The Picture Bride, page 24
“Yes, yes. As you say. Now it’s time for you to go to sleep.”
I quickly picked up the empty glass from in front of her and stood up. It was my job to do the dishes, the cleaning, and the laundry in the house. From the time she first entrusted my brother to her, Mother made it clear that Auntie should assign as much work to us as would cover the boarding costs. First, just as my brother used to do, I would sit down with her every evening, read out the slips from the restaurant, balance the books, and calculate the earnings. It was not as though she spent the money, but if the calculations were not correct, I had to do them all over again, several times, and if business was bad, I had to listen to her complaints, it was all so boring. I begged to be allowed to do housework.
I was at the sink when my aunt said, “Bring that glass back. Father’s dead, Mother’s dead, which makes me an orphan.”
How could she make such a fuss about being an orphan when she was already over forty? I shook my head as I brought the glass back and put it down in front of her. I reckoned that at such times it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to humor her. Auntie Rose would be the only person I could turn to if Mother continued to oppose my going to Wisconsin, and cut off financial support. My auntie, who was renowned for donating generously to Korean-American organizations, could hardly pretend not to know my situation. Besides, college was not the only problem. My mother would never allow me to date Peter, with his different skin color and Japanese blood, let alone marry him. (Getting married as soon as we graduated from college was our second plan.) Then too, Auntie was the only person who might back us up, though I didn’t know if my stubborn mother would listen to her.
“Why don’t you get yourself something to drink?”
I took a cola out of the icebox, removed the cap, and sat down opposite her.
“Only a cola? You’re so uptight, just like your mother. There’s only the two of us here, have a proper drink for once. When I was nineteen, I was already a widow, remarried, and had a son.” Auntie Rose laughed. It was true that my mother was uptight, but I could never agree to see myself like that. Auntie had no idea what passion lay inside of me.
“No. I’m eighteen years and six months old.”
When I entered elementary school, counting my age was the most confusing thing. Wahiawā Elementary School had all kinds of children, not only Korean, but also Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese. They were all six to seven years old. I bragged and said that I was eight, but at once I was accused of being a liar. I learned it was only Koreans who said they were one year old as soon as they were born.
Auntie Rose laughed again. “For me, there’s nothing good about Korea except for the Korean way of counting ages. If you do it the American way, the time spent in your mother’s womb doesn’t count, but you’re already growing when you’re in the womb, aren’t you?”
“We’re not Korea, we’re in America.” I had not expected to have to tell her something that I had repeated ad nauseam to my mother. Although she had left Korea more than twenty years before, Mother had never abandoned, not only its language but also Korea-style ways of thinking and living. I couldn’t understand how such a person had come to give her child an English name. (Of course, my mother called us both by our Korean names.)
“Yes, this is Hawaiʻi. Hoping for better luck, I came to a foreign land, stepped in shit trying to avoid something worse, and lived here all this time, enduring whatever life brought.” She drained the glass in one shot, all the time whining like an old woman. Then she picked up the bottle of Scotch and refilled her glass, spilling some. I controlled my desire leave the room. If I didn’t want to make it the worst Christmas ever, I needed to indulge my loyal but whimsical auntie’s fancies. To do that, I had to pretend to listen and ask questions, but there was nothing left for me to be curious about in her life.
I decided to ask about Songhwa. According to Auntie Rose, she, Mom, and Songhwa had been a threesome. But I had never seen Songhwa or heard anything about her from Mother. Maybe that was why I didn’t even think of her as an auntie. (Another characteristic of Koreans is that people are called not by name, but by relationship. When I was young, I was often scolded for calling my aunties by their given names.)
“Where does Songhwa live now? Did she marry again?”
Auntie Rose stared at me. I replied silently, I’m tired of hearing about you or Mother, that’s why I asked.
“Songhwa … she went back to Korea.” She took another draught of Scotch.
I felt it would have been more interesting if she had remarried. Now, tired of even pretending to be curious, I refilled her glass. I thought it would be better to make her drunk as quickly as I could and put her to bed.
“Do you know why Songhwa went back to Korea? It was because she was suffering from mubyong sickness.”
“Mubyong? What’s that?” I asked absently as I poured her another drink.
“The sickness when you’re becoming a mudang.”
“But what’s a mudang?”
Auntie Rose muttered something, as if groping for an English word. “Let me see, sha, a shaman. That’s what it is.”
Auntie Rose’s speech was increasingly unclear.
“Ah, a shaman. Songhwa became a shaman?” I leaned forward. A shaman. That was more interesting.
“Yes, originally her grandmother was a shaman. In Korea being a shaman is a very low-class thing. Songhwa’s grandmother sent her granddaughter here to get married rather than be despised if she remained.”
She was losing the track and might go on for a long time, so I interrupted with another question. “Did she ever do fortune-telling?”
“It can’t be called real fortune-telling, but sometimes she would go into a kind of trance and spit out a few words that proved to be true. Hearing that, people sometimes came to Songhwa secretly, even though they believed in Jesus. Still, Songhwa tried hard to overcome her mubyong.”
Auntie had reached the bottom of the bottle. If Songhwa were around, I would have wanted to ask her about my fate. Will I be able to go to the college of my choice? Will I be able to marry Peter? She would also be an auntie, so I would have been able to have my fortune told for free.
“But why did she go back? You said that in Korea, being a shaman is a low-class occupation.”
“… For the sake of her child. She left because she was thinking about her child.… You don’t need to know…” Auntie Rose couldn’t finish the phrase and slumped across the table. After grabbing hold of the glass that was about to roll off the table, I half carried her to her room. Limp like a sack of flour, she didn’t really know where she was as I dragged her along and flopped her onto the bed. Just as I was removing her cardigan, which I thought she would find stuffy, she opened her eyes blearily.
“Pearl, you mustn’t hold it against your mother. It was all for your sake…”
Was opposing my dreams done for my sake? It would be wonderful if parents could justify everything as being for their children’s sake. If she had said it when she was sober, I might have quibbled, but arguing with someone in her condition would be a waste of time.
“Yes, okay. I know. Now go to sleep.”
I propped her head up with a pillow and covered her with a blanket. Soon she was snoring. As I was about to go out, the scene inside the room caught my eyes. I hadn’t cleaned for a while and it was a mess. Normally, I cleaned it every day, but during the days when the restaurant was closed, my auntie spent a lot of time in her room. When she woke up, I reckoned she would complain that I hadn’t done my job properly. Thinking that I should at least tidy up a bit, I picked up the clothes that lay scattered on the floor. A kind of wooden box appeared under the dirty clothes. The lid was open and inside it there were pictures and letters. A letter that had fallen onto the floor was from Charlie.
It was already the wrong time for a call to come from Peter, and I had taken a long daytime nap, so I didn’t think I would get to sleep easily. I was intrigued by what my auntie had said about the past, and photos or love letters would serve to kill time.
I picked up the box and left the room. If I put the box back before I went to bed, she wouldn’t notice, and even if I did get caught, she would only laugh.
I sat leaning against the head of my bed and opened the lid off the box. From among the confused mixture of photos and letters, I took out the photos first. A photo of my aunt and Charlie’s wedding emerged after I put aside some photos taken with the staff of the restaurant, or recent events.
Charlie, who had continued to write to Auntie after leaving for the mainland, returned to Hawaiʻi several years later. Then he proposed again, offering her a red rose and a ring. From that moment, my auntie was called Rose, though my mom often still calls her Hongju. Her wedding is the first memory of my life. I put on a pretty dress and sprinkled flowers before the bride and groom as they came in. I was embarrassed, thinking that the people were applauding me. I also remember that I was so fond of the dress my mom made that I insisted that I would not take it off even when I went to bed. That’s my only memory of when I was five.
There was also a photo of Auntie Rose and Charlie with my family on the wedding day. Auntie wrote down the date on the back of each. In the photo taken on May 14, 1927, there are only Auntie Rose in her wedding dress and Charlie, Mother holding me, and my brother, but no father. The first time I saw my father was the following fall. It’s not so much that I saw him for the first time as that I can’t remember anything that happened before that. My father said that he came back once before, when I was still a baby. My mom said that my dad sat me on his lap and fed me and sang a lullaby when I was going to sleep, but I can’t recall anything.
“David, did that really happen? Did Daddy do that for me?” I had asked my brother, but I couldn’t get an answer. My brother grew angry whenever his father was mentioned.
My first memory of my father is seeing him plunged into grief over someone’s death. It was difficult even for Mother to get close to him. I later found out that the person who died was Yongman Park, a leader of the Korean community, and that it was because of his influence that my father left home to fight against Japan. Yongman Park was wrongly reported to have collaborated with Japan while in China, and he was assassinated by another Korean.
Father left home again after Yongman Park’s funeral. Honestly, I wasn’t sorry when he left, he made the atmosphere in the house so dark and heavy. (For a while, my mom made the house as dark as my father.) I liked Charlie much better than my father. After Auntie Rose got married, she lived near our house and ran a new laundry with Mother. Charlie, who worked at Schofield Barracks, often brought something delicious when he visited.
Charlie loved my brother and me a lot. The first time my brother played catch was with Charlie, not his father. It was Charlie who took us to the beach and took pictures of us at every event. He died of cancer three years ago. Even if my father leaves us one day, we won’t be as sad as we were then.
When my father left again, Mom was pregnant and gave birth to Michael. That was the time when I learned for certain that children were not picked up from under a bridge or delivered by storks. Most of the Korean children in our neighborhood had five or six brothers and sisters, only one or two years apart, so they mostly played together like friends. My brother was four years older than I was, so he treated me as a child and did not play with me. I was seven when Michael was born, so it was mainly my job to take care of him. Even after starting elementary school, I used to carry him on my back and play with him until it was dark. Of course, this made it difficult to do my homework.
It was in December 1931 that Father came back for good. I was in second grade, and I shared a room with my mom and Michael, and the small room was used by my brother, who was in the top grade of elementary school. My brother was studying hard to enter Leilehua High School. (I wasn’t envious of my mother’s special treatment of David. According to my mother, the eldest son had to study well, obey his parents, and enhance the standing of the family when he grew up.)
Mother hadn’t finished at the laundry that day, and as usual I was caring for Michael, when suddenly there was a noise outside. When I went to see what was happening, my brother was also coming out of his room. We stared at a man with white hair and a shaggy beard standing on the porch with Mother.
“Children, your aboji is back. Come and greet him.”
I already knew who it was before she spoke. However, I did not want to admit that this shabby man who seemed about to collapse was my father. He looked old, as if it was not three years, but thirty years since he had left. Also, he was coughing as if he was sick.
“Taewan, go inside. Pearl, you come in too.”
Mother embraced him, as if he was a treasure, and went into their bedroom. My father was limping strongly with one leg. I worried that I would be teased by the other children. It was better to be teased for having no father. My brother looked angry, and I went into the room without hiding my disappointment. As Father sat there next to Michael, who was asleep, Mother told us to bow in greeting, Korean-style, on our knees.
That night I had to go to sleep in David’s room. He threw a tantrum if I even talked to him, and kicked me when my feet touched him. When I cried and went to the door of the main bedroom, Father told me to come in and sleep there. Michael’s place was between my mother and father, and I slept beside Mother. However, I couldn’t sleep well with my father coughing all night long, so I went back to my brother’s room the next day.
Mom said that Father had injured his leg and fallen sick while fighting the Japanese, and he was a hero. But none of that mattered to me. It didn’t make sense for my mother, who had suffered for so long, to say only good things about Father. Auntie Rose seemed to feel the same way. In fact, sometimes, in Mother’s absence, she used to criticize Father. But that day she did it openly. I overheard the conversation between her and my mom, while I pretended to be putting Michael to bed.
“Did he make the country independent or did he just make a name for himself? All he’s brought back is his broken body. What have you gained by raising your children all by yourself for ten years? You’re the one who’s worn down, but you’re giving him the tonics and bone soup. Why don’t you hate your husband?” Auntie Rose waved scissors about as she spoke. I felt relieved that she had pointed out the thoughts and feelings I was too young to deal with.
“Am I some kind of Buddha? Of course I feel hate and resentment. But is there any point in putting that into words? As you said, he’s failed to gain independence, he’s come home with nothing but his body, and he feels so bad that I feel sorry for him. If we become independent someday, the hardships that we have suffered will have contributed. It will not be a total waste. Anyway, for now, my priority is to nurse him back to health. At present he’s not fit to be an aboji to his children.” Her voice was dark and feeble, unlike when she told us good things about Father. It wasn’t all that nice to know my mom’s real feelings. What I needed was a great father, not a pitiful one.
Several weeks later, the churches invited Father to attend. There were two Korean churches in Wahiawā. The children played together at school, but on Sundays they were divided, attending the upper village church and the lower village church with their parents. The churches were usually called the Upchurch and the Downchurch. It seemed that we and Auntie Rose were the only people in the neighborhood that did not attend either. I went to the Upchurch with a friend at Easter and to the Downchurch with another friend at Christmas. I envied the children who went to church with their parents, because when I just went for special events people looked askance at me.
The one that invited Father first was the lower village church. The whole family dressed neatly and went together. Auntie Rose went with us. When I went with my parents, I felt confident. We sat in the front seat and waited for Father to speak. The Independence Movement groups in Manchuria were divided into several factions, just like the Koreans in Wahiawā. Father talked for a time about the Tonguibu, whatever that was, and the Chamuibu, whatever that was. The last group he worked with was the Korean Revolutionary Army. He went on to explain about how that group was formed. Bored, I looked around. The other children were yawning or fidgeting. I was impatiently waiting for him to tell how he had injured his leg while defeating the Japanese army.
The ten-thousand-strong Korea Revolutionary Army not only fought against the Japanese army, but also blew up Japanese government offices and railroads, and punished pro-Japanese factions. The revolutionary forces fought alone or in association with the Chinese army. The battle that took place in 1929 at Liuhe Xiʻan was a great success. It was during that battle that Father was shot in the leg. This was the part I had been eagerly waiting for. I looked forward to more tales of military exploits, but that was all. My father was only one of numerous independence fighters, and he was not a leading figure. Still, people clapped when he told how he had extracted the bullet and treated the wound himself. He had returned because of the leg injury, and also because of severe asthma, the result of living in a cold, harsh climate.
When Father said he felt ashamed and guilty for coming back without seeing his country become independent, people shouted “No!” and gave a standing ovation. Some cried “Amen!” and others wiped away tears. I was proud of my father that day.
The situation was different in the upper village church. Someone shouted that Yongman Park was a renegade, and that Father had criticized Syngman Rhee. The church was in such an uproar that Mother, holding Michael, and Auntie Rose led Father out of the church. My brother dragged me along behind them as I cried.
After that, my father stopped attending outside activities and helped in the laundry. I was always confused about whether to be ashamed, or proud, or feel sorry for him.
It was seven months after Father came back that we left Wahiawā. Wahiawā is where I was born and raised. I hated leaving the place I had grown fond of and parting from my friends. We also parted with Auntie Rose, who was moving to Honolulu. I was sad that I would no longer see her pretty clothes, her accessories, or her dressing table covered with all kinds of cosmetics.
