I Hear Your Voice Page 2

  Jae was different from me. His eyes burned holes through the helicopter as if determined to move it telepathically. I don’t think he blinked. Like a catatonic patient at some mental hospital who stands in the same place all day, he tensed his arms and legs as he focused on the floating helicopter. His odd stillness stopped my crying. I started to wonder if he was actually communicating with the helicopter.

  I’m not sure whether I stopped talking before or after that day. But I definitely have no memories of saying anything out loud for a long time after that. The taste of terror is still vivid for me, like a giant pair of tongs squeezing my brain (it tastes like putting your tongue against a chunk of rusted iron). I’m not sure why I remember that as a taste. I understood others and I could read and write. I just couldn’t get words past my mouth. If I even thought about opening my mouth, my tongue froze and my mind went blank. Words were elusive. I felt as if I’d be able to speak if I tried hard, or if I tried a little more, but at that point my heart would palpitate and my fists would slicken with sweat, and finally I’d realize there was no way I’d be able to speak and I would fall silent. It was the same feeling you get when a nightmare paralyzes you. My mother said I spoke just fine until I was three, but sometime after that I spoke less and less until eventually I was always silent, even with her. But that’s only her version. I remember being a child who had never said a word.

  The helicopter brings back another story connected to my uncle. About that time he decided to join the police force and moved to Seoul to study. He had just completed national service so at most he was about twenty-two or twenty-three. My uncle was the reticent type and came off as crude. I’d never really been keen on him, and likewise he’d never cared much for me. He went to classes during the day and studied in private reading rooms at night, but he ate breakfast and dinner at our house. My father was a plainclothes detective who often didn’t come home for days. Sometimes he returned stinking, probably from the fine layer of tear gas that came from shutting down a protest. I associate my father with this smell. The vague memory of him staggering into the house late at night, and the acrid smell and the violent energy that came with him—that alone was enough to put me on edge.

  My uncle kept me company when my father wasn’t home, but I don’t remember it being much fun. He stayed in the housekeeping room connected to the kitchen; he despised it when I burst in, and he threw a fit each time. You could reach it only through a small door connected to the kitchen, and when the door was shut, this isolated room looked like another storage room. Because of its unusual location, I was startled each time he emerged. To a young kid like me, it looked like a secret door to another world. When my uncle was in classes I would sneak into the room, where a smell of damp laundry and sour, rotting fruit clung to the walls. For some reason he had glued glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling, so if you turned off the lights the Big Dipper radiated. It was amazing to me, so I’d go into the room and switch the lights on and off.

  My uncle passed the exam and became a police officer. Before the results were officially announced, my father called home, thrilled that his little brother would also join the police force. I still remember the sizzle of splattering oil, the rank, burning fat, and the mushiness of overcooked roasted pork belly. Jae had come downstairs for a free meal, Mom was bustling in the kitchen, and my father had returned from work excited, making a fuss. I was five years old, hiding behind the sofa and staring up at my uncle. I remember being confused by the stark contrast between his cheerful expression around my father and his usual cold, cynical look. It was probably the first time I’d recognized a person with a secret.

  Unlike your typical cop, my father couldn’t hold his liquor, and early on he fell asleep drunk. Jae and I huddled in front of the TV and watched cartoons. My uncle was bent over the grill, eating pieces of cold meat until he suddenly rose and said, “I better go now.”

  My mother saw him out. His huge duffle bag, stuffed with his belongings, hung at a stiff angle as if it were furious about something. I raised myself up from behind the sofa and gazed at the front door. It was then that my uncle’s hand struck her. The arm hidden by his body seemed to stretch out, slowly draw a semicircle in the air, and target her cheek. Smaack, I still hear it now. A surreal, sharp, unpleasant sound.

  Oh, it’s Inspector Gadget! I thought. Up to that point, I’d still believed that the two adults were playing around. But he didn’t stop, and hit my mother’s cheek again. I couldn’t tell what it might mean for her to take two slaps in silence, but it felt ominous, and I had a hunch it was dangerous. There was no sign of my father. Before I knew it, I’d started to stand up, but Jae yanked me back down by the arm. He touched his index finger to his lips and signaled me to be quiet. His eerie grown-up watchfulness that day made me uncomfortable.

  We turned back to the TV, but our bodies were completely tuned in to what was happening out front. Soon my uncle slammed the front door behind him. My mother cleared the table and began washing dishes. Sometimes the clinking of dishes would suddenly stop and leave a troubling silence. But I couldn’t bear to sneak glances at my mom’s back, so Jae and I fixed our eyes on the TV and blankly watched the screen.

  My uncle visited several times after that, and he and my mother got along fine—as if nothing had happened. Each time, I wondered whether what I’d seen had actually happened. I continued not to speak. No one seemed to consider these symptoms serious; they just thought of me as a quiet kid. That is, until the kindergarten teacher called my mother and told her that I had a problem. My mother must have known that something wasn’t right but maybe wasn’t ready to face it, reassuring herself every day: he’ll be fine tomorrow, it’s probably nothing.

  Not long after that, the battles between my dad and mom began. They were violent fights. They hurled nasty words at each other and threw dishes that would break against the wall. I was afraid that they would completely forget I existed. Years later I saw a videotaped scene from my parents’ wedding, with a young man and woman, harboring great hopes for the future, beaming and greeting their guests. I realized that in a world where I didn’t exist, they had been happy. Did I have to disappear for them to return to that original state? Maybe they were happy not despite my absence, but because of my absence. Weighed down by those heavy thoughts, I quickly turned off the video.

  I wasn’t able to attend kindergarten because I didn’t speak, so I spent the days stuck at home rereading picture books or playing alone, making up stories about my toys. My mother left a measured distance between us, like a boxer who jabs at his opponent to hold him at bay. I have almost no memories of her hugging me or ruffling my hair in affection. She treated me as if I were a neighbor’s pet she was dog-sitting. I was a guest who had arrived in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I became sure I was unwanted. Words slowly started to rise inside me but still I didn’t speak. No, I couldn’t speak. Jae was the only person who stuck by me.

  I had functional aphonia, an anxiety-related illness—but no one knew to call it this. Later, when I learned that my suffering had a name, that alone was a relief, since it meant I wasn’t the only one, that others had the same condition.

  But Jae didn’t treat me as if I were weird. We would silently spend half the day together on the jungle gym or roam the neighborhood for a while, then go home and watch TV. It was as if he had said, You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to.

  Mama Pig didn’t leave for work until late in the afternoon and returned home near midnight. Sometimes Jae and I tagged along with her to the hostess club. This was before the financial crisis and the currency meltdown, so the economy was still strong and Mama Pig had hardly any days off. If a regular asked for a snack that wasn’t on the menu, she had to make it for him, from Beolgyo cockles to marinated and grilled dried pollock. She also had to make hangover stew for a private room packed with raging drunk customers.

  Mama Pig would often say, “Rich people don’t want what everyone else wants. They’re choosy and qui
ck-tempered. That’s what the rich are like.”

  She had grown up by the sea, so she had a way of cooking that made her popular with customers. A regular who owned several buildings in the heart of the Gangnam district said that he didn’t come for the alcohol, but for the food.

  “That’s crazy,” said Mama Pig. “Our customers spend enough to buy a car in one visit alone, and he says he comes to eat.”

  She clicked her tongue in disapproval, but she didn’t seem to feel too bad about it, since afterward she often repeated to other customers what he’d said.

  When I breathe in deeply, I can smell the hostess club even now. Just down the stairs to the club’s basement location, the smells formed a wall that separated it from the rest of the world. On top of a thick layer of bleach, there was a faint scent of freesia, jasmine, and lavender air freshener, and over that, a strong animal scent swirled around like cream in coffee. This strange world replete with powerfully artificial smells resembled the entrance into a secret temple. Low-lit halogen lamps illuminated the black-and-sienna minimalist interior; I used to stare in wonder at their timid light as it fell on the carpet like a first snow. You could peek at the entrance from a narrow hallway connecting the kitchen and the storage area.

  Every day when it opened for business, men in bowties lined up with their eyes to the ground. There wasn’t a woman in sight; the women stayed shrouded in darkness, drunk on their own beauty; then, as if greeting distinguished guests, they suddenly rushed out with bright smiles. After they led their first customers to private rooms, the madam gave alcohol to the bowtied men who were still waiting and sent them to the bar. All night long the madam sent the girls from one room to the next. When I think back on the hostess club, I imagine a medieval convent I’d once seen in a movie. Girls in black would covertly move between the locked doors of secret rooms, and men with money and power would visit them. Even with the eruptions of loud voices and blasts of music, the hostess club had a surprising ascetic energy. So despite the presence of beautiful women, everything felt taboo except drinking. With its spare interior and marble floors, the hostess club wasn’t a cheap red-light-district space and actually had the air of a well-decorated executive’s office. The women, done up like secretaries, attended to men who demonstrated remarkable restraint.

  Once, when the madam discovered Jae and me running in the hallway, she grabbed us by the ear and warned, “If the customers see you, I’ll kick you all out.”

  When Mama Pig heard about this, she added another warning: “Listen to madam auntie. The customers are paying a fortune to get away from kids like you. If they wanted to be around kids, they’d stay home. Why would they come here?”

  Jae and I roamed everywhere except the reception area and the private rooms. We would get free late-night snacks in the kitchen, play hide-and-seek in the liquor storage, then fall asleep in the waiters’ lodgings. In the rank disorder of their beds, we saw the bare face of the poor. Within the hostess club’s temple of beauty, the stench of poverty crept out from the armpits of the young men. One of the waiters, who went by the name of Popeye, called Jae and me mice because he said we were always scrambling in and out. His right forearm was crowded with blue tattoos. Sometimes he rolled up his sleeve and showed them off to us, flexing his muscles so the letters on his arm wiggled like bugs.

  Sometimes the women embraced us. When their warm breath brushed across my neck, I went hard. A woman’s hands that entertained men every day had special energy. Even now, I like being held so tightly I can barely breathe, though I know that no one can help me relive the crude excitement I’d felt as a six-year-old kid. When you repeatedly realize that all your new experiences utterly pale against the brilliance of the past, life becomes underwhelming. I learned that all too quickly.

  For a while I believed that all young women were slender because of my time in the club, despite the exceptions I witnessed there. One chubby, cranky woman would pinch our cheeks or slap our butts whenever she saw us. We tried to avoid the witch, but she tracked us down like a bloodhound. She reeked of alcohol as she pretended to eat us alive and tugged at our ears. Once Jae made a run in her pantyhose with his fingernail, and then she really did rage like a witch. Women in that line of work believed getting a run in your pantyhose or breaking a fingernail was unlucky.

  Once, Popeye and the witch entered the storage room as we were reading a comic book in a cozy hideout we’d made by moving around crates of alcohol. They didn’t know we were there, and began caressing each other. The cases of alcohol stacked up on the pallet rattled and clanked like a train. At first the lovers folded close together and swayed like tall seagrass, but their movements intensified. When the witch began screaming, Popeye covered her mouth. Slowly their movements subsided. Their bodies, dangerously entwined, straightened. Like a dog shaking rain off his coat, they noisily tidied up and, one at a time, exited. It was like theater. One actor appeared after the other, passionately delivered his or her lines, then walked off the stage. I still see that somehow tragic-looking piece of flesh that hung from Popeye’s body dangling in front of me. I didn’t think of it as just a body part. Popeye gazed down at it and, as if to say “You’ve worked hard,” tapped at it with his right hand, then lifted up his pants in one swoop. When the dangling flesh disappeared into his body like a snake’s tongue, I held my breath.

  The accident that got us exiled from paradise also happened in that storage room. One day I was in the hideout, lost in a comic book until I saw that Jae had somehow climbed to the top of the stacked crates of Scotch. I gestured for him to come down, but he ignored me. Instead, as if seeking someone higher up, he extended his right hand and slowly stood up. He wavered, readying to jump to a tower of beer crates one leap away. As I zigzagged up the crates to help him down, he lost his balance and began tottering. Squatting with both arms apart, he looked like a dancer coerced by authorities into performing. The tower tilted, so Jae stooped and clutched at the crates with both hands, but the tower only leaned farther. Bottles of seventeen-year-old Scotch thundered as they rolled everywhere. Only when the tower tumbled did Jae look to me for help. He flew in the opposite direction of the whiskey crates. Meaning, he fell on me. The floor was soaked, and the cloying smell of expensive whiskey stung our noses and made us dizzy. The cold liquid seeping into my shirt felt like blood. Popeye rushed in and picked up Jae—who was knocked out and lying on top of me—and carried him out. One virtue of people in the bar trade: no matter how terrible the accident, they stay cool-headed. Popeye silently discarded the glass shards and wiped up the whiskey with a rag. But from his quick glance my way, I sensed he wasn’t unhappy about the disaster awaiting us. When the madam arrived, I was dragged to the bathroom, stripped of my whiskey-drenched clothes, and forced to shower. She threw a promo T-shirt with a Chivas Regal logo at me and said, “Game’s over. Don’t show up here anymore. Got it?”

  Mama Pig had never traveled abroad. She was the kind who wouldn’t have known whether Guam was in the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic. If Korean Air flight 801 hadn’t hit heavy rains on August 6, 1997, and rashly attempted to land at Guam’s international airport in Agana, that island never would have played a part in her life. During a storm the landing equipment had malfunctioned; that, on top of poor judgment by the pilots. Near the airport, the Boeing 747 collided with Nimitz Hill; included among its 254 passengers were the man who owned the hostess club and the witch. Mama Pig watched the TV news flashes like she’d gone mad, muttering that she couldn’t understand why out of all the club’s beautiful women, the owner had gone on vacation with the witch.

  The new owner of the hostess club had extensive renovations done and replaced the madam. Of course the new madam brought her own people with her, and the kitchen was no exception. So Mama Pig lost her job.

  Even well into the future, whenever Jae and I ran out of things to talk about, we ended up describing the hostess bar to each other as if it were an elusive utopia. It housed an unlimited supply of food. When a slip of p
aper passed through a small hole, it was transformed into a bounty of alcohol and snacks, including all sorts of fruit and dried seafood, American beef jerky and dried nuts, which dexterous waiters carried into the rooms. Then finally, the waiters demonstrated a nearly acrobatic, effortless ability to silently uncap dozens of beer bottles with one hand.

  One waiter said, “If you make any noise at all, some customers will tell you not to open the bottles. Before they notice, you have to quietly open them all.”

  Bewitching women with long fingernails, a feast of snacks, unfinished and discarded bottles of Scotch and cognac, bourbon and beer piled as high as a mountain. Hefty doormen who lifted us up high in the air whenever they saw us. The hostess club must have had a gang backing it as well as public officials hunting for violations and demanding bribes; on top of that some messy, horrifying events probably happened behind the scenes, but we knew nothing about any of this.

  Soon after the club changed hands, Jae started at a regular elementary school and I went off to a school for kids with special needs. Because we lived in the same house, we still hung out in the afternoons. We shared a special bond that baffled other kids. Jae instantly understood the words slowed up inside me that wouldn’t rush past my lips, that stayed petrified like stalactites. So he began speaking for me. At first I was amazed—it was similar to moving objects through telekinesis—but later I took it for granted. Jae didn’t get every single one of my thoughts in one try, but he figured them out within a few attempts. Sometimes when Jae made off-the-wall guesses, I would either give up or start wanting whatever Jae wanted. Yes—I would lie to myself. Jae got a high from reading my desires, and I didn’t want to destroy that illusion. He wasn’t the receiver of my desires; he was their interpreter.