Sad Peninsula

by Mark Sampson

  “ Umma!” Jin snaps at her, rattling the dishes in her own hands. “I told you: I don’t smoke!”

  “She do smoke,” Tae says. Then she lobs a full Korean sentence at me as if I’d understand.

  I turn to Jin. “What did she say?”

  Jin sucks her teeth. “Ugh. She says I’m not very Korean.”

  Minsu and Tae are adamant that we don’t help with the cleanup. So Jin and I do find ourselves out on the balcony. This high up, we have a fantastic view of the lolling Han River and the manic city lights that embrace it.

  “Things seem to be going well,” I say.

  “You must forgive my mother,” she replies. “She does like you. But she’s uncomfortable. And she gets extra strict when she’s uncomfortable.”

  “I’m sorry I make her that way.”

  “It’s not you that makes her uncomfortable. It’s, how you say, the idea of you. What you represent — to me.”

  “And what’s that?”

  She just shakes off my question. “Mother has very fixed ideas about what she wants for me. She tries to be open-minded, but deep down she just wishes I would marry a Korean and end up with the same life as her. Because it’s safe. Mother is all about what’s safe.” Jin leans over the rail, lets the summer wind blow back her hair. “But the world is not a safe place. And I don’t want to be safe in it. I want to be myself in it, and let — what’s the phrase in English? — let the chips fall where they may. That’s the only real way to be safe.” I notice only then how angry and hurt she is. “Who is she to say I’m not very Korean? Does it matter that I’m ‘Korean’ enough? What about that I’m happy enough? Isn’t that more important?”

  I swallow. I feel awkward here. “You know, they love you very much. They’re only looking out for your future. But at some point, we’re going to have to talk to them about it. We owe them that.”

  She comes over. Glances through the window to make sure that her parents are away in the kitchen, and then she kisses me, pressing her lithe body into my frumpy one. “You are a very decent man,” she says, but says it like she’s quoting somebody else. “You are more decent than even you realize. Come on, let’s go in.”

  So we do, and soon the evening winds down. As I’m gearing up to go, Minsu addresses me with curiosity on his face. “So, Michael, you come to birthday party next month?”

  The women freeze, stiffen.

  “Birthday party?” I ask, and look at Jin.

  “Yes, it’s for my grandmother.”

  “Your …?”

  “ Grandmother, Michael. Ji-young. We’re having a birthday party for her next month.” She looks at me quizzically. “Do you want to come?”

  “Yes, please come,” Minsu says.

  I turn and look at Tae. Her expression is impenetrably neutral. Then back over at Jin. Arms folded. Head tilted. And all the mysteries she continues to keep from me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I want to come.”

  Chapter 14

  They were set to marry in spring of 1954. It was an instant scandal, a collective air of disapproval among Po’s family. Eun-young said nothing, would not defend herself when Po’s mother and siblings grilled him over what he was doing. Who was this little woman of mysteries whom he had taken as a yonae? Who was this greasy-diner waitress who spoke with a Seoul accent, who had a scar over her mouth, and was plagued with vague, intermittent illnesses? Was she an orphan? She didn’t seem to have any kin. And she was three years Po’s senior. How could he marry an older woman, one so damaged and yet seemingly without a past? The bulk of the vehemence came from his older sister, Pan-im: her face seemed to curdle at the very mention of Eun-young’s name.

  Thankfully, Ji-young and Chung Hee came down from Seoul for the wedding. When they embraced at the train station, Eun-young could barely get her arms around her baby sister: Ji-young was heavily pregnant with her first child.

  “My in-laws hate me,” a teary Eun-young whispered in her sister’s ear.

  “Oh, they’ll warm up to you, don’t worry,” Ji-young replied. As she was right: The arrival (and thus evidence) of some kin from Seoul did thaw out Po’s family a little. Despite their objections, they sent Eun-young the traditional box of yemul, the bride’s pre-ceremony gifts that come a few days before the wedding. Inside, the sisters found everything Eun-young would need to dress for the ceremony: ribbons of blue and red to tie in her hair; an array of beads that she would assemble into jewellery; and a blue satin dress, as long as a river. But the items were tarnished and frayed, obvious hand-me-downs from someone else’s wedding. They sisters chalked it up to poverty. The war had made everything in short supply.

  Another scandal: They could not hold the ceremony in the bride’s home as per tradition, because Eun-young lived in a grimy rooming house. They had to rent a hall not far from the groom’s family home. Po and Eun-young sat at the front in modest splendour, their colourful garb gleaming under the hall lights. Po failed to catch the mounting unease that gripped Eun-young after the wedding rites had passed — the deep, loving bows, the sipping of tea from stone cups, the stoic stares as the minister performed the rituals that forged them together as husband and wife, the eating from the paltry feast in front of them, dried persimmon and nuts and rice cakes. Eun-young’s eyes kept falling with dread to the table’s centrepiece display, the most important gift of all: two wooden ducks, elaborately carved and facing each other in a gaze both innocent and cheeky. Ducks — the Korean symbol of conjugal affection between a man and his wife.

  The wedding party made its short procession back to Po’s family home. There, everyone gathered to drink and eat in celebration. Eun-young, propped on display in the front room, watched as people plied her new husband with beer and dong dong ju, more alcohol than he could handle. She knew the party would continue into the evening, until that moment when the newlyweds slipped upstairs. And then the guests would gather in the stairwell and grow naughtily quiet — to listen for the sound of a consummated marriage. Eun-young tried not to think of what this old tradition reminded her of now: the thin wooden walls of the camps, the men lined up outside the curtains and listening to the noises coming from the other side. The vicious bangs and groans, the screams and pleas of the girls with the soldiers.

  When that hour arrived, Po came to where Eun-young sat, his eyes varnished with drink. He looked like a little boy as he beamed down at her. He extended his hand, and when she trembled at the sight of it, he smiled. He took Eun-young’s arm lightly and raised her to her feet. They walked through the party to the wooden stairs that led up to his bedroom. As Eun-young passed Ji-young on her way, she could feel her sister’s eyes fall on her, but she would not return the gaze. She would not look up at all.

  Po and Eun-young climbed the stairs and went into his room. A small, low bed awaited them. On the window ledge, a single candle was already lit, its stiff flame searing at the darkness. By the time Po sat her down on the bed’s edge, Eun-young had begun to weep. He kissed her deeply on the mouth, her tears dabbing his cheeks, and trembled under his own nervousness. “Don’t be afraid, my wife,” he said when their mouths parted. “I’m just as new to this as you are.” She would not look at him. He began to undo the straps of her bridal headgear, raised it up and off her head. He took a long, slow look at the ribbons tied just so in her hair, and then began to undo them one by one, savouring that steady removal of these symbols of her virginity. When he finished, he stood and undid his wedding jacket, slipped off the shiny silken garb and removed the shirt underneath. His chest did not look like it belonged to the chubby, boyish face above it: it was still hard and lean from his years in the army.

  He reached out to undo her bodice but she recoiled from him. “Po, please …” She shook all over. “I have … I have scars…”

  “I know,” he said and caressed the cleft that ran under her nose.

  “No, I have other scars.”

  His face softened with curiosity. “Let me see.”

  “ No.” She shu
ddered.

  He moved closer to her. Cupped her side. Held her. Waited. “May I?” he asked once her muscles had relaxed. He slid his hands into her satin dress and began to ease her body free. She was too terrified to fight his respectful touch. When her bare legs slipped out from under the satin, his eyes fell on the faded pink gashes embedded into her skin. She could see that flash of curiosity return to his face, but she could also see him fight against it, instantly. Struggling not to ask the questions he wanted to ask. But he didn’t question her, and she was stunned.

  Look at me, Po, she thought. Here, cast your eyes down on my … poji . What’s wrong with you? Can you not tell that hundreds of men have been here before?

  “I have never seen a woman naked,” he whispered, as if to answer her question.

  “Po, I am disgusting.”

  “You are not.” He gave the lightest laugh. “Eun-young, you are my wife,” he said. “These scars don’t frighten me. I’m going to teach you how to ignore them, as I will. I will teach you how to be completely unselfconscious.” He eased her onto the bed. His mouth moved over her then — her shoulders, the inside of her arm, her breasts. She was suddenly very hot, as if a stove had burst to life in the room. She heard the swish of the rest of his wedding costume as he liberated himself from it. Then he climbed between her legs. Eun-young waited for his blunt hardness, that violating club, to slip through her flesh. Po did touch her there, moved in on her. But he was not hard. Not enough. He repositioned and tried again. And again failed. He pulled back and attempted to laugh. “Give me a moment,” he said.

  “Po, it’s okay …”

  “No, it’s all right, just give me a moment. I’ll be fine …” He tried a third time, fell onto her, his flesh meeting hers, and for a second it did go in a little, but then slipped out. She remembered this sort of thing happening on occasion in the camps, and she was expected to console the soldiers when it did. She reached out for Po but he pulled away. “No, it’s okay, please just give me a second …” He let out the smallest mutter of frustration — and then began stroking himself with jerks of his hand. This went on for more than a minute, until she couldn’t bear it. She sat up and moved his hands away, grabbed him by the shoulders and laid him back down. He sucked a noisy breath through his nose. “Eun-young, I’m sorry. It’s … I think it’s the alcohol.”

  She kissed him on the mouth and looked into his eyes, gone dull with embarrassment. “You are my husband,” she said. “I will teach you to pay no heed to this, as I will.”

  She sat up then and faced the bedroom door. “He is my husband!” she yelled out into the stairwell, to all those who were listening for the noises of their love.

  But their marriage soon became a small scandal, and not just with Po’s family. Gossip began circulating like currency through the streets of their new neighbourhood as people began asking questions: why had this bashful young man taken an older woman for a wife? Who was she? Who was she really, and where did she come from? Po’s friends, the men he worked with on construction sites, mocked him for his attraction to Eun-young, couldn’t understand why he’d hurry home at the end of the day to be with her instead of going drinking with them. For Eun-young’s part, she had raised the suspicion of other wives in the neighbourhood by not joining in their kimchi-making circles or afternoon card games. She preferred to be alone during the day while Po was working. When she did go out, to fetch food from the markets or books from the library, she spoke to no one. Kept her head down. Floated around people like a ghost.

  The gossip shifted when a few years passed and they still hadn’t produced any children. Other young couples were breeding, and Pusan’s streets soon teemed with new mothers toting babies on their backs or gaggles of children rushing off to school. Po’s coworkers had a new thing to chide him about. “Rebuilding this country takes more than putting up highrises,” they joked. “Where are your wee ones? What, does your wife keep them hidden in her kimchi barrels?”

  The truth was something that Eun-young carried around like stones in her pockets. She suspected that the camps had left her as barren as a rock, but this was just another secret that she kept from Po. Of course, he harboured his own secret, the most obvious reason for their childlessness, away from the wagging tongues of the neighbourhood. He continued trying to consummate his marriage, several times a week. For months. For years. Each time, Po would come to their bed in a cloud of desire, kissing Eun-young passionately, touching her in ways that warped her flesh with longing. But when the moment came to do what he had to, what every husband in every house all around them was doing, he could not. His mind would flood, he often confessed to her later, with the most unsettling thoughts, from the war — the callous slaughter of his own people, and his role in it. Such visions bred a looseness to the strips of flesh that he imagined existing deep in his pelvic bone. A loosening of the strings, he called it. He tried to joke about this with Eun-young in bed — I’m trying to tighten the strings, to raise myself up. She never said a word, but merely touched him with wifely duty. Please don’t my dear just wait here give me a minute touch me there no not like that like this there there there okay — dammit! sorry ha-ha I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry … It pleased Eun-young that they had this little problem. It went a long way in concealing from Po that the Japanese had ransacked her womb.

  Their lives outside the bedroom were much more enviable. As far as Po’s friends and relations were concerned, theirs was an incomprehensible love — incomprehensible because it didn’t result in children. This bred a condescending curiosity. How do you two spend so much time alone? How do you possibly celebrate Chuseok each autumn without little ones? Po and Eun-young revelled in their freakish solitude. They had more free time than other couples, and spent it at the cinema watching Korean films or going to the park to read books or newspapers in the summer sun. Po doted on Eun-young, and this drew jealous stares from other wives, even as they denounced it among themselves as unnatural.

  There were other secrets, though, ones Po could not ignore or hide. They weren’t just the occasional sicknesses that afflicted his wife, incapacitating her for hours or even days at a time. There were also emotional outbursts, erupting either in private or when they were with his family. The smallest, most innocuous thing could trigger one. A simple bowl of miso soup on a messy table could send Eun-young into a fit of despair, and she’d lock herself in the bathroom for hours, weeping madly, and with Po knocking and pleading for her to come out. Or she’d learn something from the radio or newspaper, something about Korea’s development as a nation, and she would grow unfathomably enraged, banging pots and pans around their kitchen. Po might sidle up to comfort her but she’d shove him away, hard, slamming her palms into his chest and crying. When he refused to return her rage, when he merely looked back stunned and confused, she would turn instantly remorseful and take his face into her hands. “I’m sorry, Po.”

  “What is it, my wife?” he’d beg. “What brings about these sparks of anger in you? Please tell me.”

  But she would just lower her head in shame and say nothing.

  Po became convinced that lovemaking would solve all their problems, if only they could achieve it. How impossibly complicated the sex act seems, he’d think, when you can’t get your body to do what you want. He blamed certain thoughts he couldn’t keep from seeping into his mind: I am a murderer. I killed my fellow Koreans. I did. I tied their hands behind their backs with communication wire, made them sit on the ground, and then shot them in the back of the head, like they were animals. I have done this. I have I have I have … His impotence manifested itself in other ways. One night, Pan-im and her husband came for dinner. Eun-young had cooked all day in anticipation, but when they sat to eat Pan-im barely picked at the food. She pointed out how ironic it was that her brother had found his wife working in a diner and she still couldn’t prepare a decent meal. Eun-young’s eyes moistened and she looked to Po to defend her honour. But he merely muttered something noncommittal, loo
king to make peace. After their guests had left, Eun-young yelled at him. “You were a coward not to defend me in front of Pan-im.” The word snapped like a sheet in the wind, and she watched as Po tried to take offence at her use of it. His struggle to summon some rage was almost comical. He nearly got it, but then the muscles of his face collapsed.

  “I am weak,” he said.

  “Po — I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “No. You’re right. I am a coward. It’s okay, Eun-young. It’s okay. I know you don’t see me as a real man.”

  “Ah, Po, why do you say such things?”

  “Because it’s true. I’m not a real man. I don’t please you, do I, Eun-young?”

  “Po, don’t be silly. You please me in so many ways.”

  “But I don’t please you.” He did turn angry then, for just an instant. And she recoiled a little. He cupped his mouth and calmed back down. “Eun-young, what are we going to do? I feel so … so sundered from my own body.”

  But this only struck her as ludicrous.

  In the fall of 1960, Ji-young and Chung Hee travelled to Pusan to pay a visit. They had three small children now: a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a fifteen-month-old. Poverty had kept them away, but now there was a reason to come to Pusan: Ji-young had lingering worries about her sister, a concern that revealed itself in the same question that Po’s relatives and coworkers kept asking: Why hasn’t she produced any children?