Before Sunja crossed the threshold of the kitchen door to leave the house for the market or the beach, she would check her reflection on the polished metal pot lid, primping the tight braid she’d made that morning. Sunja had no idea how to make herself lovely or appealing to any man, and certainly not a man as important as Koh Hansu, so she endeavored to be clean and tidy at the least.
The more she saw him, the more vivid he grew in her mind. His stories filled her head with people and places she had never imagined before. He lived in Osaka—a large port city in Japan where he said you could get anything you wanted if you had money and where almost every house had electric lights and plug-in heaters to keep you warm in the winter. He said Tokyo was far busier than Seoul—with more people, shops, restaurants, and theaters. He had been to Manchuria and Pyongyang. He described each place to her and told her that one day she would go with him to these places, but she couldn’t understand how that would ever happen. She didn’t protest, because she liked the idea of traveling with him, the idea of being with him longer than the few minutes they had at the cove. From his travels, he brought her beautifully colored candies and sweet biscuits. He would unwrap the candies and put one in her mouth like a mother feeding a child. She had never tasted such lovely and delicious treats—pink hard candies imported from America, butter biscuits from England. Sunja was careful to throw away the wrappers outside the house, because she didn’t want her mother to know about them.
She was enraptured by his talk and his experiences, which were far more unique than the adventures of fishermen or workers who had come from far-flung places, but there was something even more new and powerful in her relationship with Hansu that she had never expected. Until she met him, Sunja had never had someone to tell about her life—the funny habits of the lodgers, her exchanges with the sisters who worked for her mother, memories of her father, and her private questions. She had someone to ask about how things worked outside of Yeongdo and Busan. Hansu was eager to hear about what went on in her day; he wanted to know what she dreamed about even. Occasionally, when she didn’t know how to handle something or someone, he told her what she could do; he had excellent ideas on how to solve problems. They never spoke of Sunja’s mother.
At the market, it was strange to see him doing business, for he was this other person when he was with her—he was her friend, her elder brother, the one who’d lift the bundle of laundry from her head when she came to him. “How gracefully you do that,” he would remark, admiring how straight and strong her neck was. Once, he touched the nape of her neck lightly with both his thick, square hands, and she sprang from his touch, shocked by the sensation she felt.
She wanted to see him all the time. Who else did he talk to or ask questions of? What did he do in the evening when she was at home serving the lodgers, polishing the low dining tables, or sleeping beside her mother? It felt impossible to ask him, so she kept those questions to herself.
For three months, they met in the same way, growing easier in each other’s company. When fall arrived, it was brisk and cold by the sea, but Sunja hardly felt the chilly air.
Early September, it rained for five days straight, and when it finally cleared, Yangjin asked Sunja to gather mushrooms at Taejongdae Forest the following morning. Sunja liked mushroom picking, and as she was about to meet Hansu at the beach, she felt giddy that she could tell him she was going to do something different from her regular chores. He traveled and saw new things often; this was the first time she was doing something out of her normal routine.
In her excitement, she blurted out her plans to pick mushrooms right after breakfast the next day, and Hansu said nothing for a few moments and stared at her pensively.
“Your Hansu-oppa is good at finding mushrooms and wild roots. I know a lot about the ones you can eat and the ones you can’t. When I was a boy, I spent hours searching for roots and mushrooms. In the spring, I’d look for fernbrake and dry them. I used to catch rabbits for our dinner with a slingshot. Once, I caught a pair of pheasants before dusk—it was the first time we had meat in a long time. My father was so delighted!” His face softened.
“We can go together. How much time do you have to get the mushrooms?” he asked.
“You want to go?”
It was one thing to talk to him twice a week for half an hour, but she couldn’t imagine spending a day with him. What would happen if someone saw them together? Sunja’s face felt hot. What was she supposed to do? She had told him, and she couldn’t keep him from going.
“I’ll meet you here. I better go back to the market.” Hansu smiled at her differently this time, like he was a boy, excitement beaming from his face. “We’ll find a huge bundle of mushrooms. I know it.”