Bokhee peered into Sunja’s face.
“Are you afraid of going? You mustn’t be. I think you’re going to have a wonderful life there. The men said there are electric lights everywhere—on trains, cars, streets, and in all the houses. They said Osaka has all the things you could possibly want to buy in stores. Maybe you’ll become rich and you can send for us. We can keep a boardinghouse there!” Bokhee was amazed at such a prospect that she had just invented for them. “They must need boardinghouses, too. Your mother can cook, and we can clean and wash—”
“You think I have crazy thoughts in my head?” Dokhee slapped her sister’s shoulder, leaving a wet handprint on her sister’s jacket sleeve.
Sunja had difficulty wringing out the wet trousers because they were so heavy.
“Can a minister’s wife be rich?” Sunja asked.
“Maybe the minister will make lots of money!” Dokhee said. “And his parents are rich, right?”
“How do you know that?” Sunja asked. Her mother had said that Isak’s parents owned some land, but many of the landowners had been selling off their plots to the Japanese to pay the new taxes. “I don’t know if we’ll have much money. It doesn’t matter.”
“His clothes are so nice, and he’s educated,” Dokhee said, not clear as to how people had money.
Sunja started to wash another pair of trousers.
Dokhee glanced at her sister. “Can we give it to her now?”
Bokhee nodded, wanting to take Sunja’s mind off leaving. The girl looked anxious and sad, nothing like a happy bride.
“You’re like a little sister to us, but you’ve always felt older because you’re smart and patient,” Bokhee said, smiling.
“When you’re gone, who’ll defend me when I get a scolding from your mother? You know my sister won’t do anything,” Dokhee added.
Sunja laid aside the pants she was washing by the rocks. The sisters had been with her ever since her father had died; she couldn’t imagine not living with them.
“We wanted to give you something.” Dokhee held out a pair of ducks carved out of acacia wood hanging from a red silk cord. They were the size of a baby’s hand.
“The ajeossi at the market said ducks mate for life,” Bokhee said. “Maybe you can come back home in a few years and bring home your children to show us. I’m good at taking care of babies. I raised Dokhee almost by myself. Although she can be naughty.”
Dokhee pushed up her nostrils with her index finger to make a piggy face.
“Lately, you’ve been looking so unhappy. We know why,” Dokhee said.
Sunja was holding the ducks in her hand, and she looked up.
“You miss your father,” Bokhee said. The sisters had lost their parents as little girls.
Bokhee’s broad face broke into a sad smile. Her tiny, gracious eyes, which resembled tadpoles, pulled downward to meet her knobby cheekbones. The sisters had almost identical faces; the younger one was shorter and slightly plump.
Sunja wept and Dokhee folded her into her strong arms.
“Abuji, my abuji,” Sunja said quietly.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Bokhee said, patting Sunja on the back. “You have a kind husband now.”
Yangjin packed her daughter’s things herself. Every article of clothing was folded with care, then stacked in a broad square of fabric to form a manageable bundle. The fabric corners were tied neatly into a loop handle. In the days before the couple left, Yangjin kept thinking that she’d forgotten something, forcing her to unpack one of the four bundles and repeat the process. She wanted to send more pantry items like dried jujubes, chili flakes, chili paste, large dried anchovies, and fermented soybean paste to give to Isak’s sister-in-law, but Isak told her that they could not carry too much on the ferry. “We can purchase things there,” he assured her.
Bokhee and Dokhee remained at the house on the morning Yangjin, Sunja, and Isak went to the Busan ferry terminal. The good-byes with the sisters were difficult; Dokhee cried inconsolably, afraid that Yangjin might leave for Osaka and abandon the sisters in Yeongdo.