The Only Child

by Mi-ae Seo

  She’d thought that Yi Byeongdo might have allowed her to interview him and considered her special because she looked like his mother. His mother, however, looked completely different from her. He seemed to take after his mother. Seonkyeong could tell, even from the blurred photograph, that she was quite beautiful.

  Seonkyeong put the phone in her bag and headed to the prison in haste.

  YI BYEONGDO TOOK THE APPLE Seonkyeong handed him and placed it on the table, unlike the previous time. His face had thinned in just a few days. Sitting down in her seat, Seonkyeong realized that he was staring fixedly at her.

  “Something happened, huh?” he asked.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You’re very different from the last time.”

  He examined her carefully. His soft voice would have sounded as sweet as a lover’s whisper, had the situation been entirely different. Seonkyeong wondered what it was about her that was different.

  “Am I?” she asked, but he let the question pass, contrary to what she’d hoped. Something had happened: Hayeong. But it wasn’t something to be shared with him. She made up her mind to concentrate on the interview. He, however, seemed to have no intention of doing the same.

  “You . . . have a cat now, too,” he said.

  “What?” Seonkyeong asked, puzzled, and looked at him. A chilly smile had replaced the one that had been on his lips. He picked up the apple and wrapped his hands around it. Unperturbed, she opened the file and turned on the recorder.

  “Let’s talk about the cases today, shall we? I’m curious as to what it was about the victims that drew your attention,” she said.

  “You want to know what it was about you that got my attention, right?” he said, once again trying to dominate the situation.

  Seonkyeong wondered for a moment if she should take the stepping stones he was laying out for her; then she took a step. As Director Han had said, it could be an important key to understanding him.

  “Are you . . . going to tell me today?” she asked.

  “If you want me to,” he said.

  Seonkyeong put the pen down and sat up.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. Tell me,” she said.

  “There was a baby monkey who lost its mother the moment it was born. The people who raised the monkey made two mothers for it: one made of wire, with a milk bottle hanging from it, and the other made of soft, warm fur, though without a milk bottle. Which one do you think the baby monkey chose?” he asked.

  Seonkyeong had seen the documentary he was referring to.

  The baby monkey clung to the wire mother monkey only when it was hungry, and spent most of its time hugging the furry one.

  “Does that have anything to do with my question?” Seonkyeong asked.

  He smiled ambiguously.

  A baby monkey. What was it that he wanted to say? Seonkyeong wondered.

  Something flashed through her mind. Was he saying that his mother, who hurt him, was the wire mother monkey, and Seonkyeong, the furry one? Or perhaps he had another mother. Someone who comforted his wounded, lonely heart.

  Seonkyeong knew that her hypothesis about why he had chosen her was partly right. She was surprised, however, that he had another mother.

  “You had another mother. Someone who treated you with warmth, unlike the wire mother,” Seonkyeong said.

  He looked at her, beaming, then shook his head.

  “Too late. I’m disappointed,” he said.

  “You want me to understand, without telling me anything.”

  He made no response.

  “I find it strange. Last time you talked at length about the mother you hated so much. . . . Don’t you have anything to say about your other mother?”

  She wanted to provoke him, but there was no telling when his mood might change. Seonkyeong took a careful step forward. He pretended not to have heard her question. It seemed that he didn’t want to talk about his hidden mother.

  Seonkyeong decided to ask him about his first murder, of his mother.

  “Do you remember what you told me last time? That you killed your mother?” she asked.

  “Is that what I said?”

  He was different today. He had been frank and straightforward last time, but now he was mincing words and deflecting questions. He feigned indifference, tapping on the table, and took a long time answering questions, as though he were bent on getting on her nerves.

  “Why don’t you tell me about yourself today?” he asked.

  He had decided not to talk at all, it seemed. She remembered what Director Han had said, to not let him take control of the situation. She turned off the recorder, closed the file, and put them in her bag. At this abrupt change in her behavior, he narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

  “You don’t seem to be in the mood to talk today. I’ll come back in a few days,” she said.

  When she got to her feet, he finally surrendered.

  “All right, all right. You probably won’t be happy, either, leaving like this,” he said, looking a bit dejected, and fumbled for a moment about what to say next.

  Seonkyeong repeated the question, and he nodded, remembering at last, and recalled his memories. It took a while, but he gradually became absorbed in his own story.

  “You don’t know, do you? What it feels like to kill your own mother,” he said.

  Seonkyeong couldn’t say that she did.

  “You don’t realize at first. It happens in an instant, like a lightning strike. You do it with your own two hands, but . . . you’re nothing but an instrument. Yes, as if someone made you do it. That’s why you don’t realize at first. What you did,” he continued.

  Seonkyeong remained silent.

  “It was hell when my mom was alive, but even after she died . . . I suppose it was a hell of my own creation,” he added, a dark shadow over his eyes.

  He had committed the act out of deep hatred, but hatred was not the only thing he felt about her. Even though she had left traces of abuse all over his body, deep in his heart, he thirsted for his mother’s love. Was it possible that had led to murder?

  He said that his mother left home when he was seventeen. That was when he killed someone for the first time. Then three years ago, at age thirty-two, he started killing people again. Seonkyeong wondered what got him started again, when he’d remained quiet for fifteen years after killing his mother. He had killed people without reservation. She decided to ask him what had made him do it.

  “Why did you start killing people again after fifteen years? Was there something that triggered you?”

  “You say that fifteen years passed, but for me, time stayed still. The day I killed my mom . . . the clock inside me stopped,” he said.

  Searching his memory again, he began to describe the world he lived in. When he couldn’t find the right words to describe what he felt and saw, he stopped talking and fell into thought for long intervals. Seonkyeong could feel how precise he wanted to be in telling his story.

  “Time doesn’t always flow at the same rate. Years can pass like a moment; a minute can seem like a month, a year. I’ve been living my most horrific moment for an insanely long time, over and over again. . . . The day it rained, the day I got upset at the sound of the cat crying . . . the moment I sang to my mom, lying in the yard. It repeats itself endlessly in my mind. I still get angry at my mom; I still get nervous at the sound of rain. The things that happened that day, which didn’t last an hour, broke down into the tiniest pieces and have been happening over and over in my mind for fifteen years—every second, every minute, every hour, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I experience them again and again, and yet they feel like they’re happening for the first time, and I feel angry as if they’re happening for the first time. . . . You don’t know what that feels like,” he said.

  Listening to him, however, Seonkyeong thought of something that had been repeating itself in her mind for a long time: her mother’s funeral.

  The m
oment when she’d stood carrying her mother’s portrait on a hill where cherry blossoms were scattering in the wind always replayed itself in her mind in slow motion.

  The cherry blossoms had dropped to the ground in the blink of an eye, but in Seonkyeong’s mind they hovered in the air for a long, long time before falling.

  After the coffin was lowered into the grave, the mourners threw chrysanthemums over it; at that moment, a sudden gust of wind swirled cherry blossoms around like flakes of snow. Seonkyeong looked up, and her gaze followed the petals in the air, slowly down to the coffin. The dazzling petals floated around in the air and fell to the ground one by one, which, though it happened in an instant, seemed to take an eternity to Seonkyeong. She remembered the shape, color, and movement of each and every petal, in terms of microseconds, the way a person in a traffic accident experiences the situation as if watching a video in slow motion, while her mind stored every moment in detail in the brain.

  Whenever she thought back to the moment, she could vividly feel, as if it were happening all over again, the wind that day, which had been both chilly and warm; the portrait she had been carrying in her hands; and the grip of her father’s hands on her shoulders.

  She could understand, in part, the feeling Yi Byeongdo was trying to convey.

  He still lived, recalling the moment he killed his mother, scene by scene.

  “The only way for me to erase the memory . . . was to find someone,” he said.

  Seonkyeong stared at him, feeling alarmed.

  “It was only when I killed someone with my two hands that I could forget. Only when I had blood on my hands could I sleep, without the song in my head,” he continued.

  Looking like a seventeen-year-old boy again, with his mask of arrogance off, he considered the apple on the table. After staring at it for a while, he mumbled as if to himself, with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Would you . . . hug a baby monkey with such bloody hands? Could you?” he asked.

  Unable to say anything, Seonkyeong looked at him.

  His eyes began to well with tears. Seonkyeong felt thrown off by the sudden change in emotions. He reached out a hand to take the apple, then pulled his hand back. He looked afraid to take it.

  He shook his head, as if to shake off his feelings; then he pushed his chair back and got up.

  Even after he’d been gone for some time, Seonkyeong couldn’t move from her spot.

  His last words lingered in her ears. He’d been talking not to Seonkyeong, but to his furry monkey mother. She wondered what this person meant to him, that this ruthless killer, turning into a little child, wanted her to take him into her arms.

  The apple, which had lost its luster, was still on the table.

  YI BYEONGDO, HAVING RETURNED TO HIS CELL, turned on the water in the sink and stared at it as it went down the drain. The memory of the orchard, which had suddenly risen in his mind, disconcerted him as much as the unexpected tears. He had wanted to go back after killing his mother. There was never a day when he didn’t think about the orchard. Whenever the seasons changed, he spent days thinking about what they must be doing at the orchard now. But he couldn’t go back. He knew that even if he did, things wouldn’t be the same as before. So he decided to forget about it.

  When he looked up at the cold autumn sky, he felt as if he could feel apple juice spreading in his mouth. When he could no longer bear it, he bought an apple. But the apple had no taste. After buying several apples he realized at last: he was being punished. He was the one who left in search of hell; he had no right to go back.

  He turned off the faucet and looked in the mirror. He knew. He knew why he was in such a rush.

  The hour was approaching.

  The sky looks dangerous before a typhoon. No matter how clear it is, the air feels different. There’s a tension so taut that it feels as if it will break any second; then the wind starts to blow, and clouds come gathering.

  His heart began to beat irregularly, as if it sensed a typhoon coming. His mood rose and fell time and again. He paced up and down in his room, angry at times, impatient at times. He felt anxiety wash over him.

  The hour was approaching again. He knew now when it would come, how it would come. He began to hear a ringing in his ears, and segmented notes began to float around and gather in his mind. The same measure of notes played over and over in his ears, then vanished. Soon the song would shake his soul again.

  He had to finish telling his story before he heard the song, before the song got loud. He wanted to end it now. He had tied up his own hands; he could no longer live, captive to his mother’s specter. His life was no longer his own. He had never really had a life. If he couldn’t free himself of her clutch in this manner, there would be no other way.

  He had made up his mind to end it. That was when he saw Seonkyeong. And then he knew.

  She was the only one who could end it.

  21.

  HAYEONG’S SCHOOL WAS BETWEEN A RIVER AND A MOUNTAIN.

  There was a path behind the school that led up to the mountain, so classes sometimes went on field trips there for nature study, and children liked to play there. The river flowed in front of the school, and children took the long trail by the river to go to school and back home.

  The children in class 4–3 began to pack up as soon as the last bell of the day rang. The teacher, telling them to be careful on their way home, didn’t notice some of the children exchanging meaningful glances as they rushed out of the classroom.

  Kaeun, who was about to pack up and follow the boys, turned around to look at Hayeong, who was looking out the window without even packing up, and tapped her on the shoulder.

  When Hayeong turned around, Kaeun whispered, so that no one around them would hear.

  “Do you want to come with us?” she asked.

  “Where?”

  “Some of the boys and I are going up to the mountain behind the school.”

  Hayeong stared at her, not knowing what was going on, and Kaeun pointed out the window in frustration.

  “You know, the cat that killed our bird. We’re going to go catch the little thief,” she explained.

  Hayeong’s eyes gleamed.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I told you, the mountain behind the school. Kang and Sihyeon said they know where cats often go,” Kaeun answered.

  Feigning reluctance, Hayeong followed her.

  The path leading up to the mountain was by the storage shed behind the building. A long wire fence had been installed in the area, with a door that opened to the path.

  When Hayeong and Kaeun came out of the building and went around to the back, they saw the other kids sitting around the wire door. They were kicking the fence, complaining about a bad start.

  “What’s wrong? Aren’t we going?” Kaeun asked. The boys pointed to the door. There was a lock on the door, firmly fastened.

  “What, so we can’t go?” Kaeun asked, sounding sulky upon hearing they couldn’t go up to the mountain, when she’d gone out of her way to bring Hayeong along.

  “Isn’t there anywhere else we can go?” Hayeong asked the boys. They looked at one another, and shook their heads. They all just looked at one another, sorry that their plans had gone wrong, and not knowing what to do about it. If someone had said they should just go home, they probably would’ve gone, grumbling.

  Hayeong turned her eyes to the mountain, then carefully examined the long wire fence.

  “Look!” Hayeong said, pointing somewhere, and all eyes turned in the same direction. Her finger was pointing at a valley in the mountain beyond the fence.

  “What about it?” someone asked.

  “When it rains, the water comes down through there, right?” Hayeong asked in reply.

  The boys, clinging to the wire fence, looked where she was pointing. At first glance, it was just a curved slope, but upon closer inspection it seemed that Hayeong was right. They could see exposed tree roots, and leaves that had washed down.

  With a fing
er, Hayeong drew in the air the path of the stream that would have been there if water had been flowing. The eyes following her fingers arrived at the wire fence.

  “Whoa!” Kang exclaimed, figuring it out before the others.

  As the other kids stood there, puzzled, he hurled his backpack aside and went up to the wire fence. Rainwater washes dirt away. Hayeong was pointing to a gap in the slope that had formed under the wire fence, where dirt had been swept down.

  “Does anyone have a stick?” Kang shouted, and the others quickly looked around. Sihyeon collected some branches and brought them over. Kang and Sihyeon began to dig under the fence with the branches. There were only leaves on the other side of the fence, so a dog hole was dug up in no time, with little effort.

  Kang was the first to crawl in, head first. If Kang, who was the biggest of them all, made it through, the others would have no problem. His shoulder got stuck for a second in the fence, but he gave himself a little twist and made it through without difficulty.

  Seeing him get out through the fence, everyone cheered.

  “You’re incredible. How did you know?” Kaeun asked in surprise, but Hayeong watched in silence as the others passed through to the other side of the fence.

  “Come on,” Kaeun said, when all the boys had done it. She pulled Hayeong by her hand, heading to the hole.

  “You go ahead,” Kaeun said.

  “Wait, my backpack!” Kang cried, realizing he had left his backpack behind.

  Kaeun picked up the backpack, shoved it through the hole, and stuck her head in as well.

  When everyone, including Kaeun, had passed through, the kids began to climb the mountain slope, holding on to the little branches around them. Once they climbed the slope, they could take the path, which wasn’t difficult to do.

  “Where are we going, though?” Kaeun asked, huffing as she climbed up.

  Kang and Sihyeon, who had come up with the plan in the first place, looked at each other, grinning.

  “You’ll see when we get there” was the reply.

  Without joining in the conversation, Hayeong walked quietly, keeping pace with them.

  The spot where Kang and Sihyeon took them was on the other side beyond the peak.