Sonju, page 13
Jinju repeated, “Best roads and bridges.” They both clapped their hands and said it one more time.
When her husband came home Saturday, Jinju sat on his lap and clapped her hands. “Best roads and bridges. Daddy, you will make the best roads and bridges.”
Sonju smiled when he glanced at her. “I told her what you do at work.” She couldn’t tell if he was flattered, and wondered if his daughter’s words would inspire him to do his best work for the public.
When she was sure of her pregnancy, she entered Mother-in-Law’s room and sat next to her, and held her old veiny hands. She said, “I want you to be the first to know. I am pregnant.”
“That is the best news. When is the baby due?”
“Mid-March.” This time, Sonju hoped for a boy just to see her mother-in-law’s joy.
The unbearable heat still persisted into the late evening. Her daughter was sleeping with slightly parted lips. She fanned Jinju’s little face and imagined her life filled with children.
That Saturday, when she told her husband about her pregnancy, he said with a smile as big as the moon, “another child!”
“I want to have at least three children,” she said, “an odd number so they will always have a majority when they argue among themselves.”
“Another child.” He nodded with a look of dreaminess she had never seen in her husband before. She thought if she bore a baby boy, she would like to name him after her husband. With a bubbly voice she said, “Now that another child is on the way, do you think there will be changes in our marriage, a turning point?”
“What’s wrong with our marriage?” he asked, mockingly.
She was crushed. Their conversation had started out so well. “I don’t want to be a mere appendage to you. I don’t want our children to see me as such. I have my own thoughts and ideas so I want you to hear me. I want to have a voice.”
“What voice? Are you a politician?” He smirked.
She bit her lip at his slight. “No, I’m a person just like you. Are my opinions not worthy of your consideration?”
“How can you think that? I tell you I adore you.”
“I don’t know what you mean when you say that.”
With a sly smile, he said, “I like that you’re different. I even like the way you speak.”
“But not what I say.”
“No. Don’t challenge me. I’m your husband.”
She could feel her face flush. “Don’t dismiss me. I’m your wife, your equal.” She narrowed her eyes and said, “We are bound together for life and it’s up to us to make our marriage satisfying for both of us.”
“Why do you say that? I’m not complaining.”
Four months into her pregnancy, Sonju felt sticky wetness in her underwear. There was bright red blood. More flowed. Stabbing pain in her lower back, then sharp cramps in her abdomen. Her pelvis squeezed and her hip bones were trying to pull away from it. And the pain worsened. Then it stopped and started again. Two hours later, she passed the fetus and all the pain ceased. She transferred the fetus to a layered cotton scarf. Holding it, she saw facial features, and arms and legs, and fingers and toes. It tried very hard to be her baby. Not yet a child, yet it was her child. She went to the corner of her room and wept.
She felt grief, but there was something more than grief. Her life the way she lived it was slipping by with no trace of sound like the silent fetus in her hand. Her unformed child’s soul must have entered her. Something felt different, something new. She wanted to cling to someone. She couldn’t understand why.
Second Sister suggested burning the fetus.
“No. Please bury it in the midway of the rise.”
While Second Sister buried her child, Sonju rocked back and forth in her room behind closed doors.
The next day and the day after, she sat on the veranda staring at the small disturbed spot on the rise and felt profound disappointment in the hollowness of her belly. What made her body so hostile to a newly forming life?
She was still haunted by the image of the fetus—the child that left her body—when her husband came home. He failed to see any change in her, but she needed him, needed someone. “I lost our child. I see it when I close my eyes. Why did it quit me? I beg you, please be good to me. Tell me things. About us.”
Her husband stared at her with his mouth half open. Then he said, “There will be another child.”
“But this child …” She wept and wept.
Sonju’s unborn child sometimes appeared in her dreams, mute and unsmiling but fully formed. After the dream, she remained curled up on the yo and whispered, “Stay with me, Child.” She felt her life would go astray without it. Looking at Jinju, she glimpsed the Child. She told no one about her recurring dream and was grateful her mother-in-law didn’t say anything about the miscarriage.
She couldn’t see her marriage changing in the future but didn’t know what to do about it. In spite of the chill air, she sat on the veranda to gaze at the rise for a long stretch of time several times a day. Strangely, she felt calm during those moments.
Two weeks after the miscarriage, she took her husband’s coat and pants to the veranda to give them a good shake before ironing them. A pink note fluttered down to the wooden plank. A quick glance made the blood drain from her face. For a short second, she saw nothing but blackness, then she wobbled into the room.
“How long has this been going on?” Her voice shook as badly as the note in her hand.
He peered at it, then smirked. “It’s nothing.”
Those dismissive words. “It’s not nothing to me. Stop if you care about our marriage.” Her anger rose, but she hoped he would gracefully save himself. All he had to do was to promise to stop. That was all she wanted. Instead, he said, “It has nothing to do with our marriage. You are my wife, my inside woman.”
“Your chattel, you mean.” She cried.
“I tell you, these women don’t mean anything to me.”
“These women!” She felt sick. “How many?”
He shook his head. An irritated smirk shaped his lips. “All men do it.”
Full of contempt, she shrilled, “Not all men! Your particular kind of man.”
“Only your particular kind of woman would make such a fuss about it.”
Her heart went cold. Her marriage was done. No more trying, no more disappointments. She said in a low, chilling voice, “Don’t expect any more children from me.” It was odd that she actually felt relieved at that moment.
The next time her husband returned home, she hardly spoke to him. When he tried to touch her at night, she hissed at him, “I meant what I said.” She turned away from him, pulling the blanket and wrapping herself tightly in it.
After he left for Pusan, Second Sister peeked in at Sonju’s door. “May I come in?” She stepped in, studying Sonju. “You’re awfully quiet. Your husband told me you were cross and he didn’t know what to do. He adores you.”
Hot fury like a trapped fire erupted in Sonju. “Adores me? It’s just words! Did he tell you why I’m furious with him?” She didn’t wait for Second Sister to respond. “I’ll tell you why.”
Second Sister’s eyelids jumped up, and her upper body made a slight retreat.
“I found a little pink note with a hand-drawn rose. It read Seven o’clock. Can’t wait.”
Second Sister covered her mouth with her hand and watched her with rounded eyes. Sonju said, “When I confronted him, he said that’s what men do.” Second Sister looked down, then back at Sonju.
Sonju went on like a train going high speed. “I asked him to stop, but he accused me of making a big fuss out of nothing.” She heard a small choking sound coming from Second Sister’s covered mouth. “I told him not to expect any more children from me.” As Second Sister dropped her hand and gasped, Sonju continued, “‘What can you do about that? You’re stuck with me,’ I told him.”
Sonju’s face was hot and her mouth dry, but she wasn’t done. Her anger wouldn’t let her be done. While she paused to wet her lips, Second Sister said meekly, “I always thought he was so sweet … the way he talks about you.”
“He says things that make him look good. That’s all it is.” Sonju noticed Second Sister fidget with her fingers. In a calmer voice she said, “I’m sorry to burden you with my grievances. It’s not fair to you.”
Second Sister moved closer. “To whom would you say such things?”
“Thank you. This marriage was never meant to be.”
Second Sister stared at Sonju before leaving.
Alone in her room, Sonju listed in her mind all the ways she had tried to make her marriage work. No matter what she had tried, though, she always felt beaten down in the end. Her marriage had consumed her to the point of exhaustion. She needed encouragement. She dug through the layers of folded clothes in her wedding chest. When her fingertips met the smooth surface of the thinking stone, a flutter of delight passed through her heart. She held the stone tightly, cupping her hand with the other. With her cupped hands on her chest she said, “Kungu, I want to smell the scent of warm early summer air you always carry. I really need to hear your calm, reassuring voice again. I need you to look me in my eye and tell me I will be all right.” Then she realized that Kungu might not have survived the war. Why hadn’t she fought for him?
The Unraveling, 1951 Fall
The fragile union between Sonju and her husband was unraveling, and she didn’t care. He pretended nothing was wrong between them, uttering endearments and going about his usual routine. When he entered a room, she left that room or grabbed whatever book that was nearby and sat as far as possible from him to read.
On a late October day, Mother-in-Law handed her a letter from her sister, and Sonju immediately thought something bad must have happened to her family. Why else would she receive a letter all of a sudden? She opened it. Her sister wrote that she was with child again, and their mother had taken ill. She relayed that their father requested Sonju to come to care for their mother.
Just in case her mother’s illness was contagious, Sonju left Jinju in the care of Second Sister. On the train, she felt unsettled, this being her first separation from Jinju, and her first trip back to Seoul since her marriage. She sat staring out the window and considered what had become of her, crushed by the behavior of one ordinary man. During the nearly five years of their marriage, all the exchanges between them—disappointments that squandered occasional glimpses of happiness, his careless remarks and her bitter words—all deposited layer upon layer deep within her. What now? And what in the future?
Submerged in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the train stops along the way, only coming to herself when all the passengers rose from their seats and pulled down their luggage. She took hers, and when the train stopped with the final squeal and sigh, she stepped off and looked up at the station’s familiar dome. After the long steps up and onto the stone floor of the Seoul Train Station, then out onto the cobblestone plaza, she stood a moment to take in the city. She was not surprised to find the city decimated. It was the hub of South Korea after all, where the major government agencies, transportation, mass communication, schools, and commerce were located. On one of the major streets near the plaza, a few tall buildings remained untouched, but some stood with their windows blown out, only a shell of the building remaining, others were flattened to rubble. On the street that ran along the plaza, tree trunks stood burnt black, their branches dark metal spikes. Amid the ruins, however, there were reminders of the city she used to know—pedestrians, street vendors, black smoke from old buses, hissing wires overhead from the streetcar.
She waited for a taxi for almost ten minutes, and finally climbed into a Jeep that used to be an American military vehicle. On the way to her parents’ house, she recognized the buildings only by the barely standing columns and parts of the walls that jutted up, which appeared haunted by their own devastated forms. Some familiar storefronts remained intact, but they looked shabby and meagre. Interspersed, new construction was underway with bags of concrete piled up on the sidewalks.
Along the streets men carried huge piles of unfamiliar American refuse on A-frame carriers strapped to their backs; men old and young, some maimed, begged for money on the sidewalks; merchants and customers haggled over prices; a young American soldier looking lost in a foreign city turned his head left and right in the midst of pedestrians walking briskly in every direction.
The taxi approached her quiet neighborhood, leaving behind the dust and fumes, and arrived at her parents’ house. As soon as the maid opened the gate, the smell of brewed Chinese medicine wafted from the kitchen. The maid bowed, led Sonju to her mother’s room and announced, “She is here.”
Sonju found her mother sitting on her yo, propped up by pillows. Her face was haggard but her countenance was still imperious. Her mother looked at her husband sitting near her and smiled, then turned her face to Sonju. “I was fine until ten days ago when we finished rebuilding the damaged parts of the house. That’s when I got sick for the first time, and your father felt the need to have you take care of me. I am much better now. You did not have to come.”
Just then, her brother, no longer a boy, strode into the room. The last time Sonju had seen him, he had been a chatty, senseless youth with an uneven high-pitched voice. She looked at him with a wide grin. “You have grown into a man. Which school and what are you studying?”
Her brother ran his hand across his shaved cheek as though all his manhood rested on that narrow patch of his face and said in a deep voice, “I am a freshman at Korea University studying law.”
She asked him why he chose that major, and he said he was aiming for Supreme Court. She didn’t bother to ask him why he wanted to be on the supreme court because she already knew the answer—the highest glory for himself and nothing else. He reminded her of her husband. “You will raise our family’s esteem, and Mother will be very pleased,” she said turning to her mother. She and her mother exchanged a quick intense stare. Sonju was pleased with herself to say those loaded words. She then proceeded to tell her family about Jinju and her life in the village. Perfunctory conversations followed with long interspersed pauses. Sonju didn’t expect her family to ask about her marriage, and they didn’t.
The next morning, she stayed with her mother for a while, then after lunch, walked toward the used bookstore where she used to meet Kungu. She didn’t have to get close to see that the whole area had been flattened. Did the bookstore owner survive? She had known him all through her high school years and two more years after that. She felt as though she had lost a friend.
She turned and walked to the church garden, her childhood refuge where she felt a sense of belonging with Kungu and Misu by her side. Even though the church front was destroyed, the bench still stubbornly claimed its old place. She saw scattered little stones on the ground and she could almost see and hear the three young friends lost in play. Her heart had been so light then and her ideas about her future boundless.
After a sweeping glance around the enclosed garden, she left and went to her sister’s house.
Her graceful sister in her haste to rush toward her almost fell. They grabbed each other’s hands smiling and tittering. Sonju caressed her sister’s bump and asked, “Where is my nephew?”
Sonju quietly went to the room her sister pointed to and opened the door to peek at the sleeping boy. She wished she had brought Jinju with her.
Her sister led her to a room with tatami floors, and they sat down when a maid brought a tray of tea.
Sonju lifted the cup and said, “Your child must take after his father.”
“And yours?”
“Jinju looks like me except for her nose, chin and hair. She has straight hair. I would have brought her if I had known Mother was better,” Sonju said and looked around. “You have a nice house.”
“It was built for a Japanese family. This used to be some mid-level government official’s home. It has built-in closets and an indoor bathroom.” Rubbing her round middle, she said, “You have to tell me about your farm life. I still can’t imagine you living in the country.”
“My farm life … Let’s see. It’s different. I don’t work in the fields if that’s what you are thinking. It’s a big household with the clan people coming and going all the time. People there are very warm. They take care of each other. When someone is sick, the whole village knows. When someone has a baby, they all know. When a stranger comes, they all know.” Sonju laughed a little. “They cry, they laugh. They are real and natural.”
With a knowing smile, her sister said, “Unlike our family.”
It was an enlightening moment for Sonju. She stared at her sister in her tasteful Western-style knit dress in muted brown holding her cup with both hands and bringing it slowly to her mouth. Her sister looked so much like their father with the same oval-shaped face with features that were ordinary but pleasant. Her compliant sister, kind-hearted and patient, but not known to have her own opinions, had her own thoughts about their stringent upbringing that stifled any spontaneous expression.
Her sister asked, “How is Jinju, my niece I haven’t met yet?”
Sonju smiled at the thought of her daughter. “She makes me smile. She gives me these tight satisfying hugs with that small body of hers. She is not yet three, yet she has such deep affection.”
“And your husband?”
At the mention of her husband, Sonju felt her jaw stiffen and hands fold. Her sister was watching her. After a long exhale, she said, “He still works in Pusan.”
“Is there some trouble in your marriage?” her sister asked cautiously.
Sonju sighed and replied, “It happens to many women.”
