Drifting House (25 page)

Students circle them, waiting to see if totalitarian governments can be overcome, if a new order is possible. They wait for Junho to whiplash the boy with his fist, or for the new boy to twist Junho’s wrists back until they snap and have to be wrapped in a cast. Girls bet on how long the new lamb will stand.

The boys circle. The new boy thrusts with his predictable bulk. He misses and is punched in the gut. Boys stomp their feet. Someone whistles. When Junho’s fists batter the new boy into the wall, Hana frets that this is such a waste of energy, but Mina wonders, How can you not admire Junho’s lightning fists, the whip of his feet that move with medieval brutality? Junho moves casually in and out, transforming the road of potholes and smoky brick walls into his personal theater. That is, until Hana stands between the boys, determined to stop this endless violence. Her hands are raised like a traffic warden and her eyes dilated with fright, as she says, You’ll have to hit me first.

One day in May with a sky as brown as sandpaper, Mina sings, Go home! to the schoolboys who pursue her. They just want to visit a tearoom with her, they shout, trying to look dignified as they run stiffly with backs straight and black school hats cocked to the right. Hana, tough and sweet with too many teeth in her smile, gasps, Can’t we just meet them? I’m going to blow away with the
cherry blossoms. But Mina continues to run because she is really a crane, at ease among the clouds, high above the city choking in coal and industry.

They backtrack the streets they know well past Chinese delivery boys plying the sidewalks on bicycles; they flee through serpentine ­one-way alleys that smell of its outhouses, past ­two-person factories cobbled together with tin and scrap wood and men with pebbly faces huddled over bowls of steaming noodles. Once the girls lose the boys, they stop for snacks at a stall peddling boiled silkworms and spicy rice cakes on a stick for less than an
oshipwon
coin.

If I were half as fast as you, Hana says, baring large, square teeth coated in chili pepper. Mina laughs, and flaps her arms to cool herself in the rising humidity.

If I were half as beautiful as you, Mina says. Nearby, a man streams urine into the gutter, then flicks the last of it off with his index finger. Such indignities sadden Hana, but Mina is too happy to notice the ripening smell. She drinks ­red-rusted water out of the community pump, then runs again because she is young. They trample across the ancient city of Hanyang that is now Seoul, that is becoming a maze of construction projects; they pass aged women who have lived through Japanese colonization, a civil war that smashed the country into two, and now the American presence and flushing toilets; they pass kids sucking on icy
­jju-jju
bars and boiled silkworms in paper cups,
panok
houses built of cardboard and tin cans of baked beans where entire extended families
live, then a shiny shopping mall. The girls’ eyes are as bright as firecrackers, and in their breath grows a garden of roses.

They dash along the main road and pass Mina’s favorite local movie theater, pass a pork dumpling stand older than the girls, until they are stopped by a van plastered with campaign slogans.

Elusive local politicians predestined to win by ­ballot fixing have reappeared with their theater of megaphones, presents, and trinkets worth the cost of a bus ticket that ­middle-aged
ajeummas
in floral pants scramble for. Here are the politicians standing in front of waving banners and chanting, Remember number two on the ballot, or number four, their mouths like trumpets. The blood vessels in their eyes are inflamed, and their bellies cumbrous with dog penises and deer antlers for their libidos. From the tops of vans painted with campaign promises—
LOWER TAXES! LOWER MILK PRICES! A ­SIX-DAY WORKWEEK! A HOUSE FOR EVERY FAMILY!—
they wave their fat fists to the neighborhood’s mothers. Their banners are held by men bowed so low they resemble dwarves.

None of them have hair, Mina says. It must be a political requirement.

It’s wrong, Hana says. The lies they keep telling us.

Her fists are on her waist; she is furious the way she rarely is, her eyes darkened to ash with what they have seen over the years: stooped child seamstresses and demonstrators trussed together with rope as police baton them in the gut, a student dragged across the pavement by his bleeding feet. Before Hana erupts for her newest cause, her latest underdog, Mina pulls her by the hand
and runs, not knowing that all around them there is change and loss. This is a time of garment factories and of fear, a foreign time of blue eyes and flaxen hair. Villages are razed for progress and farmers become overnight real estate millionaires. It is a time of youth, and therefore a time for death, a time of silence as Hana yearns to speak. And because America is the most powerful country in the world, it is an American time while Mina’s mother struggles to start over again, and Mina seeks magnificence.

Finally she is fourteen, but all Mina worries about are the patchy stains across the wallpaper and the peeling green kitchen cabinets that Junho must notice. The furniture makes lumpy shadows in the light that is the same at three in the morning or three in the afternoon. It is what you do when the muggy summers are long and you are true teenagers at last. Mina mounts Junho, his hand advances up Mina’s shirt, and Mina’s traverses up his. They have watched their first porn film (illegal, they are everywhere), and they have reassured each other that they are practicing. Mina claims the male part (she will
not
be like her mother!) and she clambers on top, her school skirt flipped up. Her tights are rolled down. A cool trickle of sweat runs down her thigh. Her hand descends down his shirt to his waist. Junho dips his fingers into a small bowl of roasted seaweed and eats a few crispy pieces. Those same salty fingers creep up her skirt and explore her dark places. But the door opens, and Mina falls, tumbles off Junho’s lap onto the floor. She tugs down her skirt.

Omma, she says.

Her mother’s eyes go wide. Her hand hangs midair to her hair.
She says, It’s not my fault. She shakes her head several times, begins unloading bags of goods, as if readying for nuclear fallout. Her frantic hands toss a packet of black beans across the counter as the clock ticks the hour.

Mina says, We were just playing! Junho says nothing. His leg shakes, her hands smooth down her school skirt. Their legs clamp together, waiting.

Mina’s mind retreats from her mother. She longs to escape, but there is nowhere to go. How much has her mother seen? What have they been doing? Suddenly Mina abhors Junho’s strong thighs, his eyes the faded gray of clamshells.

She smiles, slings an arm around her mother’s shoulder. Nothing has happened; her mother has seen nothing. Just having a bit of fun, playing around. Because that is all it is. But Junho stands there, his hands patting his pockets, looking for cigarettes that he should pretend he doesn’t smoke in front of older people. He watches them baldly, his eyes flicking over the bags of groceries, over each tender gesture. It is humiliating to be watched this way; she feels betrayed.

Mina’s palms make petals around her mother’s face, she kisses her on the nose. At fourteen, she has the kind of beauty that makes the local pastor blush. Male teachers pretend not to notice her as they watch to see who is watching her; the female teachers dislike her confidence. When Junho finally escapes without proffering a single excuse, Mina’s hands flutter through the bags of
food. She is charming enough, she is sure, to make her mother forget.

Finally her mother smiles. Her tired face stretches with fear, and longing, though Mina is standing in front of her. You never could stay still for a minute, she says.