This Burns My Heart Page 0,72

staying in Korea with his own family.

At the time, Min was walking by a mini–grocery store near their home in Daegu when an old woman—a distant acquaintance—asked him to help her carry boxes of apples into her store. She did not mention how heavy they were, and when Min lifted the first one, he heard a loud crack—it was his back. At this point, Min should have dropped the box on the ground, but, afraid to embarrass himself in front of the old woman—for she might think he was weak—he carried it all the way into the store, taking one long, excruciating step after another, and cracking his back even more.

Min suffered great pain for days, and his back never fully healed. He could not, he told his parents, move to America, and they left without him. By the time he could again move normally, Min also decided that the bad back would become the official reason why he couldn’t work. It had become an essential part of how they constructed their lives—it explained to Hana why, unlike other men his age, her father didn’t have a job, and it helped explain to others why Soo-Ja was the one earning their bread.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting!” Gi-yong waved his hands in front of him, animated.

“It’s no problem at all,” said Soo-Ja, after realizing that Min, now sulking, would not reply to Gi-yong, even though he was the one being addressed. “My husband is very excited about this investment opportunity. There are those who say our country will not grow, but I disagree. I think this is all just the beginning.”

Gi-yong nodded. “There’s one thing I want to alert you to, before we move any further.” She noticed that though he kept looking at both of them, Gi-yong was now really addressing her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“When we spoke before, it was almost a year ago, and I said I was selling the land for three hundred won per pyeong. Because interest in the land has been so high, the prices have gone up since then. If you change your mind, I will understand.” He looked embarrassed as he said this.

“How much more?” Soo-Ja asked.

“Five hundred won per pyeong, and I’m selling a minimum of a thousand pyeong.”

Five hundred thousand won. And she had only 200,000.

Soo-Ja nodded silently. “I expected the price to be higher, with inflation and all, just not that much higher.”

Gi-yong looked directly at her. They both dropped the pretense that he was doing business with Min.

“You look like a good person, and I want you to be able to buy the land. But I have to think of myself and the other investors. I can’t make an exception for you.”

“You won’t have to. I may not have all the money right now, but I will. When do I have to put down my share by?”

Gi-yong sighed. “The end of the month.”

Soo-Ja tried to hide her hesitation. “I’ll have the money by the end of the month. Don’t sell my share of the land to anyone else.”

“I can’t hold them for very long.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have the money. When I see you again, Mr. Im, I’ll have the payment and those acres of land will be mine.”

Soo-Ja could see in his eyes that he did not believe her, but the friendly smile on his lips told her that he’d do her the favor of waiting. As they parted, she decided to memorize the look of doubt on his face, as she knew she would need that look to encourage her in the long, hard weeks ahead.

Since Soo-Ja and Min had moved to Seoul seven years earlier, they had watched as the city stubbornly rose from the ground, crushing the earth on its way up, with hundreds of new buildings built on slums and empty lots. Walking around the streets of downtown Seoul, Soo-Ja could see bulldozers and trucks digging through the hard soil every day, the landscape filled with scaffolding and brickwork. Thousands of new businesses and industries sprouted around the city, manufacturing goods that could be exported to rich countries. Rickshaws gave way to Kias, and streetcars surrendered to trains. President Chung Hee Park had been borrowing money heavily from the Americans and was using it to open factories, modernize shipyards, and build highways. Soo-Ja had not expected to see her country change so much in the course of less than a decade.

But, as Soo-Ja quickly realized, modernity seemed to require an endless amount of