No One Writes Back

by Jang Eun-jin

  Then one day, a poor little girl got caught in my mother’s snare. The problem the girl had to solve was a very easy one, one that couldn’t even be considered a problem, really. But the girl could do nothing more than copy the problem down on the dark chalkboard. My mother got angry. She made the girl go into another classroom and solve the same problem in front of kids she didn’t know. The kids all stared at her, with spoons in their mouths. A boy she liked was in that class. The girl was probably so humiliated that she wanted to jump out the window. The boy was probably disappointed to find out that the girl he liked was someone so dumb that she couldn’t even solve such an easy problem, and since the other kids all knew about the two of them, he probably wanted to jump out the window, too. The girl ran out of the classroom sobbing. The tears must have blocked her view, for she rolled down the stairs and hurt her head. The girl, who had always been cheerful and vivacious, became a completely different person after that. She lost her temper easily, she didn’t laugh, and didn’t talk much either. She had wanted to major in art, but she even lost her interest in art. In the end, she decided to transfer to another school.

  The day before she left the school, the girl came to see my mother.

  She showed my mother, who was sitting in the teacher’s room, some paintings one by one and asked, “Do you know who painted these? Do you know what technique was used in this painting? Do you know what style this painting is in? Have you seen a painting like this?” My mother could not answer a single question the girl asked. My mother knew nothing about paintings.

  The girl handed my mother all the art books she had brought, saying one last thing. “I didn’t know math well, but I did know paintings. But now, because of math, which I didn’t have to know, I can’t paint, either.” After the girl left the school, my mother began to collect paintings instead of unhappiness. Was she, having learned about paintings, a little happier?

  33. I take out some writing paper from my backpack. Today, the person I want to write to comes easily to mind. Wajo doesn’t bark even once, as if he knows who it is I’m writing.

  Dear Mother,

  Whenever I think of you, there’s always something else that comes to my mind. You always smelled of chalk. Even the food you cooked had that smell. At first I thought it was some kind of a cosmetic product, but I learned, after I entered elementary school, that it was chalk. Being the duty student of the week, I was dusting off the eraser, when the smell of you, Mother, rose up like smoke into the air. That’s when I began to have a fondness for chalks, and I would steal them in all different colors and give them to you. When I became good at making stuff, I carved all kinds of animals with them and gave them to you as presents. The problem was that you couldn’t keep them for a long time, because they broke and got wet and smashed easily. Later, you scolded me for playing with pencils because for you, chalks were pencils.

  I still remember the huge green chalkboard on a wall in your study. You were always standing in front of the chalkboard, solving math problems on it with a chalk and an eraser in your hands. You weren’t even aware that white chalk powder was settling down onto your head. When you were having difficulty solving a problem, you’d hold the chalk between your fingers, like a cigarette, and think intently for a while. I still remember clearly how you looked at such moments. The look on your face was like a difficult question, a question that couldn’t be answered completely. I thought you looked lonesome and aloof, which is why I began to smoke cigarettes even before Older Brother did. I thought cigarettes held clear answers to the difficult questions in life. And you, Mother, would solve the problems without a hitch after having a smoke. I felt relieved, for some reason, when I heard the sound of the chalk scratch across the board at great speed. As though I were listening to a lullaby. And of course, your face, too, relaxed.

  Before you left for work each day, you wrote down three math problems on the board. Older Brother and I, and Jiyun, too, had to solve those problems when we came home from school, before we could eat. You thought it would be embarrassing for the children of a math teacher to be bad at math. But more than that, you believed that all the truth in the world could be found in math. All creations are numbers. That was your philosophy in life. Because of your efforts, we always got good grades at school, as far as math was concerned. Still, I was your least favorite, wasn’t I? I always left more problems unsolved than Older Brother and Jiyun.

  Did you know? That I pretended I couldn’t solve the problems? Why, do you ask? Because I wanted your attention. They say that mothers tend to pay more attention to the stupid child, the slow child. It really worked. You gave me a severe beating whenever I got a problem wrong, but you also gave me that much more attention and instruction. I stayed alone with you in your study, like kids at school who stayed behind after class because they were slower than other kids, and on that pretext, I could chat with you late into the night, and you gave me candy in secret. At the time, I really felt like I was receiving special treatment. But I know in my heart that you were just sad that the child who stuttered was bad at math, too.

  Thinking back now, I see that I was the happiest when solving math problems. In math I didn’t stutter, and it wasn’t frustrating because there was always a clear answer and it was easy. Math gave me the confidence that I could accomplish something without making sounds with my mouth. But more than that, I think you, Mother, were the most difficult problem for me to solve. I even had a hard time calling you “Mother.” I had no problem saying the word father, so I don’t know why the word mother was so difficult. During my adolescence, I even imagined that I might not be your son. Maybe it was because I was afraid of you, since you were somewhat cold and adamant, but later on, I felt that I was the only child you didn’t like. Frankly speaking, I wasn’t a good enough son for you, Mother, who were insatiable. Especially compared to Older Brother or Jiyun. I stuttered on top of that, which must have made me seem stupid.

  Now I understand you, Mother. How frustrated you must’ve been, since you had to decide what my future job would be. I really hated it back then, but now I think that my job, which you chose for me, is just right for me. It’s been very helpful in my journey as well.

  I learned before I left home that I really was your son, and that you didn’t hate me. I saw the scrapbooks in your study. In your desk drawer, there was another file besides the two which held your collections of happiness and unhappiness. In that file, you’d been collecting the happiness of your children. Records of minor incidents in which something good happened to your children, which made you happy. It was Older Brother, of course, who took up the most pages, and then Jiyun. Sadly, there was none on me. I felt bad, but then I saw another file at the bottom. The file, unlike the one divided up between Older Brother and Jiyun, was all for me. There was nothing inside, of course. But I know, Mother, that you, more than anyone else, wanted to put in that file the happiness I brought you. Late as it is, I promise you now, that one day, I will fill up that file.

  The motel where I’m staying is quite an interesting place. This room is full of Hopper’s paintings. You know Hopper, right? I used to think that his paintings resembled me, but writing this letter, I feel that they resemble you. It’s the kind of motel that you should stay at sometime, since you like paintings.

  Something you used to say often suddenly comes to my mind. “For you and for others, life begins in joy, but ends in sorrow.” When I finish this journey and return home, I’ll work hard to live in such a way that your life doesn’t end in sorrow. I’ll be a son who doesn’t stutter, and doesn’t seem stupid.

  You’re probably standing before the chalkboard as usual, solving a difficult math problem. I miss the smell of chalk tonight.

  Your son Jihun, from The Moon and Sixpence

  34. I put the letter in an envelope, and affix a stamp on the right. A stamp is the cost you must pay to send a letter, and the price paid to the postman for his labor; but to me, it feels like a special symbol. A stamp, to be affixed on
the right side of an envelope, is like a heart. A heart that doesn’t beat dies, and a letter without a stamp doesn’t get delivered. An undelivered letter is as good as dead. This letter, however, has a heart that’s beating, like that of a newborn baby, so it will be safely delivered to my mother. I put the letter down on the bedside table, and go into the bathroom.

  35. I forgot to buy underwear, so I come out of the bathroom naked again. The paintings in the room make me feel like there’s someone else in the room, and I cover the lower half of my body with the towel in spite of myself. I hang the wet underwear on a hanger to dry, and pull the pillow from the bed down to the floor. I’m about to lie down on the floor and put on my earphones when someone knocks on the door.

  “Who is it?” I ask, standing by the door.

  “It’s me,” comes the reply.

  It’s the woman.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “Want a beer?” she asks in return.

  “It’s too late,” I reply.

  “Come on, just one?” she persists.

  There’s no sign that she’ll give up. She seems to be implying that since she paid for the rooms, I should do as she wants. If I do drink the beer she offers, what will she demand of me next? She keeps knocking on the door, as though my concerns don’t matter at all. It feels like she’ll open the door with a key if I don’t open it for her. I’m about to open the door, but then turn around in haste. I forgot that I’m naked. That was a close call. I slip on the wet underwear I hung on the hanger, thinking it would be better to wear my own clothes than to wear the robe provided by the motel, and put on some jeans and a T-shirt over it. I feel damp and uncomfortable.

  36. The woman walks around the room, sipping her beer, her eyes full of emotion. While looking at the paintings, she steals a glance at the letter I placed on the bedside table. When she’s about to reach for it, I firmly stop her.

  “Hey!” I yell out.

  “Why don’t we introduce ourselves? My name is . . .” she begins.

  “I don’t want to know,” I say, because I fear that we really will have to get to know each other once we start calling each other by name.

  “What are you going to call me from now on, then?” she asks.

  “What do you mean, from now on?”

  “It includes tomorrow, for one thing.”

  I think for a moment and say, “Why don’t I call you 751?”

  “751 . . . That’s original. I like it, it’s creative. Well, then I’ll call you . . .” she begins.

  “Just call me 0.”

  “Why 0, of all numbers? Do you like 0?”

  “It’s a state of nothingness.”

  “Are you saying that you want to be someone who doesn’t mean anything to me, like the number zero?”

  “Exactly.”

  “0 and 751. The numbers are too far from each other. Too much gap between them. Well, I suppose 751 is closer than 752,” she says, and laughs cheerfully with her mouth wide open.

  For the first time, I take a close look at the woman’s face. Her gums don’t show. That’s the only thing I like about her face. There’s something disillusioning about a woman whose gums show when she laughs. When they’re overexposed, they even take away the fantasy of kissing. They make a person look like an animal that hasn’t evolved enough. But I’m not saying that I want to kiss her or that I like her. It’s a very dangerous idea to like someone on the whole just because you like a part of her.

  The woman sits down in the middle of the room, and opens a can of beer and hands it to me. My mouth waters in spite of myself. Thinking I’ll pay her back tomorrow for everything, since I owe her anyway, I take the beer and sit down. My buttocks feel uncomfortable because of the damp underwear. I gulp down the whole can. The fatigue leaves me, and the discomfort in my buttocks is soon forgotten. The drink makes me feel less guarded toward the woman, and my face is flushed. I want to ask her a question.

  “Why did you recommend me this room?” I ask.

  “Because you’re a traveler,” she answers.

  I look up at the paintings once again. All the people in the paintings have the look of a stranger to them.

  “The artist understands how travelers feel,” she says.

  “How did you find out about this motel?” I ask.

  “A drifter does well to plant a motel in each city. Don’t you have a place like that, 0?”

  “Not yet. If I did have one, it’d be a place that welcomes Wajo. That’s why it seems so unrealistic that a motel like this exists.”

  “But it is realistic for someone like me. He’s going to add two more stories, I hear.”

  “The business must be thriving.”

  “Kant’s room, Hegel’s room, Spinoza’s room. It seems that he’s going to add philosophers’ rooms.”

  Suddenly, I feel perplexed. Rooms full of books on philosophy? But then it occurs to me that philosophy may be the most suitable subject for a traveler. When you travel, you become philosophical without even realizing it. Even if you don’t make a point of creating philosophers’ rooms, all the rooms in which travelers stay become philosophers’ rooms.

  “If it were me, I’d build novelists’ rooms . . . A motel where people come to read a single writer’s novels. The idea alone is fabulous. Do you have in mind the kind of rooms you’d like to build, 0?”

  I think it over. If it were me, I’d build a motel where people feel inclined to write a letter. A motel that sells things you need to write a letter, like envelopes and stamps, and has a red mailbox standing in the lobby. I read an article once, about a study result stating that your health improves when you write letters. In the article, the doctor said that writing letters not only helped students improve their grades, but also had a positive effect on reducing depression and raising immunity level. He also said that writing letters was the simplest way to enhance the quality of life and make people happy. You can believe it, since I myself am an example of the study result. I ignore the look in the eye of the woman, who is waiting for an answer, and say something a little silly.

  “A motel with separate entrances for men and women, like a public bath.”

  “You’re still upset? About having a drink with me?” she asks.

  “I want to rest,” I reply.

  “Why do you take Wajo around with you? It must be hard. And he looks pretty old, too,” she asks again, eating shrimp chips and sounding as though she herself never gets tired.

  I don’t know why I keep answering her questions when I’m so tired. It’s probably because of the drink.

  37. It was never my intention to bring Wajo with me. I took him under my care at my grandfather’s request, but I couldn’t very well take him on my journey just to fulfill the request. It was obvious that it would be difficult for both of us. Most importantly, I couldn’t tell when the journey would end. Having no other choice, I decided to leave Wajo with my grandmother on the day I left on my journey. The dog, however, seemed to have figured out what was happening, and stopped in front of the gate of my grandmother’s house and wouldn’t budge. I barely managed to drag him into the yard with the help of my grandmother, but it was no use. I kept trying to push him away, but in the end, he bit my pant leg and clung to it. My grandmother tried to pull him away, but she wasn’t strong enough. In the end, with my jeans torn, there was nothing more we could do. “He can’t help it, it’s his nature. Take him with you.” Just as my grandmother said, wandering around seemed to be his nature. It wouldn’t be easy to abandon a nearly decade-old habit overnight. All the more so, since Wajo is an animal and animals are truer to their nature than humans. My grandmother put in my backpack Wajo’s yellow outfit with the words “Guide Dog” stitched on it, saying that there might come a time when we would need it. Wajo was a dog who could survive only by looking after someone as if his own life depended on it. Maybe his nature made him forget the fact that he couldn’t see.

  38. “How old is he?” the woman asks.

  “Thi
rteen.”

  “What about you, 0?”

  I take a book out of my backpack and read a passage with blurred eyes.

  “I put this age as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.”

  “Thirty-five?”

  “I’ve got three more years to fall in love without making a fool of myself.”

  “So you’re thirty-two.”

  “How did you know it was thirty-five, though?”

  “It’s one of the classics I liked when I was little.”

  The words make me feel even less guarded toward her.

  “That’s why you looked so surprised when you saw the motel sign last night,” she says.

  “I have to admit, I was a little surprised, because that was the book I brought with me when I left home.”

  “So what are you in search of, away from the comfort of your home?”

  “Comfort.”

  “So are you comfortable now?”

  “Somewhat. More than I was at home.”

  “That’s unusual. Don’t people usually feel more comfortable at home? How long has it been since you left home?”

  “Three years.”

  “That’s a long time.”