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It was close to evening by the time Hannah’s full bladder finally forced her to limp out of the bedroom. Mr. Kim sat hunched over the box the young man brought over earlier. He straightened and cleared his throat.
Hannah blushed. “I ... I guess your company has left.” Mr. Kim’s brow furrowed even deeper, but he said nothing. She had never been particularly close to Mr. Stern, but she missed the American’s fatherly ways. She swallowed, grateful her throat wasn’t quite as raw. She looked around once, hoping to catch a glimpse of So-Young. “Your daughter is ...?”
“Making a delivery.”
Hannah wasn’t sure if she should keep on standing there or just hobble back to her room. She couldn’t stop shivering. Her head throbbed. A wave of relief soothed her burning cheeks when the front door opened, and So-Young dashed in, just barely dodging one of the chairs near the entryway. Kwan rushed after her, his arms high above his head, his growls and snarls intermingled with snorts of laughter.
“Daughter!” Mr. Kim barked, but it took So-Young another several seconds to gain control of her momentum. She was panting and laughing at the same time, and her squeals only intensified when Kwan picked her up over his head with a deafening roar. Hannah felt Mr. Kim’s displeasure, waves of irritation the two playfellows either couldn’t detect or chose to ignore. When So-Young’s giggles finally subsided, Kwan set her upright on her feet.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Kim mumbled. Nobody responded.
“Will you be staying the night, Brother Kwan?” So-Young tugged on his hand.
During the Great Hardship, Hannah used to joke that her family of adopted flower-swallows would one day pull her shoulder out of joint from yanking her so hard like that. She took a deep breath, hoping to ease the heaviness of her memories. Yes, there had been laughter then, too. The children weren’t so physically boisterous, but when they were lucky enough to find scraps to fill their distended bellies, they could make a commotion to rival the safe-house cacophony.
Kwan lifted his arm as So-Young held on, letting her legs dangle several centimeters off the floor. Hannah was surprised by his strength. All the other Koreans she knew were from the North, where even the village police were malnourished weaklings. “I’ve got to cross one more time,” Kwan answered. “Moses ...”
Everyone stopped. Their heads snapped toward Hannah. So-Young straightened her legs and stood on her own feet. Her smile faded, and she took a small step behind Kwan. He brought his hands together and cracked several of his knuckles one after the other. “That is ... I meant ...”
The heat from Mr. Kim’s scowl was directed at the young man, but it radiated outward and made Hannah’s neck burn. She was about to excuse herself when Mr. Kim looked at So-Young. “Daughter, show our arrival where the outhouse is.”
A few minutes later, Hannah hobbled back to her room, where the view of the two men was blocked but not the sound.
“I still don’t know what Moses was thinking.” Mr. Kim’s volume had steadily increased.
She did what she could to keep from eavesdropping, but the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she couldn’t ignore their words.
“She can’t even be twenty years old. Next thing you know, he’ll expect me to send my own daughter across the border.”
“Moses has a reason for everything he does.” Kwan’s voice was steady, and Hannah longed to let her soul absorb its confidence.
Mr. Kim laughed mirthlessly. “He has reasons, sure enough.”
“His situation is ... precarious.” Hannah noted the reverence in Kwan’s voice. “He’s constantly in danger.”
Mr. Kim grunted. “So am I. But you don’t see me plucking little girls out of nursery school and throwing them to the Pyongyang tigers.”
Hannah wished she could ignore their conversation, but even though her head was heavy with fever and her body trembled with chills underneath the blanket, her mind tuned in to every syllable.
“She came from Chongjin,” Kwan stated. “She obviously endured a lot at the jail. She must have proven herself to someone over there, gotten Moses’ attention somehow. They say he has connections within ...”
“I don’t need to be told about his connections,” Mr. Kim spat. The conversation ended for a moment, and when it resumed, the whispers were too faint for Hannah to decipher.
Throughout the rest of the evening, So-Young tiptoed in every now and then to pat down Hannah’s clammy forehead with a cool rag or offer some bitter tea. As she nursed Hannah’s fever and injured leg, So-Young might have passed as a teenager if she weren’t so tiny. Other times, like when she giggled and played with Kwan, she didn’t seem a day older than Woong and the other flower-swallows Hannah had cared for so many years ago. Were any of them still alive? She had lost count of how many she had buried before she finally crossed the border and found her way to the Sterns’.
“She won’t be able to make any deliveries until that leg heals.” Hannah overheard Mr. Kim’s remark and wondered if he already regretted her presence here, if he begrudged her the two cups of tea and splint she had claimed her first day as his guest.
“I doubt she’s ready to go out yet, anyway,” Kwan replied. “She needs time to heal.”
Hannah shut her eyes, wondering what they’d say if they knew she was listening.
“She’s been through a lot ...”
“The girl’s safe now,” Mr. Kim interrupted. “She should be grateful to have a roof over her head, not an unmarked tombstone.”
Hannah wished So-Young would return with more tea. Her throat was parched.
Kwan stayed for supper that evening, and So-Young prepared a vegetable dish and hearty broth soup. The conversation was sparse. Kwan’s trivial chatter invited nothing but angry murmurs from Mr. Kim at the head of the table. Hannah thought back to the dinner conversations in Yanji, the theological debates Mr. Stern was so happy to moderate, the times when she and Simon broke away from the others to share a private moment in the midst of such boisterous fellowship. Hannah couldn’t offer Kwan more than a passing glance. He reminded her too much of Simon. It wasn’t his build exactly. She had studied him further and decided he was more wiry and angular than Simon, but both young men possessed a strengthening, calming presence. The similarity between them embarrassed her for some reason she couldn’t articulate.
She sipped at her soup but had lost her appetite. Her fever was improving by the hour, the result perhaps of So-Young’s herbal concoction, but the meal was far too spicy. When was the last time Simon ate anything but prison gruel? Did the guards bother to feed him at all anymore? She thought of their last moment together, when his tormented cry followed her out of the interrogation room. He called out her name, but what was left for them to say in such a short time? She played through those last seconds, the things she might have told him. She wanted him to know how sorry she was. She would never stop blaming herself for distracting him from his mission. It would have been better if the two of them had never met again after crossing the border.
Something beeped, a strange electronic noise. Mr. Kim fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small phone. He squinted and frowned. “I have to go.” He scraped his chair out behind him. “I’ll be back later.”
A pang of guilt pricked Hannah’s conscience when she realized she was relieved to see him depart. The mood around the table relaxed almost immediately after he left.
“How is your wound?” It was the first time Kwan spoke directly to her all night.
“I think it’s going to heal up just fine.” Inwardly, she blamed the flush creeping up her face on her subsiding fever.
“And your ...” Kwan stared into his lap and cracked a knuckle. “How is everything else?”
She wasn’t sure what he already knew about her, but the question left her skin cold and clammy. “So-Young is taking very good care of me.” She wasn’t certain if this was the sort of response he expected or not.
He leaned back in his chair. “You must have made quite an impression at Chongjin. They hardly ever send women to us and never anyone so young.”
Hannah felt she should reply somehow, but the words got jumbled in her mouth. “I had a friend there,” she muttered. “In the jail.”
Kwan nodded. “I’m sorry you were separated from each other.” His penetrating glance suggested he knew more about the situation than Hannah would have wished.
“So Mr. Kim is your uncle?” She had to keep her mind off Simon.
“He’s my mentor. We’re not actually related.” Kwan took a noisy slurp of soup before declaring, “Little Sister, your cooking grows more and more delicious every time I visit.”
Hannah forgot her own discomfort when she saw the deep red inching its way all the way up to the tips of So-Young’s ears. Kwan grinned and reached under his chair. “I brought you a birthday present, by the way.”
So-Young’s flush morphed into a childish beam that lit up her entire face. She clasped her hands in front of her. “You remembered!”
Kwan laughed easily. “How could I forget my favorite eleven year-old?” He pulled out a small bundle wrapped in thin paper. “Happy birthday.”
So-Young grabbed the package with both hands and let out a delightful squeal. Shreds of paper fell to the ground until she held a small doll in the crook of her arms. “She’s perfect.”
So-Young glowed adoringly at her gift, Kwan beamed proudly, and Hannah realized she was a stranger, witnessing a moment entirely unfit for outsiders.