This Burns My Heart Page 0,109

made her way into the crowd, like an excited child, trying to get closer to the stage. Min followed her lead and moved closer to the stage, too, walking past Soo-Ja. She was surprised that Eun-Mee would leave Soo-Ja and Yul alone like that, until she realized that Eun-Mee didn’t know that Min had left them as well. Soo-Ja stayed in her spot, aware that Yul was right behind her. She did not have to turn to sense his familiar scent, to feel his body pulling her toward him.

Yul placed his hand on the small of Soo-Ja’s back, and she closed her eyes, the sound of drums reverberating through her body. Each bang felt like a new warning, telling her to run. The music sounded like boulders cascading down a mountain, loud enough to be heard by gods. Soo-Ja opened her eyes again, looking through the crowd for Eun-Mee, who would be coming back at any moment. Soo-Ja knew she should tell Yul to move away, but she could not. The dappled shade cannot ask the tree to leave it alone.

Min was nowhere to be seen, either. Soo-Ja kept listening to the echoes of the drums, beating without stop, the players’ hands magically flying from one end of the drum to the other. Then a sudden pause, and a four-man chant, and then the beating of the drums again, growing in intensity. The two drummers played first in perfect sync, then later against each other, sounds clashing, a kind of combat. Each turn of the head and each wave of the drumstick was carefully modulated, as if the music itself had shape and was being choreographed by their bodies.

Yul’s surprisingly warm hand brushed against Soo-Ja’s, and she quivered at his touch. They both kept staring straight ahead, their hands obscured by the crowd and their own bodies. Yul pressed a single finger, his middle finger, against the center of her palm, caressing it, almost burrowing into it. Her fingers closed in a little, and her hand was like the yellow forsythia whose trumpet-shaped petals can furl and unfurl, opening up to the sun, but then closing, to protect itself from cold winds.

Onstage, the drumming grew in intensity and the chants became more frequent. The players would pause for a second or two, letting a single beat of the drum reverberate fully through the air, then fall, promising an end. The crowd cheered; some people started clapping. Then, just when you thought it was finished, the drumming would start again, sounding more potent than ever, and you did not know if that was because their playing had grown mightier, or because they had made you miss it.

Soo-Ja had moved her hand abruptly to clap with the others, but then she returned it to her spot, eagerly, hungrily, searching for Yul’s hand. His hand quickly returned to hers, and this time, as his finger pressed against her palm, she placed her own fingers on top of his, covering them with her warmth. They stayed like that, their fingers exploring each other’s—caressing, squeezing, feeling—moving like naked bodies, skin next to skin.

Just then, Min returned, and Yul moved his hand away.

“It’s a modern stove,” said Eun-Mee, turning it on. “It controls the gas so it doesn’t all shoot off into the air. With the normal yentan gas, half of it goes straight into your lungs.”

Soo-Ja watched as Eun-Mee showed off her spacious kitchen. When Soo-Ja was growing up, kitchens reminded her of dungeons, lower in the ground than the rest of the house, suffocatingly hot, gray and dark, full of earthenware jars and ceramic pots and pans. Even in the hotel, the kitchen area was really just a sink and a small gas stove. Eun-Mee’s kitchen, however, was like something out of a magazine. Eun-Mee had a seemingly endless countertop, rows and rows of cupboards, her own refrigerator, and a washing machine.

Eun-Mee set the teakettle on the stove and was about to unwrap petits fours from their packaging when the phone rang. It was a friend of Eun-Mee’s from Pusan. As they started chatting, Soo-Ja excused herself and stepped out of the kitchen. Yul and Min were downstairs, in the garden, and Soo-Ja was able to wander around on her own. The house was enormous, especially by Seoul standards, and Soo-Ja walked through room after room: a dining room, a living room, a sitting room, and a room with a large window that looked out at some trees. Looking at the house where Yul