After class she did not linger or even try to catch Mrs. Tanner’s eye, rushing out along with everyone else to the lunchroom, where she would take her bowls of food but merely touch the spoon to her lips, leaving the food for her bunkmate So-Hyun and Min to split. She calmly watched them finish her food. Lick clean the bowls. It was not for them she felt satisfied but for herself, sure now she had mastered herself, transfigured the great foe within.
Outside, the boys were organizing the usual post-lunch soccer game. She had not played since tussling with the other girl back on that warm autumn day, but she felt a new electric strength in her legs, a need to run. When she stepped onto the field Byong-Ok held the ball underfoot, telling her to go away. She stood quietly and waited. He kicked it to start the game only when Reverend Kim and Mrs. Tanner came out to watch. Soon both of the adults joined in the play, even Reverend Kim, who rarely spent any time outside. Everyone expected him to be stiff and awkward but he moved easily with the ball, flipping it up and deftly trapping it on his thigh, then on his foot, before floating a perfect cross to Mrs. Tanner, who deflected it for a goal between the two dirt-filled petrol cans. She raised her hands and a hearty whoop went up on both sides, though perhaps it was one more of commemoration than celebration, as if everyone saw that this was one of the last times Mrs. Tanner would be here among them.
June had now joined in the game, too. She was as carefree as any of them, feeling as though she was moving to the rhythms of the play, following the track of the ball and the others, when before all she would look for was an opportunity to avenge any slight with a shove or collision, a kick in the shin. Though no one except Mrs. Tanner was intentionally passing the ball to her it regularly ricocheted her way, and instead of rearing back and booting it as hard as she could at someone or out of bounds she tapped it to her surprised teammates. Min was on her team and she tried to stay close to him whenever she could, warding off those boys with a glare. They couldn’t goad her today. On one play, as she was dribbling toward the goal, one of the boys who had threatened Min tackled her hard, his foot riding into her ankle, but she popped right up from the hard ground and kept running after the ball. She felt remote and light, almost bodiless, as if she could no longer feel pleasure or pain; or else the pleasure or pain existed somehow outside of her, in some ghost of her old self. She was not the same vessel anymore. She was simply moving, playing, and she was certain that Mrs. Tanner was seeing her fully once again, appreciating her anew.
It was not even a question of Hector anymore. Since Reverend Tanner’s departure he hadn’t appeared in the mess hall, instead taking his meals to his room or to wherever he was working. He was at last keeping to himself. He was not outside now but from habit she kept an eye out for him. Although she knew they’d not been together for some weeks, June had still awoken late last night and crept out in the frigid dark to check for any sign of light from either the Tanners’ cottage or Hector’s quarters. But there was nothing but blackness and the cold, no sound but the whining gusts of the harsh wind jetting past the long dorm building, and she had quickly returned to climb next to Min in the warm box of the butted pews.
A pass was now booted down the field nearest June and Byong-Ok and they sprinted after it. He had a few steps head start but she propelled herself with all her will and she got to the ball first. He was a much more skilled player than she and should have been able to take the ball from her easily, but she thwarted him with her hip, her shoulders, leaning back into him so he couldn’t reach the ball. His flagrant kicks stung her ankles and calves but she didn’t give in and when she noticed Mrs. Tanner and the others running toward them, she faked a kick as she’d seen Byong-Ok do and then jabbed the ball through his legs with the back of her heel, sending it toward the approaching players. Byong-Ok, frustration twisting his face, shot after it, reaching it just as Mrs. Tanner did, both of them stretching out a foot at the very same time. But at the last moment, perhaps realizing that it was Mrs. Tanner, he slid to the side and averted the ball just as the sole of her shoe met it. Her shoe rolled over the ball, her leg extending unnaturally, and she fell in a heap. The ball came loose and Reverend Kim took control of it but he stopped when Mrs. Tanner remained on the ground. She was wincing terribly and gripping her leg at the knee. Everyone crowded around them as Reverend Kim knelt beside her but when he touched her leg to examine it she cried out, pulling away.
Hector suddenly appeared, though no one had fetched him. He pushed through the tight throng of children. Reverend Kim would not yield at first but when he saw Hector he moved aside to give him room. Hector didn’t have to say a word to her, to make her yield. He didn’t even look into her eyes. He simply pushed up the wide cuff of her trouser leg past her knee, taking her stark, pale limb in his rough hands. His fingers grazed the soft underside of her thigh. He handled her with great tenderness, cradling the back of her knee with one hand and clasping her calf with the other, telling her he was going to try to move it in certain directions. She nodded, to say she was ready. He slowly bent her knee, and then gently straightened it and this was fine, too, but when she turned her foot to either side she winced. “Be careful,” he said.
“I’m all right. Please help me up.”
“You think you can stand on it?”
“Yes.”
He raised her up and braced her under the shoulder, his arm hooked around her waist. But when she put weight on the leg she instantly fell into him and in one motion he lifted her from the ground and walked toward the cottage, the whole orphanage following. Though she had been right beside them, June was now trailing everyone, her own legs suddenly gone weak, her chest clenched, her belly razored by a double saw of rage and desire. For it was at that moment, while Hector ascended the step of the cottage, Mrs. Tanner’s arm slung casually about his neck, that June realized that they were lovers again.
Reverend Kim announced he would leave now and bring back a doctor from Seoul.
“I’ll be fine,” Sylvie told him. “I’ll be fine.”
“It already looks swollen. I will come back tonight after I find someone. It may be late, but I’ll return.”
“Please, Reverend,” she said. “There’s no need.”
“It’s not as if he’s a doctor,” he replied, regarding Hector coldly. Hector was silent.
Mrs. Tanner said, “You’re not even supposed to return tomorrow, are you?”
“No, I have to be in Seoul for something else. But now I feel I should be here, especially since Reverend Tanner won’t return until the following night. I shouldn’t leave while you’re in such a condition.”
“Please don’t bother making any trips. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“We’ll see,” Reverend Kim said, as Hector took her inside. A couple of the aunties had retrieved bandages and ice hastily chipped from blocks delivered in the morning. The reverend went in and observed Hector wrap her knee, the children trying to push in and watch as well until the aunties shooed them all out. Soon enough the two men emerged, Hector heading to his room, Reverend Kim collecting his briefcase and coat in the mess hall before getting into the church car. He started it and rolled out on the worn path of the drive. June ran after the car and had to rap on the trunk to get him to stop, this just beneath the orphanage gate.