This Burns My Heart

Chapter fifteen

With Yul gone, Soo-Ja began to think of him even more often. She imagined him next to her, offering that sad-hopeful smile of his as she did the most mundane of tasks. How is it possible that Yul cannot be mine, when the pain of his absence feels like a cave inside my heart?

Soo-Ja could tell no one about her feelings—Yul was a secret, the way any great love was, to some extent, a secret. But when she asked her own self, she heard the words loud and clear: You are not finished with him, and he is not finished with you. Even if you two wanted to, you could not fight this longing. Which led, of course, to the one person who’d most like to see the end of the bond between them: once, always, forever, Eun-Mee.

“Hana’s mother, what are you doing this afternoon? It’s Saturday, and it’s the eve of the lunar festival. Surely you can’t be working!” Eun-Mee stood before Soo-Ja in her fur coat, with a light pink embroidered top underneath and a long, flowing skirt. Soo-Ja put away her guest book, taken aback by her presence at the hotel.

“Happy New Year,” said Soo-Ja drily.

“Happy New Year,” said Eun-Mee. “Now, I know you may want to get a head start driving home for the holidays, but I’m inviting you and your husband to come to our house for tea, and to celebrate the Lunar New Year. You’ve been hearing about these renovations for so long, I’m sure you must be curious about the final result.”

“You want me to come to your house?” asked Soo-Ja, in disbelief. She had made the mistake of trusting Eun-Mee before, but never again.

Eun-Mee kept her voice even, as if she couldn’t imagine why that would be a bad idea. “Yes. This will give us a chance to say a proper good-bye after we checked out so hurriedly. You have to let us thank you for your hospitality. I’m very glad I got to stay here. Meeting you has been so… instructive.”

Soo-Ja opened her guest book again and buried her head in it, trying to remain polite. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I can go. I have a lot of shopping to do before I head to my parents’ for the long holiday.”

“Oh, Hana’s mother, aren’t you the least bit curious to see the house? It won’t take very long, just tea. Please, I know we had some… friction while I was here, but really I’m no monster. Give me an opportunity to prove that, and to make things up with you. I don’t want to end things on a sour note.”

Soo-Ja didn’t know what Eun-Mee truly had in mind, but she didn’t believe a word she had said. Nevertheless, Soo-Ja knew that their feelings for each other were more complicated than either would admit. Soo-Ja guessed that Eun-Mee hated her, but then hated herself for feeling hate, and tried to make it up to her. Eun-Mee wanted to dislike Soo-Ja, but for Soo-Ja to like her at the same time.

More important, Soo-Ja knew Yul would be at his house, of course, and try as she might, she could not really pass up the chance to be near him. If the only way to see Yul was to do so on Eun-Mee’s terms, then so be it. She’d keep her guard up, she told herself, and remember Eun-Mee’s old tricks. She called for Miss Hong and Min, and tried to ignore the confusion on Min’s face as she explained to Miss Hong her duties during their absence.

• • •

And so the four of them ended up meeting in front of the hotel to walk together to Eun-Mee and Yul’s new house. It was not very far, Eun-Mee explained, just four blocks west of the New World Shopping Center. It was too cold, actually, to walk, but the streets were alive with festivities related to the Lunar New Year, and they felt like losing themselves in the lively crowd. They looked well, too, Eun-Mee with her brown fur coat and Soo-Ja in a navy sweater with a low neckline and a camel’s-hair jacket. Both Yul and Min wore knee-length overcoats, Yul’s dark blue, Min’s gray with small white dots. Eun-Mee and Soo-Ja walked ahead of the men; at one point, Eun-Mee interlaced her arm around Soo-Ja’s, and smiled at her like a mischievous younger sister.

Seeing Yul again felt like an unexpected gift. Soo-Ja didn’t think it would happen so soon—if ever. Yul’s eyes seemed to say the same, a sort of bittersweet joy. Here they were, in this pas de deux, changing partners, trapped in a dance performance. Soo-Ja didn’t trust Eun-Mee, but she liked this part, all of them walking together—she liked the ordinariness of it. She imagined couples did this with other couples all the time, going out to coffee shops and restaurants, the men talking about business while the women discussed their health. She felt grateful, in a way, to Eun-Mee, for giving them a context in which they could interact—they were all friends, Eun-Mee seemed to have decided one day—and she was more than happy to play along.

They had been walking for about ten minutes when they saw a large crowd gathered in front of an impromptu stage set up by the entrance to Royal Park. On the stage were a group of four janggo street musicians performing traditional village music, meant to celebrate the harvest. They played loudly, like some ancient tribe—the intense beating of the drums made it feel as if some kind of old religious ritual were taking place, never mind the modern, concrete buildings behind them. The men wore traditional janggo costumes: a black robe held down by a yellow sash across the chest and a red belt around the waist, all made out of silk. They also wore loose white pantaloons, which matched the white bands strapped on their heads. There were four of them onstage, sitting cross-legged, one behind a cymbal, another behind a gong; the other two were behind large drums, one shaped like an hourglass, the other barrel-chested.

Soo-Ja was wondering if they were going to stay and listen to them, when Eun-Mee suddenly stepped forward gaily and made her way into the crowd, like an excited child, trying to get closer to the stage. Min followed her lead and moved closer to the stage, too, walking past Soo-Ja. She was surprised that Eun-Mee would leave Soo-Ja and Yul alone like that, until she realized that Eun-Mee didn’t know that Min had left them as well. Soo-Ja stayed in her spot, aware that Yul was right behind her. She did not have to turn to sense his familiar scent, to feel his body pulling her toward him.

Yul placed his hand on the small of Soo-Ja’s back, and she closed her eyes, the sound of drums reverberating through her body. Each bang felt like a new warning, telling her to run. The music sounded like boulders cascading down a mountain, loud enough to be heard by gods. Soo-Ja opened her eyes again, looking through the crowd for Eun-Mee, who would be coming back at any moment. Soo-Ja knew she should tell Yul to move away, but she could not. The dappled shade cannot ask the tree to leave it alone.

Min was nowhere to be seen, either. Soo-Ja kept listening to the echoes of the drums, beating without stop, the players’ hands magically flying from one end of the drum to the other. Then a sudden pause, and a four-man chant, and then the beating of the drums again, growing in intensity. The two drummers played first in perfect sync, then later against each other, sounds clashing, a kind of combat. Each turn of the head and each wave of the drumstick was carefully modulated, as if the music itself had shape and was being choreographed by their bodies.

Yul’s surprisingly warm hand brushed against Soo-Ja’s, and she quivered at his touch. They both kept staring straight ahead, their hands obscured by the crowd and their own bodies. Yul pressed a single finger, his middle finger, against the center of her palm, caressing it, almost burrowing into it. Her fingers closed in a little, and her hand was like the yellow forsythia whose trumpet-shaped petals can furl and unfurl, opening up to the sun, but then closing, to protect itself from cold winds.

Onstage, the drumming grew in intensity and the chants became more frequent. The players would pause for a second or two, letting a single beat of the drum reverberate fully through the air, then fall, promising an end. The crowd cheered; some people started clapping. Then, just when you thought it was finished, the drumming would start again, sounding more potent than ever, and you did not know if that was because their playing had grown mightier, or because they had made you miss it.

Soo-Ja had moved her hand abruptly to clap with the others, but then she returned it to her spot, eagerly, hungrily, searching for Yul’s hand. His hand quickly returned to hers, and this time, as his finger pressed against her palm, she placed her own fingers on top of his, covering them with her warmth. They stayed like that, their fingers exploring each other’s—caressing, squeezing, feeling—moving like naked bodies, skin next to skin.

Just then, Min returned, and Yul moved his hand away.

“It’s a modern stove,” said Eun-Mee, turning it on. “It controls the gas so it doesn’t all shoot off into the air. With the normal yentan gas, half of it goes straight into your lungs.”

Soo-Ja watched as Eun-Mee showed off her spacious kitchen. When Soo-Ja was growing up, kitchens reminded her of dungeons, lower in the ground than the rest of the house, suffocatingly hot, gray and dark, full of earthenware jars and ceramic pots and pans. Even in the hotel, the kitchen area was really just a sink and a small gas stove. Eun-Mee’s kitchen, however, was like something out of a magazine. Eun-Mee had a seemingly endless countertop, rows and rows of cupboards, her own refrigerator, and a washing machine.

Eun-Mee set the teakettle on the stove and was about to unwrap petits fours from their packaging when the phone rang. It was a friend of Eun-Mee’s from Pusan. As they started chatting, Soo-Ja excused herself and stepped out of the kitchen. Yul and Min were downstairs, in the garden, and Soo-Ja was able to wander around on her own. The house was enormous, especially by Seoul standards, and Soo-Ja walked through room after room: a dining room, a living room, a sitting room, and a room with a large window that looked out at some trees. Looking at the house where Yul and Eun-Mee would live out their lives, Soo-Ja understood, finally, the enormity of her mistake. She thought of that day—that cloudless day—when Yul stood before her on the eve of her wedding and asked her to choose him. If she had said yes, she would be married to Yul and living in this house with him. When Yul asked that single yes or no question—Come with me—and she said no, Soo-Ja did not know what she was saying no to. She did not know the size and weight of the consequences, how life is not set down like train tracks, and you don’t just ride above it. The life she had could not be that different from the one she could have had, she had thought. I am the same person, surely the story unfolds roughly the same way? Each decision she made couldn’t be that important, couldn’t change her life that much, right? Otherwise she’d drown in the multiple possibilities of who she could have been and was not—the Soo-Ja who went to diplomat school and worked in the government; the one who found a post teaching at a school and found another man, neither Yul nor Min; the one who never married at all, and stayed by her father’s side, a happy spinster—wouldn’t all of these women crash and collide, eventually? How could all of these versions exist, three or four for each of us, and then more so, as they intersected? Soo-Ja wondered. How could the world fit so many lives, so many iterations? It couldn’t be that big, it couldn’t fit so much. We’re only given one life, and it’s the one we live, she had thought; how painful now, to realize that wasn’t true, that you would have different lives, depending on how brave you were, and how ready. Love came to her that day—she was twenty-two—and wanted to take her, and she said no.

Why are we asked to make the most important decisions of our lives when we are so young, and so prone to mistakes? Happiness came that day—she knew nothing—and asked her to say yes and she did not. Why did she assume it would come back again, when there were so many others waiting for it to visit?

Stop it, Soo-Ja, she told herself, and she could have, if she had not made the mistake of looking out the window, and seen Yul down in the garden, showing Min around. He looked up and saw her the instant she got to the window, and with his eyes he confirmed everything she’d been thinking. It was not an accusing glance; it was wistful, a half smile on his face. It spoke of memories of things that didn’t happen; full of nostalgia for a life together that they had never shared. She looked away, as if Yul were the sun, and it would hurt her eyes if she kept looking at him. What could she say to Yul? It wasn’t just words she wanted. She wanted him to forgive her—for her cowardice and her fear, for having looked at happiness and turned away from it, afraid it would burn her, like the surface of the sun. She wanted him to know he wasn’t crazy, but that she knew, too, and that in their knowing together they could feel some consolation—that would be something they could share. It was not ideal, not at all, but still, it was warm and neat and it could be pulled out in days of need, like a woolen blanket from a treasure chest.

Soo-Ja then heard Eun-Mee call from the kitchen, and she, like a good guest, headed back to help her.

Eun-Mee poured lemon tea for the four of them in the manner of a schooled hostess, with her back perfectly straight, bending only her knees. She seemed in good spirits, heartily enjoining them to eat petits fours and drink warm tea. Soo-Ja felt for a moment that she’d misjudged her, and that Eun-Mee really did invite Min and her there to express her gratitude. Soo-Ja thought of how she might return the kindness—perhaps send her a box of pears? That feeling, however, quickly dissipated as soon as Eun-Mee opened her mouth.

“I’m so glad I no longer have to sleep in that hotel!” Eun-Mee said, sitting down across from Soo-Ja’s chair.

Min sat next to Eun-Mee, and Yul found himself next to Soo-Ja. The room looked quite luxurious, with sofas upholstered with white Mongolian fur and thick armrests made out of cherry wood. Behind them stood a stack of shelves where Yul had placed a record player, some ficus and spider plants, and an expensive-looking TV. It sat there like an afterthought, akin to a board game to be pulled out occasionally.

“Eun-Mee!” said Yul. “That’s a very rude thing to say.”

Eun-Mee suddenly became very quiet, a look of disappointment on her face. Soo-Ja did her best to stay above this.

“Nobody likes to stay in a hotel. I don’t blame Eun-Mee. You always want to be in your own home, sleep in your own bed,” Soo-Ja said, holding up her teacup.

“Oh, I don’t mind hotels,” Eun-Mee quickly corrected her. “In fact, I love the Plaza Athénée in New York, or the Napoleon in Paris, or the Fujiya in Tokyo. But where you work, it’s not really a hotel, is it? It’s more of an inn, or a motel.”

“Eun-Mee, why are you saying such rude things?” asked Yul, looking at her with annoyance.

But Soo-Ja feared his reaction could only make things worse. “Technically, she’s right. We are in fact more of an inn than a hotel,” Soo-Ja said, making it clear that she was not bothered by Eun-Mee’s comment.

“And a very dirty one, too. Dusty. And I’m telling you this as a friend, who really hopes that your little business can in fact become a real business one day.”

“Eun-Mee is right,” said Min, as usual taking sides against Soo-Ja. “You need to do something about that, Soo-Ja. We have to make sure rooms are clean. That is a basic rule. You listen well to Eun-Mee. She has a lot of valuable advice to share.”

Eun-Mee smiled faintly, almost in distaste, as if she didn’t care for the support of someone as inconsequential as Min. “I can’t help it. I’m not one of those two-faced women who pretend to be one thing in public and are something else in private.”

“Please stop talking to our guests like that,” said Yul.

“She needs our help, yeobo. You can’t think she wants to stay where she is forever. She’ll want one day to have what we have, a house like this, with working appliances and nice furniture. If she is to make something of herself, she’ll need to work somewhere better than her motel.” Eun-Mee then turned to Soo-Ja, still holding her teacup on her lap. She had not sipped a single drop, and the hot liquid kept threatening to spill over. “And I call it a motel because a place where men go to have sex with women is a motel. Do they ever ask you, by the way, to bring them girls to spend the night with?”

Yul put his teacup on the table, and then rose. “Stop it, Eun-Mee. What is wrong with you today?”

“It’s fine, Yul. You don’t need to defend me,” said Soo-Ja, doing her best to stay calm. “Actually, it’s not the men who ask, it’s the women. They come to the hotel and ask if there are men looking for company. These women have small children, or are widows, or young girls without families. They’re hungry. And yes, sometimes I tell them what door to knock on.”

“The commissions must be nice,” said Eun-Mee, smiling, looking vindicated, as if Soo-Ja had confirmed her suspicions.

“I don’t ask for it, and they don’t offer it,” Soo-Ja replied. She drank her tea as if this were normal conversation for a Saturday afternoon. She would not make a scene; she knew that’s what Eun-Mee wanted.

“Are you ever tempted to make some bucks yourself?” asked Eun-Mee.

“Eun-Mee!” Yul shouted. He looked at Soo-Ja, his eyes full of pain. She wanted to tell him, It’s okay, I can handle it.

“No, Eun-Mee, I’m not,” said Soo-Ja, looking at her evenly.

“Really? What if the guest were, say, not some ugly nincompoop, but a handsome fella, like my husband? Would you make an exception for my husband?”

Now all three of them looked at Eun-Mee, stunned. Soo-Ja could see her own hand shaking, and the tea spilling over from her cup onto her lap and falling onto the furry beige carpet. Yul rose again from his seat and walked to Eun-Mee, grabbing her arm and forcing her to rise. She resisted.

“You owe Soo-Ja an apology,” said Yul.

Soo-Ja put her teacup on the table and rose as well. She did not want Yul to take her side—it would only make things worse. All she wanted was to get out of their house.

“I’m just joking! It’s a joke,” said Eun-Mee, struggling to free her arm from Yul’s grasp, looking defiantly at him. “But I hope you can see now what kind of woman she is!”

“Thank you for the invitation, but we really should—” said Soo-Ja, turning to Min.

“A woman who steals other men’s husbands!” burst out Eun-Mee, staring straight at Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja felt her face turn hot. She understood, with no uncertainty, why Eun-Mee had brought her there—to unmask her, in the most public and embarrassing way possible.

“You’ve ruined everything in my life!” yelled Eun-Mee. Then, out of nowhere, as if to punctuate her words, Eun-Mee slapped Soo-Ja with the palm of her hand. The gesture made a sickening noise, and hit Soo-Ja so hard that it caused her to stumble and fall to the couch.

“Soo-Ja!” Yul shouted, jumping to her aid.

Her anger still unsatisfied, Eun-Mee reached toward Soo-Ja again, but Yul grabbed hold of her, restraining her with his arms. It took all his might to pull her away, as her body swung wildly in Soo-Ja’s direction, her elbows and feet kicking into the air.

Soo-Ja put a hand on her throbbing cheek, her mouth agape in shock. She felt her eyes well with tears, blinking madly. The moment felt blurry and out of focus. When she wiped the tears from her eyes she saw Yul dragging a screaming Eun-Mee into the bedroom. Soo-Ja thought about the house, the afternoon at the park, the warmth of Yul’s hand.

Soo-Ja’s cheek felt as if it had just been burnt with coal. It would probably bruise later, Eun-Mee’s palm leaving her mark. Soo-Ja shook slightly, her breathing deep and fitful. The same urge kept thrashing at her over and over, Get up, Soo-Ja. Get up.

Through all of this, Min said nothing, not moving from his chair. As Yul and Eun-Mee fought in the bedroom, their harsh words pounding the air, Min looked confused and out of place. The last few minutes, with all their commotion, felt unreal, the kind of thing you hear about secondhand, told in the form of gossip. It was strange to live it, to be a part of it, to be tossed and turned like Jonah inside the whale. Min would have to lie in bed for the rest of the day. He would feed off the events like a sick patient on a special diet, as if the wrong had been done to him.

After a few seconds, without helping Soo-Ja get up, Min rose from his chair. He headed to the kitchen, where he opened a cupboard and began taking out its contents. He found a tote bag lying on the floor and started filling it with packets of barley tea, jars of dried seaweed, and packages of anchovies. He added some peppermint candy, cakelike chocolate, and squid-flavored chips.

Soo-Ja got up on her own and joined him in the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked, using the wall for support.

He did not reply, just kept filling up the bag.

“They’ll know it was us,” Soo-Ja said. “And if you want things, we can buy them ourselves, or we can ask Yul if we can have some of this. But we can’t just take it. We can’t just take it without their permission.”

Min stopped for a moment and glanced at her, registering the stricken look on her face. He then resumed his looting, reaching for more and more food. On the way back home, he made her carry the bag.

For hours, Min lay on the floor without speaking, staring at the ceiling and eating his food. He opened each bag one by one, emptying it, then moving on to the next bag. Soo-Ja sat a few feet away from him. All day, neither acknowledged what had happened.

“Stop eating so much. You’re going to get a stomachache,” said Soo-Ja.

Min said nothing, just kept opening more and more packages, his stomach a pit, his hunger unable to be satiated. Soo-Ja grabbed a bag of anchovies away from him.

“Stop. Go to sleep,” said Soo-Ja, reaching up and turning the light off.

Neither of them moved.

“I’ve always been afraid of you leaving,” he said in the dark, as if he’d been waiting for some way not to see her. “Every day of my life I have this fear. I wake up in the morning and ask, Is it today? Is it today that she’ll be gone?”

“As long as Hana is here, I’ll be here, too,” said Soo-Ja. They were still in the same position as before she turned out the lights—Min lying on the floor, she still sitting.

“The only time I’ll be able to rest is when you get old, and no one gives you a second look. Then nobody will want you, and I won’t have to worry,” he said.

“That day will come soon,” said Soo-Ja sharply.

“From now on, when you walk on the street, keep your head down. I don’t want men to see your face,” said Min. “And no more skirts. And take off that jewelry you wear. You’re not a girl anymore. You’re not single.”

“You know who you sound like?” asked Soo-Ja, without hiding the chill in her voice.

“They were right about you. I never regret listening to my parents. They’re me. I talk to them and I hear myself. I should never have let you separate me from them.”

Min blew his nose, and Soo-Ja wondered if he was crying. In the dark, she couldn’t tell.

“You think it’s hard being you, or being Yul?” he continued. “Imagine being me, or Eun-Mee. If you had to choose, would you rather be yourself or be Eun-Mee?”

Soo-Ja wondered at that moment what it was like to be Min. When friends greeted them, they always greeted her first. When guests at the hotel passed by him, they did not nod or say hello. When they went to church, no one sat next to him. His invisibility wasn’t her fault, but surely it had grown worse after years hiding behind her strength. She wondered if Min would have been happier with a quiet, shy woman who would let him shine. A plump, stout wife who’d be thankful to have him, constantly cooking him his favorite dishes. He might have been happy, once, to have her as his captive, but over time he must have realized he was as bound as she was. The thing about capturing a prize fish is that everyone admires the fish, and soon forgets about the fisherman. You love the thing that makes you special, then hate it because it’s the thing that makes you special.

The next day, Min refused to take the train to Daegu for the Seollal holiday. He also refused to let Soo-Ja and Hana go without him. Seollal was Hana’s favorite holiday, when the entire extended family gathered to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Hana loved the sight of all the tables filled with food, as they feasted on mung-bean pancakes, steamed rice cakes, freshly cut apples and pears, sweet rice flavored with dates and honey, cinnamon punch, and rice nectar. She especially loved the ceremonial bow made to the elders, as the children wished them good luck in the New Year, and were rewarded with money in white envelopes. Hana was heartbroken when her father told her they wouldn’t be going south that year. She took this hard; with every passing year, she’d worry that it would be the last chance she got to see her grandfather. Soo-Ja told Min as much, but Min did not express much sympathy, as he was deprived of his own father as well.