Flowers of Mold & Other Stories Read online

  “Haven’t met her? I carried a sack of rice up for her just now. This is ridiculous. You’re actually defending a stranger you’ve known only seven days instead of the man you’ve been married to for ten years?”

  “So what do you think? I’m right about her, aren’t I?” I wanted my husband to like Myeonghui.

  “How can you tell by just looking at the hardware?” he said with a smirk.

  Obviously, Myeonghui hasn’t returned the spatula after borrowing it the day before. So what’s she talking about, asking to borrow it again? I don’t want to accuse her of not returning a spatula that barely cost 1000 won. At the same time, it isn’t good for boundaries to be so unclear from the start. Just as my husband says, you can’t go trusting just anybody, right? Can I trust Myeonghui?

  “Don’t you remember, Onni? I returned it with some fried zucchini yesterday. You hung it right there on that hook.”

  The hook Myeonghui is pointing at is the same hook I always hang the spatula from. Seeing me so confused, she begins to laugh. Then she asks, “You’ve already brought in the laundry? You never sit still, do you?”

  The clothesline on the balcony is bare. That’s when I remember the laundry; I’d forgotten to take it out of the wash. I hurriedly open the washer lid. Inside, the clothes have dried into a clump. When I tug at my son’s trousers, the other laundry follows, all strung together. Myeonghui laughs. I laugh, too.

  Myeonghui brings me a present. She’s wrapped it in pretty wrapping paper and even attached a bow. But I know what it is right away.

  “Oh, Myeonghui.”

  I nearly cry. I sense my husband eavesdropping on our conversation; he’d been watching TV in the bedroom with the door closed, but the volume had been turned down all of a sudden. Myeonghui tells me to open it. It’s a spatula. The part used for flipping is stainless steel and angled just the right amount to prevent your wrist from straining, and the handle is made of silicone to resist heat. I’d seen it at the department store, but hadn’t bought it because it was too expensive.

  “I was picking one up for myself and I thought of you, so I bought two.”

  How could I have suspected Myeonghui of not returning my spatula …

  “But Onni—”

  “What is it—do you need something?” Now I can just tell by her voice.

  “I think my fluorescent light burned out, and something’s wrong with the door, too. Can I borrow your screwdriver?”

  •

  It seems my forgetfulness is no laughing matter. In the morning Myeonghui came to borrow the screwdriver again. She’d returned it last night shortly after using it, but when I opened the toolbox inside the shoe cabinet, it wasn’t there. I’d been on the phone at the time. I’m the type of person who can’t do two things at once. I was the same way when I worked at the bank. Girls who could yak on the phone while punching numbers into a calculator or stamping receipts never ceased to amaze me. It’ll probably turn up in the wardrobe or my son’s toy box. Maybe I even tossed it in the trash. It happens all the time. You hold a piece of tissue you’re planning to chuck in one hand and the car keys in the other. After tossing the keys in the garbage, it’s only when you try to start the car with the tissue that you realize your mistake.

  My husband calls me at lunchtime. He was waiting for his grilled tuna special to come out. It sounds like chaos inside the restaurant. Amid the stainless steel bowls clanking and crashing in the background, he raises his voice. “Why’s there a screwdriver in my briefcase?”

  There’s no time to make excuses, for he calls out to the server, “Excuse me, there’s lipstick on the cup. A new one, please!” Then in the next breath, “What else are you going to put in my bag tomorrow? For God’s sake, don’t put Seonghwan in, because he’ll just run around the bank all day.”

  For some reason, I’m the one who gets angry. “Seonghwan? What are you talking about—a new gum or brand of cigarettes?”

  With the sound of his laughter, the line goes dead.

  Seonghwan is our son. I feel as if I’m going to forget that, too. Right then I realize he still hasn’t come back from kindergarten. He’s usually home by 12:50, but it’s already 1:20. I throw on my slippers and run down to the apartment entrance. In the playground under the blazing sun, my son is on the swing and the person pushing him is Myeonghui. Then I remember. Since yesterday, he’s been out for summer break.

  Myeonghui and I worry about my forgetfulness together. “Onni, stress might make it worse. Don’t obsess over it.”

  But when I boil the kettle dry until it’s scorched black, she seems to think the situation is a bit more serious.

  “There’s a famous poet who trains his memory. Why not use this chance to memorize the capitals around the world?”

  I have trouble sleeping. At four in the morning, I get up and walk back and forth between the bedroom and kitchen to make sure I turned off the gas. Awakened by the rustling, my husband throws a fit. I lie down after making sure the gas is off, but I begin to suspect I’ve left the door open. When I get up and check, the door is locked.

  Since I can’t sleep well at night, I’m drowsy during the day. My son spends more and more time with Myeonghui. Occasionally their laughter seeps into my dreams.

  Myeonghui and I usually run our errands together. She’s given me a small upright shopping cart as a gift. She has the same one. We usually go to Huimang Shopping Center, which opened a year ago. Not even half a year later, the nearby supermarkets both small and large were forced to close. One or two survived, but it seems they’re barely holding on by selling cigarettes or liquor late into the night. When I’d told Myeonghui the first time I took her to Huimang, her response had been completely unexpected. I thought she would at least sympathize with the markets that were forced to close, but she’d just shrugged while examining the expiration date on a package of instant tripe-stew. “Onni, why do you shop here?” she’d asked.

  Huimang’s prices were cheaper, but more than anything, you got prize coupons—one for every 10,000 won you spent. When you collected a hundred coupons, you could redeem them for a pair of rollerblades. Rollerblades are the latest craze around our complex. The sight of my son, gliding about the apartment courtyard on rollerblades, dances before my eyes.

  “See? It’s survival of the fittest. There’s nothing you can do.”

  The interior of Huimang is full of mirrors. Everything is ridiculously distorted in the bulging convex mirrors. In obscure spots, signs warn that shoplifters will be charged a hundred times the cost of the stolen item.

  Myeonghui, who’d been picking out scouring pads, looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “Onni, isn’t it hot?”

  Although the air conditioning is running, it doesn’t seem to be very effective.

  “You want to cool down fast?”

  Myeonghui slips the steel wool pad she’d been holding down my shirt. I can hardly breathe. I quickly glance around. Fortunately, the cashiers at the three registers are too busy punching in numbers.

  Looking at my pale face, Myeonghui snickers. “Oh, don’t be so uptight. It’s just for fun.”

  Turning her back on the cashiers, she replaces the scouring pad from my shirt back onto the shelf.

  “Not so hot anymore, right?”

  She looks into the convex mirror and sweeps up strands of loose hair. “Those signs are there just to scare you. They’re like scarecrows. But of course smart birds never fall for them.”

  My legs are still shaking even after we leave Huimang. “Have you ever stolen anything?” I ask.

  “Only when I was really young. I used to work at a supermarket and I would see women who stole all the time, cheap things like scouring pads and gum, but I pretended I didn’t see. If you make a scene over something like that, you’ll only lose your customers. So even though you see them leave with things in their pockets, you just let them go. One lady would come dressed in a trench coat and steal big things like jars of honey. But these women were regulars who were responsi
ble for most of the sales.”

  Myeonghui and I are like sisters. We’re very open with each other and get along without any problems. We even play around like little kids. I don’t talk to washing machines and spatulas anymore. But sometimes she’s like a complete stranger. She’s very different from me. Using the same spatula and same shopping cart don’t make us the same. For one, she’s very fashionable. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing things like sweatpants, even at home. Shuffling around in cheap flip-flops, shorts, and a stretched-out shirt—I can’t compete with Myeonghui.

  Yesterday, I saw my husband coming out of her apartment. I don’t know when they became close. Naturally, she’s started to call him Hyeongbu. Brother-in-law. This isn’t so unusual, since she calls me Onni. He was holding a screwdriver. He said he’d just replaced her fluorescent light.

  “Didn’t you say women are like aluminum pots? Boiling over one moment and turning cold the next?”

  There was no way my husband could have missed my sarcasm. But far from getting angry, he grinned and said, “The hardware, obviously, and the software seem pretty good. She even calls me Hyeongbu.”

  I’d been a little worried he might not like Myeonghui, so it’s a good thing they’re getting along.

  The bathroom door is open a crack while I’m on the toilet. It’s hardly the first time I’ve left the door open. My husband walks past and slams the door shut. I hear what he says. “No shame, I tell you!”

  For someone who used to sneak peeks through the crack in the door, what does he mean by shame? It’s not like I leave the bathroom door open and urinate in front of just any man. What more do I have to hide from a man I’ve lived with for ten years? There’s nothing left to hide, like a pocket turned inside out.

  Since it’s bedtime, I’m just in my slip. The nights have been over 30 degrees Celsius for the past few days. With a cigarette clamped between his teeth, my husband asks, “Why do you always wear granny underwear? You know the kind with lace? Can’t you wear those for a change?”

  Lace lingerie … what could be less economical than those? You can’t even put them in the washer. They need to be hand-washed, and if you’re not careful, they’ll snag and get ruined. So why would I start wearing expensive lingerie like that all of a sudden?

  While replacing Myeonghui’s light, he must have snuck a few peeks at her lingerie hung out on the balcony. I’ve seen them before, too. Delicate mesh slips like dragonfly wings, the material so fine they’re easily hidden inside a fist. So what does he mean I have no shame? I’ve never hung my underwear in plain view and invited men inside the apartment.

  Above the stove hangs a spatula. The same one hangs above Myeonghui’s stove. I’ve named mine Myeonghui. I touch the spatula—the symbol of our friendship.

  •

  Myeonghui and my family are like one family now. Whenever I make stew or season greens, I make Myeonghui’s, too. On some weekend nights, the three of us have a few drinks together. I don’t know where she’s heard such funny stories. She makes us laugh to the point of tears. She and my husband seem to understand each other well. They talk about stocks and shares, even mixing technical terms like syndicate and franchise in their conversations. As for me, I have no interest in that kind of talk. Eight years ago, I worked at the bank, too. Although I was never late or absent, I never became an exceptional teller. If they were to talk about how milk production doubled after letting cows listen to music, or how hard the vegetation in a forest must work to get sunlight, I’d also join in. But when my husband and Myeonghui talk about things I have no interest in, I make tea or peel melons, nodding occasionally, pretending to be paying attention.

  •

  I lost the house key. When leaving for Huimang, I was positive I’d locked the door. Myeonghui also remembers up to the point where I locked the door and twirled the key chain around my pinky. My forgetfulness is a big problem. Where could I have dropped it? I search the flowerbeds and walk all the way back to the store with my gaze glued to the ground, but I don’t see it. While I stand anxiously in front of my door, Myeonghui calls the locksmith. The locksmith arrives on a motorcycle and takes less than two minutes to open the door for us. By then, my son’s ice cream has melted in the grocery bag. He comes up from the playground and screams as he chucks the ice cream. “Stupid Mommy, stupid Mommy.”

  Sensing my anger, he darts off without slipping on his shoes. It’s off to Myeonghui’s again. He eyes me as he clings to the ends of her skirt, using her as a shield.

  “Come here. You better come here by the time I count to three.”

  But even when I count to three three times, he doesn’t budge. The tactic doesn’t work anymore.

  Myeonghui scolds him, purposely wearing an angry expression. “If you say something mean like that again, a horn will grow on your bum. You understand?”

  My son’s black pupils glitter in his grimy face.

  “I’m serious. A boy I knew ended up with a horn this big on his bum!”

  Left with no other choice, he reluctantly comes out from behind Myeonghui. Without looking at me, he mumbles as if he’s reciting lines. “Mommy, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

  I don’t know when Myeonghui’s words began to carry more weight. I start to know, then don’t know.

  “What’s going on inside that head? Take a good look in the mirror. No wonder you can’t think straight. You look like a lunatic.”

  My husband changes the lock. Myeonghui seems more upset than me. I have to admit my feet look pretty filthy, with dirt between my toes and my cracked heels like a turtle’s shell. Since I’d been running around in my flip-flops, there’s no way they’d stay clean.

  “Where’s your head at? You’re like a person playing with a ball, except without the actual ball.”

  My husband doesn’t look me in the face anymore. Why does this man refuse to look at me?

  •

  Myeonghui thrusts something at me. She’s even laminated it.

  “I didn’t know if I should. But you know how I feel …”

  The capital of the United States is Washington, Canada is Ottawa, Australia is Canberra, Ethiopia is Addis Ababa, Burundi is Bujumbura … Tiny writing fills the whole page.

  “A teacher from my school helped me. Better safe than sorry, right?”

  Thinking of Myeonghui’s efforts, I stick it on the fridge with a magnet.

  My husband goes to get a drink and sees the list on the fridge.

  “Addis Ababa? What the hell is this? Why do you waste your time on these stupid things? You retain such useless information that you end up forgetting the stuff you actually need. What are you planning to put in my briefcase today? What surprise do you have up your sleeve this time?”

  My son, who had been lowering his chopsticks to the corvina, starts with fright and backs away.

  “What is it? Did you find a hair or something?”

  My gaze runs over the whole plate, but there’s nothing wrong, except that the lower part of the fish is a bit burnt. He points at its mouth with the ends of his chopsticks. The tongue, fried in oil, is a dark gray. Pushed out of its mouth, it lies limply on the edge of the plate, looking like a fat caterpillar.

  “I’m never going to eat fish again, Mommy. Auntie’s fish doesn’t look like this. I like nice fish.”

  I take out the rest of the corvinas from the freezer. My fingertips go nearly numb from tugging the fish out of the twine. All of them have their tongues sticking out. The tongues seem too large for fish. Why do they need tongues anyway? Not to taste or to talk. Are they only for pushing food into the esophagus, like the shovel of a bulldozer? The fish seem to be sticking them out only to taunt me. Stupid Yeongmi, stupid Yeongmi. I pull out each tongue and snip it off with scissors.

  •

  The owner of Huimang is watching me a little too closely. Even if she doesn’t, I don’t like her bulblike eyes that gleam with suspicion and nosiness. They’re eyes that catch everything without seeming to, eyes that would light u
p like a 100-watt bulb with the flick of the switch. If it weren’t for the prize coupons, if it weren’t for the rollerblades, I wouldn’t come here at all. Plus, I know she’s cheating me with the scale. I get two kilograms of tomatoes from her. Then I go to the snack aisle to get crackers for my son. I can’t help picking up and putting down various packages, since I try to find ones with less sugar. But the owner, who’d been sitting in the produce section, is suddenly behind me. As soon as our eyes meet, she retreats hastily back to produce. Then in another aisle, I’m putting a box of laundry detergent into the shopping cart when I glance back and meet the eyes of the owner once again. How could she be suspicious of someone like me? I hurriedly pay for my things and leave. If I just collect two more coupons, I can get the rollerblades.

  Whenever I stand in front of the washer or fry fish, I now memorize the capital cities around the world. I’ve already memorized over fifty different capitals. I hope this works. I’ve replaced the kettle with a new one that whistles when the water starts to boil. The washer is struggling to do the spin cycle today. The theory behind washing machines is quite simple. Spinning uses centrifugal force. The repairman told me, so it should be right. The reason the drum, which can hold six and a half kilograms of laundry, doesn’t fly out is because its protective box prevents it from escaping. But you never know if the washer that could no longer handle the centrifugal force would crash through the balcony window one day. Patting the washer lid, I whisper, “What happened? How did you come to this?”

  It seems my husband and Myeonghui got off work at the same time. Through the window, I see them walking side by side as they cut across the apartment courtyard. They walk up to the entrance and stop. Then my husband turns and begins to walk toward the playground by himself. Myeonghui comes up to the fifth floor first. I hear her door open and close. Around ten minutes later, my husband rings our doorbell.

  A couple of days ago, I’d heard her say to him, “I’d like to make a deposit of around ten million won at your bank. Could you help me choose a plan that comes with tax benefits and a high interest rate?”