Kyung-sook Shin - Please Look After Mom

“Have you been drinking?”

“Just a couple of drinks.” She’s about to hang up.

Drinking until these morning hours? You call her name urgently. She answers, her voice low. Your hand holding the phone grows damp. Your legs give way. “That day, your mom wasn’t well enough to go to Seoul. We shouldn’t have gone to Seoul… The day before, she had a headache and rested her head in a basin filled with ice. She couldn’t hear anyone calling her. At night, I found her with her head in the freezer. She was in a lot of pain. Even though she forgot to make breakfast, she said we had to go to Seoul-you were all waiting for us. But I should have said no. I think my judgment is getting worse because I’m old. One part of me thought, this time in Seoul, we would force her to go to the hospital… And with someone like that, I should have held on to her… I didn’t treat her like a sick person, and as soon as we got to Seoul I just walked ahead… My old habit just took over. That’s how it happened.” The words you couldn’t say to your children spill out of your mouth.

“Father…”

You listen.

“I think everyone’s forgotten about Mom. Nobody’s calling. Do you know why Mom had such a headache that day? It’s because I was a bitch. She said so.” Your daughter’s voice slurs.

“Your mom did?”

“Yes… I didn’t think I could come to the birthday party, so I called from China and asked what she was doing, and she said she was pouring liquor into a bottle. For the youngest. You know he likes to drink. I don’t know. It wasn’t even worth it, but I got so angry. He really has to quit drinking… Mom was bringing it because it’s something her baby likes. So I said to Mom, Don’t take that heavy thing; if he drinks it and makes a scene, it’s going to be your fault, so please be smart about it. Mom said, weakly, You’re right, and said she would go into town and get some rice cakes-she always brings rice cakes for your birthday. So I said, Don’t, nobody eats those rice cakes anyway, and we just take them home and put them in the freezer. I told her not to act like a country bumpkin, she should just go to Seoul without bringing anything. She asked me if I really stuck all the rice cakes in the freezer, so I said, Yes, I even have some that are three years old. And she cried. I asked, Mom, are you crying? and she said, You’re a bitch… I told her all that so things would be easier for her. When she called me a bitch, I think I went a little crazy. It was really hot in Beijing that day. I was so angry that I yelled, Fine, I hope you’re happy that you have a bitch for a daughter! Okay, I’m a bitch! and hung up on her.”

You’re silent.

“Mom hates it when we yell… and we always yell at her. I was going to call and apologize, but I forgot, because I was doing a million things at once-eating and sightseeing and talking to people. If I had called and apologized, she wouldn’t have had such a bad headache… and then she would have been able to follow you around.”

Your daughter is crying.

“Chi-hon!”

She is quiet.

“Your mom was very proud of you.”

“What?”

“If you were in the newspaper, she folded it and put it in her bag and took it out and looked at it again and again-if she saw someone in town she took it out and bragged about you.”

She’s silent.

“If someone asked what her daughter did… she said you wrote words. Your mom asked a woman at the Hope House orphanage in Namsan-dong to read her your book. Your mom knew what you wrote. When that woman read to her, Mom’s face brightened and she smiled. So, whatever happens, you have to keep writing well. There’s always the right time to say something… I lived my life without talking to your mom. Or I missed the chance, or I assumed she would know. Now I feel like I could say anything and everything but there’s nobody to listen to me. Chi-hon?”

“Yes?”

“Please… please look after your mom.”

You press the phone closer to your ear, listening to your daughter’s forlorn cries. Her tears seem to trickle down the cord of your phone. Your face becomes marred with tears. Even if everyone in the world forgets, your daughter will remember. That your wife truly loved the world, and that you loved her.

THERE ARE SO MANY pine trees here.

How can there be a neighborhood like this in this city? It’s hidden away so well. Did it snow a few days ago? There’s snow on the trees. Let me see, there are three pine trees in front of your house. It’s almost like that man planted them here for me to sit on. Oh, I can’t believe I’m talking about him. I’m going to visit with you first and then go see him. I’ll do that. I think I should do that.

The apartments and studios that your siblings live in all look the same to me. It’s confusing which house is whose. How can everything be exactly the same? How do they all live in identical spaces like that? I think it would be nice if they lived in different-looking houses. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a shed and an attic? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a house where the children have places to hide? You used to hide in the attic, away from your brothers, who wanted to send you on all sorts of errands. Now even in the countryside apartment buildings that look the same have sprouted up. Have you gone up on the roof of our house recently? You can see all the high-rise apartments in town from there. When you were growing up, our village didn’t even have a bus route. It has to be worse in this busy city if it’s like that even in the country. I just wish they didn’t all look the same. They all look so identical that I can’t figure out where to go. I can’t find your brothers’ homes or your sister’s studio. That’s my problem. In my eyes, all the entrances and doors look the same, but everyone manages to find their way home, even in the middle of the night. Even children.

But you’re living here, where it’s nice.

Where is this, by the way? Puam-dong in Chongno-gu, in Seoul… This here is Chongno-gu? Chongno-gu… Chongno-gu… Oh, Chongno-gu! The first house your eldest brother set up as a newlywed was in Chongno-gu. Tongsung-dong in Chongno-gu. He said, “Mother, this is Chongno-gu. It makes me happy every time I write my address. Chongno is the center of Seoul, and now I’m living here.” He said, “A country hick has finally made it to Chongno.” He called it Chongno-gu, but he lived in a tenement house crammed on a steep hill called something like Naksan. I was so out of breath when I went all the way up there. I thought, How can there be somewhere like this in this city? It feels more like the country than our hometown! But I’m saying the same thing here, where you live. How can there be a place like this in this city?

Last year, when you came back to Seoul after spending three years abroad, you were disappointed that you couldn’t even rent the apartment you used to live in with the money you had, but I guess you found this village here. This is just like a village in the country. There’s a café and an art gallery, but there’s a mill, too. I saw them making rice cakes. I watched for a long time, because it reminded me of the old days. Is it almost New Year’s? There were a lot of people making those long, white rice cakes. Even in this city there’s a village that makes those rice cakes near New Year’s! At New Year’s I would cart a big bucket of rice over to the mill to make rice cakes. I would blow on my frozen hands and wait for my turn.

It must be inconvenient, though, to live here with three children. And it must be a long commute for your husband to go to work in Sollung. Is there even a market nearby?