Like Wind Against Rock: A Novel

by Nancy Kim

  “Let me guess—she’s jealous because you have an easy time dating and she doesn’t?”

  “It’s actually the opposite.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  The bill comes, and Rick hands the waitress a credit card. I offer to pay, but he shakes his head. “It was my idea.” With that simple statement, he manages to deflate the act of paying of any sexist implications.

  As we walk out the door, I glance in Janine’s direction. She is giggling as her overly friendly date nuzzles her neck. I can see his face better from this angle. It’s definitely Stephen.

  We step outside into the warm summer night. It is close to nine o’clock, but it is still light out. I appreciate the wisdom of driving in two cars. We’ll avoid the temptation—and potential regret—of a drunken scramble in the back seat.

  “I had fun at the zoo and dinner,” I say, but my mind is elsewhere. What are the odds that Janine and Ahma would date the same guy? Green Hills isn’t that small.

  “Me too.”

  I fumble for my keys and unlock the door, painfully aware of the lack of glamour in owning a Toyota Camry.

  “Thanks again for dinner.”

  “My pleasure.” And then he swoops in to kiss my cheek. A light little peck that could mean anything, even nothing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I see the backpack on the floor, where I left it when I came home last night. I kept the notebook in the backpack all week with the intention of returning it to Alice. But I was called in to a series of emergency meetings on Tuesday, which drove me to meditate for a good half hour in the courtyard to cleanse my mind of negative energy. The meditation was too successful in clearing my mind, and I completely forgot about returning the notebook. On Thursday, when I finally stopped by her desk, Bertha told me that Alice had already left for the day. I am only delaying the unpleasant task of returning the notebook to Alice, trying to think of how best to do it without letting her down or telling her too much.

  Victor is out with friends. The house is quiet. The weekends are the hardest. Two long, lonely days without the bustle of work to keep me occupied. Maybe that is why I can hear the voice of Alice’s father calling to me so clearly. There is nothing else to muffle it, no other voices to keep me company. He makes me feel as though I am not so alone. He seems to be a kindred spirit who, like me, is deserving of contempt and compassion in equal measure.

  As a teenager he may have been heedless, but as an adult he was probably dependable and somewhat dull. A dentist with a nice family. Responsible and restrained but with a passion that ran so deep it was indiscernible to others. I relate to his recklessness in falling in love with someone so different from himself, someone not entirely dissimilar from the woman I once loved. His story resonates with my own.

  I recognize in him my own ability to keep secrets. Nobody ever suspects that people like us have secrets. But we all have secrets, things we keep from our families. Secrets we keep from ourselves. We soldier on despite our secrets, because that is our character and we do not know how to do anything differently.

  I try to ignore his voice. Some secrets should remain hidden. Some secrets belong to the dead. But he has stories he wants to tell me. Stories that I should not hear but am helpless to resist.

  February 9, 2010

  The image I saw last night was of Shirley, as she was when we were in Korea. And what I experienced was not so much a dream as it was a vivid memory that I had not thought about in years.

  She wore a plaid jumper with brass buttons on the shoulders. Her hair was in pigtails, a style that was much too young for her. We were sitting on the ground underneath the leaves of the Japanese maple tree. Its wide branches shielded us from view like protective arms. We alternated between the maple tree and the chestnut tree and the pine tree, trying to be careful not to meet in the same spot twice in a row. It was early autumn, and when the leaves drifted off the maple trees, they looked like baby hands waving. Unlike the pine tree when it dropped its cones, the maple leaves felt like gentle caresses on our heads. I sensed that Shirley was not in an affectionate mood, and though it was immensely difficult, I showed deference to her feelings. She sat cross-legged in that alarming way Americans have, with no apparent sense of modesty and no attempt to shield her underpants from my restless eyes, which could only peer at what my hands could not touch.

  “Sit closer to me,” she said.

  I took her hand and cradled it between both of mine.

  “You seem sad,” I told her.

  She started to cry quiet tears of resignation. I held her in my arms and told her that she could tell me anything. She shook her head, but eventually she told me that she would die if someone else did not share the pain of her secret. She told me the most horrible story then, about her father. How he came into her room at night, when her mother was asleep. How his hands aggrieved her body. Only his hands, she said, as though to defend him. Not anything else. He’d warned her never to tell anyone or he would send her away forever. He had been doing this since she was eight.

  I stared in disbelief at her tearstained face as she spoke. She raised her eyes to meet mine. I didn’t know what I could say. I knew there was nothing I could do to reassure her. What I wanted to tell her was childish and immature, “Let’s run away!” But I was too sensible for that, too aware of the impracticality. We had no place to go and no money.

  Instead, I pulled her closer, and clinging tightly to each other, we both cried.

  For too long afterward, I could not look at Shirley without remembering what she had told me. It changed something between us, although I can’t say what.

  February 12, 2010

  These days, I am eager to fall asleep so I can be near her again. I am so eager that I no longer shower in the evenings but wait until the mornings. I bring the sweat and dirt from the day into bed with me. This repels my wife, who continues to bathe in the evenings. She massages cream into her face and lotion onto her legs. I notice only because she does this while I am trying to watch television. While she brushes her teeth, I turn off the television and pretend to be asleep. She slips into bed next to me as I lie perfectly still. I close my eyes and wait for Shirley. My wife lies awake and waits for me.

  February 16, 2010

  The memories appear more frequently. The burning smell of roasting chestnuts. Peeling away the hard shells, burning the tips of our fingers and our tongues as we popped them into our mouths still steaming. We huddled together with our bag between us in the courtyard. The other children played, running around in circles, kicking balls. Shirley and I were too old for games now, after everything that had happened between us. But we were not too old for hot chestnuts.

  My wife brings me coffee every morning. She places it on the counter, beside the bathroom sink, while I shower. I can smell the rich aroma despite the perfume from my shampoo. The coffee is always strong and welcome, even if I resent my wife’s intrusion while I shower. I breathe in the steam and close my eyes. I lather my scalp into white puffs. I rinse away the traces of Shirley’s visit.

  “Do you remember?” she asks. “Do you remember that time underneath the pine tree?”

  Of course I remember.

  “Do you remember what you told me?”

  That I love you. That I will love you forever.

  “Do you remember what happened then?”

  A pine cone fell from the tree and hit me on top of the head. You said it was God punishing us.

  “But you didn’t agree,” she said. “You said you didn’t believe in God.”

  Yes.

  “You said you only pretended so we could keep seeing each other.”

  Your parents—remember why you were there.

  “In that godforsaken country.”

  Still littered with garbage from the war. You were like sunshine breaking through the smoke.

  “There was no running water in your house,” she says.

  No toilets. No food.

  “My parents were there to feed you an
d to save your soul. You and your parents and everyone else in the country.”

  In that they failed.

  “Do you believe in God now?”

  It was a pine cone. Falling from the sky.

  “It left a bump on your head.”

  The bump never went away.

  “Do you remember how you tried to crack the hard shell to get to the nut? You almost broke your tooth.”

  I can still feel the bump on my head.

  “You could not get a single nut, even though we were hungry.”

  I’m sorry.

  “You promised me that you could. You told me you would do anything for me. But you wouldn’t even lose a tooth for me.”

  I loosened it. I cannot drink anything too hot or too cold even now, or it causes me pain. I cannot eat dried cuttlefish anymore. It used to be my favorite snack.

  “That is nothing. That is nothing compared to what I had to do for you.”

  I’m sorry.

  “That isn’t enough.”

  It’s all I can do.

  “Is it?”

  I write this down as quickly as I can remember it, afraid that the dream will disappear. I can still hear her voice whispering in my ear. I rub the top of my head, feeling the rise of my scalp at the crown. Is it my imagination, or does it feel tender this morning? I wiggle my loose tooth with my tongue. It is a miracle that I have been able to retain it for so many years.

  February 18, 2010

  At dinner, my wife confided that she thinks Alice is having marital problems.

  “She hasn’t called in several days,” she said.

  “Maybe she’s busy.”

  “Alice is never busy. Perhaps we should invite them for dinner?”

  The prospect does not fill me with joy the way that I imagine it should. My daughter is kind enough, but she has not fulfilled the potential she once had before she went to college. It would be easy to blame her husband. He is unambitious—or, rather, wrongly ambitious. He has delusions of being a great musician, but in fact he is mediocre. My daughter, with her years of piano lessons, must realize this, but if she does, she says nothing. He is kind, and I enjoy his company because he leaves me alone. He does not pester me with attempts to befriend me. He does not ask me bothersome questions about my dental practice, or my golf game. We can sit together on the couch while my daughter and my wife perform their ritual dance of intimacy and repulsion, each trying to impress and insult the other with subtle expressions and well-chosen remarks that strike to the core of who they are. They are as deft as geishas in their nuanced performance and just as irritating to watch. In fact, I must admit that I prefer the company of my son-in-law to my own daughter. He is not my responsibility, and his shortcomings are not my fault. My daughter, on the other hand, is the product of all my efforts, my hopes and my dreams. She is the embodiment of the love I shared with my wife. Perhaps that is why she is a failure. When I see Alice, I see frustration, broken promises, missed opportunities. I see myself, unfinished and unfulfilled.

  February 20, 2010

  The dinner with Alice and Louis was just as uneventful as I had imagined. Despite my wife’s nosy questions, whispered loudly in Korean in the kitchen, Alice refused to open up. Or perhaps she had nothing to reveal.

  “I told you things were fine,” I told my wife after they had left.

  “Things are not fine! Did you see how they sat?”

  I could recall nothing strange in their postures.

  “They did not touch each other once,” she said.

  “They never touch each other in our presence.”

  “Even when they were out of our sight, they did not. When they walked to the car, they did not hold hands as they used to. Alice did not lean her head toward his to whisper a belittling remark about us as they left.”

  “And that causes you concern? I would think that should please you. That was something you complained about so bitterly. Now you complain that it has stopped.”

  “It used to annoy me, certainly. But now it worries me. When she whispered to him, she was showing that she was closer to him than to us. What happens when intimacy disappears between a husband and wife?”

  I refused to look at her. “Speaking of whispers, do you think Louis is stupid as a rock? When you whisper with Alice in the kitchen, do you think he doesn’t suspect who you are talking about?”

  “He couldn’t understand me. I was speaking in Korean.”

  “Precisely why it is nonsensical to whisper! You may as well have been two schoolgirls passing notes in class! You could not have made it more obvious to our daughter’s husband that you were speaking ill of him.”

  My wife paused for a moment.

  “Alice says she is having financial problems,” she said. “One of her clients has hired a full-time accountant. Louis is working less and less, and he spent twenty thousand dollars to make a CD. It was nearly all of their savings. He is getting older—too old to continue dreaming like this. He made a promise that this was his last shot. If he couldn’t make it happen, then he would quit and find a real job.”

  “What kind of a job could someone like that get? He’s never even had a real job.”

  “He’s a smart man. He went to college. Got good grades, too.”

  “That was twenty years ago.”

  “He should find someplace that will provide them with benefits. They pay too much for their health insurance!”

  I nodded. Everything my wife said was true. I should wish for more for my daughter, but the idea of my son-in-law working a nine-to-five job with benefits saddens me.

  February 21, 2010

  Shirley did not visit me last night. Instead, I dreamed of a woman wearing rags, her face obscured by a large gray hood. I approached, and she held out a hand to me, begging me for something. I dug in my pockets to give her some change, but I had none. She shook her hand impatiently while I frantically emptied all my pockets, my wallet. Finally, I handed her a credit card, which she started to eat.

  “No! No!” I told her, but she would not relinquish it. I watched helplessly as she ate it all.

  “I’m still hungry.”

  The voice was unmistakable. I pushed back the hood. But it was not my daughter. It was my wife.

  It was no surprise that when I woke this morning, I was irritable and confused. My wife had left a cup of coffee, now lukewarm, by the bathroom sink. When I came into the kitchen, I saw that she had already made my toast and the one scrambled egg that my doctor permits.

  “My coffee was cold.”

  “It wasn’t when I brought it to you,” she said with what she must have supposed was a beguiling smile. She was wearing an old dress that bunched in the front and clung to her many lumps and rolls. Where was the beautiful girl I had married? Time has slowly erased her looks, her figure. Sometimes I get a sense that this deterioration is for my benefit, that it is a form of revenge. Without her physical charms to distract me, I am forced to confront the essence of the woman I married, if I can find it. But I don’t even bother to search.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” she said. I waited for her to continue, but she did not.

  “What did I say?”

  “You said, ‘No!’ You said it several times.”

  “Was that all?”

  “Yes. But it wasn’t just that. You were struggling, as though you were trying to fight someone off.”

  “I had a dream that Alice was a beggar woman.”

  “Our conversation must have upset you.”

  I sat down at the breakfast table and took a bite of toast. My wife puttered in the kitchen, rinsing glasses, organizing cutlery, with a determination that indicated that she was planning something.

  “Was that the first time?”

  “The first time what?” she asked.

  “The first time that I spoke in my sleep.”

  “I can’t remember.”

  When I returned from work, my wife had left newspaper clippings on the table instead of dinner. The
y were from the Korea Daily News. I picked one up and read it. They were job listings.

  “What is this?”

  “To help Alice. I went through the recycle bin and found all the old issues of the newspaper.”

  “Don’t you think Alice is doing that already?”

  “Not the Korean newspaper.” Of course, she was right. Alice would not be reading the Korean paper. We had never bothered to teach her how to read hangul.

  February 24, 2010

  My wife is triumphant. Alice called eleven of the job listings that my wife had given her. Most were filled, but a library in the Restin area had a need for a part-time bookkeeper. Alice had an interview with the librarian, a Korean man, my age. I can’t imagine any Korean man who would be a librarian.

  My wife said that Alice thinks he looks like me but he doesn’t act anything like me. I am glad to hear that. My wife looked at me so expectantly. Finally I said, “You are a good mother.” She beamed. I knew I should say something more. “You have a lot of initiative,” I added. This is true. In some ways, my wife is more American than my daughter. She works hard, and she is quite shrewd. I think that if she had not been beautiful, she would have been happier. The beautiful ones end up married, entrusting their futures to unworthy husbands—husbands who don’t make enough money, husbands who don’t love them enough. The homely ones—if they are hardworking and smart—end up like my cousin, Min Joo, who was successful, rich, and emotionally undemanding. As she grew up, her parents lamented Min Joo’s big face, her tall, sturdy build, and her thick and shapeless daikon legs. My aunt blamed my uncle’s blockheaded father, and my uncle blamed my aunt’s athletic brothers. Neither wanted genetic credit for Min Joo. Nobody would marry such a girl! They feared they would be stuck with her forever. But Min Joo was smart, receiving higher marks in school than her two beautiful sisters and her handsome brother. Unlike her sisters, who dropped out of college after they received marriage proposals, Min Joo was forced to complete her education. She got a job in a seamstress shop, rising early and working late. She saved enough money so that within a couple of years, she could afford a ticket to the United States. Her parents were relieved. They didn’t have to worry about some good-looking hustler taking advantage of Min Joo. They didn’t even have to worry that she would get mugged, since she was as strong as any man, and she didn’t have much money anyway. Within a few years, Min Joo had started a business importing into the US clothing manufactured in Korea. Imagine—my large and homely cousin, a fashion tycoon! The last I heard, she was living in a mansion in Beverly Hills, still childless but no longer alone. No, Min Joo had found herself a boy toy, a good-looking Italian model half her age! No worries about him trying to swindle her out of her hard-earned fortune—I hear that she gets a new boyfriend twice a year, like getting her teeth cleaned. Her beautiful sisters, on the other hand, have been married to the same men for over forty years. They live in the same houses they lived in when they first got married, in the same small village outside Seoul. Their husbands turned out to be less savvy than Min Joo, and so their wives work like peasants to make a living. Her handsome brother, still unmarried and chronically unemployed, lives with his parents.