They walked along the outer perimeter of the island, where no one would see them together. The coastline seemed more glorious than it had ever been. As they approached the forest located on the opposite side of the island, the enormous pines, maples, and firs seemed to greet them, decked in golds and reds as if they were wearing their holiday clothes. Hansu told her about living in Osaka. The Japanese were not to be vilified, he said. At this moment in time, they were beating the Koreans, and of course, no one liked losing. He believed that if the Koreans could stop quarreling with each other, they could probably take over Japan and do much worse things to the Japanese instead.
“People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”
Sunja nodded as he spoke, trying to remember his every word, to hold on to his every image, and to grasp whatever he was trying to tell her. She treasured his stories like the beach glass and rose-colored stones she used to collect as a girl—his words astonished her because he was taking her by the hand and showing her new, unforgettable things.
Of course, there were many subjects and ideas she didn’t understand, and sometimes just trying to learn it all without experiencing it was difficult. Yet she crammed her mind the way she might have overfilled a pig intestine with blood sausage stuffing. She tried hard to figure things out because she didn’t want him to think she was ignorant. Sunja didn’t know her letters in either Korean or Japanese. Her father had taught her some addition and subtraction so she could count money, but that was all. Both she and her mother could not even write their names.
Hansu had brought a large kerchief so he could gather mushrooms as well. His obvious delight at their excursion made her feel better, but Sunja was still worried that someone would see them. No one knew they were friends. Men and women were not supposed to be that, and they were not sweethearts, either. He had never mentioned marriage, and if he wanted to marry her, he would have to speak to her mother, but he had not. In fact, after he asked her if she had a sweetheart three months before, he’d never raised the subject again. She tried not to think about what his life was like with women. It would not have been difficult for him to find a girl to be with, and his interest in her did not always make sense.
The long walk to the forest felt brief, and when they entered the woods, it felt even more isolated than the cove, but unlike the openness of the low rocks and the expanse of blue-green water, immense trees stood high above them, and it was like entering the dark, leafy house of a giant. She could hear birds, and she looked up and about to see what kind they were. She noticed Hansu’s face: There were tears in his eyes.
“Oppa, are you all right?”
He nodded. He had talked for the entire length of the walk about traveling and work, yet at the sight of the colored leaves and bumpy tree trunks, Hansu fell silent. He placed his right hand on her back and touched the end of her hair braid. He stroked her back, then removed his hand carefully.
Hansu had not been in a forest since he was a boy—that time before he became a tough teenager who could hustle and steal with the wisest street kids of Osaka. Before he moved to Japan, the wooded mountains of Jeju had been his sanctuary; he had known every tree on the volcano Halla-san. He recalled the small deer with their slender legs and mincing, flirtatious steps. The heavy scent of orange blossoms came back to him, though there were no such things in the woods of Yeongdo.
“Let’s go,” he said, walking ahead, and Sunja followed him. Less than a dozen paces in, he stopped to pluck a mushroom gently from the ground. “That’s our first,” he said, no longer crying.
He had not lied to her. Hansu was an expert at finding mushrooms, and he found numerous edible weeds for her, even explaining how to cook them.
“When you’re hungry, you’ll learn what you can eat and what you cannot.” He laughed. “I don’t like being hungry. So, where’s your spot? Which way?”
“A few minutes from here—it’s where my mother used to pick them after a heavy rain when she was a girl. She’s from this side of the island.”
“Your basket is not large enough. You could have brought two and had plenty to dry for the winter! You might have to return tomorrow.”
Sunja smiled at him. “But, Oppa, you haven’t even seen the spot!”