You-jeong Jeong - The Good Son

‘You should be moved to tears,’ Hae-jin joked. ‘I made it all myself, just for you. With beef and seaweed that was already here, I mean.’ He sat in front of me with a cup of coffee. He was wearing a white shirt, a navy cashmere sweater Mother had bought him and a pair of jeans – dressed to go out.

I picked up a strand of seaweed and stuffed it into my parched mouth. It was hot and slippery but didn’t taste much like anything. He really should have seasoned it some more; what was he doing all this time with that ladle?

‘What did Mother say?’ Hae-jin asked.

I shrugged. ‘Her phone’s turned off. Maybe she’s praying.’

‘Yeah?’ Hae-jin cocked his head. ‘Or maybe she doesn’t realise her battery died.’

I nodded.

‘Then how are we going to reach her? We can call the retreat centre. Did she say where she was going?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. Let me eat first.’

Hae-jin opened his mouth, then closed it without a word.

I shoved another strand of seaweed into my mouth.

‘Eat some rice too,’ he said. ‘Don’t just eat the seaweed.’

‘Are you going somewhere?’

Hae-jin looked down at his sweater. ‘Yeah, to see someone from school.’

‘Where?’

‘Gimpo. He’s headed to Tokyo this afternoon. I have to bring him something.’

‘You should probably get going then,’ I said, taking care not to appear too eager.

‘I have time.’

Ah. I shoved more seaweed into my mouth.

‘Oh, did you hear?’

‘Hear what?’ I asked.

‘There was a murder around here.’

I looked up. The seaweed snaked down my throat. I swallowed it whole, my eyes watering. Murder? ‘Where?’

‘At the dock.’

‘The rest area by the sea wall?’

Hae-jin nodded. ‘On my way home I saw people up top, staring down. It was mobbed with police cars. So I stopped to take a look. You know how I am, I can’t help myself!’

Suppressing the urge to say, And? I spooned some rice into my mouth.

‘There was police tape by the dock. Apparently the person working the ticket booth found a body caught on the anchoring rope of the ferry this morning.’ Hae-jin paused. ‘They were saying it’s a young woman.’

I chewed before replying. ‘Just because they found a body doesn’t mean she was killed, does it? Could be suicide, or an accident.’

‘Yeah, but why would the police come out in full force if that was the case?’ Hae-jin paused. His mobile was ringing from his room. He practically threw his cup down to run and answer it.

I picked up a strand of seaweed, listening to him saying, ‘Yes, Auntie. Yes, yes. One second.’

He closed the door and I couldn’t hear anything else. Whatever was left of my appetite vanished. Auntie? Hae-jin was taking her call with the door closed. Had that ever happened before? I couldn’t remember. Probably not. Hae-jin wasn’t the type to talk secretively on the phone; he answered calls loudly and publicly as he thought it was the polite thing to do. That meant Auntie had demanded this behaviour, but what did she have to tell him?

I placed my chopsticks down. I thought back to my conversation with Auntie, in case there was anything I had said to her that was different from what I’d told Hae-jin.

Hae-jin came out of his room ten minutes later. He had his camera bag on one shoulder and was holding his parka.

‘Sorry for not keeping you company while you were having lunch.’ He said this apologetically, as though he watched me eat every meal every single day.

I shoved my hands into my pockets casually. ‘So what did Auntie say?’

‘Hmm? Auntie?’ His mouth tightened. He averted his eyes.

‘Weren’t you just talking to Auntie?’

‘No…’ Hae-jin turned around to open the door to the porch. The back of his neck above his collar was turning red, which then spread to his ears. ‘It’s a woman who was one of the crew when we were shooting Private Lesson ,’ he said, belatedly remembering which ‘auntie’ he had been speaking to. ‘We caught up a bit. It’s been a while, and we were on that island for three months.’

I leant against the door frame, wondering why he had given me so much detail.

Hae-jin slid his feet into his shoes and bent down to lace them up. He paused, then straightened up, holding something in his hand. ‘What’s this?’ He turned and handed it over.

I took it without realising what it was. An earring. A single pearl earring.

‘What’s that doing here?’ he murmured, looking over at my palm. ‘It’s not Mother’s, is it?’

It wasn’t Mother’s. Her ears weren’t pierced and she rarely wore earrings. She didn’t really go in for jewellery at all, in fact. The only thing she wore was the anklet she had had on last night. It went without saying that the earring wasn’t mine, either. Hae-jin had found it closer to the interior than to the front door; it couldn’t have rolled inside accidentally. Someone must have dropped it here.

Regardless of who or when, the earring didn’t look all that special. But the sensation of the smooth, round surface bothered me. More precisely, the déjà vu I felt when I touched it bothered me. It made my heart race. Where had I touched something like this before? When? I rubbed the round part with my thumb and looked at Hae-jin. ‘I’ll put it in Mum’s room. She’ll know what to do with it.’

Nodding, Hae-jin headed towards the front door. I put on slippers and followed him out. ‘When will you be back?’

‘Soon.’ He opened the door. ‘We should pop some non-alcoholic champagne or something. Even if we do the real celebration when Mother gets home.’

I stood in the doorway. The lift was already on its way down to the ground floor from the eighth floor. It would take a few minutes for it to come back up to our floor. It would be an awkward few minutes for Hae-jin, who wasn’t a good liar. He began to run down the stairs, raising a hand as he disappeared. It could have meant anything: I’ll be back soon, see you later, go back in, I have to run because I’m incredibly busy right now.

Hello started barking on the seventh floor. I looked down again at the earring in my hand. The tip of the post had dug into my palm. I picked it up between two fingers like a gemmologist and peered at it. It couldn’t have fallen off someone’s ear lobe, because the back was still attached to the post. It had to have been in a bag or a pocket before falling out, which meant that this someone would have to meet two conditions: she had come to our flat, and she wore earrings.

Could it be Auntie’s? I wasn’t sure if she had pierced ears, but she wore different earrings each time I saw her. I remembered a red gem that dangled like a teardrop, a crown stud against her ear lobe, a star that twinkled blue. Why wouldn’t there be a pearl among them?

Hello finally stopped barking. I closed the front door. I took my slippers off in the foyer and stepped back into the flat. I heard something strange, like a small pebble falling to the ground and rolling away. I remembered taking my hands out of the Private Lesson jacket. Right here. Last night. I’d looked down for the sound and I hadn’t been able to pick up whatever it was that fell because Mother was right behind me. I opened my palm again and looked down at the earring. The back of my neck prickled. It couldn’t have been this…

The clock chimed. Two o’clock. I shoved the earring into my pocket. I felt jittery. My imagination was running away with itself again.

I went out to the balcony off the living room. I opened all the windows Hae-jin had closed. It still smelled like bleach everywhere. Blood and handprints were possibly still visible on the walls along the corridor upstairs, the walls of the stairwell and landing and parts of the living room, the top of the door frame to Mother’s room, the leg of the key cabinet in the corner, even on the family portrait. I glared suspiciously at the speck of blood that had splattered on the clock face. Had Hae-jin not noticed this? The guy who could see a fly hovering over the key cabinet from the doorway to his room?