Kristopher Jansma - Why We Came to the City

“My father is quiet. Silent, generally, so don’t be offended if he doesn’t say anything. And my mother is — strange. She works in the community here as a sort of a healer, I guess. Not like a doctor. It’s a family thing — back in Korea her mother was a mudang… like a shaman-kind-of-medicine-woman-kind-of-thing. So she’s bonkers, basically. I don’t know. She thinks she talks to spirits and gods, and people pay her to, like, channel—”

“William. Everyone’s got a crazy family. Take a breath.”

“Well, not all of them speak to the dead, that’s all I’m saying. Actually there’s one other thing,” he whispered as he stood awkwardly a few inches from her. “My parents won’t like it if they think we’re dating. Because you aren’t Korean. Not that we are dating. But we should make sure they don’t think we are.”

Irene knew she ought to be upset at this but simply couldn’t feel it. She looked at him mischievously. “You know I’m just using you for your body.”

Again William turned six shades of red. She dragged him up the steps of his own house and rang his doorbell. In moments they were greeted by a tall woman who studied them from behind the screen door.

“Come in, hurry!” she said. “You’ll get caught in the storm!”

“It’s beautiful out!” William said as she took the presents from him and bustled them both inside. Irene looked up at the sky, which was soft and pink from the cast-off light of their city. There wasn’t a dark cloud anywhere in sight.

Inside, they took off their coats and laid them on top of an old washer and dryer, atop a heap of others. Irene shook Mrs. Cho’s hand, which was covered in large rings. As the woman turned to address her son in stern Korean, Irene was delighted to see that the woman’s hair was dotted with more of these tiny rings, glinting like silver salmon backs leaping upstream.

“Mom, this is Irene.” William said.

Mrs. Cho looked up at her. “We are so glad you could come. It’s always good when William has a friend.”

He blushed.

“I love your hair,” Irene said to Mrs. Cho.

She blushed, a slighter shade than her son, and gripped Irene’s hands between her own pair, giving them a shake. She seemed about to say something when she pulled away, her eyes filling with curiosity and worry. “Not feeling well?” she asked.

Irene tried to smile. “I’ve never felt better, Mrs. Cho. Honestly.”

But Mrs. Cho stood there, lips pursed, inspecting Irene as if she were a thin crack in a wall that might get larger. William hissed something at her in Korean, which she ignored, and then he hissed again, and she sharply spoke back to him without taking her eyes off Irene. Something about it made Irene feel as if she were back at the hospital, being scanned in the echo chamber of the MRI machine. She felt a quick dizziness, as if the tiles beneath their feet had lurched an inch upward, and then it was gone.

Mrs. Cho reached up with one ringed hand and seemed about to clap Irene on the shoulder, when her thumb flicked higher, passing directly below her left eye. Irene’s hand jumped up nervously and brushed Mrs. Cho’s hand away. Awkwardly, Irene pretended to be picking at an errant eyelash, as William barked at his mother, and she finally stepped back.

“I hope we haven’t missed dinner. It smells incredible.”

Something about the look in Mrs. Cho’s spectacled eyes continued to make Irene uncomfortable as she said, “We are just sitting down!” and graciously led them into the next room.

Irene tried to settle herself, cooing over a hung portrait in the family room of young William and his brother, dressed in some sort of ceremonial garb, but the deeper into the home that she got, the harder she felt it was to draw in a proper breath. Following the glinting rings in Mrs. Cho’s hair, Irene had the oddest sensation of descent, as if the room were on a slight slope, and they were all leaning a bit against it in order to stay upright.

They paused at an open double door, through which Irene saw a great library filled with books, and a Christmas tree in the far corner surrounded by presents. Mrs. Cho stepped inside to leave the presents that William had brought, while they both spoke more amiably, in their private singsong language. Irene closed her eyes a moment and tried to pierce through the spicy, strange scents that were coming from the dining room and breathe in the evergreen. But all she could make out was dry sawdust.

In the dining room they found the rest of the Cho family, and Irene was quickly introduced to Mr. Cho (who gave a warm grunt but spoke not at all) and William’s older brother, Charles, who sat with his wife, Kyung-Soon, and their daughters, Charlotte and Emily. The girls chirped to each other as Irene was seated beside them. Emily seemed not quite able to look at her without immediately looking back down at her coloring book, whereas Charlotte couldn’t seem to look at anything else. Irene shook everyone’s hands, and there was jubilation as William and his brother began to catch up on something or other.

Spread out on the table was a colorful and strange feast. Irene had ordered Korean takeout food before — kimchi and bibimbap and rice cakes — but she had never seen any of these dishes. Crispy brown pieces of grilled pork, cucumbers stuffed with something crimson, and a plate of spongy-looking squid caked in sesame seeds. In the center of the table was an enormous snapper, its red scales seared brown from careful grilling, but its head still on and staring slack-jawed at Irene as she tried to get comfortable.

Ordinarily, Irene loved trying new foods, and everything smelled mysteriously delicious, but the uneasiness grew inside her gut as she sat there at the table. Before she could quite get talking to anyone, Mr. Cho looked backward and began addressing a painting of Christ on the cross that hung on the wall above his chair. Irene wasn’t quite sure what was happening until she saw everyone lowering their heads, and the shy hand of little Emily gripping the edge of hers. Mr. Cho began to pray in a croaky tongue. Irene closed her eyes and tried to feel grateful — for the food, for the company, for the dress even, but somehow these thoughts were hard in coming. She never felt comfortable praying. She always felt like a liar, afterward.

Once Mr. Cho was finished, they all continued to chatter in Korean. Irene could barely detect the tone, let alone the meaning. It made her a little dizzy at first — and then a lot. Just minutes ago she’d never been happier; she tried to trace her steps back to it, but the way was lost. The crook of her elbow stung where the IV tube had been. There were still little black smudges outlining the places where the tape had held it down. She picked at the sticky edges. The lump beneath her eye was sore, and it made her wonder if the cisplatin and the doxorubicin were already binding with the tiniest and most intimate fibers of her being. It was surely in there and in everywhere, from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet. The nurses had warned her of dizziness, irritability, and nausea. She tried to look delighted as she was at last introduced to Charles and Kyung-Soon.

“Charles is my older brother, and of course, he’s a doctor, so my parents like him best,” William explained.

“It’s true,” Mrs. Cho shrugged mischievously

Charles tried to wave this away. “William’s the one who got into Yale.”

“You went to medical school!” Kyung-Soon squeaked, as she passed Irene a bowl of a magenta soup filled with clams, shrimp, and tofu delicately carved in the shape of small fish.

“In Rochester,” Charles teased. “Irene, if you ever want to see a fish out of water, find a Korean in Rochester.”