Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin [88]
The entire city of Rome is literally a historical site. All the negative things you heard about Rome—there’s a transit strike every other day, and they don’t even apologize to the passengers; people will grab your arm and steal your watch right under your nose; the streets are blighted with graffiti and garbage—you didn’t care about. You just observed everything passively, although you were ripped off by a cab driver, and someone grabbed the sunglasses that you had just placed next to you at a café. You went to various ruins by yourself, during the three days when Yu-bin was at his conference. To the Foro Romano, the Colosseum, the Baths of Caracalla, the Catacombs. You stood listlessly in the spacious ruins of the large city. Everything about Rome symbolized civilization. But although traces of the past were spread out in front of you wherever you went, you didn’t keep anything in your heart.
Now you are looking at the statues of saints in the round piazza, but your eyes do not pause anywhere. The guide explains that Vatican City is not only a country in the secular world, but also God’s country; that the territory is only forty-four hectares but an independent state with its own currency and stamps. You aren’t listening to the guide’s explanations. Your eyes jump from person to person. Even if there are only a few people around, your eyes leap among them, unsettled, as you wonder, Is Mom here somewhere? There’s no way Mom would be among Western tourists, but even now your eyes don’t know how to settle on a single object. Your eyes meet the eyes of the guide, who’d said that he came here seven years ago to study choral music. Embarrassed that you’re not even wearing the earphones, you pull them up and plug them into your ears. “Vatican City is the world’s smallest country. But thirty thousand people visit it in a single day.” As you hear the guide’s commentary transmitted to your ears, you bite the inside of your lip. Mom’s words come to you in a flash. When was that? Mom asked you what the smallest country in the world was. She asked you to get her a rosary made of rosewood if you ever went to that country. The smallest country in the world. You suddenly pay attention. This country? This Vatican City?
With your earphones still on, you wander away from your group seated at the foot of the marble stairs, away from the sun, and go inside the museum alone. A rosary made of rosewood. You walk by the majestic ceiling art and a row of sculptures whose end you can’t see. There has to be a gift shop somewhere, which might have a rosewood rosary for sale. As you weave quickly between people in your quest to find this rosewood rosary, you pause at the entrance to the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo hung from the beams of that high ceiling every day for four years to work on the fresco? The sheer size of the fresco overwhelms you, so different from the way it looks in books. Yes, it would have been strange if he didn’t experience physical problems after finishing this project. The artist’s pain and passion gush down like water onto your face as you stand under the Creation of Adam. Your instincts are right; when you leave the Sistine Chapel, you immediately see a gift shop and bookstore. Nuns in white are standing behind display cases. Your eyes meet those of one particular nun.
“Are you Korean?” Korean comes out of the Sister’s mouth.
“Yes.”
“I came from Korea, too. You’re the first Korean I’ve met since I was sent here. I arrived four days ago.” The Sister smiles.
“Do you have rose rosaries?”
“Rose rosaries?”
“Rosaries made of rosewood?”
“Ah.” The Sister takes you to one part of the display case. “Do you mean this?”
You open the rosary case the Sister hands you. The scent of roses bursts out of the