“The explosion happened right before he showed up. Means your father had no money to give. So I’m thinking he did it to show the guy, hey, if you don’t stop coming around, I’m gonna kill myself. That was the message. And he even managed to get his daughter, who never leaves the house, to go out. What timing! Bet you had no idea your father was up to all of that?”
Just as Detective Kim had said, Se-oh did not know her father. To put it precisely, the father she knew was different from the father he knew.
Her father was a man who hoisted a three-kilogram dumbbell every morning and groaned, “This is killing me!” He did it not for the exercise but to wake Se-oh, who was a heavy sleeper, with his grumbling. He claimed he did it because he hated to eat alone, but she knew it was because he worried about her skipping meals. On weekends, he sat on the sofa and watched comedy programs on TV just so he could spend time with her. Whenever she laughed, he would laugh, too, and say, “That slays me!” He didn’t say that because the show was funny but because it made him happy to see his daughter smile. When news about a politician came on the screen, he would curse and say, “They should all just drop dead!” It was the obvious, meek resignation of a powerless man. When he got dust in his eye while changing the bulb in the ceiling lamp, he would loudly exaggerate the pain and say, “That could’ve been fatal.” When he was coming home from a night of drinking and took the bus in order to save on cab fare only to fall asleep and forget his glasses on the bus, he would tell her, “Scrimping will be the death of me,” and while turning a sock with a hole in it inside out in order to darn it, he would brag, “How’s that? Skills to die for, right?” He also used to brag about the fact that, back when their house was built, he had stacked the bricks himself instead of hiring laborers, as if by doing so he’d single-handedly saved the nation from certain death, and would point out repeatedly patched-over cracks in cement walls and loudly mourn the shameful state of the construction industry that couldn’t even build a single wall properly. If Se-oh cooked so much as a single pot of stew, he would exclaim that the flavor was “killer” and slurp noisily. Every month he bought her menstrual pads without her having to ask, and he would comment that if he kept that up he would soon “die of embarrassment.” These were all the ways that Su-chang Yun, the father Se-oh Yun knew, talked about death.
Detective Kim did not know any of that. He thought there was plenty of reason for her father to be depressed: he had debt, he had a grown daughter who kept herself cooped up at home, and the store he’d owned for over ten years had been sold off for practically nothing when the shopping plaza it was in was zoned for redevelopment, which caused his debt to grow even higher. Detective Kim was right. Right to think that before the worst had happened, things were already terrible.
Se-oh agreed. It was not just one thing, but rather one thing after another and another, like links in a chain, piling the bad luck higher and higher around her father and #157, until it exploded. And Detective Kim had unwittingly revealed one of those links to Se-oh. The person who had forced her father to make an extreme choice, the person who had made her father sit all alone on the couch as the smell of gas spread around him, the person who had made him resort to a tiny insurance policy with his own life as collateral. Se-oh committed that person’s name to memory.
6
Se-oh, after keeping herself shut indoors for so long, had finally left the house again when her father hurt his tailbone. It took her two and a half hours to go to the bank and back. She had to pay the utility bills not through a bank teller but at a machine that looked a lot like an ATM but was designed expressly for paying bills. It bewildered her. After a good bit of puzzling, she got the security guard’s help, and as she was feeding the bill stubs into the machine, she was struck by how the world kept on changing, as it always had, quickly, indifferently, and with no regard for her.
By the time she got home, her body was trembling and feverish. But she had succeeded at something. She had thought if she so much as set foot outside, she would run into someone intent on tracking her down. That people would be lying in wait around every corner to accost her. It was not the case. It had happened to her long ago, but not anymore. There was no one hiding behind a utility pole, keeping a lookout on the alley. There were no threatening letters in her mailbox. No one had graffitied curses on the wall.
There was one person who stared. It scared her at first, but when she gave it a little thought, she realized it was probably because of the large surgical mask covering her face and the knit cap she was wearing out of season. Most everyone else walked right by without a second glance, not even at the cap. The whole time she had stayed locked up at home, she had imagined the outside world as a place that could swallow her whole at any moment. But in truth, it was a place that paid her no attention at all.
From that first outing, her father had learned the trick to getting Se-oh out of the house was for him to be bedridden, and so afterward he was frequently unwell. The less well he was, the better he was able to get her out.
It had also taught Se-oh that no one was going to recognize her and come charging after her. That said, it wasn’t enough to convince herself the world was safe. She had just gotten lucky. She agreed to the next errand in order to test her luck again. This time, it was to a large grocery store. She kept her head bowed so low that she attracted the attention of an employee. Each time Se-oh bent down to look for something, the employee bent down too, and followed Se-oh as she moved along the rows. But that was as far as it went. No one tried to hunt her down or attack her.
By gradually venturing outside the house, taking her time as she went, Se-oh learned that while the world contained everything she was afraid of, it was not all going to come rushing at her at once. This was a little bit depressing. Not only was the world indifferent, she also had to wonder if the people whom she’d assumed were suffering because of her had in fact forgotten all about her. But that was impossible. They couldn’t have forgotten her any more than Se-oh could have forgotten those she was connected to. That they had not yet appeared was not due to the kindness of coincidence but because they were still in hiding.
Before leaving the house, she counted the people she dared not run across. On some days, she counted more than thirty, but there were also days when she thought of only ten. But that was still more than the people she had to see or wanted to see. That gap never shrank.
The day of the accident, her father had sent her to a department store near the bus terminal.
“If you leave at two thirty, the timing will be perfect.”
Unlike for her other errands, her father had set an exact time for her to leave, but Se-oh didn’t ask why. If she had, would her father have finally told her what was really going on and asked her advice? Had he ever felt hurt by the fact that Se-oh was so unresponsive, never arguing with him or questioning anything?
“Be safe out there.”
Her father said that to her as she was leaving. She glanced back at him. He was standing outside the front door, watching her go. When she reached the end of the alley and glanced back again, her father was still standing there. Se-oh petted the yellow dog and walked out of the alley.
When she’d arrived at the department store counter with the claim check her father had given her, the sales clerk greeted her and brought out an item wrapped in plastic.
“Why don’t you try it on?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your father put so much care into picking this out for you.”
She’d stared at the sales clerk, wondering if she’d heard her correctly. The clerk offered her the item again.
Clothing. That her father had picked out. Just for her. He had walked around a fancy department store and selected this item of clothing for her. For her birthday. He had never given her a gift of clothing before.
Se-oh slowly unpacked her father’s actions step by step. It helped to reduce her wonder and awe and doubt. But progressing to the final step didn’t come naturally. Do
ubt continued to linger. Questions like, why on earth did he do that?
It was a purple trench coat. The neckline was round, and the hem narrowed at the bottom like a vase. The pocket was embroidered with two cherries and a green leaf. It was girly. It was not pretty. It looked more like a tablecloth than clothing.
“Try it on. We should probably check the size,” the sales clerk said. She seemed to sense that Se-oh didn’t care for the coat.
Se-oh stood in front of the mirror. Just as something could be girly and still be ugly, it could also be ugly yet still look good on her. She took off her long, blue padded coat and put on the purple trench coat. There in the mirror was Se-oh Yun wearing the very first item of clothing purchased for her by her father.
He had never given her anything he had picked out himself. He might have given her some little things when she was young, but after she’d grown up, all he gave her was spending money. And after she shut herself up at home, there was no need for that either. Did he think that the daughter who never left the house would want to go out if she had something new to wear?
Her father knew Se-oh didn’t have anything appropriate for the weather. He also knew that trench coats were the latest trend. But he did not know that he knew next to nothing about his own daughter.
“Shall I bring you a different size?” the clerk asked Se-oh’s reflection in the mirror. The sleeves were squeezing her forearms, and the shoulder seams were hiked up close to her neck. The clerk brought out a bigger size and helped Se-oh try it on. Se-oh’s father was always nagging her to eat more. Too skinny. Nothing but bones. He’d probably said the same thing to the clerk. She picks at her food. She’s so skinny.
“This size is perfect. Or I could show you some pants?”
Se-oh took that to mean that while the coat fit, the clerk thought the style didn’t suit her at all. She shook her head.
In the mirror stood a short woman dressed in a purple trench coat. The edges of the T-shirt that stuck out of the coat were frayed. Her unmade-up face looked dry.
The coat didn’t suit her, but there was one thing she’d liked. The thickness of the fabric. It had seemed just right for the weather. Though it was still cold out, the wind was no longer biting, and so she’d thought she could get away with wearing something that thin and brightly colored. But more than anything, it was the first article of clothing her father had ever picked out for her. Of course, she didn’t know at the time that it would also be the last.
7
You can pick apart a dead body all you want, but nothing will be made clear. The autopsy results said the cause of death was drowning. Plankton was found in the lungs. It wasn’t clear whether it was suicide or an accidental death. The time of death was estimated to be early January, three months prior. Ki-jeong Shin listened mutely to the detective’s message. Amid all the unclarity, Ki-jeong’s certainty that it was suicide remained unchanged. The police seemed to think the same thing. Especially now that her sister’s debts had come to light.
Her sister’s debt was nearly equal to the amount Ki-jeong had saved, starting from her entry-level part-time teaching position all the way through her tenure as a full-time teacher. Ki-jeong felt discouraged. In death as in life, her little sister was a burden.
Ki-jeong was calm and composed all throughout the simple funeral she hosted on her own. Now and then she sensed that she was being too stoic. It occurred to her that what she was feeling was not normal, so she put on a performance of the emotions and facial expressions expected for the scene. She played the character of an older sister who was silent from the exhaustion of protracted grief. She had always turned to acting when she could not quite figure out what she really felt.
After the funeral was over and she returned to work, there were several more situations that required her to do some acting. Acting helped Ki-jeong to pull off the role of teacher with ease. When she wasn’t sure what to say to a student who had come to her for guidance, when she doubted whether she was justified in expressing her feelings, and when she was angry because of an unruly child, she thought of herself as playing the role of a teacher in some grand experimental theater production. As long as she thought the person playing the role of student was supposed to always make mistakes and get into unexpected trouble, then her mind was more or less at ease.
Otherwise, if she didn’t, she would lapse into regarding the children as overgrown insects. She found herself wanting to crush them under her foot or strike them mercilessly with something sharp. Bugs startled Ki-jeong by scurrying quickly toward her or suddenly spreading their wings and taking off, and in that respect they were no different from children. You could never predict which way children were going to move, and they were tenacious and dull in their stubbornness. After she had explained something once and asked if they understood, they said they did not. She would slowly explain again, but it made no difference. Ki-jeong would play the role of a patient teacher and repeat her explanation to the children. When she turned her back to write the identical information on the chalkboard, she could hear them snickering behind her back.
Teaching was the career her mother had most desired for her. Ki-jeong escaped her high-strung and easily irritated mother’s constant meddling by willingly adopting that desire as her own. She often based her actions on what she thought other people wanted. Because she was always busy satisfying other people’s expectations, the sight of someone who easily decided what they wanted left her wallowing in inferiority.
The nature of her job demanded a sense of duty. By the time she realized it wasn’t right for her, her job had already turned her into someone unsuited for any other career. Nevertheless, she did want, sometimes, to do her job properly. She just didn’t know what that would take. Her students were bright, but when she pictured them growing up and becoming adults, everything felt hopeless.
She first became aware she was acting after reading about an experiment at an American university. The test subjects were divided up into pairs of “teachers” and “learners.” The “learner” would solve a simple exercise in which they connected matching pairs of words, and if a mistake was made, the “teacher” would inflict corporal punishment on the incorrect “learner” with an electric shock. The purpose was to increase their ability to learn; each time they made a mistake, the shock went up ten more volts.
Ki-jeong sometimes felt like the teacher in that experiment. That is, she felt like she was compulsively performing a set role, held captive by a sense of responsibility and by orders from above.
Do-jun seemed to be the same way. Now, when others were around, whether during class or in the teachers’ lounge, he was engrossed in the role of “learner.” He behaved meekly, down-hearted and hesitant, as if regretting what he had done. But when it was just the two of them, he and Ki-jeong, he was different. He was confident, as if already exonerated, because Ki-jeong was his accomplice who had misappropriated stolen goods.
When she called Do-jun’s parents, she felt like the experiment had started over. The person in the role of “learner’s father” asked, “You’re his teacher?” and raised his voice at her: “You call my boy a thief just because he stole one little pack of gum? You should be teaching him not to steal, not threatening him!” He added: “I hear you took the stolen goods for yourself. Seems to me if my kid’s a thief, then so are you. You should both go to jail.” And threatened: “If my kid has to sit in detention in the counselor’s office, then you’ll be sitting at home without a job.” Then he said, in mock politeness: “I’m going to go check out these stolen goods, so let’s meet in the trustees office, shall we? We’ll see what the chairman thinks about you messing with his customers.” Ki-jeong imagined that someone in charge of the experiment was watching and that she had to bring this part of the experiment to a successful close, and so she suffered it patiently.
It was strange that it looked like the same experiment up till now. That is, an experiment confirming submission to authority. Ki-jeong would tolerate it for a whil
e before angrily wondering why this had happened to her. Then, in the end, she would regret her mistakes and apologize to anyone and everyone.
“It’s okay. He’ll get suspended. Hold on a little longer.”
When Trig said that to console her, she was still thinking about the experiment.
She continued thinking about it the whole way back to the teachers’ lounge after class. When she passed the counselor’s office, the door of which stood open, she saw Do-jun sitting arrogantly with his feet propped on the desk, and all at once she remembered: The “teacher” had used his authority to violently discipline the “learner.” As the experiment progressed, the “learner” received electric shocks while begging to quit. The “teacher,” trapped by the responsibility to complete the experiment, considered it only reasonable to exert control over the “learner” and administer stronger and stronger electric shocks.
The gist of the experiment was to warn people that, when placed in a position of authority, an individual’s ability to think critically and autonomously shrinks. It demonstrated that, when an inflexible authority confronts the moral value that says do no harm, in most cases the authority wins.
Do-jun Weon stared at Ki-jeong through the open door. The boy flashed a grin. He bobbed his head as if gesturing for her to come on in. Do-jun gave no thought to taking his feet off of the desk; he looked entirely too comfortable for a student on probation. That was the only disciplinary action Ki-jeong had managed to talk the vice principal into; she’d strongly opposed his suggestion that they put off dealing with Do-jun until the ringleader had emerged and the details were revealed.
The Law of Lines Page 4