Waxing Moon by H.S. Kim Page B

her to eat all day long.”
    Soonyi looked thoughtful. She definitely didn’t want to spend all day begging Mistress Yee to take her meals.
    “Of course, if we could get a chance to speak to the master, that would be the simplest way out of trouble. But we might have to talk to Mistress Yee. After all, Mirae is her favorite maid. And she is going to look for Mirae any minute anyway,” Nani said. “Don’t stand there like a scarecrow. Will you go get me some eggs? And wake up, will you?”
    “Yes, Big Sister. How many?” Soonyi asked, widening her eyes.
    “Please,” Nani drawled. “Don’t get my blood boiling so early in the morning. You go and get however many eggs you see in the basket. Don’t you know that eggs are delivered every morning by the boy down by the creek?”
    “Yes, of course,” Soonyi said quietly and fled the kitchen.
    Nani crushed garlic with the heavy wooden handle of the knife. After putting it aside in a little bowl, she began to chop onions, which made her sniffle. Suddenly, she turned around. Nani often thought that she caught a glimpse of her late mother. She sat down by the stove and cried a little, thinking of her. Sometimes at night, she would look at the door, thinking that at any moment her mother would come in and lie down next to her. And sometimes she would see her mother in her dreams; afterward, she would feel lonely and distracted all day long. Min made her feel good, but no one would ever be able to take her mother’s place, she knew. She blew her nose. She tightened the string of her apron and began to cook zucchini in a pot, stirring the vegetable intermittently.
    “Big Sister, here are three eggs,” Soonyi said as she came in.
    “Good,” Nani replied.
    “What is the matter?” she asked, seeing Nani’s red eyes.
    “Nothing. Now I want you to get a scoop of bean paste for the soup,” she said.
    “Sure,” Soonyi replied, looking at Nani blankly.
    “Get going. Don’t stand around,” Nani chided Soonyi.
    A few minutes later, Soonyi came in with bean paste on a spatula.
    “Get a strainer. And press the paste through it into the water,” Nani ordered.
    Soonyi did as she was told.
    In the meantime, Nani broke the eggs into a bowl. She swirled them with a spoon, adding chopped scallion and gingko nuts and sea salt. She was going to poach them in a double boiler.
    In an hour, there was a hot meal on a low table. Nani and Soonyi carried it to their master and mistress, who sat close to each other, smirking about something like kids. Nani was relieved to find her superiors in a good mood.
    The maids wished them a very good appetite and left. On the way back to the kitchen, Nani lectured Soonyi about how she had put her face too close to the food as they took the low table in. This was what her mother had said to her some years before.
    Soonyi denied having done so, just as Nani had vehemently argued against her mother’s accusation.
    They walked back to the kitchen. Nani was upset. She wanted Soonyi to acknowledge her own shortcoming and say that she wouldn’t do it again.
    In the kitchen, Soonyi took a gulp of water and dropped a piece of fried zucchini into her mouth.
    “Soonyi, let me teach you something. Don’t eat standing,” Nani snapped. Her mother had also said this to her often. At the time, Nani hadn’t understood. But now she did. It wasn’t proper. It was something a maid would do. And a maid didn’t have to live the life of a maid, her mother had emphasized.
    Nani set the table for three in the middle of the hardwood floor in front of the maids’ shared bedroom. Then she told Soonyi to go out and get the male servants for breakfast.
    It was already getting hot.
    Soonyi first went inside to see if Mirae was feeling any better and if she would like to eat a little.
    “Big Sister!” Soonyi shouted from inside the room.
    “Calm down, child,” Nani said, employing her mother’s tone of voice.
    “Big Sister, Mirae is so sick!” Soonyi rushed out