At Least We Can Apologize by Lee Ki-ho

Author:Lee Ki-ho
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2013-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

Si-bong and I went along with the little boy to see his mother. The man with the horn-rimmed glasses did not come along. Instead, he sat in front of the telephone reading the horse-racing newsletter. We didn’t ask him to come along with us. And that was on account of the apologies being ours to handle.

The child’s mother was frying chicken in a small corner shop in an open-air market. She was wearing a long, black apron and sweat was steadily streaming down her face.

As soon as she saw her son, she yelled at him, brandishing the long metal tongs she’d been using to pick the chicken out of the fryer.

“You little bastard! I told you that if you touched my pocketbook one more time I’d string you up, didn’t I?!”

The boy had his shoulders scrunched up all the way to his neck and quickly hid behind Si-bong. The child’s mother shoved Si-bong aside and continued brandishing the tongs. Each time the tongs cut through the air, oil spattered in every direction. I grabbed her wrist and spoke.

“Um, excuse me.”

She was gasping for breath as she looked at the two of us.

“Who the hell are you?”

“We’re here to apologize for your son.”

“What?!”

“We’re here to apologize on his behalf. It’s our line of work.”

The child’s mother looked at us for a moment. The child stood there, his hand clasped to the seam of Si-bong’s pant leg. Then she spoke.

“If you have no real business here then you can just go on your merry way. ’Cause I’m finally going to break this little bastard’s wrist!”

She shook the tongs again at the child. He moved his shoulders to and fro to avoid them.

I grabbed on to the woman’s wrist again and asked her, “So you’re saying if a wrist gets broken you would accept the apology?”

The boy’s mother gazed at me for a moment with a grim look on her face. I looked all around for something that would do the trick. Just outside the store, in a corner, was a piece of steel piping on the ground. I picked it up and handed it to Si-bong. Si-bong took the pipe without a word and looked me in the eyes. I looked him back in the eyes and gave him a nod. I held out my left arm.

“What the hell? What are you doing?!” She cried.

The child, too, came out from behind Si-bong and stared at us. Right then and there Si-bong struck down on my left wrist with the steel pipe. Without even realizing it I let out a cry and collapsed. Si-bong took a step closer to me and struck my left wrist again.

“What—what are you doing?!” The mother cried again.

People were beginning to gather around us. The child began to whimper, wiping his tears with the inside of his elbow. Si-bong continued to beat my left arm.

I spoke through gritted teeth: “One minute . . . just a little more . . . a little bit more . . .”

The child began to wail.

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