Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [36]
After Mom went missing, when someone pointed something out, even something trivial, his stubborn sister would admit, subdued, “I was wrong, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Who’s going to wash the windows at home?” Chi-hon asks him.
“What are you talking about?”
“If we called around this time of year, Mom was always cleaning the windows.”
“The windows?”
“Yes, of course. She’d always say, ‘How can we have dirty windows when the family will be coming for Full Moon Harvest?’ ”
The many windows of their country home flash before his eyes. The house, newly rebuilt a few years ago, has windows in every room, especially in the living room, unlike the old house, which had one sole windowpane in the door.
“When I suggested that she hire someone to clean the windows, she said, ‘Who’s going to come to this country hole to do that?’ ” His sister heaves a sigh and stretches her hand to the taxi window and rubs it.
“When we were little, she took off all the doors in the house around this time of year—remember?” she asks.
“I do.”
“Do you remember?”
“I said I do!”
“Liar.”
“Why do you think I’m lying? I remember. She used to paste maple leaves on the doors. Even though Aunt gave her a hard time about it.”
“So you really do remember. Remember going to Aunt’s to pick maple leaves?”
“I remember.”
Before the new house was built, Mom would choose a sunny day around Full Moon Harvest and take off every single door in the house. She would scrub the doors with water and dry them in the sun and make some paste and brush new, half-translucent mulberry paper onto the doors. Whenever Hyong-chol saw doors taken off their jambs, drying, leaning against the wall of the house, he would think, Ah, it’s almost Full Moon Harvest.
Why didn’t anyone help Mom brush on the new paper, when there were so many men in the family? His sister probably just fooled around, swirling her finger in the bucket of watery paste. Mom would take the brush and quickly slap the paste on the paper as if she were expertly drawing orchids for a traditional ink painting and, all by herself, would glue the paper on the clean doorframe with sure strokes. Her gestures were lighthearted and cheerful. Mom did work that he wouldn’t dare attempt now, even though he’s much older than she was at the time, and she did it swiftly and with ease. With a big brush in her hand, she would order his sister, who was playing with the paste, or him, who asked whether he could help, to pick Korean-maple leaves. Even though their yard had a lot of trees, persimmon trees and plum trees and trees of heaven and jujube trees, Mom specifically ordered maple leaves, which they didn’t have at home. Once, to get maple leaves, he left the house and passed the alleys and the creek and went all the way down the new road to Aunt’s house. As he picked maple leaves there, Aunt asked, “What are you going to do with them? Did your mother tell you to get them? What is this nonsense that your mother’s doing? If you look at a door with a maple leaf on it in the winter, you feel colder, but she’s going to do it again—even though I’m always telling her to stop!”
When he brought back two handfuls of maple leaves, Mom would neatly place the prettiest ones right next to the handle of every door, one on either side, and paste sheets of mulberry paper over them. The leaves decorated the spot where extra sheets of paper were layered to prevent tearing, right where people touched the door to open and close it. On his door, Mom put three more leaves than on the others, spreading the five leaves like flowers, pressing them carefully with her palms, and asking, “Do you like them?” It looked as if a young child was opening his hand. No matter what Aunt said, they looked beautiful in his eyes. When he said they looked