Read Tongue Online

Authors: Kyung-Ran Jo

Tongue (9 page)

BOOK: Tongue
13.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“What they want is the best Italian food they can get. That’s why they’re coming here. And they want you to cook it. Isn’t that acknowledgment that you’re the best cook? If I were you, I would want to go straight into the kitchen.”

“I’m not that crazy to think that.”

“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“Am I being made a fool?”

“It’s simple. Just cook.”

“I don’t do it for just anyone.”

“They’re customers.”

“They’re not just customers to me, Chef.”

“Yeah, they’re very special customers.”

I’m quiet.

“Make something special.” Chef points his chin at the rain pattering on the window. “Or make salad with that,” he says, awkwardly, like he’s trying to make a joke. A long time ago, with the same expression, he told me about a gourmet Chinese emperor who held a contest to select his personal chef. Chefs from around the country presented various delicacies but couldn’t excite the rarefied taste of the emperor, whose eyes had been opened to great food at a young age. The emperor was disappointed. But one chef made a raindrop salad and a raindrop omelet, followed by a raindrop roast, and finished with raindrop ice cream. The emperor ate everything happily, exclaiming at its deliciousness, and gave unprecedented praise. Then, to ensure
that nobody else would ever eat such a special meal, he executed the chef.

“Go ahead, go into the kitchen. You’ll find what you want there.”

What I want. What is that?

“I might fail.” I look out the window to the road, slippery like the back of a whale, the cars gliding by and the rain slashing across the inky sky. I want to go somewhere far. Would bass be good, or duck? I want to disappear without a trace. Se-yeon likes bass and Seok-ju likes duck. Cooking is the last thing I want to do. Even the most delectable food vanishes in an instant. Did we really love each other? What can I be certain about? If I didn’t know how to cook, what would I have left? The sound of rain awakens my ears, hundreds of small fists pounding on the windows.

There isn’t much time before they are to arrive. It’s just as important to prepare food on time as it is to make tasty dishes. And to bring out the completed dish in a relaxed and leisurely way, without appearing rushed. Food disappears in the blink of an eye but taste lasts for a long time, the taste that explodes on the roof of your mouth and the tip of your tongue. The memory of that taste bobs to the surface when you least expect it. When a certain taste enthralls you, there comes a time when it’s difficult to free yourself from it.

As if drawing a gun, I carefully take my hand out of my pocket and lift it up. The hand that moves coldly and quickly when dealing with fish, hot and passionately with meat, infinitely gentle and secretive when touching him. I have this hand even if her body is beautifully perfect.

I brush the blade of the knife with the tip of my fingers. The blade is still sharp, alive. You need a sharp knife to cut evenly, to slice without harming an ingredient’s cell structure. A dull knife pierces the ripe cells of meat or fish, lessening its taste. I’m
satisfied with the blade. I grab the duck. After turkey it’s the second-largest bird, with a grand and intricate taste. I will stuff it with chestnuts and brush its surface with olive oil and herbs and roast it in the oven. With the handle of my knife I gently tap the duck’s head, lying limp. It’s my fate to love and cook. Loving and cooking are different but also the same. I raise my knife high and bring it down precisely on the duck’s legs, spread neatly across the chopping block.

Okay, come on in. I’ll make you such good food that you’ll want to kill me
.

APRIL

Warm food, pie, and cake were presented on forty plates, along with a variety of poultry. But a poor goose laid an egg on the table, out of fear
.
—Count Khevenhueller, 1756

CHAPTER 15

UNCLE TREATED WOMEN with various problems. One woman was so sensitive to smell that she couldn’t eat a thing. Another woman was fine when she spoke, but when she opened her mouth to chew, pain shot up her neck and shoulders. One woman had a fit when she heard the word
carrot
, and yet another woman ate only clementines. Uncle talked about them as if they were suffering from different diseases but I thought they shared the same illness. They had never eaten a good meal or they didn’t know how food tasted or they didn’t know what to eat and how to eat it. But it wasn’t that simple to Uncle. Uncle’s job was to cure these women, and of all his patients, he fell in love with the one who ate only clementines.

Uncle likened the consciousness of humans, of which he said six sevenths was submerged below the surface, to stew. Thick, made with stock, simmered for hours with cubes of beef and carrots and cabbage and potato. A copper stew pot has a thick bottom and a long, sturdy handle, and any ingredient you put in it will instantly lose shape and melt. When steam starts to hang
above the pot and vapor spreads through the air, the fronts of your eyes get cloudy. Nobody knows if I’m crying or smiling as I’m making stew, and only the cook knows if the stew is made of vegetables or a pheasant’s head or a pig’s liver or a dirty sock.

My first impression of Uncle’s wife was that—how do I say this—she looked like a young calf. Pale, pinkish skin; skinny, large, black shining eyes, frozen by fear. And over her mouth she wore a mask as if to say, I’m not ever going to eat. But she also held a fork and knife in each hand at the table, as if she were going to eat somehow. She was your typical neurotic. Apparently a big sharp fork with one bent tine weighed on the subconscious of Mrs. N, Freud’s patient, which was why she couldn’t eat and was always hungry. When she was a young girl, her father had punished her if she balked at eating a piece of meat that had grown stone cold, its fat congealed. Uncle thought there must be something like a sharp fork with a bent tine looming over his wife, too, but he was unable to discover what it was. Uncle took it slow, as if he were cooking a rice dish. Back then Uncle was radiant—I thought it was the look of a man in love. But his wife showed me that so many women don’t want to eat and that food could be the cause of the most excruciating pain. This refusal to eat is not the same as drinking around the white film that forms atop hot cocoa or milk or cooled porridge. Not eating something you dislike doesn’t bring about pain that is evocative of death.

Eating is an absolute, repetitive activity. The same as love. Once you start you can’t stop. So if you can’t eat when you’re hungry, it’s worse than being stricken with the gravest illness. Uncle’s wife, who possessed a flickering appetite, committed suicide in the most dramatic way—she slathered oil all over her naked body and hanged herself. It may have been a rebellion against things she couldn’t eat, or perhaps it was a painful ritual of self-sacrifice. Was it resignation or a holy ritual? If it was her intention to be remembered by the strongest last image, she got
her wish. Even now I sometimes think of her dangling from the ceiling, her emaciated body glistening with oil.

Uncle dreamt about her often after her death, and he said that in his dreams he’s always examining her teeth. Every time I imagined Uncle stretching his neck out to look deep down her throat, I felt a pain that might split my chest in two. I don’t know if the pain came from sadness or an instinctual anxiety. I started to resent his wife. Death requires more love from the one left behind. I hoped Uncle would meet another woman, someone who knew without a doubt what she wanted to eat. But Uncle didn’t fall for anyone else and instead quickly started to depend on alcohol. It was the most definite and easy way to forget, but it was also the beginning of a disease that was nearly impossible to cure.

His doctor raised with me the issue of my noncommittal behavior toward Uncle—it wasn’t helpful to ignore and protect Uncle as he continued to drink, as it downplayed the reality that alcoholism is a real disease and may have been hindering Uncle’s recovery. And that it’s hard to continue drinking without someone condoning it. He told me all of this in a reproachful tone, as if he had actually peeked into my thermos. That’s probably why he called me to the hospital today. I wonder if I need to defend Uncle or myself.

Uncle stayed with us for six months before he went into the hospital. One day, Seok-ju came back from walking Paulie with Uncle and said, worriedly, that he kept falling down. The cabbage I was holding dropped on the floor. Thump. The dense sound rippled in the air, like a bad smell acting as a warning. Falling over is one of the first symptoms of Korsakoff’s syndrome. I don’t think we should leave him by himself, he said, approaching me and gently pulling my shoulders toward him. Six months, though neither long nor short, was enough for Uncle to acknowledge that the disease had progressed beyond his
control, leading to his decision to admit himself to the hospital. Shedding his doctor’s coat, Uncle wobbled into the hospital where he’d worked.

You can say that because you’ve never seen him fall down again and again, I want to tell the doctor. Right now I’m the only person here for Uncle. What else would I be able to do for him, except to bring him this small thermos? Is that what I’m supposed to say? I don’t say anything in the end. Because I don’t want to appear oblivious. Because Uncle is the only person who knows that the taste of love encompasses the wilted, the overly ripened, the rotten, and the bitter.

Uncle is sitting on a bench, a thin camel cardigan draped around his shoulders over his hospital garb. He sits there leisurely, not waiting for me but as if he’s relaxing after a light meal. He glances back at me, his eyes squinting in the sun. Right now there’s nothing for us to do but smile at each other. He looks too thin but it may be better to pretend not to notice. Uncle must also be thinking things about me but not asking.

“So I was thinking, Uncle.”

“Hm?”

“I’m glad it’s spring.”

“Yeah, it’s already spring. But even in April, it’s still cold in the shade. Here, it’s hard to tell if the seasons are changing.”

“Then let’s leave.”

“Why, all of a sudden?”

“You’re not home here.”

“This can be as good a place as home.”

“It’d be nice if you came and looked after Paulie and other things.”

“Things are still hard for you, I guess?”

I don’t say anything.

“I’m still more comfortable here.”

“What are you afraid of, Uncle?”

He’s quiet.

According to his doctor, the most important thing for Uncle right now is to decide when to end treatment. During his stay, he repeatedly cycled through drinking and quitting—which only made him realize that nothing had changed—followed by guilt and dejection. His doctor says the mere idea of ending the treatment causes Uncle enormous anxiety.

“Have faith, Uncle.”

“Faith in what?”

“Faith that you won’t drink again.”

“You know I can’t ever have that.”

I don’t argue.

The doctor, once Uncle’s colleague, tried to reassure me by saying that treating an alcoholic was a very worthy job. I nodded, but I don’t know how worthy it really is. Never having a drink is difficult to put into practice. An alcoholic is completely cured not when he doesn’t drink a drop of alcohol, but when he’s able to control himself and drink a moderate amount. Uncle knows this. Just as he can’t completely stay away from alcohol, he can’t erase memories of his late wife. Should Uncle bury those feelings deep down, or try to forget her? If Uncle can’t regulate his drinking, it’s his choice, not the result of a lack of willpower. So it’s not up to the doctor or me to decide when to terminate treatment. All we can do is watch over him. Perhaps Uncle needs time to realize that alcohol isn’t necessary in his life and that he can survive without drinking. As his family, I have to decide whether I will participate in his treatment.

“What do you want me to do, Uncle?”

“If I think I need help, I’ll request it from you.”

“Request is a strange word, Uncle.”

“Is it? Then I’ll ask you for help.” Uncle’s smile is wide, showing all of his teeth.

There are times when you should listen to the doctor. The
doctor told me that the patient’s family has to determine when to be active in the treatment and when to step back. If you become involved too quickly, it can trigger avoidance or anger. This is enough for today. I get up from the bench and dust off the back of my pants.

It’s difficult for an alcoholic to stop after the first glass. Drinking becomes a defense mechanism, and when someone tries to stop him, he gets more aggressive, destroying not only himself but also his loved ones. An alcoholic like Uncle has to understand two things: that he can’t drink less or quit in one fell swoop, and that he can’t ever give up trying. Alcoholics believe that they can limit themselves and trust that they have the willpower to quit. Neither is true. But I’m confused. Am I talking about Uncle or about myself?

CHAPTER 16

I HATE ONIONS.” Mun-ju frowns, glancing at the chopping board.

I am carefully slicing onions into rings, taking care not to ruin their shape. I smile. Grandmother valued the onion, just after garlic and the potato. On Grandmother’s death anniversary, the first food I make to honor her memory is onion pancakes filled with meat. “What’s so bad about them?”

“Everything. Their shiny hardness and their smell and their white color. They look exactly like testicles.” Mun-ju never met Grandmother but came over to cook with me at every death anniversary and to drink the ceremonial wine to honor Grandmother’s spirit. She is trimming mushrooms to be skewered.

“So you don’t like garlic, either?”

“Come on, stop laughing.”

“It’s funny. You like garlic but not onions.”

“So? Onions are onions and garlic is garlic.”

“They’re in the same family, though.”

“Plus I had a dream about onions last night.”

I should have made the onion pancakes before Mun-ju got here. I quickly finish slicing the onions and rinse them in cold water. Mun-ju’s dreams are quite structured and colorful—of course, the person who has the dream and the person who analyzes it see the same thing differently, and if I had her dreams I wouldn’t call them colorful. I’ve dreamt about tomatoes several times, baring a segment of my unstable unconsciousness as if I were a holey block of Emmentaler.

BOOK: Tongue
13.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Kick at the Darkness by Keira Andrews
Silent Thunder by Loren D. Estleman
OMG... Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nuñez
The Night by Heaton, Felicity
04 - Shock and Awesome by Camilla Chafer
Dawn of a Dark Knight by Zoe Forward
Heart Of The Sun by Victoria Zagar