“Something wrong, honey?” says Hŭibok, peeping into the dining room as he’s preparing to leave.
That was quick. How could he have heard her? “I was just thinking about the last time,” she responds with a grimace, her eyes on the candlesticks.
He shrugs as if to say Here we go again and heads for the door, taking care to tuck his wavy hair behind his ears. He pauses in front of the grandfather clock and turns to find her following him, candlesticks in hand.
“The last time?”
“The last time we used these—remember?”
The black spots left by moisture on the candlesticks are like blemishes on a face, visible specks of time. Hŭibok shakes his head, sorry to see her fussing over these details, then finds his brown, ankle-high boots in the shoe cabinet and slips his feet into them. He checks himself in the mirror and repeats the hair-behind-the-ears routine.
“I’ll be home early!”
The dinner party is scheduled for six, with friends arriving from far and near—a couple from Seoul, a couple from Ilsan, one from Yangp’yŏng, and one from here in Pusan. Six o’clock is early for dinner, even in winter, but she wanted everyone to be able to enjoy the color of the ocean before sunset. In response to Hŭibok’s invitation to join them for some fresh air and dinner, all six responded promptly, each of them jumping at the opportunity for an ocean view. Leaving Sunnam and Hŭibok to wonder if their guests had ever seen the ocean.
Ten days ago Sunnam and Hŭibok saw The Dead at a nearby arthouse theater. This adaption by John Huston of the James Joyce novella unfolds at a Christmas party hosted by two sisters. Toward the end of the movie Gabriel, one of the sisters’ nephews, returns to his hotel and reflects at length on those who are dead or about to die. This sad meditation on the realization that those involved directly and indirectly in his life journey were disappearing one after another left Sunnam choked up at thoughts of P, their mentor. Why not invite our friends and have our own remembrance of P? suggested Hŭibok. It was as if he had read her mind.
*
It was winter and Sunnam and Hŭibok were returning to their hotel from Camus’s grave in Lourmarin in southern France, a trip they had promised each other for a decade, when they learned of P’s passing. The timing was devastating. Unable to sleep, she gazed at the dark sky from beneath the massif, thousands of miles from home. On a clear night the highlands sky was a sea of stars, but no star was visible then, only a bank of fog. She finally dropped off, only to awaken at dawn. Tracing the moonlight to the window, she spotted the morning star twinkling in the distance. She wrapped her robe tightly about her and lowered her head to pray.
*
Her first priority when expecting company is to retrieve the candlesticks from the chest. It’s a ritual she partakes of once or twice a year. Kangjae, their son, brought them home from a high school history trip to Europe. His choice was apt, and the candlesticks grew on her. She couldn’t forget their milky luster and smooth touch that first time she removed them from the tissue paper. We all have an affinity for that special something, and hers was for the candlesticks. It has been a while since she liberated them from their dark storage. She remembers the what of that occasion but not the when. She takes the snuffer attached to the candlesticks and taps them—ding ding. When was it? Lately she feels her recent memories are shedding like a lizard’s tail, but she still has a grip on the remote memories. All morning she’s been trying to remember the last time she lit the candles, not the first time she unwrapped them. The memory of that first time comes tantalizingly close and then poof, it’s gone. But finally it comes back: the dinner party last October, on opening night of the Pusan International Film Festival.
There were eight at their dining table for eight—Jambi the Kyrgyzstani journalist and her father; Jaya the singer from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia; three of Hŭibok’s coworkers, who, difficult to believe, were oblivious to the film festival, one of their great city’s main attractions; and she and Hŭibok. Hŭibok had returned from the fish market with king crab and rung the doorbell as a delivery man would. For a memorable dinner for the inlanders, Sunnam had decided on steamed king crab washed down with California white wine.
Two of the guests had left a lasting impression on her—Jambi’s father and Jaya. Jambi’s father was a writer, and when Jambi introduced him to Sunnam, slowly pronouncing his name, Sunnam had the impression that Kyrgyz was one of those peculiar languages that go in one ear and out the other without registering. He had undergone a grueling education under the old Soviet system and as a writer was subjected to strict censorship. He didn’t touch the crab. He uttered not a word of English, the world’s linguistic currency but to him the language of the enemy, and he seemed to regard the dinner menu in the same light. His lips were stubbornly shut like those of a little boy, and all were at their wits’ end in trying to persuade him to partake. Only after Sunnam, needing a respite, had hastened to bring out the stew of soybean curd and fermented bean paste did he eagerly spoon the hot broth into his mouth. A lanky fellow, he looked like a rigid old soldier who had lost his smile, but the stew animated him with geniality. He strained to catch what was being said by the others, finally roaring with laughter and gesticulating with exaggerated joy when Jambi offered him a whispered interpretation.
Unlike her father, who held fast to the Kyrgyz language, Jambi was a professional woman with a global mindset, fluent in English and French and able to communicate in faltering Korean. She tended to her father so he wouldn’t be isolated from the group, reminding Sunnam of a mother sending her son out into the world for the first time. Sunnam had contacted her once or twice afterward, but not recently. Jambi was free-spirited and most likely was allowing the wind to carry her about the globe again.
Immersed in these thoughts, Sunnam studies the world map tacked to the wall in Hŭibok’s study. Kyrgyzstan had been highlighted in yellow for Sunnam’s benefit by Hŭibok after he’d returned from a conference there sponsored by a foundation he had helped establish. That’s where he had met Jambi. At the dinner gathering she was enchanted as Jambi unraveled her past—in Kuala Lumpur, which she had visited while working for the Kyrgyz national soccer team; in Paris, where she had lived with her mother, a practitioner of Kyrgyz dance; in San Francisco, where she had had an internship at a stock brokerage . . . The encounter was so unreal, it was like a mirage, she thinks as she traces Jambi’s extensive trajectory on the map.
She hurries to the next room, Kangjae’s room. In his absence it feels like a storage chamber with its piles of books, CDs, and memorabilia. She hovers in front of the bookcase and locates a CD among the books on Central Asia. It was a gift from Jaya, who had expressed her gratitude to Sunnam for the splendid dinner by doing what she knew best: singing and performing. She had risen, her large, limpid, mulberry eyes capturing Sunnam’s attention. And then, lips rounded and elongated, she sang a Mongolian melody. Never had Sunnam dreamed that such an evocative voice would resonate in their home. Sunnam imagined vast grasslands as she listened to the mysterious soul-beckoning song delivered by Jaya’s clear, ringing voice. Jaya fixed her gaze on Sunnam, and Sunnam felt Jaya’s voice and gaze were caressing a long-lost spirit of a precious life. At the end of the song Sunnam felt tears stream from her eyes; Jaya had penetrated her soul. In the solemnity of the moment the others failed to notice. At the conclusion of the gathering, Jaya and Sunnam embraced, and then Jaya produced a gift-wrapped CD and placed it in Sunnam’s bosom, leaving her also with a whiff of the grasslands.
*
Aaa . . . hii . . . yŏ . . . unt’ŏch’i t’ohorŭsso . . . hon. The CD, titled Life in both Mongolian and English, is an album of songs by the Mongolian singer Urna Chahar Tugchi, popularly known as Urna. The cover features a woman with long black hair and high cheekbones who gives Sunnam the impression of an untamed spirit. According to Jaya, she is the diva who gave the world a taste of the Mongolian spirit. Intimidated by Urna’s penetrating gaze, which reminds Sunnam of a mudang, a practitioner of native Korean spirituality, she hasn’t played the CD until now. Unable to comprehend that Ural-Altaic language, she tries to mimic each syllable she hears. Aaa . . . hii . . . yŏ . . . unt’ŏch’i t’ohorŭsso . . . hon. Again she imagines the vast grasslands of Mongolia.
The grandfather clock strikes eleven times, precise in interval and volume. Seven hours from now the guests will start ringing the doorbell. But now she is expecting Hyoju, one of the literature lovers among her students at the university. When they spoke by phone the previous day, Hyoju reminded Sunnam in her assertive tone that she would polish the candlesticks. A few other students, all of them male, have visited Sunnam at home, but Hyoju is the only one to have intuited Sunnam’s fussy tastes and accommodated herself to them. It’s amazing how at the age of 23 Hyoju fits Sunnam like a glove. Sunnam feels a daughterly affection for the young woman, who is painfully self-conscious and afflicted with social anxiety. She has always wondered if this is a result of Hyoju’s upbringing by a single father.
If she were still alive, she’d be about Hyoju’s age. Sunnam’s flickering gaze comes to rest on one of the picture frames on the dining-room wall. It bears a photo of young Sunnam outdoors holding baby Kangjae. She is looking down, her brow knitted in reaction to the direct sunlight. Kangjae in a bonnet of girly lace stares with inquisitive eyes toward the sun. He was tiny as her arm then, but now he’s a head taller than his father and she often feels he’s like a stranger. When he became a high schooler, she became afflicted with daily fears of losing him. As for the girl . . . Kanghŭi. Sunnam has tried to erase the name from her mind. She scans the photos of Kangjae, which range from when he was five months old to age three to age ten to seventeen to twenty. How precious he is! She waited five years after her marriage to Hŭibok, who himself had waited until after his study abroad to marry, before becoming pregnant. When the doctor announced she was having twins, she, a non-believer, thanked God. But barely a month into her life the baby girl was struck down by pneumonia. Sunnam has struggled with paranoia ever since, fearful she might lose the boy as well but desperate to dissuade herself from such thoughts. After Kanghŭi’s passing she was able to tread water and manage her sporadic but ferocious feelings of emptiness and depression, but when Kangjae left the nest she once again lapsed into heartache and distraction.
*
Maybe the kid’s taking piano lessons. For several days now Sunnam has been hearing the same tune at the same time of day from the unit above—Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” which Kangjae had learned after taking up piano at the age of seven. She had the piano placed between the dining and living rooms so she could listen to him practice as she prepared dinner. She would then have to stay up until two in the morning to meet submission deadlines and keep up with her graduate studies, a routine she maintained until age forty. She derived such joy from hearing her son play beautifully with fingers still pliable, but was quick to remind herself that these precious interludes would not last forever. Writing has always been drudge work that yields a line here and a page there from creative sensibilities that have become pointed like needle tips, but she has never wanted to reveal this to her family. Her ever-so-optimistic and amiable husband loves to bring home his students, his friends, even his mentors, a prospect that fazed her especially if she was facing a deadline. When they hosted relatives and friends from all over during the summer vacation season or the film festival, Sunnam would take out the candlesticks and set them on the table. Kangjae would play “The Entertainer” or the Brahms lullaby, albeit with a few hiccups, and in subsequent years he progressed to Chopin and Schumann, the guests listening patiently. Those were dreamlike days.
Once Kangjae is grown, I’ll go somewhere and all I’ll do is write! That did not happen. Whenever Hŭibok bragged to first-time dinner guests that Sunnam was a writer, she would correct him: “Former writer.” Their ever-present guest Im would chuckle: “I’ve heard of ex-professors but never ex-writers—a writer is forever, right?” This question embarrassed her to no end, and she couldn’t bring herself to venture an answer. Once in a while Im would bait her, making a joke or feigning innocence: “Why not just keep writing?” A question that prompted her to retrieve empty dishes from the table and retreat to the kitchen in spite of herself.
Why don’t I write anymore? What happened, anyway? In the new millennium speed is of the essence to both writers and readers. Speed is a stimulant and there’s no looking back. Whenever she confronts this menacing blockchain of speed she cringes. She doesn’t feel compelled to explain this to anyone other than her readers, and has grown quietly sequestered. But any attempt at retrospection leaves her suffocated with guilt feelings.
Im for his part came down with a chronic illness a few years back that kept him shuttling from home to hospital, then took early retirement from his teaching duties and moved to New Zealand, where he spends hours a day strolling through the grass. Despite their different palates, he and Hŭibok have maintained a special relationship for two decades. Both men were hired the same year at the same university and had helped launch the foundation that made possible the conference in Kyrgyzstan. Returning from the airport after seeing Im off to New Zealand, Hŭibok blamed Im’s illness on his diet of fast food during his years of study in the U.S. For several years now the two men have communicated intermittently by phone, promising to visit each other.
When the piano playing from above comes to a stop, Sunnam uncovers their piano and opens it. Placing her hands on the keyboard, she simultaneously plays la with her left baby finger and mi with her right index finger. She sits quietly, eyes closed, immersed in the sound.
Ever since she took up piano at sixteen she has liked to play Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. Her piano teacher was always instructing her to play them allegro vivace but she played them adagio piano. Seeing that her pupil kept returning to the same tempo after being corrected, the teacher had her switch to Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, thinking she might find them more to her liking.
Now she tries one of the Brahms pieces allegro vivace. But midway through, at the crescendo sforzando, she overdoes it and her fingers mess up. She pauses, feeling the world has come to a stop. Surely someone noticed! Feeling like an aging comedian who has arrived late for her gig, she jerks her hands from the keyboard. She almost gets up, then changes her mind and gently plays la and mi, the beginning notes of the theme song to Purple Noon. Miraculously, the tune comes back to her and she plays it to the end. The thrashing of the ocean beneath the blazing Mediterranean sun, the desire and vanity of youth—whenever she hears this song she’s reminded that youthful adventures can result in sweet self-deceit and a destructive surge of emotion. Purple Noon once drove her to mad dreams about the Italian sky and Mongibello. Yes, a movie can do that when you’re at a tender age.
*
She was thirty-eight, far past her youth, when she first set foot on Italian soil and discovered that Mongibello was a figment of her imagination. After Hŭibok had finished his conference in Nice, they carved out time to go by way of Menton to Italy—not to Rome or Naples but instead to Sanremo. She knew from childhood that Sanremo was famous for its music festival and its pines, so unlike the neighboring cities with their palm trees. On the way back to their hotel after an early dinner at a restaurant near the famous fortress, Hŭibok vowed that they would tour Italy within ten years’ time. And indeed they departed the previous winter, but to Provence in southern France instead of to Italy. The prospect of a trip to Italy had faded when she learned that Mongibello was merely a fictional contrivance. She found the place more meaningful in her imagination.
The trip had come about by coincidence: one morning Hŭibok had left the newspaper on the dining table, and in it Sunnam discovered an article with a photo of Camus’s grave in Lourmarin, in the hilly Luberon region of Provence. The article marked the fiftieth anniversary of Camus’s passing in an automobile accident at age forty-seven, mentioning the commemorative conferences and lectures held throughout the world. Once or twice a month a couple have a moment of rapport, or so it is said, and Camus and Lourmarin established such a moment for them. How had he managed to miss Camus’s grave during his countless trips to France? Hŭibok wondered out loud, overjoyed by this serendipitous discovery. “There are so many tombs of the famous in Paris, anyway. Which reminds me, I’ve been neglecting my ancestors’ graves back home.”
She recalled their anticipation as they neared Camus’s grave around noontime on that winter day. The array of cypress trees next to the grave inspired her to suggest to Kangjae that he plant a cypress beside her grave. But she changed her mind and settled on cremation, thinking she would be grateful enough if her remains were spread over the ocean at dawn. At the end of this chain of thought awaited death, she realized now. If not for the doorbell, who knows how long that chain might have extended?
*
“I remembered it!” says Hyoju as she thrusts a bouquet of fresh mint through the open door. Sunnam is preparing a meal of saltwater eel, to be served with white wine and mint.
“It’s been a long time since I made this. Wish me luck.”
Sunnam says this in all earnestness. She’s still bothered by her difficulty in recalling that dinner a year ago with the candlesticks—and what if she makes a mess of the meal? After all, the dish requires a full measure of intricacy and a dash of improvisation. It was after their move to Pusan that she discovered mint. Back in Ilsan, near the capital, they were aficionados of freshwater eel and frequented the Poplar House restaurant on the Imjin River, to savor it marinated and grilled over charcoal and eaten with shredded ginger. But here in the southern coastal climate people prefer them grilled, dipped in a hot-and-sour pepper paste, and eaten in lettuce wraps with sweet pepper and mint. Mint is abundant beside the trail along the water where she walks at dawn. At first she had no idea that the short plant was a type of mint, and that it grew everywhere—not only on the sunny hillsides but next to the railroad tracks, in the alleys, even from cracks in the pavement. One day, drawn by the purple flowers of the plants trembling in the sea breeze, she picked one of them and had her first sniff of the mint fragrance.
“Wow, you’ve been listening to Urna!” Hyoju exclaims as she sits down at the table to polish the candlesticks.
Sunnam nods, then sits across from Hyoju with the mint, which she has transferred to a tray. It’s just like Jaya said. Urna must really be famous if Hyoju knows her.
“Of course, you have her CD.” Hyoju is all ears listening to it. She seems focused more on Urna than on the candlesticks, and suddenly she’s chattering: “We can’t find it in Korea—how did you get it? I love to listen to her, especially the songs about the nine beaches and the red horse. I couldn’t download them so my friend helped me. I have to go to Mongolia. Her voice makes me feel I’m being summoned. What would you think if I lived in Ulaanbaatar for a year?” And on and on. Sunnam has never seen Hyoju in this light, but she doesn’t mind her chatting as if to a friend or to her mother. Sunnam sometimes feels sad that Hyoju seems so closed off and self-absorbed, but not today. It also strikes her that there’s a resemblance between Hyoju and Urna, but she can’t put her finger on it. It’s not the prominent cheek bones, not the willful hair, so thick and black and straight, not the bronze skin-tone with its nomad’s sheen.
“Have you ever seen a red horse?” she says with a sheepish expression.
Sunnam is still ruminating about the resemblance between Hyoju and Urna. And about why she tucked the CD among the books instead of listening to it even once. That’s it! The eyes staring at her are as dark and twinkling as Urna’s.
“I can’t remember—I think I might have, a horse with a reddish color.”
Smiling faintly at Hyoju, she picks the mint leaves and gathers them in a bowl. Eel for dinner—what a great idea. The mint smells rich and fresh, and Hyoju’s face is bright and cheerful. How wonderful.
*
The doorbell first sounds at 5:50, and the other guests arrive at intervals of 20 to 30 minutes. As she expected, Song Ch’ŏlhwa and her husband, who have come the farthest, arrive the earliest. Yi Kangja rings the bell an hour later. O Mira and her husband, usually on time, arrive 40 minutes late due to the derailment of a KTX train.
With the arrival of each new guest, the earlier arrivals rise from the sofa and follow Sunnam and Hŭibok to the door, and before they know it all are in position for the last time, two and two as in a folk dance, when Yi arrives. After an exchange of greetings they pause in front of the grandfather clock, amazed at the two-meter height and marveling at the three small clocks in the owl-head top. Someone mentions that it looks like Goethe’s clock in Frankfurt.
“We were so impressed by that clock when we visited Goethe’s home. Why, my husband turned a new leaf in life. I just wish that leaf had lasted more than a year,” said Song, drawing sighs of commiseration.
The guests had met one another through P. Song and her husband attended Sunnam’s wedding, which was officiated by P, and in turn asked P to officiate their wedding the following year. O and her husband attended Song and her husband’s wedding and asked P’s services as well. Ha and his wife are the only ones with no direct connection to either Sunnam or Hŭibok. They were married in a public ceremony with P as witness, and without a reception left for Ireland, to the envy of everyone. Ha, who preferred to be called a music designer rather than a composer, was killed in an auto accident at the age of 42 when he was in Germany to produce a movie soundtrack. Yi, Hŭibok’s cousin on his mother’s side, married late, when she was 40, the ceremony officiated by P, but divorced 10 years later. P used to invite his students whose weddings he had officiated, and the friends of those students, to his home for an annual dinner party. And if the year was especially fortuitous, they met twice at a restaurant as well. This changed when Yi’s divorce papers were stamped, despite P’s effort to mediate. When Yi moved back to her family home of Pusan, and her now former husband left for Russia on business, the get-togethers with P ran down like a rusty clock. Groups of two or three might visit him, but the soirees had ground to a halt by the time P left for America, where his daughter lived, to find treatment for his arthritis.
“I have too much stuff and I’m trying to get rid of the excess,” said Kwŏn, Ha’s widow, who had settled in Yangp’yŏng for her health and taken over her late husband’s affairs. “All that junk of mine, and you have this precious clock—I’m jealous.” Everyone turned somber.
The clock, the center of conversation for this group who had not gathered for several years, is Hŭibok’s prize possession. It stands opposite the storage chest in the hallway to the bedroom, both items heirlooms from Hŭibok’s grandfather. From the time Kangjae was three, Hŭibok taught him that the clock has been the guardian of the Kwak family, a rare treasure that has kept perfect time ever since Hŭibok himself was three and learned the concept of time. When Hŭibok returned from a summer trip with his students to an overseas university, he would ask about Kangjae and the clock before properly greeting Sunnam.
After Kangjae left for the university in Seoul, Hŭibok adopted another alter ego—the Selmer saxophone he plans to play during tonight’s dinner. The truth is, he has no ear for music, and yet he practices on it every day, an instrument that demands a high level of musicality and technique, the sound reaching her ears and those of the neighbors. The latter have lodged appeals and Sunnam has complained of hearing problems, but to no avail. In the beginning she decided to be patient, giving him six months maximum. But Hŭibok, believing that you finish what you start, has hung on for three years. Now Sunnam can laugh at herself, realizing that when the saxophone pops up in a phone conversation she’ll criticize Mr. Stick-with-It’s playing but the next moment brag proudly about it. Mea culpa: You leave fish out for the cat, what do you expect?
Three winters ago, when Kangjae had completed the university entrance exams, Sunnam left on his desk an ad that had arrived with a credit card bill: instruments were available for loan, along with home music lessons from professional musicians. Kangjae back then was learning jazz piano by himself, and she dropped him a hint—instead of lazing around during the long winter break before he started university, why not try something new? The subject came up over dinner that night, and Hŭibok turned out to be more interested than Kangjae: “You mean they’ll loan me a saxophone?” Sunnam realized then that she didn’t know Hŭibok quite as well as she had thought. Here they were, having slept in the same bed almost twenty-five years, and she had no idea he was crazy about the saxophone and had dreamed of performing on stage at least once before kicking the bucket.
*
Sunnam’s idea was to have dinner at 6 when the group could still sample the color of the ocean. No, that won’t happen, Hŭibok told himself, and sure enough, not until 7 does it get under way. When all are seated, Song’s husband rises, clears his throat, and launches into “Memories of Maggie.” He has a high range and a soft tone. He is Hŭibok’s buddy from university, and Sunnam and Hŭibok introduced him and Song. This isn’t the first time he’s done this, thinks Sunnam. Whenever Hŭibok came home from a get-together with his college buddies, he would say that his friend with the golden voice should have been in academia instead of him. His friend runs an import-export business focusing on South Asia, but he has the air of a scholar. Which is reflected now in his perfect singing, she thinks.
Kwŏn then intones two verses favored by her late husband, who set them to music:
I didn’t believe you
on that weak, scraggy branch.
You’ve kept your snow pledge: two, three flowers have bloomed.
Candle in hand, I approach in admiration: a delicate fragrance wafts through the air.
The wind drives the snow;
it strikes the window of this mountain villa.
Gelid air seeps through and attacks the sleeping plum.
Let the air
freeze all it wishes; can it filch the will of spring?*
The verse is an exquisite mix of poem, pop song, and aria, her clear, flaunting voice about to die out one second, only to be revived, resurgent. Just as the song is finishing, Sunnam brings the dinner from the warming oven. As she serves the guests she recommends the white wine and the mint and reminds them that the eel is also available in a soybean-paste stew for those preferring a spicy but saltier dish. Hŭibok then proposes a toast, and eight wine glasses draw close above the table. Sunnam takes a quick, thirsty sip. Someone asks about the saxophone lying next to the piano and Yi calls on saxophonist Kwak Hŭibok to perform. With his tone-deaf ear he never fails to make a mistake in spite of his lip-swelling diligence at practicing, and this makes Sunnam nervous. He starts to play, and she steals off to the kitchen to prepare dessert.
*
The guests are gone and Hŭibok is changing into his pajamas.
“It’s odd,” Sunnam says.
“What’s odd?” says Hŭibok, though he wears a knowing expression as he buttons his top.
She pouts as they get into bed, then smooths the quilt. “None of us mentioned P.”
“That’s right. Why didn’t you?” he asks softly.
“Well, I made that eel dish, it’s his favorite. And then I forgot all about him.”
He draws near and takes her hands, “Don’t you think they were waiting to say something too and then they forgot? Opportunities have been known to slip through people’s fingers. And maybe some things are better left unsaid . . .”
Instead of responding to his banter she rolls over, her back to him. No one brought up memories of P, as if by a tacit understanding. She turns off the light and thinks back to the dinner: the rendition of “Memories of Maggie,” P’s favorite song; Hŭibok playing P’s idol Song Ch’angshik’s “The First Confession,” a song he and P heard Song perform at a festival; O’s sweet rice puff with wild sesame seeds, a dessert that was P’s ubiquitous snack; Kwon’s singing of An Minyŏng’s “Song of the Plum,” a gift written by P with ink brush just before her marriage to Ha; Yi’s mint tea, which P would serve using mint from his garden; and finally Sunnam’s saltwater eel, enjoyed by P the cooking enthusiast, who had never sampled her rendition of this dish.
Hŭibok is fast asleep. He must have been pleased with his performance, thinks Sunnam. The truth was, instead of mailing the invitations Hŭibok sent them by email, with a P.S.: How about preparing something to remember him by? Sunnam, though, was kept in the dark. Unaware of this, she remains awake. The morning star she saw at Lourmarin the night they learned of P’s death comes to mind. It’s an image she cannot release.
