Han Kang - The Vegetarian

—

“You’re late,” his wife said, making an effort not to sound too put out. Their son turned back to the plastic forklift truck he’d been playing with. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was glad to see his father.

Since his wife had gone back to working full-time at her cosmetics store, she was constantly exhausted, but she was the type to press on regardless, diligent and persevering. Practically the only thing she asked of him was to keep Sunday daytimes free. “I’d like to have a bit of a rest myself…and our son needs to spend time with his father too, doesn’t he?” He knew that this was the only time of the week she would allow herself a bit of a break. She was even grateful that he let her take on so much responsibility, running a business as well as a household, without so much as a word of complaint. But these days, every time he looked at her he saw her sister’s face overlaid on hers, and their domestic life couldn’t have been further from his thoughts.

“Have you had dinner?”

“Yeah, I grabbed something on the way.”

“You have to eat properly, why do you always just grab something on the go?” Her tone was resigned, as though she’d long given her husband up as a lost cause. He examined her exhausted-looking face the way one might look at a complete stranger. Her eyes were deep and clear, framed by naturally double eyelids, and her face was a slender oval, with a smooth, feminine jawline. The success of the cosmetics store, which had expanded over the years from the two-and-a-half-p’yong space which she’d somehow managed to set up when she was still a young girl, must have been largely down to the impression of affability which these pleasant, open features gave. And yet, right from the first there’d been something about her that left him feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Her face, figure and thoughtful nature all combined to form the spitting image of the woman he’d spent so long trying to find; and so, unable to put his finger on just what it was that he felt she was lacking, he’d made up his mind to marry her. In fact, it was only when he was introduced to her sister that he realized what it was his new wife was missing.

Everything about her sister pleased him — her single-lidded eyes; the way she spoke, so blunt as to be almost uncouth, and without his wife’s faintly nasal inflection; her drab clothes; her androgynously protruding cheekbones. She might well be called ugly in comparison with his wife, but to him she radiated energy, like a tree that grows in the wilderness, denuded and solitary. All the same, he felt no different toward her than he had before they’d met. “Huh, now she’s my type; even though they’re sisters, and they’re quite similar in many ways, there’s some subtle difference between them”—this thought flitted briefly through his mind, and was gone.

“Shall I make you something to eat or not?” His wife’s question was almost a demand.

“I told you, I’ve already eaten.”

Exhausted from all the emotions roiling inside him, he opened the bathroom door. As soon as he turned the light on, his wife’s voice drilled into his ears once more.

“On top of everything else, I’m worried about Yeong-hye; I didn’t hear from you all day, and Ji-woo has a cold so I had to stay with him all the time…” Her sigh was followed by a shout directed at their son. “What are you doing? I told you to come and take your medicine!” Knowing that the boy would dawdle, his wife slowly poured the powdered medicine onto a spoon and mixed it with a strawberry-colored syrup. He emerged from the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“What about your sister?” he asked his wife. “What’s happened now?”

“She finally got served with the divorce papers, of course! It’s not that I don’t understand Mr. Cheong’s position, but all the same, he could have shown a bit more sympathy. To just throw away a marriage like that…”

“I…,” he stammered. “Shall I call around and see her?”

His wife suddenly became animated. “Would you? We haven’t had her around in such a long time, and if you were to go and see her, even if it’s a bit awkward…but you know, it’s not as though she doesn’t understand the difficulty. She knows that’s just how things turned out.” He studied his wife, a picture of responsible compassion as she carefully approached their son with the medicine. She’s a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.

“I’ll give her a call tomorrow.”

“Do you need the number?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

Feeling as though his chest might be about to burst, he went back inside the bathroom and closed the door. He turned on the shower and listened to the water drumming down into the bathtub as he took off his clothes. He was aware that he hadn’t had sex with his wife for close on two months. But he also knew that his penis’s sudden rigidity was nothing to do with her.

He’d pictured to himself his sister-in-law’s rented studio apartment, the one she’d shared with his wife back when they were young, pictured her curled up there on the bed, then switched to remembering how it had felt to carry her on his back, her body pressed up against his and staining his clothes with her blood, the feel of her chest and buttocks, imagined himself pulling down her trousers just enough to reveal the blue brand of the Mongolian mark.

He stood there and masturbated. A moan escaped from between his lips, not quite laughter and not quite a sob. The shock of the too-cold water.

—

It had been the beginning of summer two years ago when his sister-in-law had cut her wrist open in his house. They’d moved there only recently, wanting the extra floor space, and his wife’s family had all come around for lunch. He’d heard about his sister-in-law apparently turning vegetarian, something that hadn’t sat at all well with this family of meat lovers, the father in particular. She’d been so pitifully thin, it wasn’t as though he couldn’t understand them giving her a strict dressing-down. But that her father, the Vietnam War hero, had actually struck his rebellious daughter in the face and physically forced a lump of meat into her mouth, that was something else. However much he thought back on it, he couldn’t convince himself that it had actually happened — it was more like a scene from some bizarre play.

More vivid and frightening than any other was the memory of the scream that had erupted from his sister-in-law when the lump of meat approached her lips. After spitting it out, she’d snatched up the fruit knife and glared fiercely at each of her family in turn, her terrified eyes rolling like those of a cornered animal.

Once the blood was gushing out of her wrist he’d torn a strip from one of their quilts, bound it around her wrist and picked her up, her body so light she could almost have been a ghost. As he ran down to the car park, he’d been surprised by the speed and decisiveness of his own actions, something he’d never before realized he was capable of.

As he watched her unconscious form receive emergency medical treatment, he’d heard a sound like something snapping inside his own body. The feeling he’d had at that moment was one that, even now, he found himself unable to explain with any degree of accuracy. A person had attacked her own body right in front of his eyes, tried to hack at it like it was a piece of meat; her blood had soaked his white shirt, mingling with his sweat and gradually drying to a dark brown stain.

He remembered hoping she would survive, but at the same time doubting just what that “survival” would mean. The moment she’d tried to take her own life had been a turning point. Now there was nothing anyone could do to help her. Every single one of them — her parents who had force-fed her meat, her husband and siblings who had stood by and let it happen — were distant strangers, if not actual enemies. If she woke up again, that situation wouldn’t have changed. Just because this suicide attempt had been spur-of-the-moment didn’t mean she wouldn’t try it again. And if she did, no doubt she’d be more careful in how she went about it, and that meant there mightn’t be anyone to stop her as there had been this time. All of a sudden he became aware of the conclusion his thoughts had led him to: that it would be better if she didn’t wake up, that if she did the situation would actually be ambiguous, ghastly, that perhaps he ought to throw her out of the window while her eyes were still closed.