by Samuel Park
“I did it. I got you.”
“And I got you,” said Soo-Ja, trying to sound casual.
Min laughed, as if she were a fool. “Yes. That’s what you got.”
Soo-Ja was still bothered by Min lying to her about how many siblings he had. “Was there anything else you lied to me about?” She realized this might sound harsh, but Min did not seem to notice. Strange talk for one’s wedding night.
“I couldn’t take the risk of you bolting. If you knew I had five siblings, you’d never have agreed to marry me.”
“I never thought about your family much. I always knew we’d leave them and go to Seoul, just the two of us,” said Soo-Ja, tasting the anticipation in her lips.
“I don’t know what gave you that idea,” said Min, his voice sounding like metal. “We belong here, with my parents. It is our job to serve them.”
Soo-Ja felt as if the air were being squeezed out of her lungs. “But you said you’re going with me to Seoul,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “To start my training as a diplomat. You said you’d let me—”
“I never said anything like that,” said Min, a little too quickly, almost snapping at her. “Why would I?”
“I thought… You told me…” said Soo-Ja, her heart sinking.
“Are you talking about that letter your father gave me?” asked Min.
“My father?” asked Soo-Ja, her jaw dropping. “He gave you that—”
“Yes, but I threw it away. Pieces of paper like that are dangerous. They give you paper cuts.”
Soo-Ja felt the room begin to whirl around her, and she had to reach against the wall to remain steady. Soo-Ja realized how badly she had misjudged Min. He would never let her go to diplomat school. He would never support her goals. She had imagined she could live outside her own time and place, free from the same gravity that bound everyone else. But she’d been wrong.
“What did my father tell you when he gave you that letter?” asked Soo-Ja.
“Your father is not like mine,” said Min, not answering her question. “Once my father makes a decision, he sticks with it. Is this how it’s always been for you? He says no to you, and then he feels sorry and says yes? I bet you don’t even know what it’s like. To not get what you want. You have been spoiled all your life, Soo-Ja. I could tell when I first met you.” Min let out another big cloud of smoke. Soo-Ja knew the unfairness of his words. “You also have a habit of not wanting to admit defeat. I’m not sure yet if it’s a good or a bad quality.”
“I didn’t realize I was defeated,” said Soo-Ja, feeling bruised. Her mind wandered to the night they had first made love. Lights flashed in her head, blinding her.
“Have you ever not come out on top?” asked Min.
“You didn’t get much in the bargain, Min,” said Soo-Ja, trying to recover some of her footing. “I’m not exactly a princess.”
“No, but you’re not a factory girl or a farmer’s daughter, and those were the kinds of girls I was courting before I met you.”
Soo-Ja closed her eyes. She could not bear to look at her husband. “I think we should try to go to sleep. We have a long trip ahead of us tomorrow. I would say good night and turn off the lamp, but it’s dead already.”
“All right, I’m sorry,” said Min, sounding disingenuous. “What I said, just strike it from the record.”
In the dark, Soo-Ja changed from her street clothes into her pajamas. She slipped under the blankets and lay next to Min. Tears began to fall. She could not fall asleep, and she sensed that neither could he. Then she heard a small voice say something. It barely registered, like a sound squeezed out of an animal’s throat. She turned to Min and heard him repeat it, louder this time.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?” Soo-Ja whispered back.
Min turned his back to her. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
PART TWO
Orchid
Three Years Later
Daegu, South Korea
1963
chapter six
Soo-Ja thought of herself as a mother first, but for the rest of the world, she was a daughter-in-law. And as such, she was expected to take care of all the Lee children, especially her teenage sister-in-law Na-yeong. Her parents lavished upon Na-yeong all kinds of expensive sweets and treats, though Soo-Ja wasn’t sure why they had chosen her as the single object of their attention and love. Perhaps they favored Na-yeong because she was one of the youngest, thought Soo-Ja, and thus least damaged, or the one with the shortest list of grudges. Maybe the chosen one had originally been Min, until her in-laws finally realized they couldn’t rely on him—Min was too erratic and rebellious, quitting activism one day, then taking up boxing the next, only to quit it, too, and return to his father’s factory, though not as a manager but as a packer. Soo-Ja wondered if maybe her in-laws, in private discussions, had gone down the list of names of their children one by one and ran out of options—Min’s sister Seon-ae, the second oldest, had left home and never come back; Chung-Ho, the third eldest, resented being forced to leave school and work; Du-Ho was not very smart and therefore written off; and In-Ho, the youngest boy, was too prone to sickness.
So when Na-yeong turned eighteen, it was a momentous occasion, and her in-laws set up a meeting with a matchmaker to find her a husband. When Soo-Ja heard about this, she began to look at Na-yeong with a suitor’s eyes. Tall, long-limbed Na-yeong wasn’t beautiful, but she also wasn’t homely. Na-yeong had fine, almost patrician features, her face not round like her parents’, but a long oval. Her eyes were also bigger, and sometimes luminous. Na-yeong did not look like Mother-in-law, who was tanned and robust, but when Soo-Ja looked through an old photo album of the family, she saw she looked just like her grandmother. Na-yeong’s features had skipped one generation, and she had been plucked straight from the past, maybe from a long line of women who looked just like she did.
But Na-yeong was clearly her parents’ daughter, in that she had almost all the same facial expressions and, like her father, hardly ever smiled. You could tell right away they were father and daughter. Soo-Ja imagined that what was inside Father-in-law had managed to manifest itself on the surface of Na-yeong’s body, as if what’s inside a parent could show up on the child’s appearance. Father-in-law had a general’s build and moved like a tree trunk, but in Na-yeong’s thin frame, Soo-Ja could see the emptiness inside Father-in-law; in Na-yeong’s bony arms and legs, his exquisite avarice.
If she were the matchmaker, what kind of man would she bring for Na-yeong? Soo-Ja wondered. For there must be someone for her, since everyone has a match. Only in books is marriage reserved exclusively for heroines. In real life, her cousin and her cousin’s cousin must get married, too. Soo-Ja pictured boy after boy for Na-yeong—slender, chubby, young, old, rich, poor—until Na-yeong caught Soo-Ja staring at her, and she looked away. But when Na-yeong focused her attention back on a magpie outside the window, Soo-Ja stared at her again, wondering what makes two people right for each other. Was it invisible, like gas, or open to the eye, like sparks in wiring?
Weeks went by without news from the matchmaker, until finally she said she’d bring a suitor for Na-yeong. Mother-in-law clapped her hands once, in excitement, as if catching a fly, and when Na-yeong shyly looked up from her romance novel, Soo-Ja could hear her young heart beating from across the room. So they were like her, Soo-Ja realized; unable to temper their emotions with caution, jumping at a new possibility like a mad diver off a cliff. How is it that they were not exhausted and spent at the end of the day, when the mere promise of love, of a partner, could whip them all into a state of frenzy?
The day the suitor was to arrive, the entire house was in a whirl, for they rarely had guests, and never any of consequence. They all felt invested in this, as if they’d been movie extras previously forgotten in a greenroom, and had finally been asked to report to the soundstage for their scene. The boys all dressed up in their best, and Father-in-law and Mother-in-law put on their hanboks.
Soo-Ja herself spent the morning making sweet rice cakes. She steamed the grain until it became sticky and pounded it on the mortar until it hardened. She then covered the white cake with mashed red beans, cutting it into square pieces.
Soo-Ja did not complain as she prepared the confection. In the years since her wedding, Soo-Ja had mastered what she called her outside Hahoe face—serious, though not serious enough to the point of being a frown. She put that mask on, preventing others from looking in and seeing her unhappiness. With it, she could hide her anger and frustration, and expertly play the part of the obedient daughter-in-law. For Soo-Ja, that was a job like any other, and if she couldn’t be a diplomat, then she would take all her energy and discipline and channel it to the household. While her sister-in-law frequently feigned being ill to avoid doing chores, Soo-Ja rose without complaint early every morning, and did the work that kept things running.
Around the time the suitor was supposed to arrive, Soo-Ja ran back toward her room to change. She wanted to make her daughter and herself look more presentable. She was about to go in when she saw Mother-in-law walking urgently in her direction.
“The rice cakes are on the plate. I’m just getting changed,” Soo-Ja told her.
But Mother-in-law—her hanbok gown sweeping the floor—kept walking until she reached her. She looked worried.
“Hana’s mother, go for a walk with your daughter and stay outside for a few hours.”
“Go out? Why?” Soo-Ja stood on the small walkway between the main house and her own quarters. Her daughter leaned against her legs playfully.
“Just until he’s gone.”
Soo-Ja looked at her, stung. “Why? Why can’t I stay?”
“Because of the way you look.”
“The way I look?” asked Soo-Ja, more confused than offended.
“Like a poor relation.”
Soo-Ja looked down at her old pink cotton shirt, faded after many washings; her indigo skirt passé now, but fashionable a few years back. It had been months, too, since she’d had a proper haircut, and now she wore her hair held back all the time.
“It’s cold outside,” said Soo-Ja curtly, holding her daughter closer to her. “I don’t want Hana to get sick.”
“You’re always dying to go out, to do this, to do that. Now I ask you, for a good reason, and you’re reluctant. You’re like the stubborn frog in the folk tale, always doing the opposite of what he’s asked.”
“I’ll just wait in my room until he’s gone.”
“No! The child’s going to make a racket and disturb the guest!”
“Child? You mean, your granddaughter,” said Soo-Ja, indignation scorching her body.
“Yes, granddaughter, not grandson. You have a big mouth for someone who’s failed at her only duty in life. Now go. You remember what happened last time you disobeyed me?”
“You took Hana away from me for a day,” said Soo-Ja, the memory still branded into her brain.
“Yes. Let’s see how you’d like it if I made that a week. But the problem isn’t her, it’s you. You can leave her behind if you want,” said Mother-in-law, turning around and rushing back to the main house.
Soo-Ja wouldn’t leave Hana behind any more than she would leave behind an arm or a hand. Hana went everywhere with her. How unfortunate that mothers didn’t have pouches on their bellies, like kangaroo mothers did! Instead you saw them as Quasimodo creatures on the street, women with babies (and sometimes toddlers as old as three) strapped to their backs, hunched forward like two-headed animals, one face to the past, the other to the future.
Hana, who’d been listening to this conversation carefully and who loved leaving the house, glanced at her, waiting for her decision. Saying nothing, Soo-Ja put a coat on her daughter and placed a warm woolen cap over the child’s head. Hana spontaneously danced, as she always knew when Soo-Ja gave her the cap that she’d get to go for a walk.
“I like eomma when eomma take me out!” said Hana, the words roundly slipping out of her lips.
“I know, but it’s cold, Hana.”
“I don’t like eomma!” Hana protested, thinking that her mother had changed her mind.
“But you just said you did,” Soo-Ja teasingly replied.
“Only when eomma take me out!”
“Oh—so only when eomma take Hana out?” asked Soo-Ja, kneeling in front of her, smiling. “You don’t like eomma all the time?”
Hana shook her head. “No!”
“Eomma likes Hana all the time, though. Does Hana like eomma when I give her sweet potatoes?”
“I like eomma!”
“How about when I sing a song for Hana?”
“I like eomma!”
“Then I guess I’m going to have to take you out all the time, and give you sweet potatoes, and sing to you, huh?”
“Yes! Do that!”
“Do that?” Soo-Ja could not hide her delight. “All right, I’ll do that.”
How could her daughter entertain her so? Soo-Ja wondered. In her little girl, she had found her greatest ally. Hana made her laugh, made her feel light. Even though Soo-Ja spent so much time taking care of her, she still felt like she was the one getting the better part of the bargain.
Soo-Ja could not imagine her life without Hana. From the moment she was born, Hana had delighted her. On each birthday, Soo-Ja thought, with a tinge of regret, Oh, don’t get older. You’ll never be as adorable. She didn’t want her child to lose her baby fat. She would miss the plumpness of the girl’s arms, the rotund, soft belly. She wanted to keep Hana a baby forever.
But babies had a way of surprising their parents, and each year, Soo-Ja found her daughter even more lovable. Around Hana, Soo-Ja felt like she could do and say anything. Her daughter, now almost three years old, gave her a magic lasso, and inside this circle—large enough only for the two of them—Soo-Ja felt freer than ever.
“All right, Hana, let’s go,” said Soo-Ja.
On her way out, Soo-Ja saw everyone nervously and excitedly gathering in the main room. Nobody noticed her, the whole family caught up in the roles they were to play. Only Du-Ho, who was now fourteen, and who appreciated her help with his sugje—his homework—stopped her and asked her where she was going. When she told him she had an urgent errand, he smiled mischievously and said not to worry, as he’d fill her in later and let her know if the suitor was ugly or handsome, and what kind of clothes he wore. If he wore flannel pants, Du-Ho said, he’d make faces at him. She smiled back at him and continued walking to the door.
As she made her way into the courtyard, Soo-Ja noticed the fish swimming in the murky lotus pond. There were four or five of them, and they seemed as excited as the people inside, rushing off in all directions. Soo-Ja smiled, admiring their intense colors and odd shapes—a yellow koi with a long tail; some goldfish with protruding mouths; twin orfes with silvery fins. The fish were about to disappear from her line of vision when she noticed the first specks of snow of the season landing on the stone edges of the pond.
Soo-Ja looked around, hoping to find Du-Ho or one of the boys, but they were all inside, adjusting their outfits and combing their hair. She could not find a servant, either. There had been many forecasts of snow; Soo-Ja wondered why no one had had the forethought to remove the fish from the pond and put them indoors. As Hana cooed at her beloved pets, her little fingers tracing their zigzags, Soo-Ja realized that the fish had been simply left to die.
With no further thought, Soo-Ja reached for a pot and tried to use it to scoop up the fish. She failed the first few times, with the fish too alert to her, anticipating her movements. Soo-Ja grew frustrated, aware that the suitor could be arriving at the house at any moment. Mother-in-law would be furious if she caught her still at home.
But the more eagerly Soo-Ja approached the fish, the quicker they seemed to evade her, swimming out of the pot each time she tried to lift it out of the water. Oh, you dumb, dumb fish, Soo-Ja muttered under her breath. Can’t you see I’m trying to save you? What do you think
is going to happen if you stay in that pond?
Soo-Ja placed the pot by the side of the pond. She decided she would have to catch the fish by hand. Trying to ignore the glacially cold water, Soo-Ja lowered her outstretched palms into the pond and waited for one of the fish to linger over them. She could barely keep her hands still, as the cold seemed to travel directly to her brain. She fought the temptation to free her hands, watching as they trembled.
When a goldfish that had been lying sluggish at the bottom of the pond finally rested above her palms, Soo-Ja snapped her hands shut. She could feel the fish beating against her flesh wildly, obviously unaware that she was trying to save it. As if reading her mother’s mind, Hana quickly raised the half-empty pot in her mother’s direction, spilling much of the water. Soo-Ja opened her hands into it. The tiny fish flopped in the air for a second, and then seemed to take a dive, careening wildly back and forth before it finally settled down. Soo-Ja repeated this with the others, one by one. By the time she’d finished, her hands had turned a ghostly white, and she could no longer feel any sensation in them.
Soo-Ja sighed with relief, glad that she was done before the suitor’s arrival, and before the snowstorm started. But just as she was about to finally make her way out of the courtyard, Soo-Ja heard the gate open and saw a handsome man in his thirties, wearing a Western-style suit, walk hurriedly toward her. He had surprisingly long hair, with bangs that fell slightly over one eye and a healthy tan that spoke of far away, of long retreats in the mountains. He smiled overexcitedly and delivered a deep, heartfelt bow. Soo-Ja bowed back and knew right away that this was the suitor, Iseul.
“Did I get the time wrong? I thought I was early, but maybe I’m late, as I see you’ve gotten impatient and decided to leave,” said Iseul.
Soo-Ja saw that he had mistaken her for Na-yeong. She glanced over to see the matchmaker still at the front gate, haggling with the taxi driver who’d brought them there in his Senara.
