“Harder?” you said in disbelief. “Quit? You think it’s easy to die that way?”
“No, I don’t mean it’s harder.” I tried to explain, but the way you looked at me, the look that said I’d betrayed you, made it harder to find the right words. Maybe I did mean “quit,” because I related more to the man whose brother had died than to the man who had killed himself. I stumbled, stammering, “I don’t mean that. Wait, I mean,” and then I found my stride. “I mean you said yourself there’s so much to be done. Chun is a dictator. I mean we can go back to the States and get the word out so our government puts pressure on Chun to change. The Olympics are going to be here in three years. If people knew back in the States what was happening here . . .” I threw back at you all the things you’d said to me.
“But people are dying right now. It takes something big to make big changes, or it’s more of the same bullshit,” you insisted. “Thousands were massacred in Gwangju, and the US, our government, did nothing. They helped Chun to do whatever he wanted so it could be business as usual in Korea. His men are armed with US weapons.”
“Because they don’t want Korea to become communist like North Korea,” Lloyd said.
“Chun can do anything as long as he’s America’s puppet, and people will continue to suffer here. No workers’ rights, no rights for anyone here,” you said.
“But how’s being a martyr going to change that?” I said.
“It’s going to show people how bad it is. The world needs to see, and how else will they see?” You were adamant. Your face was flushed, and I thought this was our first fight, and I wouldn’t lose you to something like this. I could see you in a shroud of white, and I felt you were telling me you would do this no matter what I said.
“But the media isn’t paying attention, because the media is controlled by Chun’s government,” I said. “You just said that man’s brother died for nothing.”
“That’s what he said.” Your voice was calm again. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Yoona’s right, you’ve said so yourself. Why are you getting all suicidal on us now?” Lloyd said, using a different tack. Scorn was in his voice. It broke through something in you.
“What do you think should be done, then?” you said to Lloyd. Your hands were flat on the table on either side of your teacup. I wanted to stroke your imperfect finger, hold it to my heart, and beg you to promise you wouldn’t ever do what that man’s brother had done, for me, promise.
“Work with Tongsu Cho,” Lloyd was saying. “Go to the meetings he talked about when we get back to Seoul. There are many paths to revolution, remember he said that.” Lloyd sounded reasonable.
I hadn’t heard the name before. “Who’s Tongsu?” I said.
“Cook at the camp. I’ll introduce you to him,” Lloyd said to me. Our eyes met. I saw in them the same fear I had in mine. We loved you. I wondered why I’d ever disliked him.
“I like that. ‘There are many paths to revolution,’” I said. I felt your eyes on me, taking in the way Lloyd spoke to me and my reply.
“Big and small paths,” Lloyd said.
“For people who have all the time in the world.” You scoffed.
Lloyd let out a halfhearted laugh. “Whatever, Jaesung. Revolutions take time. You’ve said so yourself.”
You pushed back in your chair as if you had to put some distance between us, as if Lloyd and I had ganged up on you. Not angry, just resigned and maybe resentful.
“Come on,” Lloyd said, and I was relieved. “We should go back. That bus took forever, man, and they’ll start looking for us.” I looked around for our waitress. How much did our tea cost?
But you weren’t ready to let it go. “Always following the rules. What the hell are you afraid of?” you said in our direction. There was an edge to your voice, and Lloyd jumped on it. And we were back to arguing again.
“Afraid? I’m not afraid. Just because I don’t want to burn myself up, you think I’m afraid? Because I disagree?” He stood up and leaned toward you, his hands on the table. “I’m not allowed to disagree with you? You don’t know what it’s like to really take a stand on anything. You and all these fucking people don’t have a fucking clue.”
The hum of voices in the mandu shop suddenly stopped. The ring of men at the table beside ours and the people at the other tables were looking at us now.
You were looking into your cup and turning it round and round with your hands. I could see then that you were determined to jump like that man’s brother had jumped, and nothing Lloyd or I could say would change your mind.
Lloyd’s face contorted as if he were holding back a flood of words. It was barely a second, but time seemed to stop. I took a sharp intake of breath.
I thought for a second that he was going to punch you. Instead, Lloyd jumped up, his chair overturning on the floor behind him. And then his arm swung out, and he snatched up your cup and threw it on the stone floor at your feet. It shattered into pieces. I saw from the look on Lloyd’s face that he had startled himself with what he had done. And then he was gone. You called to him to come back and went after him. I apologized to the waitress, who was suddenly beside me, righted the chair, gave her money for the tea, and then excused myself.
My heart was in my throat. That’s a saying, and that would be the accurate feeling. I didn’t know what I’d find outside. In the early evening sunlight, Lloyd had his back to the low stone wall of the building that housed the restaurant, the curled tiles of the roof above him, and you were in front of him. You had your hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, and you talked to him in a low voice. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right,” you said. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking when I said that.”
Lloyd’s hands were fisted in front of his eyes. At the time I thought he was as upset as I was at the thought that you wanted to be a martyr. I thought he’d succeeded in convincing you to discard that option, and I thought his outrage had made all the difference, because you didn’t mention it again. I saw Lloyd differently after that. I saw him as a friend.
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I didn’t know how lonely I was until I met you. Isn’t that the way of love? Don’t all lovers say the same thing? Everything changed after they met, the sun was brighter, the sky suddenly announced itself: I’m here, I’m here. Everything suddenly mattered, I came into existence, no longer running between my mother and father, no longer Willa’s sister who cleans up the mess in the kitchen after a fight, I was seen all on my own. You looked at me, and I suddenly materialized into a physical being, all of me. Your hands on my skin reminded me I was alive. And even when we argued, you allowed me space to argue, and you were never loud. You said, “Let’s talk about it. Do you want to talk about it?” And you said afterward, no matter what I’d said or done, “I’ll always forgive you.” No one had forgiven me before or asked me to forgive them.
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