Human Acts(12)

“The soldiers are reentering the city tonight. Even the bereaved will be sent home. There mustn’t be anyone still here after six.”

“But why would the soldiers bother coming here? What harm could the dead possibly do them?”

“According to them, even the wounded lying in hospital beds are a ‘mob’ that need finishing off. Does it really seem likely that they’ll just turn a blind eye to all these corpses, to the families watching over them?”

Jin-su bites down on whatever else he was going to say, and marches past you into the gymnasium. You presume that he’s about to say the very same thing to the bereaved. Clutching the ledger to your chest as you would a treasured possession, you stare after his retreating figure, at the sense of responsibility stiffening his shoulders. You squint to make out Jin-su’s wet hair, wet shirt, wet jeans, the profiles of the bereaved as they either shake or nod their heads. A woman’s quavering voice becomes increasingly shrill.

“I’m not going to budge an inch. I’ll die here, at my baby’s side.”

You turn your gaze to the people lying farthest inside the hall, with cloths pulled right up over their heads; those who still haven’t had anyone come and identify them. You force yourself to focus on the person in the corner. The moment you first set eyes on her, in the corridor of the Provincial Office, you thought, Jeong-mi. Though the face hadn’t yet begun to putrefy, the deep knife wounds that marked it made the features difficult to discern. But it seemed similar, somehow. And that pleated skirt. Yes, it was definitely similar.

But that kind of skirt’s quite common, isn’t it? Are you really sure you saw her go out in a skirt like that on Sunday? Was her hair really as short as that? That bob looks like it belongs to a proper middle-schooler, doesn’t it? And why would Jeong-mi, constantly having to scrimp and save to make ends meet, have been so extravagant as to get a pedicure when it wasn’t even summer? But you never did get a good look at her bare feet. Only Jeong-dae would know if Jeong-mi had that dark-blue splotch on her knee, barely the size of a red bean. You need Jeong-dae to be able to know, categorically, that the woman lying there is not his sister.

On the other hand, though, you need Jeong-mi to help you find her brother. If she was here in your place, she would have gone around every hospital in the city, until she came across her brother in one of the recovery rooms, just that minute coming to his senses. Like when he’d rushed out of the house last February, insisting to Jeong-mi that he’d die before he went to liberal arts school, that as soon as he got to the middle of third year he was going to start taking the vocational classes that would be offered then, to prepare you for the world of business. With an almost uncanny swiftness she’d tracked him down in some comics store that very same day and dragged him out by the ear. Your mother and middle brother had found the sight of Jeong-dae being hauled around by such a petite, unassuming young woman utterly hilarious. Even your father, a dour and taciturn man, found it difficult to keep from laughing, and had to clear his throat loudly several times. The two siblings retreated to their annex, and their muffled exchange could be heard going on until after midnight. When one low, murmuring voice was heard to rise and take on an affectionate tone, that person was seeking to mollify the other, and when the other voice rose in turn, that meant the tables had turned, and this time it was the former who was being talked down, and in the meantime, up until the point when you slid into sleep as though falling into a sudden abyss, you lay in your room becoming less and less able to distinguish between the sounds of an argument and the sounds of making up, of low laughter and shared sighs.

—

Now you’re sitting at the table by the door to the gymnasium.

Your ledger is lying open on the left-hand side of the table, and your eyes are scanning the column of names, numbers, phone numbers, and addresses, checking you have the correct details before writing them in big letters on A4 paper. Jin-su said you have to make sure that you’re able to contact the bereaved, even if every last one of the civilian militia were to die this very night. There’s no one to help you write them up and fix them to coffins; you’ll have to hurry if you’re going to get them all done by six o’clock.

You hear someone calling your name.

You look up to see your mother emerge from between two trucks. As she approaches, you see that your middle brother isn’t with her this time. Her gray blouse and baggy black trousers are the ones she wears whenever she goes to work in the shop, almost a kind of uniform. She looks as she always does, except for the fact that her hair, usually neatly combed, has suffered from the rain shower earlier.

You stand up and run forward, so glad to see her that you don’t realize what you’re doing until you’re halfway down the steps. You stop short, confused, and your mother scurries up to grab your hand before you have time to retreat back to the safety of the gym.

“Let’s go home,” she says. You give your wrist a violent wrench, trying to shake free of her grip. The insistent, desperate strength in that grip is frightening, somehow, making you think of someone drowning. You have to use your other hand to pry her fingers away, one by one. “The army is coming. Let’s go home, now.”

Eventually you manage to shake her off, and lose no time in slipping back inside the building. Your mother tries to follow you in, but gets brought up short by the snaking queue of the bereaved, who are waiting to carry their coffins home with them.