Amour - Heain Joung

Content warnings: Blood, Violence

People do not hold each other closely in the place I come from. No one really embraces in public, not even indoors. I haven’t seen anyone do it anyway. “Don’t give your skin to just anyone, your skin will become rotten if you do. A body is like food,” my mother used to say. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about but she seemed convinced. She lives in a place where people don’t hug and definitely I hadn’t seen her do that or anything else with her body. And yet here I am. 

   Things are different here. I now live in another place in this world, where People hold hands and bodies. Yet I can’t smell rotten flesh anywhere.

     Will I ever know what it means to be hugged?

    My mother asks me on the phone, how I am doing in a foreign country. She asks again the name of the town where I am. She asks every time we talk. She sighs, “Why are you there? in a strange place?” I don't answer. There is no answer for her but I have the same question for her, “Why are you there? Are you not in a strange place too?”

    My mother worked at a supermarket for most of her life. She looked after the house, father and me. She cooked, washed and prayed. She went to the church to confess her sins every Sunday. Then started to sin again on Monday. She hated her job, the housework, father and me. I wondered if she confessed her secret to God. Her secret which was not only hers but also mine.

   You say “Amour,” I try to catch the word but fail. It comes from your lips and scatters so quickly in the air. It is like the song of a bird. I beg you to say it again. You laugh and say, “Amour.”

                                                  *

I was warned not to go out that evening. But I hadn’t listened. I was sitting in a tree. My little body tucked in between the branches of the oak. No one could see me there, except for one passing dog which stood under the tree for a minute looking up at me, before it wandered off. I closed my eyes and held my breath tightly. The summer evening breeze touched my face and pressed gently. Another dog approached, this time with a bunch of people. No one looked up, as they stopped near the tree.

“Let’s do it here.”

I heard someone say.

  Some burden from the men’s shoulders was thrown to the ground. Something wrapped in a hemp carpet. It didn’t move. Then the villagers started to kick and stamp the carpet. I could recognise some of my neighbours. Why are they here? What is in the hemp carpet? What are they doing? My eyes looked for an answer. I was only a child and I couldn’t figure anything out. But I knew I should be still and quiet otherwise I would be in big trouble. 

   Then, after a few minutes of stamping and kicking, they opened it. 

   “Go somewhere to die. You are a disgrace. You can’t live here anymore,” one of them said, as a face covered with blood emerged from the carpet. It was already getting dark as she staggered and looked up at the moon with empty eyes.  

There was also a man under the tree watching the villagers and the figure wrapped in the carpet that evening. All I could see was the top of his head, from the tree where I was sitting. I worried that he might turn around and look up to find me there in the dark, but he didn't. He just stood there, silently watching. When he quietly moved away, I noticed that awkward limping walk of his.

Next morning, we walked to the train station at the edge of the village. We had only a couple of small bags. I didn't know where we were heading. My father held my hand but kept quiet. His weight resting mostly on his one good leg, while the other shorter one he seemed to carry like a burden. It was misty and still dark on the platform. We were waiting for the first train to leave. No one there but us. My mother with a scarf wrapped around her head, framing her dark face. I sat there scared trying not to cry. I had had a bad dream the night before. I was in a tree watching the villagers and now I was having another bad dream on the platform. The three of us from last night were here again. Was I dreaming again or not? The train arrived and we got on hoping to erase the past, to leave it behind.

                                                   *

Things are different here. I don't see any bodies covered with blood wrapped in carpets. Bodies aren’t wrapped like that here. Silky material hangs from them, their bare arms in the sun. People touch each other sitting on the bench. 

     In your little boat on the sea, I think about my mother, I hear her voice. “You better be careful. Life is not a gift.” Then you say, “Amour.” I repeat the word after you. I ask you to say it again and you laugh. The evening breeze from the sea presses my face. I shiver and hold your hand. You smile at me. “Amour,” you say. The breath of the sea makes me calm. I still can't speak your language very well but that is fine. Our bodies are enough. I hear her warning again “Life is not a gift and you don’t want to open it,” but this time another voice whispers in me, “Life will open you. You are a gift.”

Originally published by Virtual Zine, 1, December 2021

Originally from South Korea, Heain Joung holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Sussex University. She now lives between the UK and South Korea. Her short fiction can be found in Full House Literary, Flashback Fiction, FlashFlood Journal, Tiny Molecules, Gastropoda, among others. Twitter (X) @heainhaven