That sounds about right. That’s what makes us human. But we needn’t talk in terms of good and bad.
I point to my head. That what it say here. But you know what my feeling say? Nnnnnnnnnnnno.
That might be anxiety. What about this pain in your neck?
Nobody believe it real.
Do you?
I not sure.
What do you mean?
When I feel it, it seem real but how come they don’t find problem?
Well, Mr. Oh, the mind is very strong. Sometimes when—
Why my mind want my neck to hurt?
That’s just the physical locus of the pain. The real pain may be psychic. That is, it resides in your memory and in your past.
I shake my head. I already know.
I wish I speak English better, I say. Then you understand more. Inside feelings—I point at chest—hard to explain in English. Korean have more words to describe feeling.
Try.
Wife speak better English than me. She friendly too. Make friend everywhere. Not me. I hard, I know. Make family not happy. Yell too much. They look at me like bad father, bad husband. They right. My father was good husband, good father. He was proud man. Important in Korea. My grandfather was mayor of town in North Korea. Near Yalu River? You know that river?
Doctor shake his head. He don’t look embarrass.
One of biggest in world. Run next to Siberia and China what they call before Manchuria. My father send me to best university in Korea. He take good care of us. He do better job than me.
From what you told me earlier it doesn’t seem like that’s true.
I not talking about money. Sometime I talk when time to be quiet and don’t talk when time to. I drink too much, every night. I spend money without telling wife. When I worry, I not able to help it. Sometime I make wife unhappy.
I stop talk. I remember something happen two year ago.
Doctor say: What?
I say: Two year ago we have our wedding anniversary, twenty-six year. We go to steakhouse near Pelham Road. I tell her that twenty-six year ago I smart. I go back in time I choose her again. I ask wife if she do same. You know what she say?
Doctor shake his head.
She say: No way, José. She smile at me but I know she mean it.
How do you know she means it?
Because she say so! She say I mean it. She say forget it, now I marry you, we make best of it. She good at that.
Why do you think she feels that way?
Why? When we first married in Korea, I always out. Having fun, drinking. In the beginning, wife is happy—when she look at me she look happy. Afterward she look like it hurt her to see me and smile at same time. My father, he have a lot of money but not me. I buy things, I gamble. That some of the reason why.
What do you think would make you happy?
Same thing make everybody happy. Amnesia.
Doctor say: Hmm, we’re running out of time. Let’s both think about what you’ve said. Can you come back next week?
I say okay but I no go back. No way, José. Who say talking make life better?
Wife waiting in waiting room reading magazine. She heavy now but still pretty. In the car she say I crazy but that is okay because she crazy too. She say live too long become crazy one way or another. She say still it better if I not yell too much. Nicer if I speak in low, even voice. She say smile more. Americans always smiling. Who care if they hate her inside, she hate them inside too. Important just to smile.
Hot inside car. I about to roll down window when pain come. I pull to side of road. This time feel like hand pressing down into shoulder, pushing me into seat. Wife look at me to see why we not moving. I looking back at her from long distance.
Arirang
You are leaning against the fence enjoying the early spring sunset, the smell of dung all around, when you see your neighbor coming toward you. Her mouth is twitching in anticipation; she has news to spill, no doubt about it.
She glides up and pinches you on the arm. “Guess what,” she says. “Suyon is pregnant.”
“What? Again?” you say. “What’s that? Four in five years? Does the woman ever get off her back?”
“Tell me about it,” your neighbor says. “She’s a slut, all right. You know her husband only comes home once a month.”
You vaguely call to mind an unhappy-looking man who works in the provincial office in Songdo, a day’s travel away from the village. You don’t leave the farm very often, so you don’t know many people, but Suyon you know. You grew up in the same mountain hamlet. She came down from the mountain like you and married around the same time as you, but unlike you she has three children. You used to be best friends but now you hardly recognize her. She’s like a prizedgoose, plump and moist from having children one after the other.
You have no children. Always you are empty. You wonder again what is wrong with you. Why you can’t do the one thing you were born to do. The body is the machine part of you; its only desire is to fulfill its purpose. Like your arms and legs. Like your heart, your stomach. It wants to move, to walk, to feel, to eat. Buddha says there should be harmony between function and purpose.
But not your body. Why is your body so broken? Not all of it. Outwardly, you are healthy, still only twenty-five. But where you can’t be seen you feel like an old woman. You imagine your insides shriveled and dark like the inside of a walnut.
In the falling light, your neighbor looks like she’s receding as she continues telling you about Suyon. “The whole family is in an uproar,” she says, clucking. “She’s insisting that it’s her
