His wife’s room. He could picture it clearly. When his wife wasn’t in the garden, she was in that room. Sometimes she had slept in there. Oghi usually let himself in. When it was dinnertime but she still hadn’t made any food, when a deliveryman was ringing the bell over and over but she didn’t answer the door, when he came home from work but she didn’t bother to even peek outside, Oghi went to that room.
She was always seated at her desk. A large bookcase, crammed full of books, stood against the back wall. Whenever she needed to add a new book, she would pull an old one off of the shelves and throw it away. If a new translation of a writer she liked came out, she would find a similarly sized geography book and toss it. Oghi moved his most essential books to his office at the university to keep them out of his wife’s hands and kept those he had no choice but to store at home in his own study, but it never failed that unless he was lucky enough to spot one while it was sitting in the recycling bin, his books would find their way out of his life for good.
“Nothing wrong with trimming the fat,” his wife would say whenever Oghi asked when they’d become wealthy enough to waste money like that. Each time, his wife had just one objective: to piss Oghi off. She was like that sometimes.
There was a large teak desk in the middle of her room. She had waited three months to put it there. She’d browsed an antique furniture store in Seongbuk-dong every week before buying it, saying she had finally found a desk she liked. It was the most expensive item in their house after the sofa in the living room. More expensive than anything Oghi owned. When he asked her if she really had to have it, she told him she would never have to buy a new desk again. And come to think of it, she was right. She had literally used that desk for the rest of her life.
To one side of the desk was a sideboard that she’d purchased from the same furniture store. On top were souvenirs from her travels and a collection of unusual and expensive picture frames. Only one of the frames held a photo of her and Oghi. It was a snapshot of the two of them riding a tandem bicycle during a trip to Gyeongju that they’d taken back when they were dating. It had obviously been placed there as a reminder of when she’d been young and beautiful and not because it was that special of a memory.
The rest were all photos of women: Susan Sontag photographed by Annie Liebowitz, Virginia Woolf with her hair up, Sylvia Plath at the beach smiling brightly in a white bikini, Tasha Tudor in her garden, Louise Bourgeois in her later years smoking a cigarette, Georgia O’Keeffe with her hair down and the top buttons of her shirt undone, Cindy Sherman in lingerie sprawled on a rumpled bed.
Some were still alive, some were dead. Some had killed themselves, some had died of illness. They were all different, but Oghi soon figured out what they had in common. They were all successful women. Just as his wife had walked around with a photo of Oriana Fallachi in her wallet during her college days, so she had placed these women’s photos in her room.
Though in the end Oghi was never able to figure out what kind of work his wife wanted to do, he had a sense of what kind of person she had wanted to become. She didn’t want to be a painter or a journalist or an artist or a writer. She had simply wanted to succeed and make a name for herself.
When she wasn’t looking after her garden, his wife was shut up in her room with the photos of successful women. Each time Oghi checked in on her, she was sitting at her desk writing something. That was right. She had written something everyday. She wrote on a laptop and in a large notebook. She wrote on Post-its and stuck them to the wall, and she wrote on squares of memo paper and stacked them inside a tin case. Ever since returning the advance for the nonfiction book she’d been contracted to write long ago, she’d stopped talking about writing or showing pages to Oghi, but she had kept on writing.
She mentioned it only once, shortly before their trip. She told him that she’d been working on something. Oghi guessed it was a gardening book.
“Wrong.” She answered simply, “It’s an open letter.”
“Open letter?”
This was interesting. She hadn’t written anything like that before. Though, come to think of it, that wasn’t entirely true. His wife’s first direct sense of the power of words was none other than the open letter she’d written to the boss who sexually harassed her. The first time her writing had achieved something meaningful. The letter she’d posted resulted in her boss being expelled from the press association and compelled the company to improve their working conditions. And it had all started with something she wrote.
“J’accuse,” she murmured.
“What kind of open letter is it?”
“The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.”
She stared directly at Oghi as she quoted Emile Zola.
If Oghi had asked her which truth was on the march, if he had tried to hear her out, she probably would have told him what was going on, even if she’d only meant the quote as a joke. But his wife’s gaze and her mumbling rubbed him the wrong way. He sighed, said, “You’re using that quote wrong,” and got up and left.
It didn’t occur to him until they were in the car on the way to their destination that maybe he should have heard her out. He’d been slow to realize that things between them had gotten to the point that this was the only way she could try to talk to him. As with all things in life, his realization came too late.
Oghi’s mother-in-law did not come out of his wife’s room for a long time. She’d probably gone in there and looked around at first just to tidy up, but it wouldn’t have taken long for her to notice the notes plastered all over the walls, covering the surface of her desk, filling the drawers. His wife had been a compulsive recorder. She not only kept notes on the books she read—title, number of pages, content—she even kept summaries of her phone conversations—who she spoke to, what they talked about.
She was meticulous in her notes on Oghi. She wrote down what they argued about and what kind of promises Oghi made while making up with her. Later she would retrieve the note and stick it in Oghi’s face. She would tell him how he’d disappointed her and that he’d made the exact same mistake before. She would get angry and tell him his pledges and promises were useless. Oghi would apologize and make another promise dripping with sincerity. But before long, he’d be subject to the exact same criticism again. Oghi quickly grew sick of it.
His wife also recorded what time Oghi returned home everyday on her desk calendar. He had grown busier and more and more often failed to keep the promises he made to her. More than once he told her they would eat dinner together only to come home past midnight. Though he called or texted plenty to ask for her forgiveness, she got angry each time. When those days added up, she brought out her calendar to show him just how many times he’d broken his promises. Oghi never knew what to say.
At one point, his wife tried to have a baby. She got shots when she was ovulating, took pills, saw the doctor. Several times Oghi went into a little room and, with the help of some videos, extracted his sperm. Several rounds of artificial insemination failed, so they tried in vitro with its slightly better odds. Nothing worked. This had made his wife sad, of course, but she looked like she got over it soon enough. As was her way, she was quick to give up and resign herself.
Nevertheless, Oghi had felt he should comfort her. She seemed to be deliberately masking her depression and unhappiness. She chose cynicism over grief, which he found even harder to stand.
But each time he tried, she mocked him, turned sarcastic. Called him a snob. She was quick to blame him. It wasn’t fair. He was doing the best he could. He had worked hard to build up his resume, and that had brought him more work. His wife didn’t understand that. He was hurt. Yes, he was building a life for himself, but he’d never thought of her as not being a part of that life. She had to know that. And of course it didn’t mean that she couldn’t think of herself as separate from him. It just meant that she had to build a life for herself too.
His mother-in-law would find the things his wife had written and wo
uld read them all. She would learn all the things her daughter had not told her over the years. From the words she’d jotted down in notebooks, from the even stacks of memo paper, from the Post-its scattered everywhere. His mother-in-law would think the same things about Oghi as his wife had. The same misunderstandings, the same harbored grudges. This filled him with dread.
The next morning she came into his room early. Her face was haggard, like she hadn’t slept well, or at all. He tried to read her expression, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She sat on a small chair and gazed at Oghi without saying a single word. He grew uneasy. What had she learned about him overnight?
She let out a long sigh and began to speak calmly.
“It’s time to rethink things.”
Did she know? That had his trip ended safely, Oghi and his mother-in-law might not have been family anymore? It was unfortunate that, of all possible times, she had to find out right when he was without a private nurse. Oghi quickly tried to think of who might help him, besides his mother-in-law. He couldn’t think of anyone.
“I mean, just look at the shape that garden is in. It doesn’t look like anyone lives here.”
She was talking about the garden? But Oghi knew he couldn’t breathe easy yet. After all, the garden was his wife’s space. That meant she was really talking about his wife.
“But the garden isn’t the problem right now. It’s not the real problem.”
Of course the problem wasn’t the stupid garden. The problem was Oghi. Always Oghi. And his recovery.
“I’m talking about money.”
Oghi was taken aback. How had he not thought more deeply about that before? It had crossed his mind, just never for long. His mother-in-law had struggled to ask him if she could keep a single ring for herself. Sure, she gave money away to that worthless faith healer, but she still seemed aboveboard and discerning when it came to the subject of money.
“I did the math. This house, your savings, your stocks, my daughter’s insurance, your insurance… I added it all up.”
She tapped at a calculator.
“You’ve got a lot of debt. This house, I mean. If I deduct that…”
She let out another sigh. Oghi had been making interest payments steadily and had paid off most of the house loan. The amount left wasn’t as much as she was implying. Whenever other people moaned about how hard it was to make ends meet, he had chimed in and agreed with them and exaggerated how much he was in debt, but in fact he could have paid the rest of the loan off that instant if he had to.
“This is all we have. See that?”
She tapped a number into the calculator and held it right up to his eyes. It was too close for him to read. She jerked it away and let out another sigh.
Oghi paid less attention to how much “all” was than to the fact that she’d said “we.” It was obvious she thought of his money as her money too. Even though he was the one who’d worked to save it. He was even the one who’d made the monthly payments on the life insurance policy that had paid out on his wife’s death.
“Now let’s look at how much money we’re spending every month. The fees for your caregiver, the money we pay to your physical therapist, the prayer fees for the pastor, outpatient treatment fees, rental fees for your medical equipment, consultation fees, medication—phew… This is how much you’re spending every single month. And that’s not all. There’s also loan interest, maintenance costs on the house, utilities, basic living expenses… I mean, there’s nothing to cut back on. When I add it all up…”
She stuck the calculator in his face again.
“This is how much we need. Don’t be shocked. Two healthy people would never spend this much, even if they were living high on the hog.”
Oghi couldn’t make out a single digit. He didn’t bother gesturing with his eyes for her to show it to him again either. He knew she wasn’t actually trying to show him the numbers. She just wanted to tell him how much a worthless cripple like him who did nothing but lie on his back all day was costing each month.
But he didn’t care. Even if she did think of it as “their” money and frittered it all away. He didn’t even mind if she spent all of his money and went into debt paying for his medical care. Even if he lost everything he owned, at least he was alive, and he would get treatment and be rehabilitated, and he would become healthy again. Then he would return to teaching. Get well soon and come back—that’s what the dean had told him when he visited Oghi in the hospital.
Once he was able to get around in a wheelchair, Oghi planned to jump right back into teaching. He would have to wait until he got his face fixed and his shattered jaw repaired before he could actually lecture, but he could at least push his own wheelchair with his left hand. At a time when even able-bodied people were sitting around idle, unable to find work, Oghi had a job to return to, even if all he did at the moment was lie on his back without moving. The school had given Oghi tenure. Oghi would complete his rehabilitation, return to the university, and fulfill that tenure.
Once he was able to move his hands freely, he would also be able to write that book on ancient Korean maps that he’d kept putting off before for lack of time. He already had plenty of research material on the subject. Each time he’d traveled to Europe, Japan, or other places, he’d visited libraries and collected material. It was a book that should have been published right away, if only he’d had time to spend writing. He’d simply been postponing it because of his many other activities.
He figured he could also go on the lecture circuit as he had before. His lectures might even make a more stirring impression now. He could tell people how his once healthy body had ended up like this, and how he’d conquered his injuries. The idea cheered him up. It helped him to endure his silent, unmoving limbs.
“I guess we’ll have to cut back on your nursing costs.”
Oghi wanted to yell that that was absurd. He shuddered at the idea of trusting his body to his mother-in-law’s care. He blinked feverishly.
“Yes, yes, I know. It’s a big sacrifice for me. And at my age! I’ll make myself sick caring for you.”
That wasn’t true. She was more than healthy. She wasn’t the one wasting away, Oghi was.
“But we have to cut back. Wherever we can.”
With that, she left the room without a single look back. Oghi lost count of how many times he’d blinked, but she had ignored it. He blew his whistle, but the door did not open again.
He felt like he was rolling downhill, pinned beneath the heavy weight of the car. He was better off then. Back then, he thought it was all over. It had been terrifying, yes, but he’d also felt at peace. This, however, was not the end. This was the beginning of something. He thought he’d already been through a lot, but it seemed there was more to come. And it would be nothing compared to the torment he’d experienced thus far.
10
WHEN SHE WAS IN THE garden, Oghi’s mother-in-law wore a hat with a brim so wide it nearly covered her whole face. On her arms were black sleeve protectors, and she wore pants that tightened at the ankle. She looked exactly like Oghi’s wife used to. Everything she wore had belonged to her.
Oghi used his left hand to raise the head of the bed until he was in a half-reclined position so he could watch his mother-in-law as she worked outside. What was she doing? He couldn’t see her very well from where he sat, but she seemed to be turning over the soil. She must have had plans to revive the garden, just as his wife had long ago. She showed no intention of spending any time filling in for a caregiver and looking after Oghi properly.
His mother-in-law glanced up at Oghi’s window, turned away with a hard look on her face, and dove back into work. The mother-in-law who’d greeted him when he woke from his coma in the hospital was the same mother-in-law he’d met at the hotel restaurant before he and his wife got married. Refined and discerning. But this mother-in-law now was the version he’d seen when he visited their apartment in Mapo. The mother-in-law who’d shrieked with no warning at chi
ldren playing outside.
After a while she stood up. Her back must have ached, because she arched her spine and rubbed her lower back, and then as if to show off her perfectly functional limbs, she stretched them out long and massaged the muscles. She put away the hoe, came into the house, and did something in the kitchen for a long time before finally, finally coming to Oghi’s room.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and emptied his catheter bottle. The caregiver had done everything with her bare hands, but his mother-in-law took pains not to touch anything Oghi had used, as if afraid she might catch something from him. Then, just as the caretaker used to do, after emptying the catheter bottle, she opened the front of Oghi’s pants.
Oghi shook his left hand to tell her no, to make her stop. His hand flapped uselessly, unable to reach her. She paid no attention. He tried to close his legs. He tried to bend his knees. Of course, nothing worked. Helplessly, he shouted as loudly as he could. He wanted her to know that she was making him extremely uncomfortable. It came out as a moan.
She wiped down Oghi’s body and connected his feeding tube, all while muttering something. Oghi strained to catch what it was. He thought she was talking to him. He couldn’t quite make it out. It was just a continuous mumble. He wondered if she was cussing. Her face was hard, and she looked angry. He wanted her to hurry up and get angry, to give up on looking after him. But no matter how her face hardened, no matter how completely her once sweet and elegant voice went away, she did not raise her voice at him in anger.
While Oghi slowly drank his dinner, his mother-in-law stared blankly into space and murmured something over and over to herself. Oghi still couldn’t tell what she was saying. When he’d finished his meal, she stood with a grunt and let out a sigh. Mixed in with the sigh, one phrase suddenly stood out clearly.
“Tasukete kudasai.”
The Hole Page 9