Waxing Moon (22 page)

When Nani heard her master and mistress laugh, she left and went to the kitchen and found Soonyi dozing in front of the stove. Nani pulled her hair from behind and said, “Where is Quince?”

“She left, Big Sister,” Soonyi said.

“Left already? She is supposed to stay until we are done with the dinner dishes!” Nani shrieked.

“She said she would come back real soon,” Soonyi said.

“So what’s calling her this time?” Soonyi asked.

“Her husband was whistling from over the wall behind the well. Quince talked to him through a crack in the rocks in the wall. Then she just darted out, giggling. She said she was going to come back real soon,” Soonyi said.

“Did you pour water into the rice pot?” Nani asked, lifting the lid of the cast iron pot on the stove.

“I-I am not sure,” Soonyi stammered.

“This is too much water. It will take forever to boil,” Nani complained, using a long wooden spoon to remove the rice stuck to the bottom of the cast iron pot.

“Get the table ready for us,” Nani said, stirring the rice in the water. The aroma of browned rice was nutty and flavorful.

While Nani and Soonyi readied their low table, Quince showed up again. Her appearance was comically messy, with her hair flying in all directions and her shirt ribbon loose, but her cheeks were rosy and her lips cherry red. There were also a few strands of straw in her hair.

“What did you do?” Soonyi asked curiously.

Nani snorted, disgusted.

“What?” Quince asked, smirking.

“Go home,” Nani said.

“I am hired to work here,” Quince said.

“Then why did you leave in the middle of work?” Nani asked, sitting down by the low table.

“I was waiting for you to return so you could tell us what to do,” said Quince sarcastically in her high-pitched voice which didn’t seem to suit the size of her body.

“By the way, I tell you what to do because I am supposed to,” Nani shrilled, remembering her nickname.

“I know. I know,” Quince drawled grudgingly.

“Go to Mistress Yee’s quarters and wait until she tells you to remove the table,” Nani said.

“And what about you?” Quince asked.

“I am going to have dinner,” she said.

“I need to have dinner too,” Quince said.

“Strictly speaking, you are not supposed to eat here. You are not part of the family. You are a part-time employee,” Nani said.

Quince sat her huge bottom by the table and picked up a pickled cucumber with her fingers. “Mmm, that’s too sour,” she said, puckering her lips.

Soonyi offered her a pair of chopsticks, surveying Nani’s face.

“Thank you, child,” Quince said, grinning. “Give me a bowl of rice. I am so hungry.”

Her eyes cast down, Nani snickered.

“Don’t sulk, Nani. My husband was delayed coming home from the west coast. He just arrived and hadn’t seen me for more than a day. You will understand when you get married. Sometimes men get antsy when they don’t see their womenfolk for a while,” Quince blabbered.

With a look of contemptuous horror, Nani got up and left. She was headed for Mistress Yee’s quarters.

“It’s all her mother’s fault,” Quince said, stuffing her mouth with a large amount of rice and the marinated sweet potato stems.

“What do you mean?” Soonyi asked.

“Her mother taught her to believe that she deserved a better life than the one of a maid. With that in her head, she thinks she can boss us around. But a maid is a maid,” Quince said, grinning at Soonyi, who looked puzzled.

At that moment, Chunshim came in and said that Buwon had just fallen asleep. She was hungry. Indeed, as she spoke, her stomach growled.

Quince said, “Sit down.”

Ignoring Quince, Chunshim asked Soonyi to bring a tray of food to her room.

Quince rolled her eyes as Chunshim left the kitchen and said, “She doesn’t see me, huh?”

Soonyi arranged the tray with rice and a few dishes. As she was about to take it out, Quince snatched the dish of fried squash patties and put it on her low table.

“Please, Aunt Quince, put it back. She doesn’t have much here,” Soonyi said.

“She is
another
one who is bossing you around,” Quince pointed out. “You need to make sure you don’t become the maid for a pack of maids.”

Soonyi left, feeling bad. “A maid for a pack of maids,” she whispered to herself.

Nani was walking back and said, “What are you mumbling about?”

“Nothing.”

In the kitchen, Quince burped loudly. Nani frowned and said, “You may go now. Master and Mistress have blown their candles out.”

Quince grinned and said, narrowing her eyes, “Just as I said. Men get antsy.”

Nani frowned and went out to wash herself. She was tired. Catching Soonyi coming from Chunshim’s room, she said, “You need to finish tidying up the kitchen. I am going to bed now. I think I am coming down with something.”

“Do you want ginger tea?” Soonyi asked.

“What I might have isn’t what ginger tea can soothe,” she replied.

In her room, without lighting the candle, Nani undressed and lay on the floor. She reviewed what Mistress Yee and Mr. O were talking about at their dinner table. With her eyes closed, she conjured up the image of Mirae again, drenched, tied down on a bench. A large, smooth tree branch swung down to hit Mirae on her bottom, and it bounced up slowly, only to go down again. The hired beater counted loudly:
twenty,
twenty-one, twenty-two.
That was when Nani had come in the yard. All the maids and servants were supposed to witness the beating for a lesson in what would happen to wicked servants, but Nani had not finished cooking dinner in time. So she arrived later. Mirae was glaring at Mistress Yee.

“Big Sister, are you sleeping?” Soonyi said as she came in.

Nani didn’t answer. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. She now thought about Min. He had changed a lot. He looked older, with a thinner body. How filthy he was! His hair was unkempt, and his skin was red and leathery from the sun. She thought about the shore where she had sat with Min. It was the second time she had visited the west coast. The first time there had been with Mistress Kim when she freed fish because she wished to be pregnant. That was almost a decade ago now. Her mother had sent her to the shore to play with shells while she escorted Mistress Kim to the boat. She still remembered her mother looking back again and again with a warning eye, silently telling her not to go near the water.

Soonyi lay down on her cotton mat and immediately fell asleep. Nani could hear her breathe evenly.

Nani yawned and looked over to the other side, where Mirae had once slept, away from them. She yawned again and fell asleep.

In her dream, she was back on the west coast with Min. They were on the beach, chasing each other, barefoot, laughing like kids. In her dreams Min was always able to laugh and talk. Water splashed on her. Suddenly, a wave engulfed Min. Nani’s heart sank, but when the wave pulled back to the ocean, he still stood there. Nani rushed to him, and they hugged. They ran again by the shore. Sometime later, Min made a bonfire. Nani sat there, warming up her cold body. Min kept throwing on more branches to keep the fire going. Nani was feeling warm and cozy. The world burned bright orange, and the bonfire crackled louder and louder, and that was when she woke up.

37

Nani woke up from her dream. It was the middle of the night, but the brightness outside was like the early afternoon.

“Min!” she cried in a whisper. Like a dream, he was standing on the threshold, and the bright light was coming from the kitchen. It was on fire. Nani got up, and Min left quickly. “Oh no!” Nani ran out and saw what was happening to the house. The fire was not just in the kitchen, but here and there, and she could see the storage room afire too. She was about to run to check on Mr. O’s quarters, but then she remembered that her master was at Mistress Yee’s quarters. Suddenly, she turned and ran back to her room and shook Soonyi violently. The room was getting warm, and the crackling sound was getting alarmingly loud.

Soonyi woke up and cried like a baby. Nani couldn’t take care of her. She ran out, and Soonyi followed her, begging Nani not to leave her alone. Something collapsed in the kitchen.

She ran to Mistress Yee’s quarters. She turned back and told Soonyi to go and tell Chunshim to get out with Buwon and her own son. Soonyi didn’t want to. She cried, trembling.

“Soonyi, go and get Buwon!” Nani shrieked. Soonyi jerked but still didn’t move. Nani clouted her on the head and repeated, “Go and get Buwon!” Nani ran toward Mistress Yee’s quarters without looking back. Soonyi reluctantly trotted to the building behind the guests’ quarters.

Mistress Yee’s quarters hadn’t caught fire. Nani stood in the yard, ready to shout, but then she suddenly remembered that Min had emerged from nowhere in the middle of the night in her room. Why in the world had he showed up? Had she dreamed it all? He had stood on her threshold as if he had come to rescue her. But how could he have known that the house was on fire?

“Mistress Yee, Nani is here,” she said. No reply. “Mistress Yee, please wake up!” she shouted. “Fire!” she finally cried.

Mr. O came out. And then he rushed back to get his wife. They both came out. Mr. O looked about from the raised entrance, waving his hand in the air helplessly. Bright orange light everywhere felt like a sizzling summer day. He stepped down on the ground, and a sound emerged from his mouth, but it was incomprehensible. He looked lost. He ran to his quarters, which were completely engulfed. Then he ran, passing the guests’ quarters, toward the building where Buwon was supposedly asleep. At that moment, Chunshim escaped the building with a baby in her arms. Soonyi stood in the yard, crying. Bok ran to the yard. Nani arrived, panting.

“Is that Buwon?” Nani asked.

Chunshim realized that she had left Buwon behind. Shrieking, she handed her baby to Soonyi and hastened back to the building. Buwon was shrilling from inside. Nani ran after Chunshim. Bok ran after Nani. Dubak and a few other peasants who had seen the bright light coming from Mr. O’s mansion came hurriedly. Mr. O arrived and heard his son cry from inside the burning building. He attempted to go in, but the three men grabbed him by his arms. Another man went in instead. A few moments later, he came out carrying Chunshim. Nani followed out carrying Buwon. Bok came out coughing hysterically.

Mr. O stood there, holding his son, and he wept, even though the servants were urging him to leave the place at once. Finally, they had to pull his son away from him so that he would follow them. Outside the house Mistress Yee, watched the house burn, standing among the peasants who had come to lend a hand. Servants went into the mansion to pour buckets of water on the flames, but their efforts were in vain. By dawn, every building had burned down, except Mistress Yee’s quarters and the guests’ quarters.

Mr. O stood motionless in front of the main entrance for a long time. Then he left to find Mistress Yee and his son at the guesthouse by the village hall that was meant to accommodate government officers. His servants remained to salvage whatever was left, but all was charred or partially damaged. There was nothing much even to steal. Local government officers came in the morning to examine the site and come up with a possible scenario, but they just stood for a while, awed, for the house had marked one of the most impressive sights in the village for many generations.

One of the officers found a torch that must have been used as a lighter. There was only one torch, so the officers concluded that the fire was set by one person, possibly one who knew the place quite well. But almost everyone in the village knew the house quite well. Even children drew pictures of it with chalk without consulting a grownup. The officers interrogated the village women to determine if their husbands had stayed out the night of the fire, but they all said their husbands had gone to bed early with them. When the officers asked if anyone had seen a suspicious person that evening around Mr. O’s mansion, everyone shook their heads, looking blank. And that was the end of the investigation. One officer wrote a report on the case and submitted it to the local government office.

Mistress Yee was ill from the shock of the fire. She whined because she was disgusted by her temporary living quarters.

“I am going to build the same house on the same spot,” Mr. O consoled her.

“It will take forever to build a house like that,” Mistress Yee said, frowning.

“No, it will take one season,” he said. He said it confidently to convince his invisible father in the atmosphere. He could feel how angry his father must be to see that he had ruined the house, four generations old. He could almost hear his father’s stern voice: “I wish I had another son.” That was what he had said sometimes when he was drinking with his guests. He didn’t seem to want two sons. He seemed to want to replace his only son with another. At his deathbed, his father asked, “Will you be able to carry on my name?” Before Mr. O could muster up the courage to say that he would, his father had passed away. After the funeral, alone at his father’s grave, he had cried like a child, telling him that he was not the coward his father had always assumed him to be. He wanted to have twelve sons, but as of now he only had Buwon, hardly a son.

“It will take only one season,” he emphasized again, realizing that it would take more because the rice-farming season had begun and there weren’t many free hands left.

“I can’t live here more than a season,” Mistress Yee said determinedly.

“I think we can do it in a season,” Mr. O said.

“Well, we will see,” Mistress Yee said skeptically.

“We will build the house in a season!” Mr. O shouted.

“Are you mad at me? Did I set the house on fire?” Mistress Yee asked, furrowing her forehead. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Of course not. Why should I be mad at you?” Mr. O asked regretfully.

“I don’t know. You’ve changed. Just yesterday you suggested that Mirae had been mistreated and wrongly accused. I don’t know what is going on in your mind anymore.” Mistress Yee broke down and sobbed. She was tired and frustrated. The breakfast was not up to her standard. Besides, it was spring. She had planned to host an elaborate party at her house. That, of course, would have to be canceled. Also, she wanted to go and enjoy cherry blossoms by the Snake River, but that wasn’t going to happen either. She had hired a seamstress to make a new dress for the occasion.

Mr. O took his wife’s hand and said, “I will take care of everything.”

Mr. O was not used to taking care of everything. His father, even after his marriage, hadn’t entrusted him with the important matters in the house. After his death, Mistress Kim took charge of them with the excellent assistance of her maid Hosoon, Nani’s mother, and so he never had to pay attention to the details of the housekeeping. All he needed to do was enjoy his life and not complain too much. Only today, when he was forced to relocate, had he realized that a couple of young girls had been running his household, and where were the menservants besides Bok? What was he thinking? There was no one who would have rescued him or his wife had they stayed in his quarters the night before. What was he really thinking? When he was little, more than a dozen servants and maids had served his family. Where had they all gone? He realized that morning he had only four, and two were bloody children. His forehead was throbbing. He didn’t enjoy self-criticism. He got up. He wanted to go see the local government officers to ask about the latest findings on the fire, and he also wanted to find out how much land he would have to sell to build a new house.

Nani and Chunshim were taking care of Buwon in the rear room at the guesthouse. Luckily, he had escaped the fire unscathed except for singed hair. The hair would grow again.

“You were lucky,” Nani said to Chunshim.

“I know!” Chunshim said. She still couldn’t believe that she had forgotten Buwon when she ran from her burning room in the middle of the night.

“How is your baby?” Nani asked, taking Chunshim’s hand.

“He is fine,” Chunshim said, her eyes brimming with tears. The stress had been too great for her. She had almost let Buwon die. The thought still chilled her to the bone.

“No one’s hurt,” Nani said.

“That’s true,” Chunshim said. “Thank you for not telling Mistress Yee about what happened,” she whispered, to make sure that Nani wouldn’t tell their mistress.

“Not in a million years,” Nani replied stoutly.

“Do you know where your Min is?” Chunshim asked.

Nani didn’t reply.

“I want you to know that I never had anything to do with him,” Chunshim emphasized.

Nani nodded.

“I haven’t told you this, but I was never married,” Chunshim said abruptly.

“Like I didn’t know?” Nani said, grinning.

“I was a concubine to a wealthy man,” Chunshim began. She hadn’t intended to tell her story to anyone, but here she was, blurting it out. “He used to beat me!” Chunshim cried suddenly.

Nani shook her head sympathetically and squeezed the other woman’s hand. “It’s all right. You are not with him now.”

“I ran away from that house one night. I didn’t know I was pregnant. When my son was born, I didn’t want him. I thought he would remind me of that man for the rest of my life. But he doesn’t. He is just a darling,” Chunshim said.

Nani wanted to hear more about Min, but Chunshim could talk only about her son. His sweet face so like her younger brother’s. His chubby knees. His precociousness.

“I need to go and see if Quince is ever coming back with the groceries,” said Nani, getting up.

“I should help you,” Chunshim said.

“No, that’s not your job,” Nani said.

As Nani walked away, she realized that Chunshim didn’t bother her anymore. For a long time, Chunshim’s status had confused Nani. She wasn’t a maid and she wasn’t an aristocrat. She was a pain in the neck. She seemed to have it easy, just taking care of the baby. But now Nani felt sorry. What she did was not easy. When she pictured Chunshim running out with her own baby in her arms and forgetting Buwon, Nani was strangely moved. Her mother would have done exactly the opposite. She would have carried out the baby of her master, not Nani, even though she loved Nani more. For some reason, Nani was convinced about that. So she walked to the kitchen, admiring Chunshim.

Quince was waiting for Nani in the kitchen. When Nani entered the room, Quince whispered loudly, “Who set the house on fire?”

“No idea,” Nani said, studying Quince’s face carefully while she pretended to be checking the cabbage in the basket.

“Are you sure you don’t know?”

“I am sure, Sister,” said Nani, taking out the rest of the groceries clumsily. She was thinking of Min again. “He’ll be damned if he has done something bad,” she said. She had spoken aloud without meaning to.

“What did you say?” Quince asked, grabbing a cucumber from the grocery basket. She took an enormous bite out of it, screwing up her freckled face.

“Nothing,” Nani said, snatching the cucumber back from Quince.

Quince chewed loudly, showing her crooked teeth and laughing. She now eyed the carrots in the basket.

“Go get water!” Nani said and slapped Quince’s thigh, chasing her out of the kitchen as if shooing away a fly.

“All right, Mother-in-law,” Quince said and ran out, giggling.

Nani sat by the stove thinking about Min again. She tried to convince herself that she had dreamed that Min was standing on her threshold. In fact, she
had
dreamed of him. She remembered it now. She and Min were on the shore. He made a bonfire. And she woke up when she heard the crackling sound of the wood in the fire.