Everything Belongs to Us Page 21

  “They used to spare the churches,” a woman was saying. “But they’re targeting us now. Turning the workers against us.” Her big hands hacked the air as she spoke. Solid, square palms that projected competence and leadership.

  For weeks, this group had been discussing the government crackdown on church groups, an unusual and worrisome turn of events because the churches had historically enjoyed a level of protection. Korean churches, with their American missionary roots, still had strong contacts in the West. And while their American allies might turn a blind eye to the president’s oppressive political tactics, they would not ignore violence against the church or persecution of Christians, which hit closer to home even if it was on Korean soil. Jisun had discussed this paradox with Peter many times while they were working together.

  “The West won’t act if they hear of violence against workers and students. But Christians are not to be touched? Why? What’s the difference?” she’d asked.

  “Americans understand Christianity. They don’t really understand you. Koreans, I mean. I guess maybe they figure violence is just a part of your culture, but they don’t want to see it happen to Christians.”

  “But a Korean who is a Christian is still a Korean like anybody else. Does being a Christian suddenly make them more valuable?”

  “I never said it made sense, Jisun. I’m just telling you how it is.”

  And now, instead of going the way they had hoped—a loosening of government interference, a decrease in persecution and abuse—the country was moving backward in history, the Park government flexing its muscle in increasingly flagrant postures of aggression.

  Jisun listened intently, inching closer to the circle, not wanting to miss a single word.

  “The workers were always against us. What’s new? They think we’re just out to make them soft and take their money.”

  “You know that’s untrue. We were making progress with the study cells. We had to add another class last week to accommodate the growth. Even the ones who hate the religion want to learn about their rights. They don’t want to be left behind.”

  “Fine, but we’re not talking about whether or not the classes are successful. We’re talking about the risk. You heard about the arrests. Three pastors and I don’t know who else. They’re calling them subversives this time, and it’s serious. They don’t even care that they’re foreigners.”

  “Foreigners?” Jisun interjected forcefully. “Americans? Do you know who they are?”

  The woman who had been speaking dragged a tired finger across her brow, an expression of profound exhaustion compressed into a single gesture. “They are English,” she said. “And as I was saying, they’ve charged them with subversion under the National Security Law—”

  “Please, wait. Are you sure?” Jisun’s voice thumped in her ears as if it were coming at her, not from her. She was aware that she was speaking too loudly, but she could not bring her voice down or control the quaver. “Not American?”

  The woman gave her a long look and resumed speaking in a way that indicated Jisun should not interrupt again. “They’ve been here since ’62. Practically Korean by now, I’d say. But originally from England.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  “We all have friends.” Pupils glittering in candlelight made the woman seem almost omniscient, peering into Jisun’s selfish motives. “You’re not the only one.”

  “Of course,” Jisun stammered. “Thank you.”

  The door was so close. The temptation to flee churned in her stomach, swirling with the vast relief that, anyway, it wasn’t him. Peter was safe. Someone, a sympathetic voice, murmured, “Don’t be so hard on her, she’s obviously suffering.” But relief overrode everything, canceling embarrassment, canceling shame. Jisun exhaled loudly, expelling the air that had been trapped in her lungs.

  The young woman sitting beside her tapped her hand. “You know, you look so familiar.” She had a thick braid over one shoulder. Shy, steady eyes. Jisun smiled vaguely, still thinking about Peter. But the girl was studying her carefully. Her eyes widened with delayed recognition.

  “You were at the Mun-A strike, weren’t you? I was there too.” She grasped Jisun by the arm as if expecting to embrace her as a sister. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you sooner!”

  Panicked, Jisun shook her off. “No, it wasn’t me. You must be thinking about someone else.”

  “No, I’m sure of it. You were at the front line. So brave. You were one of the first, weren’t you? I saw they took you away in a van.” The young woman turned to the group. “Everyone. This is someone special. A great worker, very strong for our cause.”

  Jisun stood up. All eyes trained on her, ready to bring her into the fold. All she had to say was yes. But if they knew she was at the strike, if they knew she had been arrested, it would only be a matter of time before they would also find out that she had been released—and why. And wouldn’t they judge her as harshly as Peter had? How could she expect these strangers to understand, when the person she had trusted most had rejected her without a second look?

  “Don’t be so modest,” the girl was saying. “We’re safe here. You don’t need to be so cautious. Come, introduce yourself. I’m sorry I never knew your name—”

  “Safe, you say?” Jisun said. “How can we be safe if you don’t even know who I am? I’m not one of you. I’m not even who you think I am.” There was a fire in her chest. She barely recognized her own voice; the acid tone burned her throat. Who was speaking? She would never have allowed these words, denouncing the people she wanted so much to be a part of. It was fear that was making her speak so harshly, rejecting them first so they could not come any closer to knowing who she was. “Instead of telling me what I should do, how I should be,” she heard herself say, “I advise you to be more cautious. Use your head, sister. It’s this kind of thoughtless stupidity that puts us all at risk.”

  Quivering, Jisun waited for the next thing, but nothing came. Not tears or apologies, recriminations. The woman who might have embraced her earlier had turned her back, and the circle tightened around her, closing Jisun out. She felt as terrified as a child abandoned in a strange city, the people all turned to stone.

  She wanted to take it all back. She was willing to suffer whatever punishment they might mete out, whatever rejection might come, if only she could be forgiven for these terrible words. They were the opposite of everything she truly believed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  It could be that no one heard. It could be that everyone heard. Hot tears threw light in every direction, multiplying and magnifying dread. Jisun groped for her shoes where she had left them by the door. She paused for the briefest moment, hoping for a final word or gesture of kindness. But the circle was locked in silence, unwilling to utter even one more word in her presence. Waiting, as if with eyes in their backs, for her to leave.

  Sunam had heard rumors of the Circle taking its members to a nightclub before the summer break, but it had seemed the kind of easy, outrageous claim people made when they were protected by the veil of secrecy. The nightclubs at the foreigner hotels were exclusive domains reserved for entertaining international investors, who might be persuaded to see the future of Korea in the chandelier-laden lobbies and red-carpet entrances. Exempt from city curfew, these tourist establishments stayed open until four A.M., constituting a parallel country more daring and rich than the one locals knew. With names like Koreana, Chosun, Savoy, and President that projected a jumble of local and Western promises, these hotel nightclubs were beyond the reach of normal citizens.

  But there were exceptions. And where Min’s Circle was concerned, Sunam found it was unwise to discount rumors.

  “Did you know,” Namin said excitedly, “this is only the third year we’re going to the club? Min set it up before he graduated and now it’s become a tradition. Aren’t we so lucky?”

  “We?” said Sunam. “I don’t remember being invited.”

  “Of cou
rse you’re invited. Juno put together the list and I’m sure it’s fine. Everyone knows you’re my boyfriend.” He chafed against Namin’s glib, reassuring tone, which irritated him more than the insult of being excluded. Everyone knows you’re my boyfriend. If he went to the event, it would be only as a tagalong, the accessory. On his own, he was nobody. From the beginning of his relationship with Namin, he had suspected he would become eclipsed by her success. He told himself he would not mind, that it would be enough just to bask in her affection. But barely a couple of months had passed before he found himself struggling with the indignity of being overlooked.

  Sunam knew how much Juno loved to flaunt his ability to write lists and cross people off them. His non-invitation had not been an oversight. No other non-Circle member had been invited. The only exception was Jisun, whom Juno had specifically dispatched Namin to invite, knowing Jisun would never consider it otherwise. Sunam was surprised that even Namin had been able to persuade her.

  “You know he only invited Jisun to show off,” Sunam said.

  Namin gave a quick, irritated laugh. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. You know this sort of thing would never impress her.”

  “But you know what I mean.”

  “Why do you care what he does?” she asked.

  “Don’t you care? She’s your friend.”

  “Trust me, Jisun can take care of herself. We of all people don’t need to worry about her.”

  The prospect of visiting the fancy hotel and the out-of-bounds disco had made Namin so giddy with anticipation that nothing was worth worrying about in her estimation. Sunam was surprised it didn’t bother her more, the similarities between the nightclub and Itaewon, where her sister had ended up.

  It was nearly July before Namin had finally told him about her sister, who was living with a GI in Itaewon. Living with him and pregnant. She says they’re getting married, Namin had said dubiously. She says they’re moving to America. He tried to be understanding, but this new development seemed to weigh them down more than any of their other differences. Namin’s sister became a specter in their relationship, embodying Namin’s worst fears about the future and providing a living reminder of the horrible consequences of sex.

  So it surprised him that she had no qualms about going to the nightclub, which felt to Sunam like a glitzier version of America Town. The foreigners were businessmen, not soldiers, and landing a job there as a waitress or hostess was likely harder than working in Itaewon, but the trade-off was the same. No respectable girl would do it. Everyone would naturally assume she was selling her body for money or the promise of a visa—and probably she was.

  —

  SUNAM ALWAYS REMEMBERED that it was Namin who had kissed him first that night at the party, Namin who had lain down on the bed when he was a stranger whose intentions she could not surmise. But their physical relationship had stalled since those early days.

  “Did you know sperm can live up to five days inside the body? It just stays in there, swimming around causing trouble,” Namin said. “Five days!”

  He offered to wear two condoms. He would wear two condoms and pull out.

  “I can’t take the chance,” she said. “Think of everything I’ve worked for. Wiped out. Just look at my sister. How stupid do I have to be to make that same mistake. You understand, don’t you?”

  Sunam said he understood—and he did in theory. But it was like buying a car and losing the key. A car always in park. In recent weeks, the topic had become so tense that he and Namin barely breached arm’s length with each other. She seemed to fidget even when he tried to hold her hand, as if always anticipating the next move and marking out her defense. Maybe he was being petty and unreasonable. Sunam could no longer judge one way or the other. Probably there were just as many couples having sweet, chaste relationships like him and Namin. Couples who saved sex—and its consequences—for the proper confines of marriage. But on campus, all he ever seemed to see and hear about were the girlfriends who weren’t so cautious, who found ways to plan weekend trips with their boyfriends. Who laughed and played along with dirty innuendos, relishing their new sexual experience. Sunam envied those relationships and the guys in them, even the ones who never flaunted their newfound prowess. Perhaps he envied these men more for their quiet satisfaction. He suspected the bigmouths, the ones who went around bragging about how many girls they’d slept with, were probably just as frustrated as he was. He loathed to feel he had anything in common with them.

  As if to compensate for their receding physical intimacy, Namin became more verbal, affirming their relationship through words if not by touch. Everyone knows you’re my boyfriend. But Sunam didn’t like the way she kept telling him what to do, how to feel. How she decided what was and was not worth worrying about. She should worry a little more about Juno, he thought. She should feel defensive against him rather than against Sunam, who was actually on her side. Hadn’t she learned anything from the way Sunam had been treated?

  But he had had the same blind spot when he was in her position. That sense of being placed on a straight track to success, being so close to what everyone else wanted but could not have. If not invincible, he had thought himself protected, chosen. And Namin had so much more reason to believe it than he had. Without question, she was special. The one everyone wanted. He hated to think it, but she probably thought he deserved to be cut. She must, because the people who had judged him unfit had given her all the attention she deserved.

  “I think you should wear that blue and brown check shirt I like,” Namin was saying. “You think there’ll be a lot of foreigners there?”

  Sunam stopped listening. He was thinking about Juno, who believed he was entitled to Jisun purely because he wanted her, because he had planned for it as if for a difficult career move. Angling to get closer to her was so blatant an attempt to curry favor with her father that he thought anyone would be able to see right through it. Yet Sunam found himself feeling inexplicably furious, as if he’d caught a player rearranging stones on the baduk board, cheating at the most juvenile level. The difference was that Juno wasn’t cheating—he was free to pursue Jisun, free to make a fool of himself trying—so why should Sunam care? Jisun would never fall for something so obvious.

  “So how did you do it?” he asked Namin.

  “How did I do what?”

  “Get her to come. Jisun, I mean.”

  “Are you still worrying about that? Should I be jealous?”

  In fact a little jealousy wouldn’t have hurt. But by the wry twist of her smile, Namin implied that it was incomprehensible that she should envy Jisun. “I just told her it would be fun. We haven’t had fun in ages,” she said. “I told her there’ll be plenty of businessmen there, she could sell away her father’s company secrets. That made her laugh.”

  “Does she actually know anything worth selling?”

  “She would if she paid the slightest attention. She ignores anything to do with money just to spite him. If I were in her position, I would try to learn everything I could about his affairs. How can you spite someone when you have no information about them?”

  “Maybe it’s not spite, then. Maybe she’s just not interested.”

  “It takes a lot of energy to be that uninterested. That kind of effort requires spite.”

  “So you guys have fun, then. Why do I have to go?”

  “Because I want you to come,” she said. “If you’re worried about Juno, you should know you belong there just as much as I do. You don’t even have to talk to him—you’ll be too busy talking to me. Besides, I won’t go if you don’t.”

  Sunam knew Namin was only trying to be loyal, including him in her fancy outing so he wouldn’t feel left out. As much as it annoyed him to be her guest, he understood that she had done something genuinely nice by making sure they could go together. But with this last comment, she had overplayed her hand. “You really won’t go if I don’t?” he said. He was willing to give her credit for having been generous—but not for b
eing a saint.

  Namin paused, her good mood finally disrupted. “Are you saying you’re not coming? Or is this some kind of stupid test?”

  “I need to know your answer first.” In truth Sunam had already decided to go, but she should know he was doing her a favor, not the other way around. This fancy after-curfew experience might excite Namin, but he had no special wish to be at Juno’s mercy, drinking on his bill, expected to fawn over him with gratitude.

  “In that case I’m going,” Namin said. “Does that answer your question?”

  So they were both bluffing.

  “Actually it does.”

  Sunam supposed he should feel flattered she wanted him there at all, insisting he was required when it was clearly untrue. Her confidence was at times overbearing, making him feel irresolute and small, but he had never experienced anything like being the recipient of her devotion. She hurled herself at the project of loyalty and love with the same persistence with which she tackled life. Full force. No doubts, no questions. More than loved, Sunam felt lucky. Many days it was a kind of uncomfortable luck, like finding a precious thing and realizing the rest of his life was shabby and common in comparison. It made him restless and discontent, but what did a person do in a case like this? Only a fool would allow himself to lose the most valuable thing he’d ever held.

  “And you won’t sulk about it?” she said. “You won’t blame me for the things Juno says?”

  “So you admit he’s going to be a jerk about it.”

  “I’m just covering the possibilities. But yes, there is a chance he will be difficult.”

  “I won’t blame you if you don’t blame me for what I might do in retaliation. Deal?”

  She sighed. “Deal.”

  —

  WHEN THE WEEKEND arrived, Sunam chose a different shirt from the one Namin had mentioned. He had already had the right one cleaned and pressed, but looking at it, perfectly starched and crisp on its hanger, he suddenly grew disgusted with the idea of himself as an accessory to her. Instead he put on the oldest shirt he owned, a wrinkled red oxford with sleeves that pulled at his wrists and an uneven, shrunken hem. He felt more comfortable thinking of himself as a disgruntled interloper than Namin’s loser boyfriend rescued from the heap of rejection. People would be expecting him to be tucked in and acquiescent, yessing everything to death. He had expected it himself. Pulling on the awful shirt made him feel that he was in control.