This Burns My Heart (7 page)

Soo-Ja then saw that the men who had been holding Chu-Sook’s body began to fall, too, like the legs of a table being knocked off one by one. For a moment, Chu-Sook’s frame seemed to hang in the air, on its own, and Soo-Ja imagined that it would fly to heaven. The moment suddenly felt very quiet and still—the body rising a few inches, as the last
of its pallbearers pushed it upward toward the sky—but then its weight broke through the air again, and Soo-Ja watched as the boy’s body fell to the ground, making a thunderous noise. Chu-Sook would not make his way to his savior that night; he chose to stay with the others, becoming one more in a sea of bodies.

“N
ow, more than ever, I long for my life to have more heft,” wrote Soo-Ja to Min. It was the first letter she’d ever sent him. “And yes, that’s the word I mean—heft. I have tasted what it means to have days packed with urgency and meaning, and I cannot go back to living an unimportant life. I find my routines so dull and tranquil. I know I have everything a young woman of my class could ask for—attentive servants, hand-stitched clothes, a temple-like home—but it all feels like a gilded cage. I can see what will happen if I stay in Daegu. I’ll never have to answer the call of my own highest potential. I
must
become a diplomat.”

Lying restless on the ground, Soo-Ja thought about Min, and how much she’d misjudged him. Why had she been so quick to dismiss him? He had risked his life at the protests, just like she had. They had experienced the same—only miles apart. Had he thought of her as he evaded bullets, or as he knocked about against the body armor of the police? All he’d asked for was a date. If she’d simply said yes, he could have been out of harm’s way.

Come back
, Soo-Ja found herself whispering. If he did, they could go on that date he had so desperately wanted. They could take a walk along the river at night and name different constellations. If it got cold, he’d lend her his argyle sweater. Or maybe he’d ask Soo-Ja for hers. But what she realized was that she wouldn’t mind that, if she had to be the strong
one. She’d like to swoop in and care for Min, who sometimes had the air of an orphan. How had he managed to survive all his life without her to protect him? He was the opposite of Yul, who seemed to need nothing and no one.
Not even a wife
, thought Soo-Ja poignantly.

Min had been lucky. He’d marched in the large protest outside the National Assembly, the one where, according to the radio, more than a hundred people had been killed, and a thousand injured. But he had not been wounded. He’d told her so when he wrote her back. He also mentioned he’d be coming home to Daegu very soon. “My work here is done,” he wrote in a grandiose way. “Syngman Rhee has been deposed. Our country’s struggle for freedom, which began when we freed ourselves from the Japanese colonizers, then continued with the war against the communists, has finally come to an end with the end of the dictatorship. I was talking about this to the people in the crowd, as we watched the slow procession of the President’s motorcade through the streets of Seoul. And you know what the amazing thing was? Some people were crying. I don’t know if it’s because they were thinking of the terrible things he’d done, or because they felt sorry for him and his wife. But what matters is that he’s gone now, and this is a beautiful day for democracy.”

Min had left as an idler, but he would return as a hero.

Soo-Ja sat on the front steps of her house, watching the servants do the week’s laundry in the courtyard. One of them worked the lever of the water pump, her heavy arms pushing up and down, until a clean stream spurted out. Another sat on top of a stone, scrubbing wet, soapy clothes on top of a washboard. Finally, a third one rinsed the clothes in the pump and shook them before hanging them up to dry with clothespins. Soo-Ja stared at their plump bodies, hidden away underneath their old hanboks. Soo-Ja felt self-conscious about the weight she’d recently lost, shed from her already thin frame.

Soo-Ja enjoyed the rhythms of their talk, the way they spoke like folks from the countryside, dispensing with the more formal-
io
at the end of the sentences. Sometimes their words overlapped, like a chorus, and Soo-Ja envied the easy, casual way they’d tease or scold one another.
If she lost the ability to speak, and needed to learn again, she could simply listen to them. They often spent hours telling stories. The house chores—cooking, cleaning, washing—seemed to be incidental. In Soo-Ja’s mind, their real job was to gossip, giving their opinions about the others’ lives. Soo-Ja wondered if they talked about
her
behind her back, and she realized that they must, of course.

Soo-Ja closed her eyes. She often became sleepy when melancholia hit her. She could feel her head grow heavy when she suddenly heard the servants’ talking stop. She opened her eyes and glanced at them—their eyes were directed at an intruder. A man had arrived at the house unannounced, slipping past the gate, and making his way into the courtyard. He looked tired and beaten down, wearing an army camouflage jacket cut off at the forearms, and pants rolled up to his knees. He held a satchel behind his back, and for a moment Soo-Ja thought it was one of her brothers, returning home from some war she hadn’t been told about.

It took a few seconds to realize it was Min, and when she did, Soo-Ja leapt out of her seat and ran to him. He’d been to her house before, but she hadn’t been ready then. This time, with no concern for modesty or propriety, Soo-Ja jumped into his arms, and the two of them held each other, burying their noses in each other’s shoulders. Their bodies made shapes together—her chin on his sternum, her temple against his cheek—until theirs were interlocking parts. He had not been lost; he’d been returned to her.

“Is your father here?” asked Min, once they finally let go of each other.

“Yes. Why?” asked Soo-Ja, glancing into his eyes.

Min looked shyly at her. “There’s something I want to ask him.”

“What is it?” asked Soo-Ja, staring at his cherry-sized nose, and his downcast gaze.

“I want to ask him for your hand in marriage.”

“You want to marry Soo-Ja?” asked her father, looking startled.

“Yes, I do,” said Min, with his satchel by his side, sitting across from him on the floor.

“Isn’t this a little sudden?” asked Soo-Ja’s father, trying to maintain his self-control.

“The protests—the violence in Seoul—made me realize how fragile our lives are. It could all be over in a second,” said Min.

Soo-Ja moved closer to Min and instinctively held his arm. He’d come up with the idea himself, independently of her, and she wondered if he suspected her wish of going to Seoul to join the Foreign Service. She’d always spoken vaguely about her dreams, and never discussed her specific plans with Min, for fear he’d feel used. But perhaps he knew. Perhaps he’d read her mind, when the thought first crossed her head, that day at the gymnasium bleachers. Perhaps her thoughts were obvious to others, and it was only out of politeness that they did not remark upon them, when they could read them as clearly as print on paper.

“But marriage… it’s not something you bring up lightly,” said Soo-Ja’s father, suddenly at a loss for words. “No, there has to be a go-between, a matchmaker, someone to make formal introductions, to tell me about your family, and to tell
your
family about ours. Followed by me and Soo-Ja’s mother meeting your parents, and getting out our ancestral rolls to check which lineages you each come from. A marriage isn’t a union between two young people, as you seem to think. A marriage is a union between two families.”

Soo-Ja and Min kept their heads bent down, facing the floor.

“Abeoji, Min comes from a very good family,” said Soo-Ja.

“My father manufactures textiles,” said Min. “Silk, cotton, rayon. He is an industrialist, like yourself.”

Soo-Ja noticed that this did not seem to impress her father. In fact, it seemed to make him more concerned.

“If your father owns a factory, then why aren’t you working for him?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“My father didn’t want me to. My brother works for him.”

“Your older brother?”

“No, I’m the oldest.”

“You’re the oldest?” Soo-Ja’s father seemed startled by this. “If you’re
the oldest, then everything belongs to you—including the responsibility. Why would your father not trust you with the business?”

“Well, he didn’t want me hanging around the factory,” said Min, his voice taking on a self-satisfied drawl. “The girls who work there kept flirting with me. These working-class girls see the owner’s son, start getting ideas. You have to be careful with women. I don’t have to worry about Soo-Ja, though, she and I are of the same class.”

“How lucky for you,” said her father gruffly. “Now let me ask you, when these factory girls were—say, coming on to you—was there any girl in particular? Anyone particularly aggressive?”

Min hesitated, his nostrils flaring a bit. “They’re obedient girls. But they’re trouble.”

“Your brother doesn’t seem to have a problem ignoring them,” said Soo-Ja’s father, staring into Min’s eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Abeoji, please stop grilling him,” Soo-Ja interjected. “Min is a guest in our home. Do you want him to leave and tell everyone about how you treat people?”

Soo-Ja’s father suddenly banged on the floor with his hand. “Yes, spread the word. Tell everyone.”

“Abeoji, please,” she said. “Give Min another chance to—”

“You should go now,” her father cut in, looking at Min.

Min remained on his spot, his head lowered to the elder.

“I said you can go now,” Soo-Ja’s father repeated.

Soo-Ja did not look up as Min stood up and, after bowing to her father, started making his way out of the room. He rushed out, as if the departure had been his idea, as if
he’d
been the one who’d decided they weren’t good enough for him.

After Min was gone, Soo-Ja ran outside to the courtyard. It had started to rain, and Soo-Ja could feel the drops prickling against her, and the puddles on the ground making her steps slippery. Unsteady, she rested her hand against a pine tree, its battered branches almost breaking. She was on her way to her room, on the other side of the courtyard, when
her father—who had followed her—tried to get her back into the main house. They remained between rooms, at an impasse.

“What makes him think that he can marry you? Was he first in his class? Is he a doctor or an engineer? He didn’t even finish college!” yelled her father. His eyelids struggled to stay open, and his clothes quickly became wet.

“I don’t care about that,” Soo-Ja said, trying hard not to shiver. Her long, wet hair covered her entire face, with clumps sticking to her mouth, and strands creating lines over her eyes.

“Don’t care about that? A boy like him—with no education or professional skills—he would be laughed out of a matchmaker’s meeting!”

“But he comes from a good family! They own a factory,” said Soo-Ja, her breath catching in her throat.

“For a firstborn to be sent away from the family business, he must have done something very bad,” said her father.

Soo-Ja looked over to her mother’s room and saw the lights come on. “We woke up Mother.”

“He is unacceptable in every way. And he is the oldest son. Do you know what it means to be the wife of the oldest son?” asked her father, coming closer to her. “You would have to be responsible for the entire family. Do you know how much work that is, having to serve your in-laws? Does he have brothers or sisters?”

“He has one brother and a sister.”

“Well, at least he doesn’t have a lot of siblings, but the ones that he has you’d be expected to help raise, and this in addition to your own children. Soo-Ja, being married to an oldest son is a lot of work.”

“Appa, I know you only want the best for me, but there is nothing to worry about. I have always made good decisions, haven’t I?”

Soo-Ja’s father stood still for a moment, his clothes growing heavier, soaked by the rain. “It is a losing proposition to always be right when it comes to little things, but then be wrong on the big things.”

Soo-Ja knew her father was right. Marriage was serious business. The choice of a husband was the only time a woman could exert her will. Choose wisely and have a chance at a decent life. Choose wrong and
have endless time to regret it. Her husband would dictate the rest of her life—her social class, her daily routines, her very happiness. And yet, knowing her father might be right only made her dig her heels further into the ground.

“Well, at least this is one decision that I
can
make, and I don’t depend on your approval for it.”

Soo-Ja saw by the stricken look on her father’s face how much her words had hurt him—he seemed to age five years in five seconds. What is the statute of limitations on resenting those we love? she wondered. Could past wrongs be wielded so easily, pulled out of a back pocket, like a silver knife, and used to tear, rip, slice through an argument?

“Is that why you want to marry him? To
punish
me? For Seoul?”

“Of course not,” she said, a little too quickly. Soo-Ja’s father looked at her askew, squinting his eyes. She wondered if he suspected her plans to move there after her wedding. For what felt like a long while, Soo-Ja’s father did not speak, as if trying to guess at Soo-Ja’s reasons. The prisoner is always thinking about escape, but she wondered what the jailer always thought about. Suddenly, Soo-Ja’s father seemed to feel the cold and shivered once or twice. They looked at each other awkwardly.

“It’s raining,” her father said, as if he’d only just noticed it. “Go to your room.”

Soo-Ja nodded, terrified to think that she’d won the fight. She turned away from him and walked a few steps until she found herself outside her room. She stood still for a moment, fighting the temptation to run back to her father.

Soo-Ja finally took her shoes off and crossed over the elevated step. Once inside her room, she turned on her lamp and sat on the warm floor, taking the time to catch her breath. Leaning against a corner, she let her long arms and legs droop, weak and disorderly, like broken matchsticks. Soo-Ja felt the tears forming in her eyes. After a while, she could no longer hold her feelings back, and she began to cry. Soo-Ja felt her body shiver with emotion, and quick, guttural noises began to slip out of her lips. Why is it, she wondered, that an enemy or a stranger would leave no mark, but her father—her adored father—could wound her so deeply?
She’d never cry out of pain alone, but pain and love together—especially the love—could inspire her to sob to the point of gasping for air.