Read Online Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kyung-Sook Shin
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nice.
He smiles at your words. “My mother made this for me.”
“But didn’t she pass away?”
“When she was alive.”
He tells you that since he was a child he has only been able to wear cotton, because of various allergies. When other fabrics touched his skin, he became itchy and got a rash. He grew up wearing only the cotton clothes his mother made. In hismemories, his mother was always sewing. She would have had to sew and sew to make everything personally, from his underwear to his socks.
He says that when he opened her closet after she passed away he found stacks of cotton clothes that would last him for the rest of his life. That his outfit today is one he found in that closet. What did his mother look like? Your heart aches as you listen to him. You ask the man who is remembering his beloved mother, “Do you think your mother was happy?”
His words are polite, but his expression tells you that you’ve insulted his mother:
“My mother was different from today’s women.”
2
I’m Sorry, Hyong-chol
A WOMAN TAKES ONE of his flyers and pauses for a moment to look at the picture of Mom. Under the clock tower where Mom used to wait for him.
After he found a place in the city, Mom would arrive at Seoul Station looking like a war refugee. She would walk onto the platform with bundles balanced on her head and slung over her shoulders and in her hands, the things she couldn’t otherwise carry strapped to her waist. It was amazing that she could still walk. If she could have, Mom would have come to see him with eggplants or pumpkins tied to her legs. Her pockets often bulged with unripe peppers, peeled chestnuts, or peeled garlic wrapped in newspaper. Whenever he went to meet her, he would see a heap of so many parcels by Mom’s feet and marvel that one woman could have brought them all by herself.Standing amid the packages, Mom would look around, her cheeks flushed, waiting for him.
The woman comes up to him hesitantly, pointing to the picture of his mom printed on the flyer, and says, “Excuse me, I think I’ve seen her in front of the Yongsan 2-dong office.” On the flyer his younger sister made, his mom smiles brightly, wearing a pale-blue hanbok. The woman continues, “She wasn’t wearing this outfit, but the eyes are so similar, and I remember them because they looked honest and loyal.” The woman looks again at his mom’s eyes in the flyer and adds, “She had a cut on her foot.” She says his mom was wearing blue plastic sandals, one of which was cutting into her foot near her big toe, and a piece of flesh had fallen off, creating a groove, perhaps because she’d walked so far. The woman tells him that flies buzzed around and landed near the pus-filled wound, and that his mom kept shooing them away with her hand, as if she was irritated. And even though the gash looked painful, she kept staring into the office as if she didn’t feel it. This was about a week ago.
A week?
Not knowing what to make of what the woman told him, he continues to give out flyers after she has left. His entire family has posted flyers and distributed them everywhere, from Seoul Station to Namyong-dong, from restaurants and clothing stores to bookstores and Internet cafés. When the flyers were torn off because the family had posted them in a place they weren’t supposed to, they reposted them in the same place. They didn’t limit it to the area around Seoul Station, either, but handed out and posted flyers in Namdaemun, Chungnim-dong, and even in Sodaemun. They didn’t receivea single phone call from the ad they had placed in the newspaper, but some people did call after seeing the flyers. They received a tip that someone like Mom was at a restaurant and rushed over, but it wasn’t her; it was a woman around Mom’s age who worked there. Once, a caller said that he had invited Mom into his house, and carefully spelled out his address on the phone; filled with expectation, they ran over there, but
He smiles at your words. “My mother made this for me.”
“But didn’t she pass away?”
“When she was alive.”
He tells you that since he was a child he has only been able to wear cotton, because of various allergies. When other fabrics touched his skin, he became itchy and got a rash. He grew up wearing only the cotton clothes his mother made. In hismemories, his mother was always sewing. She would have had to sew and sew to make everything personally, from his underwear to his socks.
He says that when he opened her closet after she passed away he found stacks of cotton clothes that would last him for the rest of his life. That his outfit today is one he found in that closet. What did his mother look like? Your heart aches as you listen to him. You ask the man who is remembering his beloved mother, “Do you think your mother was happy?”
His words are polite, but his expression tells you that you’ve insulted his mother:
“My mother was different from today’s women.”
2
I’m Sorry, Hyong-chol
A WOMAN TAKES ONE of his flyers and pauses for a moment to look at the picture of Mom. Under the clock tower where Mom used to wait for him.
After he found a place in the city, Mom would arrive at Seoul Station looking like a war refugee. She would walk onto the platform with bundles balanced on her head and slung over her shoulders and in her hands, the things she couldn’t otherwise carry strapped to her waist. It was amazing that she could still walk. If she could have, Mom would have come to see him with eggplants or pumpkins tied to her legs. Her pockets often bulged with unripe peppers, peeled chestnuts, or peeled garlic wrapped in newspaper. Whenever he went to meet her, he would see a heap of so many parcels by Mom’s feet and marvel that one woman could have brought them all by herself.Standing amid the packages, Mom would look around, her cheeks flushed, waiting for him.
The woman comes up to him hesitantly, pointing to the picture of his mom printed on the flyer, and says, “Excuse me, I think I’ve seen her in front of the Yongsan 2-dong office.” On the flyer his younger sister made, his mom smiles brightly, wearing a pale-blue hanbok. The woman continues, “She wasn’t wearing this outfit, but the eyes are so similar, and I remember them because they looked honest and loyal.” The woman looks again at his mom’s eyes in the flyer and adds, “She had a cut on her foot.” She says his mom was wearing blue plastic sandals, one of which was cutting into her foot near her big toe, and a piece of flesh had fallen off, creating a groove, perhaps because she’d walked so far. The woman tells him that flies buzzed around and landed near the pus-filled wound, and that his mom kept shooing them away with her hand, as if she was irritated. And even though the gash looked painful, she kept staring into the office as if she didn’t feel it. This was about a week ago.
A week?
Not knowing what to make of what the woman told him, he continues to give out flyers after she has left. His entire family has posted flyers and distributed them everywhere, from Seoul Station to Namyong-dong, from restaurants and clothing stores to bookstores and Internet cafés. When the flyers were torn off because the family had posted them in a place they weren’t supposed to, they reposted them in the same place. They didn’t limit it to the area around Seoul Station, either, but handed out and posted flyers in Namdaemun, Chungnim-dong, and even in Sodaemun. They didn’t receivea single phone call from the ad they had placed in the newspaper, but some people did call after seeing the flyers. They received a tip that someone like Mom was at a restaurant and rushed over, but it wasn’t her; it was a woman around Mom’s age who worked there. Once, a caller said that he had invited Mom into his house, and carefully spelled out his address on the phone; filled with expectation, they ran over there, but
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