Chapter 4 #2
When I looked behind me, I saw that people had seated themselves in ones and twos, their faces and heads and entire bodies covered with cloth.
They all began to utter murmured prayers as soon as they sat down.
Every one of them had their skin wrapped up in bandages, and wore cotton gloves and sunglasses, hats pushed down low on their heads.
They looked determined not to bare a single inch of skin to the outside world.
The right to worship was granted even to those under isolation orders, so they all showed up enthusiastically for their weekly church outing.
Among them was a man with half of his face exposed, looking at me with cold eyes.
It was difficult to identify him because of the way his eyes were deformed, but I recognized his denim jacket.
We’d had a run-in before. A few months back I beat him to a pulp after he broke out of his home to get some beer.
People with East Sea Disease almost never blink.
Moisture naturally gathers in the eyes, so their blinking becomes less frequent and then stops altogether as their bodies dispense with unnecessary functions.
Staring into those eyes that don’t blink, with irises that don’t respond to the light, a terror comes over you.
It’s like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
I left the church in a foul mood, passing a line of the infected making their way inside. Outside the doors I discovered someone I knew, and greeted her with excitement.
“Yoonhui!”
Kim Yoonhui, the second-generation Vietnamese woman I met briefly in Cheongnyangni Station three years before.
They say her mother married into the village and lived out the rest of her life here.
When I had to settle in this village, unable to come or go, she had helped me, saying that she wanted to strengthen the tie we had formed in that moment.
She helped me find a place to live and made sure I was getting by.
In the village she seemed like a much more clever and strong-minded woman than I could have imagined, and we soon became friends.
Yoonhui was holding her husband’s hand and climbing the stairs into the church with great care.
Her husband had a severe case of the illness.
His bones had developed growths that raised a large hump on his back, and his vertebrae protruded so much that you could count them through his coat.
His arms were noticeably longer, and although it wasn’t clearly visible beneath the bandages, the structure of his face was seriously swollen.
His jawbone and teeth jutted out so far that his mouth couldn’t close, and his bandages were always wet with saliva.
Without fail, Yoonhui accompanied her husband to the service for the infected. Having been subject to so much violence, day in and day out, it was hard for me to understand why she had chosen to care for her husband so devotedly, since he got sick and helpless.
“Muyoung.”
Yoonhui seemed pleased to see me, but she scanned the surroundings before ushering me into a corner of the church, tugging at my clothes to bring me close.
“Muyoung, everyone’s saying you beat Kim Sunja’s boy half to death this morning,” she whispered.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Rumors about you have spread all through the infected community. Sunja’s lot are fuming. You don’t need me to tell you how much Sunja adores that kid.”
“So I guess word didn’t spread about how that little bastard wrung my neck and tried to kill me?”
Yoonhui looked around again, taking care that no one would hear us. “Stay home today, Muyoung. The weather is foul, and everyone’s on edge. You might get caught out if you go roaming on a day like this.”
It was still morning, and this was the third time since daybreak I’d been told to stay home. But I had no choice today anyway, I had to rest. I didn’t get a wink of sleep, chasing that crazed kid around all night long.
Yoonhui’s husband observed me silently, his back hunched.
The arrogance I had seen in Cheongnyangni Station had completely vanished.
He’d become so timid that, when I met him again, I thought he was a different person.
It seemed the disease had wiped out his fierce temper.
Or perhaps he had understood that, in his powerless state, he would die without his wife’s care.
While her husband’s ferocious temper had died off completely, Yoonhui had become smarter and more assertive in inverse proportion.
She also looked much healthier than when we’d first met, as though she was eating better these days.
Suddenly I remembered that there was a favor I wanted to ask Yoonhui, so I softened my expression.
“Um, Yoonhui … I heard you’re going to be taking the boat out next week. I wonder…”
Yoonhui shook her head before hearing me out.
“I won’t do anything,” I continued. “I promise to be on my best behavior. Just take me, one time.”
Yoonhui’s family boat was one of the only ones to survive the storm, without even a dent.
The sea all around had shallowed and the topography had transformed, with unfamiliar currents and spiraling torrents all around the rocky outcrop.
Taking a boat out, even to nearby waters, meant risking your life.
On top of that, as the water got more and more polluted, the catch dwindled to almost nothing.
Even if they did catch something, there was nothing worth selling.
If by some miracle, fish from Haewon made it to the markets, there’d be shoppers protesting in Gwanghwamun Square.
Still, people in the village needed something to do, something they could feel they had produced for themselves.
So periodically the villagers would select a fine day and take Yoonhui’s boat out to fish, then distribute their catch to each family on their return.
Yoonhui spoke softly, “We take the boat out to catch fish, Muyoung. We don’t go monster hunting.”
I gave a flustered laugh.
“Don’t be silly. That’s not what I was thinking. I just want to feel the wind on my face, it’s so stifling here.”
“That reason is even worse. You know that almost every household in the village has gone to ruin since losing their income. There’s no space on the boat to take someone out for a good time.”
Yoonhui had good reasons for responding that way.
It went back to the day I received news of Hyun’s death.
Sleeping alone in the damp room, I awoke around dawn gripped with fear.
I was in the room where Hyun and I had stayed for two weeks.
All around me were traces of a young child.
The tangled scribbles Hyun had drawn, the colored paper she had folded into origami, the bedding that had gotten all creased by her rolling around putting on some imaginary production, even a half-finished carton of milk.
I could see Hyun’s specter in every inch of the room.
I crawled to the window where I could see the beams from the lighthouse and looked out at the sea. From the house located halfway up the mountainside I had a full view of the coast and the rocky outcrop. And I saw something there, on that jagged island …
I don’t remember precisely what happened after that.
When I came to my senses I was at the wharf and was attempting to smash through the cabin door to Yoonhui’s boat.
I’d untied the ropes, and the boat was bobbing loose.
People had me by my arms and legs, pulling me this way and that.
Later, they told me I was screaming about there being a monster atop that rocky outcrop, and that it had taken Hyun.
“In a way, we all went a little bit crazy, didn’t we?” Yoonhui spoke warmly. “We all went through things. It’s not your fault, Muyoung. It’s no one’s fault. It was unavoidable. But even so, I will never take you out in our boat.”
When she was done speaking, Yoonhui went into the church with great care, supporting her husband with both arms, as though he were a precious treasure. I watched unmoving as Yoonhui placed a light kiss on his bandaged face and stroked his cheek.
Strolling aimlessly away, I noticed two young lovers kissing behind the church.
The young man was infected, what looked like a mild case, and the young woman seemed to be untouched by the disease.
The infected guy didn’t have any hair left on his head, and there were knobbly bumps on his face.
But to the girl kissing him, it seemed her lover’s appearance was insignificant, like it wasn’t even visible to her.
Seeing the two of them together, I felt I had been abandoned by the whole world. When I put my hand in my pocket, I felt a crumpled business card.