On a misty day in April the following year, Sonju received a telegram from her sister that her mother had a stroke and passed away. She took the news calmly. Her mother was dead. She could bear the loss. She became aware of silence in the house. Death always brought silence. Then, without warning, a deluge of feelings came. She wept until she was emptied out.
A week later, her sister came with a mourner’s bow on her hair and handed her a sealed envelope with Sonju’s name on it. “I found it among Mother’s things.”
Sonju put it aside and asked, “Did Mother die peacefully?”
“She was unconscious when our sister-in-law found her. She never woke up.”
Sonju nodded.
Her sister said, “After Father passed away, I visited Mother twice a month. The last time I was there, she received news that her sister passed away after a short illness. I didn’t know we had an aunt, did you?”
“When I was fifteen, I met her at our grandfather’s birthday gathering.” Poor Aunt, Sonju thought. She had wanted to be in touch with her aunt, but doing so had seemed a betrayal to her mother.
“You never told me,” her sister said.
“Mother hadn’t, so I felt that it wasn’t up to me to tell.”
Her sister dropped it, but said, “Mother was distraught at the news. She didn’t weep, but she looked lost. I have never seen her that way, so it was surprising to me. Then she did something odd. She took off her jade hair pin and replaced it with an onyx pin.”
After her sister left, Sonju took out the two thinking-stones from the bureau and started rolling them. She had lost too many people. She was only forty-one.
It was evening when she opened her mother’s letter.
1968, April 2
Dear Sonju,
After my sister’s passing, I have examined my own decisions made over the years. It would have been better for you and for all of us if your father and I had allowed you to marry the man you wanted. But I could not be the person who yielded to this changing social order that eroded our family’s esteem and honor even though losing this battle was inevitable. I am at peace with your own fight for your future. My hope is that you won’t judge me too harshly after I am gone.
Her mother who had always brought on a trembling of her fingers and a hardening of her jaw, her mother always upright in her posture and certain of her position—she would no longer knock on her door to find out how her shamed daughter was getting along in life.
Sonju had been angry at her mother ever since she could remember. Now she felt only sorrow that things couldn’t be otherwise. She recalled what Second Sister had said after her father died, that she felt like an orphan. As much angst as existed between her and her mother, there was something between them beyond their filial connection. She tried to form this something into words—their deep conviction that originated from the same starting point, which was the desire to be in a certain place in the world. She now believed she was her mother’s closest and best understood child, and suddenly, she felt lost like an orphan.
Sonju had been writing. Some things were for her to keep, not for others to read. When she thought her writing was good enough, she sent out fourteen essays to the newspapers, and only two made it to print. Others—about domestic violence, divorce, women’s custody and property rights—must have been too radical for 1968 Korea.
She hadn’t forgotten about her idea of doing something good for the country in her own way and didn’t think writing alone was enough.
An idea came when her realtor telephoned her. He had helped her purchase and sell a dozen properties over the years. He said that there was an eager buyer for the corner commercial lot she had owned since 1960, the year of the April Revolution. After eight years, its value had appreciated enough for her to buy a building with multiple stores. It would provide a steady income. She and the realtor looked at properties all throughout the monsoon rain and August heat. In September, Sonju completed a transaction for the purchase of a two-story building that had three storefronts on the first floor and an English Language academy with three classrooms on the second, each with a solid profit history.
She had the stamped contract in her purse. When she pushed the glass door open into the stationery shop, little bells jangled above her head. “Please come in,” a neatly dressed middle-aged man said, standing between the aisles.
Two young girls were chatting and studying colorful ballpoint pens in one aisle, and in the other, a young woman was looking at greeting cards. Seeing that the stationer was busy, Sonju introduced herself, pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, and wrote her contact information. He took it with both hands and bowed.
At the next shop, a plain-looking woman in her late-twenties was checking the bottles and small boxes on the shelves in one of the glass cabinets behind the counter. On the side wall hung her diploma from Ewha Womans University.
When Sonju introduced herself, the pharmacist bowed. “Ah, the new owner. I didn’t expect a woman.”
Sonju smiled. “I am happy to see a woman pharmacist.”
A customer came in. Sonju gave the pharmacist her contact information and went to the next door. Tall bookshelves covered three walls and there was a long table in the center with books piled high. Several high school boys were thumbing through textbook supplements. A small woman finished rearranging books on one shelf and came toward Sonju smiling. “May I help you?”
“I love the smell of ink and paper. I came to introduce myself. I am Yu Sonju, the new owner of the building. I see that you named the store Camus.”
“Yes, I read The Stranger in college and was deeply affected by it.”
The bookstore owner looked to be in her early thirties. Perhaps she had a husband and a couple of children. Sonju bought two books for Gija.
She walked upstairs at the end of the building. Adult English conversation classes were in session. She went to a small office tucked between two classrooms and met the academy owner and a secretary. All three classrooms seemed full. Sonju was aware that with the increased international trading, a person able to communicate in English could secure a decent position in a reputable corporation.
From the street, she glanced back toward the pharmacy and the bookstore. Change for women was coming to the nation without her screaming for it.
She barely got out of her suit and changed into a dress when Lady Cho rang the bell. “Come in. I just came home. The building is mine as of today.”
Lady Cho seated herself on the couch. “That is a good buy. You will do well with it.”
“I met the tenants. The pharmacist and the bookstore owner are women. When I heard the English lessons going on in the classrooms upstairs, I thought of Roger teaching Miss Im and me English. I met the stationer too. He had long, lean hands with clean nails.”
Lady Cho chuckled. “Clean nails.”
“I noticed them.” She didn’t mention that his hands looked much like Kungu’s.
“Have you noticed Assemblyman Kim’s interest in you?” Lady Cho asked seemingly off-handedly.
Surprised at the question, Sonju’s heart stuttered a bit. She wished she hadn’t heard this because she still remembered her discomfort at being with him alone at the cottage. She said, “I always thought the two of you had special feelings for each other, which makes perfect sense.”
“We are friends. Nothing more.”
Sonju’s insides squirmed. Warmth began to crawl up to her face. “He knows I was once married.”
“So was he.”
“Let me make some tea.” Sonju went to the kitchen touching her face to cool it down and tried to come up with another topic they could talk about. She returned with tea, and with enthusiasm, said, “The cook’s son has found work. She called me.” No one knew about his arrest for leading a student protest. The cook told Lady Cho and Sonju only after he was released. She said she hadn’t wanted anyone to know because she heard that KCIA agents conducted surveillance on people affiliated with a suspect. He left the prison with two disadvantages in life—termination from his university and a permanent criminal record.
“I am glad,” Lady Cho said. “The sad part is that he was finally turning himself around.”
Sonju said. “The cook was so proud to have a son soon to graduate from college.” He had already served the country by completing his compulsory military service after his sophomore year in college.
Lady Cho said, “He is still young. There are a lot of things he can do.”
Lady Cho always focused on what a person was able to do. Sonju, on the other hand, complained all the time. She couldn’t help it. “I am glad students keep protesting,” she said. Sonju considered those students the nation’s guardians. They watched the government. President Park’s push for rapid industrialization had improved the economy, but they were not living in democracy. Sonju then hoped that the topic of Assemblyman Kim’s interest in her would never arise again.
That she had at times caught the assemblyman’s eyes on her was one thing, but being told that he was interested in her was quite another. Now she would look at him differently every time she saw him, and that changed things already in her mind.
Even now on the way to G-62, her head swaying side to side and bobbing up and down at every bump and dip the bus met on the road, she regarded the assemblyman’s purported interest in her with mild annoyance and discomfort.
When she reached the cottage, she dropped off her overnight bag and walked the gallery ground, stepping on the fallen leaves, and once in a while, breaking dead twigs off shrubs. She stopped to look up at the flat grey November sky, and afterwards, made four more rounds before she returned to the cottage and lay down on the couch.
From somewhere nearby came a series of high-pitched barks. The noise woke Sonju from her nap. She rose and looked out. In the back lawn, a dog she hadn’t seen before was barking, looking up into the midair where two birds were shrieking in a fight. The gardener’s wife shouted, “Stop, you silly boy.” The dog kept on barking, his head and mouth shaking in great agitation. She yelled again, this time louder, “Stop that barking! Come here!” The dog tucked his tail, put his head down, and walked slowly toward his owner.
Below the branches, Sonju saw a figure walk across the lawn toward the cottage. Was Lady Cho to meet the assemblyman here? If she had known, she wouldn’t have come. It would be so awkward to be alone with him in the same room after being told about his interest in her. She hesitated before opening the door.
“Please come in. Is Lady Cho meeting you here?”
He looked confused, then said, “No. I didn’t talk to her. I took a chance of seeing you here.”
Now her heart tumbled and didn’t know where to go. “So … you guessed right then.” She didn’t like the way her words came out—a bit brusque.
“I would like some tea if it’s not an imposition on you,” he said, moving closer to the table.
“Not at all. I was going to have some myself. Please sit.” Sonju went to the kitchen. Her hands forgot what to do. She stared down at them and squeezed a few times.
When she came to the table with tea, she could tell by the look of the nervous smile flickering around his mouth that he was trying to appear at ease.
She gave him a quick, thin smile and sat down across from him and picked up a cup, avoiding his eyes, uncomfortably conscious of his firm presence. After a sip, she slowly lifted her eyes.
He put down his cup after a few sips, looked at her, and said, “I don’t know how to say this.” He shifted ever so slightly in his chair. “We have known each other for a long time.” He paused and touched the rim of his saucer. “I respect you and I am very fond of you. This might be premature, but I came to see if there is any chance at all … for us.”
Sonju remained still, but not one part of her mind was calm. She could almost hear the drumbeat in her heart. She held her breath, one, two, three, four …
He chuckled. “I am quite clumsy at this. Why is it that I can talk to the President and foreign dignitaries without being nervous, yet I have a hard time saying this to you?” He took another sip, watching her.
She said, “I think of you as a former client, a good friend, a confidant, even.”
“Now you know where I stand. That is a good start, don’t you think?”
She stalled. When words eventually reached her mouth, they poured out all wrong. “I left my husband for another man, a childhood friend.” Why did she say that? He didn’t have to know about Kungu. What a relief it was then that he showed not a flinch, not a frown, no lifting of eyes.
He said, “I was married to a woman I didn’t have feelings for. For the first time in my life, I find myself quite taken.” She stayed still. “Can I see you from time to time alone?” he asked.
She considered his request. Her life had its own rhythm, pace and flavor that pleased her. If she agreed to a courtship, she wondered how much would it change her life especially because of who he was, a public person. She said, “My life is good now. I am afraid to disturb it.”
“I don’t intend to change you.”
As she had told Lady Cho not long ago, there were still things she had to figure out about herself, so she said, “I am not yet certain of myself, so how can I include you in my life?”
“Sometimes, you come to know yourself through others.”
Sonju mulled over his words, but unease clung like wet cloth on her skin. “There will be a scandal because of me,” she said.
“Let them talk.”
His words reminded her of what her maid had said when she was unsure about taking the job at The Hall: “What are they to you?”
Before she was to see him again, Sonju paced in her house. This was a bad idea, she kept thinking, even on the bus to the cottage.
Seeing him approach the door, she swallowed a big breath and let it out in one long exhale before she faced him at the door.
He hung his coat on the hook near the door and waited by the table for her to sit. They drank tea. He was fifty-two, eleven years older than she. Gentle creases extended from his nose toward the outer corners of his mouth. At his temples, some hair was greying. She had known him for over fifteen years, but hadn’t noticed before how likable a face he had.
She smiled. He smiled back in awkward silence. She pushed her cup aside. “How do we … start?” she asked, her voice halting and weak.
After he did the same with his cup, he said, “We talk.”
A short nervous laugh escaped from Sonju. Clasping her hands under the table, she said, “This is how I start. When I was young, I knew a boy,” she stopped here, suddenly overcome with a certain sentiment. She resumed, “Together we were to chart a modern life as equal partners. My ideas were big then, perhaps much too big for me and for the time. I now lead a small, unencumbered life, which pleases me.” She looked at him with a faint smile. “I want to hear about yours.”
“I have always tried to do my best in everything I do. Throughout my marriage, I tried hard not to hurt my wife. I spent a lot of time away from home. That was how I was able to tolerate my marriage. My wife took my absence as a part of my job and never complained. In the process though, I lost something valuable. I don’t think my children know me. I don’t think I know them. I regret that.”
His honesty and openness eased her mind. She loosened her shoulders and hands. “My mother forced me into an arranged marriage.” She took a sip of tea. “My former husband and I believed in very different things. It was wrong of me to have an affair, but I never regretted it. The man suddenly died less than a year after I joined him. Six months later, I started working at The Hall.”
All through December and January, they talked. She learned about his three married children. She talked about the dreams she had had for her daughter. Warm feelings toward him started welling up in her. As their courtship progressed, she worried that he would be talked about because of her, and his children would be affected by it. How would he explain her to his family, colleagues, friends?