The interior of Da Mao’s house was a hollow space filled with the smell of stagnant water and unwashed linen. Since the men had brought her husband’s waterlogged body back from the dry well, Sook-hee had not left the bedroom. She sat on a low wooden stool in front of a vanity table that had been in her family for three generations. The wood was warped by the humidity that seemed to radiate from the very walls of the hut. On the table sat a single, guttering candle. Its flame didn't stand still; it shivered and leaned as if an invisible person were breathing on it, casting long, erratic shadows that stretched and retracted across the mud-brick walls.
Sook-hee held a heavy brass comb. She moved it through her hair with a slow, mechanical rhythm. Each stroke made a dry, rasping sound. Her ha
