The Last Story of Mina Lee

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

  “But I don’t want to, not until I understand. Whether it was really just an accident.”

  “Your mother’s death?”

  Margot nodded. “I’m not going to—to move on until I understand. I can’t move on until—”

  “Until when? Until you realize it was not your fault?” Mrs. Baek’s eyes glistened. “Do you feel guilty?”

  Margot’s cheeks burned. “I should’ve checked on her more often, visited her more often. Maybe I wouldn’t have...prevented anything, but also maybe I would’ve known what was going on in her life. I could’ve—”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Margot.” Mrs. Baek squeezed Margot’s wrist. “It was an accident. A very bad accident.” Wiping the corners of her eyes, she said, “We all wish that we could’ve done something differently, right? But it’s not really worth revisiting. We all could’ve done things differently.” She focused on the piles of books in front of them. “That’s the problem with memory.”

  Her mother could crack open a moment with her memory as if the present was nothing but an eggshell, spotted and frail. As a teenager, Margot had begged her mother once to attend a concert (she couldn’t even remember the band now). Even if Margot had secured a ride with her friend’s parents, which was a lie, her mother did not want her out at night.

  “Do you know how hard I work?” her mother had yelled in Korean. “Do you know how hard I work? I haven’t done anything fun for years. Fun?”

  “Why won’t you let me be happy?” Margot yelled in English with little care for her neighbors next door.

  “You should be doing schoolwork. You should be at home. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know what I was doing at your age?” Her mother jabbed her own chest with an index finger. “I worked in a factory all day as a child. Do you know what that’s like? I got sick all the time. Terrible things happened to children like us. We were all burdens. We were all mouths to feed. I had to learn to feed myself. There is no fun. There is no fun in this world.”

  But her mother’s harshness was designed to protect Margot from what her mother considered to be a universe without shelter, without much kindness for kindness’s sake. Of course, her mother would perceive the world that way—so much of her identity was about the past. She was floating, like all of us, in history. Yet the taste of hers was particularly foul and dark, filled with smoke and flame.

  Tears streamed down Margot’s face. She had to get out of this room. Clawing. She needed air. Gripping the arm of the sofa, she stood and moved to the door.

  “Sorry to come by so late.” She placed her hand on the doorknob.

  “Your mother... She was very lonely when she first came here.” Mrs. Baek offered this—a departing gesture perhaps to help Margot forgive herself, forgive her mother at last.

  But Margot didn’t turn. She hated that word, lonely. She wanted to ask, What about me? It’s not my fault she was lonely. It’s not my fault that I was born. I was lonely, too. I was lonely. Nobody wanted me. But she remained silent, clenching her teeth.

  “She was like a lot of us. Lonely. But that’s what it’s like for women like us. That’s why...we were the way we were. That’s why we make the decisions that we make. So that we can survive. We can get by. We can protect each other.” Mrs. Baek sighed. “She would’ve done anything for you. You kept her safe. You saved her.”

  Margot couldn’t hear any more. Gasping for air, she stepped out of the apartment, descended the stairs, and rushed through the courtyard into the street. She waited in the car, catching her breath. A single lamp beamed onto the vacant sidewalk.

  Women like us.

  Margot’s brain was a wild animal, clawing out of her head. The net that wrapped around Margot’s ankles, threatening to drag her into the sea.

  You saved her.

  But she hadn’t. She had been too late.

  Margot wound her way past MacArthur Park, its black lake glowing with smeared reflections of light, toward 10 West, realizing now that she never owned a car in Los Angeles, that her whole life until she moved away at the age of eighteen had been confined to buses, walking, and riding with her mother on surface streets. And yet she could always find the freeway, at least I-10, as if the signs toward them had somehow been imprinted on the map of her memory, the bones of her hands and feet that drove this car now to the ocean.

  She had never taken a car onto the pier, which jutted like a driveway onto the sea toward the horizon, a visual cliff. The wheels rumbled beneath her over the boards. She imagined gassing it, a Thelma & Louise end, flying through the metal handrails and over the edge. She’d be weightless and free before plunging into the terrible deep. Inhaling the salt and water would be both the end and a great relief.

  In the pier’s parking lot, she turned the car off and stared at the dark ocean and the Ferris wheel, a many-spoked strobe that throbbed like the heart of this place, dreamlike, up and over and around, dipping the rider back into life and out again. She got out and jogged toward the ticket booth, empty at this time of night. Standing in line for the Ferris wheel, alone, the salt air and the carnival food cleansed her head.

  After stepping in one of the tubs, which swung beneath her, she waited as the others boarded, and she rose into the black night, light, eating air.

  Mina

  Winter 1987—1988

  MINA THOUGHT ABOUT the first night they had kissed on the Ferris wheel, how the car had swayed beneath them as they revolved again and again at a steady pace, floating in the night sky. Teeth chattering. Salt air and hot chocolate. His breath close to her ear and neck. She had been terrified of both the ride malfunctioning and the free fall of plunging into the depths of what she could feel, her body and her lips pressed against his.

  She had been taking an inventory of his kindnesses—the way he had given her his jacket that night, brought her a drink to keep her warm, hadn’t teased her for closing her eyes when the wheel started to turn. Her husband would’ve done that, not out of cruelty, but because he enjoyed innocuous jabs, jokes, laughter—a quality that appealed to her more serious self.

  But what if this was a ruse, this thing between her and Mr. Kim? What if she allowed him to get close, showed him love, only for him to change? What if she were to lose herself in the feelings, the illusion of potential happiness again? What if, what if, what if?

  Since riding the Ferris wheel, they had spent many nights together, even a weekend celebrating the holidays in Las Vegas—a neon place of lush, dizzying distraction. She had played the slot machines, lost money and won it back again, witnessed a kangaroo box with a man in a circus ring as cowboy clowns chased each other around the stage. At a dinner buffet, they gorged themselves on American food—breaded chicken, grilled steak, macaroni and cheese, all kinds of potatoes (baked, fried, roasted). She refused to drink, mostly because she didn’t like to, but also because she had become afraid of losing herself again.

  After her husband and daughter’s deaths, she had spiraled out of control for almost a week, crawling around the apartment on her knees and elbows, only to throw up in the restroom. Drinking was the lone response she had for pain. And drunkenness gave her permission to express her anger, her rage in flashes of tearing clothes or smashing plates. When she couldn’t drag herself to the store, the cough syrup in the medicine cabinet could bludgeon her mind enough to get her through a night.

  But now, with Mr. Kim, in a tangle of sheets on the bed, at restaurants, by the turquoise pool of a motel, she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. She often caught herself smiling for no reason, checking her hair and makeup in mirrors that she passed by.

  Both Mrs. Baek and the landlady noticed the shift in her appearance, her demeanor, and habits. The landlady bestowed upon her a knowing smirk or a nod of approval every now and then, but Mrs. Baek never shied away from asking direct questions, even though Mina didn’t feel ready to talk about Mr. Kim yet.

  Some
nights, Mina didn’t have the energy to avoid Mrs. Baek. They shared the same kitchen, the same bathroom. Less than ten feet separated their bedroom doors.

  “I grilled some mackerel. Do you like mackerel?” Mrs. Baek asked two days before the end of the year.

  “Yes, I do.” Mina loved the fish’s oily and sticky smell, the beauty of its dark stripes, the crispiness of the skin when grilled.

  Mrs. Baek had prepared a feast—seasoned spinach and soybean sprouts, baechu kimchi and kkakdugi, pickled perilla leaves, and two types of jjigae—compared to their usual meals of maybe two or three banchan and soup.

  “Go ahead.” She motioned to Mina.

  Picking up her chopsticks, Mina tasted the kimchi—rich and tangy with hints of pear and shrimp.

  “How’s your boyfriend?” Mrs. Baek asked, adjusting her position on the bench.

  Mina tried to smile. “He’s okay.”

  “Has he been nice?”

  “He’s been fine. Yes. He’s nice.” The mackerel’s flesh slipped away from the bones, melted like butter in her mouth. How this fish tasted like comfort on a winter night even here in Los Angeles. “How about you? Are you interested in anyone?” Mina only now remembered that Mrs. Baek had once said, I don’t think I’ll trust any man again.

  “No.” Mrs. Baek laughed to herself. “I have books. I have music. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’m busy.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean that you seemed bored before, that’s all. All you did was work. I’m not bored. I’m never bored.”

  “I see, because you’re so interesting.” Mina placed her hands on the table. “Educated.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Mrs. Baek said. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was referring to myself.”

  Mina slid off the bench and cleaned up her side of the table.

  “Just leave it there,” Mrs. Baek said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’ll put this soup back. I haven’t touched it.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  She grabbed the bowl and Mrs. Baek pulled it back.

  “Please sit down. I’m sorry.”

  Mina realized then how much she had been a little frightened by Mrs. Baek—her quick mind and mouth, carefully drawn brows, her relaxed sense of self, sprawling like the city itself. But at the same time, Mrs. Baek had been too generous, too helpful, and, yes, maybe even too interesting to deny from her life. And she made some of the most delicious banchan. Something as simple as a leaf fermented could create a moment, a meal that resembled a home, even if you never really had one.

  Mina sat down again, gazing at what remained of the mackerel—the brown meat at the belly, the clear bones pronounced.

  “Anyway, I was wrong, okay? I didn’t mean what I said. It has nothing to do with you. I’ll never trust men. I don’t know how anymore.”

  “Were you married before?” Mina asked.

  “Yes, yes, I was.” Mrs. Baek’s face grew red. “He was terrible.”

  “Do you talk to him still?”

  “No, God, no.” Her nostrils flared. “He lives in Texas.”

  “You ran away?”

  “Yes. I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice trembled. It was the first time that Mina had seen Mrs. Baek this vulnerable.

  Mina reached out her hand and rubbed Mrs. Baek’s wrist with her thumb.

  “Maybe I’m just a little bitter sometimes,” Mrs. Baek said. “I wasted so much of my life. And now what?”

  “You’re still alive,” Mina said, both to Mrs. Baek and herself. “Isn’t it a miracle? That we’re still here?” Tears filled her eyes. “No one would have expected this of us. We surprised them. We surprised ourselves.”

  Entering the kitchen, the landlady said, “That smells good.”

  “Do you want to join us?” Mrs. Baek asked, pulling her arm gently away from Mina, who lowered her head, wiping her face.

  “No, I’m fine. I already ate. I’m just making some soup now for tomorrow.”

  After dinner, Mrs. Baek, as a kind of peace offering, peeled and sliced two golden apples, which they enjoyed together in silence. Mina swallowed the fruit—bright and sweet and tart as if just plucked from the branch—with an intense satisfaction.

  Despite all their efforts to forge their own lives in this foreign land as individuals, it was obvious: they needed each other. They reminded one another with shared food or words that life, although mostly mundane and sometimes painful, was still spectacular, full of wonder, especially when we pushed ourselves toward the edge, beyond our fears, as Mr. Kim had asked Mina to ride the Ferris wheel, and imagine another life, with him.

  AT HIS ONE-BEDROOM apartment off Normandie Avenue in Koreatown, Mina and Mr. Kim would eat dinner after work and then—arms draped, thighs touching, fingers laced—they would watch the Korean news and occasionally an American show. Eventually, they would make their way to the bedroom to make love. Lying next to each other afterward, with Mr. Kim snoring loudly, Mina would sometimes stare at the ceiling, wondering what had become of her life, how it had all happened so quickly.

  A couple months into their relationship, a TV special aired on the local Korean channel about the temporary reunification events for Korean families separated in the North and the South without any ability to communicate with each other for decades since the Korean War. These families had been torn apart, members lost, in the process of fleeing the violence and death that erased millions of people. How could they have known that one day their country would be split in two, severing them from their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, without any palpable end in sight?

  And the reunification opportunities were scarce. Tens of thousands of families remained on the waiting lists, hoping to be chosen by the lottery, not knowing if they would die before they got the chance to see their loved ones again.

  Mina closed her eyes, yearning to change the channel. She couldn’t bear the volume of feeling, the faces stretched with a violence of so many emotions, the raw complexity in response to so many years lost between members of the same family on the screen. Grandmothers in hanboks wept, holding the faces of each other between wrinkled and spotted hands. Grandfathers cried and begged for forgiveness at the feet of the children, now adults, whom they had left behind, not knowing that the war and border would separate them forever.

  But Mr. Kim remained transfixed by the screen, red creeping up his neck and face.

  From a box that he kept on his coffee table, Mina handed him a tissue. Her heart cracked. “I’ll change the channel,” she said.

  “No. I want to see this.”

  On the television, the elderly offered testimonials on who they were missing and how much they hoped to hear from or see them again before dying. Tears streamed down so many faces. Hands clutched handkerchiefs and tissues as the reunited, dressed in their best suits or hanboks, dropped to the ground, grabbing each other as if checking to make sure that the bodies of the lost were real. A single human being could live an entire continent of pain and worry and longing.

  “Do you ever wonder if your parents might still be there, in North Korea?” Mr. Kim asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you lost your parents—where were you when you lost them?”

  “I don’t remember. I only remember there were hills, dirt, people fleeing. That’s all I remember.”

  “Do you ever think that maybe they never made it across?”

  “No, I’ve never thought of that.” Heat rose from the pit of her stomach through her lungs and throat.

  “But maybe that’s why they never found you,” he said, disturbed.

  “Maybe. I guess there’s nothing to do about it now.” She stood to change the channel.

  “No, not yet.”

  “I don’t want to watch this anymore.”


  “Just let me finish this, please.”

  “I’ll go and sit in the bedroom.”

  As she entered the bedroom and lay down, tears spilled from her eyes, soaking the pillowcase beneath her head. Why was he doing this to her? What did he know about her parents? How dare he assume that they hadn’t made it through? What kept her alive all these years was the thought that they were fine, maybe they had moved on without her, maybe they had another child, but they were fine. They were fine.

  They were somewhere in South Korea. They had normal lives. They had moved on. They were fine. Fine. Fine.

  She wanted to yell this to him. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t. She couldn’t afford to lose him now.

  Ten minutes had gone by until she heard him stepping toward her. With her back facing the door, her body tilted like a canoe as he sat on the bed by her feet. He put his hand on her leg, which he squeezed in the softest way as if testing the reality of her presence in his life.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, trying to disguise in her voice that she had been crying.

  “I’m very sorry.”

  A sharp sob escaped his mouth like a hiccup as he wept. She turned to see his face above hers, broken, before he covered it with his hand. She wanted to touch his face but didn’t know how, not at that moment.

  “I... I should have told you this before,” Mr. Kim said softly. “I was hoping that I would see my father. Every time anything about North Korea is on television—I always hope to see my father.”

  She sat up in bed. He bowed his head, staring at her legs, which were a kind of border between them.

  “My mother, when she was pregnant with me, left the North with her brother and parents. My father had to stay behind for work. He wanted to take care of everything, the home we had. He didn’t want to just leave, but she never saw him again after that.” He paused to wipe the tears from his eyes. “No one knows what happened to him. My mother tried, but who knows? So many people back then, everyone just trying to get out. Maybe he made it. Maybe not.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Anyway, I like to believe that if I saw his face, I’d know it was him. I’d know—there’s my father. That’s why I watch the TV.”