Did that mean he liked it? Or hated it?
‘So you liked it?’ Mother said.
‘Yes.’ Hae-jin didn’t say anything after that. Maybe he was still thinking about the film.
As we drove on, the bell at Bosingak began to ring, marking midnight. It was quiet in the car, each of us immersed in our own thoughts, until we pulled up at the hospital.
‘Thank you for today,’ Hae-jin said as he opened the door.
Mother followed him out of the car. From inside, I watched as Hae-jin bowed. She held out a hand for a handshake, as if they were equals. Hae-jin hesitated before taking it. The interaction couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds, but they seemed to be confirming something inexpressible, something I couldn’t understand.
Mother returned to the car. Hae-jin stood there, his yellow scarf fluttering in the dark. I realised that I’d lost mine. I had held it in my hand after I took it off, but I must have let go of it at some point during the movie. Maybe it was when I was laughing but then met Mother’s eyes, the moment when Li’l Zé gunned people down in time to samba. A line from the film came to mind: ‘The exception becomes the rule.’
I was Mother’s only son. That was the rule. The exception happened soon afterwards. Hae-jin became her adopted son the following March, taking Yu-min’s place. The exception had become the rule.
I looked back down at the razor in my hand. Clues to who had killed Mother were all over the place, including the decisive evidence of the murder weapon. Without a single clue pointing to a different conclusion, I would be implicated. How would Hae-jin take this? No matter what he asked me, I could only answer one way – I don’t remember a thing. The time-worn excuse made by thousands of criminals over thousands of years.
Would he believe me? Or would he call the authorities? Would he tell me to give myself up? I couldn’t do that. But all of that would come later. What I needed now was time to think. I needed to find evidence that made sense. If I really had killed my mother, shouldn’t I at least know why?
‘I should have done away with you.’ Mother’s voice. It wasn’t in my head; it was coming from behind me. I turned towards the sliding door to the roof deck. I saw her standing out there, her hair in a ponytail, wearing a white nightgown, her feet bare. The way she must have looked before she died. I remembered now. She didn’t have a speck of blood on her. Her throat was intact.
‘You…’ She glared at me, her eyes burning. Scarlet veins popped in the bluish whites of her eyes. ‘You, Yu-jin…’
I flinched and stepped back towards my bed.
‘You don’t deserve to live.’
My pulse thumped at my temples. My hand gripped the razor tightly. ‘Why? What did I do?’
She didn’t answer. Fog coursed forward like an avalanche and swallowed her. I looked around my room at the blood, the footprints, the stained blankets. All of this happened after she died. The words I’d just heard – Mother had spat them out when she was still alive. Was it because I’d gone out in the middle of the night? Why would something so inconsequential make her tell me I didn’t deserve to live?
My head began to pound. Heat flared up the back of my head. Black spots danced in front of me. I felt dizzy. I turned round and went into the bathroom. I tossed the razor into the sink and filled it up with cold water. I dunked my head into the water to cool it down, so that I could keep my focus and not get discouraged or angry.
‘Tomorrow, Mum. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.’ That was my voice. I looked up and met my own eyes in the mirror. Tell her what in the morning?
I stared at my blood-crusted head and the blood that had dissolved in the water and was now streaming down my face. The sink turned scarlet and the razor shimmered like the shadow of the moon. A thought glimmered in the pitch-black darkness of my head. Maybe… I looked down at the razor, aghast. It couldn’t be. I blinked the bloody water out of my eyes. But maybe… I shoved my hand into the cold water and fished the razor out. Maybe.
I ran out of the bathroom. Before I could change my mind, I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. I went down the stairs as slowly as possible. One, two, three, I counted, my gaze fixed on my toes. Four, five, six. Counting usually helped me to keep control and cut through distracting thoughts, but it wasn’t working this time. My whole body was alert to the orders being issued by my sympathetic nervous system. It was as if a beehive were stuck to my forehead: my thoughts bounced around, and noises of all frequencies funnelled into my ears – the sound of the river swirling, the spray of water, the wind rattling the door to the roof, Mother’s voice lowering into a moan, ‘Yu-jin…’
There were countless reasons why I should toss the razor aside and return to my room. I was tired, my eyes hurt, my head pounded, my thoughts were muddled, I was scared that I was actually going crazy. But I forced myself to continue down the stairs. I held my breath and stepped into the living room. Mother greeted me, her eyes wide and staring, her mouth open, her cheeks and jaw smudged in red, her neck clotted with blood.
I clutched the razor, which kept slipping out of my hand. I knelt next to her. The razor had been something to remember Father by, but now it had morphed into something completely different. It threatened to open a door I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through. I swallowed hard. My throat was scratchy. My mind taunted me: Are you shaking right now?
I was. A blue chill pressed on the nape of my neck; I felt like it would suffocate me to death. I wanted to run away. I wanted to take fistfuls of aspirin and sedatives and lie down. Fuck. What was I supposed to do?
Run, my mind offered. Nobody knows she’s dead yet. You know where her bank card is, and what her PIN is, from doing all those errands over the years. Take out a load of cash. You have more than a year before your passport expires. If you run to the other side of the world right now, no one will stop you. Whatever happens after that isn’t your problem.
But I had to know. A conclusion arrived at via clues had no meaning; I had to hear it from myself. Was there someone inside of me other than the ‘me’ I believed I was? I couldn’t continue living the way I had without knowing what that someone had done, even if my life would be turned completely upside down because of it.
I studied the wound below Mother’s jaw while trying not to meet her fixed gaze. Reddish-black film covered the incision from under her left ear to her right. I wiped it away with a finger. A long, deep wound appeared.
I closed my eyes, taming my leaping breath, and summoned the boy from long ago. I brought out swimming champion Han Yu-jin, bent over at the starting block, waiting for the signal. The boy beyond the reach of Auntie and Mother’s watchful eyes, focusing only on the moment of flinging his body into the air over the water. My heartbeat began to slow. The goose bumps on the back of my neck settled back into my skin. The breath that had been trapped at the top of my throat moved easily in, then out.
I didn’t hesitate any longer. I opened my eyes. I grabbed Mother’s jaw with my left hand. I shoved the blade under her left ear, where the wound started. The incision sucked the razor in without resistance. It was as if the wound itself had moved, gripping onto the blade. The din in my head vanished. Quiet came over me.
My hand moved automatically, without hesitation, following the gaping wound fluidly. Each motion felt perfectly familiar – the soft resistance of the inner flesh, the smooth passage of the blade. The razor slid past the chin and arrived under the right ear in one easy swoop.
My visual field narrowed, as though a dark screen had lowered at either temple. Fragmented images and expressions came to me: long dancing hair, a cheek contorting, pupils dilating and contracting, lips moving as if to say something. Soon, reality was completely snuffed out. Heavy darkness pressed in from all sides and loomed over me. The door to my memories, which had been so firmly closed, was opening.
From inside that door, Mother called, ‘Yu-jin.’
‘Yu-jin,’ Mother called from the front door, her voice low and flat. I stood silen
tly in front of the steel door to the roof. I didn’t have the strength to make a sound. Exhaustion weighed me down. I felt as if I were asleep on my feet.
‘Yu-jin!’ This time her voice was two pitches higher, as though she knew I was standing there.
From the seventh floor, Hello, that stupid dog, was barking, as he did every single time I used the main stairwell.
‘Yes,’ I called. I pocketed the key to the roof door and went down the stairs.
She was standing with her arms crossed, leaning against the railing of the main stairwell, watching me come down. The front door was half open. A yellow glow from inside the flat illuminated her from the side. Hello kept yapping downstairs.
‘Where were you?’ Mother’s thin lips looked blue and cold. She was in a white nightgown and slippers, her spindly legs bare.
I stopped four steps from the bottom. ‘I went for a run.’ My tongue felt thick, as though I had woken up from an anaesthetic.
‘Come down here. Take off your mask and answer me properly.’
I took the mask off and put it in my jacket pocket. I shoved both hands in my pockets and went down the rest of the stairs on shaky legs.
As Mother scanned me from head to toe, it felt as though her gaze could skin me alive.
‘I said I went for a run.’ I looked back at her.
She pressed her lips together, seemingly troubled. Agitated, perhaps, or maybe angry or sad. The one thing I knew was that whatever she was feeling, she was tamping it down before it exploded. ‘Why were you sneaking in via the roof terrace?’
‘I didn’t want to wake you up,’ I answered, though I didn’t expect her to accept that explanation.
‘Come inside.’
My toes twitched inside my muddy shoes. Below my waist, I felt my organs settle lower. Mother’s scream that had shaken the dark streets echoed in my ears. Did I hallucinate that? I wanted to run away. I might have fled right then if I hadn’t been so drained, if I hadn’t been shivering so much, if I hadn’t been worried that I was about to have a seizure.
‘Why don’t you come in?’ Mother’s voice softened a little and her eyes turned gentle, as though she could read my thoughts. ‘Hello’s going crazy.’
He was. The only way to shut that annoying dog up was to go into our flat. I walked past Mother and stepped inside. She followed right behind me and closed the door. The click of the lock echoed in my mind. I paused in the foyer. I had to take my hands out of my pockets to yank off my sopping shoes. Something dropped to the floor and rolled away. I didn’t have a chance to look down to see what it was. Mother was so close behind me that I could feel her breath on the back of my neck. I stepped into the flat as though being pushed.
‘Stop right there.’ Her voice shifted. Cold, hard, low.
I stopped in front of Hae-jin’s room and turned my head. Mother was standing there staring at me. Her complicated expression had disappeared and only one emotion was left in her eyes. Anger. She was livid.
‘Take that off.’ She held out her hand.
I took off my jacket and vest and handed them over. She started going through the pockets. She yanked out my iPod, earphones, mask and roof key, then shoved them back in. She dropped the clothes by the door and came right up under my chin. She moved aggressively, as though charging at me with her horns lowered. I flinched and leant back. Before I knew what was happening, she’d shoved her hands into the pockets of my sweatpants and taken them out in a flash. By the time I’d moved my own hands, saying, ‘Uh…’ it was already too late. Mother took a step back. She was holding the razor.
‘Give that back.’ I swiped for it.
She was faster. She blocked me with her arm and lunged at me. I was completely caught off guard. It was as if she were fighting off a rapist, she was so determined. I lost my balance, stepped back and fell; my head snapped backwards and banged on the stairs. Everything darkened and shook. I felt clammy and I couldn’t breathe. I managed to brace myself against the stairs and raise my head. Our eyes met.
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. My vocal cords were locked away. Mother’s eyes were wide open, red with veins. She was like a burning tree. The air crackled.
‘Mum, I —’
She cut me off. ‘You…’ She pointed the blade straight at my face.
Something quaked in my abdomen.
‘You, Yu-jin…’ Her voice was wobbly. The hand holding the razor was shaking as well. She was panting. ‘You don’t deserve to live.’
I teetered to my feet. With unfocused eyes, I watched her come at me. I couldn’t feel a thing. I couldn’t think of anything to say. The inside of my mind was dark, as though a switch had been turned off.
‘I should have done away with you.’ Mother stood right in front of my chest. Her eyes were like blades.
I felt behind me with my foot and climbed up a stair.
‘We should have died back then. You and me both.’ She shoved me hard with the hand that held the razor.
I was so stunned by this ambush that I didn’t have the chance to deflect it. I fell backwards again. I didn’t have time to dwell on the searing pain that flared up my back. I couldn’t even breathe. I had to escape this razor-wielding grim reaper. I felt behind me again and pushed myself up another stair. ‘Mum, tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.’
‘Tell me what?’ Mother shrieked, following me.
I dragged myself up a few more steps.
‘What is there to say?’ she demanded.
‘All of it. Whatever you want.’ I was starting to panic. There were still two steps to the landing. ‘I’ll tell you everything. From the beginning. Please…’ I finally reached the landing, but she shoved me again.
The back of my head banged on the corner of the wall, but I managed to regain my footing and stay upright.
‘Do it.’ Mother closed in on me. She grabbed my wrist. ‘Do it while I watch. I want you to do it in front of me.’ She tried to place the razor into my palm.
I yanked my hand away.
‘What, are you scared?’ She grabbed my wrist again and stepped closer. ‘Or do you think it’s unfair to have to die alone?’
Standing against the corner of the wall, I shook my head. I wanted to yank my arm away, but there was no room. I couldn’t escape without pushing her aside.
‘Don’t worry. When you’re gone, I’ll go too.’
My breathing was shallow. My chest felt heavy, as though my lungs were filling with water. I was standing on dry land and yet I felt as if I were drowning. I ripped Mother’s hand off my wrist and squeezed it. With my newly freed hand, I twisted the hand holding the razor.
‘Let go!’ Mother began writhing. She pushed me and butted me on the chin with her head. ‘Let go, you piece of shit!’ Her head bobbed and danced in a dark blur under my chin. She roared, ‘How dare you… how dare you take your father’s…’
I had to raise my chin so that she wouldn’t get me, but that meant I couldn’t see what she was doing. Still holding onto both of her hands, I was whipped back and forth and dragged all over the landing. Mother, who had at first been trying to give me the razor, was now fighting to keep it. She began to swipe at my throat with it. I moved to slam her right hand into the wall, hoping she would let go of it.
Just before her hand made contact, Mother’s face burrowed under my arm. I screamed. She was biting me as hard as she could in my armpit. ‘Mum!’ Pain ripped through my flesh, my muscles, and into my head. It snapped something inside me, the thing that had dragged me home in the first place, that had held me back from responding to Mother’s attacks, that I’d thought was stronger than a steel cable. Control. Consciousness. It leaked out of me. ‘Please… Stop.’ My voice grew faint. Everything became muffled. Darkness pushed in from behind and took over my peripheral vision. I let go of Mother’s left hand. I grabbed her by the hair and pulled backwards. Growling, she bit harder, deeper, working into my flesh. Her teeth released only when her head was yanked all the way back. All I could
see was her thin, branch-like neck, its bones bulging under her pale skin. Blue veins were pulsing like angry snakes. I pulled her right hand, which still held the razor, up to her neck.
Everything slowed. The chill freezing my head, the heat scrambling my innards, the shiver of each nerve ending, the sound of my thumping heart, the blade that glided from under the left side of her jaw to the right. Hot blood spurted and covered everything; my face, the wall, the floor. I closed my eyes and shoved her away from me. She thudded to the ground. Her crumpled body tumbled down the stairs. It became quiet.
I wiped away the blood from my face with my hands. I looked downstairs. Everything was blurry. I could see Mother’s body, slumped at the bottom of the stairs like an empty sack. Her eyes glistened. With those eyes as coordinates, I found my way downstairs. I stood dully next to her. I heard the clock chime. Once, twice, three times.
You’re about to have an episode; it’s coming soon, a voice whispered. I dragged Mother by the armpits and laid her down in the hall, with her feet towards the stairs and her head towards the kitchen. I raked her hair over her eyes so that she couldn’t see me go up to my room. I folded her hands on her chest. I stood up. ‘Goodnight,’ I said automatically.
Morning had arrived. The fog was still thick, but it was bright outside and the rain seemed to have stopped. I could hear the cars whizzing along the road in the distance. If I hadn’t gone out last night, it would be like any other day; I would be running along that road right now, passing occasional joggers or cyclists or pedestrians. I would run past a pretty girl and wonder where she was going, who she was meeting, what she would be doing later.
All kinds of people lived together in this world, each doing their own thing. Among them, some people became murderers, either by accident, or from a fit of anger, or for the fun of it. I’d never imagined that I could be one of them. Or that Mother would be my victim. I’d only imagined my future, when I could do whatever I wanted. I’d anticipated what I would do when my real life started, after Mother was dead and no longer meddling with my choices. But I’d never wanted her to die this way, though I couldn’t say I hadn’t fantasised about killing her.
The Good Son Page 5