RSL Ch 82

Three days later, I boarded a plane to Munich. The funeral was tomorrow, but I was going a day early. I had canceled one flight scheduled for this week and taken a few days off. Although I hated lying, I made up a story about a relative passing away.

If it’s not an immediate family matter, it’s difficult to cancel consecutive scheduled flights and take extended leave. This was the best I could do.

Before I left, I received a call from Han Jae-yi. His voice over the phone was calm and quiet. Without showing any great emotional disturbance, he conveyed the schedule for the day of the funeral and asked about my schedule. So I had no choice but to treat him just as professionally. Although I was very glad to hear his voice after a long time, I tried not to show it.

“You’re coming a day early. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to stay at my apartment than going to the Winnenden house?”

That was his only reaction to my schedule.

I thought about suggesting we meet briefly, but I hesitated. We probably couldn’t meet. He would have to be by his mother’s side. After asking and answering myself, it seemed obvious. So I didn’t bother to bring it up.

After arriving at the airport, I rented a car and drove to Han Jae-yi’s apartment. It was the place he had acquired when he transferred to a large law firm in downtown Munich. It was an old apartment built in the 19th century, but thanks to his purchase and interior renovation, it had been transformed beautifully. I was too busy at the time to properly help with the move. I remember showing up just as everything was finishing, merely staying for a glass of wine before leaving.

There was a small pile of mail. I opened the mailbox like I was the owner, holding the letters to my chest as I climbed to the second floor. I took out the spare key Han Jae-yi had given me on moving day and opened the front door. It didn’t seem dusty, probably because he had stayed here during his recent business trip to Germany.

I put my suitcase next to the front door and opened the bedroom door. The neatly arranged bed sheets seemed to speak to his personality. The apartment was filled with cool autumn air. I turned on the radiator and opened the windows to ventilate the living room. I grabbed two cushions sprawled on the sofa, patting them together to dust them off.

Then my eyes caught sight of Han Jae-yi’s photos arranged in the display case. Most of them were familiar scenes from his childhood that I had often teased him about whenever I saw them. I appeared in many of these photos like a cameo. Even in family photos, I was attached to his side like an appendix, poking my face in. I guess the boundary of being friends had made me quite a shameless person.

There was also a Polaroid photo of us with bloodshot eyes, drunk. Chris was in the background behind us, and below the photo was a scribbled note from Han Jae-yi:

“Maxi’s 22nd birthday, the day the main character collapsed”

I couldn’t help but smile. I remember when it was. It was the day I had tried to beat him in drinking, only to end up being carried on Han Jae-yi’s back instead. We had argued that I had just received a little support, but I decided to overwrite the memory with being carried by him. You must have liked that,  WooSeo-jin.

The ventilation seemed sufficient, so I closed the windows and unpacked. I added a blanket and a pillow to his neat bed to make my sleeping place. Like building a bird’s nest, I laid out the blanket and propped up two cushions under the pillow.

After showering and drying my hair, I got into my new nest wearing just a t-shirt and underwear. I covered myself with the remaining edge of the blanket and curled up. It felt like I was playing camp alone.

Lying there in Han Jae-yi’s empty apartment, I thought about what had happened to us over the past week. The words we’d said to each other, the distrust we’d shown each other, like people under a curse, still hurt when I thought about them. But it wasn’t like I wanted to give up on him. As Chris said, fighting can’t be the fundamental cause of breaking up.

We were just robbed of the time to forgive each other. I had heard hundreds of times that misfortunes always come in clusters, but I never knew it would appear in such a devastating form at the worst possible timing.

It will be my turn only when Han Jae-yi reconciles with his father and starts to shed his guilt. To keep myself from getting tired of the endless wait, I closed my eyes, recalling my favorite scene. I fell asleep remembering his voice as he confessed his love. I hope I don’t have any nightmares tonight.

***

Professor Han Dong-joon graduated from Seoul National University and stayed as a researcher before being offered a position as a Korean Studies professor at the University of Tübingen. With previous experience studying in Germany, he settled here with his wife, a former university lecturer, and his only son who was in middle school at the time.

He attended church, was always a man of few words, and used relatively polite vocabulary. His study was always filled with the smell of books, and for me who loved reading, it was like heaven.

He welcomed my visits to their home. After learning that I loved books, he always called me to his paradise-like study at the end of my visit and lent me a few books. Of course, many of them were too difficult for me to read at that young age, but like a child doing homework, I would force myself to read them thoroughly within a week and return them.

Han Jae-yi would frown, saying he couldn’t understand me. He would tease me, saying I had similarities with his father. Thinking about it now, that wasn’t entirely wrong. Not only in my love for books, but he also loved his son very much. Yes, we had many things in common.

Dressed in a black suit, I entered the church. About thirty mourners were scattered around, remembering the deceased. Most of the people, excluding family and relatives, seemed to be university-related. Students he had taught, colleague professors, and personal acquaintances he had been close with.

My family was included among them. Chris and my adoptive parents were putting the cards they had prepared in advance into a box.

“You’re here.”

“Yes, it seems you came straight here without stopping by home.”

“Yes. The flowers are beautiful.”

I commented on the wreath my adoptive mother had brought for the condolence. Pleased with my compliment, she held the flowers high so they could be seen from afar. My gaze following them naturally turned towards the front of the chapel. And I spotted a noticeable woman. Of course, I had expected her to come.

Gisella, with her long blonde hair, was talking with the gathered people, wearing a sad expression like family. Was she attending today as a child of parents who were close to the deceased, or to pay respects to her ex-fiancé who had lost his father?

My gaze turned a little more to the right. And I found Han Jae-yi talking with the pastor next to the organ. He was wearing a black suit with his bangs long, covering his forehead. I watched him for a moment, as if appreciating the sight of him nodding silently as he listened to what the pastor was saying.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

I left my family and approached them. Han Jae-yi, immediately noticing my approach, turned towards me, interrupting his conversation with the pastor.

“You came?”

“Yes.”

We greeted each other briefly and observed each other. Seeing my eyes full of pity, he smiled as if to say there was no need for that. His face, which I was seeing after a week, looked more peaceful than I had expected. Rather than being reassured, it made me more anxious.

“Come and say hello. Mom, Seo-jin is here.”

He took me to his mother, who was sitting a little apart on a chair. Unlike Han Jae-yi who seemed fine, she looked unrecognizably gaunt. It was so heartbreaking that I didn’t even mind her cold gaze towards me.

“So, you came.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mother.”

“Thank you for coming from far away.”

With those words, she turned her head away. I understood it as meaning she didn’t want to talk for long. I completely understand. She probably doesn’t want to see me. She’s busy pouring out her grief now. It’s okay to find someone to blame and criticize freely. By not chasing me away, she has already shown her dignity.

Han Jae-yi looked at his mother and then turned back to me, as if giving up.

“You’re going back to Seoul tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I think it will take some time for me. I feel I should stay by her side.”

He said in a low voice, looking back at his mother sitting behind. I nodded.

“I know. Let me know if there’s anything I can help with. Do you want me to send anything from Korea?”

It was an insincere offer. I must have wanted to test Han Jae-yi with such a shallow attempt, to see if he still wanted to stay by my side. How pathetic.

Han Jae-yi stared at me blankly. It was extremely difficult to read his eyes that contained nothing.

“Jae-yi. How should we do this?”

Someone called him in Korean. It seemed to be a relative from Seoul.

“Sorry. Let’s talk separately later.”

Han Jae-yi hurriedly approached his relatives. He’s busy today. Although the concept of chief mourner doesn’t exist in Germany, there were many people who came from far away, so there were many things to take care of and many aspects to pay attention to. As he said, it was right to postpone our talk for a bit later.

I closely observed the group of suit-wearing Koreans that Han Jae-yi had joined. A middle-aged man who looked tall and well-built seemed to be his uncle. I remembered Han Jae-yi coming back upset once, calling him a rude person. I heard he had also fallen out with Han Jae-yi’s father over inheritance issues. Nevertheless, death makes everything forgivable.

Since I couldn’t see anyone older than him, it seemed his grandfather couldn’t take the plane. I mourned the grief of the man who couldn’t see his son’s final journey.

Suddenly, I wondered if Han Jae-yi’s father would be satisfied with being buried in Germany. Although both of us had changed our nationality, he had a country he could call his homeland, so wouldn’t he have wanted to be buried there in the end? For the first time, I thought about my own death.

Saint-Exupéry, who was a pilot and writer, disappeared like a lie in the skies over the Mediterranean in 1944. If given the luxury of choosing my death, I wanted to disappear like that too.

***

The funeral service ended quickly and simply. Only the procession remained. Everyone stood up to move to the cemetery prepared next to the church. At that moment, Jae-yi’s mother, who was rising from the front row, seemed to feel dizzy and staggered, steadying herself on a chair. 

Her son supported her shoulder while Gisella held her hand. The Webers also approached to check on her condition. Receiving their comfort, Jae-yi’s mother finally broke into soft sobs.

We all silently watched from a distance. While funerals are meant to honor the deceased, they are really for the family left behind. That’s why those closest are given the privilege of offering greater comfort.

I had imagined it once before. If something major happened to Jae-yi or me, we believed we could do many things as best friends. In that imagination, I cared for his family from a more confident and elevated position than now. There were no places I needed to avoid, no people uncomfortable to face. So now I felt like an outsider.

After a while, they resumed walking. Han Jae-yi’s mother was leaning against her son, wrapping her face in a handkerchief. With her other hand, she tightly held Gisella’s as they left the chapel. They looked like a family.

Han Jae-yi’s mother wanted Gisella’s comfort, not mine, and since today wasn’t the time to quibble over such small things, I didn’t particularly resent Han Jae-yi for leaving them be. It was enough for just me to be sad, so I decided to erase it from my mind.

“Let’s go out too,” Chris said, patting my shoulder casually as he walked ahead.

Mourners gathered around an empty grave to watch the burial. Family members came forward one by one to cover the coffin with shovelfuls of dirt. While Jae-yi conducted the funeral calmly, his mother kept sinking to the ground. After a brief benediction by the pastor, mourners came forward in turn to throw flowers and pay their last respects.

I appeared at the very end of the procession and stared down at the coffin of Han Jae-yi’s deceased father. Complex emotions welled up. The deceased cannot choose their funeral guests, so they must face even unwanted faces. Today, that was probably me, and I couldn’t shake off the bitter feeling.