Waxing Moon

by H. S. Kim

  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.

  39

  Mirae was dressed up in a beautiful jade-and-red outfit. She was having a cup of tea with Dimple, whom she called Big Sister, even though she could have easily been her mother. Dimple was flattered, and Mirae knew that.

  “So what did you think of Mr. O?” asked Dimple.

  Mirae lowered her eyelids and smiled coquettishly.

  “Well, the man is gold,” Dimple said, smiling shrewdly and taking a sip of tea.

  “Lord Ahn couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, Big Sister,” Mirae lied.

  “He was my first,” Dimple confessed. “When I joined the society, he had just returned from China, where he had studied. When he saw me, he said, ‘You make my return worthwhile.’ He was such a handsome man,” Dimple reminisced.

  “You must have been the most beautiful girl here. Of course, you still are. A real knockout,” Mirae said, picking up a pumpkin-date rice cake with a bamboo pick. “Please, Big Sister, taste it. It is still warm.” Mirae handed it over to Dimple, who was pleased to be so intimately treated. It made her feel young again. Most of the new kisengs froze when they saw Dimple and treated her like a lioness. She had enjoyed that role for a long time, but when she saw Lord Ahn showing a great interest in Mirae, she found herself boiling with jealousy. She no longer wanted to play the role of an old lioness, she wanted to be vulnerable again. Mirae wasn’t the first girl that Lord Ahn had showed an interest in, but Dimple had never worried about it for she was sure she didn’t have to. But Mirae was a different story. She reminded Dimple of herself.

  “I thank you, Big Sister, for helping me with Mr. O. I was so clumsy with him,” Mirae said, smiling and blushing.

  “You handled him superbly,” Dimple said, amused. “You haven’t told me what you think of him. Tell me,” Dimple urged.

  “Shall I tell you the truth?” Mirae asked, smiling mysteriously, a little sadly.

  “Always.”

  “Well, then,” she began. “He is the most charming man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Dimple let out a laugh of relief. Her left cheek still dimpled beautifully.

  “Ah, Big Sister, look at you. You should live in a room made of mirrors so that you could look at yourself at all times. It’s a pity you can’t see your dimple every time it puckers. It’s simply divine,” Mirae said.

  “You flatter me, Cherry Blossom,” Dimple said.

  “I am just telling the truth,” Mirae replied, straight-faced.

  “So what do I get if I arrange a rendezvous between you and Mr. O?” Dimple asked.

  “My unwavering loyalty,” Mirae answered, smiling playfully.

  “You are the cleverest girl I know. I said exactly that to my boss, whom we called Fox, when she introduced me to Lord Ahn. You are my replica,” Dimple said, pleased.

  “You are much too kind.”

  “First of all, you should read romantic poetry. Mr. O loves poetry,” Dimple said.

  Mirae almost laughed. She didn’t need to work on him any further.

  “He loves the Chinese poet named Li Po. Get a book of his poetry,” Dimple suggested.

  “Tomorrow I will go to the marketplace and do some research,” Mirae said, pouring more tea for Dimple.

  “The first time Lord Ahn sat with me, he asked if I could recite a poem. I thought quickly and recited a poem from China. ‘Sharp sword too close will wound a hand/Woman’s beauty too close will wound a life.’” Dimple said it with her eyes closed, as if she could see herself again in her heyday. “I warned him. But he jumped into the fire,” Dimple said. And both women burst out laughing.

 
“But you must remember one thing. Mr. O loves his wife. He has never spent a night away from home. When he was with his previous wife, it was different. She was unable to produce an heir, and Mr. O spent a lot more time outside, but he always went home before the evening got too late. The current wife did produce an heir, but rumor has it that he is deformed. The baby is never outside the house, and Mr. O doesn’t talk about him. Poor man. He is a good man, though. Everyone owes him a favor. Anyway, he is depressed. He doesn’t come out of his house often enough,” Dimple said.

  Mirae listened with a broad smile. She was bored.

  “But what attracts you to him?” Dimple asked.

  Mirae knew what Dimple was thinking. Mirae was the prettiest, and she could get anyone she wanted, but why Mr. O? He wasn’t the handsomest, he wasn’t the youngest, and he wasn’t the richest in the province.

  “I’ve got a history with him,” Mirae confessed, blushing, looking just a little gloomy.

  “Oh!” Dimple clasped her hands together with the fingers interlaced.

  Mirae’s eyes reddened. “I am in love with him,” Mirae said. “I would give my life if I could be with him,” she added boldly.

  Now Dimple’s eyes reddened, and she extended her hand to Mirae’s.

  Dimple said, “You poor thing. Trust me. I will do what I can. We may not have husbands, but we sure deserve love now and then.”

  Mirae said nothing.

  “There will be a gathering at General Hong’s house at the end of this month. I will have a talk with Mr. O. I don’t think it will have to be a long one, considering the way he looked at you. He was trembling! Did you see his hand?” Dimple laughed.

  Tears welled up in Mirae’s eyes.

  “I thank you so much, Big Sister,” Mirae said.

  “Well, well, I think you and I make a fine team, don’t we?” Dimple asked.

  “Indeed, we do,” Mirae said. “May I give you a little massage?”

  “What an offer! I won’t say no to that,” Dimple said.

  “If I could do half as well as you have, I would be satisfied,” Mirae mumbled, anticipating a headache in between her eyebrows. She frowned. She could really use a nap.

  “Oh, you will do well,” Dimple said sleepily.

  “Thank you for inviting me to tea.”

  “My pleasure,” Dimple said, and clapped to summon her waiting maid.

  A girl came in and removed the tea table. Mirae bowed and left. She strolled outside, thinking how awful it was to age as a kiseng. What would Dimple be like in ten years? Still talking about her good old days and how Lord Ahn had seduced her. Well, it wasn’t her concern. She wasn’t going to rot like that. She looked at the mountain, behind which Mr. O’s mansion lay. She clenched her teeth and was about to cry. But then she burst out laughing, thinking about Mr. O’s trembling hand. The passers-by turned around to look at the unusual sight of a woman laughing out loud on a street in public. But Mirae kept laughing uncontrollably. Later, in her room, she broke down and cried bitterly for a long time.

  39

  Mansong cried at night when she first arrived at Mrs. Wang’s house. She woke up twelve times at night and slept the whole day. Mrs. Wang wondered why anyone would want to have kids. Obviously, she had made a mistake by declaring in public that she would take care of the child. What had possessed her to come up with such an idea?

  For several days, Mrs. Wang woke up every time Mansong cried. And she felt she was going to turn into a ghost if she went on like that. Her head felt light and her bones were sore. Finally, even when Mansong wasn’t crying, Mrs. Wang could hear a cry in her head. She realized that childrearing was not her fate. In any case, she needed some help. She couldn’t go on like that. But it was against her principles to hire a maid. Besides, she wasn’t used to living with another person. Mansong was already one too many in the house.

  One afternoon while Mansong slept, snoring, Mrs. Wang sat in her room and closed her eyes, breathing in and out slowly. The first thing she was going to do was somehow put an end to Mansong’s nighttime crying. She had tried various herbal teas, but none of them worked. So she hired a shaman to perform Kut to soothe the sad spirit. Actually, Mrs. Wang despised the spirits that lingered between life and death. They were pathetic, she thought. And petty. She was getting ready to scold the spirit that possessed Mansong.

  Lacking the funds, Mrs. Wang hired only one shaman and she arrived with no props, colorful outfits, or instruments.

  She was a different type of shaman, the woman pointed out in a man’s voice. All she needed was a bowl of uncooked rice and a spoon on a low table and a straw mat. And she wanted Mansong to sit on the mat too.

  Mrs. Wang prepared everything for the shaman in a few moments.

  The shaman knelt in front of the table and mumbled something for a while. The spoon that was standing in the rice bowl began to move. She talked louder. The spoon moved a little faster, dancing. She grabbed the spoon tightly, strangling it. As perspiration dripped down her nose, she mumbled again.

  The whole time, Mansong watched the shaman expressionlessly, but toward the end, she cried fearfully.

  Indignant and impatient, Mrs. Wang thundered while the shaman still mumbled something unintelligible. “Get out of that child! What business do you have to possess an innocent child? You damned pathetic spirit! Go where you belong, and let the living go on with their lives without you interfering. If I could see you, I would strike you! How petty can you be to linger among the living and pester people you have a grudge against! Move on!”

  “Mrs. Wang, it’s Mansong’s mother. She wants to be heard,” the shaman said.

  Mrs. Wang rolled her eyes. She was fed up.

  “She wants her daughter to be acknowledged as Mr. O’s. She wants her to be at her father’s house,” the shaman interpreted.

  “You see how ignorant the spirits are? The house burned down yesterday. If Mansong hadn’t been here with me, she would have turned into ash.”

  Addressing the spirit, she shouted, “Is that what you would have liked?” She continued, “I don’t know what it’s like to be dead, but you know what it’s like to be alive. Sometimes the living don’t know what will happen the next day. What seems to be good may turn out to be bad. You want your daughter to be in Mr. O’s household because she is his daughter. But that’s how we think because we can’t predict the future. I thought the dead knew better! But apparently you don’t. So leave life up to us, and go find your way to sink into the world of the dead,” Mrs. Wang scoffed, her spittle flying.

  “She will go,” the shaman said. “She wants to have your word that you will watch over Mansong.”

  “I’ve promised that already. Now go! Leave the child alone!” Mrs. Wang shouted menacingly.

  Mansong stopped crying. She played with the rice in the bowl.

  Mrs. Wang snatched the bowl away and pulled out the spoon and said, “Let her go.”

  So that was the end of that Kut. Mrs. Wang served the shaman lunch. They sat at the table and the shaman said, “Mrs. Wang, you can’t mess with the spirits. Sometimes they enter your body and drag you around by the hair. A woman in another village used to cut herself with a knife because she had ridiculed a spirit.”

  Mrs. Wang guffawed and said, “It’s all in your mind. If you let the spirit bully you, it will.”

  “Do you think it left?” the shaman asked, looking about as if she could see the spirit.

  “There is no room for it here at my house,” Mrs. Wang assured her loudly, as if to make sure the spirit heard her.

  “So what are you going to do with the child?” the shaman asked, taking a large spoonful of fluffy rice.

  “I will see. The woman was a good sort. She can’t leave because she loves her child so. But all I am saying is that she is mistaken. The child would not be better off
with her family. And I am not better off with the child. If I were clever, I would drop her off at her father’s house and make the spirit and me happy while the rest, including the child, are miserable. Maybe I should leave the matter with the gods and forget about it,” Mrs. Wang said, drinking water from a large bowl.

  “Oh, by the way, did you hear? The criminal has been captured,” the shaman informed Mrs. Wang.

  Mrs. Wang raised her eyebrows apprehensively.

  “It’s the dumb boy,” the shaman said.

  “Really?” Mrs. Wang said nonchalantly.

  “He pleaded guilty before the beating,” the shaman said.

  “That’s smart. Why go through the beating if he was going to confess anyway?” Mrs. Wang said.

  “All that’s needed to get him hanged now is an official letter from Mr. O, relinquishing his contract with the servant. While he belongs to Mr. O, maybe the local government can’t go ahead and punish him,” the shaman said. “Well, on that note, Mrs. Wang, I need to go.” The shaman got up.

  Mrs. Wang got up at the same time and said, “Wait a moment. Let me pay you.”

  “Oh, please, Mrs. Wang. Don’t pay me. You expelled the spirit,” the shaman said sheepishly.

  “I am going to pay you, so if the spirit comes back I can complain about my expense,” Mrs. Wang chuckled.