Diary of a Murderer Read online

  It’s the same for Odysseus. Early on his journey home, Odysseus lands on the island of the Lotus Eaters. After eating the lotus fruit that the locals hospitably urge on him, he forgets about his return home. Not only Odysseus, but all his followers forget as well. The hometown belongs to the past, but plans to return to that home belong to the future. Even afterward, Odysseus continues to struggle with forgetting. He flees the Sirens’ song, and escapes from the goddess Calypso, who tries to hold on to him for eternity. The Sirens and Calypso planned to have Odysseus forget the future and remain stuck in the present, but Odysseus resists and aims to return home because he learns that living solely in the present means descending to the life of an animal. You can’t call a person who loses all his memories a human being. The present is merely the connecting point for the past and future; it’s meaningless alone. What’s the difference between a patient with advanced dementia and an animal? Nothing. They eat, shit, laugh and cry, then finally die. Odysseus rejected this. How? By remembering the future, and not giving up on his plans to stride toward the past.

  In that sense, my plan to kill Pak is also a kind of homecoming. Maybe my trying to return to the world that I’d left, the era of serial killing, was an attempt to recover who I once was. In this way, my future is connected to my past.

  Odysseus had a wife who’d waited anxiously for him. Who was waiting for me in my dark past? Was it those who died by my hands, those bodies who slept beneath my bamboo forest and babbled on each windswept night? Or was it someone I’d forgotten?

  ·

  I’m pretty sure the doctor planted something in my head when I had brain surgery. I’ve heard there’s a computer like that. One that, with the press of a button, erases all your records, then self-destructs.

  ·

  Once again Eunhui doesn’t return. It’s been how many days already? I can’t tell. He hasn’t already gotten her, has he? She’s not answering her phone, either. It’s time to act, but I keep forgetting. I’ve got to act fast.

  ·

  I had trouble sleeping, so I went outside and saw the night sky radiant with stars. In the next life I want to return as an astronomer or a lighthouse keeper. Looking back, I realize the hardest part of life is dealing with humans.

  ·

  I’ve finished all the prep. Now I just have to get onstage. I do a hundred push-ups. My muscles are tight and firm.

  ·

  In a dream, I see my naked father going to the bathhouse. I ask, “Father, why are you going to the bathhouse naked?” He answers, “I’ll be getting undressed anyway. I might as well go there naked.” He had a point. Still, it doesn’t feel right, so I ask, “Then why does everyone else go dressed to the bathhouse?” He says, “But you know we’re different from the others.”

  ·

  I woke up in the morning feeling stiff all over. I ate breakfast and stretched. The stinging in my hands and feet turned out to be light scrapes, so I hunted down the medicine chest to get some ointment. The floors under my feet rustled with sand. Had something happened last night? I didn’t remember a thing. There wasn’t anything new saved on my recorder when I turned it on. I’d definitely gone somewhere last night, but I must’ve left it behind. I must have sleepwalked. I wondered if I’d spent the night getting rid of Pak. Yesterday I jotted on my notepad: “I’ve finished all the prep. Now I just have to get onstage. I do a hundred push-ups. My muscles are tight and firm.”

  Nothing stood out on TV. The news mentioned nothing about a murder. There was just the weather report. The summer would be unusually hot. The scum—they broadcast the same news every May or June, year after year: “This summer will be unusually hot.” It’s just a ploy to sell more air conditioners. In early winter, they use another news clip: “This winter will be unusually cold.” If all these clips were for real, the earth would be a sauna or a freezer by now.

  I watch the news all day. They must not have discovered Pak’s corpse yet. It’d be dangerous for me to hang around in the area, so I stay put. Does the corpse even exist? The dried dirt up my arm makes me think I’ve buried him somewhere, but I’m frustrated because I can’t remember. How will Eunhui react if she discovers his corpse? What will she do afterward? Will she learn years later what a difficult act I’d committed for her sake? What about the police? Will they discover that Pak was the serial killer who had driven the neighborhood into a cauldron of fear? Maybe that’s too much to hope for.

  I took a shower. I washed thoroughly, then burned the clothes I’d been wearing. I vacuumed the entire house and burned whatever was in the dust bag. Then I poured bleach into the bag, finally washed and dried it. Then I asked myself, Why bother? I’d forget it all anyway. If caught, wouldn’t I finally end up in the jail cell that I’d only seen in my fantasies? What was so bad about departing the confusing world of dust for a world of iron divided into rigid square frames?

  ·

  Today I listened all day long to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”).

  ·

  I read this in the papers a while ago: A terminally ill cancer patient asked the hospital staff to call the police. He then confessed to a murder he’d committed ten years before. He had kidnapped his business partner and killed him. The police discovered the partner’s remains buried on a small mountain. Returning to the hospital, they found the murderer in a coma and near death. He’d had to bear the guilt on top of the intense physical pain, so the public forgave him. Everyone must have assumed that he was paying for his sins. But would I also be forgiven? What would they say to a serial killer who had slipped painlessly into oblivion and even forgotten who he was?

  ·

  I’m completely alert today. Do I really have dementia?

  ·

  Why isn’t Eunhui back? She isn’t answering her cell phone, either. Has she found out who I really am? No, not possible.

  ·

  I took a walk in the bamboo forest. The bamboo sprouts were growing rapidly upward. Something connected to the green shoots began coming back to me, then disappeared. I looked at the sky. The bamboo leaves rustled in the wind. I felt calmer, at peace. I didn’t know whose bamboo forest it was, but I liked it. I wandered through the entire village. There was something I needed to find, but what it was, I couldn’t remember.

  I opened my journal and read something I’d written about Pak Jutae and his jeep, about how often the bastard kept showing up and monitoring me. I walked through the village one more time. There was no sign of Pak or his jeep. No doubt he died at my hands. I feel proud that I defeated the young bastard, but it also feels futile, since I recall absolutely nothing. I’m not one to collect trophies—I’d trusted my memory to meticulously record what happened. Frankly, if I can’t remember, what use is a victim’s ring or barrette? I wouldn’t even know where it came from.

  ·

  I sat on the back veranda and watched twilight fall over the village. Is this how life ends?

  ·

  Stray dogs are known to dig tunnels under front gates and crawl onto people’s property. Once they end up on the streets, even house pets instantly act like wolves. They howl at the moon, dig holes, and adapt to the new social codes. Even pregnancy has a hierarchy: only the head female can have babies. If a low-ranking female somehow ends up pregnant, the others attack and kill her. A yellow mutt who’s dug in my yard for a few days is walking around with an object in his mouth. This mutt from nowhere. What did he bring me this time? I threatened him with a stick until he cowered and fled. I used the stick to turn over the pale object covered with dirt.

  A girl’s hand.

  ·

  Either Pak Jutae is still alive or I had the wrong man. It’s one or the other.

  ·

  Eunhui’s still not answering her phone.

  ·

  An Alzheimer’s patient is like a traveler who mixes up his dates and arrives a day early at the airport. Until he reaches the ticket counter, he’s as sure of himself as a rock. He calmly hands his passpo
rt and ticket over the counter. The attendant shakes her head and says, “I’m sorry, but you’ve come a day early,” but he believes the attendant is wrong.

  He says, “Please check your system one more time.”

  Another staff member joins and says that the customer has mixed up the dates. Only then does the man admit he is wrong and retreat. The next day, when he comes to the counter and shows his ticket, another attendant tells him the same thing: “You’ve come a day early.”

  This scene repeats itself daily. He ends up eternally wandering around the airport, unable to arrive on time. He isn’t trapped in the present, but flounders in a space that isn’t past, present, or future. No one understands him. As his loneliness and fear escalate, he becomes a man who does nothing. No, he’s changing into a man who can’t do anything.

  ·

  I was sitting dumbly in my car, parked at the curb. I didn’t know why I was there. A patrol car stopped behind me, then a young cop knocked on my window. I didn’t recognize him.

  He asked, “Sir, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m not sure myself.”

  “Sir, where do you live?”

  I dug out my vehicle registration papers one by one and showed him.

  “Could you please give me your driver’s license, too?”

  I did what he told me to. The policeman looked straight at me and asked, “What brings you out here at this time of night?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Please follow me. You do know how to drive, correct?”

  I turned on the hazard lights and followed his car into the village. Only when I was home did I remember: I had been heading to Pak’s house to find Eunhui. I was thirsty, so I opened the fridge. I saw a hand in a plastic bag.

  Could that really be Eunhui’s hand? God, for some reason I can’t stop thinking that it’s her hand. Otherwise, why was it sent to me? Since Pak is alive, he’s boldly sent me the hand. The bastard is challenging me to a game, but I can’t even make it to his house. No, even if I broke into his house, I would never defeat him. My entire body trembles with rage, knowing I have no choice but to take his taunts.

  I turned the room inside out looking for Detective Ahn’s business card so I could call him. With nothing to lose, nothing scared me. But no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find his card. I was forced to call 112 and say, “My daughter’s been murdered, and I think I know who her killer is. Please come quickly, before I forget.”

  ·

  Oedipus was on the road when, in a fit of anger, he killed someone. Then he forgot about it. The first time I read this, I was impressed that he could forget such a thing.

  When an epidemic rages across Thebes, King Oedipus orders the criminal who has offended the gods to be captured. But before the day’s end, he learns that he is that very criminal. In this moment, does he feel shame or guilt? It’s probably shame for sleeping with his mother, and guilt for killing his father.

  If Oedipus looks into the mirror, he’ll see me standing there. We look the same, but the image is flipped. Though we are both murderers, he doesn’t realize that the person he killed was his father and even forgets that he killed a man. Only later does he come to know what he has done, and gouges out his eyes.

  From the start, I was aware that I was killing my father, had known that I would kill him. Afterward, I never forgot. The rest of the murders were a mere chorus to the first one. Each time my hands were covered in blood, I sensed the shadow of the first murder. But in the last act of my life, I’ll forget about all the evil I’ve committed. As a result, I’ll become someone who doesn’t need to—someone unable to—forgive himself. Though a blind Oedipus becomes enlightened and wise in old age, I become a child. I’ll be a ghostly figure who can’t be held responsible.

  Oedipus proceeded from ignorance to forgetting, and from forgetting to destruction. I’m the exact opposite. I’ll transition from destruction to forgetting, then from forgetting to ignorance, pure ignorance.

  ·

  Plainclothes detectives knocked on the front door. I got dressed and opened the door for them. Behind the detectives were uniformed cops.

  I asked, “Are you coming because of the 112 call?”

  “Yes. Are you Kim Byeongsu?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  I handed over the plastic bag.

  One man asked, “So the dog came with this in his mouth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can we search the premises?”

  “There’s no need to search here. You have to get the criminal.”

  “Who is it? Do you know?”

  “It’s the bastard Pak Jutae. He’s in real estate and goes hunting in the area . . .”

  The detectives laughed and smirked. A man standing behind the police abruptly emerged up front.

  He said, “Are you talking about me?”

  It was Pak. He was with them. My legs went weak, my eyes searched them. Were they in it together? I pointed at Pak and shouted, “Get the bastard!”

  Pak laughed. Something warm trickled down my thigh. What was this?

  “The old man’s pissed his pants.” They couldn’t stop laughing and snickering.

  Shaking, I collapsed onto the veranda. German shepherds came in through the gaping front gate.

  A middle-aged detective in a leather jacket said, “Give him the warrant, though who knows if he’ll recognize it.”

  As soon as the order was given, a younger cop shoved a piece of paper at me.

  “Here, you’ve seen the warrant. We’ll start the search now.”

  After one of the shepherds sniffed around a corner of the yard, he barked sharply three times. One of the uniformed police began digging with a shovel.

  “Ah, here it is.”

  “But something’s not right.”

  With one look you could tell that it was a child’s remains. A bony white skeleton, it had clearly been buried for years. The police start a discussion among themselves. The locals are just outside, crowding against the gate. The cops put up a police line. The police seem either disturbed or excited, I’m not sure which. I’ve always been slow at reading people’s expressions. And who was that kid? They’re saying she was buried long ago, but why can’t I remember anything? Why is Pak with the police?

  ·

  I’m behind bars. The police keep coming for me. They keep talking about “yesterday,” but I have no recall of “yesterday.” Each interrogation feels like the first one, so I always start from the beginning. I tell them how many people I’ve killed and that I never got caught; about the kinds of poems I wrote; about why I didn’t kill the poetry instructor; about Nietzsche, Homer, and Sophocles, how the three keenly understood the life and death of man.

  The police don’t want to hear any of this. They don’t seem interested in my proud past or my philosophy. They believe I killed Eunhui, and they focus only on that. I tell them Pak Jutae probably killed her. I say that he had been seeing Eunhui. I say that since I collided with his car and saw blood dripping from his trunk, he’s been keeping an eye on me.

  The detective in front of me smirks, laughs, then says, “When he’s a cop?”

  I protest. Isn’t a cop also capable of murder?

  He nods readily. “Of course that’s possible. But probably not this time.”

  I look for Detective Ahn. He of all people might believe me. Again, the detective ruthlessly shakes his head. He says he doesn’t know a Detective Ahn. I describe his appearance in great detail, his way of speaking, and what we talked about. One of the police detectives says, “For someone who says he has no short-term memory, how can you remember this Detective Ahn so clearly?”

  The man’s right, but why am I so angry?

  ·

  I feel like I’ve ended up in a parallel universe. Here, Pak Jutae is a cop, Detective Ahn doesn’t exist, and I’ve become Eunhui’s murderer.

  ·

  The police detectives come for me again. Again one as
ks me, “Why did you kill Kim Eunhui?”

  “Pak Jutae killed my daughter.”

  As if I wasn’t there, the middle-aged detective leans toward the younger one and says, “What’s the use of questioning him?”

  “Still, we have to write up a report. It could be an act for all we know.”

  The younger detective says he’s had enough, and says to me, “Look here, Kim. Eunhui is not your daughter. She’s your caregiver, someone who assists the elderly with dementia.”

  I don’t know what a caregiver is. The middle-aged one holds back the increasingly angry younger one, saying, “Your blood pressure’ll go up. Forget it. Nothing you say will make a difference.”

  ·

  Confusion is watching over me.

  ·

  I discovered my story in the paper. I tore it out and kept it.

  The family of Kim Eunhui reported her absence to the police when Kim, who rarely missed work, was unreachable by phone and had missed work for four days. The police investigating Kim’s whereabouts focused on her work as a caregiver for dementia patients. They followed up on her patients, and after determining that Kim Byeongsu, aged 70, was a prime suspect, issued a warrant. On searching his property, they discovered Kim Eunhui’s corpse as well as dismembered parts of her body. Not only was Kim’s corpse found, but a child’s skeleton was also uncovered. Based on the skeleton’s condition, the police hypothesize that the child was secretly buried years earlier. Investigation of the child’s murder will continue once the identification results from the National Forensic Service are confirmed. The suspect Kim Byeongsu has no previous criminal record, and is known to have advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Interest is rising in whether the prosecution and indictment will continue.

  ·

  I keep appearing on television. No one believes that Eunhui is my daughter. Since everyone is saying that, I wonder if I’m wrong after all. They say that Eunhui was a responsible caregiver who selflessly aided dementia patients without families. A scene of her colleagues crying during her funeral repeatedly flashes on the screen. They are sobbing so sorrowfully that even I almost believe that she wasn’t my daughter but an actual professional caregiver. The police are uprooting the area around my house. They mention words like “genetic testing” and “demon.”