The Good Son

by You-Jeong Jeong

  Hae-jin’s voice brightened instantly. ‘You don’t have to run. It just has to happen in the next half-hour. Just tell Mr Yongi about it.’

  I hung up and approached the bedroom door to listen. I couldn’t hear a thing. Maybe Auntie hadn’t been rummaging around in the room all this time. Was she reading a book from the study? Had she in fact had a wash and fallen asleep like she’d said she was going to? Other than that, what was there to do in there for hours? It would be okay to leave for a little bit.

  I left the TV on and went into Hae-jin’s room. I found the DVD right away, where he had said it would be. I slid the door to the foyer open and picked up the running shoes I’d worn to Yongi’s last night. The front door lock would beep if I left that way, and Auntie would realise that she could roam around the house freely.

  I went upstairs. I locked my door behind me and put on my padded vest. The entry card and my mobile phone went in my pocket. I left the glass sliding door open a crack, walked quickly across the roof deck, and stepped into the stairwell. Hello started barking as usual, so I went down to the ninth floor and took the lift in case the barking brought Auntie out. It went straight down to the ground floor.

  Clouds covered the sky, and the air was cold and damp. It was going to start raining soon. As I walked slowly towards the side gate, something nagged at me. I felt as if I’d overlooked something important, or left something vital behind. I walked through the gate and my mind murmured, If this is Auntie’s plan… I stopped in my tracks. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut with a realisation. How long would it take her to go through the entire house?

  I looked back towards the building with unfocused eyes. Ten minutes.

  The lift was still on the first floor. I got off at the ninth and walked up the last storey, the way I’d done on my way down in reverse. I heard Hello growling but I didn’t rush. I wanted him to bark ferociously; I wanted Auntie to hear it. I wanted her to realise what that meant. But for once his growling grew quieter, and by the time I got to the door of the flat, he was silent. Fucking useless mutt.

  I punched the code in and walked inside. I didn’t detect any noise. I put the DVD on the kitchen island and went to Mother’s bedroom. I quietly pressed down on the handle. Locked. I put my ear to the door. Nothing. She must be asleep. For a moment, relief washed over me. I’d been overly suspicious and deluded, I decided. There was no way Hae-jin would join forces with Auntie, of all people.

  I turned around to face Hae-jin’s door and felt another nagging in my gut; something said, ‘Are you sure?’ The best way to confirm was to see it for myself.

  I went inside his room and headed straight to the door that opened into Mother’s dressing room. I opened the door to her bathroom. It didn’t look like it had been used. There wasn’t a single drop of water on the sink, in the bathtub, on the walls or floor. The toilet lid was up, the same way I’d left it yesterday. The only difference was that the bathroom slippers were squarely on the floor. I’d left them leaning against the wall, I knew I had. So Auntie had come in here, maybe to look around or to call someone.

  I went back out and stood in front of the closed door to Mother’s room. I paused for a moment. Auntie would either be in there or not. If she was, I needed a reason for why I was walking straight in: I needed something from Mother’s desk but I thought I’d wake her if I knocked. That sounded like a lame excuse. Maybe it was better to just not care and not give a reason, just the way Auntie had acted when she came into my room.

  I pushed the door open slowly, hoping: please be inside; whether you’re sleeping or not, please be in the room. Didn’t some famous novelist say that all of humanity’s problems stemmed from the fact that a person couldn’t just sit quietly in a room and do nothing?

  I stepped inside. The room was empty. My heart speeded up a little. So she’d left, whatever the cost. I started to feel hot and my skin and muscles prickled. Noise rushed into my ears – cars driving along the road far away, the sharp laughter of kids ringing from somewhere in the building, the lift moving up and down, the fridge in the kitchen, my pulse pounding in my head. I knew now that this wasn’t a precursor to a seizure; that it was what happened when I felt the urge, a reaction born from my excitement and my need to follow it.

  I paused at the desk. As I’d imagined, Auntie’s coat was on the back of the chair and her handbag was on the desk. I couldn’t tell if she’d gone through the drawers or not. Everything, including Mother’s wallet, seemed to be in its rightful place. I noticed that the curtains to the balcony had been pushed aside. The bed – the blanket I’d pulled tightly and neatly over it – was slightly disturbed. She hadn’t used it. She’d lifted the covers to look.

  I went over to the bed and threw the blanket back. The sheet underneath had come loose. Did that mean she’d seen the bloodstain? I had flipped the mattress over when I carried it downstairs, so she couldn’t have stumbled upon it; she would have had to pull the blankets back and pick up the mattress to take a look underneath. She must have gone into the bathroom to quietly call Hae-jin. Did she tell him, I think Yu-jin killed your mother? I have to search the house so can you lure him out?

  What are you doing? You busy? Hae-jin had sounded out of breath when he called. Maybe he was excited. His voice had been half an octave higher than usual, as if he were in a good mood. There was no way he would sound like that if he’d heard about Mother. And Hae-jin and Auntie weren’t so close that he’d just believe her without seeing the bloodstains with his own eyes, unless they’d secretly communicated all along without my knowledge.

  Maybe Auntie hadn’t explained the exact reasons, and Hae-jin had followed without knowing the full truth. Still, that meant he had collaborated with her.

  I closed the bedroom door behind me and went into the living room. I checked the key cabinet; all the keys were gone. She was doing exactly what I’d thought she’d do, heading down the path I’d hoped she wouldn’t. I didn’t want to rush upstairs and stop her, though. As long as she hadn’t gone past the sliding door in my room, I’d be okay. She’d better not go beyond that, for both our sakes.

  I heard a thud from above, a low, dull vibration. I quickly realised I was out of luck. The noise was her closing the sliding door to the roof deck carelessly. I instantly realised what events would unfold and my heart started thudding in my chest. Wasn’t it enough for my life to be in this desperate place? Now it was finally pushing me into a dead end and forcing me to choose.

  I climbed the stairs slowly, quietly. I walked down the hallway feeling as though I were floating outside of myself, just as I’d felt when I was carrying Mother’s dead body in my arms. I stopped at the door and pressed down on the handle. It wasn’t locked. As I’d expected, Auntie wasn’t in my room. A bunch of keys was on my desk. The sliding door was closed tight; air should be coming through if they were open even a crack, but I didn’t feel anything. The journal was open. She’d moved swiftly in the ten minutes she had.

  I approached the sliding door and peeked through. She was standing outside, holding her mobile phone, my slippers on her feet, facing the pergola. Her reddish-brown hair rustled in the wind. Her narrow shoulders were quaking. I could tell she was agitated; what should she do?

  Meanwhile, Mother was sitting on the swing in the pergola, looking up at the sky, her Joker lips wide open, tapping the deck with her toes. Her white nightgown fluttered in the breeze. She didn’t look half bad; that is, if anyone else could see her.

  Auntie tucked her hair behind her ear. I stared at her, half pleading and half threatening: it’s not too late. Please come back inside. She turned to the pergola and moved towards it, putting a foot on the first paving stone. She moved to the second one. She paused on the third. She raised her mobile and looked at it for a while. Maybe she was trying to decide whether she should call the police or keep looking around.

  I meanwhile was trying to decide if I should call her in or go outside. My future would be determined by which I chose. Confess or flee. The f
ormer appealed to my reason and the latter to my instinct. Either way, I wouldn’t be able to take it back. There was no room for compromise. I was running out of time. I had to decide during the time she crossed the remaining five paving stones. I watched her, whispering for her to turn back. Or maybe I was whispering to myself. I did wait for as long as I could and give her as many chances as possible. The only thing I did wrong was getting fooled by ‘honest’ Hae-jin and leaving the flat for a few minutes.

  Finally Auntie stepped onto the pergola and stopped in front of the table. I looked away for a moment to take my padded vest off. I put it on my desk. I took the razor out of the desk drawer. I moved across and opened the sliding doors, feeling lighter. The wind was blowing loudly now. My bare feet touched the cold, hard stones and something odd happened. Mother, who had been swinging non-stop since yesterday, began to vanish. She contorted, crumpled and melted like a rubber doll on fire. Soon even her melted form disappeared in a wisp of dark smoke, and her toes, scratching the floor of the pergola, finally stopped their lengthy performance. The squeaking stopped. A leaf settled gently on the empty swing.

  Auntie also disappeared. She was no longer standing by the table with her back to me. She was prey, treacherous prey at that, which had frightened, agitated, soothed, and forced Mother to ruin my life. My body began to quieten down. My head stopped throbbing and my breathing and heart rate slowed. The knot in my stomach vanished. My senses sharpened. I could hear her frightened, damp, rough breaths, even though there was still a few metres separating us. The world had offered her up, defenceless, and everything had opened up and filled with possibility.

  I stepped onto the second paving stone quietly, but I didn’t care if the prey heard and turned around. She’d have to notice me at some point, and I was excited to see her expression when she did. What would she say? What would she do? Would she attack me? Run away? Scream?

  I paused on the last stone. Only one footstep separated me from the pergola, but the prey still didn’t look back. She was so focused on the problem in front of her that she hadn’t detected my presence. She was frozen, standing still, not even breathing. Just like the girl two nights ago.

  Finally she began to breathe again. She reached out to the table, touched the edge and stepped back, startled, as if she’d touched something hot. She seemed certain about what she’d find inside. I folded my hands behind my back. I was going to have to wait until she saw me or found Mother.

  She was working herself up to it. She slid her mobile into her back pocket and stepped forward, put both hands against the edge of the tabletop and pushed. With a heavy groan, the table opened. She stood still for a moment. Or maybe it was longer than a moment.

  I knew what she was seeing. First she would see clear plastic, a sack of fertiliser, a hoe, pruning shears, a trowel, a saw, empty planters and small pots, coiled rubber hose, a blue tarpaulin. Maybe a few drops of blood. I’d washed the tabletop but I hadn’t bothered with the inside; I hadn’t had time and I hadn’t expected someone to be looking at it so soon. She leant against the edge of the table and took things out with both hands, moving fast. The clear plastic, the sack of fertiliser, the saw, the hose. She bent over again and shoved a hand in. I heard the tarpaulin being removed. She gasped. Her hair fell forward. Her shoulders began to shake and she started breathing loudly. She had probably come face to face with the Joker. Maybe she’d met her eyes the way I had yesterday in the living room. If she had turned to look at me before she moved the tarpaulin, I would have given her some advice: take out the pots first, that’s the feet.

  The prey swayed as though she couldn’t feel her legs. She managed to straighten up, gripping onto the edge of the table. She let out a moan. She took her phone out of her pocket, but it slipped out of her hand and fell hard onto the floor, dividing into two pieces and scattering in separate directions. The main part flew over to the swing, and the battery landed by my feet.

  She went to the swing first and picked up the metal case, then turned around to look for the battery and came face to face with me. Her frantic gaze stopped at my eyes. She actually looked almost confused. The phone slipped out of her hand again.

  I flicked the razor open behind my back. ‘What are you doing?’

  The prey shook her head, her mouth tight as she spotted what I was holding.

  I picked the battery up from in front of my feet, my eyes still fixed on hers. ‘Weren’t you going to call the police?’ I stepped onto the pergola.

  She jerked backwards, her eyes glued to the razor in my right hand. A sound came out of her mouth. Maybe it was a moan? Or a scream? Whatever it was, it was the sound of terror made by someone who sensed her fate.

  I felt sad. It would have been so nice if she could have felt like this sixteen years ago. If she’d cared just a tiny bit about that boy’s life, this day wouldn’t have come. We wouldn’t be standing here like this. But it was too late now, although it would have been too soon then.

  ‘It’s okay. Go ahead and call.’ I held out the battery and stepped towards her again.

  She shook her head and retreated further.

  ‘Go on. Call them and tell them everything. That you took on the treatment of a nine-year-old psychopath sixteen years ago and fooled him into believing he was epileptic. That you medicated him with God knows what. That you manipulated his every movement like he was a lab rat. That you stopped him from doing what he truly wanted, and then one day, he really did go batshit crazy and killed his mother, and now he’s about to kill you.’ I took a large step forward. ‘I said tell them, you cunt.’

  The prey stepped back again, but her slipper got caught in a crack and she teetered, flinging her arms out to grab something before falling backwards off the pergola on to the stone floor. Instantly she had created two metres of distance between us. She didn’t let this small chance go. She leapt up and ran sobbing and screaming towards the steel door to the stairwell. I caught up with her quickly, grabbing her short hair and yanking it back. The prey let out a piercing sound, the last thing she would utter on this earth. ‘Yu-min…’

  A dark forest was opening within me. Time slowed. I watched the movement of my hand holding the prey’s head back, the blade running along the taut skin under the jaw, the neck opening like a zipper and the blood spraying in all directions like a machine gun, the red bullets coating the floor. A sticky warmth covered my face.

  Yu-min? I let go of her hair. Her head dropped with a thud onto the floor. Why had she said Yu-min?

  IV

  ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES

  ‘Yu-min!’ Father screamed.

  My eyes flew open. Where was I? I was in my bed. I didn’t know how long I’d been sleeping, but it was no longer night. It was cloudy outside but I could tell it was daytime.

  I couldn’t remember much about my dream. But Father’s voice remained vivid. It was the first time I’d heard his voice in my dreams. Until now, I hadn’t even remembered what it sounded like. I’d never thought of it or missed it. Father didn’t exist for me after the age of nine, not in my memories or emotions or anywhere else. But in my dream I’d known instantly that it was him, as if I’d been hearing and living with his voice all this time.

  But how did I know it was him? Why did he say Yu-min, not Yu-jin? And why was it Father who was shouting and not Mother? I raised myself on my elbows and looked at my clock: 1.41. I looked at the sliding doors and the light streaming in. It must be 1.41 in the afternoon.

  I’d glanced at the clock just before I fell asleep. I think it was 9.30 p.m. That meant I’d slept for sixteen hours straight, unsurprising as I hadn’t slept at all over the past two days. I had lain down to take a little nap before Hae-jin came home. I blinked, opened my eyes fully and got up to walk over to the sliding doors. The sky was ashy. A herring gull flew low in the misty air. There was no sun, but it was clearly the middle of the day.

  The swing was empty. Mother seemed to have left for good. I didn’t know why she’d been there or why she’d gone, b
ut I felt a strange sorrow, as though the umbilical cord was finally cut, as if I’d crossed over an inviolable border and become an orphan or something more, perhaps a monster. I’d probably left myself on the other side of the border: the me who lived with people in this world, who believed myself to be average. There was no way to return once you’d crossed a line you shouldn’t. There was nothing you could do about it other than to keep moving forward.

  Now I knew why the two hours and thirty minutes during which I’d killed the first two people had been completely erased from my memory. It was as if I subconsciously knew that as soon as I remembered what had happened, I would have to leave the world I’d grown up in. The life I had been leading would be over. I wasn’t ready to leave or to end my life, and I wasn’t able to handle what I’d done. Only oblivion could deal with things that couldn’t be dealt with.

  On the other hand, I remembered the majority of last night’s events. I’d spent a long time next to Auntie, loitering in the dark forest within me, flying through the fog like a newly hatched butterfly. A red light blinked beyond the fog, warning me to be mindful of danger, but I ignored it. A sweet, intense heat took me to a brighter and higher place. The stars came closer and closer.

  I snapped back to reality only when my mind instructed: It’s dark, you’re freezing, Hae-jin will be home soon, you have to clean this up. I looked around at the scene I’d created, feeling dazed. I looked at Auntie, lying in a heap and illuminated by the pergola light; at myself, crouching next to her with the razor still in my hand; at the blood covering the floor. Cold, damp fog was settling over it all. The wind was weeping behind me. The stars disappeared. Only their afterglow was scattered by my feet, and even that was disappearing, twinkling like embers.

  I tried to launch myself up but sat back down. My legs were cramped; I’d been crouching for too long. I suddenly realised how cold it was and how everything hurt. I was exhausted. I wanted to lie down right then and there and go to sleep. There was a large rubber bin to the right of the pergola, and I laid Auntie to rest inside, choosing a practical solution like I’d done with the girl with the earring. The roof had become my family’s grave site, with Mother in the middle and Auntie to the right. A thought popped into my head: what would go on the left?