2 #3
She had almost no possessions. The white walls were bare and the A4 paper–size patch of floor immaculate.
On the clothing rack, which was less than half a meter long, hung a navy woolen winter coat, a black interview suit, one white dress shirt, and the Burberry scarf that Isul’s aunt had sent last Christmas.
Every centimeter of her desk was covered with heavy piles of test guides and notebooks.
Her bed was made and covered with a thick red-and-green checkered blanket.
On the pillow was an open box of cold medicine from the corner drugstore.
Eight of the capsules had been removed from the tabbed aluminum sheet.
At the hospital, the doctor pumped her stomach and gave her fluids. She would be fine, the nurse told them.
Big Uncle had to meet someone and asked Bo to stay with her until her aunt could come from Busan.
When she woke a few hours later, Bo was struggling to stay awake in a chair next to her bed. Isul looked startled.
“Bo, what am I doing here?”
“You troublemaker,” he said, relieved that she was back to normal.
“Where are my glasses?”
Bo picked them up from the bedside table and handed them to her.
“Did you take all eight pills?”
“What pills?”
“The cold medicine.”
“I don’t think so. I took two at first, then they didn’t work, so I took two more. Some last night.”
“You dummy,” he said. “You need to take a child’s dosage, and you probably didn’t eat. I can’t believe you have a college education and still don’t understand basic chemistry.” He looked at her sternly but started to laugh.
“Watch it. I’m still your elder,” she said, smiling weakly.
“How do you feel?”
“I have a cold. And my throat hurts.”
“They pumped your stomach. They thought you tried to—”
Isul raised her hand briefly from the bed as if to stop him from speaking, then let it drop.
“Bo, I’m so tired. Let me sleep. I just want to stop feeling so tired and sick.
I keep getting these colds, and it makes it hard to study.
My poor aunt. She wants me to work in an office. I better get well soon.”
Bo watched her fall asleep. After Isul’s aunt finally arrived, he left her a note, promising to return the next day.
It was four in the morning when he returned to his room, and he closed his eyes for a couple of hours, washed, and remembered to pack what he needed for the test, including his exam ticket, his identification, sharps, marker pens, a packet of tissues, and the hard peppermint candies he liked.
He tossed the box of taffy into his backpack.
As soon as the proctor allowed them to open the exam booklet, Bo plowed through the questions.
After the first section, he had a short break, and that was when he felt dizzy, the exhaustion hitting him all at once.
He had taken his seat at 8:10 a.m. and the exam would end at 5:20 p.m. There would be another short break and an hour for lunch, and it was during the breaks that he felt nauseated.
His head felt heavy and hot, and Bo could not keep his eyes open.
He was sick. When he reached the literature section, he couldn’t puzzle out the meanings of the questions.
He stared at the reading passages, trying to make sense of the sentences.
The shorter questions were more confusing than the longer ones.
He reached into his trouser pocket and fumbled with the 500-won coin.
He turned to the next literature passage: excerpts from ancient poems, and he was supposed to select a verse that most resembled the style of the poems. The indecipherable words began to swim in his mind.
What had made him think that he could go to Yonsei at all?
He had been born in New Jersey, had grown up in Sydney as well as Seoul, and he was sitting in a room filled with students who had been living, breathing, and eating this once-a-year exam since they were in primary school.
This year, the bongosa exam had been eliminated, so this test was everything.
Bo opened his eyes as wide as he could, doing his best to wake himself up from his stupor.
His mind didn’t go blank; rather, all the what-ifs multiplied like exponents and crowded his mind, disabling him from being able to envision anything else.
The night before, Big Uncle and he had rushed Isul to an emergency room. The doctors had treated her as if she had overdosed intentionally since they had seen this sort of thing far too often. In his former high school, Bo knew of at least two suicides and multiple attempts.
Bo stared at all the questions left unanswered. Another year spent in preparation.
The proctor told the students to stop, and Bo put down his marker pen.
He walked out alone, leaving behind the examinees who’d gathered to discuss the hardest questions. They complained loudly about the passage comparing the old Korean poems, and Bo chuckled briefly in recognition. He had not been the only one to get it wrong.
At the train station, a beggar slept soundly on a bench.
Easily over eighty, the man had a deeply furrowed brow, yet the lower half of his face was oddly cherubic—plump jowls and a small pink mouth, almost smiling.
A threadbare coat was draped over his chest and arms like a blanket.
By his left hand and cane were a polished brass bowl and a laminated sign: “Blind from birth and abandoned by my mother. I ask for mercy. I wish you good fortune.”
Bo placed the coin in the man’s bowl.