Do you think that things happening now are linked to things from the past and things in the future, it’s just that we can’t feel them? I don’t know, could that be true? Sometimes when I look at my grandchildren I think that they were dropped down from somewhere out of the blue, and that they have nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me at all.
Would it have seeped in somewhere, the fact that the bicycle I saw you on when we first met had been stolen, that before you saw me walking down the avenue with the basin of flour on my head, you had planned to sell that stolen bicycle for a strand of seaweed? Or the fact that you ended up not being able to sell the bicycle, so you went to put it back where you found it, but the owner caught you and you got into trouble? Did those events seep into a page of the past and bring us all the way here?
I know that, after I disappeared, you went out and searched for me. I know that you, a man who had never been to Seoul before, came to Seoul Station and went around on the subway, stopping people who looked like me. And that you went by my house many times, hoping to hear some news about me. That you wanted to meet my children and hear what happened. Is that what made you so sick?
Your name is Lee Eun-gyu. When the doctor asks your name again, don’t say “Park So-nyo”; say “Lee Eun-gyu.” I will let go of you now. You were my secret. You were in my life, someone whose presence would never be guessed by anyone who knew me. Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely. I was happy that you were there. I came to tell you that I was able to travel through my life because I could come to you when I was anxious, not when I was happy.
I’m going to go now.
The house is frozen solid.
Why did you lock the door? You should have left it open so the neighborhood children could come in and play. There’s no hint of heat anywhere. It’s like a block of ice. Nobody has swept the snow away, even though it’s snowed so much. The yard is a dazzling white. Icicles are hanging everywhere possible. When the children were growing up, they would break off the icicles and have swordfights. I suppose nobody is looking in on this house because I’m not here. It’s been a long time since anyone’s stopped by. Your motorcycle is propped up in the shed. And it’s frozen solid, too. I wish you would stop riding that motorcycle. Who rides a motorcycle at your age? Do you think you’re still young? There goes my habitual nagging once more. Then again, you looked strapping on your motorcycle, not like a man from the country. When you were young and rode into town on the motorcycle, hair pomaded, wearing a leather jacket, everyone turned to look. I think there’s a picture from that time somewhere… in the frame above the door of the master bedroom… Oh, there it is. It was taken when you weren’t yet thirty years old. Your face is filled with passion; that’s not the case now.
I remember the first house we lived in before we rebuilt. I really loved that house. Although now that I’ve said “love,” I don’t think it was only love. We lived forty-odd years in that house that doesn’t exist anymore. I was always in that house. Always. You were there and not there. I didn’t hear from you, as if you would never come back, but then you would return. Maybe that’s why. I can see the old house in front of me, as if it’s illuminated. I remember everything. All the things that happened in that house. The things that happened in the years when the children were born, the way I waited for you and forgot about you and hated you and waited for you again. Now the house is left behind, by itself. There’s nobody here, and only the white snow is guarding the yard.
A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person’s poison if you get too close to him, but that’s not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it. Look at this-one end of the roof has collapsed because of the snow. In the spring you’ll have to call the person who fixes the roof. There’s a sticker with the name and number of the roof people in the television cabinet in the living room, but I don’t know if you know about it. If you call them they’ll come and take care of it. You can’t leave the house empty like this in the winter. Even if nobody is living here, you have to come by and turn the boiler on once in a while.
Did you go to Seoul? Are you looking for me there?
This room, where I put the books Chi-hon sent down when she went to Japan, is cold, too. The books look frozen solid. After she sent the books here, this became my favorite room in the house. When I could tell that my head was going to hurt, I came in here and lay down. At first it seemed like I would get better. I didn’t want to tell you that I was in pain. Then, as soon as I opened my eyes, the pain rushed at me, and I couldn’t even cook for you, but I didn’t want you to see me as a patient. That made me lonely, many times. I would go into the room with the books and lie down. One day, holding my pounding head, I promised myself that I would read at least one book that she wrote before she came back from Japan. And I went to learn how to read, still holding my head. I couldn’t continue. When I tried to learn to read, my condition quickly got worse. I was lonely because I couldn’t tell you that I was trying to learn to read. It would have hurt my pride to say something like that. When I learned to read, I wanted to do one more thing, besides reading my daughter’s book with my own eyes: to write a farewell letter to every person in the family, before I became like this.
The wind, it’s blowing so hard. The wind is rolling the snow in the yard and shifting it around.
Summer nights, when we set out the brazier and made steamed buns, were the best times we had in this yard. Hyong-chol would collect compost and make a fire to protect us from mosquitoes, and the younger ones would flop onto the platform and wait for the steamed buns to finish cooking in the pot on the brazier. When I made a whole pot of buns and set them out on a wicker tray, hands would shoot out, and the buns would all be gone. It took less time for the children to eat them than for me to steam them. As I put kindling in the brazier, I would look at the children lying on the platform together, waiting for another batch of buns, and it frightened me a little. How they could eat! Even though the fire was lit, the mosquitoes stuck incessantly to my arms and thighs and sucked my blood, and as the night became darker, the children ate all the buns and waited for more, while I kept steaming them. There were summer nights when, one by one, they fell asleep stretched over one another, waiting for the buns to cook. While they were sleeping, I would finish steaming the rest of the buns, put them in a basket, cover it, leave it on the platform, and go to sleep; the dawn dew slightly hardened the outside of the steamed buns. As soon as they woke up, the children would pull the basket toward them and eat some more. That’s why my children still like cold steamed buns, the outsides slightly hardened. There were summer nights like that. Summer nights with stars pouring down from the sky.
When I was wandering the streets, I couldn’t remember anything and my head was fuzzy, but I missed this place a lot. You don’t know how much I missed it here, this yard, under the porch, the flower garden, the well. After wandering a while, I sat down on a street and drew in the dirt what came to mind. And it was the house. I drew the gate, I drew the flower garden, I drew the ledge of clay jars, I drew the porch. I couldn’t remember anything except that house, the house that was here long before this house, that house that had disappeared a long time ago, that house with the traditional kitchen and the back yard shaded by butterbur leaves and the shed next to the pigsty. Those blue galvanized iron gates, their paint peeling. The gates of that house, with a smaller gate inset in the left one, and the mailbox to its right. There were only a few times that both gates needed to be opened, but the smaller inset gate, with a wooden handle, was always open to the alley. We never locked our doors. Even if we weren’t at home, the neighborhood children came in through the inset gate and played until the sun set. During the busy farming season, my young daughter would come home from school, climb on the bicycle on its stand under the persimmon tree in the yard emptied of people, and pedal. When I came home, she would be sitting on the edge of the porch and jump into my arms, shouting, “Mom!” When my second son ran away from home, I left food out for him in the warmest part of the room and kept both big doors of the gate wide open. When someone tripped over the rice bowl and caused it to spill, I righted it. If I woke up in the middle of the night because of the wind, I would go outside and prop the doors open with heavy rocks, in case the wind closed them. My eyes and ears were trained on the gate, every time it made a noise.