This Burns My Heart (13 page)

When Hana was born, Soo-Ja’s in-laws were deeply disappointed. Mother-in-law tore off the chili peppers she’d hung on the entrance to the house, and disassembled the small shrine in the backyard. Girls were like grass—to be stepped on. As the oldest, Min was expected to give birth to a son and continue the family line. In his eyes, and in the eyes of the family, Soo-Ja had failed at her duty.

From that day on, her new family began to treat her differently. Occasionally, they’d remind her that if she were to get pregnant again, and give birth to a boy, her status in the household would improve. But Soo-Ja could not bring herself to have another child with Min. One was enough, she decided. In her mind, children had to be born out of love, not out of necessity. Besides, she already had her daughter, and even though no one ascribed the child any value, Soo-Ja believed that Hana was a blessing, and a thousand times better than any boy.

•   •   •

Soo-Ja had been ironing clothes when Father-in-law unexpectedly came to her room. She was a little startled by his presence there, since he’d never been there before. He slid the paper door shut behind him and sat down in front of her, without asking first if he could see her. He made it clear that this room, too, belonged to him. As usual, he never smiled or shifted his gaze. She had realized early on that he derived his authority from the fact that he did not care if others liked him. He’d given up the need to be loved—in the same way some monks gave up sex or rich food or nice weather—and it had made him invulnerable. While the rest of the world would stumble and trip in their quest for kindness, he remained impervious, never bothered by needing or wanting anything from anyone. Watching him made you think of love as a kind of weakness; without it, you were able to operate in as precise and calculated a manner as you wished.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit,
abeonim
?” Soo-Ja asked. She placed the iron down, so that it wouldn’t face Hana, who was folding the clothes next to her.

Father-in-law glanced at his granddaughter but did not smile, as if wondering what she was doing there. “I’m concerned about you. I’ve been watching what’s been happening lately, and I can tell you’re not happy here.”

“No, I’m perfectly content. This is married life. It’s not meant to be a playground.”

“But you and I both know your days here could be much more pleasant.”

Soo-Ja turned her face away. “I’m not going to get pregnant again. Let one of your other boys marry and have a son.”

“That’s not what I’m here to talk about. I don’t care so much about the future generation. I care more about bills, and heating costs, and no one living off my sweat.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Let me put it this way. If you were a guest in a boardinghouse, would you expect to live there without paying?” asked Father-in-law.

Soo-Ja stared at his leathery, dark skin, noticing how the folds around
his eyes and his chin lent him the appearance of a bulldog. “You think I’m living off you?” asked Soo-Ja, furrowing her brow.

“I see for all the studying you have done, you don’t know much at all. In fact, you may know even less than the beggar on the street. At least the beggar knows he must beg, or he will not eat. You, on the other hand, seem to be under the impression you need not do anything, and a roof will always be over your head, and rice will magically appear.”

“I think no such thing,” she said. “That is why my father gave my husband a dowry, so I would not be a burden to my in-laws.”

Father-in-law scoffed. “Your dowry is gone. It has been spent.”

Soo-Ja gasped. “Gone? How can such a large sum be gone?”

“Don’t argue with me. If I say it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Oh, how she wanted to lash out at him. But one word, and he could have thrown her out. And if he did, word would get around town and shame her father. No, she had to endure this. She had to succeed here, as a wife and a daughter-in-law. A good report must go to her parents. Above all, they must think that she was happy. Her duty to them was the harshest taskmaster, making her bear pain and put up with matters she had not thought she could. Her days were fueled by hate for her in-laws, but that was insignificant next to the need to make her own parents proud.

“What would you like me to do?” Soo-Ja finally asked, hoping to quell the growing frustration building inside her.

Father-in-law looked pleased. The question, she realized, was what he’d been hoping to hear from the beginning of this conversation. “You must ask your father for money. And that money you must bring to me.”

Soo-Ja looked at Father-in-law, dumbfounded. She realized, in that moment, how much they had misled her about their supposed fortune. Soo-Ja had thought about this first when she noticed the armoires in their sparsely furnished rooms. Unlike the antique nong and bandaji in her own father’s house, which were made of dark, decorative grains like zelkova and persimmon, the dressers and chests in Min’s home had rusty fittings and were made of wood with undistinguished grain, like chestnut and pearwood. Even the clothes they wore seemed cheaply made.
Mother-in-law’s and Na-yeong’s hanboks were made not of shimmering silk, but of dull ramie. They also lacked details, with no bindings along the hem or cuffs.

“How can I ask him for more money?” Soo-Ja asked, frowning. “Hasn’t he already given you enough?”

“Know that I can kick you out of here any day, for any reason,” barked Father-in-law. “No one will question me, and if they ask, I can say you were lazy, or dirty, or drank too much. They would side with me, you know that.” Soo-Ja’s eyes burned with anger, thinking about the shame that would bring to her parents. “Either way, know that from this day on, everything you eat, every piece of clothing on your back, is there thanks to my charity. I will keep strict accounts, and every day that passes, you will owe me more and more. And I will be able to ask more and more of your father.”

Some mornings, when Soo-Ja had to go food shopping at the market, she would stop by a newspaper stand and scan the headlines of the
Chosun Ilbo
. The military, which had seized power two years earlier, had finally agreed to transfer rule to a civilian government. Conveniently, the candidate chosen by the people turned out to be the same man who had staged that earlier coup d’état, Chung-Hee Park. His inauguration would take place shortly.

As she filled her basket with barley and dried laver, Soo-Ja often wondered what she would be doing, right at that moment, if she had indeed become a diplomat. She might be sitting opposite the ambassador from Uganda, wearing a light blue seersucker jacket with big buttons over a white silk blouse, and a freshly ironed navy pencil skirt tight at the waist. She might be explaining the election results’ relevance to the international community: “While not ideal, this shows our country moving in the direction of freedom, and proves that it deserves to be accepted into the United Nations. South Korea has established diplomatic relations with thirty-five countries in only the last two years, and will not abide by Russia’s attempts to block it.”

On the way back, with a pensive smile on her face, Soo-Ja would make a detour and stop by her father’s house to visit her family. Soo-Ja never told Mother-in-law about these trips, as she would have been furious. Mother-in-law thought she spent too much time there. “
This
is your new home. You don’t live there anymore. Stop visiting them so much. Do you like them better than you like us?” she would ask her.

Ignoring her mother-in-law’s words, Soo-Ja took the bus with Hana by her side, and then walked to the house in Won-dae-don. Her heart grew lighter with joy the closer she got. This was her true home, she knew. As soon as she walked past the gate, she could hear her brothers’ loud screams of delight, followed by her mother coming out, complaining that she’d have to pull out the good china.

Soo-Ja’s mother took Hana by the hand and guided her to the house, where Father sat in the main room, waiting. He had softened since Soo-Ja had left home. Not having to see his daughter every day was a good thing—perhaps the secret to many a harmonious father-daughter relationship.

Soo-Ja told Hana to peck him on the cheeks, and Hana and her grandfather traded turns showering each other with kisses.

“Hana, who is this?” asked Soo-Ja, in an animated voice.

“It’s Grandpa!” Hana replied.

“Hana love Grandpa?”

“Yes!”

“How much does Hana love Grandpa?”

Hana frowned, very serious all of a sudden. “Too much!”

Soo-Ja laughed at her daughter’s seriousness. “Too much? That’s a lot if it’s too much. Hana love Grandpa more than candy?”

The toddler looked thoughtful for a moment, as if weighing an enormously important decision. Finally, she nodded her head momentously. “Grandpa
is
candy!”

Soo-Ja laughed. “Grandpa
is
candy? Are you going to eat him?
Yan, yan, yan?
”

“Yes!” Hana smiled sheepishly, and then pretended to chew, mimicking her mother. “
Yan, yan, yan.
”

Soo-Ja’s mother cut up a melon and served its slices with tea, a gesture that made Soo-Ja feel sad—Mother-in-law was right, she had become a guest in her own house.

“And to think I almost missed out on all this by moving to the West,” said Soo-Ja.

“You could still become a diplomat, you know,” said Soo-Ja’s father with a hint of guilt in his voice. Soo-Ja thought about making a biting remark, but decided not to. This would be as close to an apology as she’d ever get from him, she knew. She watched as he lifted one leg and rested his arms on his knee. “Your mother and I could watch Hana during the day.”

“Oh, appa, you know Min and his parents wouldn’t let me do that.”

“Then why don’t you separate from him?”

Soo-Ja’s mother glared at her husband. “Don’t put such ideas in her head! Not even in jest.”

“Yes, Father, you heard Mother:
Not even in jest!
” mocked Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja’s mother began smoking one of her cigarettes. Hana, seeing this, walked toward her grandmother, trying to wrest the lighter away from her.

“Your father misses you a lot,” her mother continued. “You should see him crying at night, getting all your pictures wet with his tears.”

“You’re softening with old age, appa,” said Soo-Ja quietly. “But it’s not as if I died or moved away. I’m not that far, and I always come visit.”

“I don’t cry just because I miss you. I cry out of worry for you,” said her father, trying to fill Soo-Ja’s sudden, contemplative silence. “If you had married well, I’d rest, in relief. But you… in that house… with those people.”

“It’s about time she matured,” said Soo-Ja’s mother. “A woman changes when she has a child.”

Soo-Ja’s father shook his head, his face that of an artist who has toiled night and day at his creation, only to see it ruined. “I fought with you so many times to make sure you’d have a good life. Maybe I should have just let you be.”

“It’s fine, appa. There’s nothing perfect in this world. It could be much worse.” Soo-Ja thought about Father-in-law’s request. Of course her father would give her the money. Should she ask for it?

But before she could even broach the subject, her mother cut in again. “She’s right. Just look at your friend Jae-Hwa. Look what she has to live with.”

“What do you mean by that?” Soo-Ja turned to her mother.

“Jae-Hwa hasn’t said anything?” asked her father.

Soo-Ja felt guilty for a moment. She hadn’t spoken to Jae-Hwa in months, busy as she was with housework and Hana. Jae-Hwa had called on her once, but Soo-Ja hadn’t been home. After Mother-in-law told her about it, Soo-Ja said to herself that she should return the visit. But she had never done it.

“Sang-Kyu’s mother lives across the street from them. She says…” Her mother’s voice trailed off.

“What does she say?” Soo-Ja asked. “Is Jae-Hwa not happy with her husband?”

“He beats her,” her father blurted out.

“What? How long has this been happening?” Soo-Ja asked.

“Since they returned from the honeymoon. He’s always getting drunk, calling her names.
Babo. Byeongsin
,” said Soo-Ja’s mother. She inhaled deeply from her cigarette and let out a big cloud of smoke. She then turned the radio on, and the plaintive voice of an old woman singing a ballad began to fill the room.

My brother, the musician, is so mean to me!

Always peevish, always in a hurry, always lying.

Why do you have to steal my food?

You take the meats, and leave me only soybeans!

Why do you leave me alone for hours?

It’s like living with a vagrant.

Soo-Ja pictured Jae-Hwa as an eight-year-old, her age the first time she’d met her. Plump Jae-Hwa was a new girl in her school, and had been eating her lunches alone in a stall in the bathroom. When Soo-Ja found out about this, she insisted that Jae-Hwa sit with her at her table. They’d become inseparable, and Soo-Ja’s father had jokingly nicknamed her
Duljjae Ttal
, Daughter No. 2.

“I have to help Jae-Hwa,” Soo-Ja said distractedly, trying to think of a plan.

“No. Stay out of it, Soo-Ja,” said her mother sharply. “Her life is her life.”

“We have to tell Jae-Hwa’s parents.”

“They know,” said Mother.

“And what are they going to do?” asked Soo-Ja.

“What all parents do. Bury their heads in the sand and never speak of it.” And as if reading her daughter’s thoughts, she added, “And it would be monstrously impolite if someone brought it up to them. They would lose face for the rest of their lives.”

“What about the police?”

“The police would never interfere in a private matter.”

“Something has to be done!” cried out Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja’s mother shook her head at her, putting out the cigarette on a round silver ashtray. “Look at you getting all worked up. And where were you when Jae-Hwa went to your house that day? What do you think she went there for? To borrow some chili peppers?”

“I can’t, Soo-Ja. I already spoke to my parents. They think I should stay here,” said Jae-Hwa, her voice practically quivering. Soo-Ja sat next to her on the floor, in the middle of the small, windowless room. Although everything in it was similar to where Soo-Ja herself slept—pink mats and cushions, the black ink calligraphy scrolls hanging on the walls, the huge armoire with mother-of-pearl and pictures of cranes and blackbirds—the place felt oppressive, as if it had soaked up Jae-Hwa’s unhappiness during the night, only to exhale it during the day.