EIGHTEEN THE HUNGER. It had come for June again. Yet this time, unlike on the road, when she was marching with her mother and her siblings and with the twins and then finally alone, it was not a lurking angel of oblivion. An angel of death. None of them had succumbed to hunger itself but it had driven them to exhaustion and carelessness and ultimately to peril and she always believed it would do thusly to her. Push her to the precipice. But this time, she wasn’t hiding or running from it; she was inviting it along in a kind of dance, as a partner, a companion that would mark her every move. She knew that hunger would clarify her mind, strip away all extraneous thought, and leave her with the focus of pure, unswerving will. She was eating almost nothing. The first couple of days were difficult; she could not have a thought that didn’t involve breaking off from whatever she was doing and sprinting to the kitchen where the aunties were stirring the pots and push them aside and plunge her hand into the large cast-iron vat of rice porridge as if she were a bear reaching into a beehive. Fill herself to bursting. But after the second full day the panicked tremors began to subside, and on the third and fourth diminished enough that the chasm inside her was not of any need unrequited, nor a body forlorn, but a version of herself that she did not know until now existed, this June in quiet thrall. It wasn’t an emptiness at all. It was the truer sculpture of her, the more deeply worked shape, and rather than feel her strength drawn down she was girded as she went forth about the orphanage, the ground hardly apparent beneath her feet. Yesterday one of the aunties had regarded her suspiciously and kept glancing her way after she took her bowl of rice mixed with soup. After that, June made sure to eat a couple of bites whenever the old woman was looking her way but then would quickly spoon her food into the bowl of whoever was beside her (she made sure now not to sit off by herself), some younger boy or her mouthy bunkmate So-Hyun, who made no fuss or complaints about getting an extra helping, even though there was plenty of food. Orphans never declined. Otherwise she was still mostly avoided or ignored, which suited her. She was no longer doing chores at the Tanners’ cottage—an auntie had informed her that she should not go there anymore—and as no other job was assigned to her she could simply slip off after classes and meals where attendance was noted and wander in the hills. The foliage of the bushes and young trees had mostly fallen to the ground so that she was wading through puddles of brilliant color. She would have liked to pick up the pretty little leaves or even lie down in a pile of them but the strange thing was that she had to keep moving, for when she kept still she grew dizzy, this wild ball of a storm twisting within her like a gyroscope. She gagged if she stopped for too long. So she took to running, running fast in her too-tight shoes, the raw throbs of the blisters marking the distance on the deer trails that the boys and Hector used in their forays to gather firewood. With each step the grating pains flashed up into her chest and throat but she didn’t whimper or even grimace and she swallowed them as if they were sweet sustenance. The other day, after English class, Sylvie had offered a wave and a smile and though June was desperate to rush forward and press her face into the woman’s chest she knew Reverend Tanner might see them. And even if he couldn’t, she would show Sylvie her resolve. So instead she just nodded and scurried away. Since rousing Reverend Tanner out of bed a week earlier she had not spoken to Sylvie at all. Not a word. She knew earlier had been wrong to be so stubborn that morning and she would do what she could to get back into his graces enough so that he’d let his wife adopt her, and if that meant denying herself and Sylvie for a brief time, then so be it. June had faith: if he loved his wife, he would yield. She had never known anything like faith before but she was quite certain she knew what it was now, at least the bodily expression of it, the privation in her belly paradoxically convincing her of her way. And the way, she realized, included Min. She had become his friend. It hadn’t been at all her intention. She was keenly aware of him, yes, she couldn’t keep from thinking about him, seeing the scarf he’d given Sylvie, how she always wore it now around her neck. On one of her wanderings down near the main road of the valley she’d found the rusted, broken-off tip of a bayonet in the dirt and she couldn’t help but think of him darkly, pressing the edge against her own scabbed palm to test how sharp it was, drawing fresh blood. But the other day she had gone to the dormitory to retrieve a book and while in the space of the new chapel heard some scuffling coming from the boys’ side. She cracked open the door to see four boys standing about a cot in the middle of the room. Min, undersized anyway, cowered amid them, trying desperately to slump down into his cot. He looked as small as a toddler. But he was being held up on either side, while one of the boys stood in front and grabbed Min’s hair with one hand and with his knuckles of the other ground down hard at his scalp. The boys sometimes did this to one another, as it could be very painful but showed no marks, and Min cried out with each slash. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, you little bastard?” the next boy snarled at him. His name was Byong-Ok. He was one of the bullies in the orphanage, older and already very pimply. “You think you’re going to go away with the Tanners so easily? Did you think we wouldn’t find out?” “I’m not going away!” he pleaded. “I’m not going anywhere!” “That’s not what I heard Reverend Kim telling one of the aunties,” Byong-Ok said. “He said you were going to get all new clothes and shoes from the church office in Seoul. And maybe some spending money, too.” “Why would I get anything, if the Tanners were adopting me?” he cried. “It doesn’t make sense! The Tanners would just give me whatever I needed!” “Shut up, you bastard,” Byong-Ok said, and knuckled him viciously. Min groaned sharply. Byong-Ok said, “How would I know why? Maybe that’s the way they do it. Maybe the Tanners don’t have as much money as those other people who were here. All I know is you’re going to give us whatever you get. All of it. You hear me?” Min murmured something. “What?” “I think you will be eating . . .” Min said. “What? What are you saying? Speak up, you little bastard.” “When you’re on the streets,” Min said, now quite slowly and clearly. “I think you will be eating your own shit.” Byong-Ok punched him hard in the belly. Min doubled over and fell to the floor. He spit up his lunch, a muddy puddle of barley rice and soup. The boys standing about him jumped away, laughing disgustedly. Byong-Ok then grabbed Min again by the hair and was about to push his face into the vomit when June found herself running at him. She knocked him over with her lowered shoulder. He rose, ready to fight, but he dropped his hands when he saw her. June was as tall as he, taller than his friends, and she stepped forward and pushed him, making him stumble over the corner of Min’s cot. When he tried to get to his feet she pushed him down again, and then again, and finally he shouted from the floor, “Okay, stop it! Stop it!” She let him get up and the boys trudged out. They cursed Min on the way, cursed her, too, though she could tell from the low huff of their voices that it was for the sake of their own pride so she didn’t respond. Min seemed to understand this as well and he stood beside her in silence. “Are you okay?” she asked him. He sat on the cot, cradling his belly. “Why did you do that?” he said. “I’ve got nothing to give you.” “I know.” “Then what do you want?” “You can tell Reverend Tanner. Or Mrs. Tanner.” “Tell them what?” “You can tell them that I helped you.” A flicker of something momentarily lamped his face. “All right,” he said. “But you have to protect me. You have to keep me safe from them. They hate me.” “You don’t try very hard to make them like you.” “Why should I? I hate them. They’re dumb as oxen. They just play marbles and soccer and eat all they can, and they don’t think about anything.” “What should they think about?” “What you and I are thinking about. What’s outside of this place. What’s going to happen. What we’re all going to have to do. Isn’t that what is going on inside your head, noo-nah?” She didn’t answer; she didn’t like how he addressed her, much the way her younger brother might, with a lingering plaint. But of course he was right. There was no other consideration in her mind. It was becoming ever clearer to her,
transparent, all the other concerns dissipating as she could feel her own flesh dissipating, cell by cell, the needless layers dropping away to leave only fresh, hard bone. “So will you protect me?” Min said. “I can’t be with you everywhere,” she said. “At night you’ll be in here with them.” “I can sleep out in the chapel.” “What would that do? They’ll just come for you.” “You can sleep there, too.” She shook her head. “It’s cold enough in the rooms.” “I’ll relight the fire for us in the stove, after Hector has come and gone. We can sleep right in front of it.” “I’m not going to sleep out there.” “You would if you were my sister.” “Yes,” she said. “I would.” “Well, you’re going to be my sister. I’m going to be your brother. Soon enough we will be in America together.” “How can you be so certain of that?” She found herself pinching his meager forearm. “What did Mrs. Tanner say? Is that what she said?” “You’re hurting me, June.” “What did she say!” “She didn’t say anything!” he told her, wrenching himself from her grip. “It was Reverend Tanner. He said he was going to take us with them.” “I don’t believe you. You’re lying, just like you were lying to Byong-Ok.” “I’m not lying to you.” “Did you get spending money like Byong-Ok said?” Min nodded. “But it wasn’t from the church office. It was from that old couple. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t be as useful on their farm, with my foot. They were going to take me but decided at the very last moment on Sang-Ho instead and they must have felt guilty. It was twenty dollars. I don’t know why they bothered. I wasn’t going to get any of it anyway. But of course I couldn’t care less now. Soon we won’t have use for anything like money. We’ll have everything we need.” “How do you know?” “Talk to Reverend Tanner, when he returns. Ask him yourself.” “I will,” she said, though already knowing—as Min undoubtedly surmised—that she would not talk to him, or even approach him, out of fear of further sullying her chances. She made to leave but Min hooked her arm and hugged her with every ounce of his little boy’s force, his scant strength, and although she could have easily nudged him aside she let him hold on to her the way one of the twins might, his face mashed hard against her breastbone, his fists digging into the small of her back. “Very soon,” he murmured, his voice muffled in her sweater. “You’ll see. We’ll be living a new life.” That evening, well after lights-out, Min tapped at the door of the girls’ room, just as he’d told her he would. It was freezing in the chapel but he had just relighted the fire in the stove. It was enough to blunt the chill. He had dragged the two front pews before the stove and put them together front-to-front for the planks to be wide enough to lie upon. He pointed her to the pews and she climbed over the back. He had spread a folded blanket as bedding. She asked where he was going to sleep and he scooted quickly beneath the pews onto the bare floor. It was quiet and she was vigilant for any sign of Byong-Ok and the others. But Min kept turning on the floor beneath her and groaning with the discomfort and she pushed apart the pews and scolded him for making too much noise. He said he would stop but after a few more minutes of his tossing she gave up and pushed apart the pews and he scooted up between them. She made room and spread his blankets over hers and without hesitation he tucked himself into her side as snugly as if this were a nightly ritual and almost immediately fell asleep. She bristled with annoyance, but the faint, high sound of Min’s breathing made her think of her brother, and though the smell of his hair and body was not at all pleasant she instinctively wound her arm over his cheek and neck, to keep him warm. They both awoke before reveille and June went to her cot in the girls’ room, leaving Min to set the pews back in place; he didn’t want to go to the boys’ side until everyone else was awake and waited in the chapel until the kitchen bells rang. The rest of the day proceeded like any other with Reverend Tanner away, Reverend Kim arriving in time to give the breakfast prayer, and then he and Mrs. Tanner conducting the classes. She was clearly no longer ill: the color had returned to her face and she appeared as vigorous as ever, and in English class she led them in a few songs, the last being “Rise and Shine.” There was always an unofficial competition among the children to see who could sing the chorus the loudest, and for the first time ever it was June’s voice that sailed above the others, everyone (including herself) surprised by the force of her sound, its pleasing pitch and carry. Min was in the class and he stomped his good foot loudly in time to the rousing chorus. The other children and Mrs. Tanner did the same. It was strange, but June had slept very deeply, and despite only eating over the last three days what she would normally take in a single square meal, she felt as if she were the very ark they were singing about, her hold filled to capacity with the vitality and promise of the world. After class she did not linger or even try to catch Mrs. Tanner’s eye, rushing out along with everyone else to the lunchroom, where she would take her bowls of food but merely touch the spoon to her lips, leaving the food for her bunkmate So-Hyun and Min to split. She calmly watched them finish her food. Lick clean the bowls. It was not for them she felt satisfied but for herself, sure now she had mastered herself, transfigured the great foe within. Outside, the boys were organizing the usual post-lunch soccer game. She had not played since tussling with the other girl back on that warm autumn day, but she felt a new electric strength in her legs, a need to run. When she stepped onto the field Byong-Ok held the ball underfoot, telling her to go away. She stood quietly and waited. He kicked it to start the game only when Reverend Kim and Mrs. Tanner came out to watch. Soon both of the adults joined in the play, even Reverend Kim, who rarely spent any time outside. Everyone expected him to be stiff and awkward but he moved easily with the ball, flipping it up and deftly trapping it on his thigh, then on his foot, before floating a perfect cross to Mrs. Tanner, who deflected it for a goal between the two dirt-filled petrol cans. She raised her hands and a hearty whoop went up on both sides, though perhaps it was one more of commemoration than celebration, as if everyone saw that this was one of the last times Mrs. Tanner would be here among them. June had now joined in the game, too. She was as carefree as any of them, feeling as though she was moving to the rhythms of the play, following the track of the ball and the others, when before all she would look for was an opportunity to avenge any slight with a shove or collision, a kick in the shin. Though no one except Mrs. Tanner was intentionally passing the ball to her it regularly ricocheted her way, and instead of rearing back and booting it as hard as she could at someone or out of bounds she tapped it to her surprised teammates. Min was on her team and she tried to stay close to him whenever she could, warding off those boys with a glare. They couldn’t goad her today. On one play, as she was dribbling toward the goal, one of the boys who had threatened Min tackled her hard, his foot riding into her ankle, but she popped right up from the hard ground and kept running after the ball. She felt remote and light, almost bodiless, as if she could no longer feel pleasure or pain; or else the pleasure or pain existed somehow outside of her, in some ghost of her old self. She was not the same vessel anymore. She was simply moving, playing, and she was certain that Mrs. Tanner was seeing her fully once again, appreciating her anew. It was not even a question of Hector anymore. Since Reverend Tanner’s departure he hadn’t appeared in the mess hall, instead taking his meals to his room or to wherever he was working. He was at last keeping to himself. He was not outside now but from habit she kept an eye out for him. Although she knew they’d not been together for some weeks, June had still awoken late last night and crept out in the frigid dark to check for any sign of light from either the Tanners’ cottage or Hector’s quarters. But there was nothing but blackness and the cold, no sound but the whining gusts of the harsh wind jetting past the long dorm building, and she had quickly returned to climb next to Min in the warm box of the butted pews. A pass was now booted down the field nearest June and Byong-Ok and they sprinted after it. He had a few steps head start but she propelled herself with all her will and she got to the ball first. He was a much more skilled player than she and should have been able to take the ball f
rom her easily, but she thwarted him with her hip, her shoulders, leaning back into him so he couldn’t reach the ball. His flagrant kicks stung her ankles and calves but she didn’t give in and when she noticed Mrs. Tanner and the others running toward them, she faked a kick as she’d seen Byong-Ok do and then jabbed the ball through his legs with the back of her heel, sending it toward the approaching players. Byong-Ok, frustration twisting his face, shot after it, reaching it just as Mrs. Tanner did, both of them stretching out a foot at the very same time. But at the last moment, perhaps realizing that it was Mrs. Tanner, he slid to the side and averted the ball just as the sole of her shoe met it. Her shoe rolled over the ball, her leg extending unnaturally, and she fell in a heap. The ball came loose and Reverend Kim took control of it but he stopped when Mrs. Tanner remained on the ground. She was wincing terribly and gripping her leg at the knee. Everyone crowded around them as Reverend Kim knelt beside her but when he touched her leg to examine it she cried out, pulling away. Hector suddenly appeared, though no one had fetched him. He pushed through the tight throng of children. Reverend Kim would not yield at first but when he saw Hector he moved aside to give him room. Hector didn’t have to say a word to her, to make her yield. He didn’t even look into her eyes. He simply pushed up the wide cuff of her trouser leg past her knee, taking her stark, pale limb in his rough hands. His fingers grazed the soft underside of her thigh. He handled her with great tenderness, cradling the back of her knee with one hand and clasping her calf with the other, telling her he was going to try to move it in certain directions. She nodded, to say she was ready. He slowly bent her knee, and then gently straightened it and this was fine, too, but when she turned her foot to either side she winced. “Be careful,” he said. “I’m all right. Please help me up.” “You think you can stand on it?” “Yes.” He raised her up and braced her under the shoulder, his arm hooked around her waist. But when she put weight on the leg she instantly fell into him and in one motion he lifted her from the ground and walked toward the cottage, the whole orphanage following. Though she had been right beside them, June was now trailing everyone, her own legs suddenly gone weak, her chest clenched, her belly razored by a double saw of rage and desire. For it was at that moment, while Hector ascended the step of the cottage, Mrs. Tanner’s arm slung casually about his neck, that June realized that they were lovers again. Reverend Kim announced he would leave now and bring back a doctor from Seoul. “I’ll be fine,” Sylvie told him. “I’ll be fine.” “It already looks swollen. I will come back tonight after I find someone. It may be late, but I’ll return.” “Please, Reverend,” she said. “There’s no need.” “It’s not as if he’s a doctor,” he replied, regarding Hector coldly. Hector was silent. Mrs. Tanner said, “You’re not even supposed to return tomorrow, are you?” “No, I have to be in Seoul for something else. But now I feel I should be here, especially since Reverend Tanner won’t return until the following night. I shouldn’t leave while you’re in such a condition.” “Please don’t bother making any trips. I’ll be fine. Thank you.” “We’ll see,” Reverend Kim said, as Hector took her inside. A couple of the aunties had retrieved bandages and ice hastily chipped from blocks delivered in the morning. The reverend went in and observed Hector wrap her knee, the children trying to push in and watch as well until the aunties shooed them all out. Soon enough the two men emerged, Hector heading to his room, Reverend Kim collecting his briefcase and coat in the mess hall before getting into the church car. He started it and rolled out on the worn path of the drive. June ran after the car and had to rap on the trunk to get him to stop, this just beneath the orphanage gate. “What do you think you’re doing?” he said, rolling down the window. He brushed her hands from the door of the dented old sedan. He didn’t know any of the children particularly well, but if there was one he knew, it was June, at least by reputation. “Now stand back.” “Will you be contacting Reverend Tanner when you get back to Seoul?” “It’s no business of yours.” “But he should know Mrs. Tanner has been injured, shouldn’t he?” Reverend Kim nodded, clearly annoyed for having to speak with her, but now giving pause. “He should be. But as with this place, there are no telephones at those orphanages. There’s a popular inn at the pass near the second one. I suppose I could leave a message there. But whether he’ll stop in is pure chance.” “Please leave a message, Reverend.” “Maybe I will,” he said, his eyes growing curious. “But tell me, girl, why are you so concerned?” “I care about Mrs. Tanner.” “Is that right?” “Yes! More than anything!” “And I take it you think it would be best if the reverend came right back?” “Yes . . . I don’t know. It just seems Mrs. Tanner shouldn’t be alone.” “No,” he said, somewhat thickly. “She shouldn’t.” “So will you return tonight?” “Mrs. Tanner does not wish it.” “What about tomorrow? You’ll come back tomorrow?” “She doesn’t wish that, either.” He put the car into gear. “Step back now.” She clung to the door, tears in her eyes. “But you must! Everything will be ruined!” He let out a begrudging sigh of solicitude. Normally he would have rolled up the window, right there and then, but she looked particularly desperate, her round face unusually tight and drawn. “Nothing will be ruined that won’t be ruined anyway,” he said. “Do you understand me?” “Yes, Reverend,” she said, “but you’re wrong.” He sighed again. “Look here. I can’t explain it to you now. They’ll be leaving very soon. You children should make good use of your time with the Tanners.” “Not Min.” “Why, does he not care that they’re leaving?” “Of course he does. He’s going with them.” Reverend Kim said gravely, “Is that so?” “Yes. And I am, too.” Something sour flashed across his face, as if he had just smelled spoiled porridge. “You had better step back now,” he said to her, nudging away her hands. He rolled up the window, and before she could do anything else he drove away, the rear bumper of the rusty sedan rattling as the car bounded down the rutted drive. SOON THE BELLS RANG for supper. June lined up with the others. The children were orderly—they were always quietest on the line—and she took her bowls of soup and rice and sat alone at the far end of the mess hall. So-Hyun and Min ambled over just as they had the last few days, knowing she would only pick at her meal. But she didn’t acknowledge them when they sat beside her, and when So-Hyun reached out to take her bowl of rice, June grabbed her wrist and held it, with increasing pressure, until the girl began to whimper. “What’s wrong with you?” So-Hyun cried, finally able to pull back her hand. She rubbed at her wrist. “Are you crazy or something?” June made no answer. So-Hyun scooted down on the bench, continuing to complain, while Min had already picked up his bowls and left. He was no longer even in the mess hall. June thought she ought to go find him. It was then that she noticed one of the aunties leaving the mess hall with a tray of food. She caught up with the woman just as she was nearing the cottage. “Dear auntie,” she said, “let me take it to Mrs. Tanner.” “What are you doing out here? If you’re done with your dinner, then it’s time to get ready for bed.” “I’ll wait and bring the dishes back for you when she’s done. That way you don’t have to make another trip.” “I do have some radishes salting.” The woman sighed, weary from the long day. “I should get them seasoned before I go home. Okay, then, but just bring it to her and wait outside. And don’t bother her! If I hear anything different I’ll strap you, you hear me?” June agreed and took the tray. When she knocked on the door she could hear Sylvie say in Korean, You may come in. June let herself inside just as Hector was coming out of the back room, some balled-up bandages in his hands. He walked out without saying anything to her. In the bedroom, Sylvie was sitting up in bed in a robe, reading by the lamplight, her knee newly wrapped and propped on a pillow. She seemed startled when she saw it was June but then warmly smiled, putting down her book. “You’re nice to bring me supper.” “Does your leg still hurt?” June asked. “I’ll be all right,” Sylvie answered. June nodded. “Would you like to eat now?” Sylvie said yes and took the tray from her, setting it on her lap. She removed the newspaper cove
ring the porcelain bowls of soup and rice and prepared vegetables. The aunties had prepared some extra dishes for her. “My goodness,” she said. “It’s so much food. I’m not terribly hungry, to tell you the truth. Have you eaten, sweetie?” June said she had. “But I just heard the bells a few minutes ago. Did you even have a chance to finish your own meal? Why don’t you share this with me? You use the spoon and I’ll use the chopsticks. Sit up here with me, it’ll be easier.” Sylvie shifted to make room for her, June sitting cross-legged with the tray on her lap. She didn’t want to eat but Sylvie kept saying she should, patting her shoulders, and before she realized it, before she could stop herself, she had already begun, eating half the bowl of rice and all the radish kimchee. It was like breathing after holding one’s breath for too long, the inhalations at first quick and deep but then settling right back into an automatic rhythm, her body in command, cribbing her sight with opaque blinders, the dull glow of the bowls the only halos before her. Sylvie was saying to keep on, and very quickly June finished the vegetables, the fritters, the last spoonfuls of rice, and by the end she had lifted the soup bowl to her lips and drunk it down, the hot, rich broth scalding her tongue. But when she was done she felt immediately ashamed, the barely chewed morsels lodged in her gut as if she’d swallowed fistfuls of coal. She slipped off the bed to take the tray and leave, but Sylvie grasped her arm. “You don’t have to go . . .” “Please forgive me!” June said. “I ate all your dinner! I will bring you more!” “Oh, sweetie,” Sylvie said, now trying to hug her. “I didn’t need any of it. Not a bit.” “I have to go,” June gasped, and then pulled herself away, just quickly enough to open the back door and retch onto the ground. It smelled almost good, simply like food, but she coughed up some more. Sylvie was now holding her shoulders as she stroked her back, the hollow feeling in June’s belly strangely confirming to her that this was the state in which she felt most honed, elemental, most purely alive. “Are you feverish?” Sylvie asked her. “Are you feeling sick, otherwise?” “No, no,” June said. “I should not eat your dinner. I am sorry.” “Please don’t apologize for that,” Sylvie said. “Never for that.” They stepped back inside, Sylvie limping but bracing June as if she were the one who needed help walking. She pulled up a stool for herself and had June sit on the edge of the bed. She clasped June’s hands. “I’m glad you came here tonight. We haven’t talked very much of late, have we?” “No.” “I’ve missed spending time together.” June didn’t answer, for she realized she had not come here to speak but rather to hear what Sylvie would say to her, to hear her utter what she of course knew was the truth. Yet all at once June found herself beset by a great flowing rush of tears. She did not feel sad or afraid and yet here she was with her face awash, her eyes burning, its salty run trickling into her mouth. “Please don’t cry,” Sylvie said, gently wiping June’s face with her hands. “Please, sweetie. You’re going to break my heart.” June steeled herself, rubbing her eyes. She was not going to falter. She was not going cede to childish need, to weakness. “I am sorry, Mrs. Tanner,” she said, in her clearest voice. “I am fine.” Sylvie said, “Of course you are. May I tell you something? These months that Reverend Tanner and I have been here, they’ve been the most joyous times in my life. The reason is being with all of you children. There’s nothing else that has given me more happiness, and I’m sure nothing ever will. But above all, most precious to me has been our friendship.” “What about Hector?” June said, unable to help herself. Sylvie bowed her head. She looked at June and said, “I’ve done many regrettable things, here as in the rest of my life. I don’t know if I’ll be forgiven. Perhaps you can someday forgive me, but I will not ask you for that. I deserve nothing of the kind. I simply hope you know something about yourself. Early on, I didn’t know if I was being unfair to the other children by spending more time with you. My husband certainly thought I should have gone about things differently. But you have always lifted me up. And I see now how much you’ve grown and changed, in such a short time. I’ve been watching you the last weeks. You’ve been so thoughtful, and kind, and wonderfully willing to help some of the younger girls, and I notice how you’ve now taken Min under your wing. When we were playing the game earlier today, I was so pleased that you wouldn’t let Byong-Ok provoke you. You don’t even seem to have your famous temper anymore! You’ve become the girl I always believed you were. And I know only a small bit of that is because of me. It’s more because of this place, and everyone’s hard work and care, but most of all, it’s because of you. No matter what you do or where you go in this world, your undying spirit will see you through. You have a singular perfection, that way. Nothing will ever halt you. But you should know something else, too. You have a great and passionate heart, June, one as capacious as you are strong. Soon, I know, and forever, it’ll be full of love’s riches.” Sylvie reached over to the shelf that served as a night table and pulled out a book and gave it to June. “I was hoping that you might like to have this. Would you accept it from me? Would you keep it safe, after Reverend Tanner and I have gone?” June stared at the thin volume in her hands. It was the one covered in blue cloth, the one of the long-ago battle in the long-ago war. Here was the sole possession of Mrs. Tanner’s she had truly wanted, and had once stolen, and had given back. And so this is what she would have. This was her prize. “Yes,” she said, gripping it tightly. “Thank you.” She rose to leave. Sylvie hugged her and almost fiercely held on but June did not yield a hair to the embrace, a breath, even a prickle of her skin. How quickly she could check herself. She was only a child but she was a right hard stone. When Sylvie released her, June did not have to look at the woman’s face to know that it looked as if it had just been struck, brutally smashed. June left the cottage. In the twilight the children were coming out of the mess hall, chattering and running around in the last weak lamp of daylight. They streamed past her as she carried the tray of empty bowls, the book pinned under one arm, staring at her for a moment and then fluttering by like the tiny, carefree birds that nested in the bushes and small trees around the orphanage and under the eaves of the buildings. During the summer there had seemed to be scores of the mouse-brown wrens perched about, hundreds of them, but now their numbers had rapidly thinned, culled by the growing scarcity of the season. After returning the tray, June watched the other children, and she thought how their numbers were thinning, too, but rather because of their character, or young age, or plain luck, and that those who remained would be only less fortunate, and grow older, simply settle ever deeper into the fixed molds of their selves, the selves that had already been passed over. When the bell rang once again, the children scattered and dashed about in a final frenzy before being ushered inside by the aunties. June stayed outside in the leading shadow of the darkness. She crouched on her haunches well beyond the far end of the field, right by the rickety gate, her hands and neck and face steadily stiffening in the chill. One of the aunties called out for her and waited for an answer but didn’t call out again. They had become accustomed to not bothering with her. The kerosene lamps were now lighted in the dormitories, the windows aglow on both the boys’ and girls’ sides. In recent weeks she had indeed helped the youngest girls brush their teeth and dress for bed and had even read to them a few times, but tonight she would stay out until she couldn’t bear the cold. Or maybe she would simply remain here, lie down on the hard, gravelly dirt and close her eyes and hope that this would be the night that brought forth winter in its first full, harsh form. She remembered sleeping on the train with the twins, the same icy fingers grasping at them as they had huddled tight, and how she had hoped they might get all the way to Pusan without having to march again, to eat again, without fearing any more misery and privation. It was June’s decision to climb atop the overcrowded train. Since that night she had often wondered if it would have been better to wait for the next one, or to have taken their chances on foot, or else steered the twins and herself far off the main road without any provisions and simply waited for the one mercifu
l night that would lift them away forever. The twins would not have suffered and she would not be here now. For what had surviving all the days since gotten her, save a quelled belly? She had merely prolonged the march, and now that her new hunger had an altogether different face, it was her heart that was deformed, twisting with an even homelier agony. She was just about to lie down on her side when a kerosene lamp emerged from the main dormitory door, swinging to and fro. From the clipped gait she could tell that it was Min. She didn’t move or speak, and she could see him stepping back and forth in the dark, lifting up the lamp to try to see. He headed back to the building but a wind whistled past the sign at the top of the arch and the sound made him turn around and venture out past the field. He must have seen her shape against the thin lines of the gate door, for he lowered the lamp and approached her quickly. “What are you doing here, noo-nah?” he said, his shoulders hunched up tight against the cold. He was wearing a sweater over his pajamas. He turned down the wick of the lamp. “It’s freezing. You should come inside.” She didn’t respond. During dinner, before Min disappeared, she had resolved never to speak to him again, or maybe to do worse: she had flashed with a rage, wanting to pummel him, make him plead and cry. But the sight of him slightly limping, the kerosene lamp still too big for his hand, momentarily disarmed her. “Please come now, noo-nah.” “Just leave me alone.” “I went in the chapel and made the fire in the stove. It’s been going for a half-hour already, so it’s nice and warm in there.” “Go back inside, then.” “You don’t look right. You’re going to get sick in this cold. You could die.” “I don’t care.” “I do,” he said, kneeling down beside her. “And it’s not because Byong-Ok might beat me. He doesn’t care about me anymore. The others don’t care, either. Nobody does.” “You’re better off that way.” “Are you still my friend?” June stood up and began walking away. Her feet were tingling, nearly numb, her fingers cramping, and she thought that she should go now down the dirt road and veer off on a trail deep into the woods, where no one could find her. “Well, are you?” he asked, following her closely. “I want to know. I don’t want to live here anymore if you don’t even care about me.” “Why should I?” she said, turning and shoving him roughly. He fell to the ground, just barely keeping the lamp upright. She put her foot on his hand as she stood over him. “I should strangle you. Why did you lie about our being adopted? Didn’t you think I’d find out?” “I didn’t know!” he cried, trying to pull his hand away. But she just stepped more heavily on him. “You’re a liar!” “I didn’t want to know!” he said wretchedly, trying with his free hand to push her foot away. She let him go and he curled into himself like a wounded snail, holding his hand against his chest. “Isn’t it the same for you? Don’t you have to make believe, too? Everybody knows I’ve got little chance, with my foot. Not when there are so many others with nothing wrong with them.” “There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said, clutching the collar of his sweater. “Not with me!” “Nothing?” he said, and almost laughed. “You can say it ten thousand times over, but it’s not going to make it true. You’re the way you are. Everybody knows it. The way you’ll always be. You’re trouble, just like me.” She grabbed him by the throat with both hands, her fingers monstrously vitalized by the heat of his neck, his windpipe like the gently ribbed sections of a delicate reed, and had he not turned his face to the lamp, revealing the willing forfeit flooding his eyes, she might not have let go. But she did. Min coughed horribly, shudderingly low, as if he were a dying old man, and after he regained his breath she got him up on her back and carried him to the main building. The chapel was lit by the bright honeyed light leaking out around the edges of the door of the old steel stove. Min had already moved the front pews together and close to it, as they had done the previous nights, their shared blanket was neatly laid out, his pillow set to one side to make enough room for hers, and she gently tipped him over the pew back and let him down on his side. She leaned over him, to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t speaking but he was breathing shallowly and steadily, and in the odd crib of the pews his body seemed even smaller than it was, loosed of stuffing, like some worn-out, sunken doll. He was staring up at her, not with wonderment or anger or even hurt but with the plainest appeal: Stay. Please don’t go. She didn’t know what she wished to do but what else was there now? He was not her brother or her friend or someone to care for or love. He was all right now and she owed him nothing. And yet she let him take her hand. He gently tugged on her and she climbed over the pew back to lie beside him, and when he turned and rolled right onto her, his face pressed into her chest, his hands seeking the pits of her arms, she wanted to push him off. But there was something in his certain sorry weight that seemed to seep down into her, suffuse her, until a strange new fullness had risen up in the stripped caverns of her belly. They fell asleep. After some time June awoke to a dying fire and climbed out of the pews to feed a small log into the stove. The fire flared quickly with new heat. “Could I have some water, noo-nah?” Min said to her, peeking up over the pew back, his voice raspy. She said all right. Outside, the sky was clear but moonless and the stars barely thwarted the darkness. But her eyes quickly adjusted and she made her way to the well. It was by the kitchen, and after she worked the hand pump five or six times the frigid water splashed out of the spout. Beneath there was a wooden ladle in a bucket, and while she filled its large cup she noticed a tiny, weak glow at the far end of the field. It was Min’s kerosene lamp; they had left it by the gate. She went across the field to fetch it and was about to head back to the chapel when the low groan of a door broke the silence. June instinctively crouched down, thrusting the lamp behind her to shield its light. A dusky figure emerged from the Tanners’ cottage. It was Hector. He must have gone over while she and Min were asleep. Hector turned and held out his hands toward the pitch-black doorway and then it was Sylvie, in her light-hued robe, stepping out gingerly on the stoop. He helped her down, her one leg unsteady, and though it was obviously painful for her she appeared to want to walk by herself, if closely braced by him. But as they made their way across the yard she tucked her face deeply into his neck, not so much with ardor but rather as if she were trying to blind herself, as if she were unwilling to see. They had not noticed her. June waited until they were long inside Hector’s room before rising. The night air had grown even colder now but June did not feel its sharpness. She stood stiffly before his quarters, staring at the lamplight or stove light knifing out from a vertical gap near the bottom of the door. She had no picture in her mind of what might be going on inside, whether they were speaking or kissing or making love, but that was no matter now. She did not desire to see them or hear them as she had from the other side of the shared wall, for she did not want any image of their animate bodies, or the sounds of even chaste breathing, any signs of life. June crept into the storeroom and took a can of kerosene. Outside she silently doused the wooden stoop, the walls, splashed the ground in front of his door. She raised high the wick of her lamp, the heightened brightness surging through the clear glass globe to illumine the whole side of the building and the night as though she were still in search of someone, still bearing the light of everlasting devotion. She lifted the lamp and was ready to hurl it against the door when a shadow inside interrupted the slat of light at the bottom. It was a moment’s pause, a mere flicker, and yet it was enough to send a shudder through her bones. She extinguished the lamp. She picked up the square-bottomed ladle from the ground. It was night again, and she suddenly felt the full chill of being alone. Inside the chapel, Min had pushed open the pews so that he was sitting directly in front of the fire, the door of the stove opened for light; he was looking at the book Sylvie had given her, flipping through the pages. When he realized June had returned he quickly put it down. He said, “You were taking so long.” “You can have it,” she told him. “I don’t care.” “I don’t want it,” he replied. “I don’t want anything anymore.” “I brought you water.” She gave him the ladle and he drank half of it,
saving her the rest. She took a sip and offered it back and he finished what was left. Then, with a surprising indifference, he threw the ladle into the stove. It was not worth ten grains of rice, but like many things in the orphanage it was a shared object and therefore of communal value, and the ease with which he tossed it in startled her. They watched it closely. The ladle was waterlogged and at first it only hissed but soon the twining and edges began to burn, smoke starting to billow from the bamboo cup, gathering beneath the long handle, and then in a whoosh it was aflame, its light hot on their faces. Min got up and left. When he returned he was carrying two of the small footlockers. One was his, the other June’s—he had stolen into the girls’ side. He opened the lid of his locker and began taking out the few items it contained, inspecting them for a moment and then tossing them into the stove. She did not say anything or try to stop him. He started with his box of pencils, and then a deck of Korean playing cards, and then he put in two special pairs of dress socks that he’d received from a church group in America. Next were some letters and greeting cards from the same people. Then he drew out the fine scarf he had made; aside from his everyday clothes, it was the last thing he had. He handed it to June to put in the fire, and after he nodded to say it was all right, she balled it up and dropped it in. It burned not quickly but rather steadily and well, the fire consuming it with its own slow savor. “You want to try?” he said. “It feels good.” June opened her footlocker. One by one she began tossing in her possessions, which were nothing at all, letting Min throw in every other, a straw doll she had never played with and old magazines and a yellow summer dress that she had worn only once and knew now she would never wear again. The fire flared with each item and they had to lean back from the blasts of heat. The last thing of June’s was not in her footlocker but on the pew, beside Min, and he picked it up now, the little book. “How about this?” She regarded it for a long moment. “Okay,” she said. “Are you sure?” “Yes,” she told him. “Put it in.” Min leaned in toward the stove, one hand shielding his face. He then flipped it into the seething vault. It lay on the coals, its cover pristine and cool blue. It appeared as though nothing would happen, that it was miraculously immune to their private inferno. And then she knew how wrong she was to give it up. She was wrong to ever let it go. There were things not bound for oblivion. But all at once the book was in flames, blazing as brightly as anything gone in so far, and without hesitation June reached deep into the stove and grabbed at the heart of the fire. “Noo-nah!” Min gasped, trying to pull her back. “Noo-nah!” There was pain at first, pain so sharp and great and pure that for a moment June felt that she had become the burning itself, that she was the crucible and not the iron, and as she grasped the book a lightning flashed into every last part of her. She fell back onto the floor, Min immediately snuffing her hand and the book with the blanket. He was frantic because she would not let it go, and when the flames were finally out he was crying at the sight of her hand and arm. The horrid, bubbled skin was like half-molten, bloody wax. But to June it belonged to someone else, for there was no feeling at all, the nerves seared dead up to her elbow. It was the untouched rest of her body that was shuddering, as if buffeted by the wake of all the phantom pain from her hand. Yet her mind was clear. “Somebody must help us!” Min said, panicking. “I’ll go get Mrs. Tanner!” She told him no. He was frantic but she calmed him with an embrace. They were on their knees. She let him go and the boy sat on his haunches. She reached for the big oil lamp that she had fetched from outside. It was still quite heavy with fuel. She gave it to him and he hefted it from the bottom; he knew what she wanted him to do. He threw it into the stove, the glass globe shattering without much sound. June shut the hearth door, neither of them moving back. Min hugged her tight now. She was still holding the book, its cover charred but the inner pages still intact, and she could smell the smoke and her ruined skin as she wound her arm around his neck. She thought she heard voices outside but it was too late. She kissed him on the cheek. “We don’t need anyone,” she said softly in his ear. “We’re going to stay here now.”
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