Drifting House (23 page)

The mirror in Mrs. Lim’s room faithfully reflects misery and magnificence: a pyramid of her dresses, a nest of souvenirs, a portrait of Jesus hanging off a nail. A stopped wristwatch, a body’s impression still visible on the cotton
yo
spread on the floor, the worn blade of a used razor, a cluster of black ants in the corner, the blood of a crushed mosquito staining the wall, Hana in her frilly bra and panties, and Mina, tottering, perilous in her mother’s yellow platform heels, imagining the world looking at her.

It is electrifying to try on her mother’s swishing satin skirt, her coat as long as a wedding gown, to imitate the way her mother’s age and life story change each time she speaks. She imagines herself dancing with Jongpil; with Hyeongmin, with Junho. She imagines her father clasping her hand. It seems impossible to think that one day Mina will fill these shoes.

At Mina’s house, Hana has decided that they should study each other naked in the bedroom mirror. She says with authority, We have to be as honest as rice cakes. So we can improve ourselves.

Mina’s finger circles her own breasts, her curious artifacts that are half the woman her mother is, those indecisive lumps that developed before her classmates. Short, stocky Hana inspects her own chest. Hana, whose parents take her to Mozart symphonies. Hana, a girl who beats the boys in arm wrestling and bicycles
with no hands and gets stomachaches when she doesn’t complete her homework.

Mina’s eyes are on the tiny nodes of life rising from Hana’s chest. It hurts, doesn’t it? she asks, her hand now on her friend’s sweaty breast. Hana nods, turning up her ­full-moon face that smells of butternut squash, no matter the summer heat.

Mina points at the sock she has jammed down the front of her underwear, and strides across the room with the swagger of a military man. She points a finger down at Hana. Down here. She adopts a teacherly frown. This is where men put it. She knows this because she has spied, just once, on her mother.

Hana shrieks, That’s where I go pee!

It’s where the baby comes out, Mina says, her voice smug with knowing.

Hana said, Your breasts are beautiful, like an icy milk bar.

Mina squeezes them until they turn blue.

Hana’s giggles bubble out past her hands. My mother wouldn’t notice if I grew three breasts. She’s ­so—so abstract.

Mina says, My mother’s a ­nine-tailed fox. She drinks the blood of men. Like this, she says, and kisses Hana on the lips.

Mina’s sallow breasts, her purple nipples ringed with budding hair, are bewildering protrusions. They are the same breasts that her mother scents with roses. The limestone and ocher of the Venus of Willendorf’s most ancient breasts. The breasts that babies suck. The breasts that men love and Saint Agatha of Sicily cut off for her faith. Kannagi tore off one of hers to fling at the
South Indian city of Madurai, sacrificing her breast for a curse. The medical practitioner James Guillimeau, in 1612, believed that through a mother’s breast, her body’s imperfections transmitted to her babies. Parmigianino, Isoda Koryusai, and Pablo Picasso immortalized the breast. They are the breasts that Junho asks Mina if he can touch that summer, that will grow into perfect bell shapes. Mina does not see much in breasts. They are sore, they are impossible. That is, until Hana cradles one of Mina’s breasts. They look like vanilla pudding, she says.

When a small protest against the ­president-turned-dictator Park ­Chung-hee flames up on the streets, Mina and Hana are in their favorite corner of the Namsan Library. They press their noses to the window and see the city center crowded with police surrounding a few foolhardy protesters. Will we ever go home? Hana says, shivering. Will we ever reach nineteen and enter college and vote?

Mina says, Of course. Though she isn’t sure if she wants to grow up.

Mina ensconces herself on half the sofa with a book on Mars as if it is an ordinary day; Hana sits on the other half with a history book, but she flips the pages so quickly she cannot be reading.

After a time Hana says, Everything will be okay. We’ll become judges.

Mina touches Hana’s fingertips.

We’ll change the court system.

Hana touches back.

We’ll change the laws.

We’ll be law professors!

They laugh.

We’ll ­be—

What will you be for me? says a man, peering from behind a triangle of newspaper. He has gray eyebrows and a sharp, toothy smile. His hand is moving so fast that the sheaf of newspaper rustles, the print moves up and down. Hana hides behind her arms but Mina watches, fascinated by his joyful distress, until she feels herself inside the seasick letters, capsizing.

Junho is afraid of his father. The ­sixty-two students in his homeroom class are privy to this because every month or two that fall, his father, the Vietnam veteran, stumbles in waving a bottle of
soju
as if it were the
taekguki
the students pledge loyalty to every day. Each time, Junho becomes smaller, his arms wrapped around himself in a protective lair. That day, his father comes waving paper, saying, Junho, your
gijibeh
of a mother’s run away! Since his return he has never had a job. Everyone knows this because he is a morning drunk who sobs through the neighborhood housing blocks. He used to be nice enough, the neighbors say, then go back to throwing out the trash.

Mr. Han scans the room as if looking for his wife, then slumps into an empty chair. Even when the homeroom teacher stands as close to him as she can, he will not move.

Mr. Han, she says, how thoughtful of you. You’re only interrupting exactly ­sixty-two students from studying.

He looks up. The only subject worth studying is the military,
he says. Look at our president! I promise you, those ­strong-armed boys will keep this country going.

Students shuffle in their seats. One bold student whispers, Drunk
gaesaekki
.

Junho does not look up. He has become stone. A rock jetty.

Even after Mr. Han is persuaded out of the classroom, Junho stays marooned to his desk, his head slumped into a textbook. He lets out an occasional sound resembling a snort, but Mina understands.

Teachers tell the students that they live in a democracy. That means, according to the present practice, you are prosecuted for criticizing the government. If you make friendly comments about North Korea, the police label you a Red and you are sent to jail. The authorities arrest you for appearing suspicious, which means you look like a union worker, an intellectual, or a student. The most dangerous activity is not skydiving but mobilizing. If you are male with hair long enough to brush against your shoulder, the police intercept you; students in Mina’s class have seen two college boys sheared on the street. And the teachers! They demand ­thank-you money in envelopes from each parent and become rich. Everywhere placards read:
DO YOUR CITIZEN’S DUTY. REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY.
Anyone can be a spy, Hana whispers at lunch, but who is the enemy?

Teacher Roh is known to refuse the envelopes of money, an understood obligation if you don’t want your child bullied or overlooked.
If you come to class two minutes past the bell, she beats you as you crouch with your buttocks in the air.

Chalk flies as she prints across the board. But when Teacher Roh turns, she catches Mina reading Hana’s note. Mina crushes it into her mouth and begins chewing it like stringy dried squid.

Spit it out, her teacher says, and holds out her hand. Who wrote that thing?

She points at the class motto above the blackboard that reads:
YOUR TEACHER IS YOUR THIRD PARENT.

In this country you have so many parents to pay respect to, from the president, the elderly who know what is best for you, your relatives, your teacher, your mother and father, down to your older brother or sister whom you call by their titles.

Mina swallows; she protects those she loves.

The ruler slashes once, twice, striping her cheeks scarlet. The students cramped against the back wall strain to look. Junho wakes up from his nap in time to see Mina smile.

Don’t you dare smile, the teacher says.

But Mina is used to taking care of herself; she believes she isn’t afraid of anything. She raises her chin so her smile is more conspicuous.