When I started talking to my older brother about Father, he suddenly started yawning and fidgeting in his seat. I took that to mean that he wanted me to get to the point, so I didn’t go into details about Father’s recent affairs.
“I’m thinking about having him live closer to us. Incidentally, there’s an apartment that just opened up in the building next to us. The owners are going abroad for a few years and don’t have any other place to store their furniture. So except for the master bedroom and the living room, they want to leave the apartment furnished. The place is priced really well.”
Although I didn’t do anything wrong, I still sounded apologetic. I studied his face for any signs of resentment or annoyance.
“Why, has the green belt ban been lifted from Father’s neighborhood? Or maybe your hubby is on the verge of bankruptcy?”
He faced me squarely, sitting upright. He was always weary and easily annoyed, but suddenly turned mischievous and antagonistic. I realized the implications of what he was saying and instantly regretted being so timid. But I really didn’t want to become defensive or pick a fight with him. Elder Brother was always like this. Without harboring any ill will, he was always sarcastic, and my naïveté made me an easy target for his bullying.
“It doesn’t matter to me one bit whether or not the development ban has been lifted. Besides, the heir apparent to their place is alive and well, right here in front of me. And leave Jung Seobang out of this. He’s not rolling in dough, but his business is doing well thanks to his hard work. Do you really think I’m in this for the money? I don’t get to visit Father often because he’s so far away. But when I do, I see how wretched his life is. That’s why I want him to live closer. Isn’t there a Western saying . . . about how the perfect distance to keep loved ones is somewhere close enough for the soup to stay warm . . . Father will be turning eighty soon. Who’s to say that we won’t discover his cold body only days after his death?”
“I know, I know. I get your lofty intentions. But what does that make me? Trust me, it’s not easy to be constantly compared to a saint like you. You embarrassed me enough with Mother. Do you really have to do this again?”
“What do you mean, you were embarrassed? We took her immediately to the funeral home the moment she passed away, like we promised. What, was there a sign that said she died at her daughter’s house and not at her first-born son’s?”
I couldn’t help but raise my voice in anger, and he immediately backed off. He whined feebly.
“Well, you know how it is with me. A guilty conscience needs no accuser. And the hardest thing for me is facing Jung Seobang. He must think I’m such a loser since my wife has to work for us to make ends meet.”
“Elder Brother, would I have brought Mother home if Jung Seobang was that kind of person?”
My brother never liked the fact that Mother came to live with us. She had undergone surgery for stomach cancer, but when they opened her up again, they found that the cancer had spread to all of her major organs. I was hesitant to bring home a terminally ill patient, but I felt that I had no choice. With both my brother and my sister-in-law working full-time, it was useless to expect much from them. Although he couldn’t bring Mother home himself, Elder Brother was opposed to my decision. He was afraid of how he might appear to other people and wanted to split the cost of hiring a caregiver instead.
Elder Brother was a high school ethics teacher and his wife was an elementary school teacher. To everyone else, they both had stable careers that allowed them to provide sufficiently for their two children. Elder Brother thought differently. It wasn’t that he griped about his situation. It was more the irritated pessimism he showed toward life that made him appear needy. He gave up his aspirations of obtaining a Master’s degree or studying abroad because of our prodigal father, and that permanently damaged his opinion of himself and his career.
If Mother’s condition during the last six months of her life were something that a caregiver could handle, I’m sure Elder Brother would have gotten his way. As is often the case with patients suffering from the last stages of cancer, Mother was very lucid, if not overly so. But she had no control of her bowel movements. I don’t know what happened, but after the surgery, she could not constrict her sphincter muscle; it was like a rubber band that had lost its elasticity. Being the neatness freak that she was, Mother became completely helpless. At first, we thought this was just temporary. She wanted to think that too. Hoping that her incapacitated condition was due to lack of physical strength, she tried to eat whatever food came her way. During that time, a caregiver was looking after Mother full-time, and I visited two or three times a week with home cooked food. The caregiver, who was very experienced, openly disapproved of me. She said that in all her years of working she had never seen a patient recover from this stage of cancer, and that overeating did not do Mother any good. She wanted me to stop bringing her food. Needless to say, Mother must have gone hungry whenever I wasn’t around. Once I knew that, I could no longer keep Mother in that woman’s care. Even if I ended up becoming a more abusive caregiver.
What I wanted to take on was not Mother, but her rectum. I couldn’t just stand by and watch a stranger clean it and care for it, cursing and shuddering in disgust the whole time. Filial piety was not what motivated me; it was my honest and indignant reaction to my mother being wronged. Why did it have to be a loose rectum? Why, of all people, my mother? For her, this was cruel and unusual punishment. Knowing the kind of person my mother was, I had no choice but to guard the last vestiges of her dignity.
My mother was nearing sixty when I thought that she would finally have a decent chance to live her life. She was freed from caring for her parents-in-law, and Father had moved in after splitting up with his last mistress. They lived in a dilapidated old home, but the yard was big and well maintained—a perfect place of respite for Mother and her friends in the summertime. Idle old folks waiting around for the green belt ban to lift were the only ones left in that declining neighborhood. After Father moved in, Elder Brother and his wife shunned all contact with our parents beyond what was absolutely necessary and obligatory. I thought at least I should visit my parents as often as I could, but once a month was all I could manage. One day on such a visit, my mother’s friends were gathered there to chitchat while sharing a watermelon and some chive pancakes. When I arrived, my mother had me serve them, to show me off, no doubt. So I got busy, stirring in more sesame leaves and hot pepper paste to the chive pancake mix and cutting up the fruit and the cake that I had brought into fancy slices to put on the table underneath the zelkova tree. The subject matter of their idle chat revolved around aging and dying.
—I dunno why I keep seein’ my mother in my dreams when I never saw her b’fore. I gotta see my Gi-taek get into college ’fore I die.
—Oh, please, I don’t wanna hear it. Gi-taek sure’s a good grandson. He must’ve failed three times ’cuz he don’t want you to die.
—You’s just braggin’ ’cuz your grandson made it the first time. Now, don’t be too harsh on Gi-taek’s granny. That Gi-taek’s no ordinary boy. Her eldest daughter-in-law kept havin’ girls, one after another, but he came along jus’ when we all thought she was done for sure havin’ more babies. Oh, you’d feel that way too, if it were you.
—Yep. We ain’t got any business gossiping about other people’s precious kids. But don’t you remember how that granny went ‘round all over town whinin’ and cryin’ about how she’d die a happy woman only if she had a grandson? It got so bad that on the day the boy was born, neighborhood folks were whisperin’ low about a funeral. Yeah right. A funeral. After he was born, she then had to see him with a backpack on strollin’ off to school; after grade school she was always harping on ’bout him enterin’ middle school; and now it’s ’til the boy gets into college? Don’t you know that you was born with a long life? It ain’t no wonder your Gi-taek keeps failing.
—Hush, you old hag. Stop badmouthin’ me.
—I’m just sayin’. We’all here have had a pretty good run in life. But if we were to die now, I mean right now, who’d be so heartbroken to see us go? All’s I’m saying is that we shouldn’t mooch off a few more days in the name of our precious grandchildren, that’s all I’m sayin’.
—Hear, hear. Until now, I’ve been helpful, you see, even if it’s just cleaning off a scallion. Never, ever did I leave a single sock or a pair of long johns for them to launder. No siree. But I see my daughter-in-law actin’ so righteous and all ’cuz she thinks she’s so dutiful in takin’ care o’ me. Imagine when I get weak or sick? What kind of treatment y’all think I’d get?
—All’s I want is to be able to go wherever I damn well please, like this here today. Maybe to the next town when I’m bored outta my mind or to my daughter’s when I’m not feelin’ so chipper. No mo’, no less. I don’t wanna live when I’m too weak to do none of that stuff.
—Ain’t that wishin’ for too much? I pray that I live only ’til I can’t use the toilet by myself. I pray to my ancestors, I pray to Buddha, I pray when I pass by a church, and I pray ’fore I go to sleep. Well, I don’t care which ghost or God listens. But I hope someone’s listenin’ up there.
—Never mind the toilet. I’m mo’ worried ’bout goin’ cuckoo or senile. That’d be my worst nightmare.
—Not me. As long as you’re not peeing in your pants, who cares if you’re a little crazy?
—Y’all don’t know what you’re talkin’ ’bout. It ain’t separate, you see. You go senile, that’s why you pee and poop in your pants. As long as you don’t lose your marbles, who’s to stop you from crawlin’ to the toilet?
—Oh, no. You don’t got it right. The worst thing in old age is when your body does one thing, and the mind does another. Y’all know how sharp I am. Everyone knows that I never forget an anniversary, a birthday, or any other red-letter day for my family, even distant relatives. Well, apparently, my daughter-in-law don’t think that’s such a good thing. Anyhow, can you believe that someone so clever as me goes ’round wetting my underpants? Not just in my sleep, you see, but in broad daylight. When nature calls, I can’t hold it in fo’ the life o’ me.
—You, too? Heck, me too.
—That’s nothin’. Once in Seoul, I was searchin’ high and low for a bathroom ’fore I spilled everythin’ in my pants. Just came pourin’ out. O’ course I was embarrassed, but what was worse was tryin’ to hide it from my daughter-in-law. If only I had a husband. I could’ve at least whined to him about how I’s was overworked all my life and needed to take some o’ that herbal medicine.
—Well, it seems to me now that Min-young’s granny’s got it the best out of all of us. Ain’t she the only one who’s not a miserable widow? See? The only blessin’ that counts are the ones you got in old age.
“Min-young’s granny” was a reference to my mother. Until then, I was enthusiastically hopping around, serving, and waiting on them. They, who had exhausted all possibilities in life except for griping about aging, made me secretly revel in my life as someone in her forties. I hummed and flitted around like a dancer with my pleated skirt undulating in the gentle breeze. I was intoxicated with my own youthful zest for life, as if I were a mere twenty-something-year-old. As feelings of pity mixed with disdain grew toward these old folks who had nothing better to do than complain about their bodily functions, I relished my own age and place in life, where imagination and conversation still centered on sensuality and romanticism.
It happened just then.
—I only want to live ’til I can’t hold in my farts.
For the very first time, my mother joined in the conversation. Everyone burst out laughing and clapping. I suppose there is no other word in our language that can deliver laughter to young and old, men and women across the board. Even its sound is a surefire form of humor. The fart of a young woman with a baby on her back. The fart of a new daughter-in-law carrying in a table for the family meal. The fart on a blind date from an ambiguous culprit. These situations never fail to tickle people’s funny bones and generate much laughter.
Mother’s abrupt statement, however, stopped me dead in my tracks, jolting me like the sound of a fast-moving car coming to a screeching halt. It wasn’t funny; it was more like a slap in the face. My mother is not the kind of person who would say something crude like this to make people laugh. I didn’t need to see her face, which I’m sure was serious, even resolute, to know that she wasn’t being playful. It’s true that her ability to control bodily functions was getting weaker with age, but I’m sure Mother was worried about more than just that. As a daughter who knows her better than anyone else in the world, I sensed that her fear encompassed all that threatened her sense of dignity and humanity. And what I felt for her was more than just a passing sentiment; it was heartbreaking compassion.
All of our relatives and neighbors knew how Mother was meticulous, shameless, and unwavering in her perseverance. The silent aura of dignity surrounding her was a source of pride for me when I was a little girl. But during my post-pubescent years, when I wanted to believe I was more mature than I actually was, I began to see differently. People who were insecure were despicable to me back then. On the outside, Mother appeared to be a very proud person. But I began to think that she lacked a spine, not to mention pride. Pride should be something qualitatively different from a mere metal skewer poked through a squid filet to keep it from curling up when grilled.
The way I remember things, Father completely snubbed Mother. It was different from verbal abuse or petty squabbles common between spouses. “A cow regarding a chicken” is probably the best description. Their relationship had always been insipid, from the very beginning when they first met in an arranged meeting as prospective marriage partners. This meeting took place during the latter part of the Japanese occupation, and it was a formal occasion with the parents of both parties present. Mother was too scared and shy to even raise her head to take a good look at the young man’s face. Although not homely, Mother had never once been praised for her beauty, not even during those years of blossoming youth. In addition to being insecure about her looks, she only had an elementary school education, so nothing was more daunting to her than an arranged meeting. When the groom’s side sent word that they heartily approved of her, her parents were more grateful than anything else. Mother was too timid to demand to see the groom once more and conceded to her parents’ wishes. Father was a stylish young man who chased after young ladies in trendy, sailor-inspired school uniforms. The only thing Mother had going for her was that she was pleasantly plump in an endearing sort of way, but Father, with his high standards, could hardly have found her all that appealing. His parents, however, were fed up with his womanizing and deemed her to be exactly the dependable, down-to-earth kind of woman he needed. In those days, the filial thing for any decent person to do was to give in to the wishes of his parents unless they were asking him to marry someone with a crooked nose or pockmarks. Defying his parents was especially inconceivable to Father, who, as the eldest son, had been conditioned from a young age to obey them and to care for them in their old age.
Mother found out on her wedding night that she had become his parents’ daughter-in-law rather than his wife. Father had solemnly informed her that her duty was to treat his parents with devotion and his siblings with affection. What must have gone through her mind then? She must have bit her lips, remembering that even when lying at death’s door, a woman must use as a pillow the threshold of her in-laws’ house. One coping mechanism for a woman whose husband regards her the way a cow regards a chicken is to make his parents happy, especially by bearing them a son to carry on the family name. Mother did that. Furthermore, she flat-out refused to compete with his ever-changing concubines and in doing so secured her position like a righteous and dignified queen beside a powerful emperor.
Father, too, was punctilious in treating her as his rightful wife. He worked for the public electric power company, and had a secure and respectable job with additional benefits. He started working there when it was still run by the Japanese government during the colonial period, and he remained after the liberation when the Korean government regained control. Near his workplace, he maintained a secondary residence that he shared with his mistress. He never failed, however, to deliver his paycheck to Mother in its entirety. Mother was immensely proud to receive that paycheck and claimed full rights to it, not caring how her husband managed to support a mistress. That period of financial stability did not last. When President Park Chung-hee’s regime came into power, there was a wide sweep of programs implemented to purge social and moral iniquities. As a part of that effort, men holding down government jobs and living with mistresses were pressured to resign. Other men who’d had numerous affairs managed to dodge the bullet, but not Father. The fact that he lived with a mistress was a matter of common knowledge in the company, and as long as the program was in effect, there had to be scapegoats. Father was the first lamb to be sacrificed.
“How could this have happened?” My grandparents bemoaned Father’s fate. That incident caused them to curse Park Chung-hee until they died. Mother never saw another paycheck from Father again, but she neither blamed him in frustration nor rejoiced in vengeance. Fortunately, all of his younger siblings were married off and the demands on their purse strings had let up. Areas near Seoul were beginning to be developed, and selling off bits of their land proved to be surprisingly lucrative. With the help of her father-in-law, Mother opened a rice-flour mill, which fared quite well. The only times they had to resort to selling land after that were due to the ups and downs of Father’s business ventures.
It must have been during one of the auspicious times for his business. On the day of his mother’s sixtieth birthday, Father walked in with a young, willowy mistress and had her formally bow to his parents. Mother didn’t bat an eye and carried out her duties as a daughter-in-law that day as if nothing had happened. I was a young schoolgirl then and couldn’t decide whether to ignore the other woman just as Mother had or to grab her by the hair and lash out. Which would help Mother? I didn’t know, so I brooded silently in the corner. One consolation was that my father, who had always been handsome and dapper, was losing his youthful charm, with the years leaving little trace of wisdom or character on his face. Mother, on the other hand, was aging quite gracefully. I felt smug that Father had gotten what he deserved, but a part of my heart ached. They say that you are solely responsible for your face after age forty. Even if I could turn into Queen Yang, I could never live like Mother. Hers was a life of absolute restraint, and she did not allow a single wisp of anger or pain to escape.
What could I have known back then? It was only when I was about to get married myself that I got clued into the determination, or even desperation, that Mother’s pride was made of.
“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about because you two met and fell in love on your own, but I want to tell you just in case. Beware if your new husband tells you on your wedding night that you must honor his parents or that women come and go but parents are for keeps. If he says that kind of nonsense, you can leave him right then and there. Really, I won’t blame you if you do. Don’t think that he’s the only one loved and nurtured by his parents. You, too, are loved just the same.”
I must be the only daughter in this country who received this kind of pre-wedding pep talk. That was the first time that Mother had ever expressed her resentment, albeit indirectly, for the humiliation she endured. She had never before allowed herself to indulge in the fallible and human act of complaining.
Mother, who wanted to live only until she could not hold in her farts, was afflicted in old age with the inability to constrict her sphincter. The cruel, unfathomable irony of this infuriated me. This ordeal, from the beginning to the end—becoming ill, undergoing surgery, and losing control of her sphincter—occurred after Father returned penniless to a home that no longer had any assets left.
Since I was the one who accompanied Mother on her hospital visits, I was the first to know about her cancer. The first thing she said to me after being diagnosed was not to tell Father. Although he returned home because he had nowhere else to go, his cow-gazing-at-a-chicken indifference toward Mother remained the same as when he had money and mistresses. Nothing had changed. I felt sorry for my mother, but a part of me found her laughable. What was it that she wanted to hide from him, exactly? The news of her terminal illness would be as shocking to him as hearing about someone’s sick maid. Maybe Mother was imitating one of those loving couples on television or the movies where one person spares the other the pain of the truth. Or maybe the last shred of her pride was telling her to avoid Father’s unchanging apathy toward his dying wife. That kind of a preemptive strike was the only way that she could ever defy him.
Although no one told him, it should have been obvious to Father from our hushed whispers and grim expressions that major surgery would be involved. Either in real or feigned ignorance, he continued to receive her care, up until the day that she went in for surgery. He ate the breakfast that she had made with the last ounce of her energy and then sent her off without offering a single word of comfort. On that day and the following days she spent at the hospital, we told him, “Mother said not to bother visiting her.” He obliged. When she came home from the hospital, he was even more aloof, treating her like a wife returning after she’d run off to her own family after a marital fight. We didn’t tell him the truth about Mother’s condition without her begging us to keep it a secret because we knew that Father would not have cared. Mother wasn’t the only one affected by Father’s cold-heartedness. It was heartbreaking for us children, too.
Our father saw that his wife, who had tended to his needs until the day she went to the hospital, returned home unable to control her bowel movements. Instead of realizing the gravity of her illness, he cursed the hospital and accused the doctors of turning a perfectly healthy person into a cripple. They can’t get away with this, he fumed. His fury without any real concern for Mother made him seem like a thug keen on extorting money from doctors. It disgusted me even more when I already felt so distant from him. He also mocked us children, blaming us for making her go under the knife when a few packets of traditional herbal medicine would have done the trick. We placated him by saying that Mother’s condition was a temporary one brought on by post-surgery trauma. It may have been my mother’s dying wish to spare Father from the truth. But like a slave girl protecting a sick friend in front of an inclement master, I seethed with deep resentment.
When I took Mother to my house, Father remained unmoved, scoffing at both of us. He didn’t even worry about how he’d manage without her. It was the ultimate insult, and showed his complete disregard for her.
While I floundered in her excrement in the days that followed, Mother nagged me about preparing food to take to Father. Of course, I didn’t have the time to do such a thing, but just the thought of making him food with my own two hands was offensive to me. I needed to go to my parents’ house to pick up a few articles of clothing for Mother, so I visited him with store-bought food from the market. Father had deteriorated a lot in just a few days, looking grungy and uncared for. “When is that darn rectum going to heal?” He grumbled about her troubled body part, instead of inquiring about her welfare. I grudgingly set the table for him and went to search my mother’s wardrobe. I needed an endless supply of undergarments. Tucked in carefully between the layers of clothing, I found scented soaps of all kinds. When our grandmother passed away, we found folded bills stashed inside every beoson, but for Mother, it was scented soaps. I also found loosely capped miniature bottles of perfume samples that came free with cosmetic purchases. Mother must have been afraid of smelling like an old woman. It was a fitting act of self-preservation for someone so terrified of the physical and emotional degradation that comes with old age.
That same woman was at her daughter’s house wallowing in her own filth. Who was playing such a cruel joke on her and what right did they have? My mother, of all people. I felt angry, angry at the capricious, unruly laws of human life. And my anger found a more tangible, nearby target in my father. He deserved it. He, who had never once complimented his wife on her cooking, was looking distastefully at the store-bought food laid out in front of him and whining about how her rectum was inconveniencing him so much.
I screamed at him that Mother was in the final stages of cancer, with less than five months left to live. Then I left the house without waiting for his reaction. Now that I had said everything out in the open, I felt empty. I wasn’t sure why I felt so empty, but the fact that I wanted to crouch down on the street and cry was an empty feeling in itself. I went home and told Mother simply that Father had found out. She didn’t scold me for telling him, but she didn’t ask about his reaction either.
That night, Father called. At first I didn’t recognize the hoarse voice demanding to talk to Mother. This was the first time that he had wanted to talk to Mother directly. He was coughing up phlegm and was making strange noises to suppress hiccups. I handed the cordless phone to Mother and continued to listen in, eavesdropping deliberately.
“Yes, it’s me,” said Mother in a voice slightly shaken by surprise. Only suppressed hiccupping could be heard on the other side.
“It’s me. I’m doing okay. I’m much better now.” Uncomfortable with the silence, Mother continued to talk on her own. Then much later, Father spoke.
“I love you. Honey, I love you. I do.”
His weepy voice made me realize that he hadn’t been suppressing hiccups but tears. I pressed my palm down on the receiver and rolled on the floor with laughter. When I looked in on Mother a few moments later, she had hung up and was clutching her abdomen in laughter as well. In the days that followed, she kept bursting out laughing thinking about the phone call. Mother failed to live out the five more months predicted by the doctors, but her last days were happy ones thanks to the first confession of love she got at seventy-plus years of age. She was up to her neck in her own filth but had not lost her laughter. Since his confession, Father had expressed his love not just verbally, but had also visited her every day. He had even wanted to clean up after her, but that was one thing she would not permit. Maybe she didn’t want to disillusion him because she wanted to be loved until the day she died. Father did remain devoted to the end. He took the greatest care in selecting her resting place, and he embarrassed us at the funeral by weeping large tears and making those suppressed hiccup sounds. Compared to Father, we children showed less sorrow, and seemed more relieved than grieved. At least I was exhausted from taking care of her. Elder Brother was the chief mourner, but he had the expression of someone who had just finished watching an endlessly long, boring movie. He must have been bored to tears as he waited to be freed from the self-blame of not having been a very good son.
“Well, in any case, thanks. I, too, was thinking that we can’t leave Father there forever.”
“It’s settled then. He’s still in good health and it’ll be easier to visit him or have him visit us. I’m not saying that I want to be responsible for him one hundred percent. I just want him nearby.”
“You realize that it still makes me look bad.”
“Why do you think it makes you look bad?”
“How would you know what it’s like to be the eldest son?”
“Fine. I’m just a sparrow and you’re a phoenix.”
“Time is a scary thing. What’s happened to all his dreams and abilities that he now has to depend on his children to take care of him? I bet he feels sorry for himself.”
“Do you think that Father can’t remarry because he’s broke?”
“Well, he’s not turning away women because of his devotion to Mom. Our father? Don’t make me laugh.”
“You’re so clueless. Do you know that he’s gotten quite a few propositions from matchmakers? I already looked into a couple of them.”
“He probably goes around pretending to be loaded when he’s living off his children like a parasite. I really thought that he’d make something of himself before he got too old.”
“Why are you being so harsh? Well, at least he still has his house.”
“Can you even call that an asset?”
“You asked me a minute ago if the ban on the green belt has been lifted. Every year there are rumors that it might have in that neighborhood. There’s huge potential, and that’s what counts. Lots of women, many of them much younger, are interested in him, I’ll have you know.”
“I can’t have that. When Mother was alive, I was in no position to meddle in his love life. But it’s different now. With her gone, he could even decide to include his new woman in the family register. Would you be okay with that?”
“Elder Brother, there’s no need to get all worked up. Father has already made his position clear. He wouldn’t even let me bring up the subject of a second marriage. Do you know why? He said he wanted to leave his firstborn son at least the house. When I said that I wanted him to live near me, he told me in no uncertain terms that since I was already doing well for myself I was not to covet the house. To tell you the truth, I was a bit insulted when he said that. Of course I don’t have an ulterior motive. But he doubted me first, instead of taking my good intentions at face value.”
“Honestly, who else has a daughter like you? I’m a little insulted, too, for your sake.”
I knew I couldn’t convince Elder Brother that I wasn’t as filial a daughter or as nice a person as he thought, so I just let him think what he wanted. It was too complicated to explain even to myself.
I figured that Elder Brother had more or less given me the go ahead, so I contacted Father to settle a few loose ends before his move. He said that we could meet anytime because he came into Seoul every day. The place he frequented in Seoul was an underground plaza with an entrance to the Lotte World theme park. The plaza was also connected to a subway station, so he could easily commute to and from home with only one transfer. He told me to stop by anytime because he was there almost every day. I laughed because he sounded like he owned the whole plaza. My parents’ house always seemed so far away because I spent so much time stuck in traffic driving there and back. With the urbanization of my parents’ neighborhood and the development of a new subway route, it was now only a hop and a skip away from Seoul. I inevitably thought of their ten-thousand-square-foot property. It was conceivable that Father, who was now closer to eighty than seventy, could still end up a rich man during his lifetime.
With no one maintaining the house after Mother had passed away, it was starting to show signs of neglect. Mother had always tended the garden diligently, not because she liked trees or flowers but because she didn’t want the house to appear unkempt. She was like that. She had spent her whole life keeping up appearances.
The Lotte World underground plaza was a glitzy, wide-open space. With only a few days left until Christmas, the place was bustling with end-of-the-year crowds. In front of a supermarket entrance a temporary booth selling trendy lingerie was set up to lure young women inside. Right next to it, in front of the fountain, an unknown singing group—young kids still wet behind the ears— was performing to raise money for needy families. There were many built-in seating areas in the plaza but not nearly enough to accommodate the masses there that day. Some people were even sitting on the entrance steps to the supermarket, blocking foot traffic. Among those seated, some were obviously waiting for others in their party to arrive while others had met theirs and were busy chatting. Still others were just sitting around, staring into space. Weaving in and out of all these people sitting was a rapid current of people in a hurry, taking short, irritable steps. Father was not difficult to spot amidst this sea of people. That’s because the elderly had their own hangout in the middle of the plaza. They were sitting in a large circle, most of them men, with only a few women present.
Father was easy to spot because he was singing in front of the group. It was my first time hearing his singing voice—sappy and unctuous, yet self-assured like that of a man in his prime. Although he didn’t have a microphone, his voice seemed to overpower, or at least interfere with, the young vocal group singing, “One More Thing I Still Need to Do in This Life.” Perhaps that was an exaggerated perception due to my embarrassment that we were related. Father was singing the words from a decades-old pop song, “How I’ve Traveled Thousands of Miles to Jinju, ” with his eyelids gliding down in a sentimental display. That wasn’t all. He’d changed the lyrics from “wrapping my arms around a tree trunk” to “wrapping my arms around another man’s woman.” He did this while actually putting his arm around the waist of an elderly woman sitting next to him. He was smoother than a serpent slithering over a fence.
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that a woman, decidedly a minority in that group, was sitting next to him. She didn’t seem at all upset to have Father’s arm around her, for she quickly snuffed out the cigarette between her lips and began harmonizing with him. If he were a stranger, I could have laughed in amusement. But as his daughter, I probably should have blushed in embarrassment instead. I did neither, sinking deep into my own thoughts. I had the sudden realization that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen him like this. The image of my father that I dug up from the depths of my memory seemed vaguely familiar and connected.
It was also by chance that I recalled a particular memory of my father. On a few occasions when I was a schoolgirl, I had to run errands at the home my father shared with his mistress. He never flirted or joked with her in front of me, nonetheless I was shocked by how different he seemed. At home, he was always stiff and uneasy, but there he seemed carefree and relaxed. The father I saw in the middle of the Lotte World plaza was definitely comfortable in his own skin, just as when he was living with his mistress. Was my father’s promiscuity an escape from the binding duties of being an eldest son and husband? In that relaxed state, Father had seemed vulgar to me when I was young, but now, I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps even debauchery, mastered over a lifetime, can become a tasteful art form. My presumption that Mother had aged gracefully while Father hadn’t may have been off the mark in the end.
No one can see a day into the future and a person’s life can’t be judged until the coffin has been nailed shut. Who knows how Father will live out his days? I’m not sure if I’ll ever regret this decision, which may very well lead to the responsibility of caring for him on his deathbed. Mother, who lived her life with sealed lips that held in her sighs, suffered a humiliating end with her loose sphincter. Was I hoping that Father, who had made a mess of his life and neglected his family, could also reverse his fate and die gracefully? No, it wasn’t that. Then was I trying to repay him for making Mother happy in her last days? No, it wasn’t that either. I wouldn’t say that I sided with my mother to that extent. What may be closer to the truth is that I wanted to experience the perplexing, logic-defying nature of being a caregiver again.
When Mother passed away, Elder Brother took on the responsibilities of chief mourner with the lethargy of someone watching a long, boring movie. No one wants to watch a long, boring movie a second time. But when the movie is profound and abstruse, one might watch it again hoping to understand it better.
I approached Father with a smile on my face, and only then did he loosen his arm from the woman’s waist. She snapped up another cigarette and wedged it between her lips. Father winked at me and clicked a lighter for her before getting to his feet.