Sad Peninsula (27 page)

Across the street, she saw a storefront that she recognized. It was a small dry cleaners that Po's sister Pan-im and her husband had owned. It still had the overhead sign that Eun-young remembered from those years ago, with its bright yellow background and black Hangul lettering. She stood staring at it for a moment, then crossed the street toward it. As she did, a woman came out toting a long plastic bag of jackets over her shoulder, their hangers clasped in her palm. Another woman came out behind her, waved and wished her a good day. The second woman was Pan-im. Fiftyish now, in a gray work shirt and slacks.

She turned then, casually, and saw Eun-young standing on the sidewalk. At first the smile stayed on her lips, but then her eyes found the telltale scar over Eun-young's mouth. Eun-young watched as recognition flooded the woman's face, a face that suddenly stiffened, brow tightening and eyes like hot stones in their sockets.

“Hello, Pan-im,” Eun-young said shyly.

Her former sister-in-law just stood there with her lips packed tightly together.

“I said hello, Pan-im.”

Po's sister bared her teeth. “Hello, you little whore.”

The word knocked the wind from Eun-young's lungs, much like the journalist's use of
Chosunjin
had done days earlier. She couldn't seize enough breath to form words.

“What are you
doing
here?” Pan-im spat.

“I'm looking for Po,” she finally muttered. “I came down from Seoul today. The Olympics … the Olympics drove me out of the city … I couldn't watch them … I needed to see Po … I needed to tell him …”

“Po is dead,” Pan-im said, in a tone that was almost proud. Proud at how those words cut off Eun-young's rambling with such force.

“Wh-when?” she quaked, and already knew the answer.

“Four years ago.”

Eun-young brought a hand to her mouth.

Pan-im's smile was nothing but pure hatred. “Look at you,” she said. “Look at you, Eun-young, standing on the street outside my store after all these years, and
weeping
.” She let out a laugh. “You, the little woman of mysteries. You, who left my brother with no explanation, abandoned your marriage for no reason. You, who arrived in our lives like a ghost out of some oblivion, then vanished back into it as quickly as you came. And leaving my brother
destroyed
in your wake. And now here you are, not a ghost at all but a woman of flesh and blood — and
weeping
, weeping in front of me and my little store!”

Eun-young felt as if she had been stripped naked and put on display.

“Do you wish to know what happened to him? Hmm? Yes? No? Speak, woman.”

Eun-young could not. She clenched her chin in her clavicles and stared at the sidewalk.

“Nineteen years, Eun-young. Nineteen years of unwavering solitude. We tried to reason with him, to talk him out of it. But he was adamant — and he held his ground until the day he died. Oh, he still showed up for work every day. He still came out for Chuseok, for birthday parties, for other family things. But he was
never
really with us. He stayed entirely locked up within himself, and no matter how much we pleaded with him to come out, he never relented. He never stopped mourning the loss of his little woman of mysteries.”

“I didn't know …”

“You didn't know? Who cares! Listen to me, Eun-young. My brother was never a strong man — he was a bit of a wimp his whole life. But he deserved better than to grieve over you for so long, and to die in that house by himself. That's right. One day four years ago, his heart just gave out. It just stopped beating, Eun-young. It just didn't want to go on. We found him
face down in the cat food by the door!
”

Pan-im took a step closer to her. Eun-young flinched, certain that her sister-in-law would strike her. Passersby on both sides of the street had paused to stare at them.

“You, a little woman of mysteries?” Pan-im went on. “Ha! Well, you're no mystery to me. I think I know what you were before you came into our lives. A
prostitute
, that's what I think. A whore, Eun-young. I think you sold your body to American soldiers while they were carving up our country with the Russians, and then fled down here out of shame — looking for a life of solitude and never expecting a good man to fall in love with a dirty rag like you.”

“Not true … it's not true …” She could feel the neighbourhood's gaze all over her.

“Look me in the eye, Eun-young, and tell me you never had a man before Po. Look into my face and say you were a virgin on your wedding night. Can you do that?”

Eun-young stepped back, began to turn.

“You can't, can you? Because you're a whore. I'm right, aren't I? You're a whore! You're a horrible, horrible whore! That's it, Eun-young, walk away. Go on. Turn your back on me, just like you turned your back on Po. Walk away, you prostitute. Go back to Seoul, you harpy. Look everyone. Look at the whore from Seoul! Look at her as she walks away from the family she ruined. Look at the woman who killed my brother! Look at her! Look! Look before she vanishes again!”

T
he kid with the violent comic book got up to get off the subway. Eun-young had been watching him out of the corner of her eye for countless stops as he sat in the seat beside hers. A teenager, maybe sixteen, his pure-black hair foisted off his scalp in every which direction and held in place by some foul-smelling spray. The only interruption to his reading was a quick call on his handphone. Discussion of a video game, mostly — and the mention of a girl. Now, the boy stood at the doors, grasping the hand strap as he waited for the subway to pull up to the platform. Flipped open his handphone once, probably to check the time. The doors opened and he slipped out coolly to go meet up with his friends.

That is youth
, Eun-young thought.
That is what youth is
supposed
to be
.

Her thoughts lingered on her botched trip to Pusan during the Olympics as she closed in on her visit to Ji-young. Why did that hateful voyage stay in her mind now? It had to be more than this familiar feeling of arriving somewhere too late for her presence to have any impact. Why did this trouble her so much now?

Because Po had died of a broken heart.

That's right. His heart had just stopped beating. The same thing had happened to Eun-young's mother. She had been waiting, with a useless hope, for Eun-young to come back from wherever the Japanese had taken her — and knowing deep down that she wouldn't. Not ever. And her heart, shattered and weak, just gave up in the face of such horror and sadness. And the same thing had happened to Po. Waiting — and then just giving up.

And now here Eun-young was, so many years removed from those days, but facing it all over again. And it was Ji-young who was overwhelmed by that unshakeable sense of
han
, all that accumulated sadness strangling her. And waiting for the one person who could come and help her, who possessed the wisdom to ease that sorrow.

Her station came and Eun-young hobbled toward the doors. The subway stopped and she stepped out onto the platform. Walked through the turnstiles, then up the escalators that led to Ji-young's neighbourhood. A short walk down the main drag and she was at her apartment building, a low brown structure with old Hanja lettering over the door. Eun-young stepped into the lobby and made her rickety climb up to the second floor. On the landing, she paused before Ji-young and Chung Hee's embossed steel door. And then knocked. A moment of excruciating silence, and then the deadbolt turned. The door opened. And Ji-young appeared before her, wearing a black linen dress with matching kerchief tied over her hair. Her face looked utterly ancient in its sadness as it stared for a moment at her older sister standing at the threshold. Eun-young felt shame wash over her, felt like every stained cell of her body wanted to flake away, felt that every violation she had endured was now visible on her skin and that she could never —

“You came!” Ji-young said, and threw her arms around her sister.

“I'm so sorry,” Eun-young wept. “I meant to come sooner. I did. It's just taken me a while. You know? It's taken me a while. I'm so sorry, Ji-young.”

“Don't be foolish, don't be foolish, I understand, you're here now, please come in, come on in, my sister …”

The apartment that Ji-young and Chung Hee shared was small but brightly lit, with real hardwood floors, Korean scroll paintings on the walls and a venerable jungle of houseplants — ferns and cacti and African violets — lined up on the rock ledge leading to the frosted door of the sunroom. On shelves everywhere were framed pictures of children and grandchildren.

“I'll make some tea,” Ji-young said, squeezing her sister's hand. “Go sit in the sunroom and I'll bring it in to you.”

Eun-young did what she was told. She slid open the frosted door and sat on one of the mats by the low cherry-wood table, tucking her legs under her and setting her cane against the wall. Ji-young soon came in with a teapot and small ceramic cups arranged on a tray. She set them down on the table, positioning herself on the mat across from Eun-young's, and began to pour.

Eun-young reached out for her hands. “Perhaps under the circumstances, I should be serving you.”

“Don't be silly. Here.” And she handed her one of the steaming cups.

The two old women sat in silence for a moment, sipping their tea.

“Is Chung Hee home?”

“No. He went to the park to play
changgi
with some friends. He should be back soon.”

“How is he?”

“Better than last week,” Ji-young said with a nod. Sipped her tea and lowered her eyes. “Last week was very hard.”

“And how are
you
, my sister?” Eun-young asked, trying to pry Ji-young's gaze back up. “You mentioned insomnia on the phone. Has it improved at all?”

“A little.” Ji-young frowned, lowered her stare even more. Then she said: “I have been a fool.”

“Oh Ji-young, why do you say such a thing?”

“I shouldn't have called you so late at night — and in the
state
I was in.”

“No, it's fine. I shouldn't have stayed away for so long. I have been struggling, Ji-young, to know how to handle all of this. I'm not sure what you need, what any of the family needs from me, or where I fit in. I spoke to Jin-su after the funeral and she said —”

Ji-young turned her face up suddenly. “Eun-young, I need to
speak
.”

Eun-young fell silent, and Ji-young went on.

“I know there are aspects of your life that I will never know about. You have endured things that I can't even comprehend. All my life, I have looked up to you. I
know
how lucky I was, not to have gone through what you did. Everything I've been blessed with is a result of me being born five years after you. I
know
that. I know that whatever strife I have had in my life pales in comparison to yours. But Eun-young, I have lost my
daughter
. And I will not measure my pain against yours. It is not something one can measure. But it is
my
pain, Eun-young. And I need to speak it — to you.”

“Speak,” Eun-young said.

And so Ji-young did. She sipped her tea and spoke of Tae. Spoke of the enriching childhood she had tried to give her despite their joyless poverty throughout the fifties and sixties. Spoke of the reflection back to Ji-young of what Tae became as she grew older — suddenly obsessed with marriage and bearing children, the stones of obligations she would need to carry as a Korean woman. “I told her stories of my own desires for a family,” Ji-young said. “I told her: ‘Here I was, a girl of seventeen or eighteen, and my country was being ripped apart by war — and all I could think about was finding a man to marry and having his children.' Do you remember, Eun-young? Of course you do. I was
obnoxious
!” She spoke of how Tae had taken those same ambitions and warped them into something Ji-young could not approve of: a fixation on status, on what the neighbours thought, on her obsessions with social climbing and how Jin-su and Bum Suk were to be educated. It all seemed out of touch with everything Ji-young knew about how the world really worked. She had tried to steer Tae away from those hollow pits of materialism, the wealth she demanded of Minsu, the gadgetry she was always accumulating, the immense pressure she put on her children, to say to her:
Look at what your aunt went through — do you honestly think any of
this
matters so much?
But there were disappointments in Tae's life that Ji-young just couldn't get her to shake: the constant fights with Jin-su about how she should live
her
life; the stress she put on Minsu to climb the corporate ladder; the initial displeasure she showed (later reversed) when Bum Suk asked to study culinary arts in America. By the end, their house seemed saturated in conflict, to the point where Ji-young could hardly bear to visit. It was like Tae had a perpetual scowl branded onto her face. “I know her childhood had been hard. We had been so poor for so long. And I know that it bred these fears, these horribly shallow fixations of hers. But what?
What?
I wanted to scream at her. We all suffer hardships in our lives. I came to learn that my sister — you, dear Eun-young — was a
sex slave for the Japanese
. I watched our mother die of a heart attack when she was just thirty-nine. I watched our country torn apart and its fate decided by foreigners. It happened before my eyes. I always wanted to say to her: What is it in you, Tae, that makes you the way you are? We
all
suffer hardships. But eventually we learn a terrible truth about our lives. We learn that soon, the source of our unhappiness stops being about the traumatic things that happened, and
starts
being about how we've failed to deal with them. That's what I should have told her, but I never did. It was really the only wisdom I could give her. But she died before I thought enough to speak it.”