Everything Belongs to Us

  “Can we go somewhere quiet to talk?” His voice, too, sounded different from the way she remembered it, nervous and hollowed out. “Somewhere private. The topic is sensitive.”

  Snagging on the word private, Jisun examined his face. It looked puffy, the skin around his eyes heavy and bloated as if he had gained weight. But he was as thin as ever. She could see his sharply outlined shoulders, his knees pointy in slacks. Hugging him, she had sensed the angularity of his ribs, the ridges defined like bumps on a topographical map.

  She said, “There’s nowhere out here unless we go to my house—” And forestalling his objection: “No need to go inside as long as you don’t mind the cold. It’s not far.”

  He nodded and she blurted out, “Just like that? No lecture?” She allowed herself to smile. She should have restrained herself, but she was distracted by the changes in his demeanor. The simple fact that he was agreeing to step onto her father’s property, which he would never have permitted in the past—even the fact that he had hugged her, though technically he had only opened his arms and she had hugged him first. It all suggested that catastrophic events had occurred since she’d last seen him. Changes far more seismic than their broken relationship.

  She led him quickly to the house, through the high iron gate at street level and the smaller inner gate leading to the grounds. He followed without comment, allowing her to open and shut the doors as he stood by, careful not to be in the way. He must have been uncomfortable, but he walked steadily over the gravel, not attempting to mask his footfalls. That was Peter. In the past Jisun might have called it arrogance, but she saw now that it was only his nature to fight unease with a cover of certainty.

  They sat under the boughs of a large fir tree. There was a bench there, granite, which felt like sitting on a slab of ice. The chill of the stone seeped through her clothing with shocking efficiency. Within a minute, she felt as exposed as if she were naked to the elements.

  “Here.” He motioned for them to move to the ground, which was at least insulated with years of fallen needles. They sat like this among the detritus of the fir tree, their backs against its rough bark.

  Something told her Peter had not come to discuss their relationship, but she wondered if he would skirt around it. Or would he move straight to business as if they had no shared past at all?

  The silence became strained. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.

  “They have the agents on the churches now,” Peter said without preamble. “They’re watching us closely.”

  Jisun let out her breath. Business. It was a relief to focus on the things they still had in common.

  “I know,” she said. He paused as if surprised but didn’t ask how she knew.

  “We had to suspend the meetings at the steel mill after a few of our men got a visit. Agents picked them up right in front of the building. Questioned them overnight and dropped them off in front of their homes in the morning. Timed it so their kids going to school saw their fathers kicked out on the curb like dogs.

  “The bosses wanted an end to the meetings immediately,” Peter went on. “So we complied. We don’t force people to be responsible for us. We moved the meetings to another location. Of course only a few came. Everyone saw the black cars. They didn’t want to risk being the next ones to be made examples of.”

  “But what did the agents say? What did they want?”

  “The same things they always say,” Peter said. “The same threats, the same questions. Are we communists, do we have plans to subvert the government, who are we working with? Bullying nonsense. The point is, they want the workers to be silent and uninformed. They want us to leave.”

  “But why now?” Jisun asked. “What’s changed that they’re suddenly focused on UIM? Were you doing anything different that might attract their attention?”

  Peter shook his head. “The same thing we always do,” he said in a weary voice. “We were working to build a coalition of workers and union leaders across industries, but that’s not new. If anything we were focusing on the soft values—nothing that should raise any new alarms.”

  Jisun could hear the frustration mounting in his voice. Peter was knitting his fingers together so tightly, she could see the white bones of his knuckles straining against the skin. She could hear the rasp in his throat dragging at every word he spoke.

  “When I came to Korea, I had no idea what to expect,” he said. “Here I was halfway around the world from anything I know—and even where I’m from, I don’t know much. In my high school, they took a vote. Most likely to succeed. Class clown. Most beautiful, most handsome. Do you know what they voted me for?” He didn’t give Jisun a chance to answer, as if she could never guess anyway. Why—because she didn’t know him well enough? Because she couldn’t fathom such a thing as high school nicknames?

  “Class do-gooder,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

  She shook her head. “Tell me.”

  “It’s just how it sounds. Going around doing good things, like it’s my job.”

  She asked—was this a compliment or a joke?

  “So that’s the question I ask myself. Was this a compliment or a joke? The longer I stay here, the more I think the joke’s on me. The more I think it was a curse. But that was such a long time ago, I think. No one can say I’m the same person I was back then. Eighteen years old, I was a baby. No one can say I came here just to be a do-gooder.”

  He turned to face her, his eyes enormous in the moonlight. “You used to ask me all the time, why I came here.”

  “I was only curious—”

  “I took it as an accusation.”

  “Peter, we were partners. Why would I accuse you? I wasn’t questioning your mission. I only meant why here? Why not closer to home? I was only curious—” She realized she was repeating herself, babbling because she could not reveal the real reason she had asked this question so often. It had been a secret idea of hers—embarrassing then and truly mortifying now—that he had unknowingly traveled across the world to meet her. A fantasy of fate bringing them together across geography and culture. It hurt to even think about it now.

  “But you had the right to accuse,” he says bitterly. “Because I didn’t know. I don’t know why I came here.”

  “Do you…regret coming?”

  “Of course not. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really done in my life.”

  “So you did good after all. Your classmates were right.”

  “You say that because you don’t know what happened.”

  “I’d like to think I know some things, even if I haven’t been—”

  “You don’t know,” he said.

  Though Peter had not raised his voice, the effect was as if he had shouted at her. Jisun forgot what she had intended to say, the rest of her sentence swallowed by his ferocious insistence.

  “Is that why you came here tonight? To bully me with what I don’t know?” Her hands were already icy fists in her pockets. The nails dug deeper into the meat of her palms.

  He picked up a handful of needles and crushed them with a single snap. They were so dry that she could hear them crackling between his fingers. He crushed pile after pile. Needles, twigs, gravel. Crushing it all as if he wished to grind them to sand. Jisun pried open his hands and felt the smear of blood on his palms.

  “We need money,” he said. For a moment he looked at her almost defiantly, challenging her to say what she thought of him. After all these months of silence, to ask a thing like that. But he would not mitigate with weakness or apologies. Then he looked away, the mask slipping off. “I didn’t know who else to ask.”

  The movie was a horror film Sunam had already seen, full of knives and oversize needles and a memorable climax involving a severed pig’s head. Namin fell asleep within fifteen minutes, chin on her chest, oblivious to the screams both on- and offscreen. He didn’t wake her. He watched the movie. The fake blood, phony the first time around, was even less convincing now. It looked shiny and p
lastic, as if they’d painted it on the film. The soundtrack hammered on the speakers. He and Jisun had been out late drinking the night before—not enough for a true hangover, just enough for the macabre colors and sound effects to grate on his nerves.

  When the houselights finally came on, Namin jerked awake and seemed not to realize where she was. “Is it over?” People were swarming the aisles. The screen was blank. She looked at her wrist as if to check the time and laughed ruefully when she realized she wasn’t wearing a watch. “What time is it?”

  “You missed the whole thing.”

  “Was it good?”

  He shrugged. “Skippable.”

  “Guess it’s good I slept.”

  The movie had been her idea. She wanted to see something really gory and violent—“to get the blood moving.” Now she was happy she’d slept. Maybe it was silly to let such a small thing annoy him, but Sunam struggled to contain his temper. It seemed so obvious to him that their relationship was on its last strings, but Namin seemed determined, as usual, to stay the course.

  She threw her arms overhead, stretching. “Actually, it’s relaxing, sleeping in a huge room full of strangers. Try it next time.” She looked at him. “Don’t be mad. I was so tired.”

  “You should have just slept at home if you’re so tired.”

  “But I couldn’t. I can’t.”

  “Why? Busan Mother took the kid. You could have slept. You need to pull yourself together.”

  She stifled another yawn, then let it spread over her face, succumbing to the total pleasure of it. Tears formed at the edges of her eyes and she wiped them away, smiling. “But I wouldn’t have seen you.”

  “But you didn’t see me anyway.”

  While they were arguing, the theater had filled up again for the next showing. They had been alone in the theater only briefly, a sensation like being adrift at sea. Now they were surrounded again, the crowd pushing in from all sides.

  “Let’s just go,” he said. “If we stop at the market now, you can go home and sleep for a couple more hours before you have to pick up the kid. You might as well, it’s already paid for.”

  “No, I’ve slept enough,” she said. “I’m fine now. I have plenty of energy. We can do something else.”

  “Forget it. I’m tired. I should have stayed in and studied last night. Now I’m behind.”

  “You never study until the last minute anyway. You always do fine. Let’s go to that Chinese place you like. Or hey, I’m in the mood for a drink. Feel like getting drunk with me tonight?”

  Sunam remembered the night Jisun had made a similar suggestion after a movie. We should get good and drunk for Young Ja. It seemed so long ago, a lifetime. He had set himself an unofficial rule: Never think about Jisun while he was with Namin. He had broken his own rule a few times, even asking Namin if she had heard anything about Jisun. In retrospect, a huge risk. The kind of bravado undertaken by fools. But otherwise he had succeeded in keeping them separate: The public Jisun, who was Namin’s friend. The other Jisun, who did not exist. But today, for a reason he could not name, the edges of his life seemed to bleed together. Maybe it was the alcohol that was still in his system from the night before. Maybe the movie, though Young Ja had played at a different theater, in a different season. Maybe the money, which had previously seemed so fantastic that it was a thrill even to waste it. Now he felt spasms of remorse when he considered how easily he had been bought.

  “Sleep, Namin,” he said.

  “I want to drink,” she said. They were outside now, where it was already dark enough for the streetlamps even though it wasn’t yet five o’clock. There was a desperate, dangerous gleam in her eyes. “Let’s forget about Busan Mother and everything else and stay out all night. I know what you think—you think I’m no fun. You, Jisun, everyone. I know what people say when I’m not there, like it’s funny that I have to live my life like a robot. It’s not because I want to live like that. I never get to do what I want.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be laughing at all of us in ten years.”

  “It’s not a joke, Sunam. I’m serious. Who were you out with yesterday?”

  The sharp turn caught him off guard completely. “Yesterday? What do you mean?”

  “You said you went out. Who were you with?” Suspicion flashed in her eyes. “It was Jisun, wasn’t it? I know you think I don’t know, but I’m not stupid. I know what the two of you are up to. Were you even trying to hide it?”

  He stared at her dumbly, too stunned to speak.

  The street lighting cast deep shadows under her eyes and illuminated the rough, angry patches on her skin. She was wearing the same red coat she’d been wearing when they met, and the color seemed to flare into her cheeks. Everything was just under the surface, like a terrible fire threatening to blaze up.

  “I guess you were hoping I wouldn’t figure it out. Well, it wasn’t hard.” Namin seemed angry but willing to talk, to listen. It seemed possible that it might still be all right, though he did not understand how this could be. She seemed to have captured the entire situation and accepted it as an inevitable consequence…of what?

  “Well. Say something,” she said. “I know it was her idea, but how could you go along with it?”

  As if he had no part, as if he were only going along with it.

  Even in this moment when he knew he should feel only shame and remorse, Sunam felt stung to know that Namin thought him only an accomplice. It was me, he wanted to say. I did it.

  He expected apologies to fly out of his mouth. Justifications. Pleas. Denials. Instead, he heard his own voice like a distant mediator, calm and steady, explaining the situation as if all she needed was to see it from a different perspective. “It’s not what you think. It’s not like we’re in love, it’s not a relationship, Namin. She’s in love with someone else, you were right about that. You were so busy and we were always talking about you. It was like we were trying to be with you, only we couldn’t.” He listened to himself with a kind of two-part fascination, simultaneously impressed and repulsed. A virtuoso performance, dismantling the catastrophe one point at a time.

  “In love?” she said with a sharp shake of her head. Her voice teetered between confusion and clarity. “What is this? Are you saying you two are in love?”

  “No. Not in love. Not. What we’re doing, me and her, it’s, it’s just—” Here he stumbled because there was no way to say it without actually saying it. “It’s just sex.”

  The wind whipped her hair across her eyes and she tore at it roughly, trying to free herself. “You’re sleeping with her?”

  “No,” he said reflexively.

  “Just sex. You just said it.”

  It must have been shock, Sunam thought later. They stayed rooted to their spots, facing each other like blank statues. Neither of them able to comprehend what had happened and what should happen next. He truly did not understand how it had unfurled so quickly.

  “You said you knew,” he said, a quiver of blame in his voice. As if somehow she had tricked him into telling the truth.

  “Money,” she spit out. “I thought she was giving you the money for the baby since I wouldn’t take it from her myself. Where did you get it, then? All that cash?”

  The money. It was only the money she had suspected. Never him, trusting him despite all the ways he’d tried to shake her faith. Sunam had never felt so unworthy.

  “It wasn’t from Jisun,” he said helplessly. Even now when the damage was done, he could not bear to tell Namin the truth about Ahn. “That’s all I can tell you, Namin. But I promise you, it was my money and she had nothing to do with it. Please, I hope you can believe me.”

  She stared at him for a long time, waiting for him to say more. But there was nothing more he could say. An apology was so clearly required, but it was impossible to utter the words. How could I’m sorry possibly mean anything to her now? The words were too cheap, absurdly inadequate. It seemed better to say nothing and simply absorb the misery of the situati
on than to offer the additional insult of an apology.

  When she started walking back toward her bus stop, he followed because it could not end like this. She marched forward, ignoring him. They rode the bus in silence and got off together at her usual stop. They walked through the market and stopped at the butcher, where she asked for the cheapest cut of beef in a toneless voice, which the butcher strove to misunderstand. “Eh?” he said, reaching greedily for the kalbi, an even bigger piece than the one they had purchased last time.

  “The cheapest,” Namin said again, gripping the counter. She pointed to a thin, ropy cut. It had an unhealthy gray cast, more ligament than meat.

  The butcher poked at it with his tongs, frowning. “That one? No. Not much good.”

  “Yes, that one. Quickly.”

  Sunam took out his wallet.

  Namin hissed, “Don’t you dare.” She paid for the meat herself, muttering, “She wanted beef, let her have it.”

  He stopped near the corner where they usually turned onto her block. It seemed their entire relationship had been conducted in the street, the idea of privacy a constantly deferred future luxury. His hand brushed her elbow, the most he could manage in the way of apology. He could feel her rejecting even that tiny gesture. She did not move or say anything, but he could feel the invisible buttressing of resolve, the layers closing against him. She would despise him for the rest of her life. Worse, she would forget him as soon as she turned the corner.

  “The kid needs you,” he said. “I’m just getting in the way.”

  “Getting in the way of what?” Namin said with a terrible smile, white teeth dragging on the cracked flesh of her upper lip. “Spit it out, Sunam. Accuracy is important at a time like this.”