You thought about that for a second and nodded. “He’s a good guy.”
We escaped from the group. It seemed that way. An escape. In a few minutes, we were back out in the giant plaza surrounding the temple. It was breathtaking. How many people must have filled this plaza at one time?
“Better, right?” you said. I couldn’t disagree.
You pointed to a group of women on their hands and knees scrubbing the flagstones. They wore maroon kerchiefs on their heads, matching maroon-colored skirts, and light-gray blouses. Over their mouths and noses were white masks, the kind surgeons wear, only these were made of cloth. There were dozens of these women spread throughout the plaza on that hot summer morning, without relief from the sun. I’d seen them as we’d walked up from the bus and thought how quaint they were in their colorful clothing, how they looked as though they belonged in that expansive plaza as if frozen in time. I’d seen them as props, like I’d seen pilgrims at Plimoth Plantation on a field trip once. As we approached the group closest to us, I could see that they were using rags to scrub the stone. They were actually working, and working hard. I could see sweat on their faces as we drew closer, sweat and deep grooves in their leathered faces.
I stopped when it seemed we were impolitely close, but you kept going and knelt beside one of them. You whispered something to her, and she laughed and playfully hit your leg in admonishment, then pulled down her mask. I saw you slip something into her hand, and she looked at it and hit you some more. In that moment, I saw the gray-green of an American bill. “Chamna, cham,” she said in exasperation. I heard another woman call out to her, and she answered in Korean, “This fool boy thinks we need whiskey.”
All of them laughed. She shook her head, stood up, and started to chase after you to give the bill back to you, but you dodged her like a dancer. Red-faced and toothlessly smiling, she folded the bill into her blouse. “Take care of yourself, eh, auntie?” you said in perfect Korean. Then you went around and proceeded to give all of them a bill here and there until you turned your pockets inside out to show them you had no more.
“Hey,” you said to me. “Come on.” And you took my hand again and started walking backward, eyes on me again. The women were still shaking their heads as we left that large plaza, back on their knees, shaking their heads and watching us walk away.
“They’re laughing at you,” I said.
“So? Is that so bad?”
“What you gave them isn’t going to change anything for them. They’ll still be scrubbing rocks for tourists.”
“Every bit helps.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“You’re going to trip,” I said, but you grinned and kept backing up.
“You’ll hold me up,” you said.
“Or you’ll pull me down with you when you fall.”
“Would that be so bad?” You winced.
I thought you were leading me to something, something for which we’d get into trouble. Maybe I wanted to get into some sort of trouble even then. With you, Jaesung, the boy with the empty pockets who walked backward into the future.
“Hey, watch out, a step,” I said, and you stopped suddenly and tugged me to you. I was too close to your face, and we were on a step, and we could lose our balance, and that’s when you kissed me, and when you pulled away I leaned forward and kissed you back. We tottered on the edge of that step, and then you braced yourself on the next step, and what they say about kissing is true. I gave in to a magnetic, delicious force that pressed our mouths together.
31
I never saw my parents kiss, never saw them embrace. My father patted my mother’s arm with tenderness, I could admit that. And she handed him things, like his coat when it was snowing outside or a glass of iced tea on a hot day. And in the transfer, I saw love. She loved him. I saw Willa kiss boys, plenty of boys, at our front door or on the porch swing. And now I understood the attraction. But unlike my sister, I only wanted to kiss one person—and that person was you. And I was afraid I was more like my mother in that way than my sister, and I was afraid love was a trap.
32
You weren’t afraid of getting lost. You ran toward it. A new adventure, a surprise around every corner. “I heard there’s a town nearby,” you said.
We were standing near the gate of the camp in Korea. That morning we’d gone to another Buddhist temple, and it was the first afternoon we had free time. Some on the tour lined up to call their parents in the States on the landline; others lazed around in the range of tall fans. It was hot. There wasn’t much relief in the shade. You kicked at the ground. The humidity felt ten times thicker than the mosquito nets we slept under each night. We swatted at flies.
“Right now? Just walk out?” I said, wiping sweat off my neck with a bandana.
“There’s a bus,” you said.
“It’s against the rules,” Lloyd said. “They’re showing a movie up in the big hall—let’s go to that.”
“Rules? This isn’t school or jail,” you laughed. “I’m tired of the propaganda-machine tour. Come on.” You held out your hand. “No one will even know we’re gone.” I took it but stood still, uncertain.
“I can’t get into trouble,” Lloyd said.
“What can they do to us?” I said.
“Exactly,” you laughed. “What can they do?”
I had asked the question in all seriousness, but you gave me such a conspiratorial smile, as if it was the two of us against the world.
“What if we get lost? We don’t have a map,” Lloyd said, kicking at pebbles.
“How do you think the people who work here come every day?” you replied. “You talk about all this fake stuff they’re showing us, this camp that’s like a prison, but you don’t go out into the real world when you’ve got the chance? Out there is the real thing. What are you really afraid of, Lloyd?”