Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jude had been quietly nervous about spending the whole weekend with Soonja. She had a quality, quite without Olivia’s projected awe, of bestriding the horizon. Jude had reasoned that this was just what billionaire grannies were like, but it did not make her any less intimidating. He had been fully braced to spend the weekend being quiet and still, going through the motions of doing as he was told. This was his standard mode since the news of his condition had first arrived.

The arrival of Owen’s unexpected present had quite thrown Jude’s expectations of the weekend, however. Soonja, seeing as much, gave him no chance to sink once more into his habitual dissociative state. As soon as Olivia had gone, Soonja hustled Jude upstairs in search of Owen’s old paint set.

They went through several rooms, poking into cupboards and closets while Soonja mused aloud on where to search next.

“If I could only recall where Owen used to paint when he was, oh, a few years older than you...”

This remark only confirmed Jude’s impression that the Kim family had long lived in only a very few rooms of the mansion at a time, and where other families might periodically move house, simply changed which rooms they frequently used. The search took them through multiple studies, lounges, sitting-rooms, music rooms, parlors, spare bedrooms, all furnished and once well-used, but given over to storage now. Cardboard boxes stacked the free surfaces, and in some rooms extra furniture was crammed in, covered in dustsheets.

Jude had an odd sense of digging through the Kim family history, like watching a silent movie with almost no context.

Then, in the sixth or seventh chamber stacked with old furniture, Soonja gave a triumphant cry and held aloft, as if it were Excalibur, a paintbrush.

“We’re on the right track! Somewhere in here, I’m sure of it. Have a look in those cupboards there, I’ll do the dresser. Owen used to paint a lot in here, for the good light; the window faces south. On the window seat, if you please! I used to tell him all the time to put paper down, but did he ever?”

Jude had not noticed the window seat, decked as it was in three large cardboard boxes of family tat and a defunct printer older than he was. Now that he looked, though, there were indeed paint stains on the windowsill, light ink-spatter on the glass, and even a nuclear-shadow of spray-paint on the leather of the seat itself.

There was also a drawer built into and beneath the seat. Jude pointed it out.

“Perhaps in there?”

“Yes! Have a look!”

Jude dragged the drawer out and within found a battered old cardboard box, dog-eared and covered in paint. Lifting the lid, he discovered a collection of small pots of acrylic paints, a dozen paint brushes of various sizes and condition, several tubes of glue, assorted craft knives, a plastic box of base scenery, and another of spare model arms, heads, weapons, and accessories. He hauled the cache out and showed it to Soonja.

“Is this it?”

“One of them.” Soonja smiled. “Owen was forever losing things around the house.”

“It’s really that big, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She chuckled. “I’ve lived in an apartment within my own house for longer than I care to recall. Now, are you strong enough to shift these boxes and whatnot off the seat there? This is an ideal spot, south-facing as I said, excellent light, and Owen’s already ruined it enough that any mess you make won’t show. I’ll fetch you some newspaper, nonetheless.”

Jude wrapped his arms around one of the boxes and hefted it down, but then struggled with the bulkier printer. Soonja took the other side of it and helped, but then had to spend a few moments with one hand pressed to her hip.

“Oof, they never warn you!” She complained. “Adulthood is a trap!”

“Have you tried Rikering?”

Soonja blinked. “Tried what?”

“Like this.” Jude stood up, then put one foot on the window seat and leaned his elbow on his knee.

Soonja frowned and mimicked the pose, only for her eyebrows to rise in surprise. When she put her foot down again, she wiggled her hips and laughed.

“Astonishing! What did you call that?”

“Rikering,” Jude repeated.

“Every generation speaks a different language to the last, I do swear...” Soonja shook her head, still laughing. “Why, pray, do you call it that?”

“After a character on a sci-fi show who used to do that all the time. He said years later that it was because he had a bad hip.”

“I’ve had a bad hip for twenty years and never thought to try that,” Soonja admitted, shaking her head. “The fortune I’ve wasted on Yoga and Pilates and all the rest, when I could have been watching TV!”

“What happened to it? Your hip I mean?”

“Oh, nothing tragic.” Soonja smiled. “A body only has so many bounces in it, is all. Hapkido accident, to be specific. I wasn’t always a sedate old lady!”

“Hapkido?” Jude frowned.

“A rather obscure Korean martial art, like Taekwondo but with less backflips.” Soonja chuckled. “But let’s not get into that. You finish making space here, while I fetch out that newspaper.”

Jude got on with moving the remaining boxes until Soonja returned, armed now with yesterday’s newspaper and the box containing the Fated Host.

“Here, make yourself comfortable. I shan’t leave you entirely alone up here either; I had meant to go through some drawers and boxes downstairs, but here we are, and one room is good as another. You get on, and I’ll just potter about.”

Jude spent the rest of the day painting. He worked on the sprue, as he had seen Owen doing, priming and base-coating each piece with care. He began with the centerpiece, the towering Fatemaker, but hesitated to move on too soon to the next stage and instead moved on to prime the entire set. He only knew hours had passed when Soonja called a break for lunch.

He returned to painting as soon as he could, Soonja indulgently looking in from time to time. Only when he began assembling one of the smaller models did she ask, “What about the Fatemaker?”

“I’m nervous to begin,” Jude admitted. “I was thinking to practice on the smaller ones, get an idea of the color scheme.”

“Hmm. I think the Fatemaker is impatient,” Soonja mused. “But carry on, I’ll be back presently. I have an idea.”

She departed, but was back soon enough bearing a model dragon, with a black-haired woman riding on its back. Jude recognized it at once as the piece Soonja had mentioned Owen painting for her birthday, long ago.

“Here, pop that on the sill,” Soonja said, handing it to him with care.

“It’s heavy,” Jude exclaimed.

“It’s lead. But do you see what Owen’s done on the scales there? And on the wings? I thought it might help to have another display piece to refer to for inspiration.”

Over the hours of afternoon, the Fatemaker came together, piece by piece. The half-painted figure stood drying while Jude and Soonja took dinner. The sun had set, and the light in the upstairs room failed. Soonja and Jude decamped to the sitting room in her apartment, where she insisted on putting down copious newspaper before painting could resume. Soonja watched TV while Jude worked on, occasionally passing conversation back and forth.

When Jude at last went to bed in one of the many spare rooms, the Fatemaker went with him. The last thing Soonja saw before switching off the light and bidding Jude goodnight was the winged figure perched on the bedside table, a ferocious guardian for the sleeping child.

***

The next day unfolded much as the first; Jude spent the morning in the upstairs room again, painting at the window seat, working now on the smaller figures. Soonja left him to it, rummaging in the storage boxes and drawers of the half-disused room. Over the morning, she sorted the contents of several boxes into one, and carried it off to better storage in another room.

After lunch, other boxes went the same way. When she took a third box out, Jude offered to help.

“No, no, you just carry on there.” Soonja grunted with the weight of the box, favoring her better hip. “I insist.”

Jude nodded and returned his attention to the figure in hand.

A few minutes later, he heard a thump, and an unintelligible string of Korean uttered through gritted teeth. He was on his feet at once, hurrying out of the room in search of Soonja. He found her sitting at the top of the stairs, leaning back with one hand to her hip and her leg stuck out straight. The eloquent flow of strangely melodic gutturals that could only be cussing stopped abruptly when she saw Jude.

“Are you all right?” Jude asked, knowing it for a stupid question even as the words emerged automatically.

“Better than the box,” Soonja said, ruefully, pointing to the foot of the stairs. The box and its contents lay strewn across the floor.

“I had a split second before my balance went, had the presence of mind to sit down, or I’d have gone face-forward. Lucky.” Soonja reached a hand to Jude. “Here, help me up.”

He obliged, only to let go of her hand at once when she grimaced and swore again.

“Jude... “ Soonja said at last, “I’m going to need you to call an ambulance.”