Human Acts(45)

You remember gritting out through clenched teeth, “What right do you have to tell my story to other people?” You remember Seong-hee’s calm voice asking whether it would really be so difficult for you to make your story public. Not even ten years have proved sufficient for you to forgive her for that, for how serene she’d looked as she neatly dissected all the ways in which you’d failed. If it had been me, I wouldn’t have hidden away. I wouldn’t have let the rest of my life slide by, too busy watching my own back.

You remember the meek voice of the man who had been your husband for eight months. You’re quite pretty, even with your small eyes. That was the first thing he ever said to you. If I were to draw your face, I’d only want a handful of simple lines. A nose, a mouth, and a pair of eyes, a rough sketch on white paper. You remember his eyes, large and moist as a calf’s. You remember the nervous twist of his lips, his bloodshot eyes as he glanced across at you. Don’t look at me like that, he would say. You’re scaring me.





Now


In the lobby of the main building, where the majority of the wards are, all the lights are off. By contrast, light streams out from the entrance to the emergency department, down the side of the annex. In front of this entrance, one of the ambulances from the provincial hospital is parked, with its emergency lights flashing and its rear doors flung open, as though a critical case was rushed here mere seconds before.

The main doors are wide open; you step through and begin to walk down the corridor. You hear low, urgent voices alternating with screams, the rough, mechanical inhalations of medical equipment, the squeal of trolleys being wheeled along linoleum floors. You take a seat on one of the backless chairs in reception.

“What are you here for?” asks the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

“I’m visiting someone.”

This isn’t true. You haven’t arranged any meeting. Visiting hours are only in the mornings, and even then, you have no idea whether Seong-hee would even agree to see you.

A middle-aged man in full hiking gear walks slowly in. He is leaning heavily on the arm of another man, who carries what you assume to be the first man’s backpack as well as his own. Judging by the makeshift splint on the former’s arm, he seems to have been injured during a nighttime hike. It’s okay, his friend comforts him, we’re here now. The expressions contorting their features are surprisingly similar; on second thought, so are those features themselves, so perhaps they aren’t friends but brothers. Not long now. The doctor will be here any minute.

The doctor will be here any minute.

You remain perched on the edge of your seat, back rigid, listening to the uninjured man repeat those words like a mantra. The doctor will be here any minute.





You Remember


You remember the girl who once told you that she wanted to be a doctor, all those years ago.

It was never going to happen; that much had been obvious to you. Jeong-mi was never going to become one of the smart, self-assured medical professionals who marched briskly in and out of hospital wards. She’d told you about her younger brother, Jeong-dae, about how she needed to keep working until she’d seen him through university. By the time he graduated she would already be in her mid-twenties, and even if she started cramming for the middle school exams straightaway…but no, the factory would have chewed her up and spat her out long before then. She already suffered from frequent nosebleeds, and a cough she seemed unable to shake. With legs as skinny as young radishes she darted among the sewing machines, snatching a few minutes of sleep here and there by leaning against a pillar and slipping under with all the abruptness of the anesthetized. How can you survive in such a din? she’d shouted. I can’t even hear myself think. Eyes wide with fear, stunned by the sewing machines’ almighty clamor, on her very first day in that job.





Now


The tang of bleach spikes your nostrils in the hospital bathroom. You run the taps, and take a swig from your water bottle while the sink fills. After you’ve finished washing your face, you give your teeth a vigorous brushing. Washing your hair with the hand soap and drying it with a hand towel reminds you of the sit-ins you used to go on with Seong-hee. You’ve brought a lotion sample with you, in your cotton wash bag. You tear open the packaging and smear the gel onto your pallid cheeks.

When you and Seong-hee spoke on the phone the previous Monday, her voice had sounded so altered that you were momentarily unable to picture her face. Only after you’d hung up did you recall her bright, intelligent eyes, the sliver of pink gum that was revealed whenever she smiled. But of course, ten years have gone by, and that face must be as changed as her voice. Gaunt with illness as well as age. Right now, she will be asleep. Her breathing will be low and labored, punctuated by snores like the snuffling of a sick animal.





You Remember


You remember that night in the dead of winter, in the attic room of a two-story house belonging to an American pastor who ministered to the factory workers—a place where the police couldn’t just rush in whenever they felt like it, and where Seong-hee had sought shelter for a number of years in her twenties—where you abandoned any sense of impropriety and slept with your body jammed up against hers. You remember that Seong-hee had snored the whole night through, which had jarred with the usual impression she gave of gentle earnestness. You tried pressing up against the wall, tried pulling the mothball-scented quilt right up over your head, but nothing could block out those deafening snores.