I was a boy. I do not know from when I have memories. My first memory was of a strange shape becoming another shape as light shone on it. When I think of that memory, I imagine it must have been a staircase, but I am not sure whether that white space was a dream or something I actually saw. The only thing I can say for certain is that it was the first memory of this life of mine. After that, I remember being five years old and being looked down on by a friend because I could not read. In the end, that friend did not teach me letters. But whenever he was at even the slightest disadvantage while playing, he took out his anger by pointing out that he could read. From the age of five, I do have various memories. But if someone asked me now to talk about anything I remember, the stories that would likely come out would all be things that happened after I was nine. That was when a school first opened in our village. They said that even a child like me had to go to school. My parents objected, saying I had work to do, but the country did not allow that. From my point of view, it was good not to work, but what was most appealing was that I would be able to read. The books were handed out at school, and I left them on the school desk when I went home.
School ended at two. When I came home, other children may have eaten lunch at home first, but I had to go straight to the forest. In fact, when I picked up branches while humming the things I had learned at school, I could gather far more branches than when I gathered them simply because I had to work. So even at home, no one said much about my going to school. Nothing special happened at school either. There were only ordinary things, like the day the smell from the bathroom reached all the way to the classroom, or the time a window broke during cleaning. Then, near graduation, they said they would tear down the building and build a new two-story one. At that time, many things happened. Girls sometimes ran around and showed their underwear, and boys would take off their shirts when it suddenly got hot. Looking at it now, it made sense, since even children old enough to be around second-year middle school students were attending together. On top of that, because the building was being demolished and rebuilt, everyone put up tents in the schoolyard and took classes there, so it must have been impossible not to feel unsettled.
There was no more music class. The children who had decided to go to middle school in town began studying mathematics. It was the same as arithmetic, but even at a glance it looked difficult. I did not have money to go to middle school, so at two, as always, I came home, confirmed that my parents had gone out to the fields, and went straight to the forest. Around that time, I would catch small rabbits or foxes, roast and eat them in the forest, or bring them home. Once, after roasting and eating a rabbit, I ran a high fever that night and lay in bed for two whole days. When I told my mother that I had eaten roasted rabbit, she said it was because I had eaten it without cleaning it, and beat me badly for going crazy over meat and eating it alone without even telling my parents. Other children had many siblings, but in our house I was alone. When I brought that up, my father got angry and my mother smiled in a way I could not understand, so I could not ask why. It is fortunate I was already over ten then. If I had had a younger sibling, I might have secretly eaten it together with them, and who knows what would have happened. From then on, when I caught an animal, I cleaned it, washed it, and brought it home. There was nowhere to store food, and we were always hungry, so whatever was caught that day was roasted or steamed and eaten that day. There were many days when rice was short and we filled our stomachs with meat alone. In winter, we sometimes caught and ate water deer.
When I was eighteen, I followed my father to the city. We rode a truck to town and then took a train. I do not know how many hours I rode in that first truck, but as soon as I got off, my stomach churned so badly that I went straight to a corner and vomited. It was my first time in town, and I was lucky that I somehow kept my head, saw a building, and ran behind it. They said that if you vomited in the middle of the road, you had to pay a fine. It was supposedly to keep the place clean, but I wondered why they went that far when rain would wash it away anyway. Was it really a rule made to stop people, or was it made to take their money?
When we arrived, there were many foods I had never seen before. My father said he had received something called investment money and bought a few things from street stalls. We stood in a corner, ate them all, and walked in another direction. From town, after walking about thirty more minutes, there was a train station. They said the area was not developed enough for the tracks to come all the way into the middle of town. Compared with the village where I had lived, this place already had an astonishing number of people and things I had never seen, and I wondered what it meant to say that this was not developed.
We rode the train for only about an hour and got off. The train was much better than the truck. The inside was clean, there were many people in good clothes, and I did not get motion sickness. But perhaps because there were certainly more people, Joseon language could be heard here and there. We spoke Joseon language at home too, but outside I had only ever used Japanese, so it felt awkward.
“You should be able to speak Joseon language just as you speak Japanese. It is courtesy to meet the other person where they are.”
My father told me that, but I still had a fixed idea that Joseon language was something used only among family, so it felt unbearably awkward. As I mumbled imaginary conversations in Joseon language, we reached the place where we had to get off. Everyone was preparing to leave the train, so I looked at my father, and he too had shouldered our luggage. We waited until everyone had gotten off, then I followed my father and mother out.
At the station, people really flowed like water. Crowds moved this way all at once and then that way all at once. Even at the crosswalks, people stood in great numbers, then crossed in a rush when the signal changed. At first, just watching the crowds, which I had not even seen in town, sweep this way and that all day long made me feel dizzy. There had been traffic lights in town too, but they were turned off. Here, everyone was staring only at the traffic lights.
My father worked at a printing shop. He said he worked with a Japanese man. In fact, that place had first been opened with money the Japanese man had brought from Japan, but after they earned a lot and paid that money back, the Japanese man and my father would share the shop. So I too was to help after school. Going to school, however, was not easy. I had not planned to go to middle school, and my family had not expected it at all. My father had thought that if we had money I could attend, but when he was told I was not at the level required for middle school entrance, he said I should simply quit. But the Japanese man’s son was a high school student, and he agreed to teach me work at the print shop whenever he had time and also help me prepare for the middle school entrance exam.
The Japanese man who worked with my father had not originally known him, but he said his older brother had once been indebted to my father. I do not know what kind of help someone could have needed all the way out in that countryside, but apparently the brother had repeatedly assured him that my father was trustworthy. Five years later, after the investment money had been paid back, that Japanese man used the fact that my father had won exclusive printing contracts from various organizations as a reason to set aside twenty percent of the profits as reserves, then gave sixty percent to our family and took only forty percent for himself.
In truth, I had not imagined that my father would be good at dealing with people while drinking. But sometimes he did sales in Joseon language, sometimes in Japanese. Sometimes he laughed and spoke in a strange Joseon accent as a joke meant to tease, and sometimes he spoke Japanese slowly to irritate people. I found it fascinating how freely he used language. In such places, I too was given a drink or two, but because I was still young they did not give me much. It was lucky that I could see those scenes from up close.
In that way, I smoothly entered middle school. They said children sometimes bullied one another, but even when I studied at school, I had to help with printing as soon as school ended. Perhaps because many people were connected to us through printing, our school too decided to leave its printing to our shop, and I sensed that the other children avoided me a little. I thought that if things went this way, I might be able to inherit the printing business. At the same time, I was anxious that I would not be able to do sales the way my father did.
When copy came in for printing, we counted the characters and drew slashes at regular intervals. The space between one slash and the next became one line in the press. Sometimes the printing width was narrow, sometimes wide, and the line length was decided by that width. When we received a sheet marked that way, we set the type. This was the part that took the most time. If even one slash was marked incorrectly, every slash after it had to be shifted by the same amount, so it took even longer. Once all the type was set, the Japanese older brother looked over it to see if it was right. If it was Japanese, I set the type and he checked it. If it was Joseon language, he set it and I checked it. Naturally, checking should not take longer than setting. If there was nothing wrong, we started the machine. The rollers applied ink, and the paper passed through and was printed. Since our shop usually handled large double-sided sheets like newspapers, there was not much cutting, but folding required a great deal of skill.
One day, while I was working, someone waved from outside the window. It was a girl I often saw on my way to school in the morning. The first few times I saw her and greeted her, she turned her head away as if irritated. Later, she began raising her hand first and greeting me. Still, if I tried to talk to her, she ran away. But today, on her way home from school, she had come by our shop. I did not know what to do, so I lowered my head again and turned the machine. Sheets were cut and piled up. As I watched them, I looked back toward the window and saw that the girl was still standing there, staring blankly at the press. When she realized I was looking at her, she waved again. This time I waved back, and after only waving, she went away.
The high school brother, who had been watching, said, “I think she likes you.” He looked as if he found it cute.
“She does not like me. You should have seen how annoyed she was at first.”
“That can happen when someone does not know you well. Now she keeps seeing you, thinks you look all right, and came this far.”
“She has not seen me enough to know me well. It is rare to know someone at a print shop, so she probably came because it was interesting.”
Even so, after hearing him say that, I became slightly interested. Once a week, we tightened the bolts on the press. The places that could loosen were fixed. When we turned those places, even if only slightly, they moved. Anywhere that moved even a little would loosen more and more from the vibration once the press ran. Both my father and the older brother’s father would turn the bolts by hand once at the start and end of printing. That day too should have been a day to tighten the bolts, but there were many complicated characters and I was in a hurry, so I forgot to tighten them and rushed to set the type and run the machine. While the machine was running, I belatedly tightened the bolts, but missed one. When I realized I had missed it, I thought I would do it at the end, then thought I might forget and decided to do it then. I turned the wrench. Unexpectedly, it swung around. I think it turned almost one full round. Even when I applied force, it simply kept turning. It was strange. It had turned almost two rounds and still kept turning. I thought I would turn it just a little more. At that moment, there was a ping. What was that? I looked at the wrench and saw that the head of the bolt was gone. Then everything in front of me grew blurry. For an instant, I thought I heard the older brother calling me.
When I opened my eyes, it was night. Everything in front of me was black. I realized a blanket was over me. I sat up, but it was hard to keep my balance. What was under me was not a floor mattress. It was not tatami either. I seemed to have come to my senses, but something was strange. I barely got up, and in the next instant, I collapsed with a thud. The floor had given way. My ankles, knees, and pelvis twisted, and I screamed without meaning to. But no one responded. I barely stood up and looked around. It was a large room I had never been in before. On the wall was a switch for fluorescent lights. Such switches existed at the print shop, not at home. At home there were only light bulbs and switches attached to their sockets, and from what I could dimly see, there were no bulbs on the ceiling. I barely made my way to the wall and clicked the switch upward. In an instant, fluorescent light poured out, bright enough to dazzle my eyes. One wall was filled with mother-of-pearl wardrobes. When I turned around, I saw the wooden bed I had been lying on. The blanket was shiny silk.
Bewildered, I sat there and went over what had happened. I had been born in the countryside without siblings, followed my father to a city, worked at a printing shop, and attended middle school. A girl had followed me, and when I told the brother, who was the son of my father’s business partner and a little older than I was, he told me she liked me. I had become used to printing work, enough to set type and operate the machine even without adults around. I raised my hands and looked down at them. The motion of picking up each piece of type and gently rubbing it against the side wall so that the one beside it would not come along, the motion of placing the tips of my fingers against the printing frame like a base and pushing the type in with my fourth finger - even in the middle of the night, if a press were placed before my eyes now, my fingers felt as if they could set the type in an instant.
But I cannot speak Japanese. What? Yes. I cannot speak Japanese. And Joseon language is… not Joseon language. I speak Korean. Just in case, I put my hand between my legs. There was nothing to grasp. I touched my chest too. I was unmistakably a woman. And yet my memories of having been a man were vivid.
“Did I die that way? Hit by the bolt head?”
Since it was now 1960, the background must have been at least thirty or forty years ago. But I did not know what city it had been, or what countryside. I felt as if I had heard the names, but they were already growing blurred like a dream. I am forty. Did he die and reincarnate as me? In any case, the dream was too vivid. And the girl, the studies, all of it - I had thought how I acted from then on would obviously matter, and yet it ended like that. I was angry. I was heartbroken. How could it end so absurdly?
I went out to the living room, took a water bottle from the refrigerator, and poured water into a cup. The bottle cap had not been screwed on all the way, but the cup was clean, so I supposed my husband had again drunk directly from the bottle after drinking water. Usually I would have been angry, but today it was tangled with the feelings from the dream, and every sensation felt somehow blurred. My knees and ankles, which had hurt when I fell earlier, still ached faintly, but it did not feel as if I had been hurt by falling. It felt as if I had woken after being hurt in the dream. Tears came. I cried because I pitied that boy. I cried because I thought I should have lived harder. I cried because I felt sorry that I had not looked around me more carefully, had not done my best a little more.
Sitting at the kitchen table and thinking, I began to remember one thing at a time. I must have failed to close the water bottle properly when I filled it and put it in the refrigerator. My husband had passed away two years ago. At the house in the countryside, my five children would be sleeping now. I was in the Seoul house because of the clothing brand my husband had left behind. Most matters were handled by the executives, but there had been something important, so I had come up, finished the work, and would go back home by train in the morning. The first and second children were university students, the third was in high school, and the fourth and fifth were in elementary school. Except for the fifth, all were sons. My in-laws had kept saying they wanted sons, sons, but after I had given birth to three sons, they said they wanted to see a granddaughter too. When the youngest was born, they were so happy they came by almost every day for a year.
The clothing brand was doing better than expected. Just before my husband died, he had been preparing to enter a department store but never saw it through. Once that was confirmed, the company finally got properly on track, went public, and even spun off sales and asset management affiliates. If my husband had been alive, by now people would have called him chairman. It was sad, but each day was so busy that I had no time to sink into sentiment. Tomorrow, as soon as I got off at the train station, I had to take a taxi and meet the fourth child’s elementary school homeroom teacher. The children did not cause trouble, but sometimes they did strange things. The quietest was the first, but he was only quiet. He was just as strange. The second once said he would become a singer who sang in English and go study in America, but after a teacher told him his singing was so bad it was unbelievable, he strangely said from the next day that he would study again. This time, the fourth had apparently danced in the classroom. He said he would become a famous dancer, and even when the other children booed him, he stubbornly pushed all the desks to the back of the classroom and danced. When the children said he was bad at it, he burst into tears and did not come to school yesterday. After receiving that call yesterday, I called the housekeeper, and it seemed he had not come out of his room. Fortunately, he had eaten everything she brought him. Still, I needed to know exactly what had happened before I could comfort him or scold him properly, so I thought I should talk with the homeroom teacher.
Suddenly, a thought came to me. If my child had acted so strangely but had turned out to be just the son of a print shop, would the school have called so kindly? If he had danced and sung like that, would they have quietly watched without hitting him? I felt newly grateful to my husband. Then I thought that perhaps the father in the dream had run around so desperately, trying to live even a little better, because of that. I cried a little again.
Until morning, I could not escape from that dream. The sense of loss was too great. One life had disappeared inside my head, and I could not know whether it had disappeared only from inside my head, or whether something that had actually existed had vanished and I had merely learned of it. No, honestly, there is no difference. Even when reading a novel, if a vivid protagonist dies, is one not sad? The dream is sad because it is vivid. I tried to think that way, but then came the father’s sorrow at losing his son, the older brother’s shock at seeing a close younger boy die before his eyes, the grief of the girl who would learn that the boy she liked had died only minutes after she had last seen him. Would the print shop remain as it was? Would the father stay sane and keep doing printing work? Would that high school boy, who had seen the death of someone he knew right before his eyes, be able to live normally? If it was a dream, then because the dream ended, there is no afterward. There is nothing to worry about. But somehow I felt that the time after that was cruelly continuing to flow, and that because of that bolt, I simply could not see its flow. It was an instinctive feeling.
I came back to bed and lay down to sleep again, but sleep would not come. When I closed my eyes, I saw the inside of the print shop. If I stared blankly at the press and then looked toward the glass window, the girl was smiling. If I turned around, the older brother was watching with tense eyes to see whether the printing was going well.
Near dawn, I must have fallen asleep briefly and woken. I seemed to have slept for a little less than an hour. It was only that I had dozed while tossing and turning, so I felt no relief from fatigue at all. On top of that, last night’s dream was still vivid, and I felt as if I had one foot in each of two worlds. But all my appointments had already been made, so there was nothing to do. Resigning myself to the thought that I would have to sleep deeply on the train, I showered and dressed. I decided to redo my makeup after arriving.
After getting off the train, I stood on the platform for a while, watching another train pass. Only a small number of the people who had just gotten off had crossed over, so there were still many people on the platform. Just before the train passed, something familiar crossed my eyes. No, something in the scene made me feel that it was familiar. Apart from the train station itself, there was, unexpectedly, nothing familiar, and yet I felt deja vu. The noisy locomotive was approaching, but I did not hear its sound. I was only busy looking at the station building through the heads and hats of other people, trying to find what it had been.
A hat.
It was the hat the older brother in the dream had worn. Perhaps it had been the hat that came with his school uniform. I had thought the dream was vivid, but I had not imagined it would be this vivid, vivid enough to be engraved in memory, vivid enough to feel like something that had truly happened, vivid enough to give me deja vu. But the train passed immediately, and because it was passing a platform full of people, it moved very slowly. As the train slowly went by, enough time passed to meet the eyes of people sitting inside it, and at last it went past five or six platforms and I could pass through the ticket gate. But by then, I could no longer see such a hat.
I touched up my makeup roughly in the restroom and headed toward the square. Being winter, the smell of roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts was strong here and there. Even in my confusion, I realized I was hungry because I had eaten nothing that morning. I had not arrived too early, but it was not so late that I had to hurry, so I bought a bag of roasted chestnuts. The man blew on a sheet of paper, made it into a bag, and filled it tightly with chestnuts using tongs. I counted out the money and received the bag. Usually, when one buys roasted chestnuts or roasted sweet potatoes, the seller says something like “Enjoy” or “Thank you,” but this man said, “Hang in there!” and I was startled.
Did it show that I was troubled over the fourth child? Or did he know I was confused because of the dream? I opened my eyes wide and stared at him. The man grew flustered and said, “No, you just looked like you had not slept, so I only meant to tell you to hang in there. I did not mean anything bad.”
Perhaps because I was sleepy, I had judged too hastily. Feeling awkward, I said, “No, it helped,” greeted him, turned around, and walked away.
The station square was quite wide. Cars were gradually becoming more common, but it was not yet to the point where sidewalks had to be clearly separated, so cars and people moved mixed together. In Seoul, at this level, the sound of horns would be noisy everywhere, but here the drivers had to avoid people by their own skill. Still, because there were many pedestrians, it was difficult to walk around eating something. I went back into the station and sat on a bench.
If I had known this would happen, I should have simply told the driver to come out. I had decided to take a taxi because I did not want to look as if I was putting on airs by arriving at school in my car, but thinking about it, even if I went in my own car, I could simply get out before the schoolyard and walk. As I put roasted chestnuts into my mouth one by one and thought, irritation began to rise. Worse, I had made that decision yesterday morning, after sleeping well. Why had I decided that? But no matter how I tried to focus on such small things and think only about them, in the end the inside of the print shop with its wooden-framed glass window came to mind. I even thought that perhaps I had been so wronged by dying that way that I had not left this world until now, but had been born and lived in this body.
At the school, which I had gone to with so much worry, the meeting showed that in fact it was not much of a problem. It was not that I had worried for no reason; rather, it was fortunate that the worry had not come true. The teacher had simply wanted to let me know, out of kindness, because we were a fatherless family and she wondered whether I knew what was happening with the children, or whether I might worry too severely if I misunderstood. It was not something likely to grow into a serious matter like what had happened with the first child. Still, the fourth did seem to have some real talent. Not enough to make a living from it, perhaps, but I thought he might be good at planning or arranging stages.
Ten years passed, and I forgot all about that dream. The children were all earning money. The company was inherited by the second child, and the first worked at another company. No matter what, he seemed unable to understand fashion. But he seemed able to calculate industrial matters, and worked in sales at a trading company. Since it was in industrial material imports, it had almost no point of contact with us. The third and fourth worked in our company’s retail branches. Not just one branch, but in overall management. They handled store design and layout, so sense was important, and if the fourth suggested three or four options, the third would choose one of them. If the two were placed together, honestly, I felt almost anything would go well. The youngest became a professor. Seeing that she became a professor early, I suppose the family’s background may have played some role, but she had not failed to make her own efforts either, so I neither boasted of it nor tried to hide it.
The five siblings were all managing on their own, and with help from the board, the company too seemed to be running smoothly. Then a problem arose. A person who had been my husband’s partner from the beginning gathered major shareholders and tried to sell the company. Later, after several shareholders’ meetings and repeated lawsuits, this appeared in the press, and the children too found it hard to work at the company. One day, I gathered four of the children and told them:
“At the moment, there is nothing wrong with our family, is there? The company problem is something to be resolved legally at the company. So, first, do not think of quitting your company and coming in here to do something because of this. Just remember that you are the only person in our family who earns money outside our company. If things go wrong, your family must not be harmed too. Second, I still have control of the board, so continue managing the way you have been. Third and fourth, there may be people in the field who openly ignore you, so do not stand in front of customers, but keep visiting the stores often so that no one forgets that we are still the owners of this company. The youngest may or may not have seen the reports, but she seems busy with papers these days. There is no need to contact her and tell her, but if she calls when she has some breathing room, tell her the truth.”
All the children were married, but only the first had children, two sons. I had seen them only when they were babies, and had not seen them much after they grew a little. I thought that perhaps only after this whole matter ended would the children feel at ease enough to let their children be held by their grandmother. Three years passed that way, and the company stabilized again. It had been the company’s greatest crisis. Even so, the company continued to grow. No one had imagined it, but exports had begun. Whenever a new contract was signed, I went to my husband’s grave and cried. He had left after laying all the foundation for the company, unable to see how strong that company was. The crisis had not been simple, and it had come from rot inside, but we cut it out and rose up more stubbornly.
“I did well, didn’t I?”
I asked every time I went to the grave, every time I looked at his photograph in the bedroom. He seemed to nod. Because the photograph was always smiling, it seemed to say that he knew everything. The five siblings had never once gathered after all becoming adults. I thought that if we could hold just one family gathering, perhaps I would have done my duty to my husband. In truth, the family gathering could be held only after all five had given me grandsons and granddaughters. I had never imagined such a noisy family gathering.
The family gathering was held together with my sixtieth birthday. It was called a celebration, but we simply rented a small wedding hall and did not use company money. We did not invite the executives either. We called it only a family gathering, and did not even bother with needless details like whether it was a birthday or a sixtieth birthday. A large cake came out, and they had prepared all sorts of Western-style things, like a cake-cutting ceremony. When I brought up the cost, the youngest cut me off.
“Oh, it is not much. Now, hold the knife and cut it. Excuse me! You are taking pictures, right?”
The youngest chattered excitedly. Even the little children smiled, perhaps because it was the first time they had seen their mother so excited. After cutting the cake, beer finally came to each place. At first, they had asked about soju or whiskey too. Originally, I had said people could order it if they wanted, though I would only drink beer. But I changed my mind and told them not to bring soju or whiskey. I remembered that when I had raised investment while doing company work, and when I had dealt with bad matters, sexual harassment and insults had always followed whenever soju or whiskey were involved. Only after I reached a certain age did it become all right. Before that, there were times when I wondered whether they were confused about whether I worked in fashion or in the liquor trade. I do not know how many years of experience I had in casually parrying and passing over such things, but that is not something to boast of. There should be no need to respond that way in the first place. If I had put that much more force into the business instead, would this country not have lived much better? And such cases would not have happened only to me. The more I thought that way, the more upset I felt whenever I saw soju or whiskey.
I drank one glass of beer in one go and called the children.
“If I drink more, my face will get red. Shall we take the group photo now?”
Then the first child said to the children, “We are going to take pictures now, so go put on your nice clothes.”
The children took uniform-like jackets out of their bags and came back wearing them. Just before the photo, they put on hats. Seeing them from behind, I saw the hat from that old dream, the hat the older brother had worn, the hat from the familiar train station. I simply thought, “Ah, so it was just a school uniform after all,” and smiled. I had seen many such things when I was young too. It might have stood out a little more because it had appeared in my dream, but perhaps it appeared in the dream precisely because it had been familiar.
Five years after my sixtieth birthday celebration, I collapsed while walking. Someone called it in, and an ambulance carried me away. I had no memory of collapsing, nor of having been in pain anywhere. I had simply collapsed. While I was in the hospital, the second child came straight into the room. It seemed the hospital had contacted him immediately.
“Mom, hyung will come tonight too. I heard from the doctor that surgery is possible, and I will talk to the doctor about that.”
Surgery was not on my mind. So instead of answering, I said this to him:
“The first is one thing, but I have a bad feeling, so I want all of you to gather once. Not the babies. Just the six of us.”
“All right. I will contact everyone. Do not think bad thoughts. If you have surgery, you will get better.”
But the doctor suspected something in the brain, and after tests, he said that even with surgery the chance of survival did not seem likely to rise much. More than anything, my own feeling told me I would not get past next Wednesday. I called the second child again and told him we should gather again next Wednesday evening. The youngest had not yet been able to come because of an overseas presentation. I repeatedly told him that everyone had to gather on Wednesday.
The next morning, the youngest called.
“Mom, I booked a flight that arrives Wednesday morning. I will stay beside you from the morning, not just the evening. I love you.”
Her voice sounded as if it was the middle of the night there, because she had called in time for morning here.
“I understand, so hurry and sleep. You could have told your brother. Why call about that?”
“When someone is sick, they feel lonely. Someone has to care for them with even one more word. Who would do that if not your daughter?”
“Hey, do that when you get here. When you get here. Now go sleep.”
“Okay. Mom, you rest too and stay comfortable. That way your blood will circulate well.”
I stared blankly at the ceiling. Only after a loud beeping began a little later, meaning the phone had not been hung up properly, did I crawl across the bed and hang it up.
On Saturday, my condition worsened sharply. Perhaps it was not only a problem with the brain or blood vessels. I lost consciousness once and woke again, and the doctor said that just in case, if there was anything to say, it would be good to say it now. After hearing that, the first child arrived first. Then the third, the fourth, and the second.
“When did the youngest say she could come?”
“She said she booked whatever flight would leave as soon as possible. She is rushing as much as she can, so she is already at the airport and hard to reach.”
“I should sleep for now. It is night, so I must be sleepy. If I wake up around when the youngest arrives in the morning, that should be fine.”
For some reason, I seemed to sleep deeply for the first time in decades. While running the company, I do not think I had ever slept like that. In the morning, I opened my eyes because the sunlight was dazzling. When I looked, the fourth was sitting in front of me. As soon as he saw me, he sprang up and said only, “You are awake?” Then he ran outside.
A little later, he came rushing in with the other three, and I searched for the youngest with my eyes.
“Has the youngest not come yet?”
The first child answered something, but suddenly I could not hear his words. It was not that I could not hear. I could hear the sound, but I could not understand what it meant. I tried to say, “Wait, say that again,” but somehow I was not sitting up. I had fallen forward without realizing it. The children were all startled and supported me, laying me straight on the pillow.
“I wanted to see the youngest, but I suppose I cannot. It is not that I want to see the youngest more than you. It is just that if I could see the five of you gathered together one last time, I would have had no more wishes…”
I felt tears coming from my right eye. I waited a little, but the tear did not flow. A tear had come, but it did not flow.
Why?
Had the tear dried up? I had clearly felt the surface tension and gravity of a teardrop, but when I touched it, there was no tear. I sat up straight again. Then I became bewildered. The hospital room that had been bright only moments ago was dark. I could not see the children either. Looking closely, it was not a hospital room. I got down from the bed and looked at the clock. It was eleven. Eleven at night?
I am not even curious what situation this is. The only thing I want now is to see the youngest’s face. My memory was confused for a while. I have a company I built over a lifetime, but I am a student in Canada for language study. It is hard to trace memory. When I try to trace it, two branches are read at once. The faces of my grandchildren overlap with the faces of my parents. The grandchildren are children from the dream, and my parents are my real parents in Korea. My children are not real either. Even while using the bathroom, I was dazed. Then I came back to bed and fell asleep.
The first thing I did the next morning was sit leaning against the wall and replay the dream I had had the night before. Can someone’s life become a single night’s dream? But it was not simply a single night’s dream. The night inside that dream had also been someone else’s dream. And what was hardest above all was that I had not seen the face of my youngest daughter. When I thought of that, my throat closed with a feeling as if my chest would burst. Then I cried freely, pouring out the tears I had not been able to shed inside the dream. Even so, I did not feel relieved. If I was going to cry, I should have cried inside the dream. I should have cried there, and what use was there in crying now, when it had already become something that was not reality?
At that moment, I resented the fact that I had no talent for drawing, or at least that I had not practiced drawing. The youngest daughter’s face had been so vivid, and it was terribly upsetting that what had been vivid in the dream could not be seen in reality. Many parts of the memory were already disappearing. Probably the youngest daughter’s face too would soon be forgotten. I would even begin to doubt whether there had really been five siblings. I wished that because of that, I might forget the final grief too, but I knew I would not be able to, because emotionally it had left marks on my heart like a carving knife.
When a person dies, do they become nothing? I do not know.
When a person dies, are they reincarnated? I do not know.
When a person dies, does that life remain as a mere dream? To explain this from the perspective of someone who has experienced it, to say it is a mere dream is ultimately to say that the life is nothing. After waking, nothing remains. Even the experience is an experience that is useless in reality. What remains is only a bundle of emotions. But to think of it the other way around, if dreams are someone’s life, then our dreams are worth remembering. And dreams are worth recording. Yet the unavoidable fact is that the answer to this question too cannot be known.
Korean original: 나는 소년이었다