clear.
“Yes, okay, praying for him is good, but perhaps you should try not to see him, you know, give him some time to repent and change.”
Wow, was I blowing this. I knew that wouldn’t happen. I opened my mouth to retract what I had just said, but Ah-seong spoke first.
“It is not right I do not see him. Our prayers will help him.”
So what? Had the prayer group convinced her she could convert this battering boyfriend if she sticks with prayer? That is the kind of ‘hit me again’ idea of Jesus and sacrifice that is responsible for so much pain and suffering among conservative Christian women.
I hoped Ah-seong could not see the steam coming out of my ears. I was really furious. But I needed to control my own anger and focus on this hurting person in front of me. I took a breath. Jesus help me. Literally.
“Ah-seong, it is never right for someone to hurt another person. You are God’s child and Jesus loves you. You must get some help for yourself, for him, so that he stops doing this.”
She shook her head from side to side again, but so slowly, so sadly I felt a prickle behind my eyes. I’m not a prayer person myself but I did send an urgent message out into the universe, ‘Let this person seek help.’
“I will pray about what you say.”
She bent and picked up her backpack and then neatly gathered her coat and disappeared around the divider that made one office into two cubicles.
She left so quietly I barely heard the door open and shut.
I hoped if she wouldn’t talk to me she’d seek professional help elsewhere in the university and not just go running to the prayer group. So far they seemed to be enabling more than helping.
Christ Almighty, what a mess. So to speak.
Well, now it was Margaret Lester’s problem. I picked up the phone and called her, expecting to speak to her secretary, or even more likely a recorded voice telling me to leave a message. Well, I wouldn’t leave a detailed message, that’s for sure.
I was surprised that Margaret herself answered.
“Kristin,” she said.
I was startled for a minute and then realized our names displayed on the phone in the campus system. Margaret must have been waiting for my call.
“Margaret. I talked to Ah-seong Kim. She just left. I think you’d better look into this student group she belongs to.”
“The Korean Students Christian Association?” Margaret sounded surprised.
“Yes. My best guess is that she’s got a boyfriend who is knocking her around, or worse, and the student group is encouraging her to keep dating him so that her turn-the-other-cheek Christianity will convert his rotten little heart.”
“Wait a minute.” Margaret’s disbelief come through loud and clear. “Run that by me again. You’re saying a student group knows she’s being hit and is encouraging it?”
“No, not exactly, and look, she really didn’t tell me all that much. I’m guessing here, but my best guess is that a guy she is dating, probably not a member of the group, is being rough with her. Date battering is not uncommon you know, Margaret. Another guess is that he’s a scholarship student on the football team, at least she admitted that he has one of the few sports scholarships, and I think he’s hitting her to let off steam, feel manly, who knows? Maybe she got the most recent bruises because she was trying to break it off. Anyway, the student group is praying for him and I think that adds up to a lot of secondary gain for them. Do they think he’s a guy in need of salvation? I really don’t know, but I don’t like the sound of what I think I heard.”
“Slow down, slow down. How do you know whosever hitting her is a football player?”
Margaret’s voice was sharp. How administrators hate to go after the athletes, even here.
“Ah-seong told me whoever made the bruises on her is frustrated by keeping his grades up so he can stay on the team. I think that sounds like someone who needs to keep his scholarship, and practically no sport here has scholarship money for players except football.”
“Well, perhaps.”
Margaret’s voice was toneless. Bad sign. She was going to fob me off. It was so damned irritating. I hadn’t asked to talk to this student. She’d begged me to do it.
“Now, what’s this about the KSCA being involved? I find that very hard to believe. I know Professor Lee, their advisor, and I can’t believe he’d condone something like this.”
I could almost understand why Margaret was so anxious to play down these unpleasant facts. Almost. Sports were always politically important because the alums liked them and that caused them to open their pockets and donate. And the Korean student group was another politically hot item. The University needed intelligent students whose families could afford the more than $50,000 in yearly tuition (not counting room and board). Parents could spend more than a quarter of a million dollars sending one child to college for four years. Yes, a lot went into debt and there were scholarships, but the university needed the cash flow of tuition. There was active recruitment around the world in fast-growing economies, including Asian economies. And wealthy graduates became wealthy donors.
I tried for patience.
“Listen, Margaret, Lee might not necessarily know about these special prayers. Or, he could know they were praying for someone without knowing the specifics of what was going on.”
But my patience goes only so far.
“This student group, though. Isn’t it a little, well, narrow for a university group?”
Margaret sighed.
“Kristin, come off it. There are nearly 400 student groups and many of them are racially, ethnically and religiously specific. That’s what students want.”
“Yeah, it’s what students want, Margaret, but didn’t I just see a idiotic memo about the fact that we don’t do ‘safe spaces’ here any more?”
She paused.
I waited. That memo was a bunch of legal malarkey and Margaret knew it and I knew it too.
“I think you probably misunderstood Ah-seong, that’s all. You said she spoke very little. I think it’s likely there’s no connection here with the student group and that she’s having some trouble with someone she’s dating.”
Okay. Patience gone, waiting over. I sharpened my voice.
“Look, Margaret. What is going on here is dangerous. Very dangerous. What I know for sure is that it is best to assume the worst. I have seen the bruises around her neck, so has the roommate and the RA. Are you really going to brush this aside as ‘boyfriend troubles’? She has certainly been physically assaulted. That we can see with our own eyes. Keep that in mind. I think there’s a good chance she’s been sexually assaulted as well. Remember what the roommate said about the torn clothing.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone, but Margaret didn’t speak.
