Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller Page A

true: The war would never end, because the Japanese, like all that was evil, would wait in the shadows, shape-shifting and patient, hoping for a chance to swallow you whole.

    I could not seem to differentiate among the missionaries, with their pink skin, mud-and-straw-colored hair, and large noses that blocked the space between their pale, watery eyes. If not for the clothes, I would have had trouble distinguishing the men from the women, for even the women were tall, with big hands and knuckles.
    Their actions, too, made it difficult to label them as men and women, for they did not behave as proper men and women. In the world before the camps, the unmarried women and men I knew lived separately. From the age of six, I was taken away from the babies of both sexes and taught the ways of women. Though we would play on the swing, standing tall as we were pushed high enough to see into the boys’ courtyard, girls were not supposed to talk or look at boys. In our family’s home, my sisters and I rarely saw my father. When he was home, we prepared his meals and served him first. After he finished eating and went into the back room to smoke or sleep, we would eat our meal. That was what was respectful.
    Even in the camps, where the soldiers banged in and out of the comfort cubicles, in and out of our women’s bodies, what was left of our minds we guarded, kept private and separate.
    At the mission house, I was embarrassed by the disrespect between the men and the women. Lives overlapping, men and women ate and worked together. They looked into each other’s faces as they spoke, laughing with mouths open. Even while worshiping, they sat side by side, unseparated by a curtain or sheet, on the same bench, thighs and shoulders almost touching.

    I began to recognize the minister because of the way the girls, forgetting or ignoring proper behavior, gathered around him. Like puppies, the girls would fall about his feet and legs, panting for a length of ribbon, a piece of candy, a box of chalk; for writing paper, toothpaste, a kind word. Thank you, Sonsaeng-nim, the girls would sing out, and as if they were pets, the minister would reach out, touching a nose, stroking the hair of those around him.
    Stop, he would say. I am not an honored teacher. I am just a child, like you all, in God’s eyes.
    But the girls would cry out: No, no, not true! Look at your body, thin and long—an aristocrat’s body! And your hands, so graceful—a scholar’s hands! And your voice, they said, like God‘s!
    The minister would laugh, saying, Stop! But his eyes would shine like blue glass.

    Because I had begun to recognize him as an individual, I watched him carefully, intensely, as if memorizing his features, his gestures, were one of my chores. Often, as he gave away his gifts, he closed his eyes and lifted his chin. Pushing his chest forward, he would open and shut his mouth quickly, pursing his lips, blowing quick puffs of air. After a few days, I realized he was singing.

    Now, years later, I recognize those same body movements and hear the words to the songs he sings to our baby. When she is fretful, crying so loud that the only thing she hears is the pain within her, only he can quiet her. He holds her tight against his chest, pinning her arms within her blanket, and sings. Soon she stops struggling, and as her screams fade into hiccups, she lifts her head toward the sound of his voice singing about whales of Jo-jo-jonah. Noah’s art-y art-y made out of go-phers barking barking. Jesus loving children.
    They are silly songs that my husband sings to comfort our child, but I hate them and I hate him.
    I hate that he can quiet her with his voice, the same voice that lulled and lured the girls from the Pyongyang mission. The same voice, sounding so honest and joyful that you want to believe, even when you know the truth. The same voice that fools everyone but me. I hate that voice because my daughter loves it.
    I