MY ENEMY

CHAPTER 1: MYSTERIOUS WOMEN

Dr. Jennie Kim's house was built on a spot of a coast where as a little girl she had often played. The low, square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines. It was a lavish bungalow inherited from her father to her. As a kid Jennie had climbed the pines, supporting herself on her bare feet, as she had seen men do in the South Seas when they climbed for coconuts. 

Her father had taken her often to the islands of those seas, and never had he failed to say to the little brave girl at his side, ''Those islands yonder, they are the stepping stones to the future for Korea.''

''Where shall we step from them?'' Jennie had asked seriously.

"Who knows?'' her father had answered.

''Who can limit our future? It depends on what we make it." Remarked her father.

Jennie had taken this into her mind as she did everything her father said, her father who never joked or played with her but who spent infinite pains upon her who was his only daughter. Jennie knew that her education was her father's chief concern.

For this reason, she had been sent at twenty to South Korea to learn all that could be learned of surgery and medicine.

She had come back at twenty-seven, and before her father died, he had seen Jennie become famous not only as a surgeon but as a scientist.

Because she was perfecting a discovery which would render wounds entirely clean, she had not been sent abroad with the troops. Also, she knew, there was some slight danger that the old General might need an operation for a condition for which he was now being treated medically, and for this possibility Jennie was being kept in North Korea and not sent to help and aid to the people in the war.

*  *  *  *

Clouds were rising from the ocean now. The unexpected warmth of the past few days had at night drawn heavy fog from the cold waves.

Jennie watched mists hide outlines of a little island near the shore and then come creeping up the beach below the house, wreathing around the pines. In a few minutes fog would be wrapped about the house too.

Then she would go into the room where Rosé, her best friend of years, would be waiting for her with her child.

Rosé and Jennie were friends since childhood or one can say time immemorial. Their parents were rivals as they disagreed on trivial matters due to their clashing traditions. 

When Jennie got to know how homophobic Rosé parents were, the hatred between their parents increased and only added fuel to the fire.

But the two girls never let anything come between their pure friendship. As time passed, Jennie had to go to South Korea for further studies and hence had to part ways for their individual careers.

Seven years later, when Rosé knocked at Jennie's door on a thundering night shivering and crying with a child in her arms, the doctor welcomed her inside with open arms.

Such was their friendship. Pure and serene.

At this moment the door opened and she looked out, a dark-blue woolen haori over her kimono. Rosé came to her affectionately and put her arm through her as she stood, smiled and said nothing.

A sense of nostalgia suddenly hit the doctor as she reminisces about her initial days in South Korea.

An eventful day it was, when the students were invited to the professor's house. The professor and his wife had been kind people anxious to do something for their few foreign students, and the students, though bored, had accepted this kindness.

Jennie had often remembered how nearly she had not gone to Professor Harley's house that night — the rooms were so small, the food so bad, the professor's wife so voluble. But she had gone and there she had found about the reality. 

The reality about the feud that existed and the persistent remains of hatred that still grew in houses like these against the North Koreans.

Now she felt a hand on her arm and was aware of the comfort it gave her, even though they had been living together for years, their care and love for each other never ended.

"Overthinking again doctor?" Rosé asked teasingly.

"Just bits of past that escapes our mind to haunt us sometimes" Jennie answered. Rosé sighed worried about Jennie thinking about her past again. She tried to change the atmosphere and the doctor's solemn mood.

"Dreaming about living South Korea's lavish life again?" She tried to joke but worry was evident in her voice as Rosé very well knew how difficult and traumatizing those seven years of her life living in a foreign country that too the ones your home country is enemies with was.

In spite of the pain Jennie smiled "It was an experience".

Rosé laid her cheek against Jennie's arm.

Nights like these made Jennie wonder if she could...they could ever be more than just friends.

No wonder they both loved each other, cared for each other immensely and have been living together for so many years. Hell! They even raised a child together. But now it is just a thought she smiles about or even laugh cause they had tried but they could never be the one to be intimate with each other. So they decided to remain as best friends. Or considering how they even grew up together they shared a sisterly bond.

It was at this moment that both of them saw something black come out of the mists. 

It was a man? Or a women maybe. On a close look they decided it was a women. She was flung up out of the ocean — flung, it seemed, to her feet by a breaker. She staggered a few steps, her body outlined against the mist, her arms above her head. Then the curled mists hid her again.

''Who is that?'' Rosé cried.

She dropped Jennie's arm and they both leaned over the railing of the veranda. Now they saw her again.

The mysterious women was on her hands and knees crawling towards the shore. She was struggling. Then they saw her fall on her face and lie there.

*  *  *  * 

(A/N- Long time no see! So how is it? worth continuing? Please tell me your thoughts , I love reading your comments!!)