This Burns My Heart Page 0,54

distance between her daughter and herself. But she also could not stay in a single spot for very long, as the lashing cold made every drawn breath feel like swallowing ice. So Soo-Ja kept walking in circles, going nowhere, helpless. Eventually, she felt her hands and feet freeze up, and had the distinct feeling she might topple over, stiff, like a statue.

When Soo-Ja had only five more steps left in her, she took those halting steps to the front of the medical office at the end of the street. She had felt such guilt earlier that now she did not think she’d dare come back to the place where this nightmare had begun. But, hoping that there might be a night nurse on call, Soo-Ja made her way there and knocked on the door, tasting the bitter ice in her mouth. She waited a few seconds, but no one came. The nurses, too, must have gone home. She banged on the door until her knuckles were almost stripped raw. Whatever hope she had left in her vanished instantly. Soo-Ja had been saving that door as a last alternative, but it had never been an alternative to begin with. With not an ounce of energy left in her body, Soo-Ja collapsed and fell to the ground. She pushed against the cold glass of the window, trying to pull herself up, but to no avail. She opened her mouth wide, having trouble breathing. She sucked in the air hungrily, but nothing happened. She closed her eyes, unconscious, as the snow began to bury her.

chapter eight

Soo-Ja opened her eyes, waking to find a tall, plump, upside-down nurse looking at her. The woman reached for her and lifted her up, as strong as a rhino. Putting Soo-Ja’s arm over her shoulder, she led her into the unbelievably warm office. Soo-Ja could still barely breathe, but she knew she would not die of frostbite and that certainty thawed her lungs. To see kindness—someone looking down and helping you—may be the world’s best placebo. Over the course of the next few minutes, as the nurse sat her down on a chair, placed her feet in a basin of hot water, and rubbed her cold hands with her warm ones, Soo-Ja felt her temperature start to return to normal. She didn’t know what did it—the warm water or simply the look on that woman’s face, smiling at her as if she were her long-lost sister.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer the door sooner! I was practically falling asleep, and didn’t know if the knocking was real or only a dream,” said the nurse. Soo-Ja smiled at her, to say it didn’t matter and she was just grateful she was there. “I’m here all alone at night and usually there’s a patient or two, but with the bad snowstorm, it seems even the medical emergencies have decided to wait.”

Soo-Ja drank green tea from the cup the nurse poured for her. She could feel her fingers again. The pain in her chest began to dissipate.

“Looks like our new President is making a lot of promises,” said the nurse, settling into a chair, with the newspaper before her face. “He says he’s going to start plans for reunification, give us a self-supporting economy, and turn horse dung into paper money! Imagine that. Personally, I voted for the other fella. I think Chung Hee Park is just a greedy powermonger, like the rest of them. He’s an autocrat, another Syngman Rhee, just minus the stupid Austrian wife. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a puppet of the North Koreans. Did you hear he went to the funeral of the American president? Now, that man didn’t like Park alive, and I can’t imagine he likes him any better dead.”

“Nurse…”

“What is it?” asked the nurse, lowering the newspaper and glancing over at Soo-Ja.

“I need to leave before the doctor comes,” said Soo-Ja, still in too much pain to move from her chair.

The nurse misunderstood her. “Dr. Yul-Bok Kim will be here early in the morning, in just a few hours, in fact, and he’ll be able to examine you. He went on a trip, but is back now. What you have, you think it can wait?”

“No, no. What I mean is, I need to be gone before he arrives. I have to go. I have to leave. Even if it’s still snowing. Please warn me if he’s on his way.”

The nurse seemed confused, and Soo-Ja could tell she was looking at her for