had first met, and he was now a head taller than her. Sunwoo was beginning to shy away from playfully hitting Sao on the head. The touch of the leaves stood in for her hand. Sao grinned, and willed the leaves to fall into his outstretched palm.

*

“I hate vacation. No cafeteria food,” Sao complained, leaning over his book. It was August, the middle of summer. Sunwoo and Sao, now sixteen, were both high school students. The sight of a Vietnamese mixed-race kid and a Korean girl studying together in a library was an odd sight for many. Especially when the foreign-looking boy spoke fluent Korean. Sunwoo glanced around her and wrote something down in her notebook.

—You actually like cafeteria food?

Sunwoo and Sao went to different high schools. She had no idea why he would want his cafeteria lunches. Sao gazed at Sunwoo’s question for a while and sighed. He scrawled his answer.

—You know it’s my mom who’s the wizard, not Dad. Maybe living in a dormitory for seven years eating nothing but British food takes away your sense of taste. Even the worst cafeteria food tastes better than my mom’s cooking.

Sunwoo tried not to laugh. Sao’s gaze moved to the top of Sunwoo’s head.

—Is British food really that bad?

Sao filled in the blank space underneath Sunwoo’s neat handwriting.

—They boil shit. They just boil everything. They boil it forever. The end. All the Vietnamese food my mom makes is like that so I thought it was a Vietnamese thing. Wrong! It’s a British thing. The Vietnamese food you get in restaurants is delicious.

“I’m hungry,” mumbled Sunwoo, having read over the notebook page full of food talk. Sao twisted his lips and scribbled another line on the page.

—Wanna get some Vietnamese? I know a good place.

Sunwoo shook her head and wrote her answer.

—If my family knew I was having dinner with you, they’d freak out. I mean…

She stopped writing. Her mother had said to her, “It’s bad enough the neighbors talk about you going around with some boy, but did it have to be that Vietnamese mutt?” Surely Sao didn’t need to know about all that.

—Sure. Whatever.

Sao wrote this out in a careless scrawl and went back to reading his supplementary textbook. He gave her a friendly kick underneath the table as if to tell her, “You don’t have to say a thing.”

*

Weird. To wizards, we’re all the same muggles. Your father who married your mother who came from Vietnam, my mother and father and grandmother who still believe patriarchy is God’s own truth. But to muggles, me the wizard, you the mixed-race wizard, and your mother the Vietnamese wizard seem totally odd to them. It’s funny how the slightest change in perspective makes everything look different. That’s one thing I regret not having sometimes; if we were at that school, we’d just be students.

*

Two days after this abrupt end to their conversation, the two found themselves riding on the subway to downtown Seoul. Sao had gone on and on about Vietnamese food, promising Sunwoo he knew a good restaurant. Look, if we go downtown, no one would know who we are. I’d just be another foreign tourist in Myeongdong, right? They love me there more than they love Koreans, right? Sunwoo gave in to Sao’s nagging. The Vietnamese food Sao bought her was ordinary pho and fried rice, the kind they already had in their own neighborhood, but they ate through it while chattering excitedly, and later went walking around in the city crowds. Even when Sao ran straight for the bathroom after taking a curious bite of the cilantro that the waiter, probably thinking Sao was a Vietnamese tourist, had given him a heapful of, Sunwoo felt it was all part of the great day she was having. When a fuming Sao came back after having rinsed out his mouth, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

And just like Sao mentioned, no one looked at them strangely in Myeongdong.

“Sometimes I’d have really bad days at school where the kids go too far. I’d go home, change out of my uniform, and come here. I’d go to Myeongdong Cathedral or the Chinese school. My mom speaks Vietnamese and a bit of Mandarin so I can speak a little of both. I can talk to the Chinese kids here. It’s fun. I feel better. Here I’m not a chink, I’m just Sao.”

“Do you ever feel like you want to live in Vietnam?”

Sao shook his head. “They’ll just call me a Korean mutt, probably. I’ve never thought about it. That’s my mom’s country, not mine.”

“I guess you’re mixed-race through and through.”

Sao poked Sunwoo’s side with his elbow. “Yeah, no kidding. I’m a mudblood when it comes to the wizarding world, too. It’s my destiny. Bow down, good sir, bow down.”

The sun began to set. Sunwoo began thinking they ought to be heading back, but she hesitated. She wanted to wrap herself in the anonymity of those crowded streets for just a bit longer.

Then Sao said, “I don’t feel like going home yet. We don’t come downtown every day.”

“It’s just half an hour by subway, it’s not another country or anything.”

Sao pouted. “You want to go home?”

“No.”

The two looked at a map and picked out places they might go. They ended up at the base of the N-Tower at Namsan Mountain Park, but made a face when they saw how expensive the entrance fee was. Instead, they each got an ice cream and started walking around the park.

“It’s so humid,” said Sunwoo. “So humid it makes you wonder if there’s a spell for getting rid of humidity.”

“My mom says Vietnam is much more hot and humid. She loves this kind of weather, she calls it ‘mild.'”

“Well that’s just dandy, Pollyanna.” Sunwoo found herself repeating Sao before she had realized it. “I like the idea of tropical downpours because at least things cool down. But props to your mom for enjoying that kind of weather.”

“Oh. About that.” Sao took another bite of his ice cream. “My mom hates rain.”

*

The two watched the streetlamps in the distance start coming on. They slowed their steps. The path down the mountain was getting steeper.

“When the lights start coming on like that,” said Sunwoo, “it always makes me wish for something.”

Sao looked down at Sunwoo and met her gaze. Because of the sudden appearance of his face in the dimming light, Sunwoo’s pupils dilated wide.

Sao narrowed his eyes. “Wish for what?”

“That I want to bash your face in. Seriously. Go away.”

Sunwoo giggled as she took a step back, and Sao snickered with her.

“Kidding,” said Sunwoo. Her voice settled down a bit. “OK. What I wish is… I wish I got to learn this one particular spell.” Maybe as compensation for giving up wizarding school.

“Ah.” Sao nodded. “Me too. But it’s not when the streetlamps come on. It’s some other time.”

“Like when?”

Sao grinned shyly, which didn’t seem to fit with his imposing frame.

“When my mom has nightmares.”

Being a wizard, his mother could’ve worked for the Ministry of Magic after graduation, but she decided to return to Vietnam instead. A month before graduating, Vietnam was hit by a heavy tropical storm, and Sao’s mother’s family was lost in the resulting flood. Lamenting that not even magic could bring back the ones she loved, Sao’s mother decided to return to the country where at least she had memories of her family.

“On days when it rains, my mom looks like she’s about to cry and laugh at the same time. I guess it makes her think of Vietnam and her house and family that were lost in the flood. She gets nightmares on days like that.”

Sunwoo took another bite of her ice cream and nodded. So this was why Sao was so eager to rush home on days when it rained.

She said, “You know that moment right before the streetlamps switch on. That’s the darkest moment of the day. My mom and my grandma both took Jinwoo’s side. And Dad was so busy I never thought of him as being there for me. So when everything goes dark and I’m facing a long night ahead before the sun comes up, I just wish that something, whatever it may be, would keep me safe.”

A vulnerability for a vulnerability. Sunwoo had never spoken of this to anyone before. Sao placed his hand on the top of Sunwoo’s head.

“Don’t be sad. We’re doing fine without magic. Both of us.”

“I know. But still.” We’ll never get to learn magic properly, anyway. Waving a wand and casting spells is so difficult that it takes seven whole years to learn. But if we were allowed to learn one spell, just one little spell… if only they granted us that one consolation.

The fact that they never will only makes me yearn for it more.

Sao broke the silence. “I wonder if the spell you want to learn is the same as the one I want to learn.”

Sunwoo answered, “Probably.”

Not the one that makes people laugh, not the one that disarms weapons, and none of the ones that do harm. But the one that doesn’t hurt anyone else. The one that protects me.

“Expecto patronum.”

As soon as they said it at the same time, the streetlamp right above them lit up.

“Eh?”

“Wow!”

Forgetting about their dripping ice cream, the two stared at the lit-up streetlamp. Even though bugs immediately swarmed around it and the ice cream was making their hands sticky, they couldn’t help but burst out laughing, a laugh like a switched-on light bulb.

“I didn’t know that was the spell for turning on the lights!”

“Damn, I mean, my patronus is a streetlamp? Does it fly around and everything? Wow. That’s so funny.”

The two kept laughing until all the other streetlamps around them had lit up.

Sao held out his hand. “Let’s go. It’s light now.”

“OK.”

“We’ve gotta get home.”

“We should. But not so fast.”

And as if she did so every day, Sunwoo took Sao’s hand.

She thought, this just might be a place where magic happened.

*

“Does your mother use magic?” asked Sunwoo as they slowly made their way down the mountain.

“Only when Dad’s not around. I mean, Dad doesn’t know Mom’s a wizard.”

“What’s your mom’s patronus?”

Sao grinned. “It’s funny. A white dolphin.”

“A white dolphin?”

“I mean, it’s a spectral thing, so it’s going to look white whatever it is. But it’s a ‘white dolphin.’ She says so.”

“Are there lots of white dolphins in Vietnam?” But it wasn’t a matter of calling forth an animal you were familiar with, Sunwoo tried to recall. It had been so long since she’d read any Harry Potter. She’d stuffed the books deep into a drawer and never opened it. She didn’t want to envy the kids who were going to that school.

Sao grinned again. “That’s the funny part. I think they live in the Arctic.”

“But I thought your mom was Vietnamese?”

“Right? Forget about the North Pole, the lady has never been to Northern Vietnam, so why the Hell would her patronus be…”

*

“There’s something I have in common with my mom. She never says so out loud, but I think she finds life hard in Korea, too. But she can’t go back to Vietnam. She has no family there, and she’s tied down by her teenage son.

“I told you why I couldn’t go to that school. You made fun of me for being a mama’s boy.

“Well, maybe I am a mama’s boy.

“I wanted to stand it. If I’d gone to that school, I would’ve become an ordinary student, just like you said. Nobody would’ve looked at me like I was a freak, nobody would’ve made fun of my skin color. But back then when I made the decision, leaving felt like running away and ditching my mom.

“Whenever I came home from a fight, I saw the guilt in her eyes. But I would rather she felt guilty than me just ditching her here.

“I know my mom knows her white dolphin isn’t like a real white dolphin. She’s never seen a white dolphin in her life. But since my mom believes it is… that’s what it is. A white dolphin. Because if you don’t believe it, you’ll never be able to use the magic.”

*

“I wonder what my patronus is,” said Sunwoo when they had almost reached the foot of Namsan Mountain.

Sao pretended to think deeply on it, rubbing the back of his neck and chin. “A dog?”

“What?”

“When I put out my hand back there, you put your paw in it. Just like a doggie. I wonder if your patronus is like, a really brave and valiant dog.”

“How dare you treat a high school girl this way? Do you want to end up as a skeleton buried in Namsan Mountain, Ha Sao?”

“Hey, never speak my full name. It’s embarrassing.”

Even as they playfully batted at each other, the two never let go of their hands as they mixed back into the crowds. To the place where no one looked at Sao strangely and no one nagged at Sunwoo about her life.

*

I wish it were a white dolphin.

A white dolphin is probably a weirdo among dolphins. A hermit of the Arctic, white all over.

But they’re pretty. Seriously, a white dolphin! Swimming alone in the cold, cold sea. Enduring the freezing winters as they come.

*

In the crowds, Sunwoo gave Sao’s hand a squeeze. Sao looked down at Sunwoo. Sunwoo extended Sao’s index finger and gripped it.

“Expecto patronum,” they muttered at the same time.

Let’s wait. Maybe a white dolphin will appear. Sunwoo, looking straight ahead, feeling the flow of the people around them, asked Sao a question. “What memory were you using just now?”

“You know, that thing that just happened. The streetlamp coming on.”

“Aha.” Sunwoo nodded.

“And that idiot grin you had when you were looking up at it,” Sao added.

Sunwoo’s face went red. “Hey!” she shouted, holding up a threatening hand. Sao, grinning, obligingly offered his shoulder. As she repeatedly slapped Sao’s shoulder, she kept murmuring to herself. Actually, I used the same memory. But the smiling face I saw wasn’t mine. It was yours, Sao. Which means we can both use this memory. The thought made Sunwoo stop hitting him. It was true. Sunwoo would remember Sao underneath the streetlamp, and Sao, Sunwoo.

In other words, we’re waiting for the appearance of two white dolphins.

They stopped in their tracks, grinning at each other. They turned to stare ahead. Above the waves of people before them was a huge white cloud rising to cover the twilight sky. It so resembled a beautiful white dolphin leaping over the Arctic surf that the two reached for each other’s hands at the same time.

Jeon Sam-hye was born and raised in Korea. She studied fiction writing in college. Lately she has been preoccupied with the stories of “those who were clearly there, in that moment.” She has published two books, the novel International Date Line (Munhakdongnae, 2011) and the short-story collection Boy Girl Revolution (Munhakdongnae, 2015). She has also contributed to numerous literary anthologies. Her Twitter handle is @co_evolution_.

Anton Hur was born in Stockholm and currently resides in Seoul. His translations of Korean literature have appeared in Words Without Borders, Asymptote Journal, Slice Magazine, and others. He is the recipient of a PEN Translates award from English PEN, a Daesan Foundation literary translation grant, and multiple LTI Korea translation grants. He teaches writing at Ewha University’s Graduate School for Translation and Interpretation.