Period of Distrust by Park Kyung-Ni (Part 2)

Since the morning, Jinyong had been sitting blankly on the steps outside her house. Her mother said that rather than being cooped up at home, she should go out awhile, but this served only to annoy Jinyong, who just frowned and grasped at her hair.

It was not because she was frustrated at home. It was that she had to go out for some reason other than job hunting.

Still grasping at her hair, where on earth should I go? Should I beg someone for a meal? I’m sick even in my lungs…

She thought of Munsu. Jinyong felt that she and her mother, struggling to keep on living, seemed interminably wretched. The midday sun blazed down onto the garden. Flies swarming around in the tree shade gathered on her head. Her mother was watering the grass next to the Jangdokdae (*a platform to store pots) with laundry water. Looking at her mother’s worn-out face next to the flat sunflower leaves, Jinyong was reminded of a jellyfish drifting about in the sea. Having that life instinct despite being so slow, just living, Jinyong could not go on cruelly scrutinising her mother like this. She swatted away the bothersome flies and sprawled out on the wooden decking.

The sky grew pale. Clouds were floating past. Then she thought all of a sudden that the sky was like the sea. The clouds were like jellyfish floating on the waves. She imagined that she was not lying down staring at the sky; rather, perhaps she was lying face down watching the sea.

The sun shone down over the west. The tree shade seemed to be stretching out. Jinyong turned to the left and looked at the ground beneath the wooden boards.

The gate creaked open. Someone’s shadow came into her line of vision. She slowly cast her eyes up, and saw standing there a monk carrying a knapsack. His long, slender figure stood silently on his own shadow, making him look like a surrealist painting.

Finally, the monk spoke, unclasping his hands that had been joined in prayer.

“Madam.”

His voice was incongruous to his body, being pure and high-pitched like a young boy’s. His shoulders, sloping from the weight of the knapsack, must be at least forty years old… The monk stood up slowly, stared motionlessly at Jinyong, but grew tired under her indescribably heavy gaze.

Seeing the mother come out, wiping her hands on her apron, the monk called out breathlessly,

“Madam,” in his obstinately pure voice.

The mother sank down onto the floor and took a deep breath.

“When I served Buddha and lived happily, what was the use of lighting a lantern in every single temple? Even saying effort doesn’t pay off is pointless…”

She was about to restart her standard complaining about losing the child. When will she stop? He stood batting his eyelids, waiting for a chance to speak, and eventually cut her short.

“It’s such a pity about the child. It is. But… I didn’t come asking for a donation or anything, but… we winnowed the rice recently… and it’s so heavy.”

His expression denoted a desire to make a deal quickly and escape from hearing this sorrowful tale. The world has become a miserly place, full of cheap sympathies, Jinyong thought. Her mother, longing for sympathy, seemed more pitiful than ugly.

Her mother was not satisfied with what he said, and her face showed bewilderment.

“It’s heavy, but you must be able to carry it around with you. Why don’t you lighten your load and divide it up?”

The monk put the sack on the ground and expressed his intention for a second time. Only then did the mother realise the monk’s game. She put aside her grievance for the moment, hitched up her skirt, and said,

“We can sell it off too, so we’ll buy some since you’re here. Give us a doe (*measurement) or something.”

The monk dragged the sack towards him and measured out the rice. The mother moaned that the portion was short and put some more rice onto the gourd. The monk grabbed her arm and told her not to do so. Despite all this, it seemed like they had somehow completed their deal.

The mother finished measuring out the rice and said by way of parting,

“Where is your temple?”

“Huh? Oh, right. It’s the one just behind the school.”

If it was behind the school, then it was not such a long distance to go selling rice.

After the monk had left, the mother stood, lost in thought.

“Hey, Jinyong,” she called out quietly. Instead of answering, Jinyong looked into her mother’s eyes.

“Just leaving Munsu like this is making my heart burst. Gone without a trace… let’s go to the temple.”

Jinyong’s gaze was fixed on her mother.

“The temple’s close and it’s in Sindang so it’s easy to get to. My lord, I’m so wretched. It’s like my soul is roaming about crying. I’ve got to sleep.”

Jinyong nodded her head and gazed at the sunflowers on the Jangdokdae.

“Let’s do that then,” she said a short while later, still looking at the sunflowers. “But why did you treat that monk like a merchant? Even though you wanted him the take care of the child?” Jinyong’s gaze did not move from the sunflowers. She did not even seem to be interested in what she herself said.

“Gosh, so unreasonable. A contribution’s a contribution and a god’s a god. Honestly, is the guy who sells rice and take donations a proper monk?” Jinyong hated her mother when she was like this.

“Then why did you want to go to that monk’s church?”

“Do you go to the temple to see the monks? You go to see Buddha.”

Jinyong said nothing, but knew that she was right. At the same time, she recalled the incident of a few days previous, when her mother had scolded Jinyong for not leaving the church when the ajumeoni gave her some money to use. Since she had agreed to go to the temple so easily, she felt somewhat guilty towards the ajumeoni, as if she had betrayed her. Although it was only money, of course she took it, and it seemed as though she was now in debt for the kindness she had not given to others. However, if her religion was all for Munsu’s sake, then a temple would be much more expressive than a church. In a temple, even if she just gave some money, she would be acting independently for Munsu.

Jinyong sprang up from her chair.

The sun shone over the mountains in the west. She stepped out onto the road. Jinyong bought a bottle of streptomycin from the pharmacy. She did not feel like going to the Y Hospital she always visited, so she bought medicine instead. The ajumeoni from Galwol-dong said that the doctor in Y Hospital was a Christian too, so she could trust him. But she had realised that up until now, they had been injecting her with a third of the required dosage for her illness. She could not go to that hospital again.

After standing on the road awhile, holding her medicine bottle, Jinyong entered the nearby S Hospital. Since it was in the neighbourhood, she knew it by sight, but it was a shambles.

Jinyong looked uneasily at a nurse who seemed unfamiliar with everything, as if she had just been hired, and held out the bottle. Doctors are always cold with the patients who just come for an injection without getting a check-up, so Jinyong did not even bother seeing one. When a doctor who had been examining a patient turned his head towards her, she could not help feeling surprised. He was not a doctor. He was just a local good-for-nothing. Just then, the real doctor hurried in carrying some papers, so he rushed outside. Perhaps Jinyong’s frown made him tense, as he finished up indecisively, telling the nurse,

“2 grams of penicillin,” before he disappeared outside. It appeared that though he did not know the name of her illness, he did know that penicillin was used as a panacea.

Jinyong was standing, gaping at this scene while the nurse clumsily drew the streptomycin up into the syringe with unsterilized hands. When she regained her senses, she noticed that the liquid inside the syringe was cloudy. The nurse had drawn it up before it had all dissolved. Jinyong could not take this anymore.

“You can’t use that, it’s not even dissolved. It’ll go wrong!” she shouted out sharply, snatching the medicine bottle and shaking it.

The sallow-faced elderly lady, who was sitting waiting for her penicillin injection, looked over uneasily at the nurse who now stood awkwardly with a syringe in her hand.

She left the hospital. It was already night.

Before, when she had said, “it’ll go wrong,” and snatched the bottle, her figure was round in the dark. Life is such a valuable, yet impossible thing – back there, I wasn’t the same person as she who had wished for death over and over again.

Jinyong wanted to laugh at the night sky until her sides split. But the moment she burst out laughing, she covered up her head out of fear that she was acting crazy. Maybe I am insane. Maybe everything my crazy eyes see is a hallucination. Maybe it’s not night, but the middle of the day.

With her head still covered up, she ran home.

An iced tea vendor in a straw hat watched as Jinyong raced by.

There was a halo around the red-tinted moon. A warm wind gushed past as if it was about to pour with rain.