The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  Miguel tapped her arm. A man in his forties—handsome, chiseled as a movie star—entered the room. Wearing a black crewneck sweater and dark slim-fit jeans, he smoked a cigarette with an intense Tony Leung face. He perched himself on the edge of the white sofa as if unable to relax, unwilling to get too comfortable. They appeared to be in some intensely somber discussion—brows furrowed, prolonged silences between words.

  “Damn, he is fine,” Miguel said.

  “We should go,” Margot said. “I don’t think—”

  The man stood, snuffing out his cigarette in an ashtray.

  Margot and Miguel ducked behind the bushes. Edging her face upward, she caught a glimpse inside of the couple kissing in an embrace.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Margot pulled Miguel’s sleeve, and they scrambled away, low to the ground. As soon as they emerged out of the open gate, they slowed down, trying to appear as casual and ordinary as possible, as if they were only two people out on an evening stroll. The cold air burned her lungs. A queasiness rose from her stomach up into her chest. She could taste the bile at the back of her throat.

  “Whew,” Miguel said, shutting the car door. “I guess widows just wanna have fun?”

  “Somebody traded in for a new model.”

  She pulled away from the curb, making sure no one followed them.

  Down tree-lined roads, branches veined the night sky between stately homes lit like welcoming lanterns. But the images of the woman and man kissing, her sullenness despite the airy perfection, the heaven of that house, had been burned into Margot’s head.

  “I wonder how old she is?” Margot asked. “That had to have been his wife, right? Officer Choi said he had no kids.”

  “How old was her husband?” Miguel asked.

  “Sixty-four, I think.”

  “I feel like the oldest she could be...would be forty? Maybe fifty?”

  “Do you think she just found this guy?” Margot asked.

  “Maybe. Or he could’ve been her lover from the get-go.”

  “You mean, while her husband was alive?”

  “A little side dish,” Miguel said.

  “But then she would have no reason to fight with my mom, right? I mean, why would she care?”

  “Money?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s the only thing I can think of.”

  Soon they sat in a thick silence with only the ticking of the turn signal, the hum of the car’s engine between them. For the rest of the drive, Margot sped home through the dark, thinking of the woman’s face—a perfect oval that shimmered softly like a pearl. The man’s hands on her waist.

  Mary and her mother had such different lives, and yet it was as if Margot could hear Mary suffocating under all that rich light, straining as if she’d been trapped like a perfect specimen inside of a jar.

  Mina

  Fall 1987

  IN MR. KIM’S blue station wagon with velvety seats, a paper pine tree dangled from the rearview mirror. The moon glowed silver and bright, peeking behind a faint cloud. Staring out the window into the dark, Mina wrapped her sweater around her body. She realized now how sullen she had been the past couple weeks when Mr. Kim had been avoiding her after her rejection of him following the last time they went to visit Lupe. As a result, she was learning Spanish to distract herself from how unhappy she had been, how impossible life could sometimes be.

  The air freshener hung like an amulet. She yearned for some sign from the universe that said, You are doing fine.

  “So, where do you feel like going?” Mr. Kim asked, breaking the silence. “Do you feel like anything in particular?”

  “No. I’m okay with anything.”

  “There’s a restaurant that I like, Hanok House. They’ve got pretty much everything—galbi, jjigaes.”

  A longing to somehow touch him crept up, like vines attaching her to this man beside her, to this world. She wished she could incinerate the shoots and tendrils, but she would risk destroying herself. What was she doing? It had been a year since her husband and daughter had died, since burying them in the ground, a single tombstone, together. What was she doing in this car, far away from them, far away from home? She wanted to ask Mr. Kim to turn back, but as soon as she looked at him, the inside of her mouth felt parched. She couldn’t. She wanted to be here now.

  As they pulled into a narrow parking lot, she almost clapped her hands at the sight of the restaurant that resembled a traditional Korean house. Its decorative wooden beams and curved, gray-tiled roof were charming and lovely compared to the drab concrete and graffitied stucco of Los Angeles.

  Inside the restaurant, which smelled of seafood, peppers, onion, garlic, and sesame oil, Hahoetal masks grinned on the walls beside booths made out of dark slabs of glazed wood. Early still for dinner, the restaurant was mostly empty except for another couple in a far corner of the dining room and an older man, sleeves rolled up, carefully sipping from a boiling-hot jjigae by himself.

  As they sat down, a waitress greeted them with two sticky laminated menus. Mina studied hers, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Kim.

  “I’m having the maeuntang,” he said. “I always get the same thing.”

  “Oh, that sounds delicious.”

  “What looks good to you?”

  “Ahl jjigae.” Her mouth watered at the thought of fish eggs boiled with tofu, onion, and mu in a spicy stew. “I haven’t had that in a long time.”

  “One of my favorites, too.” His arm moved on the table as if resisting the impulse to hold her hand.

  The waitress returned with a pot of barley tea.

  “So, how long have you been in LA?” she asked.

  “Gosh, over ten years, I guess. I came here after college.” He brushed his full black hair back with his hand. “I was going to do my master’s degree, but that didn’t last long.” He smiled, crinkling the skin around his soft brown eyes. She loved looking at him.

  “How come?” she asked.

  “Oh, just wasn’t my thing. It was an excuse to get over here.” He winked. His lips were perfectly sized. A sensation of warmth pressed her chest like the sun shining on new leaves—tender and bright green. She could feel the sap coursing through her body. “It sounded good to my mother. My poor mother.” He shook his head, pouring her tea. “How about you?”

  “Me?”

  “How come you’re here? Or why does your family think you’re here?”

  Steam rose from her cup of barley tea. She closed her eyes and could feel the grip of her mother’s hand, and then the sudden absence of that pressure on her skin. Even if she had her own family, a husband, a daughter, for several years, she didn’t belong in this world it seemed. She never did.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  The waitress returned, spreading banchan on the table—mak kimchi and kkakdugi, seasoned soybean sprouts and spinach, soy-glazed lotus root. With his metal chopsticks, Mr. Kim sampled the spinach, chewing thoughtfully as if admiring its composition—garlic cloves, green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil. The tanginess of the mak kimchi, which she always tried first, opened her palate. She bit into the candy of the lotus root, crunchy and chewy, for comfort. There was a startling familiarity to the banchan as if she had tasted the specific character of each dish, every different taste and texture, someplace else recently, but she couldn’t name where.

  “What did you study?” she asked, pouring him tea.

  “Economics,” he said. “I guess I still kind of ended up in economics. Business, sort of.” He smiled again.

  “Not quite what you expected, though.”

  “Nope, but that’s okay. That’s how it is.” He sighed. “We come here thinking that we’ll work hard and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s life.”

  “You’re still you
ng.”

  He blushed. “Young? Not really. I haven’t been young for at least ten years.”

  “Well, young enough. If you wanted to start over, you could.”

  “That’s true. I’m not tied down or anything.”

  “Were you ever married?” The words slipped out of her mouth.

  “Yes.” He sipped his tea. “For about a year. Not long.”

  Hands shaking, she lifted the pot to refill his cup.

  “She passed away,” he said, eyes downcast. “She had stomach cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.” She exhaled out loud. “That must have been very difficult.”

  The waitress arrived with two heavy stoneware bowls filled to the brim with piping hot stews redolent of the earth and sea—snapper, fish eggs, and clams, zucchini, ginger, and garlic. Mina watched hers bubble while Mr. Kim, adventurous, spooned a bit of his soup, blew on the broth, and sipped. She bit her lip, wishing she could scarf down her ahl jjigae. So much of Korean food was about patience as the volcanic soups settled down, building the diners’ anticipation with the bright colors of the red pepper and green onion, the smells.

  “Is it good?” she asked.

  “Yes, try some.” He nudged his bowl toward her.

  “I will in a little bit. Please, go ahead.”

  The broth burned her tongue but tasted like it would at any restaurant in Seoul, perfect in its depth and brininess from the roe. The fish eggs crumbled inside her mouth, and she washed them down with a spoonful of delicate mu that had become perfectly translucent.

  “You?” he asked, not looking up from his bowl.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you ever marry?” He sniffed from the heat of the spice.

  “Yes,” she said, surprising herself. “He died, too.” Those words wrung her heart. If she were to mention her daughter, she would completely fall apart. She would run out into the street screaming. She would beat the bottom of her fists on the ground, as if trying to break her daughter free. She never intended to tell him about her husband and daughter at all, as if she had been ashamed of the tragedies that had rent her life, her family. Wasn’t that how most people treated her back home—like her sadness was a disease that could spread?

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She wanted to get out. But she couldn’t. On the walls, the Hahoetal masks seemed to be laughing at her. How could she leave now?

  “Are you okay?”

  “I need to use the restroom. Excuse me.”

  Standing at the sink, she cried, wiping her eyes. She splashed her face with cold water and waited a few minutes until she caught her breath and most of the red had left her skin. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t belong in this life, this dream. Her husband and daughter’s deaths were proof of this fact. She was made for nightmares. She would work and go to church until one day she died and went to heaven. That was all there was left to hope for, that was all there was left to long for in this world.

  She returned to the table where Mr. Kim had refrained from eating in her absence. Her ahl jjigae had gone lukewarm.

  They drove back home in silence. The pine tree deodorizer swung like a pendulum. The night had ripened into a starless black while the streetlights glowed amber on steel and glass. From the periphery, she watched his arms, thin and muscular, guide the steering wheel, his leg press on the gas. She could say something. She could tell him everything. But what? What would that something be? What could she say without falling apart, revealing how broken and unlovable she had become? She had already told him too much.

  As he pulled up in front of her dark house, Mina said, “I’m sorry about earlier. I just—”

  “No worries. I understand.”

  “I’m... It’s all so new.” She was ruined now, wasn’t she? She couldn’t even have a meal out and enjoy herself.

  “Of course. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m sorry.” She wanted to run out of the car. “Thank you for dinner.”

  Before she shut the door, he said, “You’re very nice and pretty.”

  She didn’t know how to respond.

  “I mean that. You’re very nice.”

  “Oh, okay.” She resisted the urge to cry. As a widow who had also lost her child, it seemed she had again become as invisible as she was growing up—alone without a family, a leftover from a war, an unwanted girl.

  “Can we have dinner again? Next Saturday?”

  She nodded. In English, she said, “Good night.”

  Inside her room, she lay on her bed, thinking of Mr. Kim—his warm smile, the sadness of his eyes, his smooth arms—then her husband, the peck of his lips as he departed each day for work, and she buried her face in her blanket.

  Tears leaked out of her eyes. She tore at the fabric with her hands, not ripping but gripping, wings flapping over a marsh at dusk, purple and glassy, until she was too tired to realize she was falling into a soft miracle, insects skimming the surface, of sleep.

  AUTUMN SETTLED IN the city. The nights grew colder, dropping down to the fifties at times, which seemed chilly in a place where houses and apartments didn’t have much for insulation and heat. The drafty home in which Mina lived felt colder than it was outside at night, and she bundled up in sweaters and blankets as she listened to the Korean radio or stood by the stove, cooking something for herself. Some of the local trees had lost their leaves, but the palm trees lining the streets persisted, ragged, swaying in that bright, smog-filled sky.

  At the supermarket when no one would notice, Mr. Kim, lips curled, winked at her with an almost comedic force. Mina laughed, covering her mouth, when she wanted more than anything to kiss him, feel his warm animal breath. She wanted her face to tingle, her heart to thump against her chest. Be wild, like rubbing oneself in the dirt or plucking flowers and pushing them in her hair.

  After that awkward first date, he still left gifts in her bin—a Hershey’s bar, a bag of salted peanuts, a Valencia orange with the most perfect navel—objects that aroused some softness, like a rabbit’s fur against her face. To know that he was there, to know that he was thinking about her was a strange but marvelous relief from the hardness of every day.

  At the beginning of their courtship, her husband, with his long sensitive face, relaxed eyes, and mischievous smile, had brought her flowers and chocolates like the main character in an American movie. His kindness continued throughout their marriage, but not with the same intensity, of course. After so many years together, raising a daughter, too, their lives had turned toward the practical, to the questions of how they would provide the best life they could for her, what they would have to sacrifice.

  So the romance had left them, but never the love. Every morning, he dropped in to kiss her, like a seagull diving into the ocean, before he rushed out the door. She would be eating breakfast by herself or getting ready in the bathroom, and he pecked her on the cheek or sometimes sloppily like a farm animal to say goodbye. He loved rituals, organization, patterns.

  But to encounter these small objects—these ordinary gifts—now from Mr. Kim revived something in her that she had forgotten, stirring the coals of a small fire that she had believed had long since died. She began wearing lipstick—soft pinks and berries—which she purchased at a drugstore near the house. She still wore the same blouses and slacks, but she brushed and combed her hair, checking herself in a pocket-size mirror she kept in her purse throughout the day. She lined her eyes black with the tiniest flick at the end. All of this happened so quickly, within a week, that even the landlady, who rarely said anything about anyone’s appearance, noticed.

  “Somebody’s living,” she teased.

  With Thursday off, Mina, exhausted from a late shift the night before, slept in until noon, when pots and pans, metal surfaces, banged against each other. She hated loud noises, especially sudden ones, striking like the universe crashing d
own, and she didn’t know in which direction she should run. In her pajamas still, she exited her room and peeked through the open door of the kitchen, which always smelled of garlic and green onion.

  With her pale and bony legs, Mrs. Baek stood in a gray T-shirt-like nightgown, clicking a burner on the stove. Her bun of curly hair hung low on her neck. Her forehead and nose gleamed in the room half-lit by sun.

  “Ah, it’s been a while,” Mrs. Baek said, drizzling oil onto a pan.

  Mina feigned a smile, yearning to return to bed.

  “Are you hungry?” Mrs. Baek asked. “I was just about to make something.”

  “I might wait a little bit.” She placed her hand on her stomach.

  “You sure? Sit down.” Mrs. Baek lifted a large bowl on the counter. “I have all this pancake batter. Fresh squid.”

  Mina loved the hot crispy pajeon or bindaetteok fried in the open-air markets back home. The anonymous bustle and then the comfort of sitting on a tiny plastic stool as she waited to be fed. The women who cooked in each stall always seemed harried and gruff, yet their mannerisms were also distinctly soothing—as if underneath their no-nonsense approach was the tenderness of the family that they were each charged with providing for. They were women of great power and importance, and they knew it.

  “I have some rice from yesterday,” Mina said. “Want me to heat that up?” She reached into the refrigerator for a large round Tupperware, cracked open the lid, and placed it in the microwave, where she stood watching the stove with Mrs. Baek.

  “I saw you the other night,” Mrs. Baek said in a low voice, smiling as she tilted the pan to spread the oil.

  “Where?”

  “At Hanok House.”

  “You work there?” Mina remembered the calming familiarity of the banchan—the spinach and soybean sprouts, the crunchy lotus root.