If I Had Your Face(64)

And I would sit and nod in consternation and sympathy and think warmer thoughts about my husband with his conveniently dead mother.

But if I had known what our long-term housing prospects would be, I might have traded in a dead mother for a live one with cash. Before my husband and I married, I had a vague feeling of reassurance that, oh, this man has a steady job in a top ten conglomerate so our income is accounted for. We’d save up and buy an apartment in a few years—wasn’t that what everyone did?

I didn’t realize that his monthly salary was only three million won. Or to be more accurate, I did not know that three million won was so worthless. The longer we are married, the more our bankbook seems to shrivel every time I take it out of the drawer.

I know that buying an apartment is a dream in the sky. But each month, I have been scrimping every penny, scouring for opportunities to have someone treat us for meals. In addition to toilet paper, I’ve started taking home the sponges and dish soap from the office kitchen. I wish there was some way I could resell office supplies. Our cupboard has a stockpile of very nice pens.



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HE’S RIGHT ABOUT one thing, though, as much as I hate to admit it. I do have to tell work soon if I am to apply for maternity leave. I am hoping for more than a year, although I have heard that if it goes more than a year, it becomes unpaid. But these are just rumors that I have to verify. Our HR department is notorious for leaks, however, and if my immediate boss finds out that I told HR before I told her…my knees actually buckle to think of this.

I have been worrying about how to tell her ever since I began to think there was a chance that this baby might make it. How does one talk to a bitter, unmarried, workaholic female boss about such a thing? I am scared that she will say it is ridiculous to have paid maternity leave, especially since we can all assume that she will never get one. “No. No. No. Why should you be paid for not working, when everyone else works twice as hard as you? So that you can play with a baby at home? Women like you are the reason companies do not want to hire women. And that sets back women everywhere. If you were a man, how many days off would you take after having a baby? That’s right, none.” And then she will do what she can to demote me when I do come back to work, somehow in the name of feminism. If I ever try to leave at a decent hour—say, before dinnertime—she will concentrate her fury and aim it at me like a blowtorch. I know her tactics. I know her caustic, embittered mind. If she wasn’t such a raging bitch, I would feel sorry for her. Instead, my hate is a heavy rock sitting in the middle of my chest. Every day, it sinks a little lower toward my stomach.

My only resort is to pump Bora sunbae for information. She only recently joined our department, so I do not know much about her, but she has a son who is somewhere around three or four years old. I wonder if her boss in her former department was nicer than Miss Chun and whether she felt such fear about broaching the topic of maternity leave. I resolve to ask her about it at lunch, when one can glean such tantalizing tidbits about private lives.



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AT 11:55 A.M., everyone on the floor stands up simultaneously and makes for the elevator, where we press the down button and let four full elevators come and go before we finally get to the lobby, twenty minutes later. It is the same every day and every day I wonder why I do not go twenty minutes before everyone else and say that I will come back twenty minutes earlier too. I’m sure everyone thinks the same thing I do. But no one does it except Department Head Lee.

When we make it to the lobby, I realize my mistake. Our team is going to Sun Tuna today for lunch. Not only is it sashimi, but it is tuna, the worst kind for pregnancy. I should have stayed in and eaten the cup of ramen at my desk. I kick myself mentally, but then I remember that I vowed to give up convenience store food six weeks ago. I would pretend an emergency phone call and extricate myself, but Chief Cho is buying lunch as a thank-you for coming to his wedding and it has taken three months of scheduling and rescheduling to get our entire team here. It would look terrible if I left now. It would be one less person to pay for, so he would probably secretly be happy, but he would still fake-fume about it for weeks. It is not worth it.

Through some strategic maneuvering, I am seated at the end of the table across from Bora sunbae, hoping no one will notice that I am not eating the tuna. I make a show of heartily eating the banchan and asking the server for more.

“So, is it wonderful? Married life?” Someone throws out the question as a courtesy.

Chief Cho preens. “Of course, it’s nice to come home to a hot homemade dinner every evening. I highly recommend it so far.”

“You better get started if you want children,” pipes up Mr. Geum. “It’s so hard to run around with the kids when you’re older. Your back hurts.”

Then someone at the other end of the table starts to talk about how old they feel and all the aches and pains they are experiencing these days and the conversation threatens to veer away from children. So I say hurriedly, “Are you planning on having more kids, Bora sunbae?”

She has a mouthful of tuna, so she almost chokes when she shakes her head vehemently.

“Are you kidding?” she asks loudly, so that everyone’s attention turns to her. “I am so done after one child.”

Chief Cho, who is older than Bora by at least three years, clucks. “Well, you know what they say. It’s hard when they’re young but they are your greatest assets when you are older. I personally want three.” He beams. “And all you young people, you better get cracking. Don’t wait like me. I regret it already.”