Do not write a single sentence that abets violence.
That was the first sentence of We Are Breathing.
The first time I pulled the manuscript out of the envelope and read that sentence, I felt my spine straighten. I typed the sentence over and over, once for every year of my age, changing the paper as I went. I became so absorbed in typing that I felt like I was no longer the same person who had brought the manuscript home. Reviews of poems and stories personally selected by Professor Yoon filled the sheets of paper. I started to understand what he meant when he said he was sorry to put me up to it but that maybe it would help me as I studied. The notes tucked between the pages appeared to be an appendix. Post-it notes and arrows indicated where he wanted memos and other brief texts to be added to the manuscript. There were even poems copied down in Professor Yoon’s handwriting that I felt I should look up on my own.
The next day I went to a shop that loaned out typewriters. I had seen the shop on my way to the bookstore on Jongno Street. The shortest rental period was one month. I rented a typewriter and lugged it home on the bus. After that, I found myself eager to get home from school every day so I could get back to typing. I could not take the extra ten minutes to walk through the neighborhood above the tunnel or the extra five minutes to visit the street with the used-book stores, so I would find myself on the bus instead.
When I first started typing, I was so loath to leave even a single typo that if I mistyped a letter, I started over with a new piece of paper. But after a while, I started correcting my typos with correction fluid instead. As I typed one page after another, I became more familiar with Professor Yoon’s handwriting. At first, I racked my brain trying to decipher some of the letters, marking those pages for later if I could not figure them out. I went to the school library to compare his copies against the original texts. I could have checked with him directly, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to give him the completed manuscript without having to ask any questions.
Whenever my shoulders ached at night from all the typing, I rested my arms on the windowsill and looked at the world outside. I gazed down at the light pouring out of the thick cluster of apartment buildings at the base of Naksan Mountain. My cousin had found the rooftop apartment for me because it was close to where she lived. I traced the buildings with my eyes and tried to guess which of those countless lights was my cousin’s apartment. Then I looked up at the sky. It was studded with stars. I tried to spell out the words do not write a single sentence that supports violence in the stars. I also looked at Namsan Tower off in the distance. Though it didn’t look like much in the daytime, at night it blazed with light and marked its position. It reassured me to know there was something that stayed in one place and did not change, even if it was just a tower. I forgot about it during the day but found myself unconsciously staring at it at night. On overcast nights, when clouds obscured the tower, I poked my head out more often and waited for the clouds to lift. I decided I had to go up there someday. I surprised myself by picturing going up there with Myungsuh or Miru. After what felt like endless typing, I reached the final page. It contained a list of twenty books that Professor Yoon wanted us to read before graduation.
The day Professor Yoon distributed copies of the course reader, I studied the map for a long time before leaving the school. I was in no hurry to get back home. I looked for the longest route and tightened my shoelaces. Finishing the manuscript had left me feeling empty. Now there was no reason to grab the next bus so I could get home as fast as possible. The typewriter, which was not due back at the store yet, still sat on my desk, but a sense of loss surged through me. I felt like I was alone again. It was a strange day. Not only did I feel like I had lost something, but my feelings for Myungsuh and Miru were growing faint. It was as if my heart had opened up to them while I was typing Professor Yoon’s manuscript, but it closed again the moment the typing was done. The longest route back to my apartment passed through the center of the city. Since it was a bustling area, there would be more to see and the streets would be crowded, so I was sure to walk slower and arrive home late.
My plan was to take the underpass in front of City Hall to the Plaza Hotel, head north to Gwanghwamun Gate, east to Anguk-dong, detour around the Secret Garden at Changdeokgung Palace, and head east again through Myeongnyun-dong on my way back to Hyehwa-dong. Since it was the first time I had taken this route, I double-checked the map and visualized the journey several times, but when I got near City Hall, I could not go any farther. I got caught in a wave of protesters and was pressed up against the glass doors of the Koreana Hotel, unable to move. All of the stores in the area had their metal roll-down gates shut tight. Even the glass doors that led into the hotel were firmly locked. The hotel employees were watching the commotion in the streets from inside. Just a few steps away from the hotel was the underpass. I thought if I could make it to the underpass, I could get across to the other side, and I took a step toward it. Just then, a tear gas canister exploded overhead, and a huge crowd of protesters surged into the underpass to try to avoid it. I was shoved forward with them, but the roll-down gates at the bottom of the stairwell were closed as well. There was nowhere to go, but the people at the top kept pouring in and falling on top of us. The people in front of the security gates began to collapse on top of one another. There was no time to think about how to get out. I fell down with someone and felt someone else fall on top of me.
When I came to, I was lying on the ground behind the Cecil Theater, near Deoksugung Palace. I had no idea how I made it out. I did not even know how much time had passed. I lay still for a moment before trying to sit up. I was short of breath and had trouble seeing. The knees of my pants were wet with blood. I vaguely recalled squinting and sluggishly picking my way toward the light at the top of the underpass. With each breath, my throat had closed up, and when I opened my eyes, tears poured out. I remembered trying to hold my breath and keep my eyes closed as I went wherever my feet took me. Then I remembered collapsing on the ground. I had lain there for some time. I sat up on the cement and looked around me. There was a patch of grass beside me, and a wooden bench. I tried to move to the bench, but a sharp pain in my knee stopped me. I looked down at the dried bloodstain on my pants. I sat down on the bench and tried to pull the fabric away from my knee, but it was glued to the skin. I gave up on checking my knee and just sat there. How long had I been there? I did not even realize my bag and shoes were gone until I felt the gravel embedded in the soles of my feet. My first thought was to try to recall what I’d had in my bag. And then I remembered: the three copies of We Are Breathing. I ignored the pain radiating from my knee and walked back down a long alley to the main road. Everything was a mess from the demonstration. The huge wave of people had disappeared somewhere; the street was littered with abandoned bags and shoes that had been knocked off in the scrimmage with the riot police. I picked through all of it, hoping to find my belongings. I headed back to the underpass in front of the hotel where I had collapsed, wondering if I would find my shoes and bag there. I could hear the sporadic shouts of protest slogans. The demonstration had not ended but had simply been pushed back to one end of the street. The glass doors to the hotel, which the employees had locked in fear when the crowds of demonstrators surged through, were sitting open. The worried-looking employees stood out front. One of them handed me a bottle of water. I accepted the bottle without even looking at her and took a drink. The underpass was empty, as if someone had come through and cleaned it. Even though I could see at once that there was nothing in the stairwell, I walked down for a closer look. The metal gates were still firmly locked. Why weren’t we allowed to cross to the other side? I climbed back up the stairs. The pain in my knee made it difficult. I wanted to sit down on the ground right there, but one of the riot police stepped in front of me. He must have thought I was trying to head toward Gwanghwamun Gate, where the protesters were, because he kept blocking my way.
“My shoes … my bag,” I said.
He
glared at me. His eyes were red. Finally, he pointed to a small vacant lot between the road and the hotel.
“Go that way. Everything is being collected over there.”
The pain in my knee would not go away. I was about to limp over to the vacant lot when I heard someone behind me call my name. I turned to see Myungsuh standing there with a camera hanging from his neck. There he was, right where a demonstration had just swept through like a flash flood. My mind went blank. How could I describe the shock that I felt? It was similar to what I felt when my father told me he was moving the crepe-myrtle tree to my mother’s grave. Somehow, I could not believe the tree could be moved, not even when I watched my father dig it up from the yard, not even when I saw it casting its shade over my mother’s grave like a parasol, and not even when the crimson blossoms alighted on the green grass of her grave like butterflies. Each time I saw the tree, I stared at it as if I were seeing it for the first time.
“Jung Yoon!”
I stood and stared at Myungsuh like I was looking at a hallucination. He said my name again. Once I realized he really was standing there, he looked like a beacon of light shining out of the dark. My mother’s death, which had been drifting out of reach all that time, sank in at once, and a wave of loss washed over me. I was not prepared for it. Of all things, why did the fact that I would never see my mother again, a fact that had not yet sunk in despite my walking around with her ring in my pocket, have to hit me then and there? Mama’s dead. I may as well have heard drums beating and a herald delivering the news. I would never hold my mother’s hand again. Never curl up against her ailing body and fall asleep. Never hear her say my name. As I stood there in the middle of the city, I brought both hands up and covered my face. The heat drained out of me, and my body turned as cold as ice. Before I knew it, tears were pouring down my face. He ran to my side and threw his arms around me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The employee who had been watching us from inside the hotel brought another bottle of water and pressed it into his hand. Even the riot cop who had told me which way to go stopped to look at us.
“Let’s go somewhere and sit down,” he said.
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. The only place we could go off the main road was the place the riot cop had pointed out. Once started, my tears would not stop rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to stop crying, but I couldn’t control myself. I was embarrassed and tried to shake his arm off, but he held on tight and would not let go. The buildings lining the street, the signs in the alleys, the walls, the asphalt, all seemed to be watching me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Even as I tried to free my shoulder from his grip, the tears kept coming.
“Let me tell you a funny story,” he said. “You might have already heard it on the radio. This one clueless college student had a crush on a girl he went to school with. His nickname was Nak Sujang. He looked for her on campus every day but never actually spoke to her. She was dating someone else. But he couldn’t help his feelings, and so he always kept one eye out for her, albeit from a distance. One day, he saw her sitting on the grass in front of the library with her boyfriend. They looked like they were fighting. Suddenly the boyfriend got up and left. The girl was crying. Nak Sujang felt really bad for her. What guy wouldn’t feel bad seeing a girl he likes crying her eyes out? So he decided to tell her a joke to cheer her up. He was going to say, ‘What did one saggy boob say to the other? We better perk up or somebody is going to think we’re nuts.’ But when he walked up to her, she snapped, ‘What do you want?’ He was so flustered that he blurted out, ‘What did your saggy boob say?!’ ”
I burst out laughing, tears still hanging from my eyes.
“You laughed!”
He looked like a man and a boy at the same time. He was smiling and posing as if he had just won a hundred-meter race. I swallowed the memory of my mother that had been caught like a lump in my throat. I forgot all about crying and looked at him as I laughed out loud once more.
“You laughed again!”
Each time I laughed, he said it again. He looked like he wanted to keep a tally of my laughter. He looked so silly that I could not stop laughing, even as my tears kept flowing. Is the root of laughter also sorrow? As I laughed, I was filled with both joy and sorrow. People walking by stared at us.
“Jung Yoon laughed!”
The paving bricks scratched up in the demonstration, the glass windows on the buildings, the stairs, the pillars, and the railings all stared at us.
“I made Jung Yoon laugh!”
Had I ever wanted that badly to make someone laugh? I pictured my father’s face and realized that I had not made the best use of my time while I was home. Not even once had I tried to cheer up my father, who had lost his laughter when he lost his wife. I pictured Dahn’s sad face next. My tears would not stop falling. I wiped them away with the back of my hand and finally took a good look at Myungsuh. He looked as bad as I did. The bottoms of his jeans were soaked, and the back of his shirt was in tatters. I stopped laughing, but we had already grown closer.
“What happened to your shoes?” Myungsuh asked.
He looked down at my bare feet. I looked down at them, too. I was already starting to forget the details of what had happened. The only part I remembered clearly was being swept into the underground passage with the other people, getting knocked down, and falling on my face. The pain in my knee flared up again, and I unconsciously wiggled my toes. He stared at the bloodstains on my knees.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You have to arm yourself properly if you’re going to demonstrate. Make sure your shoelaces are tied tight, and wear a mask.”
“I wasn’t trying to demonstrate.”
He gave me a look.
“Let’s just go over there and look for your shoes,” he said.
“My bag first!”
I was worried about the copies of We Are Breathing that were in my bag. If he’d known I had lost my bag as well, he probably would have added that it was a bad idea to bring it to a protest.
“Jung Yoon, you look like a beggar.”
At that moment, I was. I didn’t have so much as a thousand-won bill on me. At that moment, he was all I had. He stopped teasing and got serious. It turned out that I was not the only one. When we walked into the alley and found the empty lot, there was a small mountain of ownerless shoes, bags, hats, and jackets. Having been blasted with tear gas and water cannons, everything was wet and smelled. Only then did he take his arm from around my shoulder. He looked me over and gazed down at my feet again. This city was full of surprises. I would never have guessed that I would one day be standing in the middle of it while someone stared openly at my bare feet. And not even at clean feet, but at bruised, chafed, dirty feet.
“I see why you were crying,” he said.
“I wasn’t crying over my shoes.”
I had begun talking back to him without realizing it.
“What were you doing here?”
“Walking,” I said.
“Walking?”
He didn’t seem to understand what I meant, because he stared at me for a moment.
“I need to find my bag,” I said.
One by one, other people like me who had sought shelter somewhere began to emerge. At first it was just the two of us, but soon there were many harried-looking people searching for their belongings. Many of them were barefoot, and one was in just an undershirt, while another clutched his arm as if it was broken. We all looked dazed. I joined the crowd and started digging among other people’s belongings in search of my own.
“They were sneakers, right?” Myungsuh asked.
“Yes.”
“White?”
“Yes.”
“And a brown bag with a long strap.”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“Because they’re yours,” he said.
His words drummed in my ears like rain. H
e became engrossed in trying to find my shoes and bag. The camera hanging from his neck swayed back and forth. Something seemed to strike him, because he took it off and snapped a picture of the pile of lost objects. He started to hang it around his neck again but handed it to me instead and went back to searching for my shoes. I saw pens and pencils that had spilled out of bags. There were hats, handkerchiefs, makeup, a pair of nail clippers. The stem of someone’s eyeglasses was rolling around in the pile, and I even spotted a belt. Scattered about here and there were heels that had broken off of shoes.
“Found it!”
Out of all those countless bags, he had managed to find mine and was holding it aloft. The charm that had been attached to it was torn. He wiped the wet bag with the hem of his shirt and handed it to me. Though it was impossible to get all of the dirt off it, he tried to clean it anyway. I took the bag from him and clutched it to my chest. He started searching again for my shoes. There were no white sneakers to be found. They may have started out as white, but it was unlikely they still were. They were comfortable sneakers with absolutely no distinguishing characteristics. Even if he did find them, I probably would not be able to put them on. Everything in the pile was soaked. I watched intently as he looked for my shoes. The city truly was full of surprises. I had searched for him all over the school to no avail, only to bump into him here. He was checking each shoe one by one. When I suggested that he stop looking, he looked down at my bare feet with a defeated look on his face. Dusk had fallen in the meantime, and the light of the streetlamps shone on his face. He took the camera from my hand, hung it around his neck, and squatted with his back to me.
“Hop on,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
“You can’t walk on that knee.”
I hadn’t told him that I hurt my knee, but the pain had not let up once.