She had been in Spain now for five years. Before that she worked in Hamburg, Germany, where she cleaned rooms at a hotel, which was what she did in Seoul before that. In Barcelona, Jooyun lived in a rooming house with other women from China, North Africa, and the Ukraine. They all cleaned houses and hotels and office buildings and museums. They came and went. They left bath products in the shared bathrooms for others to use and sometimes books or a video they could play on the television downstairs. Jooyun had been there the longest. - P30
Her first thought when they began to speak was that someone had finally come to bring her back or to punish her for leaving. She had spent the war and after hearing about things like this. It didn’t matter if you never went in and answered any questions the South might have for you—she never had—it didn’t matter because you were a traitor. You had vanished once by running away, which gave them permission to erase you a second time—completely, wholly. - P30
On the Tokaido, on the last day of our journey, we come upon a tree that has flowered early. It stands alone amid the endless row of cedars that line the road, its bright red color so sudden and distracting—like the appearance of a door among the evergreens—that we fail to notice at first the corpse not too far away, lying in a ditch. - P45
Hiroko calls him a casualty of the invasion of Korea, where we took him, ten years ago, when he was an infant. In the chaos, I had been unsure what else to do with him, my arms listening to the command of my lord’s son before fully understanding and coming to the awareness that I was lifting the boy toward him and his horse. - P46
My name is Toshio Yamashita and I am twenty-nine years old and in service to my lord. We are from the eastern edge of the Mikawa province and have been traveling now for a week on the Tokaido, having entered the Musashi province, averaging about twelve ri per day, sometimes more, depending on the tiredness of the boy. - P50
A heat flares inside my chest. I scratch at it. Hiroko is lying on his mat, looking upside down at the window, wanting to visit the brothel, but pretending he doesn’t want to. - P54
Or is he dreaming of his home? His mother? Would an infant remember her? Would it be the smell of her or her heartbeat? I have not once asked what he thinks of all this. Not just of this week on the road and the lord’s decision, but of everything. All these years. This life that was given to him because we took his first one before it even started. He has followed me obediently because he always has. - P58
To my surprise, Hiroko’s expression changes; whatever desire has been on his mind alters. The change is as swift as the shadow of a bird on a field. Hiroko shuts his eyes and begins to cry. He lifts his hands out of the water and buries his head into them and, as his shoulders shake, he cries. It does not last long. He composes himself and then rests his head against the far bank, his mouth slightly open, and faces the sky. - P68
I am by a tree that has yet to flower. I take off my robe and kneel. I push the mist away and collect some water with my left hand. Just as the bathing woman pauses, noticing what a useless cup a hand makes without a thumb, a butterfly appears, like a new thought, its wings almost touching my shadow, but not quite. - P68
In New Malden, they owned a corner shop together. It was the place where you could get the gossip magazines and newspapers from Seoul. Then when everyone got smartphones, it became the place to get your smartphone cases. Cute cats, cows, and hippos. Gel pens too. The students picked up a few colors while they got their fizzy drinks or, when it grew warmer, waited their turn at the shaved ice machine Harry convinced his wife they should get. At first Harry wanted a pinball machine, and Grace had to tell him that was ridiculous. What kid played pinball these days? - P69
It was as if the days and all the hours in those days hardened into a ring around them. He kept waiting for something to duck under the perimeter and reveal itself. - P74
He watched her mouth move in shapes and then, giving in to an urge, he stuck his finger inside, gently, feeling her lips graze his fingertip. Her mouth moving like that aroused him. He looked down at her soft belly and the maze of veins on her thigh, growing convinced she wasn’t really asleep, and then realizing she really was. - P86
A buzzing flashes over me. For a moment I brace myself, waiting for the woman to appear for the first time in this house, but it is only a bee that has managed to find its way inside. I watch as it flits about, on the scent of something, and then it settles into my teacup where I used the last of my honey today. - P101
A few minutes later, a bee appears, hovering, circling, then dips into the cup. Then it flies away into the woods. I follow it. She follows me. When I can’t see it anymore or hear it anymore, I stand still and hold up the cup and wait for the bee to come back. Which it does. So we move on, and as we head farther into the woods, I tell the daughter that it is a trick I learned from the missionary. We’re creating a trail. "To the hive," I say. "And the honey." - P103
She is in the distance now. All sunlight. Only a sliver. The bee comes back from its hidden kingdom, and then it doesn’t. - P103
He waits three weeks for his father to respond. During that time, whenever he checks the mail for a reply, the dog follows him. She eyes the birds on the telephone wires. Then the migrant workers in the fields. - P105
Maksim is like the dog. He does what he wants. He wears what he wants to wear and eats when he wants to eat. He doesn’t make up the mattress on the floor, and it doesn’t matter if he knocks over a glass, startling himself awake from a dream he keeps having in which people are speaking to him in different languages he has never heard before. There is no one to explain the dream or to chastise him or to tell him to go to the corner store and see if there is work so that he can earn some money for the house. - P108
Now he is alone. He and the dog. He approaches the large rocks he passed and begins to walk out into the water. From the shore, the dog watches. The rocks are slippery, but Maksim keeps going, treading carefully. He goes as far as he can without the waves splashing all over him and squints out into the vast nothing, searching for the island or even Japan. - P113
He smiles. He hops back toward the sand where the dog is waiting, wagging her tail. Otherwise, the beach is empty. Stars are now visible and the sunset water is thick and undulating. He feels the strange pull of it. He asks the dog, "What next?" - P113
Maksim has stopped listening to his father. He is thinking of the two men he ran into on the trail. The duffel bag. One of the men grinning at him. The cadence of their language. Nivkh. - P122
Vasily goes on: "Do you know? All they ever do is go home. The world changes, it will always change, and they will always stay the same. Why do you think that is? Stubborn fools." - P122
Two years later, he left the settlement. He took the bus heading north and then hitchhiked on the back of a repurposed US Army truck that was filled with others like him who all said the same thing: they were heading home. - P125
When he did, it had grown dark, only the moonlight to guide him through this house he had not seen in a lifetime, where in the one room that remained intact he found only a cup on the floor brimming with old dirt and rainfall. - P128
"It’s good to see someone again," the tinker said. "In the Valley of the Moon." - P128
Every night, the moon rose from here, and fell, and shattered. And then built itself back up again. - P130
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