A Southern Girl (3 page)

Did I tell you the pearl-backed mirror was a gift from my mother? She must have loved me very much because to get such a thing she would have to have sold at least a pig or three goats. How she could have managed such an expense I do not know. She always looked and felt so special when she held it to brush her hair. I loved to watch her pause to turn her head first one way and then another. You would not have thought her beautiful, certainly not as you are beautiful, but when she held the mirror she saw herself as special. She would not let me hold it until I was ten for fear I might drop it. But, smiling, she held it for me, turning it at angles to show me all sides of my face and head. Her smile was like sunshine, but seldom did the sun come out because farming life was so hard for her. She always told me my life would be different, but it has not been so. Your father, Hyun Su, says our lives are Buddha’s will, but I was taught that Buddha does not decide our fate. Your life will be different, of that you can be certain. How can I be sure? Ah, that it what today is about. You will see me keep a promise to you that my mother could not keep to me. My little angel, you will not farm.

The windows are so dusty and dirty that it is hard to see the beauty of this land. Let me clear a space for you to look through. You see those mountains in the distance? Lovely, are they not? This is the beauty of Korea, a beauty that you must remember.

Did you know you were born during the festival of
Dongji,
the shortest day of the year? Yes, it is true. That makes you even more special. The midwife was not pleased to be pulled away from the festival, but my time had come—our time had come—and we had paid her in advance. Hyun Su told her you would be a boy. He listened to Uncle Jae, as he always does when they drink their
soju
far into the night. Uncle Jae went to the
chom chengi,
the fortuneteller. So much for her special powers. I could have told them the truth. Your heart beat with mine. Your moods I recognized as my own. When I felt your restless stretch at sunrise, I stretched with you. When I cried, my belly swelled with water, or so it seemed. When I shook with fear, you trembled inside me. Shaking with fear is part of life here, where men rule with fists. Oh yes, I have felt those fists, but you will not.

Is that hunger I see? Very well, come suckle. You will need strength for the day ahead, whereas I need only to stay awake while you nurse, as the motion of the bus wants me to sleep. If I sleep, I could miss the green dragon, and then we would be lost. Here, take the breast. From their frowns, the two
ajummas
beside us do not approve, but today is about us and not them. And pay no attention to the bruise. It is a little better today as the purple is not so bright. Hyun Su’s fist is no match for you and me. Women have other weapons. You will have beauty as a weapon. Learn to use it and you will never be defenseless. And you will be smart, like me, but without education I am not much more than the long-haired ox or the large udder cow. Such a life is this, when a dumb animal like me must …

But there it is. The green dragon. Hurry your nursing, little one, because we must get off here. Let me adjust your
podaegi
so you can ride in comfort on my back.

The city is near. Look at all the motor scooters, the cars, the buses on this road. Everyone in such an angry rush. Houses with rice paper windows and doors. Stalls selling salted squid, steamed rice, kimchi, and giant garlic—tastes you do not yet know. The people in the city must be very rich, like Min Jung, who drives a car and came to see us when you were only days old. Such a nice visit we had. We must believe her when she said that it is caring for her mother and her husband’s father that prevents her from helping us, but of course she did help us by giving directions.

Now we must find a bus with this number. She wrote it down for me. The cars are passing by so fast; such dust everywhere. The green dragon is very tall. I am glad it is not real. The rest of the day is real enough.

I have brothers you have not met. Three brothers older than I. My parents felt so blessed to hang the red chili peppers from our gate. Sons are celebrated. Daughters are tolerated. It has been that way since our ancestors came to this land. You will be celebrated. How do I know? I just know, in the same way I knew you would be born a girl, no matter what Hyun Su or Uncle Jae or the
chom chengi
said. Now we must climb on this next bus, which has a number matching the one Min Jung wrote down. She said to sit near the driver, who will tell us where to get off. One hour to the Jongam police station, she said. She measures time in hours, by a watch. How modern Min Jung is. You will be modern, too. You will wear a watch and drive a car and never work in a field. Now sleep, for our trial is coming.

How tall these buildings are. I wish I could read the signs I see everywhere. Some are so big they would stretch from Hyun Su’s house to the edge of the rice field, and so high off the ground they would look down on the cherry trees by the goat path. There is a large boy with a ball. And over there a smiling woman is stirring a pot. What is she making? Does she have a daughter to feed? And there are three men in white coats with something around their necks. It is all so confusing. The bus stops and begins again, so that I am beginning to feel as I did before she moved within me. I cannot be sick on the bus. The driver will put us out and then how would I find the police station with the high hedge? I do not think I can do this. But I must.

That was a very short nap, little one, but who can sleep with the cars and buses making all this noise and stopping for people who walk in front of them. The sun is high so we must be close. I want to get off this bus, yet I do not want to get off the bus.

Stopped again? The driver is pointing to the door. “
Komapsumnida,
” thank you. We are here, and there is the high hedge. There are the steps leading up to the olive door with the peeling paint Min Jung told me about. She has been right about everything. Such a good friend.

Here in the shelter of the high hedge, I must tell you things. I loved your father, but I loved him before we could be married. When he learned of my condition, he refused to marry me and beat me. He said I counted the days wrong. If I did it was a simple mistake, but one I cannot regret because it brought me you. I went to my mother. At first she insisted on
nak-tae,
abortion, but like the bad daughter I had become I defied her and refused. As I grew bigger, mother softened, and by the end, just before
Dongji,
she pleaded with her father, your grandfather, to let me keep you if you were a boy. But grandfather would not hear of it, boy or girl. “Impossible,” he said. “She has brought shame to the family. Get rid of it.” I asked the midwife to contact Min Jung, who brought with her a magazine from America, where everyone must be rich. It showed beautiful people living in castles. She said that you could be sent to America, to grow up with beautiful people and wear a watch and drive a car and not farm. She told me to bring you to this door, to hide in this hedge until no one is looking, and to set you down on the steps. That is why we have come to Seoul.

And now, my lotus blossom, my own sweet Soo Yun, I must leave you. Here in the shelter of the high hedge, we must say goodbye. You must not hate me for this. I am your mother, Jong Sim, and like my mother and her mother I must do what is best for my daughter. When I place you on the steps, you must raise your cries above my own so they will take you in. You are Soo Yun. It means perfect lotus blossom. Min Jung wrote your name and I have pinned it to your linen. Here is the pearl-backed mirror. I am putting it in your
podaegi.
When they take you in, they will find the mirror and know you are special. Min Jung said giving up the mirror is not necessary, but I must leave you with something more than a name. One day, in America, when you count hours on a watch and drive a car and do not farm, you may thank me. Be a good girl for your new mother.

Now, it is time. The steps are warm in the sunshine. Cry, yes, cry, and they will take you in. Listen to your mother. You must cry. Until we meet again in heaven, Soo Yun.

2

Hana

I am ambidextrous. Have been since I was six. I write, eat and throw with either hand. And answer the phone, which is how I remember the call from Jongam that afternoon. Superstitious nonsense probably explains this pattern I thought I had noticed, but for a long time the pattern seemed to hold: bad news came into my right ear because I answered the phone with my right hand. The death of my grandmother? Right ear. An auto accident involving my parents and sister? Right ear. My ex-boyfriend’s
soju
aided epiphany that we should see other people? Right ear. Conversely, my promotion to head of the ward? Left ear. The call from the hospital to let me know my parents and sister were okay? Left ear. The plea from my ex-boyfriend to disregard the call he made the night before? Well, you get the picture, which is why the call from Jongam stuck in my memory. Calls from the police station with news of yet another abandoned infant belonged in the right ear. With three infants in every crib, we had no room
for more. My ward was rated for thirty children, ages six and under, and when that call came in we hovered near fifty.

I looked out the window to confirm what I felt in my bones; the unseasonably mild January day had deteriorated into something more typical of Seoul in winter. Darkening clouds promised snow. Wind blew newspapers along the sidewalk in front of the bank across the street. Pedestrians cinched up coats against the chill I was sure to feel the moment I stepped outside. Jongam is a fifteen minute walk, but Korean weather in its worst mood can make that mile feel like a marathon. I told my assistant to keep the lid on; that I would return within the hour and to make a space in the nursery.

As I approached the station, habit and muscle memory carried me toward the old door, its green paint peeling now that a newer one on the opposite side of the building had been put into service. I retraced my steps and entered. The room has a perpetual smell of old vinyl and cheap aftershave. The receptionist motioned me through to an office in the back. As I expected, given the late afternoon hour, Captain Oh sipped tea with his deputy, Chan Wook Park. The captain was a jaundiced man with a massive head, thinning hair and sickly skin. I had spent enough time here to get to know something about him. Nearing retirement, he rarely strayed from his favorite topics of conversation, his vegetable garden and the unfair treatment Jongam received compared with other stations. When I entered, he motioned me toward a chair without breaking off the sentence he was then in the middle of.

“… so Sinmun-No and Ulchi-Ro, those districts get what they want,” he said bitterly. “Extra manpower, new equipment, anything. But at Jongam, we get leftovers. Always leftovers.” This theme never lost its appeal to the captain, who seemed to me to take little notice of and no comfort from the virtual absence of crime in Jongam.

Chan Wook Park, seated near me, said, “The door at least is new.”

Captain Oh gave a dismissive groan. “If they could have found a used door, it would have ended up here.”

Then I noticed a fourth person in the room. She sat in the corner, partly concealed by a filing cabinet. In her lap she held what could only have been an infant. On making eye contact, we both bowed our heads faintly as the captain described to his visibly bored deputy the layout of his garden.

“The snow peas in the first two rows, the corn sowed in the last row, the westernmost row, so as not to put other plants in morning’s shadow when it eventually towers above them.”

Chan Wook Park suggested the garden be oriented east and west, an idea the captain seemed to be pondering when a loud squawk from the woman’s lap reminded the men of the business at hand. Captain Oh looked at me.

“This is Mi Cha. She found it by the old door.”

Mi Cha looked to be about seventy, but with Korean women it can be hard to tell. “You should put up a sign,” she said with a hint of contempt in her craggy voice. “She would have died had I not come along. She may still die. She is hot with fever.”