A Southern Girl (4 page)

Captain Oh, unaccustomed to being scolded, particularly by a woman, seemed to take this advice in stride. I later learned that Mi Cha lived nearby, a fixture in the neighborhood for longer than most remembered. She knew all of the policemen who worked out of Jongam Precinct. She used its doorway as liberally as she used her own, venturing over one or two times a day as a cure for loneliness and to deliver food for the men. She had perfected her memorable kimchi on the palates of three sons and eleven grandchildren, and the massive clay jar in which she stored it must have been bottomless. She lived alone now, but continued turning out her specialty in quantities adequate for the three shifts at Jongam, with whom she shared it compulsively. She had just returned from a six week visit to the country home of her middle son. In her habit of the last ten years, she turned up the walkway toward the old door, just as I had done.

I rose, crossed the room, and took a chair beside her. Together we stared down at the child, whose nicely proportioned face was florid with fever, her damp hair matted against the shawl Mi Cha had placed around her.

“I came in search of my dog,” the woman said. “Mojo. He has never run off, and I thought one of the policemen might have seen him. It is a good thing the child was crying so, because I may not have seen her. I changed her just before you arrived.”

At that moment the baby winced as if in pain and began to cry so loudly the men ceased conversation.

“Shut her up,” Captain Oh ordered.

Mi Cha shifted the child from her lap to her shoulder, patting her back in rhythmic measure. The cries and their volume increased.

“Let me try,” I said. At the instant of exchange, the child redoubled her cries. Her face, already flushed in the grip of fever, darkened to a pagan mask of crimson rage. Freed from the bunting, her hands gnarled into fists so compressed that they grew white from lack of circulation. Her cries came in waves, with each outpouring demanding new air from her lungs to fully register in pitch and amplification her complete indignation.

“Such anger, my little one, such anger,” I said, placing one hand under the head while my other hand supported the body. I smiled, and I suppose she must have sensed new circumstances in my hands and voice because, whether startled or comforted, she fell silent.

“You have a knack,” said Mi Cha.

“It will not last,” I said. “She needs a doctor.”

“What becomes of such children?” asked Mi Cha.

“She is very young. If she is healthy, she may be adopted by Americans.”

“By Americans?” The old woman shook her head, and the scowl which crossed her face at that moment was one of disgust, but whether reserved for Americans, or for Koreans who gave away their offspring, I could not read.

The infant grew impatient with our conversation. The discussion of her future held no interest for one with needs so immediate. As she squirmed and fretted toward another outburst, I thanked Mi Cha and turned to Chan Wook Park.

“Let me sign for her and go. She needs medicine.”

As Chan Wook Park searched for a release, opening and closing desk drawers in haphazard inefficiency, Mi Cha asked if anyone had reported seeing Mojo. Captain Oh, preparing to leave and walking toward his coat hanging from a hook near the window, halted in mid-step. “And where is Mojo?”

“Gone. I left him in the care of my neighbor while I was away. She saw him yesterday, and I was certain he would appear today. I was coming to ask your boys if they had seen him when I found this infant.”

The fringes of the captain’s brow converged upon the center, furrowing the area between his wide-set eyes. “Mojo missing. This is most unfortunate.”

“He has never run off. I fear the worst.”

“Do not lose hope. I will have the men look out for him.” He turned toward Chan Wook Park. “Instruct the shift change to keep eyes open for Mojo. And the men getting off can watch for him on their way home. He is a fine dog. We need to locate him for Mi Cha.”

“Many thanks, captain.”

“We are like sons here, Mi Cha. What kind of sons would let their mother’s dog stray?”

“You are very kind.”

I pulled the child closer. Her heat radiated through me like a brazier. The captain’s concern for Mojo was touching, but in a country that eats dog he unwittingly made a statement about girls such as the one in my arms—little female corks set adrift by who knows who to float about in an uncertain ocean, where the tide is always rising and the shoals are sharp and submerged. I am one of them—a girl, that is—and this is why I do what I do.

Chan Wook Park found the release and I scrawled a signature. I was almost out the door when Mi Cha called.

“I almost forgot,” she said, walking toward me and slipping something from her pocket. “This mirror was wrapped up with her.”

I caught a cab back, bypassing the orphanage and heading straight to the offices of Dr. Lee, who treated our wards. He ran a high-volume clinic, but always managed to find a way to move me to the head of a long line. As I lingered at his shoulder, he unwrapped layers of rough, cheap cloth until she lay naked on the table, a crude incision of the umbilical cord just beginning to heal.

“About three weeks old, I think,” he said, bending over her. “A bit premature.”

My eye caught the small rectangular paper pinned to the cloth. “The child has a name,” I said, examining the Hangol. “Soo Yun.” Dr. Lee took no notice, repositioning his stethoscope on her inflamed chest.

“I’ll give you something for the fever,” he said. “If she isn’t better in a day or two, bring her back.”

After slipping the paper on which her name was printed into the same pocket holding the mirror, I discarded her wraps and swaddled her in a surgical gown I promised Dr. Lee I’d return. Then I stuffed her into my coat for the walk to the orphanage, two blocks away. Looking back, I feel sure something changed in those two blocks. Most of the abandoned
children came without names. The staff took turns naming them. As it was a task I disliked, I pulled rank as supervisor of Ward 3E and skipped my turn in the naming rotation. Some came without even clothes. This one had not only a name but a mirror, and I couldn’t remember any of our foundlings arriving with a possession. From my brief examination of the mirror, it was hardly of the best quality, but if this child came from the impoverishment signaled by her crude clothes, her mother gave something up in sending it. Sending them.

A sucker for children, I told friends who asked that I took the job at Open Arms Orphanage eight years ago because I had always wanted fifty children and this seemed like the only practical way to have them. They were my life, as anyone who came to my pathetic apartment and met my needy cat, Bo-cat, knew. I was rarely at home, and not for the reasons most women twenty-nine were away. I hadn’t had a date in over a year. Physically, I was what you would call “plain.” I knew this and had reconciled myself to it. I blamed my parents for my boxy build, my flat chest, my rugby calves, and uninspired features. We can’t all be movie stars. But if I was honest enough to admit my shortcomings, I stated with equal sincerity that I was one damn fine nurse. I could tell you the name of every child on my ward and their birthdays, whether those birthdays were real or the ones we guessed at. I knew their histories. I knew their fears and their favorite foods. I rejoiced when they left and I cried when they left. I also cried when they stayed, as so many did, until they aged into the next grouping, where their chances for placement diminished each year. It broke my heart to see a child without a family. But while they were in my care, they knew love and compassion and support. I couldn’t give them everything, but I could give them that.

That little peanut inside my coat weighed barely two kilograms. Her lungs sought air by the thimbleful. Tiny Soo Yun with the mirror, whose fevered pulse I felt pumping up against me. What would become of her? I asked myself that question about each of my children, but I had not been at the home long enough to test my instincts against results. When I started on Ward 3E, the oldest children, now fourteen, were six. I projected wonderful futures for them, the way you do when you are young and idealistic and lack experience. With my help, each would become a ballerina, a tennis champion, a teacher, a doctor, a mother. Soo Yun was
too young to forecast any such future. First, she had to breathe. Next, she must be adopted. Lastly, she must be inspired. Soil, water, light; the elements of survival, and without all three she may find herself, years from now, the drug-crazed landlady of a large-appliance box in the armpit of a sweltering city. Or perhaps a life spent shuffling home from a corner market in an afternoon drizzle of mediocrity, where the umbrellas will be all black, the faces yellow, the packages beige, where she will wonder if others are able to perceive color in a universe that for her holds no interesting contrast, and where the first arresting sound she heard was also the last, that of her mother’s retreating footsteps. No. No. No. Not for Soo Yun with her mirror. I realize now that in that walk of two blocks, I reached an unknown and perhaps unknowable resolve that her fate would be different. She was special, but in what ways I did not yet know.

I arrived back at Ward 3E just before the evening shift, which consisted of … me. I often pulled double shifts, both because we had trouble staffing a facility like that and because I loved the work. Orphanage policy required a minimum of two adults during the day, but during the evening and at night, we could make do with one. And if another ward, stretched thin by vacations or illness, needed relief, I could work both. I know. I was obsessed.

I handed Soo Yun to my aide to be bathed, powdered and fed, then placed in the crib prepared by my aide in my absence. Preparation consisted of moving the other two infants occupying the same crib. The nursery had never been this crowded. If we got another call from Jongam, I would have had to take her home to sleep with Bo-cat. My office, otherwise known as the supply closet, was just off the ward. I slipped in long enough to put the mirror and name tag into a drawer. By the time I left at midnight, Soo Yun’s fever had dropped and she appeared to be sleeping restfully.

Open Arms is an international adoption agency headquartered in the United States. My boss, Faith Stockdale, was in charge here. The next morning, a woman on Faith’s staff photographed Soo Yun and interviewed me regarding anything I knew about her abandonment. Meager as it was, my account was placed in a new file along with the photograph, to be used as the basis for a temporary custody proceeding by the orphanage. Faith also compiled dossiers to be sent to prospective parents in the
U.S., where most of our children were placed. I made a mental note to speak to Faith about Soo Yun, but with Winter Open House just days away, I forgot.

We held Open House quarterly. It reminded the local patrons and churches that we appreciated their financial support and, frankly, that we needed more. Spring Open House, held before
chang-ma,
the rainy season, drew the largest crowds. Large turnouts reassured the children they had not been forgotten. Winter Open House generated the fewest visitors, but the work and preparation that went into it was the same. Our entire staff reported early. We stripped the beds and substituted clean sheets smelling of warm bleach. We draped the freshly made beds in the navy blue-and-white spreads reserved for special occasions. We used ammonia by the bucketfuls, giving the floors an antiseptic scrubbing. A local flower shop donated fresh flowers; carnations, gladiolus, and lilac brightened the room in festive contrast to the beige of the walls.

Since the oldest child on 3E was six, any Open House can and usually did degenerate into something close to a kiddie flash mob. Children ran up and down aisles, between and under beds, around corners at full throttle. Squeals of terror—usually happy terror—echoed as tag and “gotcha” erupted. We did our best to keep things from getting too chaotic, but kids will be kids and when they are being scrutinized for adoption, that is exactly what prospective parents want to see. I have visited orphanages where the children are made to appear rigid and lifeless. They feel to me like dog pounds where the animals have been drugged. The girls tend to be less rambunctious. With some exceptions, they spent their mornings outfitting their dolls in holiday garb and propping them prominently on pillows for the best view.

The nursery was separated from the beds of the toddlers by a windowed wall. For that Open House, our generous florist sent an arrangement of fresh-cut orchids in a vase bedecked with yellow ribbons spangled with glitter. I placed this by the nurses’ station guarding the door. The nursery itself looked like it did on any other day.

At nine-thirty, the administrator of the home, Yong Tae Shin, inspected my ward. A retired military officer with a ramrod, dignified gait, a dark complexion, and a full head of silver hair, he gave my kids his standard speech.

“Our guests will be here shortly. Remember your manners. Those of you who have ‘Projections’ will kindly display them in the proper fashion. Be friendly to our guests. They are like family to us.”

Yes, a family of sorts. Not like mine, of course. Not the kind that taped your school drawings to the refrigerator and made certain you got on the same soccer team as your friends and attended recitals when you barely knew the scales. But family in its own unique and desperate way.

As the administrator moved to the next ward, my children opened their lockers and removed papers, pictures and crafts, spreading them on their beds for maximum exposure. At ten o’clock, the elevator doors opened to deliver the first arrivals. Most of the guests came from Christian churches in and around Seoul. The overwhelming majority were Koreans, older people who mirrored the aging populations of churches generally, and with no link to or relationship with the children beyond this outreach program. Many were grandparents.

That morning’s group appeared typical. Women predominated, with graying heads and wrinkled faces, clutching plastic bags of candy and fruit to be distributed over the course of their one-hour stay. They dressed in western clothes, frequently with crosses suspended on gold chains from their necks or pinned to lapels. A number were paired, arm in arm, as they fanned out. The children waited with an awkward, reluctant fidget, the way they might receive a distant relative determined to hug them.