gleamed in his eyes. “His obsession is killing him, Seol. It’s killing him.”
* * *
The ondol floor beneath where I knelt grew warm as I waited inside the office, hoping a hint of color would return to Inspector Han’s cheeks.
Once he regains consciousness, Ryun had told me earlier, talk to him, try to keep him awake until the physician arrives.
I dug my nails into my skirt, bunching it into a tight ball until my knuckles turned white. I waited, but the ghostly pallor clung to his skin and would not leave.
* * *
Memories flickered in the cavern of my mind. The radiant moonlight filtering in through the brushwood door. A sputtering candle and its dancing shadows. My brother’s hands over my ears; muffled voices seeping in through his fingers, Catholic demons! They’ll bring a curse on us! His eyes, steady and silent as a sunlit meadow, the corners crinkling as he smiled at me.
All will be well, he’d whispered. I promise you.
My finger hovered as it traced the contours of Inspector Han’s face, his stern brows, the curve of his eyelids, and the straight line of his nose. Was he still there, this brother of mine? My hand jerked back as his eyes half-opened.
There was an odd fogginess still swimming in his gaze, like he was somewhere else, and wherever that was, it was a place where I did not exist. But he was awake, finally! Heartbeat racing, I took in a deep breath to call out for Ryun, for he might have returned by now. But before I could, Inspector Han whispered, “Those letters…”
“Letters, sir?” I waited for something more, but he drifted in and out of consciousness.
I looked around. There was the low-legged table that Inspector Han had always sat behind during my visits. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side of us. And an object I’d always observed from afar: the black-lacquered document box with gold-painted decoration, mother-of-pearl inlay, and metal fittings. Folded sheets were piled inside, with the lid resting on the table next to it.
“Those letters,” Inspector Han’s voice resurfaced. “Give them to Ryun.”
“I will,” I promised, and when silence followed, I could hear only the pounding of my frightened heart. “Inspector, please, talk to me. Ask me anything.”
“Your older sister … she is well?”
He made himself sound even more like a stranger, and I had to restrain myself from correcting him. Our sister.
I instead played along. “I believe so. She got married many years ago.”
“And your sister … when she asks one day, tell her I am well.”
“Won’t you see her and tell her yourself, sir?”
In the quiet that followed, I realized that it was hopeless. I thought he would want to get to know me and my family, the mystery now solved and my identity revealed. All this time, I must have really thought he would come back as my brother, ready to live in Inchon, perhaps by taking up a humble position in the government office nearby and living a small life.
Small, I thought bitterly. No, Inspector Han was meant for a different life. He would not, could not change back into my brother.
“Too much time has passed,” he said, echoing my own thoughts, “for things to go back to the way they were. It has been too long.”
It was too late for things to go back, especially after what I had done to him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I betrayed you, sir.”
“Do not be. Sometimes betrayal is the deepest expression of love.”
For a long time I stayed still, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed. His eyes were open, the dim flickering of light in them growing even dimmer. It was like watching an eclipse slowly shut out the sun.
Then the pace of his breathing slowed, saliva slipping down the side of his mouth.
“Inspector?”
His eyelids flinched. A sign, perhaps, that he’d heard me.
I was running out of time, yet I had so much to say. “In those letters,” I blurted out, “did you ever write about me?” I knew he had, but I wanted him to speak openly, to share more about what he thought about me. It was my only way of asking him, Do you even care?
The slightest smile tugged at his lips, like a rare ripple in the calm sea. “Tomorrow, Seol.”
Just then I heard approaching footsteps and male voices. I rose from the floor and hurried to the door, struggling to breathe through the swelling of mingled panic and hope. But just as I reached the