Winter Outing
Pak Wan-sŏ
Until the age of forty, Pak Wansŏ (b. 1931) had not revealed her literary talents; rather, she had married and raised five sons and daughters. But with the publication of her debut work, The Naked Tree (Namok), in 1970 she emerged as a leading writer, and has since produced some three dozen volumes of fiction. “Winter Outing” (Kyŏul nadŭri) first appeared in Munkak sasang magazine in 1975. She has received numerous awards for her writing and is one of the elder stateswomen of Korean letters, a household name in Korea and increasingly well known in translation.
Her language, enriched by the skillful use of irony and metaphor, implies much about the characters and their world which a minimum of authorial intervention. Like many Korean writers of fiction, Pak spends more time on people and their attitudes than on physical description. While using objective description to establish a physical setting, she conveys most of her information through the language of her characters and, in her first-person narratives, the attitude of her narrator. We are told less about how things appear to the narrator and more about how they make her feel.
In “Winter Outing,” for example, the world of Seoul, and the artist’s studio that is evoked in the opening section, comes across to us as cold, cerebral, impersonal—one from which the narrator seems emotionally distant. This sense of alienation continues through her arrival at the hot springs, growing more striking and intense until it culminates in the icy harshness of a frozen lake and the unpopulated alleys of a shuttered resort. Her relief is almost palpable as she discovers the inn and the warmth of its proprietor and engages in meaningful human interaction for the first time in the story.
In a brief essay about “Winter Outing” that appeared in Hanguk munhak magazine in April 1986, Pak remarked that the pivotal character, Grandmother No-no, was based on a real person, the great-grandmother of a girl from Chŏlla Province who once worked at the author’s house. The story was like so many that came out of the Korean War, particularly from those districts that changed hands day and night. “We heard innumerable heartrending stories of good and simple people who had managed to survive only at the cost of mental trauma of one degree or another,” Pak said. “When I first heard of that head-shaking grandmother I was so very struck that I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Not only did I find myself drawing extremely close to that grandmother but, before I knew it, I was actually gaining solace from her.”
The bond that Pak describes here—the capacity for empathy with a suffering other—is one of her strengths as a writer. Readers of her works report an almost palpable response to the narrator’s voice. That response is enhanced by the author’s colloquial narratives and subject matter that strikes a chord in millions of Koreans today -such as bereavement during the Korean War, the increasingly urban and depersonalized lifestyle of Seoul, and gender discrimination.
Before slipping into the bath and indulging myself in the pleasant sensation, I began to wonder selfishly whether this hot-spring water was the real thing The shower and the two faucets labeled hot and cold, attached to the ordinary tile bathtub in this deluxe room at a second-rate inn, weren’t the least bit different from what you would find at any cheap bathhouse. Just where, I wondered, is the proof that the hot water pouring from this faucet marked with a red circle is not just heated city water but rather hot-spring water that has gushed up out of the earth?
It wasn’t that I had some rare chronic disease that required me to soak in the water; nor had I come here expecting some sort of power in the water, as touted by those who go on about such things. Actually, I was looking for an excuse to feel more sorry for myself. From the outset, the journey hadn’t held portents of pleasure. It was a journey that seemed to have started off wrong. and I was of a mind to let it end up in total disaster.
Though not commercially popular, my husband was an artist of some standing who clung tenaciously to his own rather peculiar artistic outlook, for which he had made his name and gained critical recognition. Owing to preparations for his third one-man show, he had been spending several nights at his studio. Things were at the point where I would occasionally bring him food out of concern for his health or he would drop by the house only to change his clothing. The previous day, too, when I was downtown, I had bought some sliced beef and dropped by the studio. Our married daughter was there, modeling for my husband. This was quite a surprise to me since people almost never appear in my husband’s paintings. I had thought he enjoyed painting only natural scenes and animals in highly simplistic or nursery styles. And this painting of a human figure was utterly different from my husband’s usual style. It was dreadfully detailed, vivid, and realistic. Whether an exact likeness was appropriate was secondary; what concerned me most was the sudden loathing immediately felt. It was as though I were looking at a portrait into which he had moved her soul. Even more sickening was the curious air exuded by model daughter and artist father. A soft, warm, and satisfying rapport between a loving father and daughter-that I can understand. But there was something more than father and daughter to their secrecy. It was plain to see that they wanted their intimacy for themselves. Though the two of them welcomed me quite politely, I felt like I was being kept at a distance.
Our daughter, now three years married and her first child just over a year old, was seated upright on the sofa with a prosperous and elegant beauty quite unlike that of her maiden years. As I was admiring my daughter in her prime, I was struck with a blinding, shocking realization. Right! It was just about that very age! My husband’s separation from his first wife in the confusion of the war took place when she was as old as our daughter was now. Moreover, this daughter was not my own, but had been born to my husband and his first wife. Daughters always resemble their mothers and there was no question that my husband recalled through his daughter the appearance of his wife when he left her behind in the North. Though I was considerably younger than that woman, I was the one, now growing old and ugly, at my husband’s side, while that woman lived within my husband’s heart, glowing with our daughter’s present youth and beauty. As I realized this, I felt jealousy raising its viper’s head. To accommodate a woman’s jealousy, there generally must be a hank of hair for her to grab. But, at this moment, whose hair could I grab? I had no choice but to seem ordinary and restrained—a difficult and painful task. Insistent feelings of jealousy gave way to a sense of utter disappointment, as if I had lived my life so far in vain.
I had thrown myself energetically into the task of living, but. . . To have pitied and then loved and then even married this unknown painter of insecure Occupation, twelve years older than me, who had left his parents and wife behind in the North and come south as a penniless refugee with a baby daughter on his back; to have smoothed away the distress of this womanless man and motherless child and to have loved them and waited upon their needs these years now seemed, to my chagrined eyes, more like a lost labor. The more [ mulled over this feeling of having lived vainly, deceived, the more I felt disgust and let it show in the grimace on my face. My husband and daughter asked solicitously if I were feeling all right. I answered that there were some things distressing me and that I should like to get away and knock around by myself fora while.
“All alone, in the middle of winter!” More than just surprised, my husband was nonplused. It had been bitterly cold for several days. Through the studio window, I could see the skeletal roadside trees and sparsely peopled, frozen sidewalks below. I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of winter in this dismal city. Now my talk of a trip, proffered only as a complaint at first, came back to me invested with a realistic feeling. I made up my mind on the spot that I would get out of town. More than wishing to leave Seoul or to get away from my husband’s side, I wanted to cast aside like worn-out shoes this life I had fashioned so perseveringly and to live free and unfettered. As if the bleak winter day outside had taught me that my life had been a complete waste, I suddenly felt an unreasoning yearning for the winter scenery of some distant place. Not caring whether my husband and daughter would be suspicious or surprised, I agitated to leave immediately.
“Well, I guess there’s a time for even you to be temperamental”
With that degree of understanding, my husband gave me a generous travel allowance, while advising me that I would best go to a hot springs since it was winter. I left my husband with the mentality of someone who had just discovered that a cherished treasure was a fake and, as a first reaction out of disgust, tossed it aside.
I went to Onyang by the most convenient means. No sooner had I stepped from the express bus into the unfamiliar street than I was seized by the cold and a feeling of loneliness. The unfamiliarity of the scene before my eyes brought me to the brink of tears. My mood of unfettered freedom was no match for the alien and unwelcoming streets of the hot springs. It seemed most unlikely that I would settle into such a mood. Only my body had ventured forth. In the face of this I smiled grimly as I realized I was tied to patterns of living that had long since permeated my being. Having my generous travel allowance, I headed toward the tourist hotel but then, turning on my heels, found a cheap, second-rate inn. As is my habit when buying sesame oil, I seriously questioned whether their hot-spring water was the real thing. Nevertheless, I took one bath after another despite the inevitable enervation, as if I were saving the cost of a public bath against the room charge at the inn. I was disgusted the next morning by their breakfast tray, in spite of its fifteen side dishes, as if I had been bored by such food for days on end. It was actually only my second meal there. I felt like I had been away from home a long time, but in fact I had spent no more than one night away. This realization saddened me to tears.
An errand boy at the inn came to ask whether I was leaving or whether I would stay another day. I felt as if the boy would feel sorry for me if I said I was staying, and so I told him I was leaving right away. Having packed my small overnight bag and emerged on the street, I felt like I had been driven from the inn by that boy, just as I had been driven from the house by my husband and daughter. The cold here was every bit as severe as it was in Seoul. The lowering sky and harsh wind were well suited to my bitter ruminations on my feeling of fraudulence at having lived wastefully thus far.
The streets of this small hot-springs town were not very extensive. Though I made the rounds of the place a dozen times, it didn’t take even an hour. I dropped into the tourist hotel and had a cup of coffee. IfI was to pretend to my husband that I had stayed at the tourist hotel, then I ought to have some idea of what the interior is like, I thought. Across the street from the hotel, I caught sight of a bus terminal. Antiquated buses, posted with the names of unfamiliar destinations, were turning over their tired motors as the passengers were being called. I saw a way out of my plight. Grabbing anyone I could find, I asked if there weren’t some scenic or historical spots worth visiting nearby. The bus girl jumped down from a bus that had just begun to leave and, before Thad a chance to say anything, swept me up like so much baggage. I stumbled aboard and found a seat. With less than a dozen passengers, the interior was deserted. The vinyl seat was as cold as a slab of ice had at some point asked her to take me as far as the lake.
“Where are we headed?” I asked in an apprehensive voice as the bus gathered speed.
“I’m to let you off at the lake, right?” the bus girl announced, as if I had at some point asked her to take me as far as the lake.
“Lake?”
Yes, the lake. It’s the only place around here that has any good scenery. Except for winter, we have all sorts of passengers going there!"
Less than five minutes later, the bus girl demanded my fare and, saying we had arrived at the lake, shoved me off the bus. There was, indeed, a lake there. Solidly frozen, surrounded by a low, bare mountain, it looked gloomy and opaque, as if the sullen sky had simply sat down on the spot. Then, all of a sudden, a jealous wind licked fiercely at the icy surface of the lake and Swept up toward me, slapping my cheeks heartlessly like a whip. I hastened to reboard the bus. But it had already left for the next stop, leaving only dust in its wake. Close to tears of utter defeat, I first of all hurried to the lakeside shopping area to escape the harsh wind. A rather large signboard reading Pleasure Park hung high above the arched entrance to the shopping area, suggesting the prosperity it enjoyed in any season but winter. But now the shutters on the restaurants, tearooms, variety shops, and gift shops were tightly closed and there was no sign of habitation. There were only faded signs rattling dismally with each gust of wind, worsening my feeling of desolation. Several open-air Ping-Pong tables lay coated with frozen snow and layer upon layer of dust; it made a miserable sight, like filthy bedspreads scattered about. There seemed not a single occupied building. I felt so helpless I could only wish it were just a dream. I made one tour of the shopping area and again confronted the frozen lake spread out before me. Although it was impossible to launch a boat on a lake that was frozen solid, it was also impossible to throw oneself in to drown. This did not seem the least fortunate; rather, I thought it fearful.
I went searching recklessly into yet another alley. And, indeed, at some distance down this otherwise lifeless alley I could see a house with a tidy front and an open gate with a sign that read Lodgings. Spent coal briquettes were stacked by the main gateway and, within the courtyard, white laundry hung frozen to a clothesline, twisted into queer shapes. In a trembling voice I called for the innkeeper. A presentable woman in her fifties emerged from the main building, smiling a warm welcome. Upon seeing her I relaxed as if I had come to my own house and, indeed, Wished I were a child for whom she would care. This woman had about her a most uncommon ambiance. There was something about her that seemed to wrap me in protection, warm and good and generous like quilted clothing. I felt as if something I had forgotten for a very long time had made its way back to me.
“I was hoping to thaw out some before moving on. Do you have a warm room available?”
The woman promptly led the way to one of several guest rooms in the front wing of the house and slipped her hand under a taffeta quilt that was spread Over the warmest spot on the heated floor. It seemed warm enough, but she was troubled by the chilly drafts. Sorry for the trouble, I asked the woman if I really looked all that cold. I was moved to laughter, but my frozen cheeks Would not form into a smile of their own accord.
“Yes, you look just like an icicle. For heaven’s sake, let’s go into the family room! The floor is all warmed up and we have a heater there, too.”
And so, with unreserved sisterly affection, she led me into the main building. In addition to the heater, a curtain had been hung around the inside of the family room, making it as dim and cozy as the interior of a cave. At first I thought there was nobody else in the room, but as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I could see an old lady decorously seated at the warm end of the room. The desiccated old lady, looking like a mummy draped with clothing, stared at me without expression and shook her head to the left and right. Since her behavior signaled disapproval, I hung back, feeling awkward. But the woman insisted on drawing me to the warm end of the room and, seating me there, put my hands under the quilt that the old lady had spread to seat herself. The old lady’s lips smiled a little. But she did not stop shaking her head. The woman told me that this was her mother-in-law and then said to the old lady that I was a guest whom she had invited into the family room since I was so cold. And with that, introductions and greetings between me and the old lady were completed. But the old lady continued her head-shaking as before. The woman offered no explanation.
Although gaunt, the erectly seated old lady possessed a singular elegance: Her neatly combed white hair was done up in a chignon, and over her traditional silk jacket with its crisp white collar was draped a soft wool sweater. It was, indeed, an extremely unreal elegance. Compared with what I had seen at first, her head-shaking had abated considerably, now looking more like she was swaying in a gentle breeze. I thought perhaps she might stop after a while, but no matter how long I waited she didn’t stop. As my body thawed, I became drowsy. Honeyed sleep was overwhelming me—even if someone proposed to kill me I would have had to sleep on it.
“I’m pretty well thawed out now. I think I’ll have a nap in that room we were just in. Oh, yes, how many minutes between buses back to the hot springs?”
“Minutes? In the winter we have only two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Since the one you came on was the last morning bus, the next one will be about four-thirty. Well, now, how about lunch? I’ll be preparing some anyway, so why don’t you have something to eat before you go?”
All I could think of was sleep-food was the furthest thing from my mind, but I told her to go ahead. The woman thanked me over and over again. I felt pity, believing that she was fussing so much over the little bit she would make by selling one meal. When I arrived at my room, I stretched out on the nice hot floor, pulled the taffeta quilt over me, and fell into a deep sleep.
The head-shaking old lady was the first thing that came to my mind as I woke up. While it was still unclear to me whether I had seen her in a dream or in reality, the picture of the withered old lady shaking her head floated vividly before me. The curiosity I had deferred because of my sleepiness slowly reasserted itself. I looked at my watch it wasn’t even two o’clock.
“Are you still asleep, ma’am? I should expect you’re hungry.”
I heard the woman’s quiet voice outside the paper door. I stirred a bit and slid open the door. The woman, an apron wrapped around her waist, welcomed me out of sleep with the very same show of pleasure as when she had greeted my arrival at her house. She was so pleased to see me up that I even wondered if perhaps she hadn’t mistaken me for one of those guests who take some sort of medicine and dispatch themselves to eternal sleep.
The lunch tray soon arrived. Her rather well made preserves, such as the marinated sesame leaves, unripened hot peppers, and wild carrots and the other foods—the kimchi, the spicy radish chunks, the steamy radish soup—were not the least bit like what is served in commercial places. They were gratifyingly similar to what you might receive if you dropped in on country relatives. But my mouth was parched and my appetite did not respond. When she saw me gulp down only the bowl of soup, the woman brought me another hot bowl1 of radish soup. Urging her to join me in the meal, I drew the woman down to sit beside me.
“Oh, my, that’s not at all necessary! I ate earlier with Mother.”
Since the woman was first to bring up the subject of her mother, I was able to ask naturally about the old lady’s head-shaking.
"Your mother doesn’t appear to be much pleased with me. Though she didn’t say anything, she was shaking her head all the while I was in the room.
“She’s been doing that for some twenty-five years now.”
“Twenty-five years!” I was too startled to close my mouth.
“Yes. Twenty-five years, day in and day out, except for when she sleeps…” I thought I saw the woman’s eyes grow moist, but her manner of speaking was composed and tranquil.
To shake her head day in and day out, except when asleep, for twenty-five years was, she explained, her mother-in-law’s task in life. When she was healthy and in a good mood, the shaking would be serene, barely visible, as if her head were waving in a gentle breeze; when she was in poor health, the movement would become more pronounced and laborious; and when she was agitated or upset by the household, the movement would grow even stronger and more determined until she would be chaotically shaking her head for dear life as if ranting. “I don’t know! I don’t know, I tell you!” They had scraped together whatever money they could lay hands on and tried all kinds of Chinese herbal medicines and even the most highly rated acupuncture, but all to no avail. The first one exhausted by this ordeal was the woman; but her mother-in-law, on the other hand, though it was distressing, rigorously devoted herself to doing this thing as if it were some fated task she could not set aside until her dying day.
This was a condition that had developed suddenly during the war. Her young husband, who had been a township administrator when the war broke out, was unable to flee in time and had to go into hiding. At first he hid inside their house, but when the ardor of the new circle that came to power began to turn bloodthirsty, hiding at home became so dangerous that it was out of the question.
Late one night, under cover of darkness, the woman hid her husband at her family’s home village at the foot of Kwangdŏk Mountain, some five miles from their house. They did their job so well that only she and her mother- in-law knew of it. Conditions only continued to worsen. Informing became rampant as neighbor turned against neighbor, kin against kin, accusing one another of being “reactionaries”—the business had so spread that not a day passed without some bloody and ugly incident in one village or another. These were ugly days. Things had reached the point where the woman began to feel she couldn’t rely on her own mother-in-law. She was concerned with what would happen if this unsophisticated old lady, honest to a fault and quite incapable of doubting others, were to fall for someone’s deception and disclose her husband’s whereabouts. It was not a world meant for people like her mother-in-law.
The woman relentlessly drilled her mother-in-law to say “I don’t know” as if she were teaching multiplication tables to a thickheaded child.
“In any case, Mother, simply say you don’t know. Even if the most remark able person in the world asks, you simply must say you don’t know where Daddy is. You must insist that he left the house the day the war broke out and you don’t know what’s become of him since. Lives are lost these days because of a little loose talk. Even if Daddy’s brothers ask, you simply must say you don’t know. Even neighbors like Ippŭni’s grandmother or Kaettongi’s grandmother, even if they ask, you simply must say you don’t know. You can’t trust anyone. There, do you understand, Mother?”
The woman energetically helped her mother-in-law, even with head-shaking, and they practiced the “I don’t know’” over and over again. Day after day, alone or not, a frightened and lonely expression on her face, the older woman earnestly practiced saying “I don’t know, I don’t know” also shaking her head at the same time.
Simple villagers, hearing only that war had broken out, were killing and being killed by one another as if possessed by the spirit of the legendary Chinese pillager Tao Zhi. And, in this village that had never once heard the sound of a cannon, suddenly planes had come to strafe and bomb without pause, and for days on end gunfire crackled in the surrounding hills like roasting beans. Then came silence, deep as death. One or two of the villagers, who had been cringing in their houses, still as dead rats, cautiously craned their necks but then quickly shrank back in again. They still hesitated to talk among themselves. There was no evidence that the Reds had left, yet nothing to indicate that they remained. There was no sign of the gangsters who had joined up with them and taken power, but their flag still fluttered from the pole in the yard of the village headman’s house, which had been used by the People’s Committee.
At this precarious and uncertain time, the woman’s impetuous husband had stolen back to their house in the dead of night. Seoul had already been recovered, it seemed. The Reds had held out here, but how many more days could they last?
It was after the kimchi cabbage had been planted in the kitchen garden and into the season of Cool Winds when young pumpkins, grown waxy, ripen so well. Mother-in-law, who had pushed through the morning dew out into the backyard to pick young pumpkins, suddenly gave outa rending cry.
“I don’t know, I don’t know! I really don’t know, I tell you!”
It was a ghastly shriek, one that raised gooseflesh and made the blood run cold. The woman ran out and, in a moment of bewilderment, her husband joined her. For a moment, they had lost all discretion. Just around the corner of the outhouse, three or four tired and ragged People’s Army soldiers, probably stragglers, had the barrels of their rifles leveled at mother-in-law. They, too, looked startled. It may well be that they never intended to cause anyone harm but, rather, that they met up with mother-in-law by accident or that, having met her, they were going to ask for food or clothing. But, before they could say a word, mother-in-law—nailed motionless to the spot—had shook her head madly and repeated in a high, shrill scream like someone deranged, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” In the moment it would take to catch the bloodthirsty glint in one of the stragglers’ eyes, his rifle swung toward the woman’s husband and sprayed bullets. The woman’s husband toppled over, a wretched sight, and they took flight. This event had taken place in only an instant.
Thereafter the mother-in-law had seemed nearly deranged. After long and devoted care, she recovered somewhat, but the head-shaking, in which she engaged so strenuously upon her son’s death by the corner of the outhouse, had diminished in intensity since that time but continued as a chronic condition that she couldn’t halt. And so she became known to the neighborhood as Grandmother No-no, a local character.
The woman told this story with distance and detachment, not the least bit garrulous.
“And now, rather than thinking I should find a cure, my only thought is that I must help her.”
“Help her? In what way?”
As something she is not doing of her own free will, this must be very tiring. I do my best to see that she has three meals a day, that she is physically comfortable, and, wel1, that sort of thing. Can I not do that little bit until the day she completes her great undertaking and departs this world?
I closed my mouth in failure as I tried to laugh at the woman’s joke of referring to the endless days of demented head-shaking as a "great undertaking. Her attitude, after all, was not at all a joking one. Indeed, the woman’s face even shone dimly with the pride and sense of duty of one who was actually assisting wholeheartedly in a great undertaking. A shiver passed down my back as I wondered if perhaps this woman was the one accomplishing the great undertaking.
Lunch and the room together came to eight hundred wŏn, she said. Giving her a thousand wŏn, I asked her to keep it all. The woman fussed and bowed and thanked me so much that I felt uncomfortable. She had done the same when I ordered lunch, but, in al, only a tiny profit would be left from the thousand won. For this she was so obsequious? The reason I found her obsequious attitude so distasteful may well have been that I liked and esteemed the woman so much. Furthermore, the woman’s obsequiousness seemed unnatural to her and, being awkwardly out of keeping, all the more ugly.
The woman carefully put the thousand won into the pocket of her cardigan sweater and, having made a very relieved and grateful face, said something strange.
“With this as my travel money, I shall go to Seoul. Today.”
“Seoul? On such a cold day!”
Having made this remark about the cold weather, I realized with surprise that I had used the very same kind of words that my husband had used to me when I told him I was going on this trip. I suddenly wanted to see my husband, to the point of sadness.
“My son, an only son, attends college in Seoul. The boy was riding on my back that day when he innocently watched his father encounter those circumstances. That boy, he’s already so grown up! He did his army service and is now a junior in school. You know, he’s really a good, trustworthy child.”
“But it should be the middle of winter vacation now.”
Yes. But he’s tutoring some children to earn extra money and so he couldn’t come back home. I’m quite able to earn all he needs for tuition and such, but, well, that’s what he says, anyway. It’s lonely like this only during the winter, but from spring to fall business is pretty good here. During the tourist season, especially Sundays, we were running short of rooms and the place was a madhouse. I made enough to cover tuition and lodging for the new semester, which I wrapped up tightly and set aside. We have more than enough food stored away to tide us over the winter. If other businesses do as well, the owners close up and go home for a rest during the winter. We’re an inn and this is also our family home, but we always keep one or two guest rooms heated and ready for customers. It’s not to make money. We simply enjoy offering a warm room to uninformed visitors who, like yourself, some- times come looking for the lake. Really. On such occasions we really give no thought to money. But, of course, if they happen to leave a bit so I can get a little meat or something for Mother, that’s always nice. But today, that’s not the case. Today, I actually waited for a guest, shamelessly calculating the income in advance. Really, if you hadn’t come by I don’t know what would have happened. Thank you, ma’am."
This time, instead of the servile bowing, she warmly grasped my hand. That left me in a lot better mood than the bowing had. But I was still just as ignorant of the situation as before.
“Well, you see, yesterday this strange letter arrived from Seoul.”
“From your son?”
No. It was from the lady of the house where my son is boarding. She says it’s been more than a week since he was last seen there. Ordinarily, in the case of some morally loose student, she wouldn’t carry tales over such a matter, she said, but my son was altogether too steady-going. Wondering if maybe something wasn’t up, she was letting me know and suggesting that I might want to visit and make some inquiries. And that was the letter. Even though he isn’t some loose student, couldn’t he easily have stayed over a few days at some friend’s, leaving what is not really a home to him but just a boarding house’? I suppose as mistress of the house she really shouldn’t write letters alarming others, but I guess I’m even worse, thinking every possible ominous thought. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night but ransacked my mind from every crazy point of view and finally worked out something kind of, well, superstitious."
“Superstitious, you say?”
A silly notion, really. I told myself that if a guest came by our inn today, and I used that money to go to Seoul, then I’d find nothing wrong with my son, but, if I broke open that tightly wrapped packet of tuition money and used some to cover the travel expenses, then I would find something wrong with my son. That’s all. I can’t tell you what a bad time I had of it, so nervous and anxious, waiting for a guest once I had made up my mind. But you came and made it all come out the right way. I really do thank you."
The woman thanked me yet again. My heart nearly burst with pity and compassion for this widowed woman who eased her enormous concern for her son’s situation by such curious means. The idea that I had brought her good fortune was not the least unpleasant.
“So, I guess you’ll be leaving soon.”
Yes, everything’s ready. I asked our neighbor to help with Mother. And now, with the four-thirty bus to the hot springs, I’ll be all set."
“So, we’re traveling together!”
“Indeed, so we are. You had said you’d take the four-thirty to the hot springs…”
“No, I mean we’ll travel together all the way to Seoul.”
I decided in an instant that I would also return to Seoul that day. An inexpressible peace of mind swept me. I followed the woman into the family room when she went to tell her mother-in-law good-bye. The hands of this mother and daughter, similarly old, held each other tightly.
“Mother, I’m off to Seoul. I have a few things to buy, and I want to see T’aeshik, who’s on vacation but says he has to stay there and study. Samsuni from next door is going to keep an eye on you, Mother. Please don’t worry about anything and be sure to eat well.”
Whether she did or didn’t understand, the old lady gently shook her head as always. To me the swaying of her head was not “I don’t know, I don’t know” Rather, it seemed more like “Daughter, there’s nothing wrong with T’aeshik, really nothing at all. What sin of ours could be so great that even that boy would have to suffer for it?”
I suddenly wanted to add my hand on top of the still clasped hands of this mother and daughter. There was something flowing freely between these two hands—the intimate hands of strangers, the hands of partners in a great undertaking—something that I wished to measure, to feel, and to have long in my memory. As if this were my first and last opportunity to come into contact with the one thing among all things in this world that was not false, I did it with gratitude. To the two rough but warm hands I added my own weak hand, reverently.
“Peace be with you, Grandmother.”
The old lady’s head swayed gently back and forth, but I could feel what she was saying.
“You have not lived your life in vain. Certainly not! By no means have you lived in vain!”
Translated by Marshall R. Pihl