But that kind of skirt’s quite common, isn’t it? Are you really sure you saw her go out in a skirt like that on Sunday? Was her hair really as short as that? That bob looks like it belongs to a proper middle-schooler, doesn’t it? And why would Jeong-mi, constantly having to scrimp and save to make ends meet, have been so extravagant as to get a pedicure when it wasn’t even summer? But you never did get a good look at her bare feet. Only Jeong-dae would know if Jeong-mi had that dark-blue splotch on her knee, barely the size of a red bean. You need Jeong-dae to be able to know, categorically, that the woman lying there is not his sister.
On the other hand, though, you need Jeong-mi to help you find her brother. If she was here in your place, she would have gone around every hospital in the city, until she came across her brother in one of the recovery rooms, just that minute coming to his senses. Like when he’d rushed out of the house last February, insisting to Jeong-mi that he’d die before he went to liberal arts school, that as soon as he got to the middle of third year he was going to start taking the vocational classes that would be offered then, to prepare you for the world of business. With an almost uncanny swiftness she’d tracked him down in some comics store that very same day and dragged him out by the ear. Your mother and middle brother had found the sight of Jeong-dae being hauled around by such a petite, unassuming young woman utterly hilarious. Even your father, a dour and taciturn man, found it difficult to keep from laughing, and had to clear his throat loudly several times. The two siblings retreated to their annex, and their muffled exchange could be heard going on until after midnight. When one low, murmuring voice was heard to rise and take on an affectionate tone, that person was seeking to mollify the other, and when the other voice rose in turn, that meant the tables had turned, and this time it was the former who was being talked down, and in the meantime, up until the point when you slid into sleep as though falling into a sudden abyss, you lay in your room becoming less and less able to distinguish between the sounds of an argument and the sounds of making up, of low laughter and shared sighs.
—
Now you’re sitting at the table by the door to the gymnasium.
Your ledger is lying open on the left-hand side of the table, and your eyes are scanning the column of names, numbers, phone numbers, and addresses, checking you have the correct details before writing them in big letters on A4 paper. Jin-su said you have to make sure that you’re able to contact the bereaved, even if every last one of the civilian militia were to die this very night. There’s no one to help you write them up and fix them to coffins; you’ll have to hurry if you’re going to get them all done by six o’clock.
You hear someone calling your name.
You look up to see your mother emerge from between two trucks. As she approaches, you see that your middle brother isn’t with her this time. Her gray blouse and baggy black trousers are the ones she wears whenever she goes to work in the shop, almost a kind of uniform. She looks as she always does, except for the fact that her hair, usually neatly combed, has suffered from the rain shower earlier.
You stand up and run forward, so glad to see her that you don’t realize what you’re doing until you’re halfway down the steps. You stop short, confused, and your mother scurries up to grab your hand before you have time to retreat back to the safety of the gym.
“Let’s go home,” she says. You give your wrist a violent wrench, trying to shake free of her grip. The insistent, desperate strength in that grip is frightening, somehow, making you think of someone drowning. You have to use your other hand to pry her fingers away, one by one. “The army is coming. Let’s go home, now.”
Eventually you manage to shake her off, and lose no time in slipping back inside the building. Your mother tries to follow you in, but gets brought up short by the snaking queue of the bereaved, who are waiting to carry their coffins home with them.
You turn around and call back to her: “We’re going to close up here at six, Mum.”
Agitated, she moves from one foot to the other, trying to catch your eye from the other side of the line. You can only see her forehead, its furrows reminding you of a crying baby.
You call again, louder this time: “Once we’ve closed up, I’ll come home. I promise.”
Only then do those furrows smooth out.
“Make sure you do,” she says. “Be back before the sun sets. We’ll all have dinner together.”
—
It’s not been an hour since your mother left when you spot an old man heading slowly in your direction. You stand up. Even from this distance, his old-fashioned brown jacket has clearly seen better days. Dazzlingly white hair protrudes from beneath an ink-black peaked cap, and he leans heavily on a wooden walking stick as he totters forward. After weighting down the scraps of paper with the ledger and pen to stop them from being scattered by the wind, you walk down the steps.
“Who have you come to look for, sir?”
“My son and granddaughter,” he says. He seems to be missing several teeth, which doesn’t exactly help you puzzle out his thick accent.
“I got a lift on a cultivator over from Hwasun. They stopped us in the suburbs, said we couldn’t come into the city, so I found a path over the mountains that the soldiers weren’t guarding. I only just made it.”
He takes a deep breath. The drops of saliva clinging to the sparse white hairs around his mouth are the color of ash. You can’t understand how this elderly man, who finds even flat ground a challenge, managed to get here through the mountains.
“Our youngest boy, he’s a mute…he had a fever when he was little, you see. Never spoke after that. A few days ago, someone who’d fled the city told me the soldiers had clubbed a mute to death, a while ago already now.”
You take the old man by the arm and help him up the steps.
“Our eldest lad’s daughter is renting a room near Jeonnam University while she’s studying, so I went there yesterday evening and it was ‘whereabouts unknown’…the landlord hasn’t seen her for a good few days now, and the neighbors said the same.”
You step into the gym hall and put on your mask. The women wearing mourning clothes are wrapping up the drinks bottles, newspapers, ice bags, and portrait photos in carrying cloths. There are also families arguing back and forth over whether to transfer their coffin to a safe home or just leave it where it is.
Now the old man extricates his arm from yours, declining your offer of assistance. He walks in front, holding a crumpled cloth to his nose. He examines the faces that are exposed one by one. He shakes his head. The rubber-covered gym floor turns the regular clack of his cane into a dull thump.
“What about those over there? Why’re their faces hidden?” he asks, pointing toward the ones with cloths drawn up over their heads.