SATURDAY 72

And then, Mr. Taeseon continued speaking.

“Because they have been doing wrong to you since you were a child. And now, because they have hurt the people precious to you. It is right for you to be angry. That is only natural.”

“….”

“So, even if you feel angry toward those people, there is no need to feel guilty.”

Mr. Taeseon’s voice was warm yet firm.

Childhood…. Certain memories began to fill my head, like a sunken black balloon floating up and finding its color.

The sound of percussion instruments and flutes was boisterous. The people moving busily around were all dressed in hanbok, and my mother, father, and Inha were nowhere to be seen.

Bright, vivid colors that made my eyes ache—glossy and slightly transparent cloths hung in every direction, making my vision dizzy.

On the table in front of me, trays were stacked on top of each other with mountains of fruit, all sorts of traditional snacks arranged in round shapes, and on the table further forward lay a pig, anesthetized with its limbs tied, with chickens lined up beside it.

Wearing a red garment with multi-colored sleeves, the Shaman came out on her stockinged feet, holding knives with bells attached in both hands.

I was sitting on my knees on a small bamboo mat. It was the day of an exorcism ritual.

It was a wide open space in the mountains, and although there were many people, I kept feeling a chill as if someone—or something—was glaring at us.

The Shaman came out and slowly circled around. When I peeked around the area, I saw my mother and father sitting on cushions over there, though I hadn’t seen when they arrived. Both of them had their hands folded in front of them, praying with their heads bowed. Inha was not in sight.

Before long, the Shaman began to dance, clashing her knives together with a clink, clink sound. The sound of the instruments became even louder.

How old was I then? Since it was already the third exorcism, I was probably around six or seven years old. The exorcism rituals had started around the winter I was five.

It was early autumn then. I was enduring the mountain cold wearing only a thin white mourning robe. My entire body was shivering, and my hands and feet were numb. The Shaman began to dance while chanting something loudly, though I couldn’t tell if it was a spell or a song.

The hem of her baggy skirt flared out in a circle, and beneath it, her stockinged feet jumped, stomping against the mat with a thump, thump. Various ornaments attached to her clothes spun around as well. Looking at that, what I felt was fear. Once that dance of the Shaman’s ended….

The ritual itself did not last long. About thirty or forty minutes. The Shaman, who had been dancing in the front, was suddenly approaching and clashing knives right beside my body. Unintelligible words still flowed from her mouth.

I was huddled tightly because I was afraid the knives would touch my body, when suddenly, the Shaman struck my hand hard with the back of a knife. Startled by the pain, I lifted my head to find the Shaman had stopped moving and was looking down at me.

Her two eyes, shadowed by her hat, shone with a greasy glint. If I had been just a little younger, I might have run away crying. That was how scary the Shaman’s eyes were. To the point that I wondered if a ghost would look like this.

At the time, of course, I didn’t think it was strange; I simply thought that the Shaman might have been possessed by something strange. As I held my aching back of my hand and looked up, the Shaman spoke in a cold voice.

‘Can’t you pray properly? Do you know how many people have come out here to pray because of you, yet you don’t seem to have the heart to pray at all. Do you know how much your parents spent on this ritual? And what about the sincerity they put in? You intend to make all that sincerity go to waste as if it were nothing.’

‘N-no, that’s not it….’

‘Don’t talk back! Can’t you pray properly? This is all a ritual being done for your own good. Where else could you find parents like yours? Yet you disregard your parents’ sincerity!’

That wasn’t my intention. I was just huddled up because it was so cold.

‘I-I’m sorry, Shaman. I’ll do better.’

I felt terrified because of the Shaman’s back as she turned away and left without softening her expression despite my answer. Thoughts like What if she hates me now? filled my mind.

Glancing at my mother and father, I saw that they also looked at me for a moment before returning to their intense prayers.

I also folded my hands and began to pray hard. Gradually, I too became immersed in the atmosphere of the ritual grounds.

I was praying like that when, at some point, the instrumental sounds became even more violent. When I opened my eyes, the Shaman was approaching, carrying a steaming bucket.

‘….’

I squeezed my eyes shut. The Shaman splashed what was inside the bucket onto me without any hesitation.

‘…Ugh, bleh….’

What filled the bucket was the warm blood of newly slaughtered chickens. It seemed the chickens I saw earlier weren’t dead but had been anesthetized. There hadn’t even been the sound of chickens being killed.

In the past two rituals, they had killed live chickens on the spot to get the blood, but this time the method seemed different.

I felt like I would suffocate from the smell of blood dripping stickily from my hair. It was a relief I didn’t vomit.

Next, the Shaman brought a large pair of iron scissors, grabbed my hair that covered my ears, and cut it haphazardly, putting it into something like a canister. I couldn’t open my eyes well, so I couldn’t see properly what it was.

Before long, I learned what that round canister was. It was a brazier. As my hair burned in the brazier, the unique smell of burning rose up. That smell was also eerie.

Two women in hanbok, who were the ritual assistants, grabbed both my arms and pulled me up as I was suddenly crying. Then, they took me straight to the creek that was flowing beside the ritual grounds.

Staggering, I followed them down the steep stone steps and submerged my body in the creek. As I was submerged up to my stomach in one go, I felt as if my heart had stopped. Bright red blood flowed away in ripples along the current of the creek.

My body had already been feeling the cold. Drowsiness poured over me. The two assistants used gourds to pour water over my head, washing away the blood.

Meanwhile, the Shaman continued to stand by the creek bank, chanting some sort of spell. Now, she held a fan and bells in her hands. Because I was so cold, I no longer had the presence of mind to look at the Shaman, or anything else. I fell asleep right then and there. Perhaps it was a faint.

I thought the nightmare would be over when I woke up, but when I opened my eyes, I was still kneeling on the bamboo mat. A large, dry towel was wrapped around my body, and heaters were placed on both sides of me. I could see several wet towels piled up next to me.

The Shaman and my parents had not taken me to the hospital, despite me falling asleep from the cold, because the ceremony was not yet finished.

There was a brazier in front of me. Thanks to the heaters on both sides, the people crowded around, and the lit brazier, my body temperature rose to some extent, but I was still cold. As I shivered, the Shaman threw several talismans into the brazier where my hair had been burned.

Then, she put some of the burnt ashes into a bowl, poured water into it, and approached one side. Inha was there. Surrounded by heaters and held in mother’s arms, Inha was wearing thick clothes.

‘Inha, say ah.’

‘I don’t want to. You burned that in that brazier. I don’t even know what it is, and I don’t want to eat it.’

‘Inha, you must listen to the Shaman.’

‘….’

After a brief struggle, Inha finally made a frustrated face and took one sip of the water from the spoon the Shaman offered, letting out an exaggerated ‘bleh‘ sound.

Now it was over. That was, as far as I knew, the last step of the ritual. Now only the closing the Shaman performed remained. While the Shaman performed the closing dance of the ritual, the assistants on both sides slapped my cheeks to wake me up whenever I tried to fall asleep.

After a ritual I didn’t even know how it ended, I came to my senses in a hospital. I opened my heavy eyes while hooked up to several IV drips. Conveniently, the Professor was beside me.

‘Oh, you’re awake? You worked hard. I heard you went to a ritual?’

‘….’

I didn’t even have the energy to answer. Mr. Professor Jang continued speaking.

‘I heard the ritual took longer than expected because you caused trouble at the end. Because of that, they say Inha and both your parents caught colds.’

The Professor spoke in a casual tone. Because I caused trouble…. Then, was it my fault that Inha and my parents caught colds?

‘I’m not saying it’s your fault. You worked the hardest, right? I’m just saying, don’t do that next time.’

‘Yes…. I’m sorry.’

‘Right, good boy.’

Looking back at my body, there were no traces of the horrific chicken blood. Seeing me instinctively sniffing my body, the Professor said:

‘Your mother came by and washed you cleanly before she left. Inyoung, it must be so nice to have such a good mother, right?’

Mother…. It was unexpected. I felt good for no reason and smiled.

Even after that, the rituals continued. Exorcisms performed periodically, “daesu-gut” performed to transfer illnesses when Inha was sick, and various other things.

Until just very recently.

Mr. Taeseon was listening to my story with a stunned face, and when the story ended, he pressed his hand to his forehead.