Butterfly of Illusion

Pak Wan-s

1

There was a feeling about that house.

It was different from the usual feeling of a house, which came from the size of the house, the materialsfrom which it was made, or the way the owners took care of it. This feeling had a deeper, hiddensource. If the house were a human being, we could say that the feeling was not some temporaryimpression that depended on culture, character, or clothes, but rather an inherent, unalterable quality atthe core of that human being. Because of that feeling, some of the neighbours were attracted to thehouse and others made a detour to avoid it. Though the house was isolated from its neighbours, it wason the way to the mineral spa and also on the short cut to the subway station. By administrativestructure the village to which the house belonged was in one of the satellite cities of Seoul. However,the people in the city called the village an old village. Yet no old thatched houses or houses withKorean style roofs could be found there. The unrepaired and dilapidated flat roof houses which hadbeen in fashion in the sixties coupled with a dirty narrow alley only made the village seem very uglyand older than it actually was.

Perhaps the children in the newly established apartment complex may have accepted the term oldvillage as it was and believed that those flat roof houses were the original Korean mode of habitations,just like those caves or huts of primitive tribes that have been kept without any change from theprehistoric period on an island in the South Pacific or some distant parts of Africa. However, thisvillage was at the most no more than thirty years old. When developers and land owners collaborated tocreate this new village in the middle of an empty field, the area was occupied by fruit and vegetablefarmers. The farmers called the village a western style house village. Since the flat roof houses thatlooked like strict squares of cut tofu pieces were a novelty to them and in addition, those houses takingpride in their shining tile outside their walls elicited envy from the farmers, they praised the village ashighly as they could. It took less than thirty years for the western style house village to degenerate intothe old village.

That house was there even before the western-style-house village was born. Just like a trace of bloodfallen from the lingering wish of an agricultural village around there that was fast disappearing, thehouse, in spite of the traces of repeated reconstruction and add-ons, never lost its die-hard rustic air. Itwas a U-shaped house with a wide main hall, and its beams and pillars were of wood, but the roof wasof grey slate. The disharmony of the soiled wood and slate roof was oddly in harmony with thedisharmony between the outer paper door with plucked window panes and newly installed main roomsliding doors. Someone who had lived in the village for a long time may possibly have rememberedthat the roof of the house was once corrugated iron. Before then it must have been straw thatched or

western style tile roof, but it was almost impossible to find a witness to those roofs in a village wherefew families had lived for more than five years. The epithet, the old village, was not suitable to thisvillage and the houses there, since the moves of the dwellers in the village were more frequent thanthose of apartment denizens. According to the statistics of the city, the average residence of the villagewas shorter than that of apartment occupants by one and a half years. Maybe it was the trick of realestate agents, saying that this area would soon be redeveloped. Despite the rumours of redevelopment,however, once you bought a house there, there was no such sign. It was such a strange village. Thosewho understood that redevelopment could not be carried out without a strong leader who was dedicatedto the business, but did not know the way or did not have the capacity to take a lead, took their housesto the real estate agents to sell, and even those who expected to have some chances and still had somelingering hopes, rented their houses and left the village. When they discovered the only advantage onwhich they had set their eyes was false, they were disgusted.

If the old village was an island of the city, the house was an island of the village.

The children of the village and those of the apartment complex went to the same school. But to thechildren of the apartment complex the native village kids looked somehow different. Even though theyhad not thought of them as different at first, once they found out that the children they knew were fromthe native village, the apartment kids seemed to doubt the authenticity of the stories of computer gamesthey had talked about together. With this sense of betrayal they became reluctant to play with the nativevillage kids. If there had been a child in that house, the child would have been rejected by the other kidsin the village, who would have been as reluctant as the apartment kids. However, there has never been achild in that house. There might have been a child when the house was occupied by a farmer. Butnobody could prove it, as it belonged to the prehistoric period of the house.

2

That there wasn't a parking space at that hour was nothing new, but Yong-ju repeatedly told herselfthat she was sick and tired. And then she turned the wheel violently toward the children's playground.The children's playground was at the back of the apartment buildings. The paved road surrounding boththe playground and the green oval shaped field nearby was reserved for children riding bicycles orroller skating. Originally, parking wasn't permitted there. It was no use at all even after they drew linesfor parking there. Just for a while the parking spaces seemed to be enough, but after several days it wasall the same. Fortunately enough she found a nice parking space where it was very easy to pull the carout early in the morning. Picking up a load of things from the passenger seat, Yong-ju mouthed againthat she was sick and tired. There was nothing special in her load. Her jacket, an age-old handbag, andseveral books which were like her friends from the period she was a part-time instructor. Today twopumpkins were added to her usual load. After she hesitated a bit she bought them, since those oldpumpkins in a pyramid shape heaped along the country road looked very nice. Even though she didn'task the question, the salesman told her that if she made gruel with them, it would be really sweet, and

tried to give her a recipe for gruel, but Yong-ju didn't pay much attention to it. Her mother wouldsurely make pumpkin gruel.

Yong-ju was hoping that her mother would be excited about making pumpkin gruel, but suddenly hermind became blank. And then she asked herself, "Could she still make pumpkin gruel? I should notthink of testing my mother with this trifling pumpkin. I have to understand. How can anyone be excitedevery time she makes vegetable dishes after trimming the vegetables, and a fish dish by boiling fishwith soy sauce or salting it, and moreover, when she has repeated it every day for over fifty years? Ifmy mother can, that is rather strange. Even if she was tired of it and so wasn't interested in things, whydid I look at her with doubt?" Yong-ju stopped picking up her load and then rested her head on hersteering wheel. Her blank fear was toward herself, not her mother. After six years of part-timeinstructorship and three years after she received her Ph. D., she managed to become a full-timeinstructor. Though her university wasn't located within metropolitan Seoul, she wasn't in a position tochoose. She may have been in a hurry because of her age, even though she didn't have to earn a livingby teaching. Though commuting to Taejon was not easy at all, fortunately it was not impossible for her.She wasn't afraid of driving the long distance, because she could drive quite well and instead of theused car she used to have, she bought a brand new one two years ago. However, she was on the vergeof fifty. She would speed toward fifty as if she were on a slide. Everyone except those who were notfamiliar with the university situation ought to have known that she should have been thankful that as awoman she could secure a full-time teaching position at a university at that age. For the first semesterYong-ju was intoxicated with the satisfaction of her achievement, and she didn't find her job painful.Yet, these days her enthusiasm was rather cooled since it seemed to her that she was the only one whohadn't known the fact that the worth of a professor or Ph.D. was too low. Why were her eyes opennow ? If I had known it, I wouldn't have gone through that suffering. However, she was disgusted whenshe thought that it might be the price of women who chose to study as their aim. What she meant byworth was not the salary, which was too low when she took the time and efforts into consideration, butthe respectability. Some friends openly belittled her and said, "Did you work your fingers to the bone toget a Ph.D., so that you could have no better position than one at a rural university?" Yong-ju coulddismiss them by saying that their idea of the value of knowledge is only to enable them to live in Seoulfor their entire lives, enjoying life moderately, and keeping up appearances. But she couldn't do that.The fact that she was hurt to the quick so as to have a grudge was because her sore spot was touched.Teaching, distributing knowledge, was less rewarding than she had expected. She could ascribe thisdissatisfaction to the inferiority of her students or her limited knowledge. However, she becamemelancholy and felt empty by belittling knowledge itself. In a word, she was sickeningly undergoingemotional disturbance.

Yong-ju had chosen for her dissertation topic the poems of Ho Nansolhon because she wasattracted to them. The reason she became enamoured of them was she was moved greatly by HoNansolhon's short life. To be moved by Ho Nansolhon did not take much knowledge. Yong-ju's knowledge about her family background or the period of time in which she lived was no morethan that of the average person. Of course, with Yong-ju's limited command of Chinese it wasimpossible to understand Ho Nansolhon's Chinese poems thoroughly. What fascinated Yong-ju

was not the remarkable quality of the poems, but the way her own imagination was sparked by thesocial factors of the period which had contributed to the premature death of a remarkable woman neverrecognized properly by her society. However, the thesis had to be written on the basis of facts thatcould be proven and had clear sources. Imagination was not necessary. Her thesis advisor, whoencouraged Yong-ju, a middle school teacher, to enter graduate school to start her research, guardedagainst Yong-ju's imagination. Yong-ju hated to listen to her professor's often repeated advice thatwhile she was writing a thesis she should not have an illusion of writing a novel. While she didresearch on Nansolhon and accumulated knowledge befitting a doctoral candidate, theattractiveness and inspiration of Nansolhon disappeared completely and Yong-ju became sick andtired of her. In the end, all Yong-ju had left of her former fascination with Ho was a bit of dryknowledge and a Ph. D.-like mere bits of straw from countless effigies she had cruelly destroyed.

Yong-ju did not know how long she had remained like that in her car. She raised her head at thesound of her son knocking on the car window. Chung-u was in a shabby training suit and had onslippers.

"What's the matter ? You came out to take a walk."

"I didn't come out to take a walk. I came out to find my grandmother."

Yong-ju's heart sank, but Chung-u said it as if it were a trivial thing.

"How come you let her out ? I told you so many times to take good care of her."

"She must be around here. Please go in. I will find her and bring her back with me."

He swaggered away. Yong-ju quickly got out of the car with her load of things and was angry at herson who seemed to be walking away so casually. She called her son to stop.

"When did she go out ? Why do you come out so late?"

"Not long ago"

Yong-ju could not put up with his hesitation.

"When exactly was it?"

"If I had known exactly when, I could have made her stay."

Chung-u did not submit but challenged Yong-ju's severe remarks.

"You didn't even see her going out. What were you doing?"

"While I was on the phone, she disappeared."

"Who did you talk to? You were absorbed in talking with a girl, weren't you?"

Her son turned abruptly without responding to her and was gone. Yong-ju took some steps as if shewas going after him, and then turned toward her house. Right away she regretted her nasty treatment ofher son as if he had not usually behaved well. In fact, the contrary was true. She did not really know

why she had done so. She felt panicked, when she looked back at her recent shaky self-control.Reflected in the elevator mirror was a bit of white hair at the top of her head which stood forcefully asif it were stiff reeds. Reflexively she felt that her Ph.D. was an embarrassing thing like shabby clothes.The mirror in the elevator was more severely unkind than the one in the dresser or compact. It was so,especially when you looked into the mirror when you returned from work. When your shoulder, cheekflesh, eye-brows, even your hair which you had made bristled up with a hair dryer in the morningsagged down listlessly, that bloody white hair stood on end. It was the "Elder sister's arrogant doctorattitude," according to the cynical remark made by her sister whenever she had a chance. Though it wascommon to have white hair in one? late forties without being a doctor, her sister always made fun ofher that way, and that never failed to make Yong-ju feel scorned. Though nobody was at home, thedoor was not locked. Inside the house was chaotic.

'she should come back without much ado like last time' It was not just a day or two ago that she beganto feel that her mother's forgetfulness was serious. She had felt so even before she moved to thisapartment last year. When her mother went to a shop, she sometimes lost her way, since she couldn'tremember the numbers of her apartment. However, because it was a place where they lived for such along time, somebody recognized her and brought her home, or some apartment guard informed Yong-ju through the interphone. Besides, she was not like that always. She recovered as if nothing hadhappened, and could not believe herself so forgetful. She was even angry sometimes. However, theincident that had taken place after moving into this apartment even before they could sort things outwas very different from that sort of routine. It was after midnight when they found out that her motherhad gone out early in the morning when nobody was up. When they found her, they realized that herdeparture from the house was not an ordinary one, but a calculated running away. To Yong-ju'ssurprise she had a small bundle and some tired looking pocket money which had been hiddensomewhere. She was more stunned by the fact that the place where the highway patrol men found hermother was at the Uiwang Tunnel. The apartment to which Yong-ju moved was at Dunchon-dong.It was impossible to make her mother remember whether she walked or took some sort of a ride toUiwang Tunnel. Her mother's talk was incoherent. When they were notified, the whole family was sohappy that they rushed to the place right away. Especially, the sweet Kyong-a ran into the arms of hergrandmother, who looked at them with empty eyes with her bundle in her arms, and burst into tears.Chung-u embraced his grandmother's shoulders from behind and rubbed her cheeks, and Yong-ju'shusband took off his jacket to put it on the shivering old woman's shoulder to protect her from thecoldness of the autumn night. He, at the same time thanked the patrol men by bowing his head manytimes.

Yong-ju stepped aside a bit and did not move. She couldn't help herself when her heart went as coldas ice. With her children entwined with her mother, the expression of her mother's empty face slowlyrecovered. And she said, "My children, where have you been? Why are you so late ?" She alsoembraced them. Her mother's face became increasingly brighter. Chung-u and Kyong-a used toembrace their grandmother this way from the time when they were small. It was true that their workingmother could not stay home to give them chances to be spoiled, but they had found out all bythemselves that their grandmother liked that sort of embrace. Even after they had grown to think such

plays awkward, they used to use that embrace as a sign of thanks, when the side dishes theirgrandmother made were especially delicious, or when their grandmother waited and opened the doorfor them and offered something delicious they liked when they came back home late at night. That didnot mean that it was calculated cleverness on the part of the children. It was no more or no less thanhappiness of the children and their grandmother that made onlookers smile. It looked like suchcomplete mutual happiness that sometimes Yong-ju was jealous of them. But she was never temptedto imitate them awkwardly. Yong-ju only gave birth to them, and they were actually raised by theirgrandmother. Her mother had a sort of inviolable imposing attitude, if not a priviledge, of someonewho had achieved a very difficult task. Her naturalness with the children was almost animal-like. It wasso much so that whenever Yong-ju witnessed their endearment, Yong-ju felt as if her mother's softred tongue were licking the children, or warm soft fur enclosing the three bodies.

Yet it was different this time. Yong-ju was so sulky that she even thought she had to restrain herfeeling of grief. It was because of the Uiwang Tunnel. This different attitude of greeting the old womanbetween the family members seemed to be rashly interpreted by the highway patrolman as a conflictbetween mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

"Why do you run away from a home with such a loyal son and grandchildren ? Even though you wereupset about something, it was you who had to be patient. The world has changed. You should know thatyou are lucky, since your grandchildren ran to pick you up right away. Do you understand? What aterrible world this is! There are many offspring who deliberately desert their parents. Do you think suchchildren will show up when we tell them the whereabouts of their parents ? You may not believe this,but there are some young ones who move away from the place they used to live, so that nobody canreach them."

When Yong-ju's eyes met her husband?, she dropped her head. She had lost face, more so than if shehad been a bad daughter-in-law. The highway patrolman seemed to be so happy about having a goodoutcome that he went on talking pleasantly.

"I thought this old woman was exactly like the others who had been deserted. Though she made a fussabout going to her son's place stubbornly like a willful child, she pretended that she didn't even knowthe name of her son's neighbourhood, let alone his telephone number. It was exactly what otherdeserted old people would do. In the meantime, she thought of a telephone number, and so we made acall without much expectation. As we expected, we were told that there was no such person and theyhad moved in not long ago. It was exactly as we had expected. Nevertheless, with that number as aclue, we found your telephone number with much difficulty. But since we have a very good result, it isreally very nice."

It was so. Her mother's destination was as exactly as Yong-ju had figured out. Yong-ju left the placewithout uttering a word and decided to wait for them in her car. Behaving that way seemed to suit therole of a bad daughter-in-law. She also wanted to avoid her true identity being discovered by theguards. She counted on her husband to play the son's part well. Thinking that perhaps even her mothermight wish it to be that way, she smiled bitterly.

Yong-ju and her mother were not in-laws, but mother and daughter. Yong-ju's husband, therefore,was not her mother's son, but her son-in-law. Yong-ju herself was not sure when her mother startedthinking that it was disgraceful to live with her daughter. Maybe it started when her brother gotmarried. From that point on her relatives and acquaintances looked at her mother, who was still livingwith her daughter, with doubtful eyes. Especially, Yong-ju's maternal aunts often hinted at not onlytheir sympathy but their pity for her mother. They used to click their tongues, 'tut, tut" and whisperthese words : "Daughters's food is eaten while standing, whereas sons's food can be eaten seated."Whenever they did that, Yong-ju was so hurt that she wanted to spit on their superiority complex.They were not better off than her mother except that they stuck to their sons desperately. When she wasa young girl, she was most happy when she dreamed of fantastic success that would enable her tosupport her mother luxuriously. She couldn't achieve that much, but what made her miserable was thateven though she had achieved her success, it had nothing to do with her mother. She knew her motherbetter than any body else. Having worked with her own hands, not to earn her sons food, but to supporther children all her life, her mother acquired a sort of pride in her own dignified manner. She could notforgive anyone who insulted her mother's pride even if they were her mother's own flesh and blood.

Her brother Yong-tak was the youngest and was born after their father had passed away. He wasthirteen years younger than Yong-ju. Her mother could not have babies for more than ten years afterYong-ju had been born. And then she gave birth to Yong-suk and within a year she was pregnantagain. But before she delivered the baby, she had become a widow. All her father left was the house. Itwas in a countrylike, peripheral part of the city, but fortunately there was a university nearby and hermother could run a boarding house. From that time on Yong-ju was called the daughter of a boardinghouse, and as the daughter of the boarding house she did her part superbly as if she were born for it.She was so responsive to her mother's wishes, it was, as the Korean expression goes, as if she were apart of her mother's tongue. She not only ran errands like shopping for groceries, but she also deliveredburnt rice tea. Then she could change briquets for each room without their being extinguished. Aftershe became a senior high school student, she recorded house expenditures with her mother till late atnight; prepared the menu for the next day's breakfast; estimated monthly budgets; and worried abouther siblings' futures. In the season of the college entrance examination, they used to rent all availablerooms including the main room, and the family slept curled up like shrimps in the attic. For her mother,Yong-ju was rather a colleague than a daughter. They worked together and worried together. Thoughher only wish to make her mother's burden of responsibilities light made Yong-ju stern and strict toher siblings just like her mother, she was never jealous of or competitive with them. It was easy toimagine her siblings' complaint that she behaved as if she had been their own father.

Chung-u came back alone. He was listless. Since it was as Yong-ju had expected, she wasn'tdisappointed. Yet, with some firelike rage in her heart she jumped up.

"I am sorry, mother."

Surprised, her son got hold of her shoulders and apologized.

"I am not angry at you."

Yong-ju's thought that her mother might be at the Uiwang Tunnel again made her very angry. TheUiwang Tunnel was on the way to her brother's place. Her mother visited her son several times a yearat the most, and each time Yong-ju gave her a ride, she had to pass the Uiwang Tunnel fromKwachon where they used to live and from Dunchon-dong where she was living now. The onlyspecial characteristc of the road from their place to her brother's that her mother could remember wasthe Uiwang Tunnel. Some years after Yong-ju had settled in Kwachon, the Kwachon Tunnel and theUiwang Tunnel were constructed. Her mother adjusted quite well to the first apartment house to whichthey had moved from the large boarding house. Because they lived on the first floor, her mother had ayard to take care of. That made her less confined to the house. Her mother's area expanded from heryard to Mt. Chonggai and Mt. Kwanak. She drew spring water several times a day and since she wassuch an expert at gathering mountain vegetables, many old city-born neighbours admired and followedher. She was a member of the Spring Badminton Club, the Kwanak Aerobics Club, and the ChonggaiSenior Citizens' Club. Her mother complained a lot about those two tunnels that were to be constructedin her area. Especially the Uiwang Tunnel she abhorred, since the pronunciation of it was not easy.Around that time, a new apartment complex which could be reached through the Uiwang Tunnel wasconstructed and Yong-tak moved to one of those apartments. Yong-ju used to tell her mother thatthe tunnel was there only for her mother to go to Yong-tak's easily through a short cut when shewanted to go to him. And then her mother smiled brightly and was comfortable. In fact, theconstruction of the tunnel coincided with the time when her mother's forgetfulness became so seriousthat Yong-ju had to repeat her words countlessly.

"Yes, yes. The tunnel was constructed for me to go to chung-u's quickly? Oh my, I wonder who grantedmy wish so well."

The daughter and the mother might have exchanged this same dialogue more than several hundredtimes. However, it was not often that Yong-ju's mother had occasion to go to Yong-tak's place.Nobody told her, but she had known that nowadays she couldn't visit without being invited, even if itwas her own son's place.

How she had reached the Uiwang Tunnel on that day she never said. Maybe it was not that she didn't,but she couldn't. With the possible exception of the Uiwang Tunnel, nothing was clearly registered inher memory. Yong-ju couldn't believe that she had walked to the Uiwang Tunnel. Perhaps she walkedas well as using some sort of a ride. Yong-ju almost ran out and then came back to find the car key.

"Where are you going?"

"To the Uiwang Tunnel."

"Could she go there again?"

"Your uncle's is right beyond the tunnel. It wasn't a coincidence that your grandmother had been foundthere on that day."

"I know. But it could be because it was near Kwachon."

Chung-u was careful so that he might not offend Yong-ju. For whenever Kwachon was mentioned,Yong-ju was angry. The old woman's persistent obsession with Kwachon made Yong-ju confused.Her sudden expression of the wish to live under the protection of her son was virtually predestined. Infact, it was rather strange that it happened so late, since the wish was an age-old tradition of themothers of this land. However, Yong-ju could not understand her mother's strange love for Kwachon,which was merely an apartment complex even though they had lived there for over ten years. Becauseshe could not understand or explain her mother's strange obsession, she didn't want to accept it.

"If your grandmother likes Kwachon, that's because your uncle's place is very near to it."

Yong-ju unnecessarily and coldly asserted herself.

"If you were concerned about that uncle so much, why did you take our grandmother to our place?"

"By the way you talk, they would think that you regard her as someone from another family."

"Mother, calm down. It is you who thinks that way. Why do you really behave this way? It is not likeyou."

"I regret that I brought her here. It would have been better if I hadn'. This time I am not going to budgeeven if she is there again."

"Anyway it hasn't been an hour since she went out. How can she go there in an hour?"

"It is not likely that she walked to that place the last time."

"Don't you remember grandmother's feet that time?"

Chung-u spoke frowning a bit. Yong-ju remembered having cried after she helped her mother dip herblistered and bruised feet in the warm water. How indignant she was! How awfully far was it to herson's place for her mother? The long distance and the determination that she would get there in spite ofthat distance were altogether betrayed in those bruised and blistered toes. It was so pitiful and weirdthat Yong-ju couldn't sleep. After she spent the night with her eyes open, she called Yong-tak tofind out whether he could take her mother to his house. It was rather begging than asking. Before hegot married, Yong-tak always boasted that he would take care of his mother. Yong-ju did not tellhim that he didn't have to do it, but in her heart she was proud of him. It was not because someday hewould take care of her mother, but because she was thankful that her mother would not be a poorwoman who would be tossed from one of her children to another. Why should she ask in the tone ofbegging when her mother, as she was, was quite honorable? Yong-ju knew she shouldn't be begging.But she couldn't correct her attitude. Probably it was because Yong-tak's attitude was quite differentfrom her expectation. He did not express how he felt but only listened to what she said. And then after awhile he said, "You are not any different from others."It was rather ridiculing. She couldn't understandwhat he meant. Yet in spite of her uncomfortable feeling, she couldn't contradict him at all. She mighthave thought that she deserved the unpleasant encounter, for having complied with the ideology thatregarded elderly people who couldn't depend on their sons as the most pitiful creatures.

"I will have a talk with my wife and call you back."

She couldn"t help putting in a word for such an attitude.

"What is your idea? I would like to hear it."

"Isn't it my wife who will be taking care of her? I can tell her to, but I don't want to do that."

Yong-tak married a girl whom he had dated for several years. They had children now and werehappy. It was certain that her mother would be an unwanted member. On the one hand, she thought thatshe had to understand the fact that in order for them to receive the unwanted person, they had to beready psychologically in addition to the real preparation. On the other hand, she was uncomfortablesince she was disgusted with her brother, who didn't give any answer regarding that matter. How couldhe as the eldest son behave like that ? The unforgivableness of her brother's attitude mixed with theself-reproach that she felt regarding her own behavior, made her wonder whom she really had to blame.The change that took place in her mother was even more difficult to put up with. This difficult situationarose from Yong-tak's promise that he would be back soon to take her to his home. Nobody knewwhether they were empty words that sounded nice or it was Yong-tak's real intention. Her mothernow openly packed her belongings and anxiously awaited her son. She occasionally whispered, "Myson promised to come and take me and why is he so late," and she looked out the window nervously asif she were on a train platform, meeting family members with cold and unwelcoming eyes. Yong-jucouldn't stand it and had a talk with her sister-in-law directly so that she could take her mother to herplace.

However, in less than three months, her mother who couldn't endure Yong-tak's, returned to Dunchon-dong. It was not a question of her endurance, because her mother was losing her own will day byday. It was not her mother, but Yong-ju who could not endure.

Yong-ju, who had almost forced her brother to take her mother, couldn't help calling everyday.Whenever she called, her mother only repeated, "I would like to go to Kwachon. Please take me toKwachon."That could not sound sadder. Because Kwachon was the place where Yong-ju used to livebefore she moved to Dunchon-dong, Yong-tak or his wife seemed to interpret her words as herwish to go back to her daughter's place. Yet the couple behaved very well as if they would never ask Yong-ju to take her mother. Because Yong-ju felt uncomfortable about her mother staying at Yong-tak's, she was actually sorry that the couple did not ask her to take her mother. The reason Yong-juwas uncomfortable every single day since her mother had gone to Yong-tak's was that Yong-ju alsounderstood her mother's Kwachon obsession as a sign of her wish to come back to her daughter's.Remembering the long time she spent with her mother as a colleague and eldest daughter, Yong-jucould not possibly ignore her sad appeal. However, Yong-ju put up with it as she would with hunger.The willfulness of Yong-ju that "unless you beg me to take her back again, I wouldn't tell you withmy own lips that I would take her to our place," and Yong-tak's stubbornness that unless his sisterbegged and begged, he would not let his mother leave his house looked contradictory, but in fact theywere the same. What they waited upon was not their mother but an ideology that depending on adaughter or living with her until one dies while the son still lives is a glaring disgrace that should neverbe allowed to happen.

Whether she knew about this hidden contention between her daughter and son or not, her wish to behere while she was there got worse everyday. For their mother, whether it was her son or her daughterdid not make much difference. Kwachon for her was a place which was neither here nor there. Thoughher intellect seemed to be deteriorating, it might be that it was developing. Rather than being movedfrom her daughter's to her son's as if she had been a parcel, she fancied a buffer zone, Kwachon, andbegged to be sent there. At last her running away from home started at Yong-tak's. However, hiswife's precautions were so complete that every attempt at escape ended within the limits of thatapartment complex. Since Yong-tak's wife was the vice president of a women's committee, she knewmany people, and she was intelligent to boot. She dressed her mother-in-law in clothes that were not atall decent to put on when you go out. She said it was necessary to make her stay within a reachabledistance. Yong-ju's mother in pajamas or underwear was easily recognized by children and when theysaw her the message was to reach the guards of the apartment complex. With that sort of clothes, shecould not go beyond the watch of their building guard, let alone the guards of the complex. When, inspite of these precautions, their mother's attempt to escape from home did not stop, one more lock wasadded to Yong-tak's apartment door. Usual apartment doors could be opened from the inside, eventhough they were locked from the outside. However, on Yong-tak's door a lock that could only beoperated from outside was introduced. When Yong-ju saw that and was unhappy about it, Yong-tak's wife resented it and said with cold glassy eyes, that's what they had to do with her mother when allof them went out. Of course, as long as they did not hire a person to take care of their motherexclusively, such a device would be inevitable. In Yong-ju's view what Yong-tak's wife had donewas impeccably perfect. Yong-ju was afraid of her perfection, and she was horrified because in herimagination she could hear her mother scream with a fear many times greater than her own. In Yong-ju's mind, her mother was beccoming smaller and was wasting away. So far she could put up with it,but after several days one more lock was added for the purpose of locking her mother insider her ownroom. Her sister-in-law explained that she had to do that because her mother made a habit of goingaround the house whispering, opening all the doors in the house once she had realized that she couldnot go out of it. It must have seemed to her mother that that house had countless doors because sherepeatedly opened the doors of this room and that including those of closets or the bathroom.

"Here is a room, and there, too. What a house to have so many rooms. It is a pity that they are empty.She is a bad woman. She should have rented these rooms."

She whispered these words all day long, wandering around the house. Youngjoo's sister-in-law couldnot stand it any longer and locked her in her own room at last.

"You can imagine why I did it. I was so nervous that I couldn't live."

Her haggard and lonely appearance showed how terrible her part was in locking up her mother-in-law.However, Yong-ju was suffocating with hatred for her sister-in-law, who expressed this terriblestruggle with her mother-in-law, in which they were actually denying each other's personality, casually,as if it were something trivial that merely got on her nerves. Now Yong-ju did not expect theirrelationship to improve. Rather she wanted and waited for them to give up taking care of her mothersooner or later. But even that was not easy.

It was a day on which Yong-ju went to see her mother. As usual her sister-in-law greeted her with acold poker face and Yong-ju's face clearly showed that she was very sorry for the burden of herfrequent visits. Even after she served Yong-ju a cup of tea, her sister-in-law did not open her mother'sroom.

"Is my mother taking a nap?"

"If you want to know, why don't you go out through the balcony and look into her room?"

"What are you talking about ? You think it is a bother to open the door? It is much too much."

"I learned it from your mother."

Her sister-in-law for the first time showed tears in her eyes and complained. According to her, hermother-in-law's symptoms had gotten worse these days, and she was coming out through the balconyand looking into her son and daughter-in-law's room during the day as well as at night.

"When she sees me, she asks, 'Who are you?' Can you imagine how I feel then?"She did not explainhow she felt any more. However, Yong-ju thoroughly realized how terribly horrified she was. She felther heart cramp with rage and insult. At last Yong-ju went out through the balcony and looked intoher mother's room. Her mother stood in front of the mirror on the wall, stared at the old woman in themirror, and shouted, "Who are you? Go away at once!" stamping her feet. Just as her mother couldn'trecognize the woman in the mirror, so Yong-ju couldn't accept that the woman locked in that roomwas her own mother. It wasn't that she had become leaner or shabbier. She had on a comfortable dressthat was becoming on an old woman. That made her look neater than when she was in her underwear.But Yong-ju had never seen her mother's eyes more defensive than they were now. Her mother wasalways comfortable, as if she were a house with open doors. It was not only her eyes. Her small bodywas so tense that all her hair was on end as if she would attack and bite, if someone touched her a littlebit. Yong-ju could feel it as if it were her own body. How terrible it must have been for her mother toresist against this world all by herself.

Yong-ju did not ask her sister-in-law to open her mother's door. She went into the room through thedoor on the balcony. Her mother did not ask "Who are you?" Nor did she attack her. She ran into acorner of the room and stood there. She was afraid as if she had met a giant against whom she couldnever rebel with only her enmity trained by herself. Yong-ju embraced her mother. She smelled soapwhich was not bad at all. Everything in the room was simple but clean. On the wall there were twolandscape paintings. Since a bathroom was attached to this room, it must have been the masterbedroom. Immediately Yong-ju felt more than thankful for her brother's generosity, giving the masterbedroom to her mother. Yong-ju imagined that she should maintain that thankfulness. Yong-jupatted her mother who was small enough to be in her arms and began to caress her back. What Yong-ju caressed now might be not her mother's back but her own rage which was likely to rise at anymoment. She thought she had better take her mother, but she should explain it in good words to hersister-in-law and never should she speak to her with an angry face. Her brother was not there, but shedid not think him rude. She could more than fathom the inward suffering he must have undergonebetween his mother and his wife. There was an age difference between Yong-ju and her brother, but

the reason Yong-ju's feeling toward him was almost maternal, not just one between siblings, was thatshe had shared with her mother all those years the responsibility of ensuring that this poor posthumouschild would be raised as well as other kids. Yong-ju caressed her mother for a long time until hermother seemed to be choking, because Yong-ju was having such a difficult time repressing her rage.

That was how her mother came back to Dunchon-dong. Her mother recovered her own selfunbelievably fast. On the way driving home she had already dropped her defensive eyes, behavior, andunconditional doubt against everybody. Thus, her family could greet her as if she came back from herouting without thinking that her condition had become worse. Even Yong-ju couldn't decide whethershe herself was wrong, and whether her own attitude as a sister-in-law, biased against her brother'swife, prevented her from seeing the true state of her mother. She almost blamed herself secretly. Yet thefact that what she had to guard against most was her mother's running away from home did not changeat all. It was the same as ever. She tried not to let her mother stay home alone by herself. That was themost difficult part, since Yong-ju was not a full-time housewife. Kyong-a, a sophomore of a seniorhigh school was exempt from the duty of staying with her grandmother. Yong-ju and chung-u tookturns between themselves when they did not have classes. But that was far from enough. When Yong-ju or chung-u had something urgent to do, Yong-ju sometimes hired a part-time helper and sometimesher aunts came to help, but when her mother started to help with household chores once in a while, Yong-ju slackened the watch a little bit. Of course, the household chores her mother helped with weretrivial. For instance, she trimmed off bean sprouts, split Doraji roots, or distinguished Koreanmushrooms or brackens from the imported ones. She was annoyed when she was not allowed to dothose chores, and said why should she spare her body that would rot when she died. Yong-ju wasvery happy to hear her mother saying those words again. Those were the very words her mother saidvery often, when they had boarders. When Yong-ju heard those words she felt cozy and comfortable.It was like when, as a child, after waiting all day for her mother to return home, she would see hermother approaching the house as dusk was falling. Running to greet her mother, they would embraceand Yong-ju was wrapped in the warmth and safety of her mother's long, flowing skirts. She felt allthe more happy when her mother regained her dexterity in folding washed laundry. Her mother took theclothes from a laundry line when they were still a bit wet and folded them so carefully that evenunderwear seemed to have been pressed with an iron. That was the unique skill of her mother whichnobody could dare imitate. Her mother's hands were still strong and beautiful. Oh, Oh, my mother'shands that could fold laundry as if it were ironed! Speaking thus and caressing her mother's hands, shewas overcome with a warm impulse to adore and kiss her mother.

Although her mother did not recover her shaky memory that came and went, Yong-ju relaxed hervigilance. When she couldn't help it, sometimes she went out with only her mother in the house. It waspartly because she was so sorry to ask her aunts to take care of her mother too often and partly becauseshe was afraid that her aunts might instill the idea into her mother that one should die at one's ownson's. Yong-ju didn't believe that that unshakable conception once registered was erased in hermother's mind, so she wanted to refrain at least from reawakening it.

3

Lotus lanterns were hung from the eaves of that house.

It had been some months since a temple sign and a signboard, "Chongaesa"were put up at the house.Those lanterns encircled the eaves of the house and still there were more of them, so they preparedlines in the front yard to hang those remaining lotus lanterns from. It was the first Buddha's Birthday,the eighth of the fourth moon, after they had put up the temple signboard. Those lanterns, seen from thenative village, looked like pink balloons and raised the expectation that at any moment the house mightfloat to the sky on them. Since such an expectation was wild, but filled with pleasure, it brought to thewhole village like a warm breeze the atmosphere of a feast. Even before the lanterns were hung, thevillagers were happy without much reason that that house had been turned into a temple. Yet, no one inthe village worshipped there. More than half of the villagers regarded themselves as Buddhists. Someof them went to fortune tellers to divine their fortune, and others went to offer sacrifices to spirits. Butnobody belonged to that temple. And yet, when they saw so many lanterns hung there, they thought thatthe temple must have many followers and wanted to congratulate the people of the temple on it. It wasunlike the villagers. They seldom congratulated others on their success. Maybe they were glad becausethat house had been a fortuneteller's before it was turned into a temple. The villagers regarded a templeas being a peg above a fortuneteller's, and they also thought a temple would be better for the educationof their children. However, even when that house had been a foretuneteller's, they had not objected.They did not have to shun it, because the house was isolated from the village. When a stranger cameand asked which was the fortuneteller's, they used to say that it might be that old house over there,pointing out the house far beyond the wide field. There was no banner or a signboard that indicated theexistence of a fortuneteller, but everybody in the village knew it was a fortuneteller's. They alsoguessed that it was a woman who told fortunes there from the questions of people looking for thehouse. Nobody seemed to know whether the fortuneteller was pretty or ugly and whether she was reallygood at fortunetelling or not. Most people of the native village often went to fortuneteller since theirbusinesses were not thriving. For some going to a fortuneteller was their only hobby. But nobodyseemed to have gone to that house. It seems that it was not only Jesus Christ who was not recognized inhis own town.

On Buddha's Birthday only the village children went to the front of the house and looked inside. Just aslight things are first to fly on the wind, so the childrens' hearts leapt up with the atmosphere of thefeast, but the adults of the village did not budge. Those who celebrated Buddha's Birthday as a holidaymight have left for their temples far away by bus or subway train. The gate of the house was wide openand a small golden Buddha with a gentle smile sat on a silk cushion inside the main room behind thesliding door. Many worshippers were busy looking for the lotus lantern which had their familymember's name on its tag. The colorful traditional Korean dresses they wore were beautiful to look at.

The monk of that temple was a bhikkuni, a Buddhist nun. The fortuneteller of the house before and thenun now were the same person. Even the Buddha was the same one that the fortuneteller hadworshipped. The only difference was that the golden color of the Buddha was brighter since it had been

newly painted. The worshippers of the temple were those customers who had patronized the placewhen the house was a fortuneteller's and some new worshippers attracted by the report of thosecustomers that the Buddha of the house was all-powerful. The customer-worshippers did not think itstrange, nor were they reluctant to come because the fortuneteller had turned into a nun. When she wasa fortuneteller, she had had a Buddha and they believed that her insight or her faculty to prophesizecame from the Buddha all the same. The procedure of bowing to the Buddha before they were told theirfortune and bowing once again after the fortunetelling did not change even after the house became atemple. It was all the same now as then. Those who sought her came there hoping to gain some insightrelated to the advancement of their children or the honor of their husband, from some words carelesslythrown by her. Because they identified her magic power with that of the Buddha, and because they hadcalled her 'Posallim' respectfully, when she actually had been only a fortuneteller, they were not at allreluctant to call her 'Venerable Chayun'when she became a nun.

The only change was that a day was newly established for Buddhist sermons once a month. TheBuddhist sermons were given by a monk from Chongaesa. The monk also came down from Chongaesawhen there was a Buddhist sacrifice requested by a worshipper or on such holidays as Buddha'sBirthday, New Year's Day, the seventh day of the seventh moon, and the forty-ninth day after a person'sdeath. However, the devotees of the temple did not know where that Chongaesa was. They onlyassociated it with a temple in a beautiful mountain far away, on account of Chayun's polite attitudetowards him and from her expression, "coming down." But the devotees did not trust the monk fromChongaesa. He had a dignity that became his age, but he never showed any magic power of prophesy.Among devotees there was sometimes a wife of a high standing official who wanted to hide heridentity and that he had a superior faculty to see through it was the general opinion of the followers. Bysuch a faculty he did not add anything to his dignity, and it rather harmed the friendship of thedevotees. They regarded him as a necessary part of a temple and hoped that Chayun would be soon begood at Buddhist invocations. Chayun never expressed it but it was known among the followers thatshe was studying to enter a Buddhist university.

Even though the venerable Bopmun had not come down from Chongaesa yet, they were busypreparing food in the kitchen in a big bronze pot. All sorts of fruits, traditional Korean cookies, andfancy rice cakes from a rice cake shop were spread richly in the pantry that was attached to the kitchen.Since it was the eighth day of the fourth moon, Buddha's Birthday, they were going to treat thedevotees to lunch as well as supper. There were enough hands to make soup and vegetable dishes. Thevoice of Makum's mother who was in charge of the whole preparation was so oily and passionate thatthe fact that she was almost seventy was unbelivable. Makum was the secular as well as registeredname of the nun Chayun. This might have been the first proud and happy day for Makum's mothersince she had given birth to Makum. Makum's mother only gave orders and all the work was done byher daughters-in-law. As Makum's mother wrote a list of things to buy, her son-in-law went to thewholesale market in Seoul to buy them in no time at all. If this business continued to thrive at this rate,they might have to tear this house down and build a bigger one, or find a place for a temple somewhereelse within two or three years. Only the thought of that made Makum's mother exultant. Her eyeslooking around the house were greedy and profound. There was an uncomfortable element too. She

was afraid that when the haunted house, turned into a blessed one, started to bring fortune as if a fireflamed, meddling with the house might chase away that blessing. That's why she was careful. However,surging greed always gets the upper hand of carefulness. There already was a rough agreement betweenold core followers and priest Bobmun that on the occasion of this happy day they should announcemake official their plan to build a new Buddhist temple. This agreement seemed to mean that herproject was almost half done all the same. Though it hadn't been long since Makum's mother hadwoken up to this sort of business that gave people comfort and hope, what she had mastered was thefact that in terms of income, there wasn't any other business that was easier or that suited the oldsaying, "Well begun is half done."

While Makum's mother was sitting in the pantry, giving instructions, she was also busy roughlycalculating the amount of money that would be collected as offerings for lanterns and the additionalmoney that would be offered before the Buddhist altar. Her expression changed whimsically, smilingand trifling. On the one hand she was so proud of this business, which was well on its way, that shewondered whether she was dreaming. On the other hand, she was indignant at the thought that this wasnothing compared with some other big temple that was said to have so much money on a day like thisthat they had to push and press the money with feet into a straw bag.

She also did not like the loose and careless look of Chayun. She was disgusted with her and had a hardtime putting up with this daughter who didn't seem to realize that in order for this business to thrive,mother-daughter cooperation was essential. This daughter never once gave a glance toward her mother,much less made any physical contact. To whom did she owe what she was? How dare she despise herown mother, now that she had become a dragon from a child of scorn? But there were enough reasonsfor her daughter to behave like that, and so she watched her daughter out of the corner of her eye whileshe was not in front of her. However, when she was face to face with her daughter, she flattered her.That was not proper for her to do, and her daughter might be avoiding her for this reason. Thus, thatthey did not even allow their eyes to meet was a sort of tacit understanding between daughter andmother. Makum's mother only came when there was a Buddhist ceremony or an offering for the dead.On usual days she allowed Chayun to live alone. However, whether she was a fortuneteller or Chayun,the fact that she was the only source of income for her family never changed. Not only the daughter didnot meet her mother's eyes, but also she was reluctant to talk to her mother. But she allowed her motherto use her purse. She didn't care about that. She did not know how much she made a day. If she startedto calculate the amount, then she might have to tell her family. So to avoid that, she might have trainedherself that way. She was the breadwinner of the family and her money was also her mother's.

Makum's mother was an authentic native of the village. She knew about the house from its prehistoricperiod. But she did not live in the native village now. She lived in an apartment that looked down uponthe native village as if it were an eyesore. Makum's mother was born somewhere around that areabefore the native village was created, about the time when that village was an agriculturalneighborhood. She got married there and lived a difficult life. Even then that house stood in the middleof a field. Makum's mother, born in a house that was inferior to that house, married someone from afamily poorer than her own. She had nothing to do with the house. She left the village for the first time

during the Korean War. When she came back, many changes had taken place. There was much changein population and there were many empty houses. That house still stood there, more dilapidated andempty. They said that because the owner of the house had fiercely taken the side of the communists, allhis family members were killed. As they were murdered in that house by people with grudges, peoplewho knew the history regarded the house as a haunted one and avoided passing it. They insteaddetoured around the house. Sometimes it sheltered beggars. The house became more fearful. So muchtime elapsed and the population of the village changed so much that there was no one who rememberedthe affairs that had taken place during the Korean War. However, the legend of the house as a hauntedone persisted with exaggeration. Though Makum's mother and her husband, a day labourer of anorchard, had five children and still lived in the village without a house of their own, Makum's mothernever dreamed of, or eyed the house even for a night's comfortable rest. That house was only a hauntedplace, not a house.

A feeble coil of smoke started to rise from the chimney of the house one day. Nobody showed anyinterest that it might be occupied by some passing beggars. It was even before the village took shape.Though there were some scattered houses in the wide field and orchard, there was every sign that thecountryside would be impoverished. Then nobody expected that the price of land in that area wouldsoon be soaring high. When the appearance of the house began to show that it was inhabited bysomeone, it was Makum's mother who started watching it. There was no one except her who couldrecognize that the occupant of the house was the brother of the murdered owner. He had been a youngman during the civil war. Since he had been so shocked by witnessing the death of his brother's familyand did not have any dependents, he had entered the Buddhist priesthood and after having stayed at atemple for almost twenty years, he had returned to the world. Makum's mother did not have anyintention of harming him at the beginning, but just to know his identity made her itchy. For sheharboured an obscure expectation that someday the information would be very useful. Fuelled by therising land prices of the neighbourhood around the house, the mental attitude of Makum's motherwatching the house became more tense day by day. It seemed that the reason the man, who had spenthis youth in a temple, turned his back upon it was not because he found a way of living in this mundaneworld. A signboard indicating a zen temple decorated the house. He must have made manyacquaintances during his priesthood. Intelligent looking men frequented the place steadily, if not veryoften. When Makum's mother and her husband went to the house to do miscellaneous jobs, she learnedthat those people visited the house to study Chinese characters or Buddhist chanting. Every month therewas a regular meeting with many attendants. Makum's mother offered her daughter, who had barelyfinished grammar school, to run errands for the house, in order to reduce the burden of supporting herfamily. It was a time when even securing enough food for the family was not easy. If she could not sendher daughter on to a junior high school, she ought to let her acquire a skill. But since Makum, from thetime when she was small, used to excite pity and sometimes showed a strange capacity for pinpointingthe future of others, Makum's mother thought that if she could learn a bit of Buddhist chanting, it mightbe useful. That was why she sent her daughter to that house.

In those days people called the village the "western-style house village" People of the village kept thathouse at a distance and called the strange man of the house, who was not mank or an ordinary man, a

master. Of course, no one in the village went to the house to study the Buddhist chanting or cultivatemoral sense.

Not long after Makum went to that house as an errand girl, the master raped her. Since Makum did notwant to be raped again, she confessed it to her mother. With fierce rage Makum's mother threatened theman, and with future extortion in her mind she helped him to gain possession of the house and the fieldin front of it legally. At last Makum became the owner of the house and the master procured the emptyfield. It was good for both of them. Makum became a man-hater from the incident, but her ability todetect other people's thoughts from their expression or their way of speaking grew sharper. Makum'smother made the most of Makum's ability and made her a shaman. However, since Makum waswhimsical and not greedy, that business did not thrive as well as Makum's mother had wanted. But theincome was good enough for her and her sons who did not work and depended entirely on their shamansister. The master, who had bought a temple and had gone back into the mountain with the money hehad obtained from the sale of the field in front of the house, helped with the transformation of the housefrom a shaman's to a temple. Makum also complied with the plan without resistance. It was Makumherself who first suggested she should study.

However, she was too old to begin studying and she was not interested in studying as she was notinterested in money. She did not believe in anything except intuition. But she wanted to escape by anyexcuse and go somewhere else. What she vaguely wanted to escape from might not have been theplace, but the people with whom she had been connected up until then. The people she had met werethose whose only obsession was to take from others wealth or position by hook or by crook, whetherthey were her own flesh and blood or others. She had divined that fact quite early, and it was the mostimportant source of her fortunetelling. However, it seemed to her that that was not all that humanbeings were capable of. Though she never gave birth to a child, she used to think a mother was notsupposed to be like that, when she saw her own mother. That was really painful. Her honest innerthought told her that a mother should not be like her own mother, and that was what the calm smile ofBudhha agreed to when she, awakened from sleep in the middle of the night, faced him.

No matter how much income they had, after Buddha's Birthday the temple was as silent as a templecould be. Those lotus lanterns should have been brought inside to the ceiling of the main room, but asthey floated in the wind, it seemed as if one had a pond upside down above one's head. Chayun lookedup at the sky and smiled. She went to the backyard to collect some vegetables. There had been so muchfood, but because the rice cakes had been given to the worshippers and the side dishes had all beentaken by her family, nothing was left for her. Makum's mother, who never once saw her daughter reallyenjoy food, did not try to make something for her to eat. She was only eager to take everything withher, saying that if she didn't, the food would spoil. And as though she thought that her daughter wouldcook some delicious food for herself, she never forgot to threaten her daughter that if she yearned formeat or fish, she should get over the yearning. Otherwise the followers would leave her. Since Chayunwas not interested in cooking and did not learn how to cook properly at an early age, cooking carelesslyso as not to starve to death was her settled way, fixed like a habit. It was not she who had planted theseeds in the backyard, and she did not know how to cook those vegetables. She plucked as many as she

could grasp with her hand. While she was trimming them, an old woman came in gently. At a glance,Chayun knew that she had not come for a fortunetelling. Though her clothes were out of season, herradiant face was bright without reason. The old woman scolded the priestess, smiling.

"You don't even know how to trim vegetables. How did you grow up like that!"

She sat down quite naturally opposite the nun and started to trim the vegetables. The nun learned forthe first time that they should be trimmed by taking off the skin from the soft stem.

"Since you don't know how to trim, you surely wouldn't know how to wash them. You should washthem like this."

Then she carried them to the running water and washed them roughly, crushing them and turning thewater green. She said, "I don't suppose you have the water from the first wash of rice. Bring me somerice." She washed the rice a couple of times, crushed it, and obtained the milky washing water. Andthen she looked around the old-fashioned kitchen and said over and over again how nice it was. Shestarted to cook rice and took some soy sauce from an earthen jar on the terrace to make soup. All heractions were dexterous and without interruption, as if she were doing her old household chores. Thenun tried very hard to guess the identity of the strange old woman, but she could not get any clue. Sheknew from her long years of experience that unless an answer came through intuition at once, shecouldn't discover anything by thinking long. But for her the failure was not at all disappointing. Shewas rather merry as if happiness crawled up her spine. It was the first such feeling she had everexperienced in her life.

At the table set by the old woman, they sat facing each other like close friends. The old woman's soupwas so delicious that the nun had a whole bowl of rice with the soup. The old woman insisted on herhaving some more, telling her how weak she was. She made it very confusing who was the guest. Fromthe time the old woman came into this place, she was as natural as if she had come into her own home.When the nun saw the old woman, who was worried about the next meal, whispering, "For supper Ihave to prepare something she will like," she secretly wanted to be a child again. This feeling was alsonew to her. Since nobody had really cared for her before, she was enraptured, without a sense of reality,as if she were dreaming a nice dream. In the evening she even went to get some groceries for the oldwoman. She went to the shop in the village to buy tofu, bean sprouts, and small dried fish. Then shewent into the kitchen and prepared supper with the old woman. She scolded for having poured out toomuch of the precious sesame oil. She scolded a lot, but she was not afraid of her at all. It was a marvelthat a human being, an old woman, could be so straightforward. At night they spread the futons on thefloor and lay down side by side. The nun held the old woman's hand softly because she was worriedthat just as she had come in without hindrance, she might go out without hindrance. Her hands weresmall, rough and yet soft. "would you like to listen to a fairy tale?" the old woman asked, taking thehand of the nun.

"Once upon a time there lived a widow with a small child. The widow found a lover. Every night shewent to bed with her clothes on so that she could go out as soon as her child fell asleep. When her childfound out that her mother secretly went out every night, the child went to sleep with her mother's

blouse string tied to its wrist tightly. When the child fell into fast sleep, the mother cut the blouse stringwith a pair of scissors and went out like the wind."

"It is too sad, granny."

Speaking thus, Makum fell asleep. Waking from a sound sleep that gave both mind and body a verygood rest, she found it was already morning.

The old woman was not beside her. But she heard signs of someone moring around. The old womanwas folding laundry. She said, "When you get old, it is time to die. Didn't I forget to bring in thelaundry before I went to sleep?" She caressed the laundry that was moist from the night dew and thenfolded it neatly. Makum heard her saying, "Later on these should be out in the sun. That would makethem dry,"and wondered how such a precious treasure had walked into her house. The more shethought of it, the more wonderful it was. Her underwear and monk's habit, which were hanging twistedlike dried whiting as they had been wrung out after being washed, became neat and tidy as if they hadbeen ironed.

Life with the old woman was comfortable and sweet as a dream, but the nun decided not to be curiousabout where this old woman had come from and where she would go. Nothing regarding her identitywas known except the fact that she acted even more freely than the real owner of the place, as if it wereher own. In a word, what she said about her past was incoherent. It did not seem that she was doing thaton purpose. When she was caught with what she said and asked questions, she tried to think ofsomething with a confused face. But she got tired pretty soon and digressed. Once, while she wasstaring at the Buddha, she said that the Christians were also good, because when she was almost dyingwith an illness on the street, she woke up to the prayers of Christians. When the nun wanted to knowmore about that the following day, she spoke about something very different. While she was looking ata green house far away, she said the reason why her back was aching these days was that she had spentthe winter there. That was also incoherent, but it didn't seem to be complete nonsense. What the nuncould gather intuitively was only that the memory of the old woman went off and on. However, it wascertain that she was satisfied with this way of life. When she said, "just as a fish is comfortable in thewater where he used to play, so human beings are comfortable in the place where they used to live,"full of satisfaction and in a relaxed attitude, stretching herself and raising her arms, the nun wonderedwhether the old woman had come back to this house where she had lived a long long time ago. Thatthought did not make her unhappy at all. Everything was all right, if she only imagined that she herselfwas the granddaughter of this granny from a long time ago and now she didn't belong to this world, butto a previous existence.

However, at times when she saw the old woman looking far into the mountains with empty eyes andwhispering, "my son promised to come to take me soon. Why is he so late ?" Chayun's heart suddenlysank and she felt really bad. It was not because she was worried about her son coming to pick her upbut because she thought the old woman might have been deserted by her own son.

4

Yong-ju's guess that her mother might have gone in the direction of the Uiwang Tunnel again was notcorrect. She spent the night with eyes open and after enquiring in every possible place she could havegone to, she notified the police. She also notified the division of family and welfare at both the villageand district offices. She also learned for the first time that there are telephone numbers that exclusivelydeal with missing people. Though she enquired everywhere, time passed without any result. Sheadvertised in a newspaper and also advertised on the radio several times during prime time through anacquaintance of her husband. Though she had some information from several places, it turned out to benothing reliable. How many times did she rush to Suwon station, crying, when she heard that hermother was begging at the station. There was a prank phone call that said, "because I am now buyingthe granny a bowl of noodle soup, you should come with the money for it," and hung up without tellingthe place. She asked the prosecution authorities to search among the persons who had met an unnaturaldeath. As a result, she had to undergo the humiliation of viewing the bodies of other old people severaltimes. Such insulting jobs were mainly done by her brother or husband. Even if she had done all shecould, she could not sit and wait. Yong-ju couldn't stay home for a moment and couldn't helpsearching the likely places where her mother had possibly gone. Her house was in terrible shape. But asa result, she learned her mother had shown up a couple of times in Kwachon. Because they had livedthere for such a long time, there were many acquaintances at Kwachon. One of them said that he hadcome across Yong-ju's mother, but thought that she was on her way back home after a visit and soonly greeted her. Since she looked tidy and merry as usual, one never guessed she had been lost. If hehad known the fact, he would have detained her and gotten in touch with them. Yong-ju was sodepressed she felt like stamping. Though it seemed a bit late, she decided to advertise in the fliers thataccompany the newspapers. She spent all her time for many days visiting every single newspaperdistributor in Pyungchon, Sanbon, and Anyang, towns around Kwachon. And then since it dawned onher that the newspaper subscribers would not pay much attention to those advertisement pages, shedecided to advertise through posters. Even if Yong-ju's family took the range of her mother's usualactivities into account and placed posters around those areas, it was such a big job that her familymembers could not undertake it alone. However, it was a relief that there was something that she coulddo, to work her fingers to the bone for her mother.

Since it was a time-consuming job that needed many hands, the manpower was far too short with onlythe members of Yong-ju's family. To share the job and to exchange ideas of better ways, Yong-ju'ssister and brother often met. When they met, there used to be a flood of words and the arrows of blamepointed at Yong-ju. Though Yong-tak often said, "What's a sinner like me to say," his family lookedmost honourable. His wife never meddled in carrying out things specifically and kept her distancecoldly. But Yong-ju used to feel her sister-in-law's cynicism that seemed to show that she had nothingto say since it had now been proven that the best way to keep their mother was having locks on doorsand gates. Yong-suk must have perceived it also.

She said to Yong-ju, "you should have put up with it. You put on airs and took mother from Yong-tak's. That only freed them of a burden. Undoubtedly Yong-tak's wife must gloat over this event."

"Is it time to figure out who is to blame? We do not even know whether or not our mother is alive. Itried to figure out what our mother would have wanted. I always thought about that first. I not expectedthis, but I do not think I had made a mistake."

"Oh, nobody can stop my doctor sister's snobby attitude. Didn't a policeman assure us that if ourmother had passed away, we would have been notified right away? By the fingerprints?"

"What does that have to do with a doctor?"

"Is there any one of us who exploited our mother as thoroughly as you did? You had an ambition to bea doctor and so you never let her be free from your housework. And then what a plight you have"

How different her sister was from her mother. To whom did they owe their university education? . . .Her mother was proud of her efforts dedicated to her children's education, but she always gave half ofthe credit to her eldest daughter, and she was sorry for her eldest daughter's sacrifice. Unless Yong-juheard her mother's lament that if Yong-ju hadn't been forced to play the part of a boarding housedaughter, she could have become a doctor and unless she wanted to satisfy her mother's grudge, shenever could have thought of studying for her doctoral degree so late in life. She met her husbandamong the boarders, as becomes a boarding-house daughter. Because he married her knowing the stateof her house so well, even after she, a boarding-house daughter, became a middle-school teacher, he didnot mind living with her family at all. About living with one's wife's family, which they say men wantto avoid at all costs, her husband never felt uncomfortable and did his best so that other members of thefamily would not be sorry or uncomfortable. If somebody asked him about his family, his answer thathe lived with his mother-in-law was as good as that of those women who live with their mothers-in-law. Yong-ju couldn't be too proud of such a husband. Her mother also liked such a son-in-law. It washer husband who thought of her mother most.

Yong-suk wanted to speak ill of such a brother-in-law. The warm spring days continued. Those wereenlivening days, when she didn't have to shiver even when she imagined that her mother might besleeping outside. Yong-ju's husband said with a sad face that he louged to have the soup that hismother-in-law used to make with sour pickled radishes. Everybody knew that her mother's soup wasunparalleled and though Yong-ju's husband spoke with a grave face almost crying, he spoke of it infront of Yong-suk of all persons. Youngsook leapt up suddenly from her seat and was very angry. Shesaid, "Even if his house maid had left, he could have spoken better than that." If what her husband hadsaid was so insulting and despising to her mother, what was the image of her mother that her sistercherished? Because Yong-ju missed her mother ardently when she remembered her folding laundryso very neatly, she could understand her husband well enough.

The time slipped away and it was almost half a year since her mother had left home. Early summer hadcome. Though countless posters were printed, Yong-ju knew that they were far, far from enough tocover Seoul and all its suburbs. It was a long time since she had had the last offer of information.Visiting institutions for old people scattered here and there and posting fliers at the same time almostbecame Yong-ju's daily routine. There were many private institutions that were not registered withthe Ministry of Health and Welfare. She had to depend on word-of-mouth to find such places. It was on

her way back from such a place which she had found with difficulty, in one of the uncharacteristicsuburbs of Seoul, that Yong-ju somehow wanted to take a rest. She got off the bus and took a deepbreath. The air did not seem to be especially fresh. It was at the dirty entrance of a village. While shewas thinking of putting up a poster in this village, she saw a detached house far away. It was a marvelthat such an old house still stood in a village around Seoul. Though it was not a cultural treasure butonly an old one, Yong-ju, driven by a strange force, went closer and closer to it. While going forwardshe hesitated, wondering what force drove her toward it. All of a sudden she remembered the boardinghouse in Chongamdong. The thought of the boarding house dawned on her, despite the fact that therewere no similarities.

With a deep breath she saw the signboard, Chongaesa, together with her mother's sweater fluttering ona clothes line. Yong-ju, gasping, went into the house as if swallowed by it. Lotus lanterns hung fromthe ceiling of the main room and the golden Buddha revealed the house to be a temple. Everything elsewas exactly like other country houses. In the large main room in front of the Buddha, under the lotuslanterns, two women in monks' habits were peeling roots, talking to each other in affectionate whispers.A perfectly amicable atmosphere rose around the two women like a shimmer of heat. It may have beenbecause the monk's habit was so big on her, that her mother looked like a butterfly taking a rest with itswings folded. No, no, it was not the big monk's habit. It was the freedom of shedding the weight andthe scraps of her life. Until now who could ever make her mother so free and happy? How wonderful itwas an the old woman over seventy still looked so innocent without any trace of life's sordidness!

This can't possibly be real, I am looking at an illusion, thought Yong-ju. She could not even take astep forward, though her mother was a very short distance away. Because where Yong-ju stood waswhere reality was. Because however small or transparent it might be, the gap between reality andillusion could never be spanned, since they were two entirely different worlds.