“Father!” she said when she spotted SungSoo.
“How was school today?” SungSoo said indulgently to his favorite child. When SeoHee was younger, he had found her dull and uninteresting, just like all children. As she grew into a pretty adolescent, however, SungSoo began to enjoy spending time with her and spoiling her with gifts.
“It was good! I did well in my algebra exam,” SeoHee said in a bright staccato. Her soft black hair was bobbed and parted sideways. It went well with her uniform of a white blouse, a navy jumper, and a midlength navy skirt.
“Good, good. So what’s wrong with the bicycle?”
SeoHee began to explain rapidly how whenever she rode on flat ground, it was fine, but when she’d go downhill, the bike would start to skew right on its own. As she did so she noticed HanChol standing off to the side, and began fidgeting with her glossy black hair.
“HanChol, take a look at the bike, will you? I have to go back to the office for a meeting,” SungSoo said. “What are you going to do now, SeoHee? Go straight home and study?”
“Father, I studied so hard for my exam! Today I want to go by the bookstore.” The girl smiled winningly. She had inherited SungSoo’s charm and good looks but not his selfishness, which made her easy to adore.
“Oh, you mean the record store and the bakery . . .” SungSoo teased, but he was pulling out his wallet nonetheless. “Don’t tell your mother.” He winked as he handed over her allowance.
“Thank you, Father!” she shouted and waved her father away. Meanwhile, HanChol was already crouched next to her bike with his toolbox. SeoHee walked over to him.
“How long will it take to fix?” she asked shyly, both wanting and not wanting to catch his eyes.
“This shouldn’t take more than an hour,” HanChol replied, keeping his eyes on the bike. He had noticed that SeoHee was a very pretty girl and that she was stealing glances at him. It caused him discomfort.
“I could come back in an hour . . . But then it would be dark, and my mother would worry. Should I come back tomorrow?”
“Yes,” HanChol said, finally straightening up and looking at her. It would be rude otherwise. “Come back tomorrow please.”
*
WINTER CAME EARLY THAT YEAR. The waterbirds from Siberia were settled around the shimmering sheets of ice covering the Han River. The air smelled of snow and woodfire on Luna’s wedding day.
After years of politely rebuffing the deputy consul’s advances, she had finally relented and accepted his proposal. She had become fond of Curtice’s kind blue eyes and his fiery red hair that shockingly sprouted not just on his head, but also on the back of his neck and even on the tops of his hands. Though he had a wild appearance, he had the most gentle disposition. He stood up when she entered the room and always let her walk in front of him. Every request came with a Please and a Thank you. Most of all, he promised her that they would move to America, where Hesook would receive the best education. That was what turned the tide in his favor.
They were getting married in a Catholic church with stained glass windows and a steeple that rose high above the Seoul skyline. The wedding was in the afternoon, but the whole household was up and preparing before sunrise. Dani herself was helping Luna bathe and brush her hair. Jade was laying out the clothes for the ceremony and the reception. The maids were making the breakfast and the reception food.
At nine, Lotus brought her mother from the train station.
“Unni!” Dani was the first to embrace Silver at the gates. They clasped each other and didn’t let go for a long time, not able to say much more. Each one was surprised at how much lighter and airier the other had become over the years, at that sun-bleached quality a woman’s body acquired after middle age. Silver was always slender, but she was now shrunken. She had not dyed her hair black, as fashionable women did these days, and her silver-streaked hair, parted severely in the middle and coiled into a chignon, made her look ten years older than Dani.
The younger cousin had kept up with the latest trends, and her careful maintenance had lent her appearance a graceful orderliness that was lacking in most middle-aged women. But at forty-nine she was well past the point when men would look at her with desire or admiration, as so many did back in the day. Recently, she’d begun having night sweats, clammy skin, and flushed cheeks. No matter how much she tried to maintain her weight, she seemed only to get lighter. Each woman was astonished by the change in her friend’s appearance, tried to hide it, and became sad upon realizing that if her friend was so changed, she herself must be as well. They had both been the great beauties of their times.
“Where’s my daughter?” Silver asked when they had adjusted to each other’s presence.
Luna was just finishing up when she heard her mother’s footsteps in the hallway. She ran out and threw herself into Silver’s arms. Her mother had visited only a handful of times in the past sixteen years, each time complaining of Seoul’s strangeness and upholding PyongYang’s superiority. That was too little time spent together, and she had been so young when she left home—the same age as Hesook was now. Silver patted her, cooing, “Don’t cry, shhh . . . ,” but Luna couldn’t keep the tears from flowing. In her mother’s arms, she again resembled a leopard-like fifteen-year-old girl with a long thick braid that had never been cut.