February 22, 2027
A short story by Lee Yun-gi (이윤기, 1947–2010), about my family
This is a work of literary fiction — but one deeply rooted in our family's history.
The author, Lee Yun-gi, was a friend of my uncle and, through him, a distant witness to our story. My father studied Buddhism at Dongguk University and philosophy at the University of Iowa before working in a cafeteria and eventually opening a liquor store in Maryland. When I was 18, he survived a brutal carjacking outside the store. He died shortly after from metastatic cancer.
The characters in Dumulmeori bear his outlines, and ours: Kuk-il is drawn from my father, Andy and Tami from my sister and me, and the grandfather at his mountain farmhouse from our grandfather in Korea, whom my father had not seen for many years.
Lee knew this story the way the narrator does: indirectly, through conversation, through grief, through distance. To tell it, he took the liberties fiction permits. He altered the cause of death, invented subplots, and shaped real lives into characters whose emotional truth extends beyond fact. Because sometimes fiction reaches what memory cannot.
Lee Yun-gi (1947–2010) was a distinguished Korean novelist and one of his country's most respected literary translators. After his debut in 1977, he introduced generations of Korean readers to major works of world literature, including Zorba the Greek, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
From 1991 to 1997, Lee served as a visiting professor at Michigan State University, an hour from where I was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. In 2000, he published the short story collection Dumulmeori, which includes the story translated here. For it he received the Daesan Literary Award, one of Korea's highest honors in fiction; he had previously won the Dong-in Literary Award in 1998.
In 2002, shortly after my wife and I were married in Seoul, my uncle brought us to dinner and then to Lee's home in Gwacheon. He received us graciously. He knew who I was, but never mentioned this story. Lee passed away in 2010. I only learned the story existed years later, through a cousin.
In the epilogue to the collection, titled Shedding Skin (허물벗기), Lee explains why he fictionalized the lives of real people:
“A novelist must write 'false truth,' or 'truthful lies' (진실한 거짓). Instead of resolving contradictions, one must create a grand contradiction. An oxymoron... I am sending this collection out into the world, calling it my shed skin. But I carry a desperate hope.”
Dumulmeori is such a contradiction. It changes facts in order to preserve something truer than fact: the silence between fathers and sons, the fracture of migration, the generational han that lingers long after events have passed.
If this story carries my father's shadow, it does so not to explain him or correct the record, but to honor the weight of his life — and the grief that followed. In her recent book, my sister writes that “memories are for meaning.” This translation is another attempt to listen for that meaning.
Dumulmeori (두물머리): Literally "two waters’ head", the confluence of the North Han and South Han rivers in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province. The place name carries an elegiac resonance in Korean: waters that meet but flow separately, creating a geography of convergence and loss.
chamcheok (참척): A classical Sino-Korean term for the grief of a parent who outlives a child, a sorrow so unnatural and against the proper order of things that it carries its own word.
han (한): The quintessential emotion of the Korean experience: a profound, collective sense of unresolved sorrow, resentment, and grief born from historical or personal injustice.
makgeolli (막걸리): A milky, lightly fermented Korean rice wine, traditionally associated with rural and working-class life.
pyeong (평): A traditional Korean unit of area (approximately 3.3 square meters). Three to four thousand pyeong is roughly two and a half to three acres.
haedori (해돌이): A Koryo-saram term for the annual growth rings of a tree. The Koryo-saram are ethnic Koreans who were deported by Stalin to Central Asia in the 1930s; their diaspora dialect preserves archaic and regionally distinct Korean vocabulary.
hyung (형): An honorific used by a Korean man to address an older male friend or brother, implying a bond of loyalty, protection, and longstanding trust.
tosi (토시): Traditionally, cloth tubes worn over the sleeves for winter warmth. In the regional dialect of the author's home, also slang for a fool or simpleton.
nunchi (눈치): The art of reading the room, gauging the unspoken atmosphere, anticipating what hasn't been said.
The narrator is a Korean man living in America, a close friend of Kuk-il, who has recently died. He has come to Dumulmeori to visit Kuk-il's family: his younger brothers Hae-il and Myeong-il, and their elderly parents. The grandfather does not know his eldest son is dead.
by Lee Yun-gi (이윤기, 1947–2010)
Translated to English
“Does an old man with one foot in the grave deserve the chamcheok—those tears that fall when a parent buries a child? That’s why we never told him. He’d lived his years; we just wanted him to pass away without knowing. What he doesn’t know hasn’t happened in this world…… But I never imagined he’d stay so sharp for so long. How could Hae-il have known?”
“It is a terrible situation.”
“It is…… He didn’t used to be this way, but lately he gets so irritable over every letter Andy’s mother sends. That Kuk-il, he says—unless his wrist is broken, why is he sending printed letters instead of writing them by hand?…… A living father cursing his dead son. No matter how many times we tell him that everyone writes and prints by machine these days, he won’t hear it. Hae-il deliberately kept a telephone out of this house so news of his brother couldn’t reach the old man’s ears. But lately his nagging to get one installed is unbearable. He dug his heels in about getting a hearing aid before, but now he says if he wants to call Kuk-il and hear his voice he’ll need one after all—hurry up and install the phone and buy him a hearing aid, he begs. They say you can endure a life of tearful submission, but you can’t endure a life of forced pretense…… With grief behind me and pretense ahead of me, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hae-il will do his part, and Kuk-il’s too. When I watched Hae-il handle the funeral arrangements in the States, I saw how composed he was. Not an easy thing for someone making their first trip to America.”
“I just wish it would end…… I personally wish it would end quickly. When anyone says they’re coming down from Seoul, my heart flutters all day long. That’s why I’ve forbidden anyone but Hae-il’s family from setting foot in Dumulmeori. I must be sick to the very core.”
“……Please, don’t say that.”
Before a single cigarette had burned down, the old man’s voice rose from inside. It wasn’t so much anger as a voice feigning thunder. Hae-il’s wife, who was setting a drinking table with raw vegetables and birthday foods on the wide wooden bench by the brushwood gate, explained.
“He’s asking why everyone bolts outside the moment they put down their spoons. After being apart so long, why not sit and talk properly instead of scattering like widows who can’t stomach the smell of a widower—that’s what he’s saying. But sitting across from Father for any length of time takes everything you have. We’re always terrified the subject of his eldest son will come up……”
“Isn’t Hae-il in there with him?”
“He must find having the same conversation every day tiresome.”
“For us, we eat a few meals and head back to Seoul—but Mother and Myeong-il have to endure it daily. How hard it must be. Even our children try to avoid being alone with their grandfather. Because sitting alone with Grandfather means lying to him. My husband Wook steps outside at the slightest excuse. Then Father asks where he went. When I say he stepped out for a cigarette, Father tells him to come smoke right in front of him. If you can believe it.”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Myeong-il.”
“He went to Manguri to collect restaurant scraps. A friend of his runs a massive galbi restaurant out there, and my goodness, you wouldn’t believe how much food waste comes out of a place like that…… enough to feed twenty dogs, they say.”
“Myeong-il must be getting up there in age, isn’t he?”
“He passed forty long ago.”
“He’s a bit old to just be raising dogs, isn’t he?”
“Father anchored him here. Ever since he sent his eldest son far away, he’s clung to the children he has left…… Once Father passes, I imagine he’ll move back to Seoul. We aren’t allowed to lay a single finger on this house while Father is alive, either. And now I’ve said it out loud…… I sound exactly like a daughter-in-law just waiting for her father-in-law to die……”
The farmhouse had been there a long time, but it sat beautifully on the land. Hae-il’s wife had mentioned that backing against a mountain was auspicious but facing one was a flaw. Yet the mountain in front wasn’t so much a looming peak as a gently trailing slope, and to me there was nothing flawed about it at all. The house faced due south. In the old days that would have been a necessity for light and warmth, but now, with reliable energy and plate glass everywhere, it hardly seemed worth insisting on. If they ever remodeled, rotating it toward the mouth of the valley would probably suit it better.
Only after their mother retreated indoors did Hae-il come outside.
I walked his land with him. There were four generous plots of hillside field; combined, they easily amounted to three or four thousand pyeong. The fields were dotted with young trees, none of them looking more than two years in the ground.
“You’ve planted quite a few trees. Give it ten years and this will be a proper forest.”
“I left home so young—when would I have ever had the chance to fell a tree? Right after the tragedy with Kuk-il, I was fixing up the house to bring our parents here, and I noticed a persimmon tree had grown too large over the yard. It just wouldn’t do. Even if it bore fruit, there’s nobody left to eat persimmons these days, and they’re no good for the market either. So I had it cut down. Father agreed. But after it came down, I found myself staring down at the stump without thinking and started counting the rings—and hyung, would you believe it? The persimmon tree was the exact same age as me. I felt such shame. But I just felt it and let it go. Then one day, by chance, I read a poem by a Koryo-saram poet in Russia—an ethnic Korean living there. He wrote about almost the exact same experience. He’d cut down a spruce and idly counted the haedori—the annual rings—only to find the tree was the same age as him. Now, I had just felt shame and moved on, but this poet sang out like thunder. He wept. A late awakening, I suppose.”
“You awakened early enough. I’ve lived my whole life without ever properly planting a single tree.”
“Then come here. I’ll lend you the land. Build a house.”
“In due time.”
Even after we returned to the wooden bench with the drinks laid out, Hae-il carelessly kept drifting back to talk of land. But I had something I needed to say to him. I had to figure out whether he truly had the right to keep news of his brother’s death from their father. And after that, I had to tell him what I had seen and heard, up close, of his sister-in-law and the children.
“Do you think your father will pass away without ever knowing Kuk-il has left this world?”
“They say you need twenty lies to hold up one—that’s what this has come to. But I can’t go back, and I can’t go forward. What would you have me do?”
“I don’t know. I know you did it out of consideration for your father. Perhaps I’ve just grown too accustomed to thinking the American way—but seeing him here, my heart feels heavy as stone. You said you never told him, and I kept telling myself, until now, until this very moment: surely not……”
“I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. If I were to tell him now, I don’t think Father could survive a bolt from a clear sky like this. Sometimes I think it would have been better to tell him right then, so we could all grieve together. If he had known when the whole family was mourning, he might have grieved alongside us—and perhaps even found it in him to comfort us. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m just not trained in the American way of thinking, but if I myself were ever handed a diagnosis of cancer, I might well live and die without ever knowing, while every single member of my family knew. The sentence known to everyone. The sentence unknown only to me.”
“What happened to Kuk-il…… when I’m honest about it, I’m not without blame. I drank alongside him…… drank relentlessly, right alongside him. Just a few days ago, I heard that a Chinese man who runs a liquor store in a neighborhood near mine was attacked by robbers. It wasn’t Kuk-il who drank the alcohol; the stress drank him. Whether you die by a bullet or by the bottle, what’s the difference, he used to say…… And I went on drinking with him to the bitter end. It’s disgraceful.”
“Not everyone who drinks dies of liver disease. A man without will becomes a slave to drink, and a slave to drink ruins his liver, and knowing the disease will kill him anyway, he finishes himself off with the bottle. A slow suicide.”
“That’s the impression I had too. It’s not a business you can run unless you’ve got the stomach to wear a gun……”
“Was Kuk-il worn down by his wife’s nagging?”
“Have you heard something from my sister-in-law?”
“Contact? Unless I call her, she never calls. Never has, never will. I know it isn’t easy for a woman to run a liquor store all alone. But for someone with elderly in-laws still living—you wouldn’t expect that……”
“Your father still doesn’t know his eldest son is gone. It’s been nearly three years, and he doesn’t know because of you. Is this right?”
“……Why bring this up so suddenly.”
“You hid it because the news was simply too devastating. Right?”
“Why are you pushing this?”
“Do you think I want it to be this way too?”
“You have something to say.”
“Yes. Your sister-in-law…… I believe she is going to remarry soon.”
“……!”
“A Korean tax official with the IRS in our district. I don’t know him well, but we’ve crossed paths at dinner several times. When the rumors reached me, I went and asked him directly. He didn’t deny it.”
“Is he a widower?”
“They say he has two daughters with an American wife.”
“Then what happens to our Andy and Tami?”
“What do you mean, what happens? Andy is in twelfth grade—he’s old enough to go off to college this fall. First and second year, living in the dormitory is mandatory, so whether there’s a home to return to or not makes little difference. Tami is in ninth grade…… somewhere between middle school third year and high school first year by our reckoning. How Korean are those two, really? For those siblings, I got the distinct impression that their mother’s remarriage would be a shock just as severe as their father’s death. As for me, I couldn’t keep this from you. When the announcement comes that she’s remarrying, make the time to set aside and go see how the kids are holding up. I think that would be best.”
“I’ll do that…… but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.”
“Should I have kept it to myself? Since you’d find out eventually, should I have stayed quiet until you heard it straight from your sister-in-law?”
“This bastard of a life…… I already knew that life wasn’t just full of good things. I knew it was all rotten. But for things to unfold like that over there—it’s really too much.”
“That’s just the kind of country it is. You move there, and people end up built that way too. It pains me to speak of your sister-in-law this way, but it seems she only knew how to lure Kuk-il into emigrating—she never once stopped to measure the wounds he would carry there. She knew how to fell a tree but had no idea how to count its rings. From the moment a seminary graduate stood behind the counter of a liquor store, I felt from the start—what can I even call it—that it might be the beginning of something like a spiritual suicide.”
“Is there a lot I don’t know? In the story of my brother and his wife, are there still so many things I’m missing?”
“Does anyone ever know everything?”
“Among the things you know?”
“I don’t know it all, and neither do you. That’s something you just have to carry. How could anyone know it all?”
“Here comes Myeong-il.”
It must have been because we arrived at Dumulmeori so late in the day. We’d had nothing but a late lunch and a few bowls of makgeolli on the bench, yet the shadows had grown thick. As Myeong-il crossed the yard with the setting sun at his back, his face was already difficult to make out. The moment his small truck rolled into the lower yard, the dogs erupted into a unified frenzy of barking. I hadn’t realized it when I first arrived because they had been quiet, but there were twenty of them in all. Among the dogs lunging out of their kennels at the scent of food was a massive Saint Bernard, and another, a towering mutt mixed with Collie blood.
The old man emerged and told Hae-il to help his youngest brother Myeong-il unload the slop bins from the truck. Hae-il’s mother and wife quickened their pace. Seeing them stoke the fire in the furnace beneath the cast-iron cauldron and scoop dry feed from a sack, it was clear they were going to mix the restaurant scraps with the feed and boil it all down.
Cherry blossoms had bloomed and fallen, then the magnolias, and now it was the season of the wild mountain cherry. Among the pale green forest of the hills in front and behind, the mountain cherry trees were scattered as if planted there by hand. They were visible even on the distant peaks. A haze of yellow dust hung in the air, making it hard to tell if the pale flecks on the far mountains were blossoms or bare rock.
Everyone was moving with purpose. It felt terribly awkward to remain sitting idly on the bench, and I was just rising to my feet when the old man came over and settled himself beside me. I had no choice but to stand up abruptly.
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir.”
He passed the makgeolli bottle toward me and issued his command.
“Pour a cup.”
“I didn’t realize you were drinking, sir. If I had known……”
“Just one.”
“Here—one for you too……”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve all made a tosi of me.”
“Made a tosi of you?”
I hadn’t heard the word tosi used to mean fool since I left my hometown. Back home, we called an idiot a tosi. The word literally refers to the cloth tubes you slip over your sleeves to block the winter chill. Why that specific word became synonymous with being an oblivious fool, I’ll never know.
“Whatever I may look like now, I’m a man who marched all the way to Burma during the Greater East Asia War and made it back alive. What kept us alive in those days wasn’t guns. It was nunchi.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“The year before last, when their father Kuk-il left this world, his wife—Andy’s mother—came to visit. She came right here to Dumulmeori. The only one in this family who hasn’t made a tosi of me is Andy’s mother. From the time she visited, I became a deaf man.”
“……”
“……I’ve lived too long.”
“You’re barely eighty, sir.”
“……Too long. Live too long, and you end up humiliated.”
“When you go back to America—tell our Andy and Tami to come visit their grandfather before he dies. Safe travels…… when will I see you again……”
When Hae-il came around from the inner quarters wiping his hands, the old man rose from the bench and changed the subject.
“When you come back for good, once you’ve raised your kids, come live in Dumulmeori. Live side by side with Hae-il’s family. Like the old days…… When Myeong-il goes off to Seoul, Hae-il is going to be lonely.”
That Hae-il had hurried out, still drying his hands—had he been uneasy that I might say something to the old man I shouldn’t have? The old man left those words behind and went back inside.
“How many long years have you two been friends. You’re a year older than Kuk-il—look after Hae-il well.”
Those were the mother’s words as we said our goodbyes. The old man turned his face away and pretended not to hear.
It was a weekday, so we could head back to Seoul early without trouble. The road from Dumulmeori to Walker Hill, which usually chokes with traffic on weekends, moved freely that day. Unlike on the way out, the love hotels on the way back never once made it into our conversation.
Hae-il’s wife had also said: come and live at Dumulmeori.
The name is beautiful, I replied, and the people here seem large. I suppose I’ll have to come and live here after all.
보전에 들어간 노인에게 참척(慘慽)의 눈물이 당한가? 그래서 알리지 않았던 것이야. 기왕에 살 만큼 사시다가 돌아가실 영감, 모르시는 채 돌아가시기를 바랐어. 당신이 모르시는 일은 이 세상에 일어나지도 않은 일이니…… 그런데 이렇게 오래 정정하실 줄을 내가 몰랐는데 해일이가 어찌 알았을 것인가?」
「참 민망한 일입니다」
「그래…… 안 그러시더니 요즘은 앤디 에미가 보내는 편지에 짜증을 많이 내신다. 국일이 그놈이, 손몽댕이 부러지지 않았을 바에, 왜 편지를 손으로 쓰지 않고 인쇄해서 보내느냐고…… 죽은 자식 욕을 산 아비가 한다. 요새는 다들 기계로 쓰고 기계로 찍어 보낸다고 해도 막무가내다. 영감 귀에 제 형 소식 못 들어가게 해일이가 부러 이 집에는 전화를 매달지 않았다. 그런데 요즘 들어서는 전화 매달자는 영감의 성화가 이만저만이 아니다. 보청기 안하겠다고 뻗대시더니, 국일이한테 전화하고 목소리 듣자면 아무래도 보청기가 있어야겠으니 어서 전화 매달고 보청기 사다 달라고 조르신다. 눈물 시집살이는 해도 억지 시집살이는 못한다는데…… 뒤에는 슬픔이고 앞에는 억지이니, 내사 어째야 좋을지 모르겠다」
「해일이가 국일이 몫까지 잘 하겠죠. 상사(喪事) 때 해일이가 미국에 와서 일 처리하는 걸 가만히 봤더니 여간 조리 있게 하는 것이 아닙디다. 미국 초행에 그러기 쉽지 않죠」
「빨리 끝났으면 좋겠다…… 내사 빨리 끝났으면 좋겠다. 서울에서 누가 들어온다고만 하면 가슴이 하루 종일 울렁거린다. 그래서 해일이네 말고는 절대로 이 두물머리에는 못 들어오게 하고 있다. 나는 속병이 들어도 크게 든 모양이다」
「……그러시지 마세요」
담배 한 대가 다 타들어 가기도 전에 안에서 노인의 고함소리가 들렸다. 노기가 서려 있다기보다는 짐짓 한번 내어보는 듯한 노성이었다. 해일의 부인이 사립문 앞의 널평상에다, 생신상 음식으로 술상을 차려내면서 설명해 주었다.
「왜 식구들이 밥숟가락 놓기가 무섭게 밖으로 나가버리느냐고 저러시는 거예요. 오랜만에 만났으면 진진하게 얘기나 좀 하지 않고, 왜 홀아비 냄새 못 맡는 과부처럼 부리나케 밖으로 나가버리느냐고 저러시는 거예요. 하지만 아버님과 오래 마주 앉아 있는 거, 그거 여간 힘드는 일이 아니죠. 시아주버님 얘기가 나올까 봐 조마조마해서……」
「해일이가 옆에 있지 않아요?」
「맨날 해봐야 똑같은 얘기니까 재미가 없으신가 봐요」
「저희들이야 밥 몇 끼 먹고 서울로 나가버리면 그만이지만 어머님과 명일이 되련님께서는 다 겪으셔야 하니 얼마나 어려울까요? 저희 집 애들도 할아버지와는 되도록이면 독대하지 않으려고 해요. 할아버지 독대하는 자리는 거짓말하는 자리니까요. 우리 욱이 아버지는 걸핏하면 밖으로 나와버려요. 그러면 아버님은 어디로 갔느냐고 물어요. 제가 담배 피우러 나갔다고 대답하면, 당신 앞에서 피우래요, 글쎄」
「참, 그러고 보니 명일이가 보이지 않네요?」
「망우리로 잔반(殘飯) 실으러 갔어요. 친구분이 망우리에서 큰 갈비집을 한다는데, 세상에, 거기에서 음식 찌꺼기가 얼마나 나오는지…… 개 스무 마리가 먹고 살 만하답니다」
「명일이 나이도 꽤 되었지요, 아마?」
「마흔 밑자리 놓은 지 오래돼요」
「개나 키우고 있을 나이는 아닌데요?」
「아버님이 주저앉히셨어요. 맏아들 멀리 보내신 뒤로는 자식 탐을 어찌나 내시는지…… 아버님 돌아가시고 난 뒤에는 서울로 나앉을 테죠. 저희도 아버님 돌아가시기 전에는 이 집에 손을 대지 못한답니다. 말해 놓고 보니…… 아버님 돌아가시기를 기다리는 며누리 말본새가 되고 말았네요……」
오래된 것이기는 하나 농가가 앉은 자리가 참 좋았다. 해일의 부인 말로는 산을 지고 있는 것은 좋은데 안고 있는 것은 흠이라고 했지만, 그 앞산이라는 것도 솟아오르는 산이 아니라 흘러내리는 자락이어서 흠될 것이 없어 보였다. 농가가 앉은 방향은 정남향이었다. 옛날에야 채광이나 난방 때문에 정남향이 반드시 필요했을 테지만 에너지 사정 좋아지고 판유리 공업이 발달한 지금까지 정남향을 고집할 필요가 있을까 싶었다. 개축할 때는 방향을 틀어 골짜기의 어귀 쪽으로 틀어앉히면 별 문제가 없을 듯했다.
어머니가 안방으로 들어간 다음에야 해일이 밖으로 나왔다.
해일과 함께 그의 땅을 둘러보았다. 꽤 넓은 산밭이 네 뙈기나 되어 합하면 3, 4천 평이 실히 될 것 같았다. 산밭에는 심은 지 두 해가 채 안 되어 보이는 어린 나무가 많았다.
「나무를 많이 심었구나. 한 10년 있으면 아주 숲이 되겠다」
「아주 어릴 때 고향 떠났으니 제가 언제 나무를 베어보았겠습니까? 국일이 형님 일 당하신 직후 부모님 이리 모시려고 집을 수리하면서 보니, 감나무 한 그루가 마당을 너무 덮고 있어서 안 되겠습니다. 감이라는 게 이제는 열려봐야 먹을 사람도 없고 어차피 상품 노릇도 못하는 거 아닙니까? 그래서 그 감나무 베어버렸죠. 아버지도 그러라고 하셨고요. 그런데 베어버리고는 무심코 그루터기 내려다보다가 나이테를 세어보았더니, 형님, 믿어지십니까? 감나무가 저하고 동갑이었던 게 아니겠습니까? 얼마나 부끄럽던지요. 하지만 그 자리에서 부끄럽고 말았습니다. 그런데 말이죠, 우연히 러시아에 있는 고려족 시인의 시를 읽게 되었어요. 그 양반도 저와 비슷한 경험을 쓰고 있었어요. 가문비나무 베어놓고 무심히 해돌이(年輪)을 세어보았더니 자기와 동갑이더라는 겁니다. 저는 그러려니 하고 말았는데, 이 시인은 천둥 같은 소리로 노래를 부르더라는 겁니다. 통곡을 하더라는 겁니다. 철이 늦게 들었던 거지요」
「충분히 일찍 들었네. 나는 나무 한 그루 꽂아보지 못하고 살아」
「그러니까 이리 들어오세요. 땅 빌려 드릴 테니까 집 지으세요」
「차차」
술상 차려진 널평상으로 돌아온 뒤에도 해일은 부주의하게도 자꾸만 땅 얘기를 했다. 하지만 내게는 그날 해일에게 할 말이 있었다. 나는 그에게, 형의 사망 소식이 아버지 귀에 들어가지 못하도록 할 권리가 있는지 따져보지 않으면 안 되었다. 그 다음에는 내가 가까이서 듣고 본, 그의 형수와 조카들 소식을 들려주어야 했다.
「아버님께서는, 국일이가 세상 뜬 거 끝내 모르시는 채로 돌아가실 것 같은가?」
「한 가지 거짓말을 지키려고 스무 가지 거짓말을 만든다더니, 그런 꼴이 되어버렸네요. 하지만 이럴 수도 없고 저럴 수도 없습니다. 어쩌면 좋겠습니까?」
「글쎄다. 자네가 아버님 심정을 헤아리고 그랬던 것은 나도 안다. 내가 미국식으로 생각하기 버릇되어서 그런 건지, 여기 와서 아버님 뵈니 마음이 천근 같다. 자네가 아버님께는 알리지 않았다고 했지만 나는 지금 이 시각까지는 설마…… 했다」
「진퇴양난입니다. 만일에 지금 그 말씀 여쭙는다면, 아버지께서 이 마른 하늘의 날벼락을 견디실 수 있을 것 같지 않습니다. 차라리 그 당시에 말씀 드리고 함께 슬퍼했으면 좋았을 것이라는 생각도 듭니다. 식구들이 다 슬퍼할 때 아셨으면 아버님께서는 함께 슬퍼하시면서 오히려 우리를 위로하실 수도 있었을는지도 모르죠. 죄송합니다. 저는 미국식 사고법에는 길들여 있지 않아서 그런지 모르지만, 만에 하나 저에게 암 선고가 내려져도, 식구들 다 아는 그 선고, 저 혼자 모르는 채로 살다 갈지도 모릅니다」
「국일이 그렇게 된 거…… 따지고 보면 내게도 책임이 없지 않아. 나도 함께 마셨으니까…… 줄기차게 퍼마셨으니까. 며칠 전에도 우리 이웃 마을의 중국인 〈리커 스토어(毒酒 商店)〉주인 하나가 강도들에게 당했다더라. 국일이가 술을 마신 것이 아니라 스트레스가 마셨을 거다. 총 맞아서 죽으나 술 마셔서 죽으나 마찬가지라면서…… 나도 끝까지 거들어 마셨으니 한심하다」
「술 마신다고 다 간병들어 죽는답니까? 의지가 박약하니까 술의 노예가 되고 술의 노예가 되니까 간병에 걸리고, 간병 걸려 죽을 것 같으니까 아주 술로써 자살을 한 거지요」
「나도, 그런 인상을 받았다. 권총 차고 장사할 배짱이 없으면 못하는 게 그 장사인데……」
「형수 등쌀에 배겨냈겠어요?」
「자네 형수로부터 무슨 말씀 있으셨나?」
「연락요? 제가 전화 안 걸면 평생 전화 거는 법이 없어요. 여자 혼자서 리커 스토어 꾸려가는 거, 쉬운 일 아니라는 것은 저도 압니다. 하지만 늙으신 시부모님 있는 사람이 그러는 거 아닐 텐데……」
「아버님은 아직도 국일이 세상 떠난 것을 모르고 계신다. 말이 세상 떠난 지가 3년이 되어가는데도 자네 때문에 모르고 계신다. 이건 맞지?」
「새삼스럽게……」
「자네는 그게 너무 슬픈 소식이어서 그랬을 것이다. 맞지?」
「왜 이러세요?」
「나도 그러기를 바라나?」
「하실 말씀이 있었던 거군요?」
「그래. 자네 형수…… 곧 재혼할 것 같다」
「……!」
「〈IRS(국세청)〉의 우리 지역 담당 한국인 세무 관리인데, 나와는 가깝지는 않아도 저녁 자리에서 여러 번 만난 적이 있다. 소문이 돌아서 내가 그 양반에게 직접 진위를 확인해 보았다. 부정하지 않더라」
「홀아비였나요?」
「미국인 부인과 낳은 딸이 둘 있다더라」
「그러면 우리 앤디와 태미는 어떻게 됩니까?」
「어떻게 되기는? 앤디는 12학년이니까 곧 올 가을에 대학 들어갈 나이. 대학 들어가면 1, 2학년은 기숙사 생활이 의무적이니까 가정은 있으나 없으나 마찬가지다. 태미는 9학년이니까…… 여기로 치면 중학교 3학년과 고등학교 1학년 사이겠구나. 얘들이 얼마나 한국적이냐? 이 남매에게, 엄마의 재혼은 아버지의 사망 못지않은 충격일 것이라는 인상을 나는 받았다. 나로서는 자네한테 알리지 않을 수가 없다. 재혼한다는 연락이 오면 시간을 여투어 한번 가서 애들 형편을 굽어다 보고 오는 게 좋을 것 같다」
「그러죠만…… 뒷맛이 어째 안 좋군요」
「나 혼자 알고 있을 걸 그랬나? 어차피 알게 될 것, 자네 형수로부터 직접 듣게 될 때까지 가만히 있을 걸 그랬나?」
「이놈의 세상살이…… 좋은 일만 일어나지 않는다는 것쯤은 저도 눈치채고 있었어요. 개떡 같다는 것은 저도 알고 있었어요. 하지만 그쪽 동네에서 일어나는 일은 해도 정말 너무하는군요」
「나라가 그렇게 생겨 먹었어. 거기에 가니까 사람들도 그렇게 생겨먹게 되더라고. 자네 형수를 이렇게 말해서 안됐지만, 이민 가자고 국일이를 꼬실 줄만 알았지 국일이가 거기에서 상처받을 것 헤아릴 줄은 전혀 모르는구나 싶더라. 나무 벨 줄만 알았지 나이테 헤아려볼 줄을 모르는 그런 사람 같다 싶더라. 신학대학 나온 사람이 리커 스토어 시작할 때부터 나는, 뭐라고 할까, 저거 정신적 자살 같은 것의 시작이 아닐까 싶었다」
「제가 모르고 있는 게 많은 건가요? 형님과 형수님의 관계에서 제가 모르고 있는 부분이 아직도 많은가요?」
「난들 다 아는가?」
「형님 알고 계시는 것 중에는요?」
「나도 다 모르고 자네도 다 몰라. 그거 알고 살아야 해. 어떻게 다 알아?」
「명일이가 오네요」
두물머리 들어간 시각이 너무 늦어서 그랬을 것이다. 늦은 점심 하고 널평상에서 막걸리 몇 잔 마신 것밖에 없는데 그림자가 짙어져, 져가는 해를 등지고 마당을 들어서는 명일의 얼굴이 벌써 잘 보이지 않았다. 명일이 소형 트럭을 몰고 아랫마당으로 들어서는 순간부터 개들이 일제히 짖기 시작했다. 나 들어갈 때는 그렇게 짖지 않아서 몰랐는데 모두 스무 마리나 된다고 했다. 먹을 것 냄새를 맡고 개집에서 뛰쳐나온 개들 중에는 덩치가 거대한 세인트 버나드도 있었고 콜리 피가 섞여서 키가 훌쩍 한 잡종도 있었다. 복날이 되면 모두 식육으로 팔려나갈 것이라고 했다.
노인이 나와, 해일에게 막내를 도와, 소형 트럭의 잔반통 내리는 걸 거들게 했다. 해일 어머니와 아내의 손길도 바빠졌다. 무쇠 가마가 얹힌 아궁이에 불을 지피고, 부대에서 사료를 덜어내는 것으로 보아 잔반을 내리면 사료와 섞어 가마솥에다 끓이는 모양이었다.
벚꽃과 목련이 차례로 피었다 지고 바야흐로 산벚꽃 철이었다. 앞뒷산의 연두색 숲 중간중간에 산벚나무가 파고 심은 듯이 섞여 있었다. 먼산에도 산벚이 보였다. 황사(黃砂) 온 기미가 있어서 먼산의 희뜩희뜩한 것은 산벚인지 바위인지 잘 구분이 되지 않았다.
모두 바쁘게 움직이는데 가만히 널평상에 앉아 있기가 무엇해서 막 일어서려는데 노인이 다가와 널평상에 앉았다. 벌떡 일어나지 않을 수 없었다.
「앉아」
「네」
노인이 막걸리 병을 내게로 건네면서 명령했다.
「한 잔 따라봐」
「드시는 줄 몰랐습니다. 알았더라면……」
「한 잔은 해」
「너도 한 잔 받고……」
「네」
「모두 다 날 〈토시〉로 만드는구나」
「〈토시〉로 만들다뇨?」
나는 고향을 떠난 이래로 〈토시〉를 〈바보〉라는 말 대신에 써 본 적이 없다. 우리 고향에서는, 바보를 〈토시〉라고 했다. 추위를 막기 위해 베로 통자루 같은 것을 만들어 저고리 소매에다 끼웠는데 우리 고향에서는 이것을 〈토시(套袖)〉라고 했다. 그 말이 왜 〈바보〉와 동의어로 쓰여졌는지 그 까닭은 모르겠다.
「내가 이래 봬도 대동아전쟁 때 〈비르마〉까지 갔다가 살아온 사람이다. 그 시절에 우리를 살려낸 것은 총이 아니었다. 눈치였다」
「무슨 말씀을 하시는지요?」
「재작년에 즈이 아버지 세상 버렸을 때 앤디 에미가 다녀갔다. 여기 이 두물머리도 다녀갔다. 날 토시로 안 만든 것은 앤디 에미밖에 없다. 에미 왔다간 연후부터 나는 귀머거리가 되었다」
「……」
「……너무 오래 살았다」
「겨우 여든이십니다」
「……너무 많아. 너무 오래 살면 욕을 봐」
「미국으로 돌아가거든 우리 앤디와 태미, 할애비 죽기 전에 한번 다녀가라고 해다오. 잘 가고…… 언제 너를 다시 만나……」
해일이 손을 닦으면서 안채를 돌아나오자 노인은 널평상에서 일어서면서 화제를 바꾸었다.
「귀국하거든, 애들 다 키워놓고 두물머리에 와서 살아. 해일네랑 나란히 살아. 옛날처럼…… 명일이 서울로 나앉고 나면 해일이가 외로워」
해일이 서둘러 손을 닦고 나온 것을 보면 내가 노인에게 쓸데없는 말을 할까 봐 마음이 놓이지 않았던 것일까? 노인은 그 한 마디 남기고는 안채로 올라가 버렸다.
「얼마나 오랜 세월 같이 산 친구인가. 자네가 국일이보다 한 살 많으니까 잘 보살펴주게」
작별 인사 드리는데 어머니가 한 말이었다. 노인은 고개를 돌리고 못 들은 척했다.
평일이라서 일찍 서울로 돌아와도 좋았다. 두물머리에서 워커힐까지, 주말이면 그렇게 막힌다는 길도 그날은 별로 막히지 않았다. 갈 때와는 달리 올 때는 러브 호텔도 우리의 화제에 오르지 못했다.
해일의 아내도, 두물머리에 와서 살아요, 했다. 나는, 이름이 좋고 사람들이 커 보이니 나도 와서 살아야겠어요, 하고 대답했다.