open to air out their apartment and I would see them lounging around in their pajamas, Pale Face playing with Square Face’s hair as they dozed watching dramas. “Like sisters,” I caught myself thinking in a melancholy way.
My own sister and I do not feature much in each other’s lives except to align ourselves on one goal—to shelter our mother as much as we can.
* * *
—
I KNEW JAESANG had quite a reputation at room salons for years before Haena found out about his “girlfriend.” Three years ago, I’d seen him doing something particularly disgusting at a room salon in Gangseo where I was working at the time. That was before I had my double jaw surgery, and the salon I worked at was one that had a connecting hotel upstairs.
I’d entered the room behind the other girls and saw Jaesang sitting in the far corner. I fled before he saw me and sought out the madam, who sent me home for the night because I was so nervous and she didn’t want a scene. She later went in and introduced herself to Jaesang, pampered him into feeling extra-special all night, and made him promise to phone ahead every time he came so that I wouldn’t accidentally be sent into his room. “I can’t have one of our girls unhappy,” she said to me, pinching my cheek. It made me want to puke, the way that she pretended to care about me when she kept me in such a state of ghastly anxiety every night about how much money I was bringing in.
Of course I never told Haena. My normally levelheaded sister behaved like a fool when she found out about the girlfriend, who worked at a Samseongdong room salon. But the divorce wasn’t really because she kicked up a fuss. Jaesang wasn’t in love with that girl or anything. He had just fallen out of love with Haena at that point and didn’t feel the need to endure her agony of heartbreak. And our family wasn’t one that would make him think twice about divorcing her.
* * *
—
THESE DAYS, it’s nice to finally be working at a “10 percent”—a salon that supposedly employs the prettiest 10 percent of girls in the industry—where the madam isn’t blatantly pushing us to have sex with clients for “round 2.” There is still pressure to bring in money, but it’s slightly more civilized. Whenever I get angry at Madam, the other girls whisper at me that she’s not that bad, and to remember other madams of my past. We’ve all suffered under those far more treacherous.
* * *
—
OUR MOTHER HAS secrets too, only they are the harmless kind.
“Kyuri, the secret ingredient I put in every side dish is a few drops of Chinese plum sauce,” she says, sweat forming in the deep wrinkles of her forehead as she fries anchovies with crushed peanuts and plum syrup. “You can put it in anything and it is so good for health!”
Whenever I travel home to Jeonju, I watch her toss them in the frying pan with her feeble wrists. She never lets me near the stove. The result is that Haena and I don’t know how to cook a single dish, not even rice in the rice cooker.
“You will both have a better life than a housewife daughter-in-law,” she said to us growing up. “I would rather you not know how to cook at all.”
Her body has been shutting down since our father died. She had to give up her corner at the market, where she’s sold slabs of tofu for the past thirty-five years. They found and removed two large tumors in her right breast two years ago. They were benign but of alarming size. She’s hovering dangerously on the edge of diabetes and her bones have started to crumble. Her left hand had an infection six months ago and is still swollen like a sponge. I massage it for hours whenever I make the trip to see her, and am taking her in for a surgeon consultation next month, the earliest I could get an appointment at the SeoLim Hospital.