“Me too!”
And suddenly the conversation shifted as the women began to speak of their love of their sons and grandsons. Joon-lee kept writing, but I wasn’t sure she was getting the information she’d hoped for. As for me, I was troubled. She’d made me see things in a different way. We lived on an island of goddesses. One for childbirth, one for child death, one for the hearth, one for the sea, and so on, with gods serving as their consorts. Our strongest goddess was Grandmother Seolmundae—the embodiment of our island. Our strongest real woman was Kim Mandeok, who’d saved the people during the Most Horrendous Famine, but we’d been inspired by made-up women and girls too. Every single person in the bulteok had either read or had read to her the story of Heidi. But as strong as we were and as much as we did, not one of us would ever be chosen to run the Village Fishery Association or be elected to Hado’s village council.
* * *
In August, when our sweet potato crop was ready to harvest, Joon-lee came with Do-saeng and me on the first day to help. She lasted exactly one hour before sitting in the shade of the rock wall that edged the field. She pulled out a transistor radio and a notebook from her backpack. The music she played? Eeee. It hurt my ears, but it kept away the crows. She began writing. It had to be another letter.
“Who are you writing to this time?” I asked.
“A friend. In Seoul.”
Do-saeng glanced over at me. She’d kept quiet about my daughter, but I could tell she disapproved of the way Joon-lee acted.
“Every day you write,” I said. “You take your letters to the post office, but I never see you receive anything in return.”
“That’s because everyone’s so busy,” she replied, not even looking up from her notebook. “Seoul isn’t like Jeju. The magic of Seoul is that boredom is impossible. There’s culture, history, and creativity everywhere.”
When she was a little girl, her inquisitiveness had gotten her into trouble on occasion, but it had also taken her to where she was now. I should have been exulting in her accomplishments, but all I felt was sadness.
* * *
Then too fast—although in many ways it wasn’t fast enough—it was time for Joon-lee to go back to her university. Do-saeng and I packed dried fish, sweet potatoes, and jars of kimchee for her to take to her dormitory. I prepared an envelope with money for her to spend on books and other supplies. I’d even re-dyed one of her persimmon-cloth outfits to make it stronger, although I had a feeling she’d never wear it in Seoul.
When Joon-lee entered the room, she was already dressed in her traveling outfit—a sleeveless white blouse and what I’d learned was called a miniskirt. What she said startled me more than anything else she’d said or done all summer.
“Mother, before I leave, will you take me with you to Yo-chan’s house?”
I took a breath, hoping to slow my racing heart, then asked, “Why would I take you there?”
She lifted a single shoulder. “You go every day. I thought you could take me with you.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
She looked away, avoiding my eyes. “Yo-chan asked me to get something for him.”
Beside me, Do-saeng hissed between clenched teeth. I stared hard at my daughter, but I tried to tread carefully.
“You’re in contact with Yo-chan?”
“We’ve known each other since we were kids,” she said, as if I didn’t know that.
“They moved away—”
“But we met again in Seoul.”
“That you even know him is a surprise,” I admitted, while keeping my voice as steady as possible.
“I saw him on campus one day. We recognized each other right away. He invited me to a restaurant to see his mother—”
“Mi-ja—”
“They’ve been kind to me. He’s attending the Graduate School of Business right on campus, and—”
“Joon-lee, don’t hurt me this way.”
“I’m not hurting you. We’re friends. That’s all. They take me out for dinner sometimes.”
“Please stay away from them.” That I had to beg my daughter for this seemed incomprehensible to me.
She stared at me in frustration. “You go to her house every day.”
“That’s different.”
“Deep roots remain tangled underground,” she recited. “Yo-chan’s mother says that about the two of you, and I guess she’s right.”
“I’m not tangled with Mi-ja,” I said, but I wasn’t speaking truthfully. I don’t know why I felt compelled to visit her house every day, but I was drawn there nevertheless. I watered the flowers she’d left behind. I washed her floors when they got dirty. I went to the city office every year to make sure the taxes were paid. (They were.) If Mi-ja ever came back, I’d be ready for her. For now, though, I had to convince my daughter to avoid Mi-ja and her son. “It would bring me solace to know that when you’re far from home you won’t see them. Can you please promise me that?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You said the same thing years ago when you broke your arm, and yet here we are.”
Defiance flared in her eyes, but she said, “I promise, all right? Now will you let me get the thing Yo-chan needs from his house? I said I’d bring it to him. After that—”
“What is this thing?”
“I don’t know exactly. He said it’s in a chest that sits against the wall in the main room.”
I knew everything in that house, and what was in that chest did not belong to Yo-chan. It belonged to Mi-ja. It was her father’s book.
“You know,” my daughter went on, “I could have gone over there any day this summer and picked it up. I didn’t have to ask you.”
But of course she did, because I would have noticed if anything was missing.
“I was showing you respect,” she insisted.
This I had to believe.
“The sooner this is behind us, the better,” I said. “I’ll take you.”
Joon-lee rewarded me with her father’s smile.
But I was still hurt. These past few years, I’d been obliged to accept orders from the man from the Village Fishery Association, but my consolation had come from knowing I was giving my daughter the best education possible. She was smart and ambitious. She knew things I would never know. But now I saw other realities: You can do everything for a child. You can encourage her to read and do her math homework. You can forbid her to ride a bike, giggle too much, or see a boy. I’d just asked her to promise she wouldn’t see Yo-chan or Mi-ja again. She’d done so grudgingly. Sometimes everything you do is as pointless and as ineffective as shouting into the wind.
A Guest for One Hundred Years
1972–1975
“Sit. Sit,” I said in heavily accented English to the American soldiers. I squatted on my haunches, surrounded by plastic tubs filled with abalone, sea cucumber, sea squirt, and sea urchin. I also had a basket stuffed with paper plates, plastic spoons, and napkins. These servicemen on leave from battles in Vietnam looked young to me, but some of them had a haunted look I easily recognized. Or they were drunk. Or using drugs.
“What are you selling today, Granny?” a local boy the servicemen had hired asked.
“Here’s sea squirt—the ginseng of the sea. It will help these men below the belt.”
The boy translated this. A couple of the soldiers laughed. One turned bright red. Two others pretended to gag. Young men. Even when they’re embarrassed they try to outdo each other. I could profit from that. I reached into a tub and pulled out a sea squirt.