Comfort
women, Korean girls captured and held to sexually service the occupying Japanese forces, received little
Comfort.
Soon Hyo is the youngest daughter in a family of girls and is sold to the Japanese soldiers by her sisters after their
mother’s death. Only twelve years old, at first her job is to perform maid duties for the other girls who are kept in stalls and not allowed to speak. When the soldiers kill Akiko 40 for reclaiming her Korean identity and name, Soon Hyo is forced to become her replacement. As Akiko 41, Soon Hyo feels herself die as the first soldier forces himself upon her and is haunted by the former occupant of her stall for the rest of her life.
Raped by scores of soldiers every night, Akiko 41 soon becomes pregnant. Given the choice between the stick and rat poison, she chooses the stick because she has seen how painfully the poisoned women die. Still heavily bleeding from her abortion, Akiko escapes from the camp. Akiko is weak and delirious from blood loss, but the
spirits surrounding her guide her to a Christian
mission where she is fed and sheltered by people who know nothing of her situation.
A
minister, convinced Akiko needs spiritual help, makes it his personal mission to convert her. Akiko resists internally, but he interprets her silence as acceptance of Christianity. When the Japanese lose their war for Korea, the missionaries are forced to go back to the United States. The minister feels that God has given him a mission and marries Akiko.
The minister does his best to fight the spirits Akiko communes with and assimilate her to American life. Against all odds, Akiko gives birth to a daughter whom she loves fiercely. Akiko’s minister-husband dies suddenly of heart failure after they have a blowout fight, and Akiko believes she killed him with her bad thoughts.
Akiko takes her daughter Beccah to Hawaii to begin a new life. She has trouble keeping a job because she walks a line between the living and the dead, and occasionally the spirit world wins, sending Akiko into trances that sometimes last for weeks. Akiko eventually finds work as a line cook, and Reno, her boss, discovers Akiko’s gift. Before Beccah can protest, people line the halls of their apartment complex, waiting to hear messages from their dearly departed relatives.
Living with a mother that most of the world deems crazy, Beccah spends her adolescence in a constant state of embarrassment. Akiko is adamant that Beccah learn how to properly respect ancestral spirits. She constantly tells stories and performs rituals to teach Beccah to appease the spirits, despite Beccah’s scoffs and protests.
When Akiko dies, Beccah realizes that her mother has been preparing her to perform the rituals for her spirit so she will always remain close to Beccah when Beccah needs her. Going through her mother’s old things, she learns that Akiko was not her mother’s name, and that much of her mother’s identity formed as a result of being a comfort woman. Beccah lovingly performs the rituals and embraces her mother, and consequently, her heritage for the first time.
This story is told through parallel narratives. The chapters alternate between Akiko and Beccah’s perspectives. Through this dual narrative, the story unfolds gently over time as the past and present converge between the two women.