“How can we not open? We have regular customers. We’d better do what we are supposed to do, especially at a time like this.” Gyeong-ae cast a grateful, admiring glance toward Pil-sun.
“I can watch the store by myself if I can practice for an hour. Just tell me how much things cost and then go on to the hospital,” Gyeong-ae offered.
“I don’t know many of the prices myself.”
The two women, their worries forgotten, worked together in easy companionship. After a while, Won-sam trudged in. Byeong-hwa had gone to see him on his way to the hospital and had asked him to help out for the day. As soon as he arrived, he got straight down to business.
“You might not guess it from looking at me, but I can do anything. I can cook rice, I can boil soup, and I can even ride a bike if you want me to make deliveries. But I don’t know how to go around beating people up, like the master does.” Amid the young women’s laughter, Won-sam picked up a broom and busied himself.
One Girl’s Sorrow
After a flurry of morning customers, Gyeong-ae briefly left the store to check on her daughter and mother at home. As soon as she returned, Pil-sun rushed over to the hospital to relieve her mother.
Byeong-hwa still hadn’t returned from the police station.
At the hospital, Pil-sun stayed by her father’s bed until he fell into a deep slumber. Only then did she slip quietly from the room and gaze at the streets through the picture window in the corridor. Gwanghwamun loomed in front of her, standing tall in the mist of the field on the other side of the stream. The overcast day weighed heavily on Pil-sun, making her feel even more exhausted than she already was.
She noticed a few people flying kites on the frozen stream. Young children frolicked around them.
Today was still part of the long New Year’s holidays, Pil-sun realized. Until tomorrow they’ll be flying kites and bouncing on seesaws. She couldn’t remember the last time she had heard the creak of a seesaw. Unlike most young women her age, she’d grown up totally isolated from other girls and had never worn a New Year’s outfit or gone out to play during the first two weeks of the new year. For a long time, she stood listlessly at the window, melancholy rising within her. Sadness held a part of her while anticipation tugged at another. Her moods fluctuated like passing shadows or the drowsiness that invades you on a warm spring day. She felt like crying and laughing at once, as if she had just set her wedding date. Drifting through a fog, no particular thought remained in her head for long.
Wondering if Deok-gi would come, she began to watch the people approaching the hospital. He had called the store earlier that morning, inquiring after Pil-sun’s father. He promised to stop by the hospital later.
I’m not going to wait for him. If he comes, I wouldn’t know what to do. Pil-sun made excuses to herself and tried to shake off the thought of him. Deok-gi’s sister came to mind. Though Pil-sun had never seen her, she imagined that she was a pretty girl who dressed in finery and who whirled around her big house, giggling happily.
Some people have no worries. Ashamed of having such a thought, Pil-sun tried to push it away. She could hear her father and Byeong-hwa chastising her. She turned around suddenly, thinking she had heard her father’s voice. But when she silently pushed the door open, she could see her father sleeping in the bed by the window. The other patients turned their pale countenences toward her. Gently, she closed the door and returned to her post.
The hospital stay costs three won a day, which comes to ninety won a month. We make only five won a day at the shop, perhaps because we’ve just started, and we depend on the store for our living. After paying the hospital bill, we may even go through all that we have.
Pil-sun tormented herself with these worries. Also she couldn’t bear to see her father lying under nothing but a dingy, paper-thin sheet with which he had covered himself three winters in a row. Her cheeks burned, imagining what others might think of the grimy sheet. At the hospital, they talked about providing a blanket but claimed it hadn’t yet been returned from the wash. The other patients in the room had been placed in better beds, while her father was exposed to a draft from the window. Byeong-hwa had offered his own quilt in the morning, but that seemed out of the question. Pil-sun didn’t have the heart to soil his new Japanese quilt that he had recently bought to sleep on the tatami floor at the store. What would he cover himself with at night?
She worked herself into a frenzy, until she could picture herself following a funeral bier. But then, from out of the blur came a familiar Western suit, about to cross Jongchinbu Bridge stretching out below her.
Managing to compose herself as blood rushed to her head, Pil-sun wiped away her tears. Deok-gi had already crossed the bridge. How delightful it would be if she could open the window and welcome him with a graceful wave. Pil-sun swallowed her excitement; her pride wouldn’t allow it. She fully understood the tacit constraints of her position. His education, wealth, and class were vastly different from hers, and she would appear a flirtatious, loose woman if she weren’t careful. But nevertheless, she was simply happy to see him. He was so elegant and pleasing to look at. Whenever a welcoming, joyful smile bloomed from her eyes and mouth, however, she did her best to disguise it. Her hidden joy would linger like fog hanging low on a cloudy day.
When Deok-gi reached the hospital gate, he caught sight of Pil-sun and smiled. She returned the smile and withdrew from the window.
Pil-sun met Deok-gi at the front door. The rattle of a bicycle being parked outside made them notice Won-sam. “Master! You walked over so fast.” He bowed and brought over a bulky package.
Deok-gi thanked him. Pil-sun hurriedly intercepted it, preventing him from carrying the bundle himself.
Holding a fruit basket in one hand and a pale brown blanket, tied with a leather strap like a traveler’s pack, in the other, she blushed and said, “You’re so generous.”
“Miss, I’m running two errands today — as a deliveryman for Sanhaejin and as the master’s servant.” Won-sam laughed as he turned away.
“You should take a break to thaw yourself out. Are you returning to the store?” Pil-sun called after Won-sam.
“It’s all right. I’d better hurry back. Your mother says she’ll be here soon, so I expect you’ll come afterward, right?” Won-sam jumped on his bicycle and pedaled away powerfully. Deok-gi and Pil-sun watched him go, exchanging glances and smiling.
“I see that he’s good-hearted, though I’ve known him only a few days.”
“If he’s useful, why don’t you keep him as a helper?”
“I don’t know whether he wants to or if the Hwagae-dong family will let him.”
“It can be arranged one way or another.” They walked down the long corridor together. “That blanket, you won’t mind? It was my grandfather’s. He wasn’t covered with it when he died, though.”
“Of course not. I don’t know how to express my gratitude for your constant — ”
“Please don’t mention it. Your father looked so cold yesterday. But some people don’t like using things that belonged to the dead.”
“Do only the living use hospital beds and quilts? I’ll cover my father with it, but you really didn’t have to. ” Pil-sun was so moved that her throat tightened and she couldn’t finish her sentence.
When she spread the blanket over her father, he seemed pleased but was too weak to express his thanks.