Waxing Moon Read online

  She blew out the candle and wiped her eyes. She let her pitch-black satin hair drop from its twist and unbraided it and then slipped out of her clothes. Her husband was fast asleep. She lay next to him, awake, until deep into the night, sorting through her thoughts and calming her agitated mind. A few minutes before she fell asleep, she smiled, her eyes almost closed, remembering a scene from her childhood. A farrier had dipped a piece of metal into a furnace and a few minutes later he took it out to show how red, how hot, how powerful it was. “Don’t you dare come near me, or you will be fatally hurt,” he warned the children around him, smiling mischievously at the seven-year-old Mistress Yee.

  11

  By the time Nani was so itchy that she woke up, she already had six mosquito bites on her legs. They always bit her, no one else in the room. It was just before dawn. She lifted her left leg in midair and scratched until her skin bled.

  She sat up. Even though it was midsummer, the heat had temporarily abated after the pounding rain.

  The little maid, Soonyi, barely fourteen but appearing younger because of her small physique, lay diagonally with her limbs stretched out in four directions. She had joined the household only a year before to assist the kitchen maid. But since last spring the kitchen maid had taken time off to take care of her dying mother in the neighboring village.

  In the corner was a lump of Mirae in a pathetic fetal position, bobbing up and down as she breathed rapidly. That was strange because she usually slept on her back, with her nose arrogantly tilted up and her long legs stretched straight out. Curious, Nani crawled on her knees over to Mirae. Even before she got close to her, she could feel the heat radiating from Mirae’s body. She was hot. They were not on speaking terms, but Nani shook her shoulder, reluctantly. Mirae moaned and jerked.

  “What’s the matter?” Nani asked grimly. It was too early to start a new day.

  “I think I am dying,” Mirae barely managed to say.

  Nani thought quickly. Her late mother had administered every domestic disaster. After she had passed away, Nani rushed to Mistress Kim with every little anomaly in the house. But now she was alone. She had to use her own head, and it wasn’t always easy.

  Fever. What did Mother do about a fever? What did Mistress Kim say about a fever?

  Nani gaped at Mirae. She was drenched in sweat. Her hair was loose and a few strands were stuck on the side of her face. Even when she was sick, Nani thought, she was pretty.

  Min never seemed to want to touch her. On the way back from Mrs. Wang’s place the day before, he could have done whatever he pleased, but he hadn’t. Was he simply a nincompoop? Or was she simply not attractive? Mirae moaned again, and Nani collected herself.

  Her instinct told her that she needed to dry Mirae first and change her clothes. So she pulled out a new undergarment from the chest and began to undress her. It was almost impossible and she was also uncomfortable, considering the kind of relationship she had with Mirae: they were more or less enemies. But why? Nani rummaged through her memory to remember what event had turned them into hating each other. But there was really nothing. Mirae was just too pretty. She behaved like no maid. Supercilious she was. Mistress Yee’s shadow. A shameless parasite. Nani began to untie the knot at her chest. She got nervous, noticing her fingers becoming clumsy.

  Nudging at the little kitchen maid with her foot, Nani called out, “Soonyi!” She was sleeping with her mouth open. Nani hated to wake her up from her dream, but she needed someone else to assist her or at least witness what she was doing.

  “Soonyi!” she called once again, in a louder voice.

  To her surprise, Soonyi quickly sat up, gibbered for a few moments, and then rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Looking about, she whined, “What is it?”

  “Light the candle, will you?” Nani asked, with annoyed urgency in her voice.

  “What’s going on?” Soonyi asked.

  Nani didn’t answer. She removed Mirae’s top garment and began to pat her dry.

  Soonyi rubbed her eyes, lit the candle, and gasped. “Gods! What on earth are you doing, Big Sister?”

  “Get a bowl of water. She is sick. Can’t you see?” Nani said, in an exaggerated tone of voice, just as her mother had used to speak to her when she was busy.

  “All right. What happened?” Soonyi asked as she was leaving the room for the kitchen, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer.

  “Bring a spoon too,” Nani commanded.

  When Soonyi came back with a bowl of water, Nani held Mirae up and asked Soonyi to feed her water with the spoon.

  “She is not swallowing it, Big Sister!” Soonyi cried.

  Nani was sweating profusely now too. She thought hard, her teeth rattling from nervousness and her eyes focusing on the candlelight.

  “Bring me a clean cloth,” Nani said.

  “Where is it?” Soonyi asked, moving her innocent eyes uncertainly.

  “In the cupboard. In the kitchen. I don’t know. Look for it!”

  Soonyi frowned and sulked, pouting her lips. She went to the kitchen. The gray light from the east was emerging, and the roosters in the distance were announcing it. She looked about to find a clean cloth in the kitchen. She saw the low table on which she had served dried cuttlefish and sesame cookies to Mr. O’s visitor the day before. The cookies were untouched. She ate one. It was even better than yesterday. A little less crunchy, but sweeter from the oozing honey. She ate another. She drank a little plum wine from the jug. That was the only wine she liked, because it was sweet.

  Nani examined the skin of Mirae’s chest. It was a whole new world. It resembled the flesh of a peeled peach. It gleamed, blinding her.

  “Big Sister, is this good enough?” Soonyi came in and showed her a piece of white cloth that was used in the kitchen for making bean curd.

  Nani sighed, and snatched it from Soonyi’s hand. “We need to dress her in the dry clothes. You hold her from behind and I will put the clothes on,” Nani said. Mirae did not put up a fight.

  Nani dipped the cloth in the water and let the end of it hang in the hot mouth of Mirae, letting her suck the moisture.

  “She needs to rest. Make sure she gets water constantly, even if it’s one drop at a time. I am going to ask Mistress Yee what I should do about this. Stay right here,” Nani ordered, pointing her finger at Soonyi.

  “I am not going anywhere, Big Sister,” said Soonyi, looking worried.

  Nani left the room and walked up the steps to go across the yard to Mistress Yee’s quarters. Her head felt light.

  Min was walking toward the kitchen with split wood on his back for the stove. He was already sweating on his neck. As he disappeared into the rear entrance of the kitchen, Nani thought about Mirae’s radiant skin. She walked faster and went to the outhouse, and when she came out, Min was coming toward her to go outside to do other chores. He passed Nani without acknowledging her presence. Nani picked up a pebble and hesitated for a moment, but before he went too far, she threw the pebble and hit him on his back. He turned around and shot a glance at her.

  Nani sighed in frustration.

  Min strode toward her and picked her up by the arms and put her back down on the ground. She slapped him hard because she felt frightened. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. He stared at her for a moment, turned around reluctantly, and began to walk away. “Idiot!” Nani said to the back of his head.

  Min turned around and looked down at his feet. A group of busy ants worked right by his foot. He moved carefully, so as not to step on them. He looked down once more, as if making sure the creatures were all right. He stared at Nani’s skirt blankly and then his glance moved to her feet.

  Her toes wiggled. Her fingers fidgeted. She wondered what Min was thinking. He came over to her slowly and grabbed her hand. His palm was moist and hot. They walked toward the storage room. S
he had the key to it. They entered in silence and closed the door behind them. In the dark they stood immobilized for a while, listening to each other’s breathing and getting used to the dark. And then Min pulled her close to his chest and groaned like a beast. His arms compressed her organs in her rib cage so tightly that she felt they might explode. When he finally released her, the air temporarily trapped in her throat escaped violently through her mouth, producing a loud sound, the burp of a giant. He rubbed her head ever so gently and groaned again. Nani broke out sobbing, punching his chest. He groaned again. Nani said, “I hate you!” Min kept rubbing her head and groaned more loudly. His body was trembling ever so slightly. Nani stopped punching him. She relaxed in his arms for a while.

  “Gods! What am I doing here? Mirae is sick as a dog. I have to go and ask Mistress Yee what I should do!” Nani sprang up and opened the door. Before she ran, she looked around and met Min’s eyes. He was smiling down at her like Buddha. She pushed him away and ran like a little rabbit, looking back with a mischievous grin on her lips.

  12

  Halfway to Mistress Yee’s quarters, Nani suddenly turned around and went back to the maids’ quarters. She didn’t think Mistress Yee would be up. Besides, she wouldn’t be interested in the welfare of her household members. She would reprove her for making noise so early in the morning.

  Nani slipped into the kitchen, out of breath. Her heart was still pounding violently. She drank water in the kitchen, dripping it all over her chest. She stood there, lost in thought, reviewing what had just happened in the storage room. Min’s body had felt like a perfect rock by a creek, smoothed over eons, where everyone would want to sit and listen to the sound of the cascading water or to lie down and find a million flecks of golden light dancing through the branches high above which would make one’s head spin as fast as the earth rotated. For as long as she could remember, Min had loved her. He cared about her as if there were nothing else in the world, but why didn’t he covet her like a normal man? She sucked her cheek, puzzled, dissatisfied, but strangely happy too.

  “Big Sister!” Soonyi said, coming into the kitchen.

  Nani whirled around. “You startled me!”

  “I am sorry, Big Sister. I was looking for you because I needed your help to get started with breakfast,” Soonyi said, on the verge of tears. She was tired. While Nani was out, Mirae had woken up and screamed about the cloth she found in her mouth. “Are you trying to choke me?” she had asked.

  “How is Mirae?” Nani asked.

  “Oh, she is fine. After yelling at me, she fell back asleep as soon as she put her head on the pillow,” Soonyi explained.

  “If she has the energy to yell, she will recover in no time,” Nani said.

  “What do I do with the soaked mung beans?” Soonyi asked.

  “Go and rub them between your hands until they are hulled. And then you know what to do. I don’t need to explain how to grind the beans, do I?”

  “No, Big Sister. That’s always been my chore,” Soonyi assured Nani.

  “When you are done, go to Mistress Yee and tell her that Mirae is sick. Very sick. Tell her she is as hot as an iron on the stove,” Nani said, beginning to chop vegetables.

  “I can’t go see Mistress Yee,” Soonyi whimpered.

  “Child, what is the matter with you?” Nani asked, frowning. Half of her mind was elsewhere. Min had shoulders like . . . what?

  “Mistress Yee doesn’t like me,” Soonyi said, turning pale.

  “That’s no news. She likes no one,” Nani said, slicing summer zucchinis as thinly as she could.

  “Should I talk to her when I take breakfast to her?” Soonyi asked.

  “No,” Nani replied, and placed her knife on the cutting board. “You don’t bring up problems before breakfast. You do that when the mistress is done with breakfast, so that at least she won’t have a table full of food to turn over. Besides, if she gets upset before breakfast and refuses to eat, you will be pleading with her to eat all day long.”

  Soonyi looked thoughtful. She definitely didn’t want to spend all day begging Mistress Yee to take her meals.

  “Of course, if we could get a chance to speak to the master, that would be the simplest way out of trouble. But we might have to talk to Mistress Yee. After all, Mirae is her favorite maid. And she is going to look for Mirae any minute anyway,” Nani said. “Don’t stand there like a scarecrow. Will you go get me some eggs? And wake up, will you?”

  “Yes, Big Sister. How many?” Soonyi asked, widening her eyes.

  “Please,” Nani drawled. “Don’t get my blood boiling so early in the morning. You go and get however many eggs you see in the basket. Don’t you know that eggs are delivered every morning by the boy down by the creek?”

  “Yes, of course,” Soonyi said quietly and fled the kitchen.

  Nani crushed garlic with the heavy wooden handle of the knife. After putting it aside in a little bowl, she began to chop onions, which made her sniffle. Suddenly, she turned around. Nani often thought that she caught a glimpse of her late mother. She sat down by the stove and cried a little, thinking of her. Sometimes at night, she would look at the door, thinking that at any moment her mother would come in and lie down next to her. And sometimes she would see her mother in her dreams; afterward, she would feel lonely and distracted all day long. Min made her feel good, but no one would ever be able to take her mother’s place, she knew. She blew her nose. She tightened the string of her apron and began to cook zucchini in a pot, stirring the vegetable intermittently.

  “Big Sister, here are three eggs,” Soonyi said as she came in.

  “Good,” Nani replied.

  “What is the matter?” she asked, seeing Nani’s red eyes.

  “Nothing. Now I want you to get a scoop of bean paste for the soup,” she said.

  “Sure,” Soonyi replied, looking at Nani blankly.

  “Get going. Don’t stand around,” Nani chided Soonyi.

  A few minutes later, Soonyi came in with bean paste on a spatula.

  “Get a strainer. And press the paste through it into the water,” Nani ordered.

  Soonyi did as she was told.

  In the meantime, Nani broke the eggs into a bowl. She swirled them with a spoon, adding chopped scallion and gingko nuts and sea salt. She was going to poach them in a double boiler.

  In an hour, there was a hot meal on a low table. Nani and Soonyi carried it to their master and mistress, who sat close to each other, smirking about something like kids. Nani was relieved to find her superiors in a good mood.

  The maids wished them a very good appetite and left. On the way back to the kitchen, Nani lectured Soonyi about how she had put her face too close to the food as they took the low table in. This was what her mother had said to her some years before.

  Soonyi denied having done so, just as Nani had vehemently argued against her mother’s accusation.

  They walked back to the kitchen. Nani was upset. She wanted Soonyi to acknowledge her own shortcoming and say that she wouldn’t do it again.

  In the kitchen, Soonyi took a gulp of water and dropped a piece of fried zucchini into her mouth.

  “Soonyi, let me teach you something. Don’t eat standing,” Nani snapped. Her mother had also said this to her often. At the time, Nani hadn’t understood. But now she did. It wasn’t proper. It was something a maid would do. And a maid didn’t have to live the life of a maid, her mother had emphasized.

  Nani set the table for three in the middle of the hardwood floor in front of the maids’ shared bedroom. Then she told Soonyi to go out and get the male servants for breakfast.

  It was already getting hot.

  Soonyi first went inside to see if Mirae was feeling any better and if she would like to eat a little.

  “Big Sister!” Soonyi shouted from inside the room.


  “Calm down, child,” Nani said, employing her mother’s tone of voice.

  “Big Sister, Mirae is so sick!” Soonyi rushed out of the room.

  Nani got up and hurried in. Mirae was indeed very sick. Her body was burning and her skin was erupting with a strange-looking rash. Nani thought for a moment and ran to Mistress Yee’s quarters.

  There was laughter from the room. Nani hesitated. No matter how serious the problem was with a maid, it seemed inappropriate to break up her superiors’ happy moment.

  She cleared her throat and smoothed her hair, feeling nervous, as if she had already done something wrong.

  “What is it?” Mistress Yee asked, sensing movement behind the latticed door.

  “It is Nani, Mistress Yee. I am here to let you know that Mirae is burning with a fever and her skin is developing a rash. She needs a doctor,” Nani managed to say.

  Mistress Yee rolled her eyes theatrically.

  Nani stood in the hallway like a puppet with broken strings, frozen, expressionless.

  “Should I buy the fish or not?” Mistress Yee asked. Obviously, she and Mr. O must have been in the middle of a conversation.

  “It doesn’t matter, my dear. What counts is not your deed, but your intention, your heart. If you have the intention to do good things, then you have done good things.”

  “You are my inspiration,” Mistress Yee said brightly, laughing.

  “Don’t flatter me. It doesn’t suit you,” Mr. O replied.

  “Are you still there?” Mistress Yee called out in her high-pitched voice, irritably.

  “Yes, Mistress,” Nani replied nervously. Her mistress might accuse her of eavesdropping.

  “You should be taking care of Mirae if she is really sick,” she said curtly.

  “Yes, Mistress. She needs more than my care, it appears,” Nani said timidly.

  “If you can afford it, go get the doctor. You don’t need my permission,” Mistress Yee said, half amused, half tartly.