This Burns My Heart Page 0,19

before hanging them up to dry with clothespins. Soo-Ja stared at their plump bodies, hidden away underneath their old hanboks. Soo-Ja felt self-conscious about the weight she’d recently lost, shed from her already thin frame.

Soo-Ja enjoyed the rhythms of their talk, the way they spoke like folks from the countryside, dispensing with the more formal-io at the end of the sentences. Sometimes their words overlapped, like a chorus, and Soo-Ja envied the easy, casual way they’d tease or scold one another. If she lost the ability to speak, and needed to learn again, she could simply listen to them. They often spent hours telling stories. The house chores—cooking, cleaning, washing—seemed to be incidental. In Soo-Ja’s mind, their real job was to gossip, giving their opinions about the others’ lives. Soo-Ja wondered if they talked about her behind her back, and she realized that they must, of course.

Soo-Ja closed her eyes. She often became sleepy when melancholia hit her. She could feel her head grow heavy when she suddenly heard the servants’ talking stop. She opened her eyes and glanced at them—their eyes were directed at an intruder. A man had arrived at the house unannounced, slipping past the gate, and making his way into the courtyard. He looked tired and beaten down, wearing an army camouflage jacket cut off at the forearms, and pants rolled up to his knees. He held a satchel behind his back, and for a moment Soo-Ja thought it was one of her brothers, returning home from some war she hadn’t been told about.

It took a few seconds to realize it was Min, and when she did, Soo-Ja leapt out of her seat and ran to him. He’d been to her house before, but she hadn’t been ready then. This time, with no concern for modesty or propriety, Soo-Ja jumped into his arms, and the two of them held each other, burying their noses in each other’s shoulders. Their bodies made shapes together—her chin on his sternum, her temple against his cheek—until theirs were interlocking parts. He had not been lost; he’d been returned to her.

“Is your father here?” asked Min, once they finally let go of each other.

“Yes. Why?” asked Soo-Ja, glancing into his eyes.

Min looked shyly at her. “There’s something I want to ask him.”

“What is it?” asked Soo-Ja, staring at his cherry-sized nose, and his downcast gaze.

“I want to ask him for your hand in marriage.”

“You want to marry Soo-Ja?” asked her father, looking startled.

“Yes, I do,” said Min, with his satchel by his side, sitting across from him on the floor.

“Isn’t this a little sudden?” asked Soo-Ja’s father, trying to maintain his self-control.

“The protests—the violence in Seoul—made me realize how fragile our lives are. It could all be over in a second,” said Min.

Soo-Ja moved closer to Min and instinctively held his arm. He’d come up with the idea himself, independently of her, and she wondered if he suspected her wish of going to Seoul to join the Foreign Service. She’d always spoken vaguely about her dreams, and never discussed her specific plans with Min, for fear he’d feel used. But perhaps he knew. Perhaps he’d read her mind, when the thought first crossed her head, that day at the gymnasium bleachers. Perhaps her thoughts were obvious to others, and it was only out of politeness that they did not remark upon them, when they could read them as clearly as print on paper.

“But marriage… it’s not something you bring up lightly,” said Soo-Ja’s father, suddenly at a loss for words. “No, there has to be a go-between, a matchmaker, someone to make formal introductions, to tell me about your family, and to tell your family about ours. Followed by me and Soo-Ja’s mother meeting your parents, and getting out our ancestral rolls to check which lineages you each come from. A marriage isn’t a union between two young people, as you seem to think. A marriage is a union between two families.”

Soo-Ja and Min kept their heads bent down, facing the floor.

“Abeoji, Min comes from a very good family,” said Soo-Ja.

“My father manufactures textiles,” said Min. “Silk, cotton, rayon. He is an industrialist, like yourself.”

Soo-Ja noticed that this did not seem to impress her father. In fact, it seemed to make him more concerned.

“If your father owns a factory, then why aren’t you working for him?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“My father didn’t want me to. My brother works for him.”

“Your older brother?”

“No, I’m the oldest.”

“You’re the oldest?” Soo-Ja’s father seemed