Fox Girl (5 page)

When I was about six or so, I found a basket of grapes my mother had bought to make candies. I knew they weren't for me; treats were for paying customers. I eyed the nestling grapes, bunched into tight family clusters. They were perfect in their roundness, the dusky purple ready to burst their waxy skins. I rubbed their small bodies between my fingers, enjoying the firmness of their flesh.

I knew my mother would beat me if I ate them, but I couldn't resist a taste. Looking for a small baby grape, one that wouldn't be missed, I plucked it from its family and into my mouth. I loved the sudden pop of sweet juice, but it seemed to me I had swallowed faster than I could taste. The next grape I decided to roll around my tongue, savoring the anticipation.

Before I knew it I had devoured not only all the baby grapes, but the mother-father and ancestor grapes as well. In fact the entire village of grapes that existed in that basket had been wiped out. Shocked, I stared at the skeletons of stems and withered rejects, then rushed to bury the evidence.

My mother found me outside the house, patting the earth. I don't know how long she had been watching me, but when she spoke—making me jump out of my skin—I realized that I had been sitting in her shadow.

“Hyun Jin, have you seen the basket of grapes I bought at the market?” she asked, staring at my mouth.

“Grapes?” I gulped, rubbing a hand across my lips. I tasted dirt.

My mother sneered, not bothering to hide her contempt. “You know, the little round fruits that grow in bunches on the vine?”

I ducked my head, thinking I was going to get slapped. I closed my eyes and waited. But instead of hitting me, she asked if I would like to walk with her to Grape Auntie's farm, which was far, far outside of the village.

“Why?” I croaked, blinking up at her.

“Because I seem to have lost the grapes I bought and the next farmers' market is five days away.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “And I need to start the new batch of candies today.”

I should have said no. Or at least been suspicious. My mother never wanted me to accompany her anywhere. But I thought that her asking meant that she didn't know I ate her grapes, and also, maybe, that she loved me. I wanted her to love me, so I nodded. My stomach gurgled a sudden warning. I felt a little sick, my belly as full and taut as the grapes I had eaten.

My mother walked quickly, her back straight and mean. I tried to match my legs with hers, leaping to meet her strides. She sped up and I fell behind. When I began to jog, I felt like throwing up.
“Omoni,”
I panted. “I don't feel so good.”

“Stop whining,” my mother scolded without looking down. “You sound like the squealing pig you are.”

The grapes burned my throat, threatening to come up. I swallowed, then gagged. “I'm sick. My stomach.” Knives stabbed me from the inside and I had to stop running. I rubbed my stomach, pressing under the ribs and—in a sudden rush—I vomited. I didn't even have time to bend over. Chunks of purple flesh and a watery stench gushed down the front of my clothes, tinging my
hanbok
lavender.

“Ohma!”
I screamed at her retreating back. “Mama!” I tried to run after her, but my dress stuck uncomfortably to my chest and I stank. I gave up, sat in the middle of the road and cried.

I wasn't sure she would, but my mother stopped walking. She stood with her back to me for a short while, then turned. She marched back, as if ready for battle. The closer she loomed, the more I shrunk into myself, swallowing my cries and turning them into hiccupping sobs.

My mother grabbed my upper arm and jerked me into the air. “Next time, think before you eat what's not yours.”

She dragged me the rest of the way to the grape farm, my feet tripping, flailing for traction. And with each step, she scolded: “Pig. Dirty pig. Fat pig. Selfish pig. Black pig.”

We stalked through the staked rows of fruit, searching for Grape Auntie. When we saw her, her large frame bent over the delicate vines, my mother dropped my arm. It had gone numb, but when she let go, pain flooded through it. I felt the throbbing where her fingers indented my flesh. Later it would turn blue, then yellow, but then it was just a red shadow of her hand. For the longest time, I imagined I could feel her fingerprints on my bone.

Omoni
handed me a square of cloth. “Spit,” she ordered, and when I did, told me, “At least clean your face. You're disgusting.” When I fumbled it around my chin, she grabbed it back and scrubbed at my cheeks, then at the front of my dress.

“Don't embarrass me any more than you already have,” she warned.

I whimpered and would have started crying again, but Grape Auntie was upon us. She plucked me like a piece of ripe fruit and swung me through the air before putting me down. I remember wondering how a woman could be so strong, that maybe she was really an uncle because her arms were so thick.

“You big girl, don't tell me you're tired from that little walk out of town!” Grape Auntie clucked. My lip quivered, but Grape Auntie tweaked it and laughed. “Go, eat as many grapes as you want, until you feel better.”

“No,” I groaned.

My mother placed her hands at the back of my neck and squeezed. “Say thank you,” she said, her words grinding out between her clenched smile. To Grape Auntie she said, her voice sugar sweet and overripe, “Hyun Jin loves grapes. Can't eat enough of them.”

My mother pushed me and I wandered through the field. But instead of eating, I crawled into one of the furrows and fell asleep, the thick scent of fermenting fruit making me dizzy.

I woke in the shadow of a dying sun, my face sticky with sweat, my dress crackling with dried vomit. I sat up, getting tangled in vines.
“Omoni, Omoni!”
I screeched. “Monsters, monsters!” I clawed at the talons gripping my hair, pulling at my neck. Sweat trickled down my spine like fingers and I knew the fox ghost was sniffing at the back of my neck.

I screamed when she grabbed me.

“Hush,” the fox spirit said, her voice rumbling into my ear. “You're a big girl, no need to cry.”

I turned into the warm, fleshy arms of Grape Auntie. “Mama-ma,” I hiccupped.

Grape Auntie nestled me against her chest, pulled leaves and stems from my hair, patted my back. “Shu, Shu,” she murmured until I quieted. “I thought you left with your
omoni,
but here you are, hiding. You shouldn't hide away like that. Your mama probably thought you had run home ahead of her.”

I pressed against her warmth, not wanting to tell her my mother left me on purpose. I knew, but didn't say, that she wanted to teach me a lesson. “Maybe I should stay here with you,” I said.

Grape Auntie chuckled, her body jiggling. “Wouldn't that be fun? But I'm sure your parents would miss you too much. They are probably crying for you now—hoo, hoo.” She wailed as if in mourning and pressed her fists against her eyes.

I laughed.

“That's better,” Grape Auntie said. She took my hand and together we marched toward the road. “You come visit me on my farm anytime you want, but right now, let's get you home where you belong.”

Though she was a big woman, with long, muscled legs that strained against her skirt, she walked with mincing child steps. When I caught a pebble in my shoe, she scooped me up and propped me on her back as if I were a baby. I entered America Town like a pampered princess, perched on the shoulders of a striding giant.

 

The last time I saw Grape Auntie was not at the farm, but at the weekly farmers' market where she pulled her wagon, piled high with bunches of black grapes. I was with Sookie, holding her hand as we cut through the market on our way to Dr. Pak's Love Clinic No. 5 in search of Duk Hee. Though I had never been there before, like everyone else in America Town, I knew where VD Road was and the fastest ways to get there.

“Hyun Jin! My favorite customer! I'm still waiting for you to come back to help me harvest my grape farm!” Grape Auntie greeted me as we passed her wagon. Years had passed, yet she never failed to tease me about the one time I had visited her. “Tell your mother I'll give her a good price this week!” she added. Then she looked over at Sookie and her face stilled.

“Tweggi.”
Eyes narrowed, she spat the word at Sookie. To me she said, “Little Jin-Jin, how can you be out with this trash animal?” she asked.

My mouth gaped open in shock.

“Does your mama know what kind of people you spend time with?” Grape Auntie, whom I had once loved for cradling me in her giant arms, sneered at my best and only friend.

Sookie looked down, cowered, and tried to back away. Her backward shuffling made me bristle. I thrust out my chest. “You cow!” I yelled. “Mind your own business!”

“Hyun Jin!” Grape Auntie gasped. “I'm looking out for you, can't you see? I know your mother would never approve of . . . of . . . She flicked her hand at Sookie, and even the meat of her upper arm quivered in disgust.

“Say anything to my mother,” I growled, “and I'll make sure she never buys from you again.”

Grape Auntie hissed, as if I had poked a hole in her belly and let the air out. “Your mother would never listen to you,” she said, but her face dropped, deflating.

I shrugged, shoulders stiff and tight, unyielding as stone. I felt heavy with anger, but also with sadness because I remembered her kindness to me when I was little and lost.

When I turned to walk away, I realized Sookie had stepped back, blending into the crowd a few vendors away. Her eyes followed me as I jogged up to her, but she didn't say anything when I reached her side. I had expected her to curse Grape Auntie for shaming her and to thank me for defending her. She did neither.

“Come here, come here, young ladies!” Merchants called to us as they waved from their makeshift tents stocked ground to ceiling with their specialties: flat sheets of dried squid, bulbs of garlic, cooking pots. “Buy this! You won't find a better price anywhere.”

I looked in the purse I carried about my neck, pretending to count money. “Hah,” I joked backed, hoping to cheer up Sookie, who was still sulking, “too expensive. We're not
miguk
that can afford such prices! Give us the real, Korean price.” And I laughed, knowing that Americans would never wander into this neighborhood market. Joe-sans only wanted the fanciest merchandise, from eel-skinned wallets to high-heeled girls.

That week Grandma of Chung Woo was at the market with her dog's newly weaned puppies. “Let's say hello,” I told Sookie.

“Hyun Jin,” Sookie complained. “I don't want to. I need to find my mother.”

I dragged her by the elbow. “Stop being selfish,” I told her. “I want to have fun on the way.”

Chung Woo's grandmother squatted next to the wire cage where fat puppy bodies wiggled against each other. Feces stuck to their nubby brown fur.

Bending over them—not close enough for the fleas to jump on me—I teased her: “
Halmoni,
who's going to buy these dirty runts?” Pushing a finger into the cage, I prodded the ribs of one mongrel. “This one won't even make a mouthful.”

The grandmother flicked her fly fan at us. “These are not runts,” she grumbled. “They're young and tender enough that even their bones can be eaten. They have more meat on them than you two!” She waved the fan over her face. “And they smell cleaner, too.”

She laughed as I frowned at the undersides of my arms. Black worms of sweat-softened dirt nested in the crease of my elbows. I spit on my arm and rubbed until small tendrils of dirt flaked and fell to the ground. “Not anymore,” I sniffed, but I was trying to remember when we had last gone to the bathhouse.

“Ho Sook and I have an appointment to go to the
mokyoktang,
” I lied. I grinned at Sookie, willing her to play along, but she stood like a post, eyes drifting into space, her face blank, as dumb as the half-breed animal Grape Auntie had accused her of being.

Chung Woo's grandmother cackled. “Oh ho, so that's how it is! Since when do such grubby monkeys need appointments to scrub under the showers. Just go to the bathhouse with your mamas! Wash each other's backs.”

I wrinkled my nose at her. In fact, my mother had been trying to pull me into the bathhouse for the past month, but I was still afraid. I had been having nightmares about the steaming pools after the baby of an older girl had drowned there.

Sookie pulled my sleeve. “Can we go now?”

I sighed, irritated at her determination not to enjoy the day.

“Go, go, rude girls.” Grandmother Chung waved us away. “Why you still stinking up my space?”

When we turned, I saw Frog-Face Ota squinting at us over his peanut cart. “Hey, hey,” he croaked. “Why you girls not in school? Kong Hyun Jin, I know who your father is!” I stuck my tongue at him like I was catching flies, then ran through the snaking dirt path toward the main road.

Skipping into a narrow alley between high brick walls, we rounded the corner where one of the walls was split by an iron gate. Though the gate gaped open, we stopped, hesitating at the entrance of VD Road. I touched the rusted dragon-head handle for luck. We shuffled along the dirt path, not looking at each other but at the signs posted in English and Korean above the doorways we passed. We found Dr. Oh's No. 1 clinic, Mr. Lee's No. 3, and others marked with only numbers—No. 6, No. 7, No. 11. At the time, I imagined that the GI girls gathered in front of the clinics stared at us as we passed them, that I could feel their eyes on my back. Now, in hindsight, I realize they had too much on their minds to pay much attention to a couple of young schoolgirls.