A Shrimp's Fortune
“Is that even something you call an answer? Huh? Did our Ji-eon look so easy that some bachelor would get filthy ideas about her? I’ll spread it all over your school and make sure you’re ruined, you goddamn bastard!”
Behind Aunt, who stood with veins bulging in her neck as she screamed herself hoarse, Mother cracked open a green soju bottle. Drinking alone, she was already on her third bottle with nothing to chase it. The feeling that occupied the largest space in Mother’s heart was probably self-reproach. She was busy with work, the head of the household, the sole breadwinner, and there was no father—so she blamed herself for every bad and unlucky thing that had ever happened to me.
Aunt’s greatest fear was that I would stray down the wrong path and end up following in her footsteps. Mother’s greatest fear was that I, who had grown up without a father, would resent her for it. Volatile Aunt and relatively taciturn Mother had never gotten along well. There were plenty of times Mother simply let Aunt win rather than fight. That two sisters who could have lived perfectly well without ever seeing each other had ended up as neighbors in the same village was entirely because of me.
Outwardly, Mother the beauty-salon owner earned the money; inwardly, Aunt the housekeeper looked after me. Raised by their blistered, swollen hands, I knew exactly how I was supposed to repay them. Yet of the three of us, I considered myself the weakest. For all their talk, Mother and Aunt shared a single goal: to raise their daughter so she would never envy anyone. I felt the weight of that burden, yet I was too much of a coward to cry out that Aunt’s interference was unfair, that I wanted freedom.
“What’s there to be sorry about! If you’re sorry, does that make it okay to confess to a girl who hasn’t even finished high school? Huh! You only did it because you thought she was an easy mark.”
“Unnie. That’s enough.”
Once I got home I called Aunt and described the moment the teacher confessed as honestly and plainly as I could. There were parts I deliberately cut short on my own. I was afraid she might grab a kitchen knife and storm over to the teacher’s rented room. The male teacher had been so confident that his own surveillance would be enough—only to have the very axe he trusted bury itself in his foot. He had pressed every trauma button Aunt possessed, the ones that screamed distrust of men and down-with-men. The news that the tutor had confessed, that I had refused, and that I therefore could no longer continue the lessons summoned a two-hour tirade.
“Unnie. Stop it.”
“Stop what! A bastard like that needs to be properly humiliated once!”
From the other end of Aunt’s phone came the sound of sniffling sobs. The teacher’s excuse—that he had only driven his father’s car over to win favor—stood no chance of being accepted. It was a memory so hideous neither of them wanted to replay even the accidental parts.
“Why are you defending him? Huh?”
Apparently Mother’s blank expression had been bothering her the whole time; Aunt hung up without fully venting her anger. The leftover fury transferred itself to Mother, who was still drinking. Even when Aunt charged at her like a bull, Mother remained utterly unperturbed.
“Shouldn’t you go back to your husband? He looks for you if you’re not home at dinner time.”
“Is that the issue right now? Whether that old man looks for me or not—how can you even swallow liquor when something this important is hanging over us?”
“Just drop it. Nothing major happened to the kid, and she already returned the money, didn’t she? Since I finished early today, tomorrow I’ll have to leave even earlier and come home even later. Finish that drink, get some sleep, and you go home now.”
Watching Mother casually tip the glass into her mouth, Aunt made a face that said she was both flabbergasted and stuffed up with rage. Even after two hours she still hadn’t cooled down; she seemed unable to believe she was being shown the door like this.
“Does this look like a small matter to you? They only hire women so they can look down on us.”
“What do you want me to do, then? Huh? Go kill him? He returned the money and said he was sorry. I’m exhausted, Unnie. That man feels like my fault too. It hurts. But when I think about having to go to work tomorrow, I just wish you’d leave already.”
She had escaped that sewer of a house in Seoul, crossed over to Chowa-ri, and only barely been accepted as a member of the village. A house with a main room and a small room, a boiler that ran on time, a clean and modest kitchen and bathroom—that was the best environment Mother could maintain. And to keep that environment she was offering up her marrow and her lifespan to the beauty salon.
Mother’s best and Aunt’s best were different things. Aunt, who poured everything into making sure only I lived well, and Mother, who carried an entire household, found their breath catching at different points. Mother seemed determined to close the book on what Aunt was calling a major incident, treat it as nothing special, and reclaim the ordinary daily life of yesterday. And I agreed with her.
“What are you going to do about Ji-eon’s tutoring starting tomorrow?”
“I’ll find someone. A woman teacher.”
“While we’re at it, just send her to a cram school. Cram school. I’ll handle the pickups.”
“Is there any guarantee something headache-inducing won’t happen there either? And how many days of vacation are even left that we should suddenly start looking into cram schools? The kid already has her own rhythm going.”
Mother drew the line again, sensing that Aunt’s fussing would only create more bothersome work. It was my turn to counter the mother who said that since I had always managed fine on my own, a woman teacher would be better.
“Actually, about that…”
From my corner, head bowed, I offered a new proposal that cooled the heat of the Park sisters by half. The gazes that had been locked on each other without an inch of retreat now held opposing emotions. My tightly sealed lips forced themselves into a fake smile.
The proposal I made—rejecting tutoring, cram school, and supplementary classes—was self-directed learning. Aunt, face ruined, declared that we could take care of ourselves and cut off all contact. One vote against. Even the side dishes she had always sent stopped coming; today made two days. For some reason Mother also cut off contact with Aunt as if they were enemies. Worn down by Aunt’s relentless pressure without quite realizing it, Mother seemed to be using this chance to redefine their relationship. Usually when whales fight the shrimp’s back gets broken, but in the affair of the tutor the shrimp alone came out ahead. I had secured Mother’s permission to study alone—whether at a reading room or at home, it didn’t matter.
I had no idea how long the fight between Aunt and Mother would last, but if I wanted a decent score on the mock exam in September I couldn’t just loaf around either.
“Why are you taking so long on one single passage? You’ll burn through all your time that way.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“I told you, if you don’t understand just skip it. This isn’t a contest to see who can read a novel the longest.”
From the day I received permission I packed a load of workbooks, writing tools, and side-dish containers and went to the man’s house. I told Mother I was studying at a café in town. Interested but without the energy to keep watch, she simply slipped me some pocket money with a thoroughly exhausted face.
“Okay, again.”
“Was this the rieul final consonant?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t that I was playing the grateful magpie, but it was hard to deny that the man had been the one who stopped the tutor’s assault that day. If things had gone any further Aunt would not have stopped at mere phone abuse. She might have forgotten her own situation entirely and turned the whole village upside down. Then the relationship between Aunt and our household would have been exposed, and her dream would have turned into pig slop. Let’s just call it gratitude toward the man who snuffed out the fuse of a massive bomb.
Only until the end of this summer vacation. It wasn’t that long a time, was it? Soon I would be an adult, I would leave Chowa-ri, and then my connection with the man would end here as well. I would also be able to face Eui-joo, who must still feel uneasy about dying and leaving his younger brother behind.
“Yang Ji-eon.”
“Yes.”
Still, he was picking up final consonants faster than a lower-elementary student. Every time he got scolded the man rolled the inside of his cheek with his tongue—his private way of showing dissatisfaction with the lesson. Even though studying Hangul at his age must have wounded his pride, he suppressed the feeling as if he were trying to be considerate.
After calling my name he stayed silent for a long while, then suddenly grabbed the head of the electric fan. The fan head that had been spinning endlessly because of a malfunction locked into one direction. The breeze carried the scent of grass blades together with the man’s body odor.
“Go easy on me. I’m plenty embarrassed already.”
Had I expected some grand speech? Yet the words were so plain they stuck in my ear. The colorless emotion that neither shouted nor laid any burden on me felt comfortable. After staring at the Hangul book a little longer the man set down his pen for break time. Or rather, “threw” would be more accurate. Then he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. During breaks the man smoked; I studied math.
I arrived early in the morning with my school bag and helped him through the parts he got stuck on. For two hours before dinner it was Hangul study time. Dinner would be provided by the man using the side dishes from our house. That was what we had agreed on.
“No smoking.”
I jabbed the tip of a sharp pen into his arm. The man looked down at the ink-stained forearm and gave a bland smile. And then, right in front of his teacher, he lit up anyway, stood, and walked out into the yard. Outside the gate, leaning against the wall, gray clouds drifted above the man’s head.
“Even if you’re over there the smell still reaches me, you know? Cigarette smoke affects people even past a hundred meters.”
I had expected him to ignore my complaint, but in that moment he answered.
“This is more than a hundred meters, isn’t it?”
The man clearly had no idea how far a hundred meters actually was. There was a lot left to teach. A long road ahead. I shook my head and set my pen to the problem I hadn’t finished yesterday.