by Mark Sampson
The answer came to her like a knife in the back. Five billion people didn’t need to know the truth, but one did. One man could learn about everything that happened, and understand. Understand, and still love.
The next morning, she packed a small bag and rode the subway to Express Bus Terminal. Bought her ticket and climbed aboard the shuttle that would take her to Pusan. The bus was nearly empty; hardly anyone was leaving Seoul. Eun-young felt a flush of excitement course through her as the shuttle weaved its way out of the city through rugged mountains and flat rice fields of green. She could hardly believe what she was doing. For years she had fantasized about breaking down and visiting Po. What would he look like now, after twenty-three years? Old and withered, like her — or distinguished and handsome? She always assumed that he had remarried after she left him, and now wondered what his wife would be like. Younger than he, most likely, and pretty. How many children would they have? They’d be almost adults themselves by now, if they existed. How would his family react to her presence on their doorstep? What was the plan, anyway? She decided on it in an instant. If she found him, Eun-young would insist that they go down to the seaside park where he had asked her to marry him. There they would sit on a bench to talk, and she would tell him everything — the complete, undistorted truth about what her life had been, all that she should’ve told him when he confessed his desire to marry her.
The shuttle rolled into a Pusan she hardly recognized. How the city had changed in the intervening decades, growing wide and expansive around the mountains in an insane array of highways and skyscrapers. At the bus terminal, trying to get her bearings, Eun-young had no choice but approach a tourism kiosk and ask for help reaching the neighbourhood where she had once lived. The city’s network of buses confounded her, but she eventually worked out the right line to take. She sat up front near the driver as the bus lumbered through main drags and side streets, many of which Eun-young could not place. Out the windows, she saw that Pusan was not immune to Olympic mania: banners and five-ringed flags were strung up on every light pole; the sidewalks were full of young people with their faces painted thickly in the national colours; every storefront displayed large TVs that aired the Games on endless loops. Every now and then the bus passed a locale that Eun-young was familiar with — a street market she had shopped in as a young wife, or a cinema that she and Po had attended as a childless couple. Her heart burst at the sight of them, a fast rush of nostalgia injected into her veins like a drug.
The bus finally deposited her onto a corner outside her old neighbourhood. After a moment’s hesitation, she shuffled down Po’s street and was pleased to see their little house still standing. Pleased even more that it was in good shape, its iron roof gleaming, its walls brightly painted, even a couple of flowerboxes beneath its shuttered windows. A woman’s touch. Eun-young nearly smiled, but then grew sombre. She mounted the stoop and knocked on the door. Heard the faint whir of bodies moving through rooms and halls that she had known so intimately. The door opened and a young woman appeared at the threshold. She was maybe in her late twenties. Pretty, but with her hair already cut short, to the length of a housewife’s. Her face was neutral as her eyes fell on Eun-young, flickered a little when they passed over the scar that ran beneath her nose.
“Yes?” the woman asked, wiping her hands on the apron tied across her hips.
“I’m sorry, I’m —” Eun-young stammered. “I’m sorry, do you live here?”
“Yes,” the woman replied, a little alarmed now.
“I’m sorry,” Eun-young repeated. “I’m looking for someone. Does, does Po still live here?”
“Who?”
“Po. Kim Po Hun. Does he still live here?”
The woman shrugged. “No. There’s no one by that name here.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Eun-young repeated aimlessly. “His name is Kim Po Hun. He used to live in this house. Can you help me?”
Just then a young boy, about five years old, scurried up behind the woman and poked around her side. He had a small South Korean flag tied bandana-style around his head and his face was painted in Olympic rings. His eyes were huge as he stared up at Eun-young. Behind him, a TV blared the Games somewhere deep in the house; Eun-young could hear the warning whistle of a boxing match.
“You say he used to live here?” the woman asked, hoisting the child onto her hip. “Perhaps he was the previous owner.”
“Yes, maybe. When did you buy this house?”
“Four years ago.” The girl marvelled at her own words. “We bought this house, oh my, four years ago now.”
“And you know nothing of the previous owner?”
“We didn’t learn his name, but we knew …” and the woman half smiled, half frowned. “We knew he was a noh chong gak who had lived here for many years. Sadly, he died in this house. His family was anxious to sell. It was how we got the place so cheaply.”
The muscles of Eun-young’s face slackened and her heart sank a thousand miles. A noh chong gak? It couldn’t have been Po. It made no sense. He would have remarried. Another woman would have scooped him up in no time at all. There was no way he would have lived out his days as a confirmed bachelor. And he would not have died in this house, alone.
The woman could see that Eun-young was distressed. “Did you want to come in? I’ve just finished making some walnut cakes.”
Eun-young ignored her. It could not have been Po. She was convinced of it. He would have sold this house after she had left him — sold it because it was full of too many memories, memories of her, of them together, and sold it so he could move on with his life. And the man that this woman spoke of was somebody else, another man who had owned this house in the years in between. He would have been the no chong gak, not Po.
“I’ve upset you,” the woman said. “Did you want to come in?”
Eun-young waved her hand. “No.” She couldn’t bear the thought of stepping inside to see the home she had shared with her husband, to see its recognizable nooks and alcoves, and also how much it would have changed. “I’ve disturbed you enough as it is. Thank you.”
“Are we talking about the same man?” the woman asked, concerned.
“No,” Eun-young replied, stepping down off the stoop. “The man I’m talking about is married. He is married.”
“Well, I hope you find him.”
Eun-young nodded weakly, then turned away from the house and began walking back up the street, leaving the woman and her son to stare at her in mild confusion before closing the door.
Her subsequent wander was not directionless. The pathways of familiarity were reborn in her brain, the streets no longer foreign but tapping into a disquieting muscle memory. She knew exactly how to find her way to the neighbourhood where Po’s family had lived. It was within walking distance, if she felt strong. There was no guarantee that any of them were still living there, but she had to see for herself. Eun-young began to choke up again as she made the trek, her head full of so many rancid anxieties. It was as if they aged her a decade as she walked.
She arrived in their neighbourhood half an hour later — and discovered that the cluster of small Korean homes where Po’s parents and siblings had lived were gone, torn down and replaced by an office building that housed a Department of Motor Vehicles and an English hagwon. Eun-young’s heart sank. Po’s family had most likely scattered and moved to other districts in the growing metropolis of Pusan. She stood on the corner in front of the office building, shaking her head. She now had to find her way to the bus terminal to catch the late afternoon shuttle back to Seoul. Why had she even bothered to come? What had she hoped to —
Across the street, she saw a storefront that she recognized. It was a small dry cleaners that Po’s sister Pan-im and her husband had owned. It still had the overhead sign that Eun-young remembered from those years ago, with its bright yellow background and black Hangul lettering. She stood staring at it for a moment, then crossed the street toward it. As she did, a woman came out to
ting a long plastic bag of jackets over her shoulder, their hangers clasped in her palm. Another woman came out behind her, waved and wished her a good day. The second woman was Pan-im. Fiftyish now, in a gray work shirt and slacks.
She turned then, casually, and saw Eun-young standing on the sidewalk. At first the smile stayed on her lips, but then her eyes found the telltale scar over Eun-young’s mouth. Eun-young watched as recognition flooded the woman’s face, a face that suddenly stiffened, brow tightening and eyes like hot stones in their sockets.
“Hello, Pan-im,” Eun-young said shyly.
Her former sister-in-law just stood there with her lips packed tightly together.
“I said hello, Pan-im.”
Po’s sister bared her teeth. “Hello, you little whore.”
The word knocked the wind from Eun-young’s lungs, much like the journalist’s use of Chosunjin had done days earlier. She couldn’t seize enough breath to form words.
“What are you doing here?” Pan-im spat.
“I’m looking for Po,” she finally muttered. “I came down from Seoul today. The Olympics … the Olympics drove me out of the city … I couldn’t watch them … I needed to see Po … I needed to tell him …”
“Po is dead,” Pan-im said, in a tone that was almost proud. Proud at how those words cut off Eun-young’s rambling with such force.
“Wh-when?” she quaked, and already knew the answer.
“Four years ago.”
Eun-young brought a hand to her mouth.
Pan-im’s smile was nothing but pure hatred. “Look at you,” she said. “Look at you, Eun-young, standing on the street outside my store after all these years, and weeping.” She let out a laugh. “You, the little woman of mysteries. You, who left my brother with no explanation, abandoned your marriage for no reason. You, who arrived in our lives like a ghost out of some oblivion, then vanished back into it as quickly as you came. And leaving my brother destroyed in your wake. And now here you are, not a ghost at all but a woman of flesh and blood — and weeping, weeping in front of me and my little store!”
Eun-young felt as if she had been stripped naked and put on display.
“Do you wish to know what happened to him? Hmm? Yes? No? Speak, woman.”
Eun-young could not. She clenched her chin in her clavicles and stared at the sidewalk.
“Nineteen years, Eun-young. Nineteen years of unwavering solitude. We tried to reason with him, to talk him out of it. But he was adamant — and he held his ground until the day he died. Oh, he still showed up for work every day. He still came out for Chuseok, for birthday parties, for other family things. But he was never really with us. He stayed entirely locked up within himself, and no matter how much we pleaded with him to come out, he never relented. He never stopped mourning the loss of his little woman of mysteries.”
“I didn’t know …”
“You didn’t know? Who cares! Listen to me, Eun-young. My brother was never a strong man — he was a bit of a wimp his whole life. But he deserved better than to grieve over you for so long, and to die in that house by himself. That’s right. One day four years ago, his heart just gave out. It just stopped beating, Eun-young. It just didn’t want to go on. We found him face down in the cat food by the door!”
Pan-im took a step closer to her. Eun-young flinched, certain that her sister-in-law would strike her. Passersby on both sides of the street had paused to stare at them.
“You, a little woman of mysteries?” Pan-im went on. “Ha! Well, you’re no mystery to me. I think I know what you were before you came into our lives. A prostitute, that’s what I think. A whore, Eun-young. I think you sold your body to American soldiers while they were carving up our country with the Russians, and then fled down here out of shame — looking for a life of solitude and never expecting a good man to fall in love with a dirty rag like you.”
“Not true … it’s not true …” She could feel the neighbourhood’s gaze all over her.
“Look me in the eye, Eun-young, and tell me you never had a man before Po. Look into my face and say you were a virgin on your wedding night. Can you do that?”
Eun-young stepped back, began to turn.
“You can’t, can you? Because you’re a whore. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re a whore! You’re a horrible, horrible whore! That’s it, Eun-young, walk away. Go on. Turn your back on me, just like you turned your back on Po. Walk away, you prostitute. Go back to Seoul, you harpy. Look everyone. Look at the whore from Seoul! Look at her as she walks away from the family she ruined. Look at the woman who killed my brother! Look at her! Look! Look before she vanishes again!”
The kid with the violent comic book got up to get off the subway. Eun-young had been watching him out of the corner of her eye for countless stops as he sat in the seat beside hers. A teenager, maybe sixteen, his pure-black hair foisted off his scalp in every which direction and held in place by some foul-smelling spray. The only interruption to his reading was a quick call on his handphone. Discussion of a video game, mostly — and the mention of a girl. Now, the boy stood at the doors, grasping the hand strap as he waited for the subway to pull up to the platform. Flipped open his handphone once, probably to check the time. The doors opened and he slipped out coolly to go meet up with his friends.
That is youth, Eun-young thought. That is what youth is supposed to be.
Her thoughts lingered on her botched trip to Pusan during the Olympics as she closed in on her visit to Ji-young. Why did that hateful voyage stay in her mind now? It had to be more than this familiar feeling of arriving somewhere too late for her presence to have any impact. Why did this trouble her so much now?
Because Po had died of a broken heart.
That’s right. His heart had just stopped beating. The same thing had happened to Eun-young’s mother. She had been waiting, with a useless hope, for Eun-young to come back from wherever the Japanese had taken her — and knowing deep down that she wouldn’t. Not ever. And her heart, shattered and weak, just gave up in the face of such horror and sadness. And the same thing had happened to Po. Waiting — and then just giving up.
And now here Eun-young was, so many years removed from those days, but facing it all over again. And it was Ji-young who was overwhelmed by that unshakeable sense of han, all that accumulated sadness strangling her. And waiting for the one person who could come and help her, who possessed the wisdom to ease that sorrow.
Her station came and Eun-young hobbled toward the doors. The subway stopped and she stepped out onto the platform. Walked through the turnstiles, then up the escalators that led to Ji-young’s neighbourhood. A short walk down the main drag and she was at her apartment building, a low brown structure with old Hanja lettering over the door. Eun-young stepped into the lobby and made her rickety climb up to the second floor. On the landing, she paused before Ji-young and Chung Hee’s embossed steel door. And then knocked. A moment of excruciating silence, and then the deadbolt turned. The door opened. And Ji-young appeared before her, wearing a black linen dress with matching kerchief tied over her hair. Her face looked utterly ancient in its sadness as it stared for a moment at her older sister standing at the threshold. Eun-young felt shame wash over her, felt like every stained cell of her body wanted to flake away, felt that every violation she had endured was now visible on her skin and that she could never —
“You came!” Ji-young said, and threw her arms around her sister.
“I’m so sorry,” Eun-young wept. “I meant to come sooner. I did. It’s just taken me a while. You know? It’s taken me a while. I’m so sorry, Ji-young.”
“Don’t be foolish, don’t be foolish, I understand, you’re here now, please come in, come on in, my sister …”
The apartment that Ji-young and Chung Hee shared was small but brightly lit, with real hardwood floors, Korean scroll paintings on the walls and a venerable jungle of houseplants — ferns and cacti and African violets — lined up on the rock ledge leading to the frosted door of the sunroom. On shelves
everywhere were framed pictures of children and grandchildren.
“I’ll make some tea,” Ji-young said, squeezing her sister’s hand. “Go sit in the sunroom and I’ll bring it in to you.”
Eun-young did what she was told. She slid open the frosted door and sat on one of the mats by the low cherry-wood table, tucking her legs under her and setting her cane against the wall. Ji-young soon came in with a teapot and small ceramic cups arranged on a tray. She set them down on the table, positioning herself on the mat across from Eun-young’s, and began to pour.
Eun-young reached out for her hands. “Perhaps under the circumstances, I should be serving you.”
“Don’t be silly. Here.” And she handed her one of the steaming cups.
The two old women sat in silence for a moment, sipping their tea.
“Is Chung Hee home?”
“No. He went to the park to play changgi with some friends. He should be back soon.”
“How is he?”
“Better than last week,” Ji-young said with a nod. Sipped her tea and lowered her eyes. “Last week was very hard.”
“And how are you, my sister?” Eun-young asked, trying to pry Ji-young’s gaze back up. “You mentioned insomnia on the phone. Has it improved at all?”
“A little.” Ji-young frowned, lowered her stare even more. Then she said: “I have been a fool.”
“Oh Ji-young, why do you say such a thing?”
