Waxing Moon (6 page)

8

As they descended the stone steps outside the temple gate, Mistress Yee said, “I love this place. I will have to return often.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, Mistress,” Mirae said.

Without turning around, Mistress Yee addressed her maid. “I think the head monk is the handsomest man my eyes have ever beheld. Don’t you agree, Mirae? Of course, this is just between you and me.”

“Why, Mistress, he is very handsome,” Mirae said. Her ears burned. Indeed, he was a handsome man.

“I saw you flirting with him,” Mistress Yee stated firmly, raising her voice, still looking straight ahead of her.

Mirae stopped. “Mistress, what do you mean?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“You heard me, Mirae,” Mistress Yee said cheerfully.

“No, Mistress, you must have hallucinated. The sun was so strong it must have blinded you. I was just talking with him.” Mirae’s voice was trembling.

“No, I saw him whisper into your ear.”

“Mistress, you have misunderstood the situation,” Mirae said. She passed Mistress Yee and stood in front of her, blocking her way.

“Don’t panic. I can keep a secret,” Mistress Yee teased, walking around her maid.

“Please! I don’t mind if you think
I
am low and despicable, but the one we are speaking of possesses the purest heart,” Mirae said pleadingly.

“Ha, you are in love,” Mistress Yee remarked lightheartedly contemptuously.

“Mistress, I was kowtowing in the main hall, and I felt something strange. In the beginning, I found it tedious and felt tired, but I saw the smile on Buddha’s lips. It was—there are no words to describe the smile. That smile was just for me. And then I heard the monks walk by after their daily chanting, so I rushed out and followed them. The head monk was the last in the group and he turned around. I bowed to him, and when the other monks disappeared into the dining hall, I asked if he could spare me his wisdom. He simply said that wisdom is within me. I raised my head and looked at him. I almost fainted because his smile was exactly the same as Buddha’s smile. I told him how he resembled Buddha. He just repeated that wisdom is within me and that I should seek answers within, not outside. Mistress, I couldn’t speak further. I felt light and happy. And that was when you approached us. There was nothing else,” Mirae said. And she sighed noisily.

Mistress Yee turned around and shot a glance at her maid like a cat glares at a mouse in a cul-de-sac.

“Listen to me carefully, and don’t you ever forget what I have to say now.” Mistress Yee came a little closer and she continued, lowering her voice, “A monkey climbed trees, and hung upside down from branches, and leaped from one branch to another. She was much admired for her dexterity, although it was nothing for her. All the animals down below applauded and wished they could do what she did. Then a dog, losing her head momentarily, thought she could do what the monkey did. She began to climb the tree, despite the advice of her sensible fellow animals, and reached the top of the tree and leaped from there to another tree. Guess what happened to that bitch? She fell on the ground and crushed her head. Only the monkey felt sorry for her. When all the other animals left, murmuring about the stupidity of the poor animal, the monkey remained and buried the dog. She placed a tombstone on the dog’s grave and wrote,
May this dog be born in the form of a monkey in her next life
. So in her next life, the dog was born as a monkey. The first thing she did was to climb a tree, but she couldn’t because she was still a dog in the skin of a monkey. Once a dog, always a dog. So she died once again by falling from a tree, and as she died, she wished to be born as a dog. It took two lives for this dog to learn a lesson.” Mistress Yee laughed and resumed descending.

Mirae followed her mistress quietly. The sun was fierce. Her legs felt tired from kowtowing repeatedly. It would take another hour to reach the point where they had left the carriage with the male servant. Mistress Yee had decided against the ride in the carriage for fear that its movements on the steep and uneven mountain road might imperil her pregnancy.

Mirae wished that her mistress had not told her the strange story. She wanted to shift her thoughts to the head monk and what he had said.
Within myself,
she said to herself again and again.

Mistress Yee stopped. “I cannot walk anymore. Carry me on your back.”

Mirae squatted down in front of her mistress. Even though Mistress Yee wasn’t terribly heavy, it was still a long way to go.

Once on Mirae’s back, Mistress Yee pulled Mirae’s hair for her own amusement. And she said a few nasty things about the odor from Mirae’s sweaty back. And then suddenly, she reached down and felt Mirae’s breast, which was bound tightly under her garment, as the traditional dress required its waistband to go around the upper chest of a woman.

Shocked, Mirae almost dropped her mistress.

Mistress Yee said, “My dear Mirae, if you drop me and I have a miscarriage, you know that would be the last day of your life, don’t you?”

Indeed, it would be. Mirae flushed. Her disgust for her mistress’s wriggling body on her back was growing by the moment.

“This is totally ready to be touched, Mirae. Next time we go to the temple, you need to bathe yourself before we go, though. Celibate or not, the head monk cares. In fact, celibates are more sensitive. When he carried me into the main hall, I felt the touch of his strong hands. They were firm and ready to be put to a better use. Just imagine what he will be thinking of tonight when he touches his hard, lifeless wooden beads!” Mistress Yee laughed. She continued, “I hope he seeks within to find some of the answers for his desire, for they are there, plain and clear.”

“Mistress Yee, I must go and pee,” Mirae begged.

“Let me down, you lazybones,” Mistress Yee mocked her. “Now, look what you’ve done!” Mistress Yee cried. Her skirt was wrinkled.

Mirae went behind the bushes.

Mistress Yee walked down alone for a while. Mirae followed her soon enough. They could see Min beside the carriage, chewing on sour grass.

“That useless urchin,” Mistress Yee muttered.

Min got up as the women approached and dusted the seat with his hand where Mistress Yee would sit. He tried to help Mistress Yee mount the carriage, but she dismissed him curtly with her hand.

Some time later, they could see Mr. O’s land. After passing the grove of tall poplar trees, Mistress Yee ordered Min to stop.

“If I don’t eat something right now, I think I will die,” Mistress Yee said.

“Go and get some food for the mistress right now,” Mirae ordered Min urgently.

“He can’t talk. You go!” Mistress Yee shouted.

Mirae ran to the mud house by the cornfield. She was as hungry as her mistress. During their first visit, they had been nourished at the temple, even though her mistress hadn’t liked the simple vegetarian food prepared by the novice monks. But today they had left abruptly, and her mistress had forgotten all about lunch.

Min pulled the carriage to the shade under a tree and observed an army of ants in single file going into a hole.

Mirae stepped into the yard and heard a woman laughing. Mrs. Wang sat with a plateful of boiled potatoes on the mud floor in front of the hut. Jaya was nursing a baby with her chest exposed.

“Listen. My lady, Mistress Yee, is outside, starving and exhausted. She is coming back from a trip to the temple. She needs nourishment,” Mirae said urgently, frowning from the headache beginning to immobilize the upper right half of her head.

It took a moment for Mrs. Wang to recognize her. Mirae was out of breath. Then she sighed from her gut, mopping her forehead. Her face was a mess and under her armpit was stained with a brown half moon. She even stank a little.

Jaya, in the middle of telling a joke, was confused. “What do you mean?” she asked, inspecting Mirae from head to toe.

“Her mistress would like some potatoes,” Mrs. Wang summarized.

“Oh, Mistress Yee is here? Where is she?” Jaya was excited.

“In her carriage. My mistress is exhausted from the heat and from her visit to the temple, where she kowtowed one hundred eight times. Just give me food. I will take care of the rest,” Mirae said, feeling suddenly aloof. She was annoyed by the women so at ease and disheveled, one with breasts hanging out under her open shirt, and the other indulging in food with her legs stretched out, her waistband loosened. Flies buzzed round and round.

The peasant woman wrapped two potatoes and some salt on the side and handed them to Mirae.

“Give me a bowl of water too,” Mirae demanded.

Jaya passed Mr. O’s daughter to Mrs. Wang and went to the kitchen. She brought out a gourd of water and gave it to Mirae.

Mirae left without thanking her.

“That’s the infamous maid of Mistress Yee. She thinks she can shit gold or something just because she is favored by Mistress Yee,” Jaya said, rolling her eyes.

“She does look like someone who might shit gold or something.” Mrs. Wang chuckled.

Mirae took the water and the potatoes with salt to her mistress. Mistress Yee drank the water hurriedly, but she examined the potatoes with suspicion. Abruptly, she shoved the food out of Mirae’s hand. The potatoes fell and rolled into the ditch at the side of the road.

As the carriage moved on with dust billowing behind it, Jaya came out, her shirt still open, holding Mistress Kim’s daughter in her arms, to find the potatoes in the ditch and her gourd cracked and abandoned. She spat toward the carriage, which was now turning around the potato field that she and her husband rented from Mr. O.

9

“Mistress Kim was nothing like that,” commented Jaya as she returned and sat down on the open mud floor in front of the hut.

Mrs. Wang didn’t reply. She was peeling the last potato and said, “Do you have some rice wine? Water doesn’t go with these excellent potatoes.”

Jaya dawdled to the kitchen and poured a
bowl of rice wine. She drank a little and burped loudly. It tasted so great that she had another sip and then took the bowl to Mrs. Wang.

“Mrs. Wang, this is all we’ve got to spare. We’re saving the rest for my husband’s uncle, who will come to see his grandnephew, he hasn’t seen him yet,” she said and then smiled.

Mrs. Wang looked somewhat displeased at the half-full bowl. But she drank it all at once.

“I saw Mr. O some time ago. He promised me he would send another payment for your work,” Mrs. Wang said.

“Well, in fact, yesterday Nani came to deliver gifts. A sack of this, a sack of that, and some silk. But Mrs. Wang, we don’t need gifts. We need a payment,” Jaya said grimly.

Mrs. Wang noticed a trace of a milky rice wine mustache above Jaya’s upper lip.

“My child, that’s out of my hands. I can’t force Mr. O to do what you would like him to do. By the way, your potatoes are sublime.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wang. Those potatoes go to Mr. O, along with the rice and corn and beans every year. We pay our share for their land. And here I am, sustaining their bloodline with my milk, sacrificing my own son. What on earth am I to do with a roll of silk anyway?” Jaya rolled her eyes.

“Sell the silk in the marketplace if you don’t want to save it for your future daughter-in-law,” Mrs. Wang advised her.

“Mrs. Wang, my husband’s in the field the whole day. I take food three times daily to the field for the farmers, carrying Mr. O’s daughter on my back, while my son takes his naps. When should I go to the marketplace to sell the silk? Who would buy the silk from me? People would think I had stolen it. And they would want a steal of a price! Last night, my husband and I were talking about how nice it would be if we got ourselves a patch of land, just enough to grow corn and potatoes. I would raise Mr. O’s daughter as my social superior.” Jaya’s red face was covered with beads of sweat. Now that she had spilled the truth, she felt worse, because she so badly wanted a piece of land, and Mrs. Wang didn’t seem interested in making her happy.

“She is your superior as long as you live on the property of the O family. About the land, as long as you live here and pay your dues, no one is taking it away from you. It is practically yours. Why does it matter to have your name written on a piece of paper? When you die, you don’t take the deed with you,” Mrs. Wang said weakly. She was also exhausted from the heat, and annoyed by the loud nonsense of the woman whose face was dripping sweat profusely. Most of all, she was hungry, still very hungry after three large potatoes. They were not that large, actually.

“Mrs. Wang, we are hard up these days. My mother-in-law, you know her, she’s gone crazy, and my sister-in-law doesn’t want to live with her any longer. She is hitting her mother sometimes, I hear. Anyway, to make a long story short, my mother-in-law might have to move in with us. When she moves in, she will be another baby to take care of, another mouth to feed. Of course, whom should I blame but myself? I was born with so few blessings. It’s all my fault,” Jaya said pathetically, inspecting Mrs. Wang with her apple seed eyes. But there was no reaction; actually, Mrs. Wang was dozing off. Jaya got up, leaving the infant on the floor, and brought out the jug of rice wine and poured some into Mrs. Wang’s bowl.

Mrs. Wang opened her eyes wide and sat up straight.

“His uncle doesn’t drink all that much. If I keep it in the kitchen, too much will go to my husband, who shouldn’t be drinking anyway. He’s got this really evil habit of drinking and then wailing afterward. I can’t stand it anymore,” she said, forcing a smile.

Rubbing her stomach, Mrs. Wang said, “One should coat the stomach before alcohol. Don’t you have a slab of fat or something?”

“Let me check. I think I have a little something here in the jar.” Jaya disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a piece of pork fat and a few raw quail eggs.

Mrs. Wang ate the quail eggs and gobbled up the pork fat. She said it was very well seasoned, the pork fat. She drank the rice wine and said that she felt like a little nap, if that wasn’t too much of an imposition. So the two women took a nap with their mouths open, the two babies in between them. Flies hovered about Mrs. Wang’s unappeasable mouth, sometimes landing on her face, but she slept like a corpse. The afternoon slowly passed, and then the baby boy woke up and whimpered.

Jaya got up, rubbing her eyes and wiping drool off the corners of her mouth. Her hair was matted. She offered her breast to her baby boy. Mrs. Wang snored rhythmically.

Dubak entered then, filthy and sweaty and tired. The wife pointed to Mrs. Wang with her chin, but he, showing no acknowledgment, went straight to the kitchen and came out. He looked about, moving his eyes quickly. His wife said, “What are you looking for?”

He took the jug, which normally contained rice wine. Only a few drops came out.

“There is a little left in the kitchen in the cupboard,” she said, lowering her voice.

He went back to the kitchen and didn’t come out for a while. The wife, leaving their son on the floor, followed him in and found her husband sitting by the clay stove and drinking.

“Don’t drink it all up. Your uncle’s coming,” Jaya pointed out.

The man pulled his wife close and tried to grab her by her thigh, but she shrilled and stiffened and pushed him away, grinning vulgarly.

“We have a guest,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “She is being difficult, though.”

Her husband fell into silence. She could see the concentration on his forehead. She didn’t like the sudden shift of interest from her plump thigh to something else in his head. He went to a meeting every night with some of the other peasants and talked until late about silly things. “All the aristocrats, can they be aristocrats on their own? No, only because we exist as peasants are they aristocrats. There is no such thing as noble blood. Under the skin, we are all the same. Without us sweating in the field, they would not survive. There would be no rice for them.
We
are not the leeches, living off of
them,
as they would have us believe: it’s
they
who live off of
our
lives.”

Those were the words frequently uttered, reported Jaya’s friend in the field when all the women got together to pluck the soybeans out of the pods. Her husband had hosted several of the meetings at their house.

Dubak gulped rice wine again and said, “I am going to Seoul to get a job.” He furrowed his forehead.

“Oh, do shut up,” Jaya snapped, snatching the jug out of his hand.

“Is this how you talk to your husband?” He went berserk, ready to throw something at his wife, except that he didn’t see anything nearby to throw.

“I thought we are all the same under the skin, husband.
I 
shall go to the capital city to get a job if you don’t give me the credit I deserve. You should think about what would happen if I left you for the capital city!” she said and left the kitchen. Both babies were crying at the tops of their lungs.

“Heavens! Gods! What is the matter, my babies?” said Jaya theatrically. Her voice finally woke Mrs. Wang. She sat up and combed her hair with her fingers, feeling indifferent at finding herself at someone else’s place.

“I need to go and check on Chilpal’s wife. Her baby has breeched, and I need to turn it before it gets too late,” Mrs. Wang said, standing up and looking around
to make certain she wasn’t forgetting anything.

“Mrs. Wang, please put in a word for us. My husband threatens to go to the capital city to look for a job,” the woman said forlornly, nursing both babies.

Mrs. Wang looked at her and the babies and wondered what Jaya was talking about. She hadn’t come out of her sleep completely yet. But she remembered why she had gone there in the first place.

“By the way, I want you to call the baby Mansong, Ten Thousand Pine Trees. Hopefully, with that name, she will live longer than her mother did,” Mrs. Wang said.

Dubak came out of the kitchen. He opened a hemp sack and proudly showed Mrs. Wang the fat corn he had brought from the field. “Look here. These are sweeter than sweet potatoes. Take a few, please.”

Mrs. Wang said, “Thank you very much, but I don’t eat corn. It gets stuck between my teeth and that drives me crazy.” And she left.

Without saying goodbye to Mrs. Wang, Jaya pouted and pried Mansong’s mouth open to release her swelling purple nipple. The surprised baby didn’t cry, but held her foot in her hand and gazed up at her wet nurse.

“I need to feed my son first,” Jaya said, as if threatening her.

A patch of dark clouds was approaching rapidly. Dubak looked up to the sky, stopping his work of pulling the husks and hairs from the corncobs. He had expected another scorching summer, so he couldn’t believe his eyes. A sudden gush of wind came, blowing away the pile of cornhusks and hairs. Large drops of rain hit the earth, and his wife rushed out to collect laundry from the clothesline. By the time she came in with a mountain of laundry, she was already wet on her shoulders. The rain possibly meant no uncle in the evening. This was the night she should sit with her husband and straighten out his thoughts on not wanting to farm and going to the capital city instead. These ideas only made him miserable. And if he left, the gods only knew when he would return!