She had already sold all her belongings, quit her job in Seoul. Without her husband and daughter, there was nothing left for her there in that country, on those streets, in narrow alleyways echoing their footsteps. What else could she do now but surrender to her fate, to the multitude of decisions that brought her right here in this room alone with the windows open, feeling damp from her own sweat in a stranger’s clean sheets, staring at a stranger’s ceiling?
Knuckles tapped on her bedroom door.
“Yes?” she asked in Korean, sitting up, careful not to crush the map by her side.
“Hello.” An unfamiliar woman’s voice, husky yet clear. Mina smoothed her hair down with her hands and opened the door, where a woman, perhaps a few years older than her, with a long face, curly hair, and high cheekbones, smiled generously.
“I live next door.” She pointed down the hall. “You just came today?”
“Yes.”
“You must be tired.”
“Yes, very.”
“I’m cooking dinner. Do you want to join me?”
“Oh, no.” Her stomach growled. “That’s okay.”
“Please join me. I have some rice and soup.”
Mina’s head throbbed between her brows and on the sides of her skull. She wanted to jump back into bed, but she knew that the food would help her, and she had nothing of her own to eat. She didn’t know how to get to the grocery store either.
“I have plenty to share,” the woman said.
Mina followed the woman to the galley kitchen where in a small dining nook, she had set out banchan—kimchi and seasoned spinach and soybean sprouts—as well as two sets of paper napkins, chopsticks, and spoons. Staring at the objects neatly arranged, Mina realized how little she possessed, and how vulnerable, how small that made her feel. She’d have to buy all those things—utensils, bowls, at least one pot and pan.
“Please have a seat.”
Sliding herself onto the dining nook bench, she could see how the kitchen hadn’t been renovated or repaired in years. The greasy wallpaper, a pattern of tiny periwinkle flowers, peeled off the walls. Several of the cabinet doors didn’t close completely, or hung askew, as if on the edge of falling.
The woman said, “It’s very hot,” while placing two bowls of rice and kimchi jjigae with tofu and mushrooms on the table. With the steam from the dish rising in front of her, Mina realized it had been close to twenty-four hours since her last full meal. She wanted to dive into the food but waited out of politeness in front of the stranger.
“Where are you from? Please go ahead.” The woman gestured toward the bowl in front of Mina.
Mina blew on the soup before tasting what was the most tremendous thing on earth. The brininess of the doenjang on her tongue replenished her body while springtime bloomed like purple wildflowers in her head. It reminded her of the feeling of that first bite of food after losing her parents, when she had been found on the side of a dirt road by an older man, a villager, who had taken her to his house and fed her a single meal of doenjang jjigae before he had to let her go on her own. She remembered how she had cried for her mother as she ate, tears falling into the soup, and how the man with half of his teeth missing tried to comfort her, patting her on the back. Of course, he probably wanted to help her, but what could anyone do during a war, when a child had been another mouth to feed, a liability, when children losing their parents or parents watching their children blown to bits had been the norm?
“I’m from Seoul,” Mina said.
“Me, too. Well, not too far from there.”
“Oh.”
They ate in silence for the rest of the meal. Outside, crickets sang.
They were two women by themselves, living in this house without husbands, and apparently without children, too. Boarders. Too many questions might lead to too much information, too much in common, too much pain.
She dreamed of nothing that night. A purple surrender, the best sleep she had had in months without pills, without drinking, without even prayer.
In the morning, she went to the bathroom that she now shared with the woman down the hall. She unpacked her toiletry bag, laying out her toothpaste and soap at a corner of the vanity without disturbing the other woman’s belongings—a folded pink washcloth, a slimy bar of soap, a toothbrush in a bright green plastic cup. In the mirror, her black hair fell to her shoulders in a tangled bird’s nest. She couldn’t find her brush, so she used her fingers to rake through the mess, discarding stray hairs in the wastebasket.
After a long shower, she lay down in bed again, clean and relaxed, on the edge of forgetting the world for a few more hours. A sweet bird chirped close to her window while a weed whacker, a few houses down, shredded and whirred.
A knock on the door startled her. She rose to answer it.
“Do you need anything?” the landlady asked. Her face was soft and gentle, with a hint of pink lipstick.
“Oh.” Mina propped up the towel, slipping from her wet hair.
“I’m going to the store. Do you want to get some groceries with me?”
“Yes, yes. Let me get dressed.” Despite the heat, she picked out a long pin-striped skirt, a tan blouse. She applied liquid eyeliner and rose-colored lipstick carefully, as if painting her lips like art. Worried about the wad of cash hidden in a sock under the mattress, she locked the door with a padlock behind her.
In the landlady’s car with the windows down and the fan vents blasting air in their faces, they drove for about five minutes through a dusty white light, eyes squinting. The neighborhood was mostly concrete and treeless except for the battered-looking palms with thorny ribs, the tired and curled-leaf citrus trees, and hibiscus plants, with their platesize blooms and ashy jungle-colored foliage in the dry summer heat.
“Did your friend Mrs. Shin tell you about rent?” the landlady asked.
“Yes, $200, right? I can pay you when we get home.”
“Do you know where you’re going to work yet?”
“No, not yet.” Mina scanned the storefronts, the brightly colored signs in Korean—Drugstore, Books, Piano Lessons. “My friend mentioned some people she knows at a restaurant. She thought I could wait tables or cook. What do you do?”
“I own a clothing store. It’s small, but I get by.”
“Clothing? What kind?”
“Women’s.”
“I used to design clothing.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, I worked for a small clothing company in Seoul.”
“Hmm.” She sped up, changing lanes. “I wish I could hire you to help me. I need some help. But business has been pretty bad.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, ever since my husband left, I’ve been struggling.” She pulled into a large lot outside of a freestanding Korean supermarket buzzing with the movements of ordinary life, a kaleidoscope of social statuses (shiny Mercedes Benzes, beat-up Buicks, Ford trucks), mothers with children in tow loading bags of groceries into their cars, working men on break, smoking cigarettes in silence.
“Idiot,” the landlady yelled at a car beating her to a spot.
Once they had finally parked, Mina followed the landlady, who, in an automatic gesture, grabbed a shopping cart. The entire place had signs in Korean, too, which comforted her. Everything was Korean, the brands, the language on boxes and packaging.