Waxing Moon Read online

  There was a pause. How long would Mistress Yee play out her little game before Mr. O stepped in to give his order?

  “What are you thinking about?” Mistress Yee asked her husband.

  “Oh, nothing,” he replied.

  “Of course, nothing. How could you think of anything else when I am in your presence?” Mistress Yee said, amused.

  “Why don’t you tell her to go fetch the doctor?” Mr. O grumbled.

  “We can’t get a doctor every time a maid gets sick. We will soon run out of money. We need to reserve some for the likes of me,” Mistress Yee said in her nasal voice, laughing mischievously.

  “Let her go. I need to talk to you,” Mr. O said.

  “Go and get that midwife, whatever her name is,” Mistress Yee said sharply.

  “What can a midwife do for a maid with a fever?” Mr. O complained.

  “Maybe it is not just a fever,” Mistress Yee muttered, giggling like a girl.

  “Now, let her go and tend to the matter,” Mr. O ordered gently.

  “Leave us,” Mistress Yee snapped.

  Nani returned to the kitchen. She saw male servants leaving for their work. She stopped Min and explained the seriousness of Mirae’s state. “We need to go and ask someone, a doctor, to find out what to do about the fever,” she said, looking worried. “Let’s go to the marketplace. I know an herbalist. He is as good as a doctor, I hear.”

  Min hesitated. He knew how awfully Mirae had treated his girl, and only the other day, Nani had said, “She drives me crazy.” So he produced a groan of displeasure.

  Nani retorted, “If we don’t, we will have another funeral in this house. That would be two funerals within a year.”

  They hurried to the marketplace and found the herbalist perched with at least fifty huge standing hemp sacks displayed, their open mouths spilling out their contents.

  Nani explained Mirae’s symptoms. The herbalist said, “Sounds like chicken pox to me. If it is, it will run its course and go away. But you need something to help her with the fever.” He picked a few roots and leaves from here and there. “Make sure to stay away from the sick one until the fever is reduced.”

  He divided the herbs into six portions, wrapped each in rice paper, and handed them to Nani. “Cook one for half a day. Divide the brew into three portions. Let her drink one with each meal. Do the same for the following five days. Remember to stay away from her while she has the fever. Especially anyone carrying a baby!” he advised her, winking at Min.

  Nani blushed. Then she realized that she had to tell her mistress, not that Mistress Yee would go near Mirae while the maid was sick.

  When she arrived back home, Mr. O was leaving with a part-time male servant whose hunting skill surpassed all. They would visit the gravesite of Mr. O’s parents. The servant would trim the grass, and Mr. O would serve his parents rice liquor and some food and tell them his wife was pregnant.

  In the kitchen, Nani emptied one packet of the herbs into a clay brew pot. She measured water and poured it into the pot and placed it on the stove.

  While watching the pot simmer, she wondered if she should tell Mistress Yee what the herbalist had said about a pregnant woman needing to stay away from Mirae. She wasn’t so worried about the cost of the herbs. She could take the small amount of money from the weekly grocery shopping money. But if Mirae’s illness affected Mistress Yee’s health in any way, then Nani would be in big trouble.

  In the afternoon, while letting Soonyi tend the pot so that it wouldn’t boil over, Nani went to Mistress Yee with a plate of fruit. Mistress Yee was reading a picture book and humming a familiar tune. She was in a good mood.

  “Mistress Yee, Mirae is taking medicine for her fever. It looks as though she will recover in a few days, if not before,” Nani said.

  “Such a silly little thing. I didn’t ask you a question. Didn’t your mistress teach you not to speak unless you were spoken to?”

  “I am sorry, Mistress Yee. Silly was my nickname by my mother, but I dare speak because Mirae suffers from chicken pox. Of course, we will keep her away from you until she is completely recovered,” Nani said.

  Mistress Yee dropped her book on the floor, turning pale and looking urgent, as if she had a fishbone caught in her throat. “Are you sure it’s chicken pox?”

  “Her skin is breaking out with blisters, and the herbalist in the marketplace thought so,” Nani replied, kneeling in the far corner of the room without breathing.

  “I should believe a dog? Go get the doctor!” she ordered.

  “Yes, Mistress,” Nani said. She got up with a tray and left. In the yard, she kicked a pebble and grumbled about Mistress Yee’s temper.

  Before sunset, the doctor came and took a look at Mirae. Then he reported to Mistress Yee that while it looked like chicken pox, it could very well be a combination of boils and a nasty cold. He turned around and asked Nani how Mirae had been lately. Nani said that she couldn’t think of any anomaly; Mirae had behaved like her usual self. The doctor pondered for a moment and said that he couldn’t rule out chicken pox entirely, but the rash was too severe for the usual case of chicken pox. And who in the world catches a cold in the summer?

  Mistress Yee didn’t want to hear another word from the doctor. She would stay at her father’s house until Mirae was well.

  Four days later, Mirae was feeling a world better. Her fever was gone, and she was eating again, but no one spoke about her dreadful skin. Her body was still covered with purplish rashes. A part-time maid simply commented, “Better to be alive than dead, though.”

  When Mirae took a bath after her illness, she saw herself in full view. She panicked and sobbed bitterly for the whole afternoon, and she stayed up late that evening. When she woke the next day, she refused to eat and stopped talking to all but herself. A month later, when Mistress Yee returned, larger and happier, Mirae was a different person.

  Part Two

  13

  Most of the villagers, including the children, had bathed and came up to the hill all spiffed up in their clean and starched outfits. Soon the full moon would be in view. Some of the men and children played tug-of-war, and some of the women sat eating specialties they prepared only for Harvest Day. It wasn’t a good year, they all knew, but no one complained about the drought or the bad crops or the high taxes they had to pay the government and their landlords. What everyone talked about was the news that had just come from the capital city: a foreign ship had arrived from a faraway land.

  “There were nineteen people on the ship,” one person said.

  “No, eighteen,” another voice said.

  “What does it matter how many there were? They all got killed the instant they set foot on our soil,” a man said.

  “What did they do?” a woman asked, chewing on a rice cake.

  “Nothing,” another man said.

  “Well, they did something. They entered our country without permission,” someone said, sitting down to join the crowd.

  “But that doesn’t seem grave enough a crime to deserve death,” said the woman with the rice cake. “And eighteen of them,” she added, horrified.

  “Nineteen,” someone corrected her.

  “Coming to our country without permission might be a crime. Who knows?” a man said.

  “Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” a woman said. “If you come to my house uninvited, should I pull my dagger and kill you?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

  “You would be behind bars,” someone said and laughed.

  “Surely, I would be for killing a neighbor,” the woman said, nodding her head vehemently.

  “Only one of them survived. When all were thought to have been killed, five of the best shamans were summoned from the southern provinces to expel the foreign spirits and the curse the ship had brought. In
the meantime, soldiers inspected the contents of the vessel. They found the strangest thing. It was a piece of furniture, but neither chest nor table. As tall as a grownup, maybe even taller, it had a face, round as a pumpkin, and it ticked constantly, and once in a while it gonged all by itself. It had its own mind because sometimes it gonged once, sometimes twice, sometimes even twelve times. What was more interesting was that they found a man, the same kind as the dead, trembling for fear of death, and hiding, horribly diseased, in a barrel where they must have kept food. When he was dragged out, he saw the shamans dance in order to stop the ticking of the tall thing. So he simply touched something on the back of it and the ticking stopped. And so this man escaped his death. The king himself ordered him to stay in the palace,” a man explained, excitedly, foaming around his mouth and waving his hands.

  “So he lives?” a woman asked.

  “So he does,” someone answered.

  Everyone laughed.

  “So what did they come here for?” another woman asked.

  “That seems unclear,” a man answered.

  The enormous moon was coming up from behind the hill, and the children were playing tag in the wooded area. Under the old pine tree, a few women were clicking their tongues about the poor maid at the big house whose skin had erupted in an unsightly rash.

  Mrs. Wang arrived and wanted to know where the leftover food was. She was about to collapse, she warned them. The women under the pine tree quickly got up and served the midwife some of the very best food. Sitting on a mat, Mrs. Wang devoured everything. Then she wondered if there was rice wine.

  After she had finished a large bowl of rice wine, she said, “Look over there at the moon. How beautiful it is! Everyone is so busy talking that no one’s looking at the moon!”

  Everyone turned and looked at the moon. They fell into a brief silence because the moon was so close that they felt they could reach out their hands and touch it. It was translucent, and it almost seemed that it had come to see them. Mrs. Wang felt briefly levitated. This was why she had come: to see the moon. Of course, there was the food too.

  “It looks like a large pearl!” a child exclaimed.

  “What is a pearl?” a younger child asked.

  “It does look like a pearl!” another child said.

  “I see a bunny up on the moon,” a girl said.

  “There are two of them,” a boy said.

  Jaya stood up and bowed to the moon several times solemnly. She was praying for Sungnam. She prayed that he would not be a peasant like his father but someone better, someone with no boss or landlord whose invisible hands would strangle him. She prayed for Dubak, that he would focus on farming and stop going to peasant meetings where they talked about their rights and high taxes and other nonsense. She prayed that she would give birth to a healthy child.

  Then she collapsed near Mrs. Wang, who leaned against a tree, humming along with the people who were singing and dancing.

  “Mrs. Wang, people over there are talking about the news from the capital city. Have you heard it? About the surviving yellow man, who’s now a friend of the king?” Jaya asked. She held Mansong in her arms without knowing that her nipple had escaped Mansong’s mouth. Mansong was staring at Mrs. Wang with curiosity. She was no longer an infant.

  “It’s about time for you to wean the babies. You need to reserve yourself for the coming one,” Mrs. Wang advised.

  “It’s hard to wean Mansong. Unlike my Sungnam, she doesn’t take solid food,” Jaya said. In the moonlight, she looked pretty. Everyone looked pretty. It was a beautiful night.

  “Look at her teeth. She is behind the schedule. Give her porridge and steamed vegetables. Or else you will not have enough milk for the next one,” Mrs. Wang urged, getting up to go and listen to the group of young men and women talking about the current news from the capital city.

  They were discussing the yellow man’s religion and how self-sacrificing those who believed in this religion were. They shared what they owned with others, especially those in need. And they believed everyone was equal. Some of the peasants listened intently, their faces illuminated by the moonlight.

  “Dream on,” Mrs. Wang snapped. Everyone turned to look at her. Unintimidated, she continued: “True. We were born equal. But look around. Some are rich, some are poor, some are peasants, some are aristocrats, and some are like Mr. O with no worries about what to eat the next day for the rest of his life.”

  People sat, thinking hard. Somehow it seemed Mr. O was to blame for their miserable lives. The hostility toward their landlord was palpable.

  “Before you become slaves of some religion, remember that you have been slaves to your landlords. You don’t need another master. That’s my point,” Mrs. Wang said heatedly.

  Everyone fell silent. What Mrs. Wang had just pointed out made sense. They were slaves, basically, to the landlords.

  “They feed you lunch on Sundays, Mrs. Wang. They give you medicine when you are sick,” a young man protested, licking his lips.

  “Well, what was it they gave you last Sunday?” Mrs. Wang challenged him jokingly.

  They all laughed and quieted down to hear the answer.

  “I was late. When I got there, the food was gone,” the young man said ruefully.

  More laughter broke out.

  Some of the women were getting ready to descend. Their children were getting fussy, and, actually, they were also getting tired. There were loads to carry, besides their sleepy children. It had been a long, exciting day.

  The radiant moon seemed mounted above them, gently brightening the whole world. They collected their belongings, while some of the men drank the last drops of rice wine, babbling on about the rights of the peasants. Mrs. Wang collected leftovers for her dog.

  Groups of people began to descend the hill, warning each other to mind their steps.

  Mrs. Wang made a sharp turn to go up the hill to her house. She bade farewell to the villagers and they bowed to her goodbye. Her old bones ached as she climbed the steep path. Fireflies accompanied her. Despite the familiarity of the sight, she was still moved by the little creatures, glowing at intervals in midair as if they existed just to amuse her. The air was filled with the pleasant smells of tall grass and wild flowers and ripe fruits. She took the air into her lungs with deep gratitude. Suddenly, she heard footsteps. A fox? A wolf? She stopped, concentrating with every nerve. She didn’t want to attract an animal’s attention right then. It would be a hassle to have to deal with it. But the sounds kept coming nearer and nearer. Then she heard a human voice, singing or crying.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Wang demanded.

  A young woman came into view. She was singing in a sad voice, but the words were hard to understand.

  “A young woman wandering about in the night. What a pitiful sight! Where do you belong?” Mrs. Wang thundered.

  “Where do I belong?” she asked herself in an undertone, nervously. “Oh, why do you ask? I belong nowhere.” She tittered and then cried. Her unkempt hair partially covered her face.

  Mrs. Wang grabbed the young woman’s wrist and pulled her close to her. “Let me look at you. You are the maid that belongs at Mr. O’s household. Aren’t you?” Mrs. Wang pulled her a little closer.

  “I don’t belong there. I belong in the mountains, where the beasts are and where the ghouls roam about,” she cried, trying to pry her hand from Mrs. Wang’s grip.

  “What’s your problem?” Mrs. Wang asked, looking at her fiercely. Without waiting for her answer, she continued, “Do you think roaming about in the mountains, at the graveyard, will lesson your sorrow? Alter your tragedy? Change your life? You are mistaken, my child,” she said and laughed exaggeratedly. “You had beauty no one could surpass before the illness struck you. But beauty is fragile, unreliable. It’s seasonal, like that of an annual flower. An
annual flower is pretty because of its appearance, but a perennial is worthy because of its nature. It comes back. It endures. It is persistent.” Mrs. Wang stopped here and thought about what her point was. She had to admit that she was shocked to run into this young maid, whose beauty had once been stunning. Now her face, even in the moonlight, was visibly bumpy from chicken pox.

  “What do you know about me? You know nothing about me. You don’t know what I had. Who says I am a maid? I was about to fly. I was even prettier than my mistress. She herself said that to me. Do you understand?” Mirae shrieked and fell on her knees.

  “Go back to the graveyard and dig up the corpses and find out who was the best looking when they were alive. Ask if that makes any difference in the coffin beneath the earth. You imbecile! You are not worth speaking to.” Mrs. Wang passed around the maid and walked on briskly. But still, she looked back, concerned. She was relieved when she didn’t see Mirae anymore.

  As she pushed her squeaky gate open, she felt good and tired. There was no place like her little place. Her dog, at seeing her, went amok, jumping around and whining. She fed the creature with the leftovers from the festival. It was getting chilly. She emptied the remaining charcoal from a metal pail into the furnace and lit a fire. She should, she thought, go to the market soon to prepare for her winter hibernation. First of all, she wanted to buy a load of dried fish and some garlic. She had enough wild greens, all dried and bunched up, dangling in straw ropes from her eaves, to last the winter.

  14

  On the same day at Mr. O’s—even before the annual memorial service for the ancestors, which normally took place right after dawn—Min took a bundle in a basket to Nani, who was busying herself in the kitchen with Soonyi.

  “What’ve you got there?” Nani asked, casting her glance to the dates and nuts she was arranging on wooden plates used only for the memorial service.