Waxing Moon (12 page)

19

Everyone was caught by surprise when the first frost came, because it was still the middle of the fall. No one had yet started pickling.

Enough samples of kimchi from her past clientele would arrive for her, which would last until spring, Mrs. Wang knew, but she hadn’t stuffed her blanket with new cotton or pasted new wallpaper to keep the draft out. She would have to order a new quilted coat this year, for her old one was unraveling at the hem. And her shoes! She definitely needed better shoes for winter.

Mrs. Wang dreaded snow. She was beginning to fear slipping on the ice when she descended to deliver babies on short notice. She was thinking about posting an announcement that one should try to have a baby only in certain seasons. It was too much for her to go around on frozen hills and fields. She was getting old.

Sitting in front of her portable stove in the middle of the room, she was waiting for the sweet potatoes to be roasted. She kept stabbing into them impatiently with her chopstick.

Suddenly, she realized that someone was kneeling, as if being punished, before the room. It was Mirae. Her eyes darted about, and she jerked at the slightest noise from the dog or the chickens.

“Come inside! It’s chilly out there,” Mrs. Wang advised her.

She placed two small potatoes in a bowl. Mirae came in sheepishly. Peeling a steamy sweet potato, Mrs. Wang exercised the muscles around her mouth. “These are the best kind,” Mrs. Wang said to herself, smiling contentedly. She ate it with her eyes almost closed, appreciating the taste and the warmth and the comfort that it brought to her stomach. Then she asked Mirae if she would like one, stabbing a large one in the copper stove.

“I am not hungry, Mrs. Wang,” Mirae said despondently.

“Did your mistress send you here? Did she yell at you? If she was able to yell at you, she is not having a baby today. Trust me,” Mrs. Wang said reassuringly. “Have a sweet potato. It just melts in your mouth,” she said, taking another one out of the stove.

“It’s not that,” Mirae said, wiping her eyes.

“Oh, oh. Don’t you shed tears in
my
house. If you are worried about your mistress, you can go now and tell her that I said I would be coming for lunch,” Mrs. Wang said.

“She doesn’t even know I am here,” Mirae began. “I am ashamed, Mrs. Wang. I don’t know how to say this, but I need your help.” Mirae paused, sighing from the depths of her chest. “I am pregnant,” Mirae confessed, looking miserable.

Mrs. Wang peeled another sweet potato and didn’t hesitate to devour it, thinking, why are women so often surprised to find out that they are pregnant? Is it that hard to remember how you get pregnant?

Aloud, she said, “All the more reason to eat something.” Mrs. Wang pushed the plate with a large, hot sweet potato toward Mirae. She covered her mouth in an effort to stifle a cry.

There was nothing like steamy sweet potatoes on a chilly day, thought Mrs. Wang, taking another one, but her appetite had diminished with the two sweet potatoes in her stomach and her troubled visitor.

“What kind of help do you need from me?” Mrs. Wang asked, nonchalantly.

Finally, Mirae broke down and sobbed. She hated herself for being in a position where she had to beg for help. Above all, she abhorred the change in her body, even though only she could notice it so far.

Mrs. Wang got up and said that she was going to do the dishes. In the meantime, she hoped Mirae would decide what kind of help she needed.

Her chickens went crazy when she went out to the yard. They thought that food was forthcoming. Her dog jumped up and down, slobbering messily. Mrs. Wang sat by the well and didn’t do the dishes. Instead, she washed herself up and cleaned her teeth with a spoonful of sea salt. She then fed her chickens and swept the yard and drank a huge bowl of water. She appreciated that Mirae hadn’t followed her out, crying and begging for help. She was a proud girl, all right, but then why in the world was she so stupid as to get herself pregnant? Mrs. Wang was still puzzled. Normally, those who got themselves pregnant and wailed about it afterward were missing something in the head or so dreadfully naive that Mrs. Wang didn’t even bother to react to them.

“Mrs. Wang, don’t you have some honey?” Mirae called from behind her. She was standing on the extended entrance of her room. “I am craving something sweet.”

“Not to spare. But I have rice malt you can dip your sweet potato in,” Mrs. Wang replied and went to the kitchen to fetch some. “What an insolent girl,” Mrs. Wang grumbled to herself.

She brought out the rice malt in a small bowl, and in a wink Mirae had eaten the sweet potato with the syrup.

“Thank you for your kindness.” Mirae rattled on, ignoring Mrs. Wang’s grin. “I have been repelled by any kind of food smell, but then suddenly I felt so ravenous. I guess it’s normal. I saw Mistress Yee act the same way in the early phase of her pregnancy.”

“So have you decided what kind of help you need from me?” Mrs. Wang asked insouciantly.

“Don’t press me. I know you have no sympathy for me. But I have no one to turn to. If Mistress Yee found out about my state, she would kick me out of the house, and I have no place to go. I need to be rid of this growth in my body,” Mirae articulated with composure.

Mrs. Wang disliked the supercilious maids as much as subservient ones. “That’s not a good enough reason for terminating your pregnancy,” she replied.

Mirae pursed her lips determinedly and then said defiantly, “Well, Mrs. Wang. Let me then tell you the truth. This is going to be the worst reason you’ve ever heard. But I don’t care what anyone says about it. I don’t want to have a baby. That’s all there is to it. I don’t care whether Mistress Yee would kick me out of her house or not. I just cannot imagine myself breastfeeding a baby. I know I will kill the baby.” Mirae’s shoulders quivered and she bowed her head. “I never wanted to be born. Never,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

A black crow cawed at that moment, crossing the sky above Mrs. Wang’s thatched roof, splashing its silver-gray shit directly in her yard.

Mrs. Wang suppressed her habit of laying down her principles regarding this matter.

“Your calamity is beyond my ability. What you need to do is see an herbalist or an acupuncturist. Go to the market and see Mr. Jo behind the fabric store. He might have an answer for you,” Mrs. Wang said, surveying Mirae’s face.

Mirae looked up distrustfully and asked, “What can he do?”

“Many things,” Mrs. Wang said and chuckled. “He can concoct a brew that will erase the growth. It takes a while to bring about the result: one cycle of the moon at least. Tell him you talked with me already,” Mrs. Wang advised her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wang. I will not forget your kindness,” Mirae said, tears spilling from her large eyes.

In her younger days, Mrs. Wang would interrogate the girl about the man, urge her to go and talk it over with the pig, and so on. But her experience had taught her not to waste her breath.

Mirae got up, bowed politely, and awkwardly thanked her again before she put her shoes on.

“By the way, he might have some remedy for your skin too,” Mrs. Wang said. “Not that you need to correct it, but if you still feel depressed about it, I’d ask.”

Struck by the power of new hope, Mirae momentarily forgot all about her pregnancy. If only she could look the way she had used to look! She would do almost anything, she thought. “Is it true?” Mirae asked half doubtfully. “I heard that chicken pox scars can’t be cured.”

“Those aren’t chicken pox scars,” said Mrs. Wang simply.

“What was it then?” Mirae asked.

“No idea. Go and ask yourself,” Mrs. Wang replied. “You will have more trouble when your scars go away. Nothing comes without a price. Just keep in mind that you will not be Mistress Yee even if you serve her a hundred years.”

“I don’t want to be Mistress Yee. She is the nastiest woman I know,” Mirae said fearlessly.

“You need to watch your mouth and stay out of trouble. Now go. I can’t idle away all day,” Mrs. Wang said.

“May I take another sweet potato?”

“Take the little one.”

Mirae took a medium-sized one and got up. She walked down the hill, feeling much lighter than just an hour before.

After Mirae left, Mrs. Wang mixed rice flour in water and simmered it to make glue for pasting new wallpaper. She skewered persimmons with strips of bamboo and hung them to dry in the sun. She pulled out her old coat and examined it to see if she could wear it for another year.

20

The rice field, luscious and green all summer, was turning frigid gray and austere. Even the wild animals had disappeared. In good years, it was a peaceful period for farmers. But in bad years, as this year was due to the drought, it was a restless period for them even though there wasn’t much else to do besides making straw shoes and straw sacks, working as roofers, or hanging out around Mr. O’s mansion to pick up odd jobs.

One day early in the morning, when a farmer named Jaegon was on his way to the open marketplace to sell thimbles and knickknacks, he ran into a dog, brownish white and scrawny, by the rice field. What attracted his attention was the thing it was carrying in its mouth. The lump was bloody and, to his surprise, it appeared to be a human fetus. He tried to stop the dog to have a closer look, but it walked in circles around him, distrustfully. He didn’t want to investigate the matter further, for his mind was rushing to the market. He wanted to be the first one to occupy an opportune spot. So he hurried off to his destination, looking back at intervals until the dog was no longer in sight.

Later that afternoon as the merchants were discussing the meaning of life, Mrs. Wang stopped to buy a thimble. She wanted to stuff her blanket with the new cotton. She was wondering what was being talked about so intensely.

“Oh, a horrible thing I saw this morning,” Jaegon began. He told her about the bloody fetus and how he regretted not having pursued the case further.

“A lot of things look like a fetus,” Mrs. Wang commented. “Especially at dawn. It could have been a dead chipmunk,” she suggested, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh no, Mrs. Wang, it wasn’t a chipmunk for sure. I saw it with my own eyes,” Jaegon retorted.

“Do you have a large needle for sewing blankets?” Mrs. Wang said, diverting his attention.

“Sure I do,” Jaegon replied quickly and opened his box to show Mrs. Wang needles of all sizes.

“That one looks just right,” Mrs. Wang said and pointed to the thickest one in the box.

“Ah, that’s for sewing up knitted stuff. The next one down is what you want,” he said confidently.

“Give that to me then,” Mrs. Wang said, and paid for the thimble and the needle.

“What else?” he asked, widening his eyes and shoving the money into his sack.

“That will do for now.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wang,” he said, smiling broadly. “Have you eaten?” he asked out of politeness, even though he had nothing left to offer.

“Oh, I have. But what have you got? I can always eat more,” Mrs. Wang said and chuckled good-humoredly.

At that moment, someone from a distance was calling Mrs. Wang desperately. Jaegon and the other peddlers looked in the direction of the high-pitched voice, but Mrs. Wang packed her needle and her thimble carefully into her sleeve without looking around. She was used to this sort of urgent voice wanting her attention immediately, and most of the time it was a false alarm.

Soonyi from Mr. O’s household wanted Mrs. Wang. Stopping behind her, Soonyi panted loudly, with her cheeks rosy and forehead beaded with perspiration. “Mrs. Wang, my lady needs you. Mr. O sent me to fetch you right away. The wagon is waiting at the entrance of the market. Please come with me quickly or else,” Soonyi said without breathing until Mrs. Wang interrupted.

“Or else what?” Mrs. Wang asked, stepping away from the crowd leisurely.

Soonyi rattled on excitedly. “Mrs. Wang, my lady is in such pain. She can’t even speak.”

Mrs. Wang walked on toward the entrance of the market, counting how many days had passed since her most recent visit with Mistress Yee and recalling her due date. It was early, and yet this little monkey was making a scene in the marketplace as if Mrs. Wang lived only to be summoned from wherever she was and whatever she was doing. Mrs. Wang had planned to have a drink at the pub, but now it looked as though she wasn’t going to.

Twin midgets were performing circus tricks at the entrance of the market. One was standing on the soles of the other, who was lying on her back, holding a bowl of water on a stick clenched between her teeth. The one on the top was bending down carefully to drink the water from the bowl through a straw. Mesmerized by the breathtaking sight, Soonyi halted and dropped her jaw.

“Well, should we stay and have some fun?” Mrs. Wang asked, chewing on a dried squid leg.

Soonyi collected herself and led the way to the wagon, where Bok was taking a nap, leaning against one of the wheels.

Soonyi hit him on the head. He got up and bowed toward the wagon. Mrs. Wang was behind him. She offered him a dried persimmon. He bowed again and took it at once.

“Never eat dried fruit in a hurry. Or rice cake. You will choke on it, and there is no remedy for choking,” Mrs. Wang said, getting on the wagon with the help of the errand boy, whose cheeks were bulging with the persimmon he was about to swallow. He nodded solemnly.

Soonyi pulled his ear. “What a piglet you are! You just had lunch.”

“Big Sister, I am a growing boy,” he grumbled.

“Here, children. I’ve got some dried squid.” Mrs. Wang shared her squid with them, anticipating that there would be lots of food soon at Mr. O’s. She also thought that her visit would last a while.

The mule-drawn wagon began to rattle on the stony road, and Mrs. Wang wondered if she had fed her chickens that morning, if she had closed her gate properly, and if she had hung laundry out.

The sun felt good, even though the air was chilly. Mrs. Wang closed her eyes, leaning against the haystack, and Soonyi kept talking about the recent incidents and affairs in the grand house of Mr. O. Mrs. Wang was the last person to mind good gossip.