old, one should know one’s place and retreat from life. Paternalistic behavior won’t do him any good in the end. Sometimes, I can’t avoid thinking that this family isn’t a family anymore! It’s oppressive, disorganized, and unreasonable. Do any other families maintain patriarchy as we do?”
“You’ve been dismissive of Father for a long time, haven’t you? Why are you being so alarmist?” I interrupted him in disgust.
“That’s the way it is on the surface. You’re the same. Behind his back, we say he’s a piece of old garbage. Everyone seems to ignore him. But do we truly ignore him? At the table, I’ve noticed your knees trembling.”
I threw his hand off and entered my room in one stride.
When we ate dinner, Nishu talked of the encephalitis that was rampant in other towns. She rapped her chopsticks on the table for emphasis. I sneaked a look at Father and saw that he was looking down wretchedly, preoccupied with his worries. After pushing a few bites of food into his mouth, he set his bowl down and stood up to leave.
“Papa didn’t eat a thing!” I said loudly. “Look, he hasn’t eaten anything for days!”
All of us put our chopsticks down and looked at Father in consternation.
Nishu seemed chagrined and said accusingly: “What’s wrong with you, Papa?”
Apparently his old self again, Father stared at everyone, and looking haughty, he held his head high and returned to his room.
Something was collapsing in my heart. I recalled the door that Father had quietly opened in his room, and I couldn’t help feeling misgivings. I thought that my colleagues’ rumors were connected with that door. Why? Because Father abhorred outsiders entering his room, and so twenty years ago he had sealed off the door that opened onto the courtyard. Previously, when he burrowed single-mindedly into the pile of old books, I didn’t have to worry. What kind of elderly person’s crazy idea had led him to take this step? It would be difficult to tell someone like Father to retreat entirely from life. He’d been quiet for years and hadn’t made any trouble. Now, when everyone was almost accustomed to this, this awkward situation had suddenly cropped up. Maybe we didn’t really understand Father. Perhaps, during these years, he’d been making preparations all along. Perhaps the inflated illusions in his head had caused him to lose his common sense.
My colleagues’ rumors didn’t subside. I felt pressure from all directions. With every passing day, this pressure made me feel more and more dread and disgust. I thought it over and made up my mind to confront Father. I would catch him off guard and see how he explained his behavior. I was vexed and unhappy. I couldn’t figure out why he had to cause so much trouble.
When it had just turned dark, I hid in the oleander grove in the courtyard. Father stood in front of the window, his shadow reflected on the curtains. His back was stooped. I thought of his face that had become increasingly thin, and I felt something that I couldn’t express. After a while, he bent his head, as if to cut his fingernails and also as if he was fiddling with his watch. About half an hour later, he covered the light with a newspaper. When I looked across, it was as if he’d blacked out the light and gone to sleep. I knew he wasn’t asleep, for I heard him sighing quietly. I sat on the small stool I’d brought and made up my mind to get to the bottom of this.
The moon was hidden in the clouds. Except for the bright light in my brother’s room, everything was dark. Just as I was about to doze, some odd sounds suddenly came from Father’s door. He walked toward it, as if he had noticed something. He stuck his head out a few times. The door was still half-open. I grew excited: sure enough, he was waiting for someone. It seemed I’d guessed right. Why did Father want to pour out his troubles to an outsider? Didn’t he know that whatever he said would be exaggerated in ugly rumors? It was also possible that he wouldn’t say anything bad about me to an outsider. Could it all be that third party’s imagination? Normally, the family members (especially I) treated him quite well. You could say that, compared with most elderly people, he had nothing to complain of. Then who could this malevolent, backbiting guy be? My impression was that Father had never gone out, and that all of his friends and relatives had broken off relations with him years ago. I thought hard, yet I couldn’t think of anyone who was still in contact with him. But Father had definitely met someone. It was this person who had spread gossip and slander among my colleagues.
I sat in the grove for a long time. Perhaps I fell asleep, or perhaps I dozed off from time to time. Anyhow, I didn’t see anyone go to Father’s room. The door was still half-open, letting out faint light from inside. After midnight, I saw Father walk to the door. He stood there talking with someone in the room as his broad back blocked the door. That person must have slipped in while I was dozing! I crept over to the window and kept close to the wall. Father’s voice was rather hoarse. I could tell that he was quite excited.
“. . . They’re all only too anxious for me to die soon. When I say ‘they,’ of course that includes Rushu. She’s still the main player. Whenever we eat, they’re all acting. Rushu comes to see me on a set schedule. Why? She and I both know, and so I cut those things into pieces and destroyed them. This way, I’m leaving no traces behind. Who could really figure me out? Recent occurrences have alarmed all of them, especially Rushu. It absolutely never occurs to her that someday the corpse in the corner will come back to life. It doesn’t occur to her, either, that some things that the outside world can never know will be exposed in this manner. The last two days, she has been distinctly haggard.”
The person was talking with him in quite a low, hesitant voice, as if his nose were stopped up by a cold. I didn’t get what he was saying, but he didn’t pause. Sometimes, he even blubbered like a child. While the person talked, Father was smirking. His laughter was larded with the cough of the aged.
The plan I had originally worked out in the grove called for me to confront this person, but the situation caught me by surprise, because the malevolence didn’t come from the outsider but from Father. I wasn’t sure of that person’s attitude, either. If I rushed in, I’d be on the horns of a dilemma. Father wasn’t easy to deal with. Now I had definitely learned my lesson. Formerly, I had been so remiss and reckless.
Just then, Father walked from the door to the window, and he was talking just above my head, his voice both urgent and focused and evidently accompanied by gestures. When his words grew heated, he stamped his feet.
“While I’m still alive, I still have to do some things that I want to do. No one can stop me! I sit in this forgotten corner, thoughts thronging my mind. I’ve sat here year after year, year after year. Great changes have occurred in the outside world! They’re busy with their own plans all day long. They all think I was done for long ago. Of course they can’t imagine! Actually, this has been taking place for a long time. They’re inwardly terrified. I know this just by looking at Rushu’s face. It’s so quiet at night: this is just about the best time . . .”
I stole back to my room. I wasn’t brave enough to continue eavesdropping. At dawn, I was still thinking. Had that person left? Had he left? This midnight visitor: When and how on earth had he and Father gotten mixed up together? People are so hard to fathom!
=
Day after day passed, and at last the rumors gradually subsided. Although my colleagues still looked at me the same annoying way at work, I’d grown accustomed to it and so I wasn’t as scared.
One day I was exhausted when I went home. As soon as I entered the door, my brother started in on the patriarchy thing again. He said that Father’s position in the family jeopardized his life. Whenever he braced himself to do something, he saw Father’s face floating before him. So he became dejected and didn’t want to do anything. This had been going on for a long
