This Burns My Heart Page 0,95

bags out, heavy as they were, and placed them in front of the group. She did this noiselessly, without saying anything. By the time she had come out, Nami had already reached into a red envelope in her purse and pulled out a series of 100-won bills. She placed the money on the counter—it was the exact amount; they knew exactly how much they owed. Soo-Ja saw Nami put the rest of the money back in her purse, silently, while the others took the bags and headed out of the hotel. She herself stayed in the front area for a while, and waited for the time to come to close for the day.

chapter fourteen

“Aren’t the renditions beautiful? Almost like art,” said Gi-yong, pointing at the pictures on his walls. Gi-yong and Soo-Ja were in his office, in Myong-dong, a few miles from her hotel. Behind his desk, Gi-yong had put up two posters of the land south of the Hangang River: one set, marked “Now,” were photos of the land as it was in the present—empty, mere fields, grass dried out by the sun and the cold winds; the other set, labeled “The Future,” was an artist’s drawing showing the land in the way Gi-yong expected it to be eventually—an urban landscape, with gleaming glass surfaces, high-rises, and billboards advertising Coca-Cola. “You came in the nick of time. I don’t know how much longer I could have held your spot.”

“Actually, I don’t have the money yet. I came to ask if I could have more time,” Soo-Ja said, clutching her purse, looking at Gi-yong from across his desk.

“Mrs. Choi,” said Gi-yong sternly. “You know I have other investors interested in the land, with cash on hand to pay me. I’m waiting for you as a favor. I could sell the last lot tomorrow if I wanted to. Do you want to give up? Should I just go ahead and sell it to someone else?”

“No. I still have two weeks left,” said Soo-Ja. “And you gave me your word. I’ll get the money. I’ll have it for you by the time we agreed upon.”

“I don’t doubt that. I have a feeling you’re the kind of woman who always gets what she wants,” said Gi-yong.

“Actually, I hardly ever do, but I can feel my luck changing,” she said, faking a smile.

“Yes. It must be frustrating for you to have to work in that hotel. A woman with your beauty needs a man to take care of her.”

Soo-Ja did not blink. “Great. I’ll tell my husband that.”

Gi-yong laughed. “You must think I’m a pig, don’t you? I’m not, I’m just direct. Look at your hands. They’re beautiful. They’re not meant to scrub things. They should simply rest on top of beautiful, very expensive marble countertops. The kind I happen to have in my house.”

Soo-Ja shook her head. “Mr. Im, I’m not interested in being a rich man’s wife. I don’t care about marble, or onyx, or any of that. That’s not why I want the land.”

“Really? Then what do you want?” asked Gi-yong, leaning forward.

Soo-Ja thought for a moment. “For one thing, I would like my daughter to have her own room, in our own house, far away from all the men who stay as guests in the hotel.”

Gi-yong nodded slightly. He dropped his leer and gazed at her the way he might a sister or a mother. “I get a feeling, Mrs. Choi, that you’ll get that—and more—very soon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Im.”

After a brief silence, both of them rose from their seats, and Gi-yong and Soo-Ja shook hands. “Two weeks?” he asked.

“Two weeks,” she replied.

It seemed petty to pray for won, when others might be praying for food, or health, or love even, thought Soo-Ja. But every night that week she prayed, asking God to help her, and it may or may not have been a coincidence when, on the third day, she received a phone call from her old friend Jae-Hwa, asking if she could visit her at the hotel. Soo-Ja had not seen Jae-Hwa in three years, though she often thought of the night she had helped her leave her husband. Jae-Hwa had married again—miraculously, to the owner of the electric fan factory where she worked. Soo-Ja had not gone to their wedding—she did not have days off at the hotel—but Jae-Hwa forgave her, and often sent letters talking about how Soo-Ja had saved her, and that if she had a good life now, it was only because of Soo-Ja.

Soo-Ja