This Burns My Heart

Chapter eight

Soo-Ja opened her eyes, waking to find a tall, plump, upside-down nurse looking at her. The woman reached for her and lifted her up, as strong as a rhino. Putting Soo-Ja’s arm over her shoulder, she led her into the unbelievably warm office. Soo-Ja could still barely breathe, but she knew she would not die of frostbite and that certainty thawed her lungs. To see kindness—someone looking down and helping you—may be the world’s best placebo. Over the course of the next few minutes, as the nurse sat her down on a chair, placed her feet in a basin of hot water, and rubbed her cold hands with her warm ones, Soo-Ja felt her temperature start to return to normal. She didn’t know what did it—the warm water or simply the look on that woman’s face, smiling at her as if she were her long-lost sister.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer the door sooner! I was practically falling asleep, and didn’t know if the knocking was real or only a dream,” said the nurse. Soo-Ja smiled at her, to say it didn’t matter and she was just grateful she was there. “I’m here all alone at night and usually there’s a patient or two, but with the bad snowstorm, it seems even the medical emergencies have decided to wait.”

Soo-Ja drank green tea from the cup the nurse poured for her. She could feel her fingers again. The pain in her chest began to dissipate.

“Looks like our new President is making a lot of promises,” said the nurse, settling into a chair, with the newspaper before her face. “He says he’s going to start plans for reunification, give us a self-supporting economy, and turn horse dung into paper money! Imagine that. Personally, I voted for the other fella. I think Chung Hee Park is just a greedy powermonger, like the rest of them. He’s an autocrat, another Syngman Rhee, just minus the stupid Austrian wife. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a puppet of the North Koreans. Did you hear he went to the funeral of the American president? Now, that man didn’t like Park alive, and I can’t imagine he likes him any better dead.”

“Nurse…”

“What is it?” asked the nurse, lowering the newspaper and glancing over at Soo-Ja.

“I need to leave before the doctor comes,” said Soo-Ja, still in too much pain to move from her chair.

The nurse misunderstood her. “Dr. Yul-Bok Kim will be here early in the morning, in just a few hours, in fact, and he’ll be able to examine you. He went on a trip, but is back now. What you have, you think it can wait?”

“No, no. What I mean is, I need to be gone before he arrives. I have to go. I have to leave. Even if it’s still snowing. Please warn me if he’s on his way.”

The nurse seemed confused, and Soo-Ja could tell she was looking at her for signs of dementia. She could see the question forming on the nurse’s lips: What were you doing walking around the snow-covered streets at one in the morning? But the nurse simply nodded and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re gone before he gets here.”

“Soo-Ja…”

Soo-Ja woke with a start, stunned to hear Yul’s voice. He switched the light on, and the ceiling turned into white dotted mazes. Soo-Ja looked down and spotted her green hospital gown peeking from under a blanket. She was lying on one of three small beds, each facing a different wall.

“Yul…” Soo-Ja mumbled.

He wore his civilian clothes, but with a doctor’s robe over them. He didn’t look much different from the last time she’d seen him. Except now he wore his hair longer, and his clothes looked almost European in their cut. He still had the same serious eyes, the dimples on his cheeks, and the tall, muscular frame of a fighter.

“Your clothes are drying by the boiler,” said Yul. “I had the nurse wash them. I’ll have her bring them back to you.”

“I need to go,” said Soo-Ja.

“Listen… I heard what happened,” said Yul.

“How?”

“There’s a waiting room outside. People talk.”

Soo-Ja looked around her. “Please. Tell the nurse to bring back my clothes. I need to go look for my daughter.”

“Have you gone to the village police yet?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“That’s the first thing we’ll do then.”

Soo-Ja looked at him, surprised. “We? Are you going to help me?”

“Yes, I am,” said Yul forcefully.

“My husband will be here at any moment now… And my in-laws, too.”

“Yes, I’m sure they will,” said Yul kindly. “I don’t doubt that.”

Soo-Ja took a deep breath, dropping her act. She couldn’t lie to Yul, as if at one point in the past she had made an oath to him. “It’s not Min’s fault. He doesn’t know. He’s in hiding. We all are, in a way, my in-laws and I. Debts.” Soo-Ja was surprised to hear herself telling that to Yul. She had never told anyone of their circumstances, not even her father.

“Don’t be embarrassed about that. There are a lot of people in debt these days. You have all this paper money in your hands, and the next day, the government says it’s worth nothing,” said Yul.

The nurse, who’d overheard their voices, came in with Soo-Ja’s clothes, and left as quickly as she had appeared. Yul turned around so Soo-Ja could get dressed. Soo-Ja walked behind a screen and began removing the hospital gown.

“Someone must have seen Hana. I don’t know if I can find Hana herself straightaway, but I can find someone who saw her playing, or walking by. Like the fruit peddlers on the street. They sit there all day, they must do their share of people-watching.” Soo-Ja put on her black cardigan sweater, embroidered with white trim along the edges, then took her big brown scarf and wrapped it around her shoulders and her arms. When she finished dressing, she did not tell Yul to turn around. Instead, she walked to him, tapping him lightly on the arm. Yul turned quickly, almost bumping into her. The sudden proximity of his body made Soo-Ja feel nervous, and she stepped back. When Soo-Ja looked at his face, she saw the intense look in his ink-black eyes. He hadn’t changed much. Still the same serious gaze, the melancholy air.

“We’ll get to her,” said Yul.

Soo-Ja believed him. She followed him out, past the waiting room and its many eyes looking up at them. When they came out onto the street, with its sudden, harsh morning light, Soo-Ja silently thanked him for his help, in a prayer.

Between puffs of his cigarette, the village police officer halfheartedly took down Hana’s description onto a palm-sized notebook. Behind him, fishermen carried nets and boxes packed with mackerel, hairtail, cuttlefish, and sea mussels from their trawlers onto the dock. Every breath took in scales and gills. Small ice islands, from the previous night’s snow, floated and cracked as they hit the boats. When he was done, the officer smiled suggestively at Soo-Ja. “It’s just that we’re so busy these days. I wish we had more resources, some money perhaps…”

Soo-Ja looked confused, but Yul seemed to understand his gist right away. He pulled some bills from his pocket and placed them in the officer’s hands. The man smiled, nodding slightly.

“I will see what I can do,” said the officer, walking away. Based on the way he spoke, it seemed clear he would do nothing. Soo-Ja put her arm out in his direction, but he was gone.

“I’m sorry, Soo-Ja,” said Yul. “But the only people the police want to find these days are North Korean spies.”

“Let’s go back to the market square,” she said. “I have to find a mother. A mother will want to help. They notice children, and they notice very subtle things. They can tell when a child is with someone she doesn’t belong to.” Soo-Ja was amazed at her own coolness, after the previous night’s desperation. But it was a precarious coolness; a single word, and she could be undone.

Besides, she had something inside her pocket that gave her confidence, an odd kind of security. Before Yul and Soo-Ja had left his office, she had stolen something from him—his prescription pad. If she could not find Hana—odious thought!—she knew exactly what kind of pills she’d have to swallow.

“When was the last time you ate?” Yul asked her.

They had been working through the market square for hours, as Soo-Ja spoke to every living being about her daughter. She even asked the children, who were the most curious about her, and who shook their heads vigorously. Soo-Ja overheard one or two people saying she was crazy, that this daughter of hers didn’t exist.

Oh, but she does, she does, thought Soo-Ja. How could she explain to them that hers was the most beautiful and precious child, one who laughed so easily when you tickled her, and who shrieked with joy when you lifted her into the air? She loved her daughter, and in that love she had once expected to live forever, the rest of her days.

“Soo-Ja, you have to eat. You can’t go on like this,” Yul continued. Soo-Ja ignored him, approaching another woman with a description of her child. Soo-Ja cursed herself for not having a picture of Hana, for having left everything back in Daegu. “You haven’t had breakfast, or lunch. We’re going to stop by that noodle stand, and you’re going to eat.”

Soo-Ja looked at Yul as if he were the most unreasonable being she’d ever met, and she shook her head. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had eaten anything, but she had no appetite. “You go eat. I’ll be here.”

“No, please.” Yul reached for her arm.

Soo-Ja looked at him and saw the concern on his face. She was not a superhero, like in the radio shows; she was a human person, she had to remind herself. Without saying anything, Soo-Ja let him guide her to the noodle stand, which was only a couple of yards from them. It quickly drew them in, with the smell of bean-curd paste rising from the pots.

They sat at one of the two tiny tables at an arm’s reach from the cook, and next to a teenage couple. They were so crowded in, elbow to elbow, they could be a single party. Soo-Ja did not speak to Yul. Instead, she listened to the hissing of the griddle and the whistling of the kettle. She watched the dumplings turn brown and jump from the pan to the plates. The cook, who did not smile, placed their food in front of them and then his daughter—Soo-Ja heard her call him appa earlier—as if to compensate, smiled brightly as she filled their cups with water.

“For you, ajeossi,” she said, respectfully, handing Yul his glass. Soo-Ja already had a full glass in front of her, but the waitress still wanted to acknowledge her. “Ajumma, you have a very pretty scarf.”

Soo-Ja nodded weakly, quietly signaling that she did not want to talk. The girl, who must have been thirteen or fourteen, did not see this and remained standing next to her, her hands casually resting against her hips. She played the host a little too well, acting like the cook’s wife instead of his daughter, almost a parody of an older woman. Soo-Ja wondered if the girl was replacing her sick mother for the day, and had been repeating what the elder woman usually said to the customers. But maybe she wasn’t imitating anyone at all. Maybe there was no mother—dead or separated—and she had always played this part herself, helping her father, serving customers by his side, never knowing what it was to play like a child.

“Did your husband get it for you as a gift?” the waitress asked, smiling at Soo-Ja. When she said husband, the girl glanced over at Yul for a second, before turning her gaze back to Soo-Ja. Soo-Ja knew instantly that she should correct her, but to say he wasn’t her husband also felt wrong. Yul might take her correction—if offered too quickly, in protest—as a slight.

“We’re not husband and wife. We’re not married,” said Yul, before Soo-Ja could speak.

The waitress looked confused. “Ay, you sure do look like husband and wife,” she said, her smile now gone. She returned to her father’s side, occasionally stealing glances at the two of them. Her words hung heavy in the air.

“I want to go back to looking,” Soo-Ja said, rising from her seat. “You can stay here and eat your soup.”

Yul reached for her, as if to pull her down. But once his hand felt her arm—real, made of flesh and bone, not just an image across from him—he seemed to lose courage and did not protest. “I’ll come with you,” he said, also rising.

Back in the market square, Soo-Ja felt as if she’d lived there forever, recognizing the fruit peddlers camping out on the ground, and the old men sitting on boxes turned upside down, playing janggi. At the stalls, women wearing head scarves wielded knives with acrobatic precision, cleaning fish on top of wooden crates, while men with bloody aprons around their waists yelled out prices. On the counters, piles of catch—kandari, saury pike, whip ray, and sea bream—glowed in the afternoon sun.

Weary-looking customers carrying straw baskets ignored Soo-Ja, walking briskly past her in the overcrowded plaza. Yul alone stayed with her, looking solemn as she asked strangers about her daughter. With him there, the locals appeared more responsive. They actually seemed to think before finally delivering a no, now offered with regret rather than as a dismissal. With each no, Yul seemed as disappointed as Soo-Ja, and for that, she loved him—that he could feel what she felt; as if by doing so, he could lessen her load.

The sun began to set, and Soo-Ja prepared to make her way back to the other side of the marketplace. While taking a minute to catch her breath, she noticed an old woman standing in front of a tobacco shop, blowing smoke in the air exuberantly. She wore her gray hair tightly held back, exposing her deeply tanned face, which appeared to have as many lines as the surface of a leaf. Soo-Ja tried not to stare, but the old woman kept looking over at her.

“Who is she?” Soo-Ja overheard the old woman ask her friend. “Why is she walking around like that?”

“She lost her daughter,” her friend replied.

“When did this happen?”

“I saw her first last night.”

“What does her daughter look like?”

The tobacconist had heard Soo-Ja describe Hana so many times, she had memorized her words. “She sounds like a rich man’s kid. Nice red jacket with a hood; pretty, embroidered gloves; heavy, sturdy leather shoes; a gold-colored ribbon on her head. Three years old.”

“Three years old,” the old woman echoed thoughtfully.

So this is what I’ve become, a story. She’d have to spend the rest of her life wandering those streets, while strangers newly arrived in town would point, curious. They’d be filled in and look at her with pity, secretly glad that her fate wasn’t their own. She had become a part of this plaza, like the nicks on the wooden benches, or the rusty stains on the lampposts.

Soo-Ja looked at the old woman one last time before she started walking again, and this time their eyes met. She gave her that faint flicker of recognition you give when you know a face but can’t place it. Soo-Ja didn’t know why, but she began moving toward the old woman, as if obeying an order, and the old woman walked toward her, too. As they drew near each other, Soo-Ja felt a light frisson of anticipation, knowing she was about to meet someone who would be important to her.

“You’re a very lucky woman,” the old woman said, when they got close enough to talk. She did not offer her name, nor did she ask for Soo-Ja’s.

“Why do you say that?” Soo-Ja asked.

Left behind, Yul watched them from a distance, without joining them.

“You’re lucky… that I smoke,” the old woman said, scattering some ash onto the floor.

“Please explain, halmeoni,” said Soo-Ja, calling her “grandmother.” Her voice quivered a little. “I’m a very distraught woman. And I know that you know because I heard you talk to the shopkeeper. So if you have something to tell me, do so. But don’t waste my time. Please.” Soo-Ja made as if to move away, but she knew the old woman could tell she was bluffing. Soo-Ja was riveted to her spot.

“Yesterday, I felt the urge for a cigarette,” the old woman began. “This is where I usually come to get them.” She pointed behind her to the tobacco shop. Soo-Ja noticed for the first time how small it was, the shelves only half filled, a poster with a picture of an American cowboy. “But for some reason, I decided to go to a different tobacco shop, one that’s a little farther from my house. I didn’t know why I decided to do that. But now I know why.” At this, she grinned, revealing her yellow teeth, slightly broken in spots.

“What did you see?” Soo-Ja asked her.

“I’m a very observant woman. I see more than I see… Other women my age may need glasses to see just what’s in front of them. But I would need them so I could see less. I don’t just look. I notice.”

“And what did you notice?” asked Soo-Ja, almost trembling.

“A man walking with a toddler. Now, lots of men walk with toddlers, but this pair stood out to me. You see, I was sitting on the curb, enjoying my cigarette, and so I got a very good look at them. And I noticed the man wore really shabby clothes, just a plain jacket with heavy lining. But the girl—she looked new, like a doll. Whoever dressed her took pains to do so. I remember her jacket had little bird patterns embroidered on it”—Soo-Ja’s heart leapt hearing the detail of the birds, which she hadn’t mentioned to anyone, because she’d forgotten—“and there was something else, too. She just didn’t look like she was from around here. And so I knew these two people—this fortysomething man, he must be, and this little girl—didn’t go together. And there were other things, too, like, why was he carrying her in his arms? The girl was big enough to walk. So with all these things to pique my interest, you can see why I watched them as they went inside the sul-jib next to the tobacco shop.

“Now, I didn’t go into the sul-jib but I could hear him talking to the barmaid, who seemed to be his wife. I couldn’t see very well, but when he opened a door, I noticed there were more rooms there, and that must be where they slept. I then heard the sound of the woman fighting with the man, and it was over the child, who had started crying. At that moment I knew, for sure, that the baby wasn’t his. It was such a loud wail, so full of spirit, demanding to be heard. That cry was for me, you see. She knew I was outside, invisible to everyone but her, and she was talking to me. So I left. And I began my wait. Very patiently. Because I knew that eventually, the child’s mother would come to me. You would come to me. So all day, I sat outside and wandered around, waiting. And finally, you came. I saw you and I knew, right away, even before Joon-Ho’s mother described the girl to me. Even before she told me who you were. So maybe it’s not luck. It’s seeing. You saw that I was more than just an old woman smoking a cigarette. And I saw you for what you are: a woman in love with her own child.”

By now Soo-Ja was heaving with pain, fighting back tears. “Where is this sul-jib? Tell me where it is.”

“Don’t worry, child,” the old woman said, reaching for her. Soo-Ja was surprised by how warm her touch was. “I will draw a map for you. But where? On your arm? How about here, in the palm of your hand? That way you’ll never lose this map, and you’ll just have to follow the lines you see.”

“Thank you,” said Soo-Ja, nodding slightly.

“Now, the only thing is, you’ll have to be careful. The man showed the baby to his wife like she was a gift. Not something he might let go easily. And the way he hurried her to the back. Like he was hiding her. Like he knew exactly what he was doing.”

Soo-Ja and Yul set out toward the sul-jib, trekking up and down the narrow, serpentine streets. They moved quickly, even though it was quite dark, and the ground was slippery with melted snow. Next to them, thickets of dried branches dotted the road with sharp pins and edges. A car or a bicycle would pass them once in a while, but for the most part, the hour belonged to them.

Soon it would be all over. It would be morning; Soo-Ja loved mornings. When she was little, on hot summer days, her father would come into her room while she slept and open the windows. Like the god of wind, he’d let in the cool breeze, its fresh touch enveloping her as she dreamt of cherry blossoms. Yes, soon she could be home with her daughter again, and all this would be just a memory.

It never occurred to Soo-Ja that she wouldn’t find Hana at the address the old woman had given her. She felt complete certitude. For the first time in two days, she cracked a smile. Yul, on the other hand, had fallen into a new sorrow, and it seemed ironic that just as Soo-Ja was about to regain her daughter, she was about to lose Yul. For although she had stumbled around like a madwoman for the last twenty-four hours, she had been grateful for every second of Yul’s company. The firm way he held her arm, supporting her, as she walked unsteadily; never calling too much attention to himself, but always there, like the baseboard of a wall.

“How can I ever repay you for helping me today?” Soo-Ja asked him, as they walked past a stretch of closed shops.

“I’ve already been paid back. Your finding Hana is payment enough.”

Soo-Ja sighed. “I’m touched that you helped me. More than that, the fact that you believed we’d find her.”

“You know, if things are so terrible back home…”

“They are. But I’m not going to give up just because I’m not happy there. I have Hana to think of. She needs her father.”

“A father who didn’t even look for her.”

“I told you already… he doesn’t know. If he knew, he would have run out of his hiding place.”

Yul nodded. They didn’t have much farther to go before reaching their destination. Both knew this might be the last chance they’d have to talk.

“So what is your wife like?” asked Soo-Ja, trying to hide the interest in her voice.

Yul hesitated before answering. Soo-Ja knew he was wondering how she had found out about her. “She’s not you,” he finally said.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Soo-Ja.

“What do you think?”

Soo-Ja felt her face grow warm. “I didn’t realize you still had feelings for me.”

“Of course I do, Soo-Ja. That should have been obvious to you when I left Daegu.”

“What do you mean? Why did you leave Daegu?”

“Because of you, of course,” said Yul.

“Because of me?”

“I didn’t want to run into you at the farmers’ market, see you happy with another man. I came to Pusan to run away from the memory of you. To leave you and that part of my life behind. To try to bury it.”

“If that’s the reason you left Daegu, you shouldn’t have.”

“Why did you marry Min instead of me?” Yul suddenly blurted out.

Soo-Ja thought for a second, shaking her head. “I don’t know. Probably because you told me the truth and you were honest with me. You were supposed to lie to me, to deceive me. Don’t you know that’s how you end up marrying someone?”

Soo-Ja was about to say more when she realized they had reached the right street. She looked at the signs outside the shops, and saw the one for Gai-Tan sul-jib. The lights were off. They were already closed for the night. But then she remembered what the old woman said. She looked toward the side and noticed the door to the actual house. It was behind a gate, hard to see. The people inside must be asleep.

Soo-Ja’s heart began to do somersaults inside her chest, and she wondered what to do next. Yul moved toward the gate, to rattle it, but Soo-Ja stopped him. That would be giving them a warning. She knew if she did things the wrong way, she might never see Hana again. If she called out for the sul-jib’s owner, he could come out and simply tell her, I have no idea what you’re talking about, leave us alone. Then he could run away, move somewhere far away, and give Hana a new last name. The thought chilled Soo-Ja’s spine. It rested in her hands to do this right.

At that moment, it occurred to her what to do. It was the simplest option.

Soo-Ja gathered all the strength she had in her body, and she screamed, louder than the loudest blast from a train whistle: “HANA!” And then again, “HANA! HANA!”

Soo-Ja heard back the sound of her own child yelling back, “Eomma! Eomma!”

Within seconds, Soo-Ja saw her daughter burst out of the door and run toward the gate. The toddler was completely naked, like a newborn, her eyes bloodshot with tears and her cheeks swollen red. Yul quickly lifted the latch from the outside and tried to open the metal gate, but it did not give way. Soo-Ja thrust her arms in the direction of her child, only a foot away but impossibly far, as Hana wailed and screamed, piercing Soo-Ja’s heart with the sound. Hana kept stomping her bare feet on the ground. She shook her arms in the air, in utter despair.

“Get the gate open! Get it open, Yul!” Soo-Ja cried out.

Hana’s entire face was wet with tears, and her mouth was wide open, dribble slipping from her chin. Yul finally got the gate to release, and as soon as he did so, Soo-Ja swooped in and lifted Hana into her arms. Hana practically fled into her mother’s grasp, climbing onto her, horribly frightened. Her cries grew even louder once she reached Soo-Ja, and her little round body began to shake. Soo-Ja quickly wrapped her scarf around Hana. Yul also hurriedly took off his jacket and placed it over her like a blanket.

As Soo-Ja held the child in her arms, she felt her own cheeks quickly become wet with tears. Her heart beat against her insides like a fist. She could not believe it. She had Hana back. She began to quiver, all the emotion finally coming out of her.

“Eomma! Eomma!” the child cried, between big, hungry gulps of breath. Her little fingers were tearing at her mother’s neck and shoulders, afraid of losing her once again. Hana grabbed at Soo-Ja’s blouse, gluing herself to her. Her tiny hands were clenched so tightly they shook. Even though Soo-Ja held her firmly, Hana still kept reaching madly for her, her fingers clutching her arms, digging into her mother’s skin.

“I’m sorry, baby, eomma’s here, eomma’s here!” said Soo-Ja, almost gasping for air. She looked at her daughter’s face—the mouth howling in anguish, the nose overrun with snot. But what almost destroyed her was seeing the look of fear in her eyes—Hana looked terrified that her mother might leave her again. Soo-Ja covered her own face with her free hand, so full of shame was she for not having protected her daughter.

It was then that the man came outside, followed by two boys, one around age six, the other a little older, maybe ten. Wearing a windbreaker over his beige long johns, he did not look like a kidnapper. He was the most ordinary-looking person Soo-Ja had ever seen. He looked at her with confusion on his face, as if he couldn’t imagine who she was, or what she was doing at his doorstep at midnight.

Yul moved forward toward him, making his presence known. Soo-Ja saw the two little boys cower, and she moved between Yul and the man. Soo-Ja turned to face Yul and shook her head. This was her fight. Hana was her daughter. If someone was to have the satisfaction of questioning this man, it would be she.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? You know what time it is?” the man asked, pointing at them.

Soo-Ja could see him better now: he was tall, in his early forties, with beady eyes and a hangdog expression on his face. His name, she found out later, was Dae-Jung. “I am this child’s mother!” Soo-Ja barked at him. “And why is she naked? If I find out that you hurt her, I swear I’ll kill you!”

“You’re her mother? I don’t believe you. Look at the way you’re making her cry.” Dae-Jung made as if to take her back, but Soo-Ja immediately turned her body to the side, shielding Hana.

“You have no business believing or not believing. She is my daughter. And you, you are a kkang-pae, kkang-pae. We have to call the police. Right now!” Soo-Ja was yelling at him. If Hana had not been in her arms, she would have punched him in the face.

“Call them. Call them. All I’ve done is rescue this child who was dumped on the street,” he said, looking at Soo-Ja with contempt, his head slightly raised.

“Dumped?” Soo-Ja spat the word out, stung by it. She would have expected Dae-Jung to either run away or bow in shame. Never this.

“Yes. Dumped. You said you’re the girl’s mother? What kind of mother leaves her child alone in a busy market?”

“Don’t you dare speak to her that way,” said Yul. “Let’s get the police here, see what they say.” He started looking around for an officer, and Soo-Ja could see Dae-Jung panic a little.

“Call them! Who do you think they’re going to side with? Me, who serves them drinks every night, or you, from God knows where, who’s disturbing the peace? Everyone knows I have a kindly disposition. I was taken in by this abandoned girl’s smile and decided to give her a home. If there’s a victim in all this, it’s me, who tried to help a child and instead of thanks, I get a crazy woman yelling at me.”

Yul advanced toward him and grabbed him by the top of his shirt. “You’re not allowed to talk to her like that, you understand?”

Soo-Ja couldn’t stop him, and Dae-Jung struggled to break free.

“And who are you?” asked Dae-Jung. “Because you’re definitely not the child’s father. I could tell that from a mile away. But I guess you can explain to the police when they come here. I’m sure everybody in town will want to know what you two were doing running around at night like this.” Dae-Jung turned his head to his son. “Bae, go call the police.”

The boy hesitated, and it was a studied hesitation, as deliberate as a gesture by an actor in a bad play. But at least it gave Soo-Ja the chance to step in.

“I have Hana, Yul. And I want to take her home now. I don’t want to spend hours in a police station explaining what happened. Let’s just go home.”

Yul weighed her words and she could see his reluctance as he gradually let go of Dae-Jung, finally tossing him back like a dirty towel.

Hana’s crying had subsided a little now, and she buried her head on her mother’s shoulder. Soo-Ja felt disappointed in herself for not taking revenge. How could she not put this man behind bars for what he’d done? How could she simply walk away? But this was Pusan. This was how things were done. If a man took your daughter and then gave her back, you said thank you and bowed your head as you left. If she took him to court, the judge would say, Isn’t it enough you have your daughter back? What more do you want? They might even ask her to give him some money, for the food and lodging he had provided.

“Let’s go, Yul,” Soo-Ja repeated, and turned toward the street. But as they started to make their way out, she heard Dae-Jung’s voice behind them.

“And where do you think you’re going with her?” he asked, his voice tinged with an odd sense of conviction. “You didn’t prove that you’re the girl’s mother. You think I’m going to let a stranger just take this little girl?”

Soo-Ja looked at him in utter disbelief. She had never felt more anger toward another human being. As she drew near, her fist about to punch him, one of his boys—the one who looked to be about ten—stepped forward, standing between them. He had a shaved head, to prevent lice, and a jacket that was a couple of sizes too big for him.

“Appa, I will go with her. I will go see where they take Hyo-Joo.”

It took Soo-Ja a second to realize “Hyo-Joo” meant her daughter. So they had already given her a new name! What else had they taught her, Soo-Ja wondered, in those twenty-four hours? Maybe to stay away from windows and not long for your mother, who will never come…

“All right,” said Dae-Jung, too quickly, glad for the “compromise,” glad to let his version of events come to a logical end.

How amazing that even in matters of child kidnapping, one still had to let the other person find a way to save face.

“Your father, is he good to you?” asked Yul.

The ten-year-old looked thoughtfully at him and nodded. They were walking, the four of them, back to Soo-Ja’s uncle’s house. As they moved through the night, Soo-Ja could feel a familial closeness—the boy, at least for now, was clearly on their side.

“Yes, he treats me well. But not my brother,” Bae replied. In his tattered clothes, he resembled a street urchin.

“Is your brother naughty?” asked Yul.

He would be a good father one day, thought Soo-Ja. He had a natural ability to talk to children.

“He’s not. He’s the same as me,” said Bae.

“So he’s a father who takes the rod out on one boy, but spares the other. Why do you think he doesn’t beat you?” asked Yul.

“I don’t know, sir.”

At this point Soo-Ja felt as if Yul had given her enough of an opening so she could ask the boy some questions. “Why did your father take Hana? What did he tell you?”

Bae contorted his neck, weighing his loyalties, and took a while before he finally began to speak. “My father is not a bad man. But sometimes he does strange things. Things that we don’t understand, but in his head it all makes sense.”

“Why did he take Hana to your house?” asked Soo-Ja.

Hana lay in her mother’s arms, afraid to let go. She grew heavier with every block they passed, but Soo-Ja swallowed the pain. In spite of Yul’s offers to carry her, she knew it was best for her daughter to stay with her.

“You see, ma’am, we’re all boys in the house. Me and my brother. And my father always wanted a girl. So he said this was God’s way of giving us our wish. But I think he did it because of the way she was dressed. He kept saying, ‘Look how nice her clothes are, she must come from a good family!’ He was excited to have a girl from a good family.”

Soo-Ja looked over at Hana, wondering how much of this entire ordeal she understood. Bae stopped talking and watched her as she watched Hana. Soo-Ja turned to him again. “Go on, Bae.”

“He told us to be very careful with her. That a girl isn’t like a boy, you can’t be rough with her. He also told us if anybody asked, to say she was our sister, but that her mother wasn’t our mother, which I didn’t understand. If my mother isn’t her mother, then how can she be my sister? But I suppose it makes sense, since you’re Hana’s mother and you’re not my mother.”

“Would you like her to be your mother?” teased Yul.

So this is how you talk to boys, thought Soo-Ja. You tease them about girls, even if that girl is your mother.

“Yul! Please,” Soo-Ja admonished him, though she did not really mean it. It was the first smile she’d seen on Yul’s face this entire time, and it made her glad.

The boy immediately nodded. “Yes! Yes, I would. You’re very pretty, agassi.”

“It’s ajumma. I’m not too vain to say it. I may be young enough to still be agassi, but I’m a mother now, and ajumma and eomma sound the same to me,” said Soo-Ja. “But Bae, go on. What else happened?”

“We all gathered around Hana. I know boys are not supposed to like girls, but she was very entertaining, we couldn’t stop watching her! It was like having a rabbit in the house. And she cried. Oh, she cried so much in the beginning. And then my father said, if you keep crying, your mother is going to get really mad, and she won’t take you back. That’s when I knew something was wrong. But I couldn’t say anything.”

“And where was your mother through all this?” Soo-Ja asked as they kept walking, the streets completely deserted in front of them.

“She was serving customers. I think she was mad at my father, and was avoiding him. She looked horrified when Father brought Hyo-Joo, I mean Hana, home. She said, ‘Why would you bring me one more mouth to feed?’ And my father said, ‘She’ll earn her keep. She can work at the counter and serve customers when she’s older.’”

Soo-Ja tightened her grip on Hana when she heard this. Did her little girl know the life she had been spared? Of course she did, thought Soo-Ja, the way children always know everything.

“She’s a very clever girl, your daughter,” said Bae, smiling and showing his teeth for the first time. It seemed that he was enjoying being the center of attention. “This morning, she finally stopped crying. She said she liked it with us, and that the house was good. But could she please get some air? She said that it was stuffy in the room. So my father said all right and let her go outside.

“But then as soon as she got outside, she tried to run away. She reached to undo the latch on the gate, but it was too high for her. My father ran back out to get her, this look of panic on his face. He couldn’t believe that a three-year-old could be so clever. That’s why he made my mother take off all her clothes. So she couldn’t go outside. There was nobody to watch her, so we had to leave her alone at times, you know? My father just stuffed her under some blankets and she stayed there the whole day. And he was right. She didn’t try to escape with no clothes on. But I swear, I could see in her face that she still hoped to figure out a way to escape.”

So that’s why she was naked when she came out of the house, thought Soo-Ja. She breathed a sigh of relief. She knew this boy was telling the truth. Besides, if this man’s intentions had been bad, there just hadn’t been enough time, what with a small house full of boys and his wife and the customers drinking next door.

Soo-Ja looked at Hana again, who looked back at her with a pained expression on her face, as if to say, Eomma, how could you leave me? Do you not know what I went through? The tears had stopped, but her face was still wet.

I know, baby. Eomma knows everything. And eomma was bad, to let this happen to you. But now you can sleep. Eomma is here. You can sleep like a child again.

When they arrived in front of her uncle’s house, Soo-Ja lingered for a moment to give either of these two men the chance to leave. Was she being considerate, sparing Yul from bad company? Or was she afraid they would ask him questions, maybe adding two and two? The boy looked at them awkwardly, and she saw in his eyes that he didn’t want to go yet. He wanted to trade as part of some parent-child swap program and come live with them. But, child, she would have to say to him, Yul doesn’t live here with me. I live with some other people. This makeshift family you experienced on our way here, with the four of us, it was as new to me as it was to you.

Yul also seemed to sense the boy’s hesitation. “It’s time for you to go home,” he said, and his firmness came as easily as his teasing earlier, and was just as effective, as the boy bowed to them and started to leave. But before he was gone, Yul reached into his pocket and gave Bae some money. “This is for you. Don’t show it to your father.”

The boy bowed again and—this is how Soo-Ja knew that what he’d told her earlier had been true—he smiled at Hana and said, “Good-bye, little sister. Be nice to your mother.”

Soo-Ja and Yul watched Bae run home, into a dark she found very foreign. After Soo-Ja and Yul could no longer make out the boy’s shape in the distance, they finally turned to each other. So this is that scene in the movie, thought Soo-Ja—the good-bye, first to the less consequential character, then to the important one.

Soo-Ja had felt this before, and she felt it again: that she was always saying good-bye to the only man she truly cared about. But she was wrong. For each time she said good-bye to Yul, he was a different man—one she knew even better, and for whom her feelings had grown deeper. Now she loved him the way a wife might love a husband after a few years—love him after watching him perform an act of kindness, love him after seeing the way he is with other people, love him for the quality of his heart. But he was not her husband; she was not his wife. It was wrong to even think that way. But what was it that counted in the end, the life you lived in front of other people, for their benefit, or the life you lived in your own heart—where she loved him and he loved her back. And could she help it if that life just felt so much more real? Yet whatever happened in that other version of her life—kisses, sighs, joy—in this one he was just a friend, standing in front of her, unsure if he should go in or not, maybe suddenly remembering he had patients, a wife, a life to step back into as soon as he stepped out of hers.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you enough,” said Soo-Ja, speaking softly. Blankets of fog shifted around them, and she felt as if they were wading through clouds. She could see sliced sections of tree branches and the gates of houses, but nothing whole; they seemed to float, all light and watery, without their usual density.

“You don’t need to. We’re friends. Friends take care of each other,” said Yul, as he reached for her and rearranged the wrinkled collar around her neck. He then gently patted Hana’s head; she lay asleep, wrapped in his windbreaker. Soo-Ja made as if to give it back to him, but he shook his head.

“Do you want to come in and meet my in-laws?” asked Soo-Ja. Even in the dark, she could see the sadness ebb and flow on Yul’s face, like the waves in the sea.

“What would you introduce me as?”

“It depends,” Soo-Ja said softly, looking into his eyes. “If I want to lie, or if I want to tell the truth.”

He stared back into her eyes. “I think one should always tell the truth. Except in situations like this.”

Soo-Ja’s heart leapt and then sunk. But she knew that she had no right to be disappointed. She was the one who turned away from him when he asked her to marry him, who refused when he first held out his hand and said, Try me, and be happy.

“Chamara, Soo-Ja. Chamara,” said Yul. Chamara. What is the word that comes closest to it? Soo-Ja wondered. To stand it, to bear it, to grit your teeth and not cry out? To hold on, to wait until the worst is over? There is no other word for it, no way to translate it. It is not a word. It is a way to console yourself. He is not just telling her to stand the pain, but giving her comfort, the power to do so. Chamara is an incantation, and if she listens to its sound, she believes that she can do it, that she will push through this sadness. And if she is strong about it, she’ll be rewarded in the end. It is a way of saying, I know, I feel it, too. This burns my heart, too.