This Burns My Heart

Chapter three

“Now, more than ever, I long for my life to have more heft,” wrote Soo-Ja to Min. It was the first letter she’d ever sent him. “And yes, that’s the word I mean—heft. I have tasted what it means to have days packed with urgency and meaning, and I cannot go back to living an unimportant life. I find my routines so dull and tranquil. I know I have everything a young woman of my class could ask for—attentive servants, hand-stitched clothes, a temple-like home—but it all feels like a gilded cage. I can see what will happen if I stay in Daegu. I’ll never have to answer the call of my own highest potential. I must become a diplomat.”

Lying restless on the ground, Soo-Ja thought about Min, and how much she’d misjudged him. Why had she been so quick to dismiss him? He had risked his life at the protests, just like she had. They had experienced the same—only miles apart. Had he thought of her as he evaded bullets, or as he knocked about against the body armor of the police? All he’d asked for was a date. If she’d simply said yes, he could have been out of harm’s way.

Come back, Soo-Ja found herself whispering. If he did, they could go on that date he had so desperately wanted. They could take a walk along the river at night and name different constellations. If it got cold, he’d lend her his argyle sweater. Or maybe he’d ask Soo-Ja for hers. But what she realized was that she wouldn’t mind that, if she had to be the strong one. She’d like to swoop in and care for Min, who sometimes had the air of an orphan. How had he managed to survive all his life without her to protect him? He was the opposite of Yul, who seemed to need nothing and no one. Not even a wife, thought Soo-Ja poignantly.

Min had been lucky. He’d marched in the large protest outside the National Assembly, the one where, according to the radio, more than a hundred people had been killed, and a thousand injured. But he had not been wounded. He’d told her so when he wrote her back. He also mentioned he’d be coming home to Daegu very soon. “My work here is done,” he wrote in a grandiose way. “Syngman Rhee has been deposed. Our country’s struggle for freedom, which began when we freed ourselves from the Japanese colonizers, then continued with the war against the communists, has finally come to an end with the end of the dictatorship. I was talking about this to the people in the crowd, as we watched the slow procession of the President’s motorcade through the streets of Seoul. And you know what the amazing thing was? Some people were crying. I don’t know if it’s because they were thinking of the terrible things he’d done, or because they felt sorry for him and his wife. But what matters is that he’s gone now, and this is a beautiful day for democracy.”

Min had left as an idler, but he would return as a hero.

Soo-Ja sat on the front steps of her house, watching the servants do the week’s laundry in the courtyard. One of them worked the lever of the water pump, her heavy arms pushing up and down, until a clean stream spurted out. Another sat on top of a stone, scrubbing wet, soapy clothes on top of a washboard. Finally, a third one rinsed the clothes in the pump and shook them before hanging them up to dry with clothespins. Soo-Ja stared at their plump bodies, hidden away underneath their old hanboks. Soo-Ja felt self-conscious about the weight she’d recently lost, shed from her already thin frame.

Soo-Ja enjoyed the rhythms of their talk, the way they spoke like folks from the countryside, dispensing with the more formal-io at the end of the sentences. Sometimes their words overlapped, like a chorus, and Soo-Ja envied the easy, casual way they’d tease or scold one another. If she lost the ability to speak, and needed to learn again, she could simply listen to them. They often spent hours telling stories. The house chores—cooking, cleaning, washing—seemed to be incidental. In Soo-Ja’s mind, their real job was to gossip, giving their opinions about the others’ lives. Soo-Ja wondered if they talked about her behind her back, and she realized that they must, of course.

Soo-Ja closed her eyes. She often became sleepy when melancholia hit her. She could feel her head grow heavy when she suddenly heard the servants’ talking stop. She opened her eyes and glanced at them—their eyes were directed at an intruder. A man had arrived at the house unannounced, slipping past the gate, and making his way into the courtyard. He looked tired and beaten down, wearing an army camouflage jacket cut off at the forearms, and pants rolled up to his knees. He held a satchel behind his back, and for a moment Soo-Ja thought it was one of her brothers, returning home from some war she hadn’t been told about.

It took a few seconds to realize it was Min, and when she did, Soo-Ja leapt out of her seat and ran to him. He’d been to her house before, but she hadn’t been ready then. This time, with no concern for modesty or propriety, Soo-Ja jumped into his arms, and the two of them held each other, burying their noses in each other’s shoulders. Their bodies made shapes together—her chin on his sternum, her temple against his cheek—until theirs were interlocking parts. He had not been lost; he’d been returned to her.

“Is your father here?” asked Min, once they finally let go of each other.

“Yes. Why?” asked Soo-Ja, glancing into his eyes.

Min looked shyly at her. “There’s something I want to ask him.”

“What is it?” asked Soo-Ja, staring at his cherry-sized nose, and his downcast gaze.

“I want to ask him for your hand in marriage.”

“You want to marry Soo-Ja?” asked her father, looking startled.

“Yes, I do,” said Min, with his satchel by his side, sitting across from him on the floor.

“Isn’t this a little sudden?” asked Soo-Ja’s father, trying to maintain his self-control.

“The protests—the violence in Seoul—made me realize how fragile our lives are. It could all be over in a second,” said Min.

Soo-Ja moved closer to Min and instinctively held his arm. He’d come up with the idea himself, independently of her, and she wondered if he suspected her wish of going to Seoul to join the Foreign Service. She’d always spoken vaguely about her dreams, and never discussed her specific plans with Min, for fear he’d feel used. But perhaps he knew. Perhaps he’d read her mind, when the thought first crossed her head, that day at the gymnasium bleachers. Perhaps her thoughts were obvious to others, and it was only out of politeness that they did not remark upon them, when they could read them as clearly as print on paper.

“But marriage… it’s not something you bring up lightly,” said Soo-Ja’s father, suddenly at a loss for words. “No, there has to be a go-between, a matchmaker, someone to make formal introductions, to tell me about your family, and to tell your family about ours. Followed by me and Soo-Ja’s mother meeting your parents, and getting out our ancestral rolls to check which lineages you each come from. A marriage isn’t a union between two young people, as you seem to think. A marriage is a union between two families.”

Soo-Ja and Min kept their heads bent down, facing the floor.

“Abeoji, Min comes from a very good family,” said Soo-Ja.

“My father manufactures textiles,” said Min. “Silk, cotton, rayon. He is an industrialist, like yourself.”

Soo-Ja noticed that this did not seem to impress her father. In fact, it seemed to make him more concerned.

“If your father owns a factory, then why aren’t you working for him?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“My father didn’t want me to. My brother works for him.”

“Your older brother?”

“No, I’m the oldest.”

“You’re the oldest?” Soo-Ja’s father seemed startled by this. “If you’re the oldest, then everything belongs to you—including the responsibility. Why would your father not trust you with the business?”

“Well, he didn’t want me hanging around the factory,” said Min, his voice taking on a self-satisfied drawl. “The girls who work there kept flirting with me. These working-class girls see the owner’s son, start getting ideas. You have to be careful with women. I don’t have to worry about Soo-Ja, though, she and I are of the same class.”

“How lucky for you,” said her father gruffly. “Now let me ask you, when these factory girls were—say, coming on to you—was there any girl in particular? Anyone particularly aggressive?”

Min hesitated, his nostrils flaring a bit. “They’re obedient girls. But they’re trouble.”

“Your brother doesn’t seem to have a problem ignoring them,” said Soo-Ja’s father, staring into Min’s eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Abeoji, please stop grilling him,” Soo-Ja interjected. “Min is a guest in our home. Do you want him to leave and tell everyone about how you treat people?”

Soo-Ja’s father suddenly banged on the floor with his hand. “Yes, spread the word. Tell everyone.”

“Abeoji, please,” she said. “Give Min another chance to—”

“You should go now,” her father cut in, looking at Min.

Min remained on his spot, his head lowered to the elder.

“I said you can go now,” Soo-Ja’s father repeated.

Soo-Ja did not look up as Min stood up and, after bowing to her father, started making his way out of the room. He rushed out, as if the departure had been his idea, as if he’d been the one who’d decided they weren’t good enough for him.

After Min was gone, Soo-Ja ran outside to the courtyard. It had started to rain, and Soo-Ja could feel the drops prickling against her, and the puddles on the ground making her steps slippery. Unsteady, she rested her hand against a pine tree, its battered branches almost breaking. She was on her way to her room, on the other side of the courtyard, when her father—who had followed her—tried to get her back into the main house. They remained between rooms, at an impasse.

“What makes him think that he can marry you? Was he first in his class? Is he a doctor or an engineer? He didn’t even finish college!” yelled her father. His eyelids struggled to stay open, and his clothes quickly became wet.

“I don’t care about that,” Soo-Ja said, trying hard not to shiver. Her long, wet hair covered her entire face, with clumps sticking to her mouth, and strands creating lines over her eyes.

“Don’t care about that? A boy like him—with no education or professional skills—he would be laughed out of a matchmaker’s meeting!”

“But he comes from a good family! They own a factory,” said Soo-Ja, her breath catching in her throat.

“For a firstborn to be sent away from the family business, he must have done something very bad,” said her father.

Soo-Ja looked over to her mother’s room and saw the lights come on. “We woke up Mother.”

“He is unacceptable in every way. And he is the oldest son. Do you know what it means to be the wife of the oldest son?” asked her father, coming closer to her. “You would have to be responsible for the entire family. Do you know how much work that is, having to serve your in-laws? Does he have brothers or sisters?”

“He has one brother and a sister.”

“Well, at least he doesn’t have a lot of siblings, but the ones that he has you’d be expected to help raise, and this in addition to your own children. Soo-Ja, being married to an oldest son is a lot of work.”

“Appa, I know you only want the best for me, but there is nothing to worry about. I have always made good decisions, haven’t I?”

Soo-Ja’s father stood still for a moment, his clothes growing heavier, soaked by the rain. “It is a losing proposition to always be right when it comes to little things, but then be wrong on the big things.”

Soo-Ja knew her father was right. Marriage was serious business. The choice of a husband was the only time a woman could exert her will. Choose wisely and have a chance at a decent life. Choose wrong and have endless time to regret it. Her husband would dictate the rest of her life—her social class, her daily routines, her very happiness. And yet, knowing her father might be right only made her dig her heels further into the ground.

“Well, at least this is one decision that I can make, and I don’t depend on your approval for it.”

Soo-Ja saw by the stricken look on her father’s face how much her words had hurt him—he seemed to age five years in five seconds. What is the statute of limitations on resenting those we love? she wondered. Could past wrongs be wielded so easily, pulled out of a back pocket, like a silver knife, and used to tear, rip, slice through an argument?

“Is that why you want to marry him? To punish me? For Seoul?”

“Of course not,” she said, a little too quickly. Soo-Ja’s father looked at her askew, squinting his eyes. She wondered if he suspected her plans to move there after her wedding. For what felt like a long while, Soo-Ja’s father did not speak, as if trying to guess at Soo-Ja’s reasons. The prisoner is always thinking about escape, but she wondered what the jailer always thought about. Suddenly, Soo-Ja’s father seemed to feel the cold and shivered once or twice. They looked at each other awkwardly.

“It’s raining,” her father said, as if he’d only just noticed it. “Go to your room.”

Soo-Ja nodded, terrified to think that she’d won the fight. She turned away from him and walked a few steps until she found herself outside her room. She stood still for a moment, fighting the temptation to run back to her father.

Soo-Ja finally took her shoes off and crossed over the elevated step. Once inside her room, she turned on her lamp and sat on the warm floor, taking the time to catch her breath. Leaning against a corner, she let her long arms and legs droop, weak and disorderly, like broken matchsticks. Soo-Ja felt the tears forming in her eyes. After a while, she could no longer hold her feelings back, and she began to cry. Soo-Ja felt her body shiver with emotion, and quick, guttural noises began to slip out of her lips. Why is it, she wondered, that an enemy or a stranger would leave no mark, but her father—her adored father—could wound her so deeply? She’d never cry out of pain alone, but pain and love together—especially the love—could inspire her to sob to the point of gasping for air.

Soo-Ja was in the middle of taking a long breath when she suddenly heard her door slide open. She turned around, ready to yell at her brother or a servant or whoever it was who’d come in without knocking first. But when she saw that it was Min, no words came out of her mouth.

“I told your maid she didn’t need to show me out in the rain, and I could find my way out by myself. But when I got to your gate, I just rattled the latch and slammed it shut.”

Soo-Ja stopped crying. She turned the knob on the lamp until it was dark again. Min took that as a sign that he could come closer. He walked toward her and then kneeled on the floor, facing her. They sat there, speaking barely above a whisper, their bodies open to each other, looking like two people at prayer. She could feel vibrations running up and down her body.

“So you heard everything my father said.”

“Yes.”

“Is he right?”

“No.”

“Was there a girl at the factory? Did you get someone pregnant?”

“No! Of course not!”

Soo-Ja nodded. “I was right. My father doesn’t know you.”

“But I agree that I am an unlucky kkang-pae, a very poor prospect for marriage,” said Min matter-of-factly.

“Don’t say that. Have more esteem for yourself.”

“Nobody can see the good in me, Soo-Ja. Except for you.”

“Don’t talk like that. Please,” she said, fighting the emotion caught in her throat. Though he did not know it, Min had said the magic words. She found it irresistible—the idea that she alone could see his value, and that he would remain indebted to her for doing so.

“Didn’t you hear your father’s words? I have nothing to offer anyone,” said Min.

Soo-Ja ran her fingers through his hair. “But you’re good at heart, I know you are.”

Min gave a start, hearing a noise outside. “What was that?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry. Everyone’s asleep. They can’t hear us in the main house,” said Soo-Ja.

“Why are you so good to me, Soo-Ja? When everyone else has been so bad?” He closed his eyes, as she felt the shape of his face with her fingers, tracing his cheeks, the stubble on his chin.

“Do you want me to stop? Does it bother you?” she asked him, smiling.

“It’ll just make it all the more painful when you leave me at last,” he said, opening his eyes again. She traced his eyebrows with her fingers. She knew he meant this as a question, and she had to answer it.

“Min, I don’t know if I can marry you. Not after what happened tonight.”

Min shook his head. “If you disobey your father, he’ll be angry at you, but over time, he’ll see that you made the right decision.”

“But he wouldn’t like losing me, if you took me away from here. Especially if you let me become a diplomat, and we left the country,” said Soo-Ja, using those particular words on purpose, trying him out to see how he would respond.

“I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re together.”

Soo-Ja, gladdened by his answer, peered into Min’s beautiful eyes, shining down on her like the Seven North Stars. She traced his dark eyebrows, which stood in such contrast to his pale skin. She smiled, thinking about the freedom she would earn if she married him. Min took her smile as an invitation, and he kissed her, his creamy lips touching hers, his hand grazing her neck.

“Do you love me?” he asked when he let go.

Soo-Ja was tempted to lie and say that she did, but the truth was that she hardly knew him. It wasn’t love; it was the promise of a new life. It was the Namdaemun—the gate in the heart of Seoul—awaiting her; visas to foreign countries, and exotic-sounding languages. At the thought, Soo-Ja beamed, which Min mistook for an answer, and he smiled back even more intensely.

“I love you,” he said, in his sweet, almost adolescent voice. “I love you so much, I feel like my insides could explode. If you don’t love me, then don’t marry me out of love, marry me out of pity. I have nothing to live for without you. Give me something to live for. My parents don’t care about me. I have no future. I have no reason to go on. But you can save me. Marry me. Marry me and save me. My life is in your hands.”

At that moment, Soo-Ja felt like her own life had never mattered more, her body jolted by the rush that must be the addict’s first thrill. She’d never felt more powerful. Her father was wrong. Min might not have the education or the prospects, but right that second, those things meant nothing. She would never find someone with so much passion for her—a lovesick boy who’d rather die than live without her. He needed her, and his need felt intoxicating. It was even stronger than love. Min swooned in a fever, and she worried he might faint at any moment. She was going to save him, yes—rescue him from himself and the world that hurt him.

Soo-Ja began to gently massage Min’s head, full of affection. Min took it as an opening of sorts, and he began to kiss her again. Soo-Ja kissed him back, and Min enveloped her in an embrace. They lay on the floor, and Soo-Ja could feel parts of them locking together, arm against arm, hip against hip, until it felt like no air could pass between them. His tongue felt wet against hers, like biting a juicy mango, its nectar running down her chin. Though she had her eyes closed, every part of her body felt awake, telegraphing sensations from pore to pore. When she opened her eyes, she could see Min’s pleasure in his pupils, and she felt proud of being responsible for it.

Min was now lying with his legs clasped around hers, his hands caressing the sides of her face. Soo-Ja wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed his body against hers. Touching him felt as natural as breathing and was done with the same ease. They were, physically, a natural match. Each kiss led into another, their mouths opening and closing to let in breaths, and each other.

Min began to undo the buttons of his pants, but when he hiked up her skirt, Soo-Ja instinctively stopped him. She knew she couldn’t make love to him; shouldn’t, mustn’t. But she also felt a sudden rush of gratitude that made her want to touch and be touched. This felt good, just like thinking about her future felt good. Besides, if they made love, it was as good as signing a marriage certificate. No man in his right mind would dare deflower a woman and then refuse to take her as his wife, thought Soo-Ja. Otherwise, he would be destroying her life. So this could work to her advantage…

Finally, when Min tried to lift up her skirt for a second time, Soo-Ja did not stop him. Min held her arms up over her head, against the floor, as if stretching her, and let his fingers interlace with hers. They continued kissing, and as the kisses grew more intense, Soo-Ja closed her eyes and felt herself floating. Their bodies were moving to the same rhythm, him pressing up and down against her, and she enjoyed a lulling sensation, as if the two of them were rising from the earth and swirling in the air, toward the rain beating down on their flesh.

Bang, bang, bang, sounded the wooden drums.

Min and his friends, chanting loudly and playing music, could be heard for miles as they carried the wedding chest down the street. Soo-Ja watched as the men came closer, though still a block away. They all wore male hanboks—loose-fitting gray pantaloons on the bottom, and blue jackets with wide sleeves on top, fastened at the chest with ribbons. They walked proudly, in step, chanting. One of them held up a jwa-go drum with the symbol of the flag drawn on it, and he’d beat at it with a stick at the end of each chant.

“Buy the hahm! Buy the hahm!” they called out.

Min followed right behind them, also wearing a hanbok—it was the first time Soo-Ja had seen him don traditional costume. Min favored Western suits, always neatly tailored and freshly iron-pressed. But the hanbok, with its vibrant blue and yellow colors, fit him well, and as he marched toward her house, she felt a sudden glee, as if this were a complete surprise, and not something she already knew about and had prepared for.

“What’s this ruckus?” a neighbor across the street called out, looking sleepy and confused. “Did somebody die?”

“No, somebody’s getting married soon,” Soo-Ja said, smiling.

“You’re getting married?” the neighbor asked. “To which one of them?”

“To all of them!” said Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja saw another woman come out from the same house, an old lady with wizened lines on her tired-looking face, wearing a light blue hanbok with red chogori jacket. “The groom sings out loud and strong. That is a good sign. It means he will have vigor and stamina for the first night!” she said, and then began clapping and nodding her head.

“Good,” Soo-Ja replied. “I plan on making him do a lot of work around the house that night.”

Soo-Ja ran back inside and went into the kitchen, careful to go down one step, since the kitchen was a foot lower than the rest of the house. There, the servants were putting the final touches on the rice cake they would present the men with once they reached their house. The confection, covered with adzuki beans, was meant to symbolize luck and harmony. Soo-Ja was not particularly fond of tteok—it was not sweet enough, and too powdery and sticky for her taste. But a celebration wasn’t a celebration without them.

As the servants walked the tteok to the middle hallway—which wasn’t really a hallway but a large, empty room connecting the other ones—Soo-Ja and her mother positioned themselves on the yellow floor, along with two of her aunts. At that moment, Soo-Ja felt her father’s absence, as well as Jae-Hwa’s. Jae-Hwa, who’d been surprised to hear news of the engagement, had said she would come, but had not, in the end. Soo-Ja could still remember the sting of her friend’s words the last time she’d spoken to her, when Jae-Hwa accused Soo-Ja of not really being in love with Min. Soo-Ja hadn’t told Jae-Hwa about her night of passion—Jae-Hwa would have been shocked.

As they came close to the house, the men’s loud, hungry voices vibrated through the thin walls, shaking the floor beneath them. But when the servants opened the sliding doors, revealing the men to the women, all became silence.

The men lowered the wedding chest onto the ground and bowed ceremoniously. The women, already sitting, bowed, too. Then, the men took their upturned, boat-shaped rubber shoes off and walked the wedding chest up the two steps toward the room. They placed it immediately before her mother.

In exchange for the wedding chest, Soo-Ja’s mother handed the groomsmen a white envelope filled with cash. Going against custom, Min’s friends did not negotiate—they had been instructed by Min not to try. And Soo-Ja’s mother did not negotiate, either—she had been instructed by Soo-Ja not to do so.

Knowing that everyone’s eyes fell on her, Soo-Ja’s mother reached for the long, heavy white cotton coils around the chest. She dug deep into the knots with her nails and fingers and unwrapped them, revealing the beautiful red chest underneath, encrusted with gleaming white mother-of-pearl and adorned with gold-colored fittings and hinges. She did all this with an ease and expertise that suggested she’d been waiting her whole life to perform this task for her daughter.

Once she opened the chest, Soo-Ja’s mother pulled out the marriage scroll sent by the groom’s family. Written in elegant calligraphy, it announced the upcoming nuptials and listed the four pillars of the groom—his year, month, day, and time of birth—all of which were supposed to indicate his good fortune. Soo-Ja’s mother read those dates out loud, and the others nodded back in approval.

After that, Soo-Ja’s mother reached for the gifts, revealing them one by one—a pink nightgown, a jade bracelet, and a new hanbok. Soo-Ja’s mother held those items in the air, smiling. It was a smile Soo-Ja saw so rarely on her face, it made her realize this was a triumph to her, having managed to marry off a daughter. She had fulfilled a mother’s duty, at last. Soo-Ja caught herself smiling, too, as everything that day felt contagious—the men’s jubilation, the neighbors’ excitement, her mother’s approval. She would be the sky for a day, emotions passing through her like clouds, her being changing colors in a matter of minutes.