by Mi-ae Seo
“Why? What does it matter what I think?”
“Because . . . you can change me.”
His words seeped into her heart, staining it with pain, like dye coloring a piece of cloth. Strangely, she didn’t feel that he was lying. She didn’t know him well, but as she sat looking into his eyes and listening to his voice, he seemed like someone she’d known for a long time.
“So you want me to talk about my mom? You want to hear about my childhood?” he asked.
She watched his face, then put down her pen and closed her notebook. She wanted to focus on his trembling voice. She wanted to listen carefully to what he had to say. It was a strange feeling. She could sense herself focusing on his soul.
“My childhood . . .” He paused and fell into deep thought, his head lowered. He sat still for a while, then lifted his prison garb and showed her his body. Faint traces of old wounds remained. The wounds were everywhere.
“This is my childhood,” he said.
If his mother left home when he was seventeen, it had been more than fifteen years. Even after all those years, his body was scarred with the terrible things she had done to him. His memory couldn’t be any different from his body. The wounds on his mind could have left deeper scars than the traces of violence inflicted on his body.
When he had been talking about the memories of his mother, she had sensed soon enough that they weren’t happy memories for him. The memory he recalled was not of warm, happy days with his mother, but the day he nearly drowned in the bathtub, struggling in pain. She began to understand why the song his mother had sung to him had become the theme song for his crimes.
She realized why she had come to focus on him completely. He had shed himself of everything and bared himself to her. His honesty had touched her.
Unable to say a word, Seonkyeong just watched his face. His fleeting expressions revealed what he was thinking. Suddenly, she sensed deep pain in his face.
“Damn it, I don’t want to talk about this! I don’t want to remember her!” he shouted, slapping the table with his cuffed hands over and over again.
The prison guard who had been sitting by the door got to his feet in surprise. Seonkyeong raised her hand and kept him at bay. Yi Byeongdo needed this time to express his feelings. His true face, revealed through his emotions, not through a power struggle or calculated behavior, would give her the information necessary to understand him.
“If she was going to raise me that way, she should have just strangled me or abandoned me. Why did she treat me so terribly, why? She . . . never should’ve had me,” he mumbled, his voice trembling. He shook his head, then held his face in his hands. He sat still with his head bent low. It seemed that he didn’t want to be seen crying.
He must have been unwelcome, even by his mother, ever since he was born. He grew up under a mother who constantly cursed him and abused him. Seonkyeong felt disturbed, hearing him cry that he didn’t have any good memories, that he didn’t want to remember anything because it was so awful. She didn’t know why, but his mother had left all her problems for her child to handle, and poured out her anger and pain on him in the form of physical abuse. Things might have been different if there had been anyone else around, but there hadn’t been.
Why did his mother say that he was filthy, that he should never have been born?
“Why did she treat you that way?” she asked, waiting for him to start talking again, but he just sat there, his face still in his hands, for a long time. The silence stretched on.
“Mr. Yi?” Seonkyeong said.
He didn’t even raise his head. Perhaps he was angry at Seonkyeong for opening old wounds and making him think about them.
After sitting in silence for a long time, he looked up.
“What’s the statute of limitations on murder?” he asked.
Seonkyeong was momentarily thrown off by the unexpected question. What surprised her even more, though, was the peaceful look on his face; she had expected red-rimmed eyes, after his emotional outburst. His voice was calm as well. The changes in his mood were like summer showers. He was no longer agitated, and the faint smile had returned to his face. A mask was covering his face again. Seonkyeong sighed, feeling drained.
“There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” she said.
“I see. Well, let’s say . . .” He paused midsentence, glanced over at the prison guard, then cupped his mouth and spoke in a lowered voice. Seonkyeong had to lean forward because his voice was so low.
“Let’s say that I killed my mom. Would I be sentenced to death? Or life imprisonment?” were his words.
Seonkyeong stared at him in shock. She peered into his eyes, trying to see what he really meant. He grinned at her, got up from his seat, and shouted to the prison guard that he wanted to return to his cell.
Seonkyeong could neither get up nor call out to him.
At the word “mother,” he’d shown her his scarred body. He said his childhood had been hell. He said his mother left home when he was seventeen, but Seonkyeong knew intuitively that it wasn’t true. Had he killed his mother, then?
If so, his first act of murder had been committed a long time ago.
Leaving the room, he didn’t say a word to Seonkyeong. She didn’t take her eyes off him. He was now expressionless, but he had shown her his true face, with the mask off. The shock kept her from moving for a while.
She could not begin to guess what it must have been like to be under constant abuse, physical and verbal, by a mother who was your only family, ever since you were born. Just thinking about how such an environment must have broken his soul overwhelmed her.
Collecting her notebook and recorder in silence, she thought of Hayeong.
Hayeong came to the house on the day Seonkyeong had interviewed Yi Byeongdo for the first time. She hadn’t realized it then, but Hayeong’s eyes were strangely similar to his. Both Hayeong and Yi Byeongdo pretended to be strong but were infinitely vulnerable, and the sharp, cold gaze betrayed loneliness.
Yi Byeongdo’s cold eyes sometimes made Seonkyeong want to take him into her arms and heal his wounds. In this thirty-four-year-old man was a child who had never grown up. Perhaps he made her think of Hayeong because she saw a wounded child in his eyes.
Little Hayeong, too, had been repeatedly hurt by her mother.
How had those memories affected her? What would she be like as she grew up? Finding herself thinking such thoughts, Seonkyeong was startled, and shook her head. She felt terrible for equating Hayeong with Yi Byeongdo.
Hayeong was different from Yi Byeongdo. Her father was at her side, protecting her; and her grandparents, though they passed away in a fire, had cared for her with love. And now, a new environment awaited to help her heal from her past shock and pain. Hayeong had plenty of time to recover from her wounds. If someone kept watch over her, helping the festering wounds mend and new flesh grow in their place, she would grow up healthy.
Hayeong was different from Yi Byeongdo.
14.
SEONKYEONG WAS BUSY ALL MORNING WITH HAYEONG’S transfer procedures.
Ever since Hayeong moved in, all the tasks concerning her, big and small, had fallen to Seonkyeong.
She had a lot more discretionary time compared to Jaeseong, who was often tied up at work; besides, the semester was over, and she didn’t really have to go anywhere. So naturally, she had come to take care of Hayeong’s affairs. It was Seonkyeong who decorated her room, and bought her clothes and other necessities. She had expected this work to fall on her, but doing it all on her own, she felt somewhat unhappy that Jaeseong didn’t seem to care much. Compared to Hayeong’s disappointment, however, her own feelings of unhappiness were nothing.
Hayeong followed her father around until he went off to work, chattering and clinging to him, playing the baby. He coddled her and was quite responsive for the first few days, but being busy getting ready for work, he soon began to respond half-heartedly, or not at all. The research paper he had long been working on
also kept him from paying her sufficient attention, but this excuse did not satisfy Hayeong.
Sensing his distance, she began to talk less and less to her father, and didn’t cling to him as much. This morning, she hadn’t even come downstairs.
While getting ready to go to school to apply for Hayeong’s transfer, Seonkyeong went up to the second floor. She knocked and opened the door, and found Hayeong in bed. Hayeong, who had expected her father to come cheer her up before he went to work, sulked through breakfast. It seemed that her mood hadn’t lifted.
“I’m going to the school you’ll be attending, Hayeong. Why don’t you come with me?” Seonkyeong said, not wanting to leave Hayeong alone in an unfamiliar house, and thinking it wasn’t a bad idea for her to see the school.
Seonkyeong waited for a while, but no answer came.
“Don’t you want to see what the school’s like?” she asked again.
Still no response. Without pressing further, Seonkyeong stepped out of the room. She couldn’t force her to come if she didn’t want to.
When Seonkyeong left her bedroom a short while later, ready to go out, she found Hayeong by the front door, already dressed. She didn’t want to stay alone in an empty house, it seemed.
Taking Hayeong with her, Seonkyeong stopped at the community service center for a copy of a resident registration certificate for Hayeong. Submitting the certificate at the school would complete the transfer process. The school wasn’t even ten minutes away from home, so there wouldn’t be a problem with her commuting to school by herself.
To help cheer her up, Seonkyeong tried to talk to her all the way to the school.
She asked what her old school had been like, and if she had friends there she could call, but Hayeong didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem curious about her new neighborhood, either. It was as if it didn’t matter to her where she was; she wasn’t interested in her external surroundings. She was like a turtle inside its hard shell. Like a mimosa that shrank at external stimuli, Hayeong seemed to have closed her heart to everything.
She wasn’t opening up to Seonkyeong, either. They didn’t know each other well, and Hayeong didn’t seem to want to get to know her. She was just tolerating her, since she was someone who lived with her father. For them to get to know and understand each other, they needed time and opportunity, but the person who should be mediating between the two was too busy with work to do so.
Seonkyeong could feel that Hayeong, who was putting up with her and following her around, was shrinking further and further inside. Seonkyeong stopped asking questions. As she made up her mind to tell Jaeseong to pay more attention to the child when he came home, the school came into view.
Walking into the schoolyard with Hayeong and seeing the charming school building, Seonkyeong felt a faint longing in her heart.
She had never been to an elementary school after graduation. The school wasn’t the one she had attended, but it didn’t look unfamiliar. The little buildings, four stories high, were painted in different colors, and the schoolyard was on the small side. She heard children running and chattering away during gym class. Seonkyeong had had such days as well, but they seemed more than a hundred years ago, and she couldn’t remember clearly.
It had been a week since Hayeong’s arrival. The feeling of suddenly finding herself a school parent wasn’t something she could put into words. Her friends who had gotten married early on had long since become such, but for Seonkyeong, who wasn’t even used to being married yet, being parent to a schoolchild was as strange and awkward as wearing someone else’s clothes. There had been no time at all for her to prepare; it was no wonder that she felt clumsy and awkward.
She felt the same way about the transfer. She had no idea who to go to with her questions. In the end, she had searched the Internet and prepared all the papers herself. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d imagined, but she realized for the first time that being a parent required a lot of knowledge she didn’t have.
Walking through the schoolyard, Seonkyeong felt nervous and afraid, as if she were the one transferring to a new school. This moment signaled a new beginning for Seonkyeong as well. She took a deep breath in spite of herself, and felt for Hayeong’s hand.
She was about to take the child’s hand, but Hayeong shook her off. Regardless of Seonkyeong’s feelings, the child was glaring at the school, her mouth firmly closed. It seemed that she was still in a bad mood, either because of what had happened that morning, or because she was nervous about being in a strange new school.
While Seonkyeong met with the registrar to complete the transfer process, Hayeong sat quietly in a corner of the teachers’ room. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d imagined. As soon as the resident registration certificate was submitted, Hayeong was assigned to a class.
The registrar got to his feet, saying that Hayeong could meet her homeroom teacher.
“Your homeroom teacher will be here soon. Come on, let’s say hello,” Seonkyeong said.
Hayeong, however, shook her head and went outside. Seonkyeong rushed after her, but she was running off in the distance. The registrar came down the staircase off to the side of the hallway, with a teacher, a woman in her mid-thirties.
“This is Ms. Im Eunsil, Hayeong’s homeroom teacher. And this is the mother of Yun Hayeong, who is transferring to this school,” introduced the registrar.
“How do you do? And I’m sorry, but she’s run off that way,” Seonkyeong said.
“Oh, it’s all right. She probably wanted to look around the school,” the registrar said, quite unconcerned, and guided Seonkyeong back to the teachers’ room.
The homeroom teacher made a list of things Hayeong would need, and handed it to Seonkyeong. The textbooks would be provided by the school. The teacher made a good impression on Seonkyeong, speaking calmly and looking exactly like an elementary school teacher. Worried about Hayeong, Seonkyeong could not really focus on talking to her.
Seonkyeong asked the teacher to take good care of Hayeong, and handed her a business card. She thought she should be in close touch with the teacher while Hayeong adjusted to her new school. She felt somewhat relieved, hearing the teacher tell her not to worry, that she would watch Hayeong. Seonkyeong wondered if she should tell the teacher about Hayeong’s situation, but decided against it, not wanting to plant preconceptions in her mind. It was decided that Hayeong would start coming to school the next day, and they said goodbye.
Outside, Seonkyeong looked around for Hayeong. She wasn’t in the schoolyard. Only after she had looked around two school buildings, as well as the storage shed, did she find the child.
Hayeong was at the nature study area at the foot of the mountain behind the school. There was a vegetable patch, off to the side behind the storage shed, with a fence around it. Lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes grew there, and little pickets with class numbers on them were planted here and there among the vegetables; it seemed that each class was in charge of a different section. Next to the vegetable patch was an animal farm, surrounded by a wire fence.
Hayeong was sitting in front of the wire fence, watching the rabbits. Seonkyeong felt relieved at last.
“So here you are. Are you watching the bunnies?” she asked.
Standing by Hayeong, she looked through the fence and saw that there were all kinds of animals, just as there had been all kinds of vegetables in the vegetable patch. There were rabbits, chickens, and ducks, each in their section, and a number of birdcages in another area.
Hayeong, who had been quietly watching the rabbits, got to her feet, having lost interest. She didn’t leave the farm, though, and went toward the birdcages. She looked around for something to feed the birds, and plucked a lettuce leaf from the vegetable patch and placed it in a cage.
The birds seemed used to children, and came near the lettuce with no sign of fear. As one or two began to peck at the lettuce, others came down and followed suit. Hayeong, who had been watching them for a while, suddenly opened the cage door and attempted to g
rab a bird. The birds, which had fled her hand, squeezed out through the open door into the sky.
Seonkyeong rushed over, pulled Hayeong’s hand out, and closed the cage door. Some birds had already flown away without a trace.
“What are you doing? All the birds are flying away,” Seonkyeong scolded.
Hayeong looked at her with clear eyes, then turned her head as if she had lost interest, and bent her steps toward the schoolyard. Seonkyeong could neither rebuke nor nag her. She sighed in spite of herself.
On the way back home, she stopped at the market and bought some clothes, underwear, and socks for Hayeong. She also bought school supplies at a stationery shop. There was a ton of things to buy for her, since she had lost everything in the fire. Seonkyeong had been buying things ever since Hayeong moved in, whenever something crossed her mind, but she continued to see things that the child would need. She went to a curtain shop and ordered new curtains, and bought an extra blanket as well. Her hands full of shopping bags, she kept thinking of things she had to buy still.
While she picked out things to buy and paid for them, Hayeong followed quietly. She showed some response when Seonkyeong held out articles of clothing, since she was the one who would be wearing them. She didn’t say no, but Seonkyeong could tell by the look on her face. She seemed to like some of the clothes, as she readily took a shopping bag from Seonkyeong and kept looking inside.
Seonkyeong’s mood changed depending on Hayeong’s. She wondered if she was concerning herself too much with the child, but she thought that for now, the child needed the attention. She wouldn’t have to worry about every little thing once she adjusted to her new environment and settled in, she thought.
They hadn’t been out too long, but by the time they got home, Seonkyeong was completely exhausted. Taking care of a child wasn’t as easy as she’d thought.
THE NEXT DAY, while Hayeong was at school, Seonkyeong had a mountain of tasks to accomplish. She bought more clothes for Hayeong, having left out some items the day before, and ordered books and a dresser for her room as well. She also had to do the grocery shopping. She came home to meet the delivery time for the furniture and the groceries, and the truck was already at the gate, waiting for her.