1
Trades
Seoul
For years, Mrs. Im, the housekeeper, had understood the relationship between Sonya and the Chairman.
More aunt than servant, Mrs. Im was devoted to her generous employer, who had entered the Mun household as a young bride.
As lady of the house, Sonya was nothing like the Chairman’s late wife—a capricious daughter of a former cabinet member who could not be gracious to anyone she felt was below her social class.
From the very start, the housekeeper took to Sonya, admiring the young former secretary’s fine manners and humble demeanor despite her natural beauty and excellent education.
In the ensuing years, Sonya changed little regardless of the rise in her station.
If anything, the more she was given, the more she gave away.
Sonya treated everyone fairly and with great consideration, remembering the birthdays, weddings, funerals, and illnesses of those who worked for the family. To be connected to the Chairman’s household was to be protected under Sonya’s umbrella of concern.
Mrs. Im had never finished high school, but she was more capable than some of the Chairman’s brightest employees who’d received MBAs from abroad. She missed nothing, especially the wants and needs of her employers.
With so much warmth between them, the Chairman and Sonya did not seem to be former boss and secretary, nor were they like father-in-law and daughter-in-law. And lacking the casual boredom often induced by the expectation of an eternal bond, they would not be mistaken for husband and wife, either.
In the eyes of a sensitive observer, the two were undeniably lovers, connected by yearning and fear of loss.
Exquisite manners and honorific language covered the public interactions between the Chairman and Sonya like a fine silk gauze.
At home, it was possible to measure the physical space between them, which was closer than that between Sonya and her husband.
Like his uncle, Yong-gil was a stickler about language, and although he was sufficiently fair to the household staff as well as to his employees, he could be cool and rigid, unable to garner their affection.
His business competence shielded him from criticism, and his formal tone kept him at a distance from almost everyone except his sons.
On Friday evening, he came home to change before heading out again. At the door, Mrs. Im greeted him and hung up his raincoat.
“Good evening, Deacon Im.”
Yong-gil removed his black cap-toe Oxford dress shoes.
She picked up his shoes and returned them to the right shelf in the president’s private shoe closet, then withdrew his bespoke leather slippers from the bottom shelf.
Mrs. Im knelt on the floor to place the slippers in the appropriate direction for his stocking feet.
“Is everyone home?”
“The Chairman and Madam are here, but the young masters will not be at dinner. Madam said you would not be dining at home—”
“That is correct. I want to shower and change. I have a work dinner.”
Mrs. Im, older than the Chairman by a few months, a church deacon of two decades, and mother of three grown children, was not a modern person with liberal moral and romantic sensibilities; however, she knew well what it was like to be married to a philanderer.
Mrs. Im was not fooled. The president did not have a work dinner.
On Friday evenings, he went to room salons.
Over the years, Mrs. Im had met no less than half a dozen of his mistresses who had barged into the house to confront Sonya.
The Chairman’s nephew was ungrateful and overly entitled, blind to his true riches.
Unlike the uncle, who preferred the self-made individual over those born rich, the nephew, who had grown up in relative privilege, was a playboy who remembered to say please and thank you to his employees but could fire the household driver through his corporate secretary for being a few minutes late.
Never did he dole out any punishment himself.
Always, he asked his secretary, Mr. Yi, whom everyone called the Sword, to do the distasteful deed.
After Yong-gil was promoted to president of Mun Realty at forty-five years old, bypassing several senior members of the company, rather than being considerate to the executives who had helped to build the successful company, he terminated those who didn’t praise the decision.
Then he hired his smartest friends from university, shedding anyone whose background and attitude he deemed unsuitable for his vision of the future of Mun Realty.
Unlike the Chairman, who disdained hostess bars and room salons, the president preferred the most selective ones.
To the women who worked there, the president was nice-looking, wealthy, and aloof.
He wore designer clothes. Naturally they fell in love with him.
In hotel rooms, he made beautiful promises, and when the more ambitious girlfriends came to the house to realize their dreams, Mrs. Im was their first point of contact.
In her office, while Sonya met with each young woman, served tea or coffee in fine china, and disabused her of any illusions about her husband, Yong-gil, Mrs. Im chatted with the cook in the kitchen and waited to be called to show the guest out.
After she cleared the tea tray, the cook would eat the untouched biscuits and leave the chocolates for Mrs. Im.
The housekeeper was on Sonya’s side. For births, deaths, weddings, holidays, and trips, Sonya gave employees an envelope of cash to mark the occasion. When she went to a famed bakery to buy treats for the family, she brought back as many for the staff. Everyone was equal.
Years earlier, even before the boys were born, Sonya discovered Mrs. Im crying in the pantry.
When she learned that Mrs. Im’s oldest son had a fight at school and had broken another child’s arm, requiring payment of his hospital bills and a legal settlement, Sonya advanced her the full amount without telling the Chairman’s wife or Mrs. Im’s husband, who worked as one of the two family drivers.
Mrs. Im would never tell a soul what she knew about the Chairman and Sonya, including her own husband, because when he drank, he talked too much.
Life had been fair enough to Mrs. Im, except for a troublesome husband, who was not all bad, and she found joy in the accomplishments and good lives of her children, each of whom had finished college, been hired for a respectable job, and married a nice person.
She was a grandmother of three children, and each day before work, she went to Myeong-dong Cathedral to pray for her family and the Mun household.
As long as her husband did not bring home any diseases and didn’t get into any big trouble, Mrs. Im didn’t care about the cheating and the drinking.
None of it was very serious. Men did foolish things, and he was too old to change.
Her son and two daughters took her side always, so if her husband left her for another woman, at least she would have the love of her children and money of her own.
More than once, Sonya had told Mrs. Im that if she ever needed a place to live, she could have her pick of the rooms in the servants’ quarters.
Although Mrs. Im had been in love with her husband when she married, she had never liked sex very much and couldn’t imagine why people carried on the way they did for love.
However, even at their advanced age, she felt that men needed it more, and it was better that the Chairman was with Sonya, rather than marrying another woman, which would mean another possible headache for her and the staff, who liked things the way they were.
Yong-gil had finished work early, eaten gukbap near his office, then practiced at the golf range for an hour.
He intended to head to Sticks & Stones, but wanted to go home to shower before meeting his friends at the members-only room salon.
Yong-gil was smitten with Boram, a new girl, a former beauty contestant and trainee for a girl band.
Last weekend, she and another trainee had done an adorable dance number for him and his friends from college who were also CEOs.
A man who loved clothes, Yong-gil didn’t want to wear a suit or golf attire to the room salon.
On weekends, he wanted to look like a wealthy boyfriend, and he had purchased several new pieces of clothing on a recent business trip to Tokyo.
“In that jacket, you look like you’re in your thirties,” the saleswoman in Ginza had said.
“Would you like something to drink?” Mrs. Im asked. “Tea or a soft drink?”
“No thank you, Deacon Im,” he said. “Is the Chairman in his office?”
“I believe so.”
“I suppose they will have dinner soon?”
“Madam asked for dinner to be served in an hour and a half.”
“Where is my wife?”
“Should I get her for you?” Mrs. Im asked, knowing that the Chairman’s bedroom door was closed, and Sonya could be in there with him. Mrs. Im didn’t know if the door was locked, but it didn’t matter because once a room was closed, she would not disturb anyone.
“Thank you, Deacon Im,” he said, before heading to his room.
From the closet, he pulled out his new black jacket, a black T-shirt, and a pair of French jeans and laid them on the bed.
Cassie, a college girl who worked at another VIP room salon, told him that he looked incredible in his jeans and black ankle boots from Australia.
In front of the closet mirror, he inspected how smart he looked in his pin-striped suit. Before getting in the shower, he decided to greet his uncle. Earlier they had spoken on the phone, but his uncle liked to see him each day and get a brief report on how things were going at the company.
Yong-gil passed his wife’s office, its door open, and stuck his head in.
The room was empty. He walked into her bedroom, but she wasn’t there.
He passed the den, then stopped at the Chairman’s suite, where the doors were closed.
He knocked lightly, then turned the doorknob, which wouldn’t budge.
Curious, Yong-gil put his ear to the door, and he heard his uncle clear his throat.
“Uncle, are you all right?” Yong-gil asked. “Do you have a cold?”
The Chairman looked over at Sonya and put his finger to his lips. He had just finished undressing her, and she was seated on his bed, quiet, pale, her eyes wide with alarm.
With both hands, the Chairman stroked Sonya’s bare shoulders, admiring the elegance of her frail beauty.
He felt little anxiety at being discovered by his nephew.
In fact, he found himself more aroused. What could his nephew do?
The Chairman believed that Yong-gil was a fine businessman but wasn’t astute enough to value people correctly.
An exceptional businessman knew the true value of his assets and would never part with them.
Yong-gil knocked again, this time more quietly. He took a deep breath, and he could inhale the tuberose of his wife’s perfume. She was in there with him.
Sonya was afraid to move. She remained still as if frozen, refusing to breathe, even. The Chairman held her gently by the shoulders, and he didn’t answer his nephew’s knocks.
The large doors were thick, paneled with Macassar ebony, and their twin brass handles heavy. Only Sonya had the key to the Chairman’s suite. Even Mrs. Im didn’t have one.
Still standing by the bed, the Chairman moved his hands across Sonya’s supple body, and she took a deep, long breath. He didn’t care what Yong-gil thought.
Mrs. Im stood at the end of the hallway behind the floral arrangement on the center table in the foyer. She watched him move away from the Chairman’s room and return to his room, where he showered and put on his new clothes before heading to Sticks & Stones.