This Burns My Heart Page 0,7

figured it must be another one of her cousins.

“Of course not! She’s just making a big show of this to get attention. The sorrow she’s causing Aunt and Uncle! How can she be such an ungrateful daughter?” Ae-Cha continued.

“I think you’re being hard on Soo-Ja. Maybe she really wants to do it.”

Soo-Ja peeked from the corner and recognized her cousin Chun-Hee’s short, boyish haircut, heavy glasses, and royal blue hanbok. Chun-Hee sat on a tree stump next to the outhouse, holding a roll of toilet paper. The door—worn out from the wood constantly expanding and contracting in the rain—was left an inch ajar, and Soo-Ja guessed Ae-Cha was inside. Soo-Ja glanced behind her own shoulder, to see if anyone was coming, but there was no one, and she turned her attention back to the conversation.

“Soo-Ja really wants to travel so she can find and marry a brown man!”

“Are you sure you’re not just jealous, Ae-Cha?” Chun-Hee teased her. “Because you’re not as pretty as she is?”

“I’d be pretty, too, if I never did a day’s work in my life. Who ferments her kimchee? Who distills her soy sauce? Her servants! It must be very tiresome to have to do all that shopping!”

Chun-Hee chuckled for a while. Soo-Ja listened, in disbelief.

“Diplomat? What a lie! Secretary is more like it. She claims she got into the Foreign Service. I’d like to see that letter,” Ae-Cha continued, her voice growing louder and more animated. “Although I don’t blame her for lying. She’s such an old maid—she needs to start looking into other options.”

Soo-Ja could not put up with this any longer. She turned the corner and walked to the outhouse. Chun-Hee saw her first, and immediately her face turned white. She froze to her spot, dropping the toilet paper on the floor. Ae-Cha could see her, too, as the door to the outhouse creaked further open on its own. She squatted uncomfortably, holding up her skirt. Her previous look of confidence disappeared.

“You two are right,” said Soo-Ja, in a sarcastic tone. “I am an old maid. I’m twenty-two years old, after all. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot get men to look at me.”

Chun-Hee fluttered her hands in disagreement. “No, no, eonni! You must’ve misheard us! We weren’t criticizing you!”

Soo-Ja stared at her evenly. “I appreciate your being concerned about my parents and me. You two being guests here, I won’t say any more. But in the future, if you’re curious about my life, feel free to ask me directly. You won’t have to wonder or guess. It’ll save you time.”

With that, Soo-Ja turned away from them and walked to the main house. When she arrived, she saw that the ceremony had already started. All of the men were gathered by a large wooden altar filled with plates of food—offerings to the dead. Two tall candles were lit and placed at each end of the altar, which stood in front of a large folding screen with five panels. The screen covered the entire wall and was filled with hanja, Chinese ideograms. Below the altar, incense burned from a small table.

Soo-Ja joined her mother and the other women, who sat against the wall, while the men performed the rites. She watched as her father slowly poured a glass of wine, and then placed it on the altar as the first offering. Soo-Ja gazed at her father’s face. She stared at his soft cotton-white hair, and the thick lines on the sides of his cheeks. He had a few days’ stubble on his chin, and bags under his eyes. She realized that because of her, he had not slept well the previous night, either.

“Soo-Ja,” whispered her mother, after waiting for the men’s chants to grow louder and drown out her voice. “It is fortunate that Seollal is today. It’ll remind you of the three Confucian obediences that must rule a woman’s life.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. It has been drilled into me from the day I was born. Obedience to father, obedience to husband, obedience to male child.”

But Confucius was wrong, thought Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja’s mother watched as the men bowed on the floor, lowering their knees, followed by their hands, and then their heads—all in one continuous, seamless motion. They folded themselves small like human paper dolls, going from adult, to child, to newborn, and then upright again. Soo-Ja’s mother narrowed her eyes and spoke softly to her daughter.

“Don’t think you can fool me. I know how much you want to go. You’ve always been