The First Treaty

“Strange.”

The cold war between my aunt—fierce as midsummer sun—and my mother—still as a winter lake—showed no sign of ending. Aunt would call, apparently ready to make peace, yet the moment I answered instead of Mother she would snort once and hang up. Mother had tried to take her calls for the sake of my uneventful exam season, but Aunt’s particular brand of hysteria had finally pushed her past the breaking point. This fight, I sensed, would not blow over easily.

When the two of them fought, it was good for me. One fewer pair of eyes watching me was enough to let me breathe. If only Mother, preparing side dishes before she left, hadn’t sliced her finger while cutting cucumbers.

“The medicine’s almost gone.”

“That—Aunt used it.”

“Aunt did?”

Mother opened the first-aid kit and frowned; cold sweat slid down my back. The day before yesterday, at the man’s house, I had used up one tube of ointment and half a bottle of red antiseptic. Who could have guessed Mother would cut herself today?

Without a word she closed the lid, then reached for the phone. The number she dialed was Aunt’s. I held my breath, certain my life was over. After a moment of waiting for the other end to pick up, Mother’s lips parted.

“Unnie.”

I couldn’t make out what Aunt was saying, but her voice—loud enough to have swallowed a train whistle—made Mother’s brow crease. Aunt must have assumed this was a peace offering and was now crowing, scolding Mother for all she was worth. Mother, who had only called out of worry that so much medicine had been used, asked no further questions and simply hung up.

“Ugh. She only gets worse.”

The corners of Mother’s eyes, worn from work outside the home, looked more sunken than last year. She braced a hand on her knee, rose with effort, and shoved the first-aid kit into the shoe cabinet. I watched through the window as she stepped into her shoes with the heels crushed flat and left.

Would those narrow shoulders finally straighten once I entered the university that had been her unfulfilled dream? Yet Mother’s dream was dragging me—terrified of heights—straight to the mountaintop. The girl named Yang Ji-eon only wanted to grow flowers and nap in a warm patch of sun. Could someone as timid as me ever grow up and walk into a big company? How much more of Mother’s and Aunt’s spines would I have to suck dry until then? There had to be a reason my eyes kept wandering. I needed somewhere to look away from that impossible summit. It just happened to be the man’s house.

Yesterday morning I had stolen a glance and seen him walking the yard. The signs of recovery were good; that was a relief. Even if I had left him alone he would have taken his medicine and fixed his own meals. The fact that my meddling had been useless was already clear, yet my gaze still drifted to the window—even though Eui-joo’s blue gate wasn’t visible from here.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I had unilaterally declared he didn’t need to return the side-dish containers. The house was full of similar ones; Mother would never notice a few missing. Our bland, saltless connection ended here. I had thought hearing a simple “thank you” would leave me feeling lighter, yet I kept remembering the man who used to cry so often at the table.

They say study is habit, so today, as always, I went to my desk at the appointed hour and opened a workbook. I left emotion out of the mechanical routine of solving problems. Adulthood would probably be the same—the same day, the same tasks, repeated forever.

The only adults I had watched up close were Mother and Aunt. Both of them hung me—their hope—on the wall like a clock and checked it whenever the hour struck. How much time has passed this time? How much has she grown? Yet a clock only circles back to twelve. It looks as if it advances, but it only returns to the same place. Yang Ji-eon’s life would be no different from theirs.

Of course I might marry a diligent, wealthy, young man. I might luck into a white-collar job at a conglomerate. But my life would only improve by half a step; it would never take a full stride. In time I, too, would hang a replacement hope on the wall like a clock. The pain of moving one’s own life is the same pain a mermaid feels when she gains legs. Wouldn’t it be easier simply to hang a wall clock the way Aunt and Mother did? I who could not even carry their expectations—could I endure a mermaid’s agony?

The lead of my mechanical pencil, drawing straight lines and curves, snapped twice—click, click. Taking it as a sign to rest, I stood and stretched. Thinking it was time for Mother’s call, I stepped into the living room.

The clock pointed to nine at night. With her daughter’s summer vacation underway, Mother had thrown herself into side jobs. No call by this hour usually meant factory work and a return at dawn. The air felt thick, so I flung the living-room window wide open—and that was when it happened. A large shadow loitered in front of our gate, then drifted away. I might have taken it for one of the neighborhood elders, but a height like that was rare in Chowa-ri.

His body still couldn’t have fully recovered. What business would bring the man all the way to our gate? I shoved my feet into slippers and ran out. Yet the space before the gate was so empty I almost believed I had imagined it; only a hollow wind passed through. Still—though I found no person, I did find a black plastic bag hanging from the door handle. Like a cautious girl I hesitated, then finally brought the bag inside.

I shut the gate and peered into the black bag; a sweet smile spread across my face. Chocolate, cream-filled cookies, cream buns, soboro bread, hard candies—snacks of every kind filled it. Had he hung it on the gate thinking a girl couldn’t resist sweet things? I wanted to shatter his prejudice, yet the truth was I lived for sweets. I opened the front door, came inside, and began taking the items out one by one—only to discover something that was not a snack.

He had even tucked in orange juice so I wouldn’t choke—his thoughtfulness was touching. The crude note, torn from a notebook, had its own wit. A heart that had been stuffed with math problems and English passages surrendered completely to a Children’s Day gift-set of snacks.

Snacks and the man—a strange combination.

The adults were right: if you stay still, you don’t feel the heat. The fan I had cleaned while the man slept last time now blew a clean, warm breeze. I had filled an entire sheet with huge, thick letters in magic marker; I straightened my back as I dotted the final period.

“I’m finished. Look.”

A man who had only just become an adult and a girl who was only just about to become one. A boy trying to enter high school and a girl struggling to graduate from it. In every single way we were opposites, yet we had decided on a truce. We concluded that the earlier quarrel had been the fault of the hot weather and the absence of rules to bind us. And so, under a sun that blazed without mercy, I had taken up the marker as our representative. The first treaty between Yang Ji-eon and Kang Eui-tae was hereby concluded, each clause containing what the other wanted.

“First. During lessons, Kang Eui-tae will obey Yang Ji-eon without question. Questions will be saved and asked all at once after class ends.”

“Next.”

“Second. During meals, Kang Eui-tae will receive Yang Ji-eon’s etiquette lessons without fail. Questions or temper will not be accepted mid-lesson. Lessons continue until a satisfactory level is reached.”

“Next.”

The man sat loosely against the wall, gazing at the sky as if he had all the time in the world. A breeze that slipped in under the eaves, tail swishing, ruffled his bangs. Ever since the day he had beaten the fever, the way he treated me had changed.

First, yesterday, when I had come under the pretext of the side-dish containers, he had spoken first.

“Yang Ji-eon.”

“…Yes.”

“Keep teaching me. Without you I don’t get it. Not a single thing.”

I cleared my throat, thinking a proper Korean ought to refuse at least three times, but the man wasted no time on detours and went straight for the heart.

“Ji-eon-ah.”

There was a country, I had learned from movies on television, where dropping the family name and calling someone by their given name alone was permitted only among family, lovers, or friends. I had wondered what was so special about it that people liked it. But they say you never know until you experience it yourself. The man who looked at the world with one injured eye and one uninjured eye was both a midsummer monster and a glass marble. One side was especially beautiful; the other was especially ugly.

That he had called me Ji-eon-ah—and that those two syllables had pleased me more than all the sweet snacks he had brought—would remain my eternal secret.