Kyung-sook Shin - Please Look After Mom

“How’s your first taste of Seoul?” he asked, looking up at the ceiling, lying next to his mom.

“Nothing special,” Mom said, and laughed. She turned to look at him, and started to talk of times gone by. “You’re my first child. This isn’t the only thing that you got me to do for the first time. Everything you do is a new world for me. You got me to do everything for the first time. You were the first who made my belly swollen, and the first to breastfeed. I was your age when I had you. When I saw your red, sweaty face, eyes shut, for the first time… People say that when they have their first child they’re surprised and happy, but I think I was sad. Did I really have this baby? What do I do now? I was so afraid that at first I couldn’t even touch your squirmy little fingers. You were holding those tiny hands in such tight fists. If I opened your fists up one finger at a time, you smiled. They were so small that I thought, If I keep touching them they might disappear. Because I didn’t know anything. I got married at seventeen, and when I didn’t get pregnant until I was nineteen, Aunt kept saying I probably wouldn’t be able to have children, so when I found out I was pregnant with you, the first thing I thought was, Now I don’t have to hear that from her-that was what made me the most excited. Later, I was happy to see your fingers and toes grow every day. When I was tired, I went over to you and opened your fingers. Touched your toes. When I did that, I felt energized. When I first put shoes on you, I was really excited. When you toddled over to me, I laughed so much; even if someone had spilled out a heap of gold and silver and jewels in front of me, I wouldn’t have laughed like that. And how do you think I felt when I sent you to school? When I pinned your name tag and a handkerchief on your chest, I felt so grown up. How can I compare the happiness I got watching your legs get thicker with anything else? Every day, I sang, Grow and grow, my baby. And then, one day, you were bigger than me.”

He gazed at Mom as the words spilled out like a confession. She rolled over onto her side to face him and stroked his hair. “Even though I said, ‘I hope you grow tall and big,’ when you got bigger than me I was scared, even though you were my child.”

He cleared his throat and turned to stare at the ceiling again, to hide his watery eyes.

“Unlike other children, you didn’t need me to tell you anything. You did everything by yourself. You are handsome, and you were good in school. I’m so proud, and sometimes I’m amazed that you came from me… If it weren’t for you, when would I have the chance to come to Seoul?”

He resolved then that he would earn a lot of money so that when Mom came back to this city she would be able to sleep in a warm place. That he wouldn’t allow her to sleep in the cold again. Some time passed. In a low voice, Mom said, “Hyong-chol.” He heard her voice from far away, half asleep. Mom reached out and stroked his head. She sat up and looked over his sleeping figure and touched his forehead. “I’m sorry.” Mom quickly took her hand away to wipe her tears, but they dropped on his face.

When he woke up at dawn, his mom was sweeping the floor of the office. He tried to stop her, but Mom said, “I might as well, I’m not doing anything,” and, as if she would be punished if she weren’t doing anything, washed the floor with a wet mop and thoroughly cleaned the employees’ desks. Mom’s breath was visible, and the top of her swollen foot was pushing against her blue sandal. As they waited for the nearby bean-sprout-soup place to open so they could eat breakfast, Mom’s hands made the office gleam.

This house is still here. His eyes grow wide. He has been poking around the narrow alleys filled with parked cars, looking for Mom. Now, as the sun hangs low in the sky, he finds himself in front of the house where he rented a room thirty years ago. He reaches out to touch the gate, amazed. The sharp arrowlike steel spikes on top of the gate are still there, the same as thirty years ago. The woman who once loved him but ended up leaving him would sometimes hang a plastic bag filled with Chinese buns on the gate when he wasn’t there. All the other houses nearby have been converted to townhouses or studio apartments.

He reads the ad posted on the gate:

100,000 WON PER MONTH,

WITH A DEPOSIT OF 10 MILLION WON.

150,000 WON PER MONTH POSSIBLE

WITH A DEPOSIT OF 5 MILLION WON.

8 pyong, standard sink, shower in bathroom.

Close to Namsan, good for exercising.

Can get to Kangnam in 20 minutes, Chongno in 10 minutes.

Cons: Small bathroom. You’re not going to live in it.

It’s probably hard to find something this cheap in Yongsan.

The reason I’m moving: I got a car and need a parking

space. Please text or e-mail. I’m renting the room

myself to save on broker fees.

Having read even the cell-phone number and the e-mail address, he pushes the gate slowly. The gate opens, just as it did thirty years ago. He looks inside. A U-shaped house, the same as thirty years ago, the door to each unit facing the courtyard. The door of the unit he used to live in has a padlock on it.

“Anyone home?” he calls out, and two or three doors open.

Two young women with short hair and two boys around seventeen look at him. He steps into the courtyard.

“Have you seen this person?” He shows the flyer to the young women first, then quickly hands one to the boys, who are about to shut their door. There are two girls around the same age peering out from inside the boys’ room. The boys, thinking he’s looking into their room, bang the door shut. The outside looks the same as thirty years ago, but each unit has become a studio. The owners must have renovated, creating one space, combining the kitchen and the room. He can see a sink in the corner of the women’s unit.

“No,” the young women say, and hand him the flyer. They have sleep in their eyes; perhaps they were napping. They watch him turn around and head back to the gate. He’s about to step outside when the boys’ door opens and someone calls, “Wait! I think this grandmother was sitting in front of the gate a few days ago.”

When he approaches the room, the other boy sticks his head out and says, “No, I told you this isn’t her. This lady is young. That lady was really wrinkly. Her hair wasn’t like this, either-she was a beggar.”

“But her eyes were the same. Look only at her eyes; they were just like these. If we find her, are you really going to give us five million won?”

“I’ll give you some money as long as you tell me exactly what happened, even if you don’t find her.” He asks the boys to step outside. The young women, who had closed their door, open it again and look out.

“That lady was the one from the bar down the street. They keep her locked up because she has dementia, and it looked like she snuck out and got lost. The owner of the bar came and took her home.”

“Not that lady; I saw this lady, too. She’d hurt her foot. It was covered in pus. She kept chasing away flies… though I didn’t look closely, because she smelled and was dirty.”

“And? Did you see where she went?” Hyong-chol asks the boy.

“No. I just went in. She kept trying to come in, so I slammed the gate…”

Nobody else had seen Mom. The boy follows him out, saying, “I really did see her!” He looks down the alleys, running ahead of Hyong-chol. Hyong-chol gives the boy a hundred-thousand-won check as he leaves. The boy’s eyes sparkle. Hyong-chol asks the boy to get the lady to stay with him if he sees her again and to give him a call. Not listening very carefully, the boy says, “Then you’ll give me five million won?” Hyong-chol nods. The boy asks for a few more flyers. He says he will hang them up at the gas station where he works part-time. He says that if Hyong-chol finds his mom from that he should be rewarded with five million won, because it will be thanks to him. Hyong-chol tells him he will.