by Min Jin Lee
Hansu’s wife, who was two years older than he was, hadn’t been pregnant in years; they rarely made love. As recently as a year ago, when he had a string of mistresses, none had even missed a period, so he hadn’t given much thought to Sunja having a child. Hansu had planned on getting Sunja a small house before winter, but now he’d find something much larger. The girl was young and obviously fertile, so he realized they could have more children. He felt happy at the prospect of having a woman and children in Korea. He was no longer a young man, but his desires for lovemaking had not declined with age. While he’d been away, he’d masturbated thinking about her. Hansu did not believe that man was designed to have sex with only one woman; marriage was unnatural to him, but he would never abandon a woman who had borne him children. He thought a man may need a number of women, but he found that he preferred this one girl. He loved the sturdiness of Sunja’s body, the fullness of her bosom and hips. Her soft face comforted him, and he had come to depend on her innocence and adoration. After being with her, Hansu felt like there was little he couldn’t do. It was true after all: Being with a young girl made a man feel like a boy again. He pressed the money into Sunja’s hand, but she let the bills drop and scatter on the beach. Hansu bent down to pick them up.
“What are you doing?” He raised his voice a little.
Sunja looked away from him. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear what it was. It was as if her mind would no longer interpret his words with meaning. His talk was just sounds, beats of noise. Nothing made sense. He had a wife and three daughters in Japan? Since she had met him, he had been straightforward, she supposed. Every promise he’d ever made had been kept. He said there would be a surprise, and he had brought a watch for her, but the surprise she had for him, she no longer wanted him to know. Nothing about him had ever made her suspect that he was a jebi—a kind of man who could flit from one woman to another. Did he make love to his wife, too? What did she know about men, anyway?
What was the wife like? Sunja wanted to know. Was she beautiful? Was she kind? Sunja could not look at his face anymore. She glanced at her white muslin skirt, its tattered hem remaining gray no matter how much she tried to clean it.
“Sunja, when can I go to speak to your mother? Should we go speak to her now? Does she know about the baby?”
It felt like a slap when he mentioned her mother.
“My mother?”
“Yes, have you told her?”
“No. No, I have not told her.” Sunja tried not to think of her mother.
“I will buy that boardinghouse for you, and your mother and you won’t have to keep lodgers anymore. You could just take care of the child. We could have more children. You could get a much bigger house if you like.”
The bundle of laundry by her foot seemed to glow in the sun. There was work to do for the day. She was a foolish peasant girl who’d let a man take her on the grounds of a forest. When he had wanted her in the open air of the beach, she had let him have her body as much as he liked. But she had believed that he loved her as she loved him. If he did not marry her, she was a common slut who would be disgraced forever. The child would be another no-name bastard. Her mother’s boardinghouse would be contaminated by her shame. There was a baby inside her belly, and this child would not have a real father like the one she’d had.
“I will never see you again,” she said.
“What?” Hansu smiled in disbelief. He put his arms on her shoulders, and she shrugged him off.
“If you ever come near me again, I will kill myself. I may have behaved like a whore—” Sunja couldn’t speak anymore. She could see her father so clearly: his beautiful eyes, broken lip, his hunched and delayed gait. When he finished his long day’s work, he would carve her dolls out of dried corncobs and branches. If there was a brass coin left in his pocket, he’d buy her a piece of taffy. It was better that he was dead so he would not see what a filthy creature she had become. He had taught her to respect herself, and she had not. She had betrayed her mother and father, who had done nothing but work hard and take care of her like a jewel.
“Sunja, my dear child. What is upsetting you? Nothing has changed.” Hansu was confused. “I will take excellent care of you and the baby. There is money and time for another family. I will honor my obligations. My love for you is very strong; it is stronger than I had ever expected. I don’t say this lightly, but if I could, I would marry you. You are someone I would marry. You and I, we are alike. Our child will be deeply loved, but I cannot forget my wife and three girls—”
“You never told me about them. You made me think—”
Hansu shook his head. The girl had never opposed him before; he had never heard a contrary word from her lips.
“I will not see you again,” she said
He tried to hold her, and Sunja shouted, “Get away from me, you son of a bitch! I want to have nothing to do with you.”
Hansu stopped and looked at her, needing to reevaluate the girl standing in front of him. The fire in her body had never been expressed in words, and now he knew she could be different.
“You don’t care about me. Not really.” Sunja felt clear suddenly. She expected him to treat her the way her own parents had treated her. She felt certain her father and mother would have preferred her to have any honest job than to be a rich man’s mistress. “And what will you do if the child is a girl? Or what if she is born like my father? With a mangled foot and no upper lip?”
“Is that why you have not married?” Hansu furrowed his brow.
Sunja’s mother had never pushed the idea of marriage when many girls in her village had married well before her. No one had come to her mother with proposals, and the lodgers who flirted with her were not serious prospects. Perhaps this was why, Sunja wondered. Now that she was pregnant, it dawned on her that she could give birth to a child who had her father’s deformities. Every year, she cleaned the graves of her siblings; her mother had told her that several had been born with cleft palates. He was expecting a healthy son, but how about if she couldn’t produce one? Would he discard them?
“Were you trying to get me to marry you? Because you couldn’t marry a normal fellow?”
Even Hansu realized the cruelty of his own words.
Sunja grabbed her bundle and ran home.
7
Pharmacist Chu had grown fond of the pastor from Pyongyang and was pleased to see his recovery. He visited Isak only once a week now, and the young man seemed completely well.
“You’re too healthy to be in bed,” the pharmacist said. “But don’t get up just yet.” Chu was seated beside Isak, who was lying flat on a bedroll in the storage closet. The draft from the gaps around the windowsill lifted Chu’s white forelocks slightly. He placed the thick quilt over Isak’s shoulders. “You’re warm enough?”
“Yes. I’m indebted to you and ajumoni.”
“You still look too thin.” Chu frowned. “I want to see you stout. There’s no curve to your face. Don’t you like the food here?”
The boardinghouse keeper looked as if she’d been scolded.
“The meals have been wonderful,” Isak protested. “I’m eating far more than what I pay in board. The food here is better than at home.” Isak smiled at Yangjin and Sunja, who were standing in the hallway.
Chu leaned in to Isak’s chest, where he had placed the bell of his stethoscope. The breathing sounded strong and even, similar to the week before. The pastor seemed very fit.
“Make a coughing sound.”
Chu listened thoughtfully to the timbre of the pastor’s chest. “You’ve improved for certain, but you’ve been ill most of your life. And you had tuberculosis before. We need to be vigilant.”
“Yes, but I feel strong now. Sir, I’d like to write to my church in Osaka to let them know my travel dates. That is, if you think I can travel. My brother made me promise that I’d get your permission first.” Isak closed his eyes as if in prayer.
“Before you left Pyongyang, did your doctor
think you could travel all the way to Osaka by yourself?”
“I was told that I could travel, but the doctor and my mother didn’t encourage my leaving home. But I was the strongest I’d ever been when I left. But of course, since being here like this—no doubt, I should’ve listened to them. It’s just that the church in Osaka wanted me to come.”
“Your doctor told you not to go, but you went anyway.” Chu laughed. “Young men can’t be locked up, I suppose. So now you want to head out again, and this time you want my permission. How would it look if something happened to you on the way, or if you got sick when you got there?” Chu shook his head and sighed. “What can I say? I cannot stop you, but I think you should wait.”
“How long?”
“At least two more weeks. Maybe three.”
Isak glanced up at Yangjin and Sunja. He was embarrassed.
“I feel terrible that I’ve burdened you and put you at risk. Thank God no one has gotten sick. I’m so sorry. For everything.”
Yangjin shook her head. The pastor had been a model guest; if anything, the other lodgers had improved their behavior in the proximity of such a well-mannered person. He had paid his bills on time. She was relieved that his health had improved so dramatically.
Chu put away his stethoscope.
“I’m in no rush for you to return home, however. The weather here is better for your lungs compared to the North, and the weather in Osaka will be similar to the weather here. The winters are not as severe in Japan,” Chu said.
Isak nodded. The climate had been a major consideration for his parents’ consent for Isak to go to Osaka.
“Then, may I write the church in Osaka? And my brother?”
“You’ll take the boat to Shimonoseki and then the train?” Chu asked, making a face. The journey would take a day, two at the most with delays.
Isak nodded, relieved that the pharmacist was signaling that he could leave.
“Have you been going out?”
“Not beyond the yard. You’d said that it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Well, you can now. You should take a good walk or two every day—each one longer than the one before it. You need to strengthen your legs. You’re young, but you’ve been in bed and in the house for almost three months.” The pharmacist turned to Yangjin. “See if he can make it as far as the market. He shouldn’t go alone obviously. He could fall.” Chu patted Isak on the shoulder before going and promised to return the following week.
The next morning, Isak finished his Bible study and prayers, then ate his breakfast in the front room by himself. The lodgers had already gone out for the day. He felt strong enough to go to Osaka, and he wanted to make preparations to leave. Before heading out to Japan, he had wanted to visit the pastor of a church in Busan, but there had been no chance for that. He hadn’t contacted him for fear that he’d stop by and get sick. Isak’s legs felt okay, not wobbly as before. In his room, he had been doing light calisthenics that his eldest brother, Samoel, had taught him when he was a boy. Having spent most of his life indoors, he’d had to learn how to keep fit in less obvious ways.
Yangjin came to clear his breakfast tray. She brought him barley tea, and he thanked her.
“I think I’d like to take a walk. I can go by myself,” he said, smiling. “It wouldn’t be for long. I feel very well this morning. I won’t go far.”
Yangjin couldn’t keep her face blank. She couldn’t keep him cooped up like a prized rooster in her henhouse, but what would happen if he fell? The area near her house was desolate. If he walked by the beach and had an accident, no one would see him.
“I don’t think you should go by yourself, sir.” The lodgers were at work or in town doing things she didn’t want to know about. There was no one to ask to accompany him at the moment.
Isak bit his lip. If he didn’t strengthen his legs, the journey would be delayed.
“It would be a big imposition.” He paused. “You have a great deal of work, but perhaps you can take me for just a short while.” It was outrageous to ask a woman to walk with him on the beach, but Isak felt he’d go insane if he didn’t walk outside today. “If you cannot go, I understand. I will take a very short walk near the water. For a few minutes.”
As a boy, he had lived the life of a privileged invalid. Tutors and servants had been his primary companions. When it was good weather and he wasn’t well enough to walk, the servants or his elder brothers used to carry him on their backs. If the doctor wanted him to get air, the blade-thin gardener would put Isak in an A-frame and stroll through the orchard, letting the child pull off the apples from the lower branches. Isak could almost smell the heady perfume of the apples, feel the weight of the red fruit in his hands and taste the sweet crunch of the first bite, its pale juice running down his wrist. He missed home, and he felt like a sick child again, stuck in his room, begging for permission to see the sunlight.
Yangjin was seated on her knees with her small, coarse hands folded in her lap, not knowing what to say. It was not appropriate for a woman to walk with a man who wasn’t a member of her family. She was older than he was, so she didn’t fear any gossip, but Yangjin had never walked alongside a man who wasn’t her father or husband.
He peered into her troubled face. He felt awful for making another imposition.
“You’ve already done so much, and I’m asking for more.”
Yangjin straightened her back. She’d never gone on a leisurely walk on the beach with her husband. Hoonie’s legs and back had given him profound pain throughout his brief life—he had not complained of it, but he would conserve his energies for the work he had to get done. How much he must have wanted to run as a normal boy, swallow lungfuls of salty air and chase the seagulls—things nearly every child in Yeongdo had done growing up.
“There is something very selfish in me,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Isak decided to wait until one of the lodgers could take him out.
Yangjin got up. “You’ll need your coat,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
The heavy scent of seaweed, the foamy lather of the waves along the rocky beach, and the emptiness of the blue-and-gray landscape but for the white circling birds above them—the sensations were almost too much to bear after being in that tiny room for so long. The morning sun warmed Isak’s uncovered head. He had never been drunk on wine, but he imagined that this was how the farmers must have felt dancing during Chuseok after too many cups.
On the beach, Isak carried his leather shoes in his hands. He walked steadily, not feeling any trace of illness within his tall, gaunt frame. He didn’t feel strong, but he felt better than he’d been.
“Thank you,” he said, without looking in her direction. His pale face shone in the morning light. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
Yangjin glanced at the smiling young man. He possessed an innocence, she supposed, a kind of childlike wholeness that couldn’t be hidden. She wanted to protect him.
“You have been so kind.”
She dismissed this with a wave, not knowing what to do with his gratitude. Yangjin was miserable. She had no time for this walk, and being outside made the dull weight in her heart take a definable shape; it pressed against her from the inside.
“May I ask you something?”
“Hmm?”
“Is your daughter all right?”
Yangjin didn’t answer. As they were walking toward the other end of the beach, she’d been feeling as if she were somewhere else, though she couldn’t say where exactly. This place didn’t feel like the beach behind her house, just a few paces from her backyard. Being with the young pastor was disorienting, yet his unexpected question broke the gauzy spell. What had he noticed for him to ask about Sunja? Soon, her rising belly would be obvious, but she didn’t look very different now. What would the pastor think of this? Did it matter?
“She’s pregnant.” She said this, and she knew it would be okay to tell him.
“It must be difficult for her with her husband being away.”
>
“She doesn’t have a husband.”
It wouldn’t have been unusual for him to think that the child’s father worked in Japan in a mine or a factory.
“Is the man…?”
“She won’t say anything.” Sunja had told her that the man was already married and had children. Yangjin didn’t know anything else. She couldn’t tell the pastor, however; it was too shameful.
The woman looked hopeless. The lodgers brought Isak newspapers to read aloud for them, and lately, every story was a sad one. He felt an overwhelming sense of brokenness in the people. The country had been under the colonial government for over two decades, and no one could see an end in sight. It felt like everyone had given up.
“These things happen in all families.”
“I don’t know what will happen to her. Her life is ruined. It would have been difficult for her to marry before, but now…”
He didn’t understand.
“My husband’s condition. People don’t want that in the bloodline.”
“I see.”
“It’s a difficult thing to be an unmarried woman, but to bear a child without a husband— The neighbors will never approve. And what will happen to this baby who has no name? He cannot be registered under our family name.” She had never talked so freely to a stranger. Yangjin continued to walk, but her pace slowed.
Since learning the news, she had tried to think of any possible way to make this easier, but could not come up with anything. Her unmarried sisters couldn’t help her, and their father had died long ago. She had no brothers.
Isak was surprised, but not so much. He had seen this before at his home church. You saw all sorts of things in a church where forgiveness was expected.
“The father of the child—he’s nowhere to be found?”
“I don’t know. She won’t speak of him. I haven’t told anyone except for you. I know it’s your job to counsel people, but we aren’t Christians. I’m sorry.”
