One Sunday we were watching a foreign film on TV about a man who plotted to destroy a rival magician. During a magic trick in which the rival’s assistant was to loosen her bindings and emerge safely from a tank full of water, the man made sure the tank was locked. When the woman, whom the rival loved, didn’t emerge on time, he pushed aside the drapes. He frantically bashed at the tank as his lover struggled for her life, but it was useless. Mere centimeters separated the two, but one was surrounded by water and the other by air. Her words, trapped in the tank, couldn’t escape. The two lovers couldn’t even touch hands. Only their gaze connected the wide-eyed woman, drifting like a jellyfish, and the man frozen in despair. That scene absorbed me until I was unable to follow the rest of the story. It felt as if tiny poisonous bubbles were frothing in all my body’s cells and riding through the blood vessels up to my head. My whole world turned purple. I reached for the remote control and turned off the TV. As soon as the sound stopped, my mother, who had been trimming bean sprouts, looked up.
“Mommy,” I said.
“What?”
She didn’t seem to realize what had just happened.
“Mommy.”
“What is it, for heaven’s sake?”
“I don’t want to watch anymore.”
Only then did my mother scramble up from her seat.
“You, you spoke? Can you do it again, please?”
I kept quiet and held back my tears, but after my mother grabbed me and began shaking me by the shoulders, I had to say, “Stop shaking me. I’m fine.”
She said I would be transferred right away from the special needs school to a regular school. I immediately resented having spoken. It was as if I’d been tricked into losing something important to me. What was so great about being able to speak? I already had friends at the special needs school. They were comfortable with my silence, and I had rapidly become good at sign language. When I first saw kids using sign language, I was mesmerized by their quick, elaborate hand movements that seemed to create invisible birds and release them into the air.
The next day my mother rushed me to school. At the time I was obsessed with Aesop’s fables and would turn the day’s events into a kind of fable. In my story that day my mother was a greedy owner and I was an old donkey. Everyone, listen to this old tale. A fat, greedy owner dragged her old donkey to the market. Look here, he said, I have a talking donkey. At the market they didn’t believe him, saying, Nah, how can a donkey talk? I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life! No, this donkey is different. I mean, yesterday he suddenly began speaking like a human! The merchants crowded in. That’s amazing. They said, Make it speak. The owner poked the donkey’s side. Startled, the donkey brayed. The merchants cocked their heads. Isn’t that just a typical donkey cry? The greedy owner grabbed the donkey and began reasoning with it. I’m begging you, speak like a human, if only not to disgrace me. Seeing its owner’s tears, the donkey weakened and finally said a few words. The merchants were startled and the owner, exultant, said, Now, how much are you willing to pay? I’ll have to charge a high sum for a talking donkey. But the merchants shook their heads. Nah, what use is a talking donkey? If you make it work, it’ll complain. It’ll make fun of its owner behind his back. And when the owner dies, it’ll be resentful. No, just take it back with you.
My mother halted at the school gate and looked around, taking it in as if she had come to purchase the school grounds. Then she headed toward the main building so briskly I could hardly keep up. She opened the door to the staff room and pushed me in ahead of her, then followed and stood glowering. Just then my homeroom teacher arrived. He had cerebral palsy and couldn’t use his right arm and leg easily, but he was kind to his students.
My mother greeted the teacher, then abruptly poked me in the side. “What are you waiting for? Say hello to your teacher.”
I made my usual small bow. When my mother pinched my cheek, I said, “Ouch!”
“Did you see that? He’s finally talking.”
Her loud, sharp voice echoed across the room. My fierce shame amplified my mother’s actions and voice to the tenth power. I was humiliated and wanted to die right there on the spot. She was so ecstatic that she seemed to want to show off to the idiots (she later lumped everyone in the staff room as idiots) that her son was normal. She wanted to be compensated for all her suffering. I knew too well what the teachers’ cool, sour faces meant as they looked at my mother. Like the crazy evangelizers on the subway, my mother wasn’t paying any attention to how the others felt as she threw a fit in the peaceful office. My homeroom teacher uncomfortably stammered out something at me. It was the first time I’d heard his voice, since we had always used sign language in the classroom.
“Donggyu, are you able to speak now? Yes?”
Before I could answer, my mother cut in and said, “I’m telling you, he does.”
But my teacher continued gazing at me. I could definitely speak. But if I spoke, I would be banished from the class, and if I didn’t, my mother would stay put in the staff room and continue torturing me. My mother grabbed me by the shoulder and my teacher knelt (a difficult position for him) and looked into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I looked everywhere but at him. My mother’s high heels kept up their nervous tapping. Finally, shame won over fear. I wanted to get my mother out so I said, “Yes, teacher.”
“That’s wonderful. Why don’t you say one more thing?”
“I’m sorry.”
My mother interrupted again. “Sorry? What on earth are you sorry for?”
Like an archer in ancient Greece wielding a large bow, my homeroom teacher thrust out one leg and used that tension to heave himself up. Then after patting me on the head, he returned to his desk and filled out my transfer documents. My mother must have keenly anticipated congratulations and praise because, once disappointed, she began subtly attacking the staff, suggesting that a perfectly normal child had attended a special needs program due to the school’s mistake. My teacher silently withstood the criticism, adding only one thing: “Isn’t it a relief that he can speak now?”
My teacher signed all the necessary documents, inserted them into an official school envelope, and handed it over. My mother removed the documents and returned the envelope to him. I wanted to say farewell to my classmates, who were always warm and gentle, friends who were nearly all dumb, but my teacher didn’t allow it.
He said, “With your mother here, I think it’s best that you return home today. Why don’t you visit another time?”
I felt as if I’d been targeted and banished. At the school gate, my mother halted and spit in the school’s direction, as if protecting herself from the source of a life-threatening infectious disease.
The first day at the regular school, I covered my ears to endure the clamor around me. Recess felt like torture. The kids shrieked like cicadas. Seeing me with my ears covered, they surrounded me one by one. They began poking me the way you would a dog in a pet store’s display window; they were curious about what kinds of sounds a donkey who’d transferred from a special needs school would make. Instead of answering, I punched wildly at them. A kid I hit lost a front tooth and began crying, so a teacher rushed over and soothed him, saying, “Don’t cry, it’s okay, you’ll grow a new one.” She then lifted me up and isolated me from the others.
“Why did you hit him?” she kept asking.
I clammed up.
My teacher leaned in close and said, “If you keep acting like this, you’ll be sent back to the special needs school.”
That was exactly what I wanted, so I clung to my silence. But my silent protest ended when my swollen-eyed mother and my grandmother showed up at school.
When I went outside at recess, I ran into Jae.
“So you’re talking now?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem like a different kid.”
“No, it’s still me.”
Jae’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. He said, “Let’s walk home together.”
“Okay.”
“Something’s off.” Jae stared at my lips.
“Why?”
“I feel like you’re speaking in English,” he said, “and I’m understanding what you’re saying.”