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 materials
from which it was made, or the way the owners took care of it. This feeling had a deeper, hidden
source. If the house were a human being, we could say that the feeling was not some temporary
impression that depended on culture, character, or clothes, but rather an inherent, unalterable quality at
the core of that human being. Because of that feeling, some of the neighbours were attracted to the
house and others made a detour to avoid it. Though the house was isolated from its neighbours, it was
on the way to the mineral spa and also on the short cut to the subway station. By administrative
structure 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 with
Korean style roofs could be found there. The unrepaired and dilapidated flat roof houses which had
been in fashion in the sixties coupled with a dirty narrow alley only made the village seem very ugly
and older than it actually was.
Perhaps the children in the newly established apartment complex may have accepted the term old
village 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 the
prehistoric period on an island in the South Pacific or some distant parts of Africa. However, this
village was at the most no more than thirty years old. When developers and land owners collaborated to
create this new village in the middle of an empty field, the area was occupied by fruit and vegetable
farmers. The farmers called the village a western style house village. Since the flat roof houses that
looked like strict squares of cut tofu pieces were a novelty to them and in addition, those houses taking
pride in their shining tile outside their walls elicited envy from the farmers, they praised the village as
highly as they could. It took less than thirty years for the western style house village to degenerate into
the old village.
That house was there even before the western-style-house village was born. Just like a trace of blood
fallen from the lingering wish of an agricultural village around there that was fast disappearing, the
house, in spite of the traces of repeated reconstruction and add-ons, never lost its die-hard rustic air. It
was a U-shaped house with a wide main hall, and its beams and pillars were of wood, but the roof was
of grey slate. The disharmony of the soiled wood and slate roof was oddly in harmony with the
disharmony between the outer paper door with plucked window panes and newly installed main room
sliding doors. Someone who had lived in the village for a long time may possibly have remembered
that 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 where
few families had lived for more than five years. The epithet, the old village, was not suitable to this
village and the houses there, since the moves of the dwellers in the village were more frequent than
those of apartment denizens. According to the statistics of the city, the average residence of the village
was shorter than that of apartment occupants by one and a half years. Maybe it was the trick of real
estate 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. Those
who understood that redevelopment could not be carried out without a strong leader who was dedicated
to the business, but did not know the way or did not have the capacity to take a lead, took their houses
to the real estate agents to sell, and even those who expected to have some chances and still had some
lingering hopes, rented their houses and left the village. When they discovered the only advantage on
which 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 the
children of the apartment complex the native village kids looked somehow different. Even though they
had not thought of them as different at first, once they found out that the children they knew were from
the native village, the apartment kids seemed to doubt the authenticity of the stories of computer games
they had talked about together. With this sense of betrayal they became reluctant to play with the native
village kids. If there had been a child in that house, the child would have been rejected by the other kids
in the village, who would have been as reluctant as the apartment kids. However, there has never been a
child in that house. There might have been a child when the house was occupied by a farmer. But
nobody could prove it, as it belonged to the prehistoric period of the house.

That there wasn't a parking space at that hour was nothing new, but Yong-ju repeatedly told herself
that 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 both
the playground and the green oval shaped field nearby was reserved for children riding bicycles or
roller skating. Originally, parking wasn't permitted there. It was no use at all even after they drew lines
for parking there. Just for a while the parking spaces seemed to be enough, but after several days it was
all the same. Fortunately enough she found a nice parking space where it was very easy to pull the car
out early in the morning. Picking up a load of things from the passenger seat, Yong-ju mouthed again
that she was sick and tired. There was nothing special in her load. Her jacket, an age-old handbag, and
several books which were like her friends from the period she was a part-time instructor. Today two
pumpkins were added to her usual load. After she hesitated a bit she bought them, since those old
pumpkins in a pyramid shape heaped along the country road looked very nice. Even though she didn't
ask 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 would
surely make pumpkin gruel.
Yong-ju was hoping that her mother would be excited about making pumpkin gruel, but suddenly her
mind became blank. And then she asked herself, "Could she still make pumpkin gruel? I should not
think of testing my mother with this trifling pumpkin. I have to understand. How can anyone be excited
every time she makes vegetable dishes after trimming the vegetables, and a fish dish by boiling fish
with soy sauce or salting it, and moreover, when she has repeated it every day for over fifty years? If
my mother can, that is rather strange. Even if she was tired of it and so wasn't interested in things, why
did I look at her with doubt?" Yong-ju stopped picking up her load and then rested her head on her
steering wheel. Her blank fear was toward herself, not her mother. After six years of part-time
instructorship and three years after she received her Ph. D., she managed to become a full-time
instructor. Though her university wasn't located within metropolitan Seoul, she wasn't in a position to
choose. She may have been in a hurry because of her age, even though she didn't have to earn a living
by 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 the
used car she used to have, she bought a brand new one two years ago. However, she was on the verge
of fifty. She would speed toward fifty as if she were on a slide. Everyone except those who were not
familiar with the university situation ought to have known that she should have been thankful that as a
woman she could secure a full-time teaching position at a university at that age. For the first semester
Yong-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 who
hadn't known the fact that the worth of a professor or Ph.D. was too low. Why were her eyes open
now ? If I had known it, I wouldn't have gone through that suffering. However, she was disgusted when
she thought that it might be the price of women who chose to study as their aim. What she meant by
worth was not the salary, which was too low when she took the time and efforts into consideration, but
the respectability. Some friends openly belittled her and said, "Did you work your fingers to the bone to
get a Ph.D., so that you could have no better position than one at a rural university?" Yong-ju could
dismiss them by saying that their idea of the value of knowledge is only to enable them to live in Seoul
for 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 this
dissatisfaction to the inferiority of her students or her limited knowledge. However, she became
melancholy and felt empty by belittling knowledge itself. In a word, she was sickeningly undergoing
emotional disturbance.
Yong-ju had chosen for her dissertation topic the poems of Ho Nansolhon because she was
attracted to them. The reason she became enamoured of them was she was moved greatly by Ho
Nansolhon's short life. To be moved by Ho Nansolhon did not take much knowledge. Yo
ng-ju's knowledge about her family background or the period of time in which she lived was no more
than that of the average person. Of course, with Yong-ju's limited command of Chinese it was
impossible 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 the
social factors of the period which had contributed to the premature death of a remarkable woman never
recognized properly by her society. However, the thesis had to be written on the basis of facts that
could be proven and had clear sources. Imagination was not necessary. Her thesis advisor, who
encouraged Yong-ju, a middle school teacher, to enter graduate school to start her research, guarded
against Yong-ju's imagination. Yong-ju hated to listen to her professor's often repeated advice that
while she was writing a thesis she should not have an illusion of writing a novel. While she did
research on Nansolhon and accumulated knowledge befitting a doctoral candidate, the
attractiveness and inspiration of Nansolhon disappeared completely and Yong-ju became sick and
tired of her. In the end, all Yong-ju had left of her former fascination with Ho was a bit of dry
knowledge 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 the
sound of her son knocking on the car window. Chung-u was in a shabby training suit and had on
slippers.
"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 her
son 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 she
was going after him, and then turned toward her house. Right away she regretted her nasty treatment of
her 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 as
if 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, cheek
flesh, eye-brows, even your hair which you had made bristled up with a hair dryer in the morning
sagged down listlessly, that bloody white hair stood on end. It was the "Elder sister's arrogant doctor
attitude," according to the cynical remark made by her sister whenever she had a chance. Though it was
common to have white hair in one? late forties without being a doctor, her sister always made fun of
her that way, and that never failed to make Yong-ju feel scorned. Though nobody was at home, the
door 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 began
to feel that her mother's forgetfulness was serious. She had felt so even before she moved to this
apartment last year. When her mother went to a shop, she sometimes lost her way, since she couldn't
remember the numbers of her apartment. However, because it was a place where they lived for such a
long time, somebody recognized her and brought her home, or some apartment guard informed Yongju through the interphone. Besides, she was not like that always. She recovered as if nothing had
happened, and could not believe herself so forgetful. She was even angry sometimes. However, the
incident that had taken place after moving into this apartment even before they could sort things out
was very different from that sort of routine. It was after midnight when they found out that her mother
had gone out early in the morning when nobody was up. When they found her, they realized that her
departure from the house was not an ordinary one, but a calculated running away. To Yong-ju's
surprise she had a small bundle and some tired looking pocket money which had been hidden
somewhere. She was more stunned by the fact that the place where the highway patrol men found her
mother 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 to
Uiwang Tunnel. Her mother's talk was incoherent. When they were notified, the whole family was so
happy that they rushed to the place right away. Especially, the sweet Kyong-a ran into the arms of her
grandmother, 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's
husband took off his jacket to put it on the shivering old woman's shoulder to protect her from the
coldness of the autumn night. He, at the same time thanked the patrol men by bowing his head many
times.
Yong-ju stepped aside a bit and did not move. She couldn't help herself when her heart went as cold
as ice. With her children entwined with her mother, the expression of her mother's empty face slowly
recovered. And she said, "My children, where have you been? Why are you so late ?" She also
embraced them. Her mother's face became increasingly brighter. Chung-u and Kyong-a used to
embrace their grandmother this way from the time when they were small. It was true that their working
mother could not stay home to give them chances to be spoiled, but they had found out all by
themselves 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 their
grandmother made were especially delicious, or when their grandmother waited and opened the door
for them and offered something delicious they liked when they came back home late at night. That did
not mean that it was calculated cleverness on the part of the children. It was no more or no less than
happiness of the children and their grandmother that made onlookers smile. It looked like such
complete mutual happiness that sometimes Yong-ju was jealous of them. But she was never tempted
to imitate them awkwardly. Yong-ju only gave birth to them, and they were actually raised by their
grandmother. Her mother had a sort of inviolable imposing attitude, if not a priviledge, of someone
who had achieved a very difficult task. Her naturalness with the children was almost animal-like. It was
so much so that whenever Yong-ju witnessed their endearment, Yong-ju felt as if her mother's soft
red 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 her
feeling of grief. It was because of the Uiwang Tunnel. This different attitude of greeting the old woman
between the family members seemed to be rashly interpreted by the highway patrolman as a conflict
between 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 were
upset about something, it was you who had to be patient. The world has changed. You should know that
you are lucky, since your grandchildren ran to pick you up right away. Do you understand? What a
terrible world this is! There are many offspring who deliberately desert their parents. Do you think such
children 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 can
reach them."
When Yong-ju's eyes met her husband?, she dropped her head. She had lost face, more so than if she
had been a bad daughter-in-law. The highway patrolman seemed to be so happy about having a good
outcome that he went on talking pleasantly.
"I thought this old woman was exactly like the others who had been deserted. Though she made a fuss
about going to her son's place stubbornly like a willful child, she pretended that she didn't even know
the name of her son's neighbourhood, let alone his telephone number. It was exactly what other
deserted old people would do. In the meantime, she thought of a telephone number, and so we made a
call without much expectation. As we expected, we were told that there was no such person and they
had moved in not long ago. It was exactly as we had expected. Nevertheless, with that number as a
clue, we found your telephone number with much difficulty. But since we have a very good result, it is
really very nice."
It was so. Her mother's destination was as exactly as Yong-ju had figured out. Yong-ju left the place
without uttering a word and decided to wait for them in her car. Behaving that way seemed to suit the
role of a bad daughter-in-law. She also wanted to avoid her true identity being discovered by the
guards. She counted on her husband to play the son's part well. Thinking that perhaps even her mother
might 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 started
thinking that it was disgraceful to live with her daughter. Maybe it started when her brother got
married. From that point on her relatives and acquaintances looked at her mother, who was still living
with her daughter, with doubtful eyes. Especially, Yong-ju's maternal aunts often hinted at not only
their sympathy but their pity for her mother. They used to click their tongues, 'tut, tut" and whisper
these 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 was
a young girl, she was most happy when she dreamed of fantastic success that would enable her to
support her mother luxuriously. She couldn't achieve that much, but what made her miserable was that
even though she had achieved her success, it had nothing to do with her mother. She knew her mother
better than any body else. Having worked with her own hands, not to earn her sons food, but to support
her children all her life, her mother acquired a sort of pride in her own dignified manner. She could not
forgive 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 was
thirteen years younger than Yong-ju. Her mother could not have babies for more than ten years after
Yong-ju had been born. And then she gave birth to Yong-suk and within a year she was pregnant
again. But before she delivered the baby, she had become a widow. All her father left was the house. It
was in a countrylike, peripheral part of the city, but fortunately there was a university nearby and her
mother could run a boarding house. From that time on Yong-ju was called the daughter of a boarding
house, 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 a
part of her mother's tongue. She not only ran errands like shopping for groceries, but she also delivered
burnt rice tea. Then she could change briquets for each room without their being extinguished. After
she became a senior high school student, she recorded house expenditures with her mother till late at
night; prepared the menu for the next day's breakfast; estimated monthly budgets; and worried about
her siblings' futures. In the season of the college entrance examination, they used to rent all available
rooms 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. Though
her only wish to make her mother's burden of responsibilities light made Yong-ju stern and strict to
her siblings just like her mother, she was never jealous of or competitive with them. It was easy to
imagine 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't
disappointed. 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. The
Uiwang Tunnel was on the way to her brother's place. Her mother visited her son several times a year
at the most, and each time Yong-ju gave her a ride, she had to pass the Uiwang Tunnel from
Kwachon where they used to live and from Dunchon-dong where she was living now. The only
special characteristc of the road from their place to her brother's that her mother could remember was
the Uiwang Tunnel. Some years after Yong-ju had settled in Kwachon, the Kwachon Tunnel and the
Uiwang Tunnel were constructed. Her mother adjusted quite well to the first apartment house to which
they had moved from the large boarding house. Because they lived on the first floor, her mother had a
yard to take care of. That made her less confined to the house. Her mother's area expanded from her
yard to Mt. Chonggai and Mt. Kwanak. She drew spring water several times a day and since she was
such an expert at gathering mountain vegetables, many old city-born neighbours admired and followed
her. She was a member of the Spring Badminton Club, the Kwanak Aerobics Club, and the Chonggai
Senior Citizens' Club. Her mother complained a lot about those two tunnels that were to be constructed
in 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 was
constructed and Yong-tak moved to one of those apartments. Yong-ju used to tell her mother that
the tunnel was there only for her mother to go to Yong-tak's easily through a short cut when she
wanted to go to him. And then her mother smiled brightly and was comfortable. In fact, the
construction of the tunnel coincided with the time when her mother's forgetfulness became so serious
that 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 granted
my wish so well."
The daughter and the mother might have exchanged this same dialogue more than several hundred
times. 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 it
was 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 in
her memory. Yong-ju couldn't believe that she had walked to the Uiwang Tunnel. Perhaps she walked
as 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 found
there 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. In
fact, it was rather strange that it happened so late, since the wish was an age-old tradition of the
mothers 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. Because
she 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 like
you."
"I regret that I brought her here. It would have been better if I hadn'. This time I am not going to budge
even 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 her
blistered and bruised feet in the warm water. How indignant she was! How awfully far was it to her
son's place for her mother? The long distance and the determination that she would get there in spite of
that distance were altogether betrayed in those bruised and blistered toes. It was so pitiful and weird
that Yong-ju couldn't sleep. After she spent the night with her eyes open, she called Yong-tak to
find out whether he could take her mother to his house. It was rather begging than asking. Before he
got married, Yong-tak always boasted that he would take care of his mother. Yong-ju did not tell
him that he didn't have to do it, but in her heart she was proud of him. It was not because someday he
would take care of her mother, but because she was thankful that her mother would not be a poor
woman who would be tossed from one of her children to another. Why should she ask in the tone of
begging 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 different
from her expectation. He did not express how he felt but only listened to what she said. And then after a
while he said, "You are not any different from others."It was rather ridiculing. She couldn't understand
what he meant. Yet in spite of her uncomfortable feeling, she couldn't contradict him at all. She might
have thought that she deserved the unpleasant encounter, for having complied with the ideology that
regarded 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 were
happy. It was certain that her mother would be an unwanted member. On the one hand, she thought that
she had to understand the fact that in order for them to receive the unwanted person, they had to be
ready psychologically in addition to the real preparation. On the other hand, she was uncomfortable
since she was disgusted with her brother, who didn't give any answer regarding that matter. How could
he as the eldest son behave like that ? The unforgivableness of her brother's attitude mixed with the
self-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 situation
arose from Yong-tak's promise that he would be back soon to take her to his home. Nobody knew
whether they were empty words that sounded nice or it was Yong-tak's real intention. Her mother
now openly packed her belongings and anxiously awaited her son. She occasionally whispered, "My
son promised to come and take me and why is he so late," and she looked out the window nervously as
if she were on a train platform, meeting family members with cold and unwelcoming eyes. Yong-ju
couldn't stand it and had a talk with her sister-in-law directly so that she could take her mother to her
place.
However, in less than three months, her mother who couldn't endure Yong-tak's, returned to Duncho
n-dong. It was not a question of her endurance, because her mother was losing her own will day by
day. 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 to
Kwachon."That could not sound sadder. Because Kwachon was the place where Yong-ju used to live
before she moved to Dunchon-dong, Yong-tak or his wife seemed to interpret her words as her
wish to go back to her daughter's place. Yet the couple behaved very well as if they would never ask Yo
ng-ju to take her mother. Because Yong-ju felt uncomfortable about her mother staying at Yongtak's, she was actually sorry that the couple did not ask her to take her mother. The reason Yong-ju
was uncomfortable every single day since her mother had gone to Yong-tak's was that Yong-ju also
understood 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-ju
could 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 with
my own lips that I would take her to our place," and Yong-tak's stubbornness that unless his sister
begged and begged, he would not let his mother leave his house looked contradictory, but in fact they
were the same. What they waited upon was not their mother but an ideology that depending on a
daughter or living with her until one dies while the son still lives is a glaring disgrace that should never
be allowed to happen.

Whether she knew about this hidden contention between her daughter and son or not, her wish to be
here while she was there got worse everyday. For their mother, whether it was her son or her daughter
did not make much difference. Kwachon for her was a place which was neither here nor there. Though
her intellect seemed to be deteriorating, it might be that it was developing. Rather than being moved
from her daughter's to her son's as if she had been a parcel, she fancied a buffer zone, Kwachon, and
begged to be sent there. At last her running away from home started at Yong-tak's. However, his
wife's precautions were so complete that every attempt at escape ended within the limits of that
apartment complex. Since Yong-tak's wife was the vice president of a women's committee, she knew
many people, and she was intelligent to boot. She dressed her mother-in-law in clothes that were not at
all decent to put on when you go out. She said it was necessary to make her stay within a reachable
distance. Yong-ju's mother in pajamas or underwear was easily recognized by children and when they
saw her the message was to reach the guards of the apartment complex. With that sort of clothes, she
could not go beyond the watch of their building guard, let alone the guards of the complex. When, in
spite of these precautions, their mother's attempt to escape from home did not stop, one more lock was
added to Yong-tak's apartment door. Usual apartment doors could be opened from the inside, even
though they were locked from the outside. However, on Yong-tak's door a lock that could only be
operated from outside was introduced. When Yong-ju saw that and was unhappy about it, Yongtak's wife resented it and said with cold glassy eyes, that's what they had to do with her mother when all
of them went out. Of course, as long as they did not hire a person to take care of their mother
exclusively, such a device would be inevitable. In Yong-ju's view what Yong-tak's wife had done
was impeccably perfect. Yong-ju was afraid of her perfection, and she was horrified because in her
imagination she could hear her mother scream with a fear many times greater than her own. In Yongju'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 own
room. Her sister-in-law explained that she had to do that because her mother made a habit of going
around the house whispering, opening all the doors in the house once she had realized that she could
not go out of it. It must have seemed to her mother that that house had countless doors because she
repeatedly 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 could
not 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 terrible
struggle 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 their
relationship to improve. Rather she wanted and waited for them to give up taking care of her mother
sooner 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 a
cold poker face and Yong-ju's face clearly showed that she was very sorry for the burden of her
frequent visits. Even after she served Yong-ju a cup of tea, her sister-in-law did not open her mother's
room.
"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, her
mother-in-law's symptoms had gotten worse these days, and she was coming out through the balcony
and 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 explain
how she felt any more. However, Yong-ju thoroughly realized how terribly horrified she was. She felt
her heart cramp with rage and insult. At last Yong-ju went out through the balcony and looked into
her mother's room. Her mother stood in front of the mirror on the wall, stared at the old woman in the
mirror, and shouted, "Who are you? Go away at once!" stamping her feet. Just as her mother couldn't
recognize the woman in the mirror, so Yong-ju couldn't accept that the woman locked in that room
was her own mother. It wasn't that she had become leaner or shabbier. She had on a comfortable dress
that 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 was
always comfortable, as if she were a house with open doors. It was not only her eyes. Her small body
was so tense that all her hair was on end as if she would attack and bite, if someone touched her a little
bit. Yong-ju could feel it as if it were her own body. How terrible it must have been for her mother to
resist 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 the
door on the balcony. Her mother did not ask "Who are you?" Nor did she attack her. She ran into a
corner of the room and stood there. She was afraid as if she had met a giant against whom she could
never rebel with only her enmity trained by herself. Yong-ju embraced her mother. She smelled soap
which was not bad at all. Everything in the room was simple but clean. On the wall there were two
landscape paintings. Since a bathroom was attached to this room, it must have been the master
bedroom. Immediately Yong-ju felt more than thankful for her brother's generosity, giving the master
bedroom to her mother. Yong-ju imagined that she should maintain that thankfulness. Yong-ju
patted her mother who was small enough to be in her arms and began to caress her back. What Yongju caressed now might be not her mother's back but her own rage which was likely to rise at any
moment. She thought she had better take her mother, but she should explain it in good words to her
sister-in-law and never should she speak to her with an angry face. Her brother was not there, but she
did not think him rude. She could more than fathom the inward suffering he must have undergone
between 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 that
she had shared with her mother all those years the responsibility of ensuring that this poor posthumous
child would be raised as well as other kids. Yong-ju caressed her mother for a long time until her
mother 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 self
unbelievably fast. On the way driving home she had already dropped her defensive eyes, behavior, and
unconditional doubt against everybody. Thus, her family could greet her as if she came back from her
outing without thinking that her condition had become worse. Even Yong-ju couldn't decide whether
she herself was wrong, and whether her own attitude as a sister-in-law, biased against her brother's
wife, prevented her from seeing the true state of her mother. She almost blamed herself secretly. Yet the
fact that what she had to guard against most was her mother's running away from home did not change
at all. It was the same as ever. She tried not to let her mother stay home alone by herself. That was the
most difficult part, since Yong-ju was not a full-time housewife. Kyong-a, a sophomore of a senior
high school was exempt from the duty of staying with her grandmother. Yong-ju and chung-u took
turns between themselves when they did not have classes. But that was far from enough. When Yongju or chung-u had something urgent to do, Yong-ju sometimes hired a part-time helper and sometimes
her aunts came to help, but when her mother started to help with household chores once in a while, Yo
ng-ju slackened the watch a little bit. Of course, the household chores her mother helped with were
trivial. For instance, she trimmed off bean sprouts, split Doraji roots, or distinguished Korean
mushrooms or brackens from the imported ones. She was annoyed when she was not allowed to do
those chores, and said why should she spare her body that would rot when she died. Yong-ju was
very happy to hear her mother saying those words again. Those were the very words her mother said
very 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 her
mother approaching the house as dusk was falling. Running to greet her mother, they would embrace
and Yong-ju was wrapped in the warmth and safety of her mother's long, flowing skirts. She felt all
the more happy when her mother regained her dexterity in folding washed laundry. Her mother took the
clothes from a laundry line when they were still a bit wet and folded them so carefully that even
underwear seemed to have been pressed with an iron. That was the unique skill of her mother which
nobody could dare imitate. Her mother's hands were still strong and beautiful. Oh, Oh, my mother's
hands that could fold laundry as if it were ironed! Speaking thus and caressing her mother's hands, she
was 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 her
vigilance. When she couldn't help it, sometimes she went out with only her mother in the house. It was
partly because she was so sorry to ask her aunts to take care of her mother too often and partly because
she was afraid that her aunts might instill the idea into her mother that one should die at one's own
son's. Yong-ju didn't believe that that unshakable conception once registered was erased in her
mother's mind, so she wanted to refrain at least from reawakening it.

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 prepared
lines 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 the
native village, looked like pink balloons and raised the expectation that at any moment the house might
float to the sky on them. Since such an expectation was wild, but filled with pleasure, it brought to the
whole village like a warm breeze the atmosphere of a feast. Even before the lanterns were hung, the
villagers were happy without much reason that that house had been turned into a temple. Yet, no one in
the village worshipped there. More than half of the villagers regarded themselves as Buddhists. Some
of them went to fortune tellers to divine their fortune, and others went to offer sacrifices to spirits. But
nobody belonged to that temple. And yet, when they saw so many lanterns hung there, they thought that
the temple must have many followers and wanted to congratulate the people of the temple on it. It was
unlike the villagers. They seldom congratulated others on their success. Maybe they were glad because
that house had been a fortuneteller's before it was turned into a temple. The villagers regarded a temple
as being a peg above a fortuneteller's, and they also thought a temple would be better for the education
of 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 came
and 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 the
existence of a fortuneteller, but everybody in the village knew it was a fortuneteller's. They also
guessed that it was a woman who told fortunes there from the questions of people looking for the
house. Nobody seemed to know whether the fortuneteller was pretty or ugly and whether she was really
good at fortunetelling or not. Most people of the native village often went to fortuneteller since their
businesses were not thriving. For some going to a fortuneteller was their only hobby. But nobody
seemed to have gone to that house. It seems that it was not only Jesus Christ who was not recognized in
his own town.
On Buddha's Birthday only the village children went to the front of the house and looked inside. Just as
light things are first to fly on the wind, so the childrens' hearts leapt up with the atmosphere of the
feast, but the adults of the village did not budge. Those who celebrated Buddha's Birthday as a holiday
might have left for their temples far away by bus or subway train. The gate of the house was wide open
and a small golden Buddha with a gentle smile sat on a silk cushion inside the main room behind the
sliding door. Many worshippers were busy looking for the lotus lantern which had their family
member'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 the
nun now were the same person. Even the Buddha was the same one that the fortuneteller had
worshipped. 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 place
when the house was a fortuneteller's and some new worshippers attracted by the report of those
customers that the Buddha of the house was all-powerful. The customer-worshippers did not think it
strange, nor were they reluctant to come because the fortuneteller had turned into a nun. When she was
a fortuneteller, she had had a Buddha and they believed that her insight or her faculty to prophesize
came from the Buddha all the same. The procedure of bowing to the Buddha before they were told their
fortune and bowing once again after the fortunetelling did not change even after the house became a
temple. It was all the same now as then. Those who sought her came there hoping to gain some insight
related to the advancement of their children or the honor of their husband, from some words carelessly
thrown by her. Because they identified her magic power with that of the Buddha, and because they had
called her 'Posallim' respectfully, when she actually had been only a fortuneteller, they were not at all
reluctant 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. The
Buddhist sermons were given by a monk from Chongaesa. The monk also came down from Chongaesa
when there was a Buddhist sacrifice requested by a worshipper or on such holidays as Buddha's
Birthday, New Year's Day, the seventh day of the seventh moon, and the forty-ninth day after a person's
death. However, the devotees of the temple did not know where that Chongaesa was. They only
associated it with a temple in a beautiful mountain far away, on account of Chayun's polite attitude
towards him and from her expression, "coming down." But the devotees did not trust the monk from
Chongaesa. 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 her
identity and that he had a superior faculty to see through it was the general opinion of the followers. By
such a faculty he did not add anything to his dignity, and it rather harmed the friendship of the
devotees. They regarded him as a necessary part of a temple and hoped that Chayun would be soon be
good at Buddhist invocations. Chayun never expressed it but it was known among the followers that
she was studying to enter a Buddhist university.
Even though the venerable Bopmun had not come down from Chongaesa yet, they were busy
preparing food in the kitchen in a big bronze pot. All sorts of fruits, traditional Korean cookies, and
fancy 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 the
devotees to lunch as well as supper. There were enough hands to make soup and vegetable dishes. The
voice of Makum's mother who was in charge of the whole preparation was so oily and passionate that
the fact that she was almost seventy was unbelivable. Makum was the secular as well as registered
name of the nun Chayun. This might have been the first proud and happy day for Makum's mother
since she had given birth to Makum. Makum's mother only gave orders and all the work was done by
her daughters-in-law. As Makum's mother wrote a list of things to buy, her son-in-law went to the
wholesale 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 somewhere
else within two or three years. Only the thought of that made Makum's mother exultant. Her eyes
looking 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 fire
flamed, 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 between
old core followers and priest Bobmun that on the occasion of this happy day they should announce
make official their plan to build a new Buddhist temple. This agreement seemed to mean that her
project was almost half done all the same. Though it hadn't been long since Makum's mother had
woken up to this sort of business that gave people comfort and hope, what she had mastered was the
fact that in terms of income, there wasn't any other business that was easier or that suited the old
saying, "Well begun is half done."
While Makum's mother was sitting in the pantry, giving instructions, she was also busy roughly
calculating the amount of money that would be collected as offerings for lanterns and the additional
money that would be offered before the Buddhist altar. Her expression changed whimsically, smiling
and trifling. On the one hand she was so proud of this business, which was well on its way, that she
wondered whether she was dreaming. On the other hand, she was indignant at the thought that this was
nothing compared with some other big temple that was said to have so much money on a day like this
that 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 hard
time 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 her
own mother, now that she had become a dragon from a child of scorn? But there were enough reasons
for her daughter to behave like that, and so she watched her daughter out of the corner of her eye while
she 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, that
they did not even allow their eyes to meet was a sort of tacit understanding between daughter and
mother. 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 did
not meet her mother's eyes, but also she was reluctant to talk to her mother. But she allowed her mother
to use her purse. She didn't care about that. She did not know how much she made a day. If she started
to calculate the amount, then she might have to tell her family. So to avoid that, she might have trained
herself 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 prehistoric
period. But she did not live in the native village now. She lived in an apartment that looked down upon
the native village as if it were an eyesore. Makum's mother was born somewhere around that area
before the native village was created, about the time when that village was an agricultural
neighborhood. She got married there and lived a difficult life. Even then that house stood in the middle
of a field. Makum's mother, born in a house that was inferior to that house, married someone from a
family 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 change
in population and there were many empty houses. That house still stood there, more dilapidated and
empty. They said that because the owner of the house had fiercely taken the side of the communists, all
his family members were killed. As they were murdered in that house by people with grudges, people
who knew the history regarded the house as a haunted one and avoided passing it. They instead
detoured around the house. Sometimes it sheltered beggars. The house became more fearful. So much
time elapsed and the population of the village changed so much that there was no one who remembered
the affairs that had taken place during the Korean War. However, the legend of the house as a haunted
one persisted with exaggeration. Though Makum's mother and her husband, a day labourer of an
orchard, had five children and still lived in the village without a house of their own, Makum's mother
never dreamed of, or eyed the house even for a night's comfortable rest. That house was only a haunted
place, not a house.
A feeble coil of smoke started to rise from the chimney of the house one day. Nobody showed any
interest 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 the
countryside would be impoverished. Then nobody expected that the price of land in that area would
soon be soaring high. When the appearance of the house began to show that it was inhabited by
someone, it was Makum's mother who started watching it. There was no one except her who could
recognize that the occupant of the house was the brother of the murdered owner. He had been a young
man during the civil war. Since he had been so shocked by witnessing the death of his brother's family
and did not have any dependents, he had entered the Buddhist priesthood and after having stayed at a
temple for almost twenty years, he had returned to the world. Makum's mother did not have any
intention of harming him at the beginning, but just to know his identity made her itchy. For she
harboured an obscure expectation that someday the information would be very useful. Fuelled by the
rising land prices of the neighbourhood around the house, the mental attitude of Makum's mother
watching the house became more tense day by day. It seemed that the reason the man, who had spent
his youth in a temple, turned his back upon it was not because he found a way of living in this mundane
world. A signboard indicating a zen temple decorated the house. He must have made many
acquaintances during his priesthood. Intelligent looking men frequented the place steadily, if not very
often. When Makum's mother and her husband went to the house to do miscellaneous jobs, she learned
that those people visited the house to study Chinese characters or Buddhist chanting. Every month there
was a regular meeting with many attendants. Makum's mother offered her daughter, who had barely
finished grammar school, to run errands for the house, in order to reduce the burden of supporting her
family. It was a time when even securing enough food for the family was not easy. If she could not send
her daughter on to a junior high school, she ought to let her acquire a skill. But since Makum, from the
time when she was small, used to excite pity and sometimes showed a strange capacity for pinpointing
the future of others, Makum's mother thought that if she could learn a bit of Buddhist chanting, it might
be 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 that
house 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 cultivate
moral sense.
Not long after Makum went to that house as an errand girl, the master raped her. Since Makum did not
want to be raped again, she confessed it to her mother. With fierce rage Makum's mother threatened the
man, and with future extortion in her mind she helped him to gain possession of the house and the field
in front of it legally. At last Makum became the owner of the house and the master procured the empty
field. It was good for both of them. Makum became a man-hater from the incident, but her ability to
detect other people's thoughts from their expression or their way of speaking grew sharper. Makum's
mother made the most of Makum's ability and made her a shaman. However, since Makum was
whimsical and not greedy, that business did not thrive as well as Makum's mother had wanted. But the
income was good enough for her and her sons who did not work and depended entirely on their shaman
sister. The master, who had bought a temple and had gone back into the mountain with the money he
had obtained from the sale of the field in front of the house, helped with the transformation of the house
from a shaman's to a temple. Makum also complied with the plan without resistance. It was Makum
herself who first suggested she should study.
However, she was too old to begin studying and she was not interested in studying as she was not
interested in money. She did not believe in anything except intuition. But she wanted to escape by any
excuse and go somewhere else. What she vaguely wanted to escape from might not have been the
place, but the people with whom she had been connected up until then. The people she had met were
those whose only obsession was to take from others wealth or position by hook or by crook, whether
they were her own flesh and blood or others. She had divined that fact quite early, and it was the most
important source of her fortunetelling. However, it seemed to her that that was not all that human
beings were capable of. Though she never gave birth to a child, she used to think a mother was not
supposed to be like that, when she saw her own mother. That was really painful. Her honest inner
thought told her that a mother should not be like her own mother, and that was what the calm smile of
Budhha 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 temple
could be. Those lotus lanterns should have been brought inside to the ceiling of the main room, but as
they floated in the wind, it seemed as if one had a pond upside down above one's head. Chayun looked
up at the sky and smiled. She went to the backyard to collect some vegetables. There had been so much
food, but because the rice cakes had been given to the worshippers and the side dishes had all been
taken by her family, nothing was left for her. Makum's mother, who never once saw her daughter really
enjoy food, did not try to make something for her to eat. She was only eager to take everything with
her, saying that if she didn't, the food would spoil. And as though she thought that her daughter would
cook some delicious food for herself, she never forgot to threaten her daughter that if she yearned for
meat or fish, she should get over the yearning. Otherwise the followers would leave her. Since Chayun
was not interested in cooking and did not learn how to cook properly at an early age, cooking carelessly
so as not to starve to death was her settled way, fixed like a habit. It was not she who had planted the
seeds 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, her
radiant 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 for
the 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 wash
them like this."
Then she carried them to the running water and washed them roughly, crushing them and turning the
water green. She said, "I don't suppose you have the water from the first wash of rice. Bring me some
rice." She washed the rice a couple of times, crushed it, and obtained the milky washing water. And
then she looked around the old-fashioned kitchen and said over and over again how nice it was. She
started to cook rice and took some soy sauce from an earthen jar on the terrace to make soup. All her
actions were dexterous and without interruption, as if she were doing her old household chores. The
nun tried very hard to guess the identity of the strange old woman, but she could not get any clue. She
knew from her long years of experience that unless an answer came through intuition at once, she
couldn't discover anything by thinking long. But for her the failure was not at all disappointing. She
was rather merry as if happiness crawled up her spine. It was the first such feeling she had ever
experienced in her life.
At the table set by the old woman, they sat facing each other like close friends. The old woman's soup
was so delicious that the nun had a whole bowl of rice with the soup. The old woman insisted on her
having some more, telling her how weak she was. She made it very confusing who was the guest. From
the 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 I
have to prepare something she will like," she secretly wanted to be a child again. This feeling was also
new 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 old
woman. She went to the shop in the village to buy tofu, bean sprouts, and small dried fish. Then she
went into the kitchen and prepared supper with the old woman. She scolded for having poured out too
much of the precious sesame oil. She scolded a lot, but she was not afraid of her at all. It was a marvel
that a human being, an old woman, could be so straightforward. At night they spread the futons on the
floor and lay down side by side. The nun held the old woman's hand softly because she was worried
that just as she had come in without hindrance, she might go out without hindrance. Her hands were
small, rough and yet soft. "would you like to listen to a fairy tale?" the old woman asked, taking the
hand of the nun.
"Once upon a time there lived a widow with a small child. The widow found a lover. Every night she
went to bed with her clothes on so that she could go out as soon as her child fell asleep. When her child
found 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 string
with 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 very
good rest, she found it was already morning.
The old woman was not beside her. But she heard signs of someone moring around. The old woman
was folding laundry. She said, "When you get old, it is time to die. Didn't I forget to bring in the
laundry before I went to sleep?" She caressed the laundry that was moist from the night dew and then
folded it neatly. Makum heard her saying, "Later on these should be out in the sun. That would make
them dry,"and wondered how such a precious treasure had walked into her house. The more she
thought of it, the more wonderful it was. Her underwear and monk's habit, which were hanging twisted
like dried whiting as they had been wrung out after being washed, became neat and tidy as if they had
been ironed.
Life with the old woman was comfortable and sweet as a dream, but the nun decided not to be curious
about where this old woman had come from and where she would go. Nothing regarding her identity
was known except the fact that she acted even more freely than the real owner of the place, as if it were
her own. In a word, what she said about her past was incoherent. It did not seem that she was doing that
on purpose. When she was caught with what she said and asked questions, she tried to think of
something with a confused face. But she got tired pretty soon and digressed. Once, while she was
staring at the Buddha, she said that the Christians were also good, because when she was almost dying
with an illness on the street, she woke up to the prayers of Christians. When the nun wanted to know
more about that the following day, she spoke about something very different. While she was looking at
a green house far away, she said the reason why her back was aching these days was that she had spent
the winter there. That was also incoherent, but it didn't seem to be complete nonsense. What the nun
could gather intuitively was only that the memory of the old woman went off and on. However, it was
certain that she was satisfied with this way of life. When she said, "just as a fish is comfortable in the
water 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 wondered
whether the old woman had come back to this house where she had lived a long long time ago. That
thought did not make her unhappy at all. Everything was all right, if she only imagined that she herself
was the granddaughter of this granny from a long time ago and now she didn't belong to this world, but
to a previous existence.
However, at times when she saw the old woman looking far into the mountains with empty eyes and
whispering, "my son promised to come to take me soon. Why is he so late ?" Chayun's heart suddenly
sank and she felt really bad. It was not because she was worried about her son coming to pick her up
but because she thought the old woman might have been deserted by her own son.

Yong-ju's guess that her mother might have gone in the direction of the Uiwang Tunnel again was not
correct. She spent the night with eyes open and after enquiring in every possible place she could have
gone to, she notified the police. She also notified the division of family and welfare at both the village
and district offices. She also learned for the first time that there are telephone numbers that exclusively
deal with missing people. Though she enquired everywhere, time passed without any result. She
advertised in a newspaper and also advertised on the radio several times during prime time through an
acquaintance of her husband. Though she had some information from several places, it turned out to be
nothing reliable. How many times did she rush to Suwon station, crying, when she heard that her
mother was begging at the station. There was a prank phone call that said, "because I am now buying
the granny a bowl of noodle soup, you should come with the money for it," and hung up without telling
the place. She asked the prosecution authorities to search among the persons who had met an unnatural
death. As a result, she had to undergo the humiliation of viewing the bodies of other old people several
times. Such insulting jobs were mainly done by her brother or husband. Even if she had done all she
could, she could not sit and wait. Yong-ju couldn't stay home for a moment and couldn't help
searching the likely places where her mother had possibly gone. Her house was in terrible shape. But as
a result, she learned her mother had shown up a couple of times in Kwachon. Because they had lived
there for such a long time, there were many acquaintances at Kwachon. One of them said that he had
come across Yong-ju's mother, but thought that she was on her way back home after a visit and so
only greeted her. Since she looked tidy and merry as usual, one never guessed she had been lost. If he
had known the fact, he would have detained her and gotten in touch with them. Yong-ju was so
depressed she felt like stamping. Though it seemed a bit late, she decided to advertise in the fliers that
accompany the newspapers. She spent all her time for many days visiting every single newspaper
distributor in Pyungchon, Sanbon, and Anyang, towns around Kwachon. And then since it dawned on
her that the newspaper subscribers would not pay much attention to those advertisement pages, she
decided to advertise through posters. Even if Yong-ju's family took the range of her mother's usual
activities into account and placed posters around those areas, it was such a big job that her family
members could not undertake it alone. However, it was a relief that there was something that she could
do, 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 only
the members of Yong-ju's family. To share the job and to exchange ideas of better ways, Yong-ju's
sister and brother often met. When they met, there used to be a flood of words and the arrows of blame
pointed at Yong-ju. Though Yong-tak often said, "What's a sinner like me to say," his family looked
most honourable. His wife never meddled in carrying out things specifically and kept her distance
coldly. But Yong-ju used to feel her sister-in-law's cynicism that seemed to show that she had nothing
to say since it had now been proven that the best way to keep their mother was having locks on doors
and 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 Yongtak'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. I
tried to figure out what our mother would have wanted. I always thought about that first. I not expected
this, 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 our
mother 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 be
a 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 of
the credit to her eldest daughter, and she was sorry for her eldest daughter's sacrifice. Unless Yong-ju
heard her mother's lament that if Yong-ju hadn't been forced to play the part of a boarding house
daughter, she could have become a doctor and unless she wanted to satisfy her mother's grudge, she
never could have thought of studying for her doctoral degree so late in life. She met her husband
among the boarders, as becomes a boarding-house daughter. Because he married her knowing the state
of her house so well, even after she, a boarding-house daughter, became a middle-school teacher, he did
not mind living with her family at all. About living with one's wife's family, which they say men want
to avoid at all costs, her husband never felt uncomfortable and did his best so that other members of the
family would not be sorry or uncomfortable. If somebody asked him about his family, his answer that
he lived with his mother-in-law was as good as that of those women who live with their mothers-inlaw. Yong-ju couldn't be too proud of such a husband. Her mother also liked such a son-in-law. It was
her 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 were
enlivening days, when she didn't have to shiver even when she imagined that her mother might be
sleeping outside. Yong-ju's husband said with a sad face that he louged to have the soup that his
mother-in-law used to make with sour pickled radishes. Everybody knew that her mother's soup was
unparalleled and though Yong-ju's husband spoke with a grave face almost crying, he spoke of it in
front of Yong-suk of all persons. Youngsook leapt up suddenly from her seat and was very angry. She
said, "Even if his house maid had left, he could have spoken better than that." If what her husband had
said was so insulting and despising to her mother, what was the image of her mother that her sister
cherished? Because Yong-ju missed her mother ardently when she remembered her folding laundry
so 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 had
come. Though countless posters were printed, Yong-ju knew that they were far, far from enough to
cover 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 almost
became Yong-ju's daily routine. There were many private institutions that were not registered with
the 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 uncharacteristic
suburbs of Seoul, that Yong-ju somehow wanted to take a rest. She got off the bus and took a deep
breath. The air did not seem to be especially fresh. It was at the dirty entrance of a village. While she
was thinking of putting up a poster in this village, she saw a detached house far away. It was a marvel
that such an old house still stood in a village around Seoul. Though it was not a cultural treasure but
only an old one, Yong-ju, driven by a strange force, went closer and closer to it. While going forward
she hesitated, wondering what force drove her toward it. All of a sudden she remembered the boarding
house in Chongamdong. The thought of the boarding house dawned on her, despite the fact that there
were no similarities.
With a deep breath she saw the signboard, Chongaesa, together with her mother's sweater fluttering on
a clothes line. Yong-ju, gasping, went into the house as if swallowed by it. Lotus lanterns hung from
the ceiling of the main room and the golden Buddha revealed the house to be a temple. Everything else
was exactly like other country houses. In the large main room in front of the Buddha, under the lotus
lanterns, 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 been
because the monk's habit was so big on her, that her mother looked like a butterfly taking a rest with its
wings folded. No, no, it was not the big monk's habit. It was the freedom of shedding the weight and
the scraps of her life. Until now who could ever make her mother so free and happy? How wonderful it
was 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 a
step forward, though her mother was a very short distance away. Because where Yong-ju stood was
where reality was. Because however small or transparent it might be, the gap between reality and
illusion could never be spanned, since they were two entirely different worlds.