audacity. She looked half contemptuous, half amused, and she gazed into thin air, as if seeing something invisible, something only she had the power to see. The doctor stood up, cleared his throat, and walked out, looking grave.
A tray of plum wine was brought in for the doctor and Mr. O, whose face was all mouth, from one ear to the other, at the news. He was not getting younger and felt that this was a divine gift, finally.
“Thank you, Dr. Choi, thank you,” Mr. O said, as if it had been the work of the doctor that his wife was pregnant.
“Mistress Yee is in good spirits, and by nature she is very strong. She will have no trouble carrying this through to the end,” Dr. Choi said, remembering his first wife, Mistress Kim, whose sudden death confounded him, for her constitution had been in excellent harmony despite her delicate frame.
“I was sorry to hear the news about Mistress Kim,” the doctor mentioned. He knew that it wasn’t the right moment for condolences, but he couldn’t stop his tongue once it got started.
“Poor woman. She was good through and through,” Mr. O said. There was a tinge of melancholy in his voice. “Please,” he said, recommending more plum wine to the doctor.
At that moment, Mrs. Wang was on her way to Mr. O’s mansion. She thought her legs were going to break, the way she had recently walked miles and miles on low fuel. She sat under an old pine tree and listened to the silence of the earth. It was good to sit in the shade. She looked inside her pouch, where no more cucumbers or rice balls remained. She never carried enough food.
Out of nowhere, a deer appeared. Its innocent eyes stared at Mrs. Wang intently, making her feel rather uncomfortable. She pretended she was a statue, fearing she might frighten the little creature. She remembered she had bought deer meat from a hunter once and it was the best thing next to beef, but right now she wasn’t in the mood to strangle this little creature. There was something about the deer or, perhaps in the atmosphere, that prevented her from acting hastily. She held her breath and stared back at the deer. Those eyes. She had seen them before. Lurid and sad and silent. A large pinecone dropped on Mrs. Wang’s head, shocking her, and she jumped up. The deer ran away. Mrs. Wang sighed.
Her legs wobbled as she walked downhill toward her destination. The night before, she hadn’t been able to sleep for some reason, and during those sleepless hours, she had thought of one wish: when she grew really old and it was time for her to go, she wanted to die instantaneously, in her sleep, without knowing it. That would be a blessing.
She approached Mr. O’s vast land with its colossal grove of trees, and she listened to the loud and monotonous a cappella singing of summer insects. All of a sudden a young lad jumped out of a field screaming, with a leech on his leg. Mrs. Wang took a stick and removed the bloodsucking creature. She said, “Reserve your screaming for the end of the world. It’s just a leech.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Wang. I was terribly scared,” he apologized.
A woman shouted from the field, “Mrs. Wang, we are having some food. Why don’t you join us?”
Mrs. Wang looked up into the sky to see what time it might be, and thought, people can wait but food can’t. So she joined them for lunch. The farmers and Mrs. Wang passed the weathered Jang Seung , totem poles. Three offering bowls of rice, with incense planted among the grains, were lined up in front of the totem poles, whose grotesque expressions were varied but muted, with faded colors and chipped noses.
The farmers met up with two women carrying trays of food on their heads. Steamed barley and young pumpkin leaves and bean paste and green chilies were their lunch. The farmers ate and talked and laughed and shouted with their food in their mouths.
“Hope we will have enough rain this year,” a woman said as she stuffed her mouth with steamed barley