Wed to a Bird With No Wings

Our children

“It would have been nice to have had children, a boy or a girl... very nice... When I went to the Central Intelligence Agency that time, if they’d given me electric shock torture just twice, I could still have had kids, it was the third time that did it. Those bastards.”

He was like a child, and sometimes he used to intone a lament for our lack of children. He was so intensely fond of them; sometimes he must have felt very sad at not having any of his own.

He used to say that children were the creatures closest to God in innocence and that it was because of that innocence that he loved them. There might not be children in our house, we had at least as many pictures of children as any other family, precisely on account of his extraordinary love of children. Whenever the photo of a child appeared in a newspaper, a magazine, a calendar, anywhere, he would cut it out. At one time it seemed he would paper the whole room with them.

He also received photos of the children of people he knew; he would put them on his desk or on the wall, then speak to them when he had nothing else to do: “Yonom Yonom Yo Yeppŭn Nom You fine fellow, you fine fellow, you lovely fellow, you.”

He was just like a child himself, and he kept repeating, “So pretty, so cute,” while he gazed lovingly at the children in the pictures,

The photo of Bok-nam was one he was specially fond of. It was the face of a child, photographed somewhere by a professional photographer; he gave it the name Bok-nam himself. He used to hold conversations with it, on his own, calling out, “Bok-nama, Bok-nama.” Having those talks with Bok-nam really used to cheer him up.

He was especially tickled at the sight of photos of little boys peeing. Whenever he saw one, he would burst into laughter: “Look at that fellow, the wretch, he’s having a pee! he’s got it out and he’s having a pee!”

He was so fond of children that even when he was seriously ill himself, the sight of a child going past was enough to make him forget completely his own situation.

Five years before he died, at the moment when he had just been diagnosed as having acute cirrhosis, we were agonizing as to whether or not he should be admitted to a big hospital. Suddenly a child went past, clutching its mother’s hand, and he burst out, “Yonom Yonom Yonom,” as if he wanted to go running after it, he felt so fond of children.

Seeing him there, holding his great stomach all swollen like a balloon, yet so happy to see a child that he seemed for a moment to have forgotten he was sick, I felt overwhelmed with admiration and at the same time so utterly sad that I began to cry.

He was so fond of children that all the children he came across became his friends. He made friends with the children living around our house, and with the children that came to Kwich’ŏn.

Whenever a child called him “Harabŏji Grand-dad!” he would be so delighted he would always respond “Yonom! Yonom!” which is why the local children at home gave him the nickname “Yonom harabŏji”. Their Yonom harabŏji would sometimes go out with a hundred Won coin, spend it on biscuits for them, and come in after playing with them for a time.

“What did you spend all your money on?”

“On my friends.”

“What friends? Come on, speak up.”

“I’ve got friends. Friends you don’t know.”

He never told me but you only had to see his happy expression to know. He’d been out playing marbles with angels from heaven.

It’s really very fortunate, given his love of children, that he had creatures around him as loveable as children would have been. Our children were Bokshil --”just like my son”-- and my “daughter” Tolltoll. Tolltoll was the eight-year old mother of Bokshil, while he was still only a puppy of less than two, and we treated those two dogs just like people, giving and receiving intense affection.

People often say that “animals are just the same as humans”, and we were able to verify the truth of it in bringing up our dogs. We saw it when we marked the forty-ninth day after his death. After visiting the grave, the group of friends came and spent a moment down at the house. They were gazing silently into the now ownerless room when my mother, seized with a fit of grief, began to cry. Immediately Tolltoll, who was sitting beside her, started to cry too. Seeing her mournful eyes, that showed she understood everything that was happening even without words, I sensed strongly that she really was just like a human being.

Tolltoll is one of the dogs

We keep at home.

There’s another, Bokshil,

Just one year old;

Tolltoll’s his mother.
I have never once heard

Tolltoll barking.

She’s so gentle and well-mannered.

Truly a dog of silence.

She treats everyone equally

So if a thief comes in

I’m worried what will happen.
That is just one of the unpublished poems he wrote about our puppies.

“Bokshil is mine; he’s just like my son. Tolltoll’s your daughter!”

As a result of those words, our dogs got themselves family names. Yong-jin once having called Bokshil “Ch’ŏn Bokshil” it was only natural that Tolltoll should come to be known by my name as “Mok Tolltoll”.

Tolltoll was Bokshil’s mother. There were five in the litter but from the day they were born, he was especially beautiful. They are only mongrels, but with his soft white fur and jet-black eyes under their creased lids, he was truly cute.

My husband paid no attention to the other puppies but unashamedly began to treat Bokshil like a child. Not only would they lie back to back with their heads on the same pillow, but at mealtimes he would always be sure to give Bokshil a piece of his meat.

As if aware of how fond he was of him, whenever my husband went out somewhere, Bokshil would go into his room and refuse to leave it. No matter how sternly my mother ordered him out, he would ignore her and stay there for one hour, two hours. He paid no attention to us or to neighbors, but if a stranger came in he would station himself at the entrance to the room and lie there, firmly refusing to let them in until my husband came back.

Bokshil later began to torment us all, especially my husband. When he was about fifteen months old, he began to have an affair. It was summer, on the first of the three days when many people like to eat dog meat. Suddenly Bokshil was gone. We were specially worried, seeing what day it was, in case he had been carried off by a dog-seller. The neighbors all turned out and searched, but there was no sign of him.

Two days later he came trotting in.

“You little wretch! Where have you been off to?”

Grabbing hold of him, my husband was speechless for joy.

Ten days or so later, on the second dog-meat day, Bokshil vanished again. This time there was not a trace of him for four whole days. Ma went climbing the nearby hills calling for him, all the neighbors went out in search parties.

“He was so pretty, some passers-by must have taken him.”

“Suppose it was a dog-merchant?”

Opinions were divided. Supposing someone had carried him off, it would be alright so long as they treated him well; but if it was a dog-seller, how terrible. In those days there was a place just behind our house where some people raised dogs for meat, which meant that dog-merchants often came around. It is wrong to suspect anyone without due cause, but the situation lent itself to ominous speculations.

Four days had passed when Bokshil once again came trotting in of his own accord. Anticipating that Ma would scold him, the cunning Bokshil dashed into the room and played cute. He was so winsome that no one could ever scold him, even when he deserved it.

Bokshil’s sweetheart lived in a butcher’s house a long way away from our neighborhood. Ten days later he was off again, and so it continued. I explained to my husband what was happening.

“He’s having an affair. He’s off after a woman.”

“You naughty wretch, are you having an affair? You wretch, you’ve found another home, have you? And you ask them to feed you too!”

“If you scold him too much, suppose he goes there and won’t come back?”

“You think he would?”

From that moment, he only cursed him inwardly: “Thieving pup, wretched pup”. Having had his fling, Bokshil duly became the father of a litter of four pups. I saw with my own eyes that one of them was the spitting image of Bokshil.

Bokshil too had by now reached a respectable age but in our eyes both dogs remained like children. I would always feed them before I had breakfast in the morning, and see to them before eating my own supper in the evening too. They would always refuse to eat unless I gave them their food, going without, even if it was midnight by the time I got home. There was no point in Ma trying to feed them; she admired the fact and deplored it at the same time.

“First there’s that one big baby, and the animals are just the same. Why do they have to give you so much trouble?”

Perhaps because he was so young, I always had to stroke Bokshil when I gave him his food. Tolltoll would eat on her own but she was jealous. So I had to feed and stroke first one, then the other. Otherwise Tolltoll would be hurt and start to cry.

When that happened I was obliged to comfort her: “Why, Tolltoll, you’re the prettiest. You’re the prettiest one in the world”.

Just as we know what people are feeling by their eyes, animals like it if you look them straight in the eye. I was obliged to give both animals exactly the same degree of fuss. It was just like parents who hurt their children by showing favoritism.

When we got up in the morning and opened the door onto the garden, Tolltoll and Bokshil would invariably dash in as if to show they’d been waiting, butting us affectionately with their heads. It was their way of wishing us good morning.

Every evening they were sure to come out to the bus-stop to meet me. They were so impatient that Ma could never fail to come to meet me. If ever she forgot the time, they would scold her, running up and down and yelping.

As a result, every time I got off the little bus I found what looked like a photo waiting for me. Ma would be sitting down, with Bokshil squatting at her feet and Tolltoll reclining. Except when Bokshil was off roaming, nothing ever changed in that harmonious family group.

My husband liked eggs, there always had to be a dish of scrambled eggs on his breakfast table. Tolltoll and Bokshil seemed to take after him, they were fond of eggs too. They had a remarkable knack, if you gave them an egg, of striking it with their paw until it broke and they could eat it. The egg-seller agreed to give them any broken eggs he had when he passed. The wretches soon learned this, and would go rushing out to the egg van at the first sound of “Eggs for sale!” on the loudspeaker, dancing around in expectation.

If anyone says, “Let’s take a picture,” they duly strike a pose. If you scold them with, “How dare you come into the room with dirty feet?” they rush out, wipe them, then return. All that has changed is that the master, who used to be so eagerly on the lookout for them when he came back from anywhere, is no longer to be seen.

Yet he may well be enjoying himself more than ever. Since he has undoubtedly “gone back to Heaven”, he may well be playing marbles, not now with “angels from heaven” but with real angels up in heaven.