Free Somebody's Daughter by Marie Myung-Ok Lee Page B

bread.”
    Kyung-sook smiled and bent down to the girl’s eye-level.
    â€œYou’re a good girl who’ll have lots of good fortune, I can tell,” she said. “I could have become a face reader if I didn’t become a shrimp seller, you know—my readings are quite accurate.”
    The girl lifted her head, and her eyes met with Kyung-sook’s for the barest second. A tiny, pleased smile played at the corners of her mouth before she again bowed modestly.
    White-hot lightning shot through Kyung-sook’s body, igniting her to the roots of her hair, making her jerk upright. She caught her breath. She fought to control her expression.
    â€œI must go now,” said the girl.
    â€œHm, oh yes, go along, Dear,” Kyung-sook said, barely daring to breathe.
    What was this feeling?
    The girl bowed and said, “Goodbye, Shrimp Auntie,” and Kyung-sook replied, as she did to all her customers, “Come again, would you?”
    But behind her smile, her face still felt tight and hot. For the briefest moment, she found herself thinking what she would never let herself think before:
    That girl could have been mine.
SARAH
    Seoul
    1993
    â€œSo how’s your
yuhja chingu
?” Jeannie said to Bernie. Sneeringly.
    The new daytime drama,
The Ill-Gup Class
.
    It seemed just yesterday that the studio audience had been left with the image of the two of them, bottle of
soju
in hand, going off into the neon sunset, to one of the “love hotels” near campus.
    â€œShe’s more than a
chingu
,” Bernie replied, with a sneer of his own. “She’s my
ae in
, my love thang.”
    â€œYeah, right,” Jeannie muttered. “She’s obviously just trying to get a free ticket to the States, just like those skanky
yang kongju
who hook up with the GIs.”
    â€œHey, watch it. Don’t you know that the majority of the Koreans in the States can trace their way back to some Korean whore who hooked up with a GI, Miss High and Mighty?”
    â€œSo how fitting for you!” she spat back.
    â€œ
My
dad came over through the special provisions made for professionals, since he was a surgeon. You told me your dad has a
chang-sa
—a grocery, wasn’t it?”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean shit,” Jeannie said. “He has an advanced degree in chemistry.”
    â€œBut if he’s stuck running a grocery, that sounds like a green card problem to me.” Bernie began humming that horrible Phil Collins song, “It’s No Fun Being an Illegal Alien.” Jeannie turned livid.
    â€œHey, soldier-boy.” Bernie, bored with Jeannie for the time being, looked toward Doug. Doug didn’t move.
    Bernie said something to him in his quick, fluid Korean.
    Doug replied in equally rapid Korean.
    Now Bernie looked frustrated.
    Thankfully, just then, Choi
Sunsengnim
burst in, overloaded with books.
    She wearily dropped her load on the desk, mumbled something about the traffic, and started to take attendance.
    We were all here, for a change.
    At lunch at the dingy restaurant (ironically named
Mujigae
, “rainbow”), we saw the rest of our class again. Bernie gave Doug the finger, American-style.
    â€œDon’t pay any attention to Bernie,” I told Doug. “Did you hear him tell Helmut his haircut made him look like a Hitler Youth?”
    â€œOh, I can handle guys like him,” Doug said. “I met a dozen Bernies in college. That was the first place I tried to ‘come out’ as a Korean, at the Korean club.”
    â€œYour college had a Korean
club
?”
    â€œYeah, but they wouldn’t let me in it. The guy who ran it was this asshole, Pil-baek Bang. This guy drove a Mercedes, wore a suit and tie to class. First meeting, he says to me, ‘Why are you here?’ I said, ‘Because I’m Korean.’ And you know what he said to me?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œHe said the club wasn’t for