If I Had Your Face(68)

“About 20 minutes away? I’m on the subway.”

Twenty minutes is too long. Someone might be dying.

“Can you call the police then?” I text. “I’m going to go see what it is.”

Immediately Miho starts texting furiously.

“Just wait for the police. Hold on. I’m calling now. If you’re going to go, wait for me at least!!!”

“It’s ok, don’t worry,” I text. “I’ll take a weapon.”

“NO!!!!”

It’s sweet of her, being worried about me. I’m surprised since she’s heard about all the other fights I used to get into when I was young. The problem is, we have no good weapons in the house. Not for a situation like this. I long for my grandfather’s long wooden staff, sitting useless back at the Big House. For a second, I plot ways to steal it the next time I go to Cheongju. Not that I would have any idea how to wield it, but I vow to learn.

I’m not sure if a kitchen knife would be a good idea because I have never used one before and it might just distract me in the moment. I put the electric kettle on boil and scan the house again. This is unacceptable. I make a mental note to order weapons. I snatch up a pair of scissors and put it in my pants pocket—they’re probably easier to maneuver than a knife—and once the light on the kettle goes off I take the steaming pot and quietly open my front door.

It occurs to me, as I am standing in the hallway waiting to hear a scream, that I have never been in a fight with a male before. I have witnessed them—the boy gangs would routinely have vicious fights when I was in middle school and high school—and the girls would sometimes watch from a distance. The sheer speed and strength—the sound of baseball bats hitting somebody’s head—the popping sound that a fist would make on a jaw—never failed to shock me. The first few times, most of the girls cried, even Noh Hyun-jin, who was famous for once having taken six ferocious slaps in the face in a row from our PE teacher without breaking down. I decide that if there is a man downstairs and he is trying to rape or kill someone, the only thing I have going for me is the element of surprise. I can look both frail and vulnerable—that is what Sujin always says.

Now that I’m in the hallway, it becomes clear that the screams—they are intermittent—are coming from downstairs. The married couple is right beneath us, and I think there is a girl who lives by herself in the other apartment. I walk softly down the stairs and listen right outside the front door of apartment 302.

It’s this one. And I can hear more moaning now. Mumblings. Something about a baby? I press my ear closer and I hear only a woman’s voice and at first I think she is addressing someone but then it occurs to me that she is just talking to herself. And then she screams in pain so loudly that I jump in fright and almost drop the kettle.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice calls out suddenly, her voice full of fear. I tap on the door, hoping that the taps sound gentle and innocuous.

“Who is it?” she calls again, right before she moans again. There is some shuffling and groaning, and I hear a scraping at the door right in front of me. She is probably looking through the peephole so I back up a little so she can see me more clearly and smile and wave with my free hand.

The door unlocks and opens slowly and she pokes her head out.

“Who is it?” she says. It’s the married lady. She looks frightful—her eyes are bloodshot, and her pale face contorted and streaked with tears. She opens the door a bit more and sees that I am holding a water kettle.

“What is it?” she says. “Don’t you live upstairs?”

I nod and then I point to my throat and shake my head.

“Huh?” She looks more confused, then she doubles over and lets out a tortured moan.

Setting the kettle down on the floor outside her door, I take her by the shoulders and we go inside her apartment. She is in too much pain and she barely makes it to the living room, where she keels over onto a sofa.

I pat her on the arm and then run out and open the front door again and bring in the hot water. Then I go to her kitchen and look for a mug and pour some for her.

She is writhing on the sofa, clutching her stomach. Tears course down her cheeks. Kneeling in front of her, I run my hands up and down her arms. Then I fish out my phone from my pocket.

“I heard some strange sounds so I came to see if there was something wrong. Do you need me to call an ambulance?” I type into my phone, and then I show her.

Wiping her tears, she takes the phone and reads it. “You can’t speak?” she asks, her brows furrowing in surprise. She is exaggerating her words the way most people do when they first find out.

I nod.

She sits up then and grabs my wrist, surprising me.

“Were you born that way?” she asks, with strange desperation. People often ask me this, but she sounds as if there is more to her query than just fleeting curiosity. I blink rapidly and shake my head after a moment.

She sighs and lies back down on the sofa. I wait for a follow-up question about how it happened but it does not come.

“Do you need to go to the emergency room?” I type out again.

She reads it and closes her eyes in pain.

“I don’t know,” she says, rocking back and forth. “I guess I should but I don’t know.” She starts crying again. “This doesn’t make any sense but I want to wait a little. It’s still so early that if there is something wrong I’m sure they’ll just kill her to take her out of me.”