Honolulu

  "Thank you. Thank you very much," I said.

  She smiled, stood, and gave me a shaky bow. I returned the bow, then saw her out of the house.

  I sat back down and stared at the envelope in my hands, studying the address again. Was it possible? Could this be where Blossom was living-on a farm up north-doubtless married by now? Living the bleak life of a peasant farmer's wife, working from sunup to sundown, forced to give up the best of their crops to the Japanese Empire? The possibilities were depressing to contemplate.

  Kangwon Province was many hundreds of miles away; it would take days to get there by train, I knew. And I had no real assurance that Blossom was even at this "Nang farm." I could write her there, but I was unlikely to get a reply before I left for Hawai'i. If ever there was a chance to see her again, I would have to travel to this "Yudong Village." If there was the slightest possibility that Blossom needed to be rescued from her situation, I had no choice: I would have to go to Kangwon-do. I could not leave her behind again.

  t had been twenty-three years since I had felt the bite of a Korean winter, and the farther north I traveled, the deeper into that winter I journeyed. The train compartment was well heated, but when I touched the window I could feel the chill on the other side, like the frigid breath of an ice spirit, pressing up against the glass with cold, implacable patience. In winter the arctic Siberian air rolls in across the Manchurian Plain and into Korea from the north, freezing rivers in their beds, gusting snow and wind from one side of the peninsula to the other. And yet the stark, bare trees we passed, their branches glittering with frost, looked oddly like the branching white coral I had seen in the warm waters of Hawaiian reefs.

  All the while I sat in my seat and wondered whether this was a fool's errand-whether I would even find Blossom in Yudong Village, and if I did, in what circumstances.

  It was a full day's trip to Seoul, and when I got there my journey had barely begun. A bus took me as far as the town of Ch'unch'on, where I slept overnight in a small inn notable only for the high ratio of insects to paid guests; then the next morning I set off on the final leg of my trip. I hired a taxi to take me to Yudong, a sleepy little hamlet nestled at the base of Mount Palgyo, but when I inquired about the location of the "Nang farm," I was told it lay outside the village proper, and I was pointed helpfully in the general direction. This, as it turned out, was straight up Mount Palgyo, and the farther we drove into the foothills, the steeper the road. We passed a few farms and I inquired at them all, but none of the residents were named Nang and we continued on, passing an occasional church and a small schoolhouse. But once the rough gravel road turned into an even rougher unmarked trail, my driver informed me he had gone as far as he intended to. I paid him his fare, took my overnight bag in hand, and started up the trail on foot.

  It grew steeper by the minute, threading through an endless grove of bare oak and poplar trees that forested the hill. I passed a lovely stream, from whose clear waters I took a drink, then continued on and up. I had to stop several times to catch my breath, and as I took in the dense forest around me I wondered what kind of farm this could be that Blossom was living on, clinging like a billy goat to the side of mountain? The trail wound around the mountain like a watchspring, and just when I was becoming so cold and exhausted I didn't know whether I could go on, I came around a bend-and finally saw a house.

  It was a small house, to be sure, made of rough-hewed stone, with a brown thatched roof like a mop of shaggy hair. It was built into the hillside, its rock foundation higher in front than in back; it looked snug and cozy amid the fallen snow. A wind-bell hung from the eaves, chiming a greeting to me as I started toward it.

  I had drawn only a few yards closer when a woman came out of the house carrying a bucket, headed toward a well in back. She was a bit shorter than I, with long dark hair, an oval face, and delicate features. My heart found a rhythm it had long forgotten.

  I stopped and called out excitedly, "Little sister!"

  The woman turned, startled to hear my voice-any voice, perhaps, in this wild place-and gazed down the trail at me. I was almost afraid to move for fear of scaring her off, as if she were a deer, or some rare bird that might take flight.

  She took a few steps closer, and I saw the dawning recognition in her eyes. When she was but a few yards away, she stopped and said in a hushed voice, "Sister-in-law?"

  "Yes," I said softly.

  We ran toward each other, meeting in an embrace long dreamed of. She squeezed me hard enough to take away what little breath I had left, but I held her just as tightly. `Aigo, aigo, " she said, and then the only sound I heard was her laughter and mine.

  She pulled back and looked at me. Her black eyes shone like opals.

  "I cannot believe it! I am so happy to see you," she said wonderingly. "I never dreamed I would again!"

  "Nor I you." My words were swallowed up in a sob, and tears ran down my face, nearly freezing as they did. "I have missed you, little sister, so much."

  "I've missed you, too," she said. "But how is this possible? What brings you from Hawai'i to our mountain?"

  "I came back to visit Mother-and to look for you."

  She looked amazed at this, and laughed.

  "Well, you've found me! And look at you, you're half frozen for the effort. Come, come in, and have some hot rice water."

  As we stumbled toward the little house together, I noticed that the hillslope behind it was covered with what looked like mats of straw-hundreds of them, blanketing acres and acres of uphill land. "Little sister," I asked, puzzled, "do you have so many animals that you need so much hay?"

  She laughed again. "It's not for animals, it's for the crops. To protect them from the cold."

  "What kind of crops grow on the side of a mountain?"

  "Ginseng, of course. But I'll show you all that later. Come inside!"

  She welcomed me into her home, to my surprise quite a lovely one. Its stone floor was plastered with mud and covered by straw mats, but a brass brazier kept it toasty warm. In the largest of the rooms there was a large rice chest made of burnished pagoda wood, colorful floor cushions tucked unobtrusively into a corner, and a rolled sedge mat that Blossom now unfurled for me to sit on. I warmed myself by the brazier as Blossom went to the kitchen to fetch a pot of rice water and two bowls.

  "The children are still at school," Blossom said, "but here is a photograph we had taken last year." She handed me a portrait of herself standing beside a tall, handsome man in a traditional Korean jacket, vest, and trousers, as well as four children-two boys and two girls. They were posing solemnly for the camera, but there was a smile-a joy-in Blossom's eyes that I had not expected to find there.

  "They are beautiful," I said. "What are their names?"

  "This is Willow-she's seven. Plum Tree is five. The older boy is Brave One, he will be six next month; and the youngest boy we named Tiger, because he fought like one, at birth. I don't think he wanted to come out of there at all."

  She beamed with obvious pride at these four fine children. "Your elder brother used to read me all your letters. As I recall, you have three children?"

  "Yes. Grace, Harold, and Charles."

  "Such strange names, if you don't mind my saying."

  "They do not sound nearly so strange in America," I said with a smile.

  "And your husband's name is-Jae-sun?"

  I nodded. "He was as disappointed as I that we could not get you into the country. Then we heard that you'd run away."

  "Yes. The passport was a great help to me, but so was Sunny."

  "So I've heard."

  "She taught me hangul, so that I might be able to read road signs and find work. The day I left, she invited me over to sew with her in her family's inner Room, but instead I slipped out through a window. For two hours Sunny put on quite a show, talking and laughing as if I were still there-which allowed me to get a good head start on your father and brothers. By the time they even realized I was gone, I was halfway to Kimch'on!"

/>   We shared a laugh at this, then she went on, "I wrote her asking for your address, so I could write you and tell you I was well, but I never heard from her."

  I took a shallow breath. "Yes. Well, there is a reason for that. I am sorry to tell you, Sunny died six years ago, in childbirth."

  "Oh, no! Our poor friend, how sad!"

  "Yes. She was a good friend, to both of us." We talked of Sunny for a while more, then I asked her where she went after she reached Kimch'on. Now she looked even sadder than she had on learning the news about Sunny.

  "I went looking for my clan," she said. "When I ran out of money, I would beg for food or do small jobs in exchange for meals. I finally reached our home village of Songso and asked anyone I knew if they'd heard from my family. One old neighbor of ours thought they'd gone to Chonjo, so I went to Chonjo."

  "But that is so far!"

  "Yes, it took me two months to get there-working here and there for a week or two, earning enough money to travel another ten or twenty miles, then finding another job. I cried when I discovered they were not in Chonjo.

  "I didn't know where to look next. In desperation I even consulted a mudang. The woman shook her brass bells and tossed her coins into the air, and told me that I was troubled by ghosts."

  I smiled, thinking of Jae-sun. "Mudangs say everyone is troubled by ghosts."

  "She told me to exorcise the spirits by leaving some five-grain rice at a crossroads and to burn pine nuts on the fifteenth night of the First Moon."

  "Did you?"

  "No, it seemed a waste of rice. And then I remembered a cousin of my mother's who lived in Kwangju. I went to see him and it turned out he had received a letter from my mother-they were living in Chinju, not Chonjo. I took the address and worked in Kwangju until I had enough money for a train ticket to Chinju. I was so happy when I reached the station, and went directly to the address my mother's cousin had given me. But ..."

  Whatever happened next now brought tears to her eyes.

  "Father was very angry to see me," she said softly. "He said he had brokered an honest sale to your father and that I had dishonored our clan by running away. He would not let me see Mother or my brothers and sisters. He told me to return to the house of my husband-it was the only honorable thing to do."

  Her composure cracked and she began weeping. I wrapped my arms around her as I had when she was a small child, sitting on the wall of the Inner Court, pining for her family. But this was so much worse: to find your heart's dream and have it spurn you.

  "Oh, my poor little sister," I said, "I am so sorry."

  "It still hurts."

  "Of course it does. I feel the sting of my father's hand to this day. We needn't speak of this any further."

  "I left Chinju as quickly as I could ... and on my way out of town, I left some five-grain rice at a crossroads, and burned a handful of pine nuts under a half-moon."

  "Oh, sister ..."

  She started to say something more when the door to the little house opened and a tall, good-looking man entered, and Blossom's sorrow was quickly replaced by gladness.

  "Husband! We have a visitor. This is my sister, come all the way from Hawai'i and America!"

  Only a slight raise of his eyebrows betrayed his surprise. "I did not know you had a sister in America." He took a step toward me and bowed. "I am Always Well"-yes, that was his name: Sang-Ook-"of the Yu clan of Kaesong. My parents named me this, I think, so that I might save time answering people who ask, `What is your name?' and `How are you?'"

  I laughed. "How thoughtful of them." I bowed and introduced myself in turn.

  "He told me the same thing when I first met him," Blossom said. "I think he told it to all the girls."

  "No, just the prettiest ones," her husband said, smiling.

  "I was working in an apothecary's shop in Seoul," Blossom explained, "not long after the time I just spoke of to you. Mr. Yu came in to sell us what he said was the finest ginseng in the province, guaranteed to quiet one's spirits, drive out fears, and act as a general tonic for the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys." She added with a shy smile, "The ginseng farmer, at least, proved a tonic for the heart."

  He blushed at this. Flustered, he asked me, "Have you seen our ginseng fields?"

  "No, not yet."

  "Come then, let's show you."

  They took me out to the straw-covered fields, arranged in vertical "beds" that reached high up the mountainside. "This land has belonged to my clan for generations," Mr. Yu said, "though it was long considered worthless. My older brothers inherited the rice fields in the valley, and I could have worked them, for them. But I desired something I could call my own, and agreed to take these four hundred acres on the slopes of Mount Palygo. My brothers thought me a fool, but I knew there was wild ginseng growing here, and that I could harvest it."

  "But don't the trees make your job more difficult?" I asked.

  "Actually, quite the opposite," Mr. Yu said enthusiastically. "Ginseng thrives amid trees. It's a temperamental plant, and too much direct sunlight will kill it. Here, beneath a canopy of oak and poplar leaves, the root thrives in the shade. We plant the seeds during the Ninth Moon, cover the seedlings with straw during the winter and remove it in spring. Did you know that it takes seven years to grow a mature ginseng root?"

  Blossom rolled her eyes and whispered, "If you did not, you will now."

  "You only get a crop every seven years?"

  "Yes, but we stagger the plantings, so that every year brings at least one harvest. Then we plant goldenseal to refresh and replenish the soil. The joke is on my brothers now: I get paid more for one year's crop of ginseng than they do for their rice harvests. And they have to give some of theirs to the Japanese, who took one look at my land, decided it was worthless, and have not bothered us since."

  "Isn't it remarkable," Blossom said, "how life clings to, and flourishes in, the oddest of places?"

  "Yes," I agreed, "so it is."

  "Right now it looks like the floor of a barn," she conceded, "but in spring it's like a green waterfall spilling down the mountain, with clusters of red berries everywhere. Oh, I wish you could see it! It's like a paradise, it truly is."

  I smiled to hear her say this, but before I could reply there came shouts of "Mama! Papa!" and the fields were soon overrun by Blossom's four children, returning home from school. They were even more beautiful in the flesh than in the photograph. When Blossom told them I was their Aunt Jin from Hawai'i and America, the younger children expressed excitement, but the oldest girl, Willow, assessed me skeptically and said, "I don't believe it."

  "But I am," I told her. "That's where I live now."

  "Our teacher showed us this How-why-hee once on a globe, and it's way in the middle of an ocean," she pointed out. "How did you get here?"

  "By boat."

  "How long did it take?"

  "Nine days," I said.

  She shook her head. "I don't believe it."

  "Willow!" her mother chided. "This is your aunt and she is from Hawai'i."

  "Can you prove that's where you're from?" Willow asked.

  Amused, I thought for a moment and said, "All right. I'll sing you a Hawaiian song." And I proceeded to sing the first verse of "Aloha 'Oe," partly in Hawaiian and partly in English.

  Willow's eyes popped at these alien languages set to lovely melody, and when I had finished she allowed as how I must be telling the truth, and we were best friends from that point on.

  I spent the rest of the day and that evening with Blossom and her family, sharing a fine dinner with them, and took great pleasure in seeing the love and affection my little sister-in-law showered on her children. "They will never have to peer over a wall, as I did, to wonder where their father and mother are," she told me at the end of the evening, as the children dozed in their rooms and Mr. Yu left us to chat beside the smoldering embers of the brazier.

  "I am happy to see what a wonderful family you have," I told her. "It is no less than you deserved."
>
  "There was a time I could never have dreamed of it," she admitted. "After my clan rejected me, I was in despair. I wanted to die." In a low voice she added, "I considered dying."

  I took her hand in mine and squeezed it, but she shook her head as if to dismiss my concern. "No, it's all right, you see. Because you stopped me."

  "Me?" I said.

  "Yes. In the still middle of the night, when I could easily have slit a vein and bled to death before morning, I reminded myself that someone had loved me, had wanted me, enough to bring me across the ocean, to be a part of her family." She smiled through the tears that now came to her. "And this was what saw me through that longest of nights."

  The two of us cried, then, and held one another. "I do love you, little sister. And you are part of my family. You always will be."

  We went on talking about our lives and our families well into the night; and then I dozed contentedly on a mat for a few hours, until it was time for the children to set off on their downhill trek to school the next day. I was to accompany them, as I was told I could use the telephone in their schoolhouse to call for a taxicab. But before we left, Blossom said, "There is something I would like you to have," and she handed me a copy of the photographic portrait of her and her family. I thanked her, tucked the photograph safely into my travel bag, and we embraced one last time. Neither of us knew whether we would ever meet in person again; but whenever I thought of her, I would always picture her amid the trees of this wooded hillside in spring, with green ginseng cascading down its face, and I would know that she was happy.

  It was only when I pulled the picture from my bag on the train that I noticed what Blossom had written on the back of the photograph, in neat hangul lettering.

  Dearest sister-in-law:

  A road need not be paved in gold to find treasure at its end.

  Love always-Blossom

  The tears I cried were joyful, cleansing. I could finally stop worrying for her-stop wondering. As I could for Evening Rose. I mourned for my teacher, and for Sunny, but rejoiced for Blossom: she was a bright patch of yellow on my chogakpo, alongside two of blackest black.