Comfort Woman

by Nora Okja Keller

  Reno dropped her chin. “I sorry,” she whispered, her lids flickering as her eyes tracked the feather. “I nevah even tink. I jus’ figgah I always see you at your maddah’s. But you know, you nevah wen ask, either.... »

  I shrugged. “Whatevahs.” I felt drained suddenly, numb. I sank into a folding chair set up next to my mother’s coffin and leaned my forehead against the black lacquered wood. “Whatevahs, Reno. I’m tired. I don’t care anymore. Keep everything,” I whispered. “The money doesn’t matter to me. You’re the only person I got left, and I can’t even trust you.”

  “Beccah,” Reno said, settling her body onto the seat next to mine. “If your maddah wasn’t laying dead in front of us right now, so help me God, I slap your head jus’ for tinking what you tinking.” She raised her arm, as if to put it around my shoulders, hesitated, then let it drop back to her side. “You was her daughter, dah one come from her own body. But you nevah know shit about her, did you?”

  Reno grabbed my shoulder. I tried to shrug her away, but she pushed down, tightening her grip. “Get up,” she said, using me to lever herself up. Then she pulled at me until I stood. “And look. Try really look at your maddah.”

  I looked into the coffin once again, surprised when a tear fell from my face onto my mother‘s, splattering against a Maybelline bronzed cheekbone.

  “Dis what I see,” Reno said. “One tough woman. You tink she so out of it all the time, Beccah? Dat she so lolo I can jus’ steal her money—not dat I would, mine you—an’ she not goin’ know it?”

  I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes.

  “If you tink dat, den you dah one dat’s lolo.” Reno leaned over and placed a palm against my mother’s cheek, moved her thumb to blot a smudge of lipstick. “I tell you, your maddah knew me like no one else. Dat was her gift. She would look into a person’s heart and know em—their heartache, their weakness, whatevah. Because she knew suffahrin’ like I no can even imagine.”

  “Reno,” I asked, interrupting, “what did you know about—”

  Reno threw her hands into the air. “Eh, no ack up wit me again, girlie,” she said, misunderstanding my question. “I telling you I know what I know. Your maddah was one survivah. Das how come she can read other people. Das how come she can see their wishes and their fears. Das how come she can travel out of dis world into hell, cause she already been there and back and know the way.

  “An’ I tell you someting else,” Reno said, prodding me in the chest bone with her pointing finger, “before you disrespect me or your maddah again. She knew what it was like for be one orphan, having to beg for everyting, every scrap of food or whatevah. She no want you to know dat feelin‘, like you all alone, no one to turn to. She love you more dan anyting in dis world. So she take care you.”

  Reno grabbed my hand, and when I didn’t pull away, she stroked it, rubbing my fingers between her own.

  “I don’ know if you know dis,” Reno said, “but dat Manoa house yours, free and clear.”

  I twisted my neck to look at her, searching her face.

  “Yeah, for real.” Reno smiled. “Your maddah smart enough for buy em outright, jus’ before dat big Japanee real estate boom. I tell you, she made one killin’ on dat house.”

  I jerked my hand from hers. “I’m sure that made you happy. You must’ve made a nice commission.”

  Reno clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Stupid, why you no lissen? I tol’ you dat was before the market wen skyrocket; dah commission was manini.”

  “I bet. Compared to what you were used to making off her trances,” I sneered, unwilling to give in and forgive.

  Reno ignored me. “I’m telling you, your maddah was so sharp. You know she save all her money for you? She knew exactly what she made, down to dah last cent in dah Wishing Bowl. She even know wen you wen sneak money for school lunch, field trip, stuff li’ dat.”

  My mouth must have dropped open, because Reno laughed. “You nevah know, eh?” she said. “I tell you, my Vegas and Nevada was dah same way. You kids always tinkin’ you can fool wit your maddahs.” She shook her head, her smile slipping. “No one could fool your maddah. She told me for set up one special account in your name. Check me every week too, cause dat’s how good she know me. My strengt’ and my weakness too.”

  Reno waddled over to the makeup bag she had propped against the table supporting my mother’s coffin and pulled out a square of linen. She rolled one end into a sharp point, then dabbed it into the corners of her eyes. She blew her nose, then sniffed. When she turned toward me again, her nose was red, the foundation rubbed away from the tip.

  “Who you see?” Reno asked, gesturing toward my mother.

  “My mom,” I said, without looking, without thinking. Then: “I don’t know.”

  Reno shook her head. “You better tink long and hard, Beccah. Den you better look again.”

  Laid out in death, my mother looked shriveled, barely big enough to fill the coffin. I don’t remember her looking so old; she was fixed in my mind’s eye as a middle-aged woman. I must have stopped seeing my mother when I reached intermediate school. In Reno’s flashy clothes and dramatic makeup, my mother looked like an old lady pretending at youth.

  “Reno, I don’t mean to reject what you’ve done,” I ventured. “But this isn’t right. This isn’t how I knew her or want to remember her. Not with the makeup and the fancy gown. Not with all the people paying money to see some kind of final performance, to gawk at her one last time.” I traced a finger over the crow‘s-feet beside my mother’s lavender-dusted eyes, surprised at how smooth she felt, how soft.

  “I think we should cremate her,” I said, unable to look up and face Reno’s anger or disappointment. “Then I want to do something private, for just her and me, maybe, if you don’t mind.”

  I waited, my head bowed, fingers gripping the edge of the coffin, for Reno’s screams of outrage, her accusations of ingratitude. I waited, my neck growing stiff, my fingers tight and cramped, until Reno cupped my chin, lifting my face. She smoothed my bangs, tucking them behind my ears in the way my mother had done when I was a child. “Do whatchu gotta do,” she said. “She your maddah.”

  I closed my eyes, leaning into the fingers that felt like my mother’s. “What about the big ceremony you’ve been planning?” I whispered. “What about all the gifts and money? You don’t mind canceling?”

  Reno combed my hair with her fingers, tickled my ears with her nails. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, “I ain’t canceling. I goin’ do what I gotta do, too. I still her friend and business managah.”

  I jumped away from her, opened my mouth to yell, when she held up her hands. “Try wait, try wait,” she said. “Lissen: your maddah no need even be here. I jus’ goin’ hold one closed-casket ceremony. No one goin’ know ‘cept me an’ you an’ her.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “That’s too much even for you. You can’t.”

  “I got to,” Reno said. “Dis for her other self, dah one she showed to people. You know, Beccah, she was one business woman too. One performah.” She shrugged. “An’ I already wen complete the obit, so no worry. Dah undahtakah sent em to dah papahs, goin’ come out today.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “By the way, whatchu tink of dah guy? Kinda cute, eh? Dat ehu hair, hapa-lookin’ face, mmm-hmm.” Reno smacked her lips. “Not like one undahtakah at all. More like one shoe salesman at Liberty House, one upscale one. I already wen ask, too. He available.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I groaned. “Besides, what did I tell you about matchmaking?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Reno said. “You not interested.” She sighed. “Too bad you one mahu.”

  “I’m not!” I laughed, feeling boxed into a corner. “I like men, okay!” I choked, shocking myself by saying that in front of my mother, even though she was dead.

  Reno patted my head. “Yeah, yeah, if you say so. Sex is fun no mattah how you slice em. But I got for tell you, it also means you gotta care, take some responsib
ility for dah other guy and for yourself too.” She held up her hand. “I know, I know how you young folks are—Vegas talk like you too. No like strings attached—shit, whass dat? No strings? Dah world no work dat way, girl. Dis world ain’t nothin’ but strings.

  “Besides,” she added, bending over the coffin, “I was talkin’ for myself. Whatchu tink—me an’ dah mortuary man?” She plucked the feather from my mother’s chest, then waved it at me, flirting.

  I smiled though my throat burned. “Go for it, Auntie,” I croaked.

  Reno handed me the purple plume, then unraveled her handkerchief. “Now you talkin‘,” she said. She dabbed at the makeup under her eyes, wiping away the smeared mascara. Then, wrapping a clean part of the cloth around her fingers, she licked it. And without looking up at me, she bent over the coffin to rub the makeup off my mother. Lick by lick, gentle and diligent as a mother cat, Auntie Reno cleaned my mother’s face.

  When I returned to prepare my mother’s body, the mortician led me into a room resembling a kitchenette. She had been taken out of the display casket and repositioned on what looked like a tall metal picnic table. Her dress had slipped off one shoulder and hung down her arm; I could see where bits of the masking tape Reno had used to tighten and secure it in the back had loosened and let go.

  “If you need help with anything,” the mortician said, “like turning her, or anything, just let me know. They can be pretty heavy. Dead weight, yeah.”

  I chuckled. “You must get a lot of jokes like that.”

  “Huh?” he said, frowning.

  I cleared my throat and bit my tongue. Afraid I would laugh if I looked into his puzzled face, I pawed through my satchel. I unpacked my mother’s ceramic offering bowls, strips of linen cut from the bedsheet I had written on when I listened to her tapes, and flowers from the garden—ginger, ‘uki ’uki, hibiscus, honeysuckle—and when I looked up, the mortician was gone.

  I filled the bowls with water, placing them on the long table next to my mother. “Hi, Mommy,” I said, my voice cracking. “I don’t know if I’m doing this right, but ...”

  I unpinned the hat, the feathered lavender stem protruding like a broken bone, and uncoiled her hair so that it hung over the top of the table. Brushing until the ends of her hair whipped around my arm like a living thing, I began to sing.

  “I remember,” I sang without knowing the words. “Omoni, I remember the care. Of the living and the dead.” I gathered the strands pulled free from her scalp, then packed them into a small drawstring pouch once used to hold jewelry. “I will care for your body as your spirit crosses the river. I will stand guard. I will send you on your way.”

  Untangling vines of honeysuckle from the bouquets of ginger and ‘uki ’uki flowers, I curled them whole into the water bowl. “A rope of scent, Omoni, purity and light. Hold tight and I will guide you past Saja in Kasi Mun,” I sang out. “And if you fall, if he lures you into hell, wrap the vines around you, and I will be your Princess Pari, pulling you through. Pururun mul, Kang-muldo mot miduriroda ... Moot saram-ui seulpumdo hulro hulro sa ganora.”

  I floated whole hibiscus into the bowl and tore the delicate flesh of the white ginger and ‘uki ’uki, sprinkling them into the water as well. “Mugunghwa for courage and independence, Omoni. And for Korea. I remember. I remember. Ginger and lily for purity and rebirth. I know.”

  When the blossoms, saturated, sank to the bottom of the bowl, I dipped a strip of linen into the water. Ink-black spider legs, fragile and minute as cracks in glazed porcelain, wiggled out from the words I had scribbled on the material. I touched the ink, and when my finger came away clean, I touched my mother’s eyelids and her cheeks, dipping her in blessed water. I rinsed the strip in the bowl of water, wrung it dry, and blotted her lips. “This is for your name, Omoni, so you can speak it true: Soon Hyo. Soon Hyo. Soon Hyo.”

  I unbuttoned and untaped the gown and tried to wrestle her arms out of it. When I started to sweat, I cut it off her, letting it hang in tatters along her sides. My mother lay naked under her dress, in the body that had always embarrassed me both in its for eignness and in its similarity to mine. I looked now, fighting my shame, taking her body piece by piece—her face, her arms, her legs, working in a spiral toward the center—until I could see her in her entirety, without guilt or judgment.

  I fit one of my hands against my mother‘s, palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip, mirror images. I remembered as a child I coveted my mother’s jewelry, especially her rings, and wished my fingers would grow so that I could wear them. I’d pull on them, exercise them with finger flexes, measure them. And somehow, without my marking the exact day, without my even noticing until now, my hand had become my mother’s.

  “I will massage your arms with perfumed water blessed by the running river. I will massage your legs until they are strong enough to swim you to heaven.” I cleaned and cut her nails and placed the cuttings in the drawstring bag. I pushed the bag under her, let her weight settle over my hand before I eased away. “See?” I said. “Your spirit can travel without worrying about what is left behind.”

  After I washed her, I shook out the damp strips of cloth and, one by one, draped them over the length of her body, wrapped her arms and legs. Her words, coiled tightly in my script, tied her spirit to her body and bound her to this life. When they burned, they would travel with her across the waters, free.

  I heard that the ceremony Reno held for my mother in the mortuary chapel was standing room only. The Borthwick chaplain and the Buddhist priest delayed their joint service, helping to place extra folding chairs in the aisles and in the entryway, and still people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorways.

  “So touching,” Reno said, dabbing her folded handkerchief against her eyes. “Lot of people wanted to pay their respects to your maddah. Even Mrs. Pyle—you know dah one you used to call Ol’ Lady Pilau cause her stink halitosis?—said a few words, though she was all habut at your maddah cause your ma wen tell her her stink-breat’ no go away until she stop talkin’ stink about everybody else. And still she no learn,” Reno said, waving a hand in front of her nose. “Could smell that woman from outside dah door. Hooey!

  “An’ of course, everybody in dah business was there: Mr. Lee from the Good Fortune and Prosperity store, Reverend Hwang from dah Palolo temple, even dat oddah fortune-teller, dah Laotian one in Kaimuki, she came. Was one good turnout.” Reno sighed and patted her belly, as if she had just feasted on a good meal.

  “So, Reno,” I asked, “nobody knew? Nobody asked to see her one last time?”

  Reno scowled. “Whatchu tinking? Dis one funeral. People get mannahs, you know. Most dey did was kiss the coffin lid, bow coupla times in front dah picture I put on top. Get one, though, wen trow herself on top the coffin, crying louder dan one cat. Geez, I no even know who she was, too.”

  And on their way out of the chapel, all of the mourners showed how much they loved my mother and the daughter most didn’t even remember she had. In her memory, they dropped envelopes stuffed with money and miniature frogs into the Wishing Bowl for the family she left behind, for a final blessing.

  I had picked up my mother’s ashes the morning of Reno’s ceremony. After flipping through an album filled with pictures of urns offered by Borthwick—from the elite faux-marble canister to the Borthwick basic, which sold for seventy-five dollars and looked like a plastic candy jar with a screw-top lid—I decided I would bring my own container. I emptied out one of the drawers in her jewelry box, scattering ropes of necklaces, fistfuls of gold and jade charms, rings. I sifted through the rings until I found one that I had especially pined for as a girl—a braided gold band studded with pearls that my mother called “ocean tears”—and slipped it onto my wedding finger.

  When I presented the drawer from the jewelry box, expecting the mortician to fill it with my mother’s ashes, his mouth dropped open. “Ah, ahh, umm,” he stammered.

  “I know this is unusual and it doesn’t have a lid, but look,” I said, waving a box
of Saran Wrap at him. “Just cover the top with this.”

  “No, well, you see,” the mortician said. He took the Saran Wrap I thrust into his belly and stared at it, then at me. He hadn’t gelled his hair back, as he had the last time I saw him, and the sun-bleached tips dipped into his eyes. He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “It’s just temporary,” I snapped, thinking he wanted to try to sell me one of his urns. “I plan to scatter the ashes.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It‘s, well, it’s too small to hold everything. Try wait. I’ll get her; you’ll see what I mean.” The mortician walked to a display cabinet and selected a squat black vase.

  I swallowed and shoved the drawer and the plastic wrap into my bag before he returned. The mortician slid the vase onto the counter between us, and when he lifted the lid, I could see that the urn was filled with ashes. More ashes than I thought there would be. Gray soot flecked with bone and silver.

  “Fillings,” the mortician said, almost apologetically, when he noticed me staring at the bright specks.

  I started to cry, thinking there was more to a body than there should be, and less.

  “Don’t worry, no worry,” he said, sounding worried himself. “I take care you. Wait, wait, okay? You can have one, watchucall, complimentary urn.” He bent down to open one of the counter’s drawers and stood up, popping open a fold-out gift box like the ones on sale at Longs or Payless for a dollar fifty.

  About to sprinkle my mother’s ashes in the garden behind our house, I heard the song of the river. The music had always seemed faint to me, but now it drummed in my ears. I carried my mother through the break in the fence and traveled the path we took the year she blessed my wandering spirit.

  I stepped into the stream, letting the water bite through my shoes, the cuffs of my jeans, with its cold teeth. Bending down, I cupped a handful of my mother’s river and held it over her box of ashes. “Mommy,” I said as the water dribbled through my fingers. “Omoni, please drink. Share this meal with me, a sip to know how much I love you.”