Free Princess Bari by Sok-yong Hwang Page A

again. We unpacked our belongings and pulled out all the clothes – which were frozen stiff – and squeezed, rubbed and sat on them until they were filled with our body heat. Then we piled them on top of Hyun and wrapped the blanket around her. The fire had built up nicely. The cardboard that covered the floor stones was starting to warm up. But a very soft, smoke-like something hovered darkly over Hyun’s body. I didn’t know what it was, but I was afraid to get any closer or to try to make it go away.
    Hey, Big Sister , I thought to her, I know you’re trying to leave us .
    We tucked our legs under the blanket and dozed off where we sat. Sometime in the night, Hyun passed. She’d grown too weak, and couldn’t bear the cold. But none of us – not Father, Grandmother or I – shed a single tear. Father wrapped her small body in several layers of clothes and fertilizer sacks. As he left the hut with Hyun, he narrowed his eyes at us.
    â€œDon’t follow me!”
    *
    Winter passed, and bright green shoots poked up through the gaps in the lingering snow. Grandmother and I went down the mountain to pick the greens that had just begun to grow along the edges of the fields and the ridges of the paddies that had not yet been ploughed up. All we had was some salt and a little dwenjang that the farmer’s family had given us, but when we boiled the greens and seasoned them with the dwenjang or made them into a soup, the fragrant scent of the greens complemented the deep flavour of the fermented bean paste, and made for a perfect meal with a bowl of rice. And of course that was white rice we were enjoying!
    Father did some work for the farmer’s family and returned with a sack of wheat flour – not the earthy, brown flour we were used to, but a strange variety that was as white as snow. Grandmother ground up mugwort shoots and added it to the flour to make dough, and then roughly moulded the dough into small, flat gaetteok cakes and steamed them.
    One morning Father put on a thick, padded coat over his faded Mao suit, just as he used to do before heading off to work; he tightened the laces of his shoes and left home. I knew instinctively that he was heading out on a long journey. He stroked my head for a moment and then quickly pulled his hand away and coughed drily.
    â€œBari,” he said, “I’ll be back in a few days. Take care of your grandmother.”
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    He didn’t answer me, and turned to Grandmother instead.
    â€œMother, it’ll take about five days. There’s plenty of food. Should last you at least two months, so don’t starve yourself. Eat as much as you want.”
    Grandmother and I stood there in silence as he left. I wanted to follow him down the mountain and all the way to the road through the orchard, but I knew he would only narrow his eyes at me and say: “Aren’t you too old for this?” So I stayed by Grandmother’s side. Father quickly disappeared amongst the trees. Grandmother must’ve seen that I was feeling down and wanted to distract me. She patted me gently on the back and whispered: “Bari, look over beneath that tree. Pheasants!”
    Indeed, a male pheasant with golden feathers, a blue band around his neck and a proud tail sticking straight up was cocking his head this way and that, while a female with a round, grey belly was foraging through the dry underbrush in search of something to eat. It never fails that once someone is out of sight, your thoughts of that person leave with them. It felt like ages had already passed since Father had spent the winter with us. Just as I now only saw my mother and two sisters who’d left for Puryong in my dreams, my father’s leaving was like a spot in the sky where a cloud had just passed.
    On nights after we’d steamed potatoes and cooked rice and finished our dinner, and owls were hooting in the woods, I would plead with