7
Property
Unlike Helen, who’d married for love, Sonya Cho had refused to give up her marriage prospects for romance. Since childhood, Sonya had been clear-eyed and pragmatic. She was beautiful, capable, and motivated to excel. At school and work, she had outperformed everyone.
Neither an optimist nor a pessimist, by living in the present with great concentration on what was most important, Sonya had become a gifted adapter and a brilliant problem solver.
Only a few years after she finished Ewha Womans University, her contemporaries believed Sonya had won at life by becoming the handpicked bride of the heir of her employer, Chairman Mun, the owner of some of the costliest real estate in Seoul.
Starting out as a small-time real estate broker, the Chairman had purchased abandoned factory buildings one by one and fixed them up.
With foresight and luck, he’d acquired dozens of others, developing them into a wildly impressive real estate portfolio.
He was reputed to be an honest landlord, unwilling to overcharge desperate tenants while never suffering liars.
Yong-gil, Chairman Mun’s chosen nephew, was a hard worker.
Not only was he smart about people and diabolical in business, he loved his successful uncle like a father.
Yong-gil’s late father and the Chairman had the same father but different mothers.
As the boy of a luckless father, who died early of a stroke, and a cruel mother, Yong-gil had understood early that his savvy uncle was his only ticket out of the average life of a salaryman—the best that a person like him could achieve without family money and significant connections.
Yong-gil did not want a mediocre life. He wanted power and extraordinary wealth that would protect him and his family for generations.
Chairman Mun chose Sonya for him, and Yong-gil obeyed. He would’ve preferred a girl from a higher class of people. However, there was an advantage in marrying someone from an inferior background: Her people could never look down on him.
Sonya’s ne’er-do-well parents had been gamblers who left debts wherever they lived.
Her mother, a coarse, illiterate woman who loved to smoke cigarettes and play go-stop, had done odd jobs, working more frequently than her husband, who died in his mid-thirties from exposure after a night spent drinking.
At age thirty-six, when Sonya was in high school, her mother collapsed at a market from a coronary, leaving all three children in the care of a neighbor who made life so difficult that the orphans had to figure things out for themselves.
The Cho sisters applied themselves at school, and with the guidance of a few upright public school teachers and a collection of priests and nuns, they ended up graduating from an excellent women’s college, then married.
With a letter of introduction from a priest, Kenny migrated to Australia, where he settled and flourished.
The Cho siblings almost never spoke of their parents or their childhood.
Chairman Mun had watched his late half brother’s son Yong-gil grow up and recognized his unstinting ambition and relentless work ethic.
What his nephew needed was not a high society beauty who would waste time and money on things that did not matter, but rather a diligent and ethical girl from an unimportant family like his favorite secretary, Sonya, who was also an exquisite beauty.
Her undisciplined parents had given her no money, security, or pedigree, but she had been born with a face and body that would rival any Miss Korea’s.
Men used to gape at his secretary, who remained loyal, appropriate, and virtuous.
Sonya’s refusal to flirt or acknowledge their romantic and sexual advances impressed the Chairman.
Tycoons asked him privately, “Does Miss Cho have a boyfriend?” and the Chairman would deflect any requests for an introduction.
Wealthy men, by nature more persistent than poor ones, tried anyway.
“Miss Cho, would you make some time for me so I can buy you something delicious?” the bold ones asked, as if the woman could not afford to eat, when for a secretary she was paid handsomely. Always, Sonya declined.
“If anyone bothers you, please let me know,” the Chairman said, and she’d always handled it without any fuss.
The nephew, a canny negotiator, understood that marrying the girl that his uncle had selected would be to his benefit.
Obedience in such an important decision in a man’s life would demonstrate the requisite filial piety that even most sons would not practice.
Moreover, with Sonya’s impoverished background and lack of protectors, Yong-gil would be free to do what he liked, so he bought a proper one-carat diamond and proposed to her as expected.
After two dinners and a day trip to the seaside, Yong-gil asked, “Miss Cho, would you be my wife?”
Sonya accepted him.
The Chairman and his wife threw the couple an intimate reception at the Chosun Hotel and gave them a honeymoon in Rome. Sonya was a virgin when she married the Chairman’s nephew, which pleased her husband.
Yong-gil worked six days a week. He came home late at night if he came home at all. Sonya understood this arrangement from the beginning. After she gave birth to their two sons, she cared for the Chairman’s ailing wife, and after she passed, Sonya became the lady of the house.
The IMF Crisis affected the Chairman’s holdings inasmuch as the corporate rental income was diminished; however, because he didn’t have much debt, his company fared far better than most.
The morning after Sonya learned that Helen and John had lost their jobs, Sonya bathed, did her makeup elegantly, and dressed in a cream-colored dress that the Chairman had selected for her.
She wore a thick rope of white South Sea pearls, which she had inherited from the Chairman’s wife, around her smooth, pale neck.
Sonya knocked on the main door of the Chairman’s suite of rooms, which combined his home office, living area, and bedroom.
“Chairman, may I come in?”
Chairman Mun was seated on the built-in sofa by the large window overlooking the Han River, reading a newspaper.
He had a broad forehead, a strong brow, and large brown eyes; he always reminded Sonya of a retired statesman.
The Chairman had a habit of staring at people, and his approval and disapproval came quickly.
At home, he wore charcoal-gray wool flannel trousers and a white dress shirt, a gray necktie, and a black cardigan vest. He was sixty-three but looked a decade younger. His hair was graying well, and unlike his peers, he refused to dye it.
Seeing her, he removed his reading glasses, the better to scan the plea behind her eyes.
“I arranged your lunch today. It will be served in the dining room. I thought you might like duck.”
He sensed she needed something. The girl was clever and knew he didn’t like to be asked for anything, so she always began with an offer, or the announcement of a task performed.
“Do you want to come sit by me? Tell me how you are.”
She bowed her head.
“Come.”
Sonya made sure the door was closed.
“You’re wearing the dress I bought you.”
“Yes.”
“This dress. Let me think. That was from when we stopped at Shinsegae after the lawyers.”
“Yes. Thank you again.” Sonya’s lower lip trembled, and out of habit, she touched the fine cashmere fabric along her hip with her right hand.
“It’s your sister, isn’t it?”
“They have to move.”
He exhaled.
“Where will they go?”
“My sister thinks America. California. Their eldest son, Bo-hun, is there. It’s too difficult to return here. There’s no work for my brother-in-law, I think.”
“This is a terrible time. It’ll be better for them there. No one there seems affected by it. Some Americans are here already, buying things up. The dollar’s strong. They’re going to pick up bargains.”
Sonya swallowed. She knew he knew. He always knew.
“They don’t have money to immigrate,” the Chairman said.
She touched her flat stomach, smoothing out a fold in the fabric.
He studied her waist. He liked that she was trim even after giving birth to two large boys. He didn’t like her to be too thin, but he liked that she paid attention to her form. It embarrassed him that he had imagined her undressed.
“How is the new physical therapist?” she asked, wanting to change the subject from her sister. “I ordered more of the salts and pads she recommended.”
“She has bad breath. Otherwise, she’s perfectly fine. Tell her to brush her teeth and tongue.”
Sonya hadn’t noticed. The therapist had come highly recommended, and she didn’t want to offend her.
The Chairman put down his newspaper.
“I’ll give them the money.”
“I’ll ask them to pay it back,” she said. “They’ll need time, though.”
“I’m not the IMF. Your sister has to educate and marry off three children. I doubt they even have a house or much savings for their retirement. This money won’t affect me.”
Sonya tried to keep from crying.
“I’m so grateful to you for your generosity. I know it’s not the first time.”
“I doubt it’ll be the last. However, it hasn’t been frequent, and I know that they’re working very hard. Sometimes life isn’t fair. It’s harder for poor people to get to the next steps. It’s hard for people in this country. I’ve been lucky.”
Sonya admired the Chairman. He could be tough and blunt, yet he was never mean or stingy with his money.
She covered her mouth, and the Chairman reached for her free hand.
“There’s no need to cry. It will be fine. I have the dollars, so it will be possible to move them. I’ll talk with Yong-gil.”
He felt aroused and powerful.
She was only growing more beautiful to him, and he couldn’t help but want to please her. As his workload lessened, he had more time. Often she accompanied him to meetings, and on the way, he’d make them stop at expensive stores. The more she resisted, the more he wanted to buy her things.