by Mark Sampson
She went back out to sit in the wicker chair she kept near the door. She remembered her father having this exact kind of chair in this exact place in her childhood home. She had come to understand why he had kept such a thing there: it provided a bird’s-eye view of his domain, such as it was. Hers was even less — just two rooms in the basement of a decrepit building. Eun-young settled into the chair and cast her eyes up at the real reason she had not allowed Jin-su to accompany her inside. There, at the place where the upper wall of her bedroom met the apartment’s low ceiling, grew a long dark-green cartography of mould. It spread like faded tattoos all the way from her front door to the top of the wall at her bathroom. The unsightly mildew had cropped up clandestinely over the last several weeks, starting as small dark patches in the corners but then extending outward along the length of the apartment, getting out of hand before Eun-young realized how bad it was. What would Jin-su say if she saw it there now? Eun-young, your walls are rotting . You need to move out. Why won’t you move? She knew exactly where Jin-su thought she should move to — the spare bedroom in the Park apartment that Bum Suk had left behind when he went to America. But Eun-young would never entertain such an idea — even now, with Tae dead and buried. She looked up at the mould again. It was bad but, perhaps, manageable. A bucket of bleach would do it. She’d need to find a brush with a long handle with which to scrub the walls; she would not risk standing on a chair. Or maybe the landlord, if she mustered the courage to speak to him, would come and do it for her. He was a feckless twit, but if she asked him he would probably —
She stopped herself. Ran a finger along the sinewy treads of her wicker chair. Why are you pondering such mundane things? You don’t care about the mould on your walls. You have just watched your family bury your sister’s daughter. Poor Ji-young, who has never known a fraction of the anguish you have, wailed out the kok with complete abandonment. It alarmed you, the groan that rose from her throat, the tears that bled across her wrinkled face. Admit it, Eun-young, she thought. After all you have witnessed, all you have suffered, you still couldn’t grasp the pristine failure one feels over burying a child. That was Ji-young’s han — the sadness that will constrict her heart for the rest of her days. And what did you do? You, so knowledgeable in the ways of pain and grief? You stood at the service alone, away from her, from the family. Staying at the very edge of their lives, as you have done for decades.
She looked up again at the mildewy rot on her wall. No, Jin-su, she thought. I will never leave this apartment.
Except the mould really did have to go. So the next day Eun-young went out and bought bleach and a scrub brush with a long handle. At home in her bathroom, she filled a plastic bucket with hot water and mixed in the powdery blue crystals, then lugged the concoction out to the main room and got to work. As she reached up and stroked the brush along the length of her upper wall, Eun-young found her thoughts falling absently, inexplicably, onto Jin-su’s waegookin friend. Or perhaps it wasn’t so inexplicable: hadn’t this mildew, she thought, begun to crop up around the night of the birthday party when Jin-su first introduced him — the night he took that photograph of her, and she had surreptitiously removed it from his camera when he left it behind? He knows, Eun-young thought. Jin-su has told him. Such is her love for him, I suppose — and her love for me. Eun-young wondered if the waegookin knew the privilege that he’d been given. Even my own husband didn’t know what you know, waegookin . Imagine that. A man who loved me, who loved me more than anything, wasn’t privy to what Jin-su has shared with you.
As she re-doused the brush and edged it along the wall again, Eun-young wondered what Tae had made of the waegookin. Actually, she didn’t have to wonder — of course her niece would have disapproved of him, and expressed that to Jin-su in various subtle and unsubtle ways. But had Tae known that her daughter let the waegookin in on their little family secret? Tae was all about keeping Eun-young’s past in the closet, and the fact that Jin-su would share it with someone else — a non Korean, no less — would have infuriated her. Eun-young had become adept over the years at ignoring Tae’s endless displeasures, her need for secrets. Tae saw Eun-young’s history as a threat to the family’s reputation, and argued that it should never be discussed with people outside of their kin.
Which was fine by Eun-young. Her shame had not diminished over the years, and her need for solitude, to live on the very periphery of her family’s lives, grew only stronger. But then, in 1991, the first of the comfort women, Kim Hak Soon, came forward to tell her story. The family was instantly in disarray. They insisted that it was Eun-young’s choice whether she wanted to join the growing armada of old women who were coming forward. But it was clear where Tae stood on the matter. Oddly enough, Jin-su — then in her mid teens — was just learning about the family secret, and she immediately embraced it as a way of rebelling against her mother. No, Eun-young thought as she scrubbed the wall harder, it was more than that. Jin-su embraced her eemo halmoney as a way of rebelling against the whole family, maybe even the whole country itself. As awareness of comfort women grew, Jin-su became enraged to think that Korean society — not to mention her own family — had helped to suppress such traumas for decades. She expressed her rebellion by trying to become Eun-young’s best friend — visiting her often, showing her more kindness than anyone in the family, even drawing that creepy charcoal sketch of her. Jin-su also expressed that rebellion by doing some patently un-Korean things, things Eun-young really couldn’t imagine, in the foreign quarter of Itaewon when she got a little older. The waegookin boyfriend was the culmination of that.
In the end, Eun-young had decided that nothing would change. She was still just so horribly ashamed, and no matter how much the world learned about comfort women — the books, the news reports, the radio documentaries — she would not come forward. This meant, for example, that she didn’t head over to the Japanese Embassy for the weekly protests — where comfort women, the ones who had spoken out, descended onto the sidewalk out front with their placards and their banners, chanting and singing and demanding recognition from the Japanese government. It happened every Wednesday afternoon, without fail. Eun-young had never participated, had never taken up one of their placards and pumped it up and down and shouted at the Embassy windows to say, unequivocally: I was one of these women, too. Not once, in the twelve years since the gatherings had started.
It also meant that she had never travelled down to Kwangju to visit the “House of Sharing” — the place where many of the comfort women now lived together. It was a kind of commune, a living museum to what they all went through. Eun-young refused to go there, to set foot in a place that had built replicas of the stalls where they had been raped. What, am I to stand in one of them and marvel at it like a tourist? Am I to listen to these women share with strangers, on a daily basis, ordeals that I couldn’t ever speak of to my own husband?
She scrubbed at the wall furiously, and let her mind fall once more on Jin-su’s boyfriend. Don’t stare at me with your curiosity, waegookin, she thought. I am not like those other women. I am a coward one thousand times over. I cannot move beyond the disgrace that weighs me down like sandbags, that threatens to drag me into the centre of the earth. Look at me — I couldn’t grieve with my own sister this week when she buried her child. I could not mourn the loss of her first-born because I am too selfish, mourning the loss of my never-born, the children I couldn’t have had because the Japanese ransacked my womb.
Eun-young reached the end of the wall, scrubbing hard into the corner by the bathroom, and then lowered the brush. She looked back across the length of her apartment. The mould had faded but was not yet gone.
On the Sunday after Tae’s funeral, Eun-young went to church for the first time in weeks. Manoeuvering up the concrete steps under the steeple and pulling open the lobby door, she felt a mild guilt for being absent. It wasn’t something the rest of the congregation foisted consciously: their nods at the sight of her weren’t laced with malice, just a plea
sant Oh, you came back. It’s nice to see you again. But there was also a prying curiosity behind their gazes: Was there a reason you stayed away? One of the ushers, a girl of about seventeen, offered to take Eun-young’s arm and help her to a pew. But Eun-young raise a palm and shook it at her: No, leave me be. This was her reputation among the other churchgoers, to be tetchy and unwilling to accept help. Eun-young found a place near the back, eased her bones into the pew’s wooden grip, and lowered her head to pray.
She had been coming to this church, off and on, for sixteen years. The sermons struck a chord with her, she had to admit. Sins washing away in the blood of Christ; giving your burdens over to God to carry; knowing that you could be loved no matter what you did. Inside the church, she felt a serenity within herself that she hadn’t believed possible.
And yet. Certain sermons infuriated her. The idea, for example, that Christ suffered more on the cross than any human could imagine. Really? Does Christ know what it’s like to be raped thirty-five times a day for two years? To have one’s legs burned by hot pokers, to be urinated on, to be penetrated by two men at once? She would leave the church steaming under these blasphemous thoughts and not come back for weeks. But then she would return, in need of the calm that she’d found under this roof. And each time she did, she’d lower her head to pray just as soon as she found a pew to sit in. Which was what she was doing now: beseeching God to forgive her absences and fill her mind with all the reasons why this was where she belonged.
Today the sermon was about the war in Iraq, and the power of prayer. The minister — just a young fellow really, about thirty years old — was telling a story he had learned over the email from a colleague in America. It involved a family in the colleague’s congregation who had a son stationed in Baghdad. The young man had given up a comfortable job as an accountant shortly after 9/11 and enlisted in the army, a decision his family supported because they believed it came from God. But now, with their boy posted right in the heart of a worsening situation — suicide bombers and I.E.D.s, sectarian slaughter and those atrocities at Abu Ghraib — the family began questioning whether this was what the Lord wanted for their son. They began questioning whether the war itself was what He wanted. “And these are God-fearing Republicans, my colleague tells me,” the minister said. “This family came to him for advice because they knew the questions they were raising were a slippery slope. Before long, they might have begun questioning God’s benevolence, or even His very existence. And so what did my friend tell this family to do? To pray. Simply to pray. We can only know a small part of God’s intentions for us. But if we choose, we can be in God’s presence whenever we wish — simply through the power of prayer. So pray, he told them. Pray every day; soak up the love and light of God. It will provide you with something far greater than mere answers to earthly questions. Use your prayers not to interrogate God, but only to be with Him.”
The minister ended his sermon by telling the congregation to pray there in their pews, and Eun-young did as she was told. She thought she felt it then, the presence that the minister had promised. It was God, wasn’t it — touching her shoulders and calming that cacophony in her mind, thoughts about Tae’s death, about Ji-young’s grief, about the waegookin and his stares, and that terrible trip to Pusan sixteen years ago? Is He here? she asked. Is God really with me in this place?
After the service, Eun-young hobbled into the lineup in the aisle and waited her turn to shake the minister’s hand, nodding at the people who smiled at her and wished her good morning. When she approached the young minister, he reached out and touched her elbow.
“Eun-young, it’s so good to see you,” he said. “You’ve been away for a while.”
“I have, but I’m back,” she replied, and then frowned. “Young man, my niece passed away last week.”
“Oh Eun-young, I’m sorry to hear that. Was she very old?”
“No, just fifty-one. Her mother, my sister, is devastated. She’s just — devastated.”
The minister nodded solemnly. “Of course she would be.”
“I’ve been at a loss since it happened,” Eun-young mumbled. “I’ve been feeling … feeling …” The minister tilted his head, waiting for her to finish, but Eun-young changed gears suddenly. “Young man, I have a question … I have a question about sin.”
“Yes?”
“It’s not about whether God can wash away sin. I already know your answer to that. But I want to ask you what counts as a sin.”
The minster’s eyes flickered for a moment over Eun-young’s shoulder at the people behind her waiting patiently for their turn with him. They were used to this, the old woman with the scar over her lip who often sought spiritual guidance at inappropriate moments.
“Go ahead, Eun-young,” he smiled, his eyes falling back to her.
“Is happiness a sin?” she asked.
“Generally no — unless its source contradicts how God would like us to treat each other.”
“Is anger a sin?”
“Generally yes — unless it eventually leads us to seek out God’s word and follow it.”
“Is solitude a sin? Being alone? Cutting yourself off from other people?”
“You and I have discussed this one already,” he smiled. “Eun-young, God wants us to have community. He wants you to have community.”
She found herself weeping, lightly. She pulled at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “I’m sorry. My niece, my niece died last week. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hey, it’s okay.”
“One last question,” she said, and then paused. “Could forgiveness ever be a sin?”
The minister’s face nearly cracked in two from his smile. “ Never,” he said joyously. “True forgiveness could never be a sin.”
But her frown just deepened. I don’t believe you. She hobbled off curtly, stabbing at the lobby floor with her cane. One-two, one-two-and-three, and she was back on the sidewalk and heading home.
By the time Eun-young returned to her basement apartment, the minister’s words had fluttered out of her mind like birds. When she unlocked the door and stepped inside her mildewy hovel, the certitude and tranquility of church was gone, replaced by a tumult that began brewing inside her. She shuffled over to her little kitchen to begin her lunch, took down a bag of rice from the cupboard and tried to measure some for the rice cooker on the floor. But stopped before the first grains came out. She set the bag back down, began to tremble. Closing her eyes, Eun-young tried to pray once more, tried to find God’s presence as she had in the church. It wasn’t there. She prayed as hard as she could, but it was like her low ceiling and mouldy walls had sealed Him out. Even God is not allowed in here, she thought. It’s a crock — all of it. What I feel is not peace. I feel alone. I should have told the minister that — I feel so alone. If forgiveness is not a sin, then why does it seem so wrong? Maybe if I had known God when I was younger, knew His purpose for me before I was taken to the camps and made into a whore, I would be capable of compassion. But I’m not. I am not capable. I’m sorry, Ji-young. I cannot understand your grief. It’s not that I hated Tae, even though she gladly abetted my isolation with her disapproval. It’s not that. I cannot help you in your mourning because I cannot understand what it means to love a daughter. And it’s because I don’t love anyone, or anything. I am like an island floating in the sea, without even a sliver of soil touching the mainland. I have no path to cross over to you.
God is not here. He has never touched my heart. Not once.
But then nights later, weeks later really, the phone rang. The sound was like an intruder, so rare that it was for the phone to ring at all. Eun-young sat up in bed, the sheets crinkling around her. It was the middle of the night.
She didn’t get up right away to answer it. But when it didn’t stop, she swung her brittle legs around and touched the floor with her feet. The phone rang and rang as she raised herself from bed and limped out into the main room, where the phone sat on a low table ne
xt to her wicker chair. She stood before it in her nightgown. There was only one person it could be at this hour.
She answered it.
“Hello.”
“Eun-young …”
“Hello, my sister.”
“I’m sorry to call so late. I’ve gotten you out of bed, haven’t I?” She was speaking in a low voice. Perhaps trying not to wake Chung Hee.
“It’s alright.”
“Eun-young … Eun-young …”
“Speak to me, my sister.”
“Why haven’t you come? It’s been weeks now. Why haven’t you come to see me?”
“I’m sorry, Ji-young.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want a reason. Why haven’t you come to see your sister?”
Eun-young licked her lips, but Ji-young cut her off before she could speak. “I haven’t been able to sleep. My doctor warned me about this. He said the sudden death of a loved one can cause insomnia. It can last for months. Did you know that, Eun-young?”
“I did, yes.”
“Of course you did. You know so many things.”
“Ji-young, please …”
“I can’t stop thinking about Tae,” Ji-young went on after a moment. “I mean, I realize her soul has crossed over, that she has taken her place among our ancestors. I know that. But I can’t stop thinking about her — her body. I can’t stop thinking about my little girl in her box. Do you know what I mean? Eun-young, do you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“You know so much,” Ji-young repeated. “You are so wise. Why have you kept your wisdom from me? Why, Eun-young? Why haven’t you come to see your little sister in her grief?”
