「Sketch」 (4)
“How about this?”
“Um, no.”
“Then what about this?”
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Numerous pictures came.
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Not all of the e-mails that arrived were informative e-mails, but it seemed that there were more than fifty serious reports among them.
As he was turning the pages one by one, Jay’s movements stopped.
When I was looking for it, I thought that I had to go there to find out.
The picture floating on the monitor was not very good quality, and the background looked blurry as the focus was on the parked car.
But, I knew it the moment I saw it.
“···Nari-ya. I think I found it.”
***
“What do you think?”
“Are you sure.”
When I arrived, my memory became clearer.
“It’s the last house up there.”
The top house on the slope with red bricks winding down.
Ironically, this place wasn’t too far from Na-ri and Grandma’s house.
Arrived in 20 minutes by bus.
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Nari and Jay went up the slope.
The last house was a two-story prison, and an old woman came out in front of the house and watered the plants.
“Yeah, who are you?”
The house is in a dead end at the end of the slope, so when she saw Nari and Jay walking up, the grandmother asked.
Then Nari answered.
“I came up looking for the house I used to live in.”
“The house I lived in? How many decades have I been living here?”
“Do you remember the mother and the little boy who lived in a single room about 17 years ago?”
The grandmother’s eyes widened as she heard Na-ri’s words.
“Oh, then, is this young man next to you Jihoon?”
Both Jay and Nari’s eyes widened at the first name they heard.
“Jay, your name is Jihoon.”
“…I think you’re right. I remembered the moment I heard it.”
According to the stories I heard from my grandmother, I did not live in a rented house, nor was it a single room.
“It’s here. The hat is too bad, so I told you to just stay here if you’re okay with it.”
What Grandma opened and showed me was a very small warehouse under the stairs going up to the second floor.
“…if your mother’s height was about me, you wouldn’t have been able to stretch out your feet.”
At Nari’s words, Jay couldn’t speak as he looked inside the warehouse.
Even as a child, it was a very small room that remained in my memory.
As an adult, it was slightly larger than a public toilet.
Jay and Na-ri came down to town based on the information given to them by their grandmother.
I stopped by a meat restaurant where my mother is believed to have worked.
Fortunately, this restaurant has been around for nearly 20 years.
“Huh? Well, who are you talking about? There must be so many people who have worked here so far.”
As the grandfather, who was looking at the counter, tilted his head, a voice came from the kitchen.
“Aren’t you talking about Seonhwa?”
“Seonhwa? Oh, right? That’s right.”
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Nari’s eyes widened as if she had found a clue about Jay’s mother.
“Seonhwa? Could you tell me more about it?”
“His name is Lee Seon-hwa, is that correct? It’s fuzzy. Was Seonhwa the Lee family? Was it the Park family?”
“That’s right, Mr. Lee.”
He nodded at the sound from the kitchen again, and Grandpa continued.
“He lived like a bad boy. He filled his stomach with food leftovers from customers and saved it without wasting a penny. But I remember because I couldn’t do a lot of work. Originally, I should have cut it, but the circumstances were bad, so I kept using it.”
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Na-ri asked, interpreting Grandpa’s words to Jay.
“Do you not know where you are after you quit?”
“One day, a man suddenly came and took him.”
“Are you a man?”
“I haven’t seen my mourning since sometime. That’s why we thought we had remarried.”
After saying goodbye to my grandfather, I left the restaurant.
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Nari hesitated about whether she should interpret, then closed her eyes and gave it to Jay.
On the contrary, Jay’s face, which had hardened after seeing the warehouse at the end of the slope, was relieved when he heard that.
“I’d be happy if you got married again.”
“okay?”
“By the way, if I get married again and are living well, would it be a good thing for me to visit?”
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Nari smiled as she looked at Jay’s face.
“I will respect whatever choice Jay makes.”
“Nari, wouldn’t it be a pity if you stopped here? You worked really hard for me.”
“It would be a pity if our trip ended here, but if not, it’s okay.”
“Of course not.”
Jay looked at Nari and smiled.
A few days passed, and in the meantime, Jay and Na-ri were searching through rumors about their mother and the man who took her.
Then, through an unexpected route, the man was contacted first.
E-mails received through the public e-mail address.
– hello. I am Lee Chang-soo, a social worker.
We will look at the story on the Internet and contact you.
I’m contacting you because the person I’m looking for is Seonhwa Lee, whom I know.
“Lee Seon-hwa?”
It was Jay’s birth mother’s name I heard at a meat restaurant.
***
Beep beep beep.
Repeated beeps were heard.
The running time had already passed for nearly two hours, but when the audience heard the beep, the first scene of the movie came to mind strongly.
The upper body of the man standing in front of the hospital room with a face hesitating to enter was caught.
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Now the audience knew his name was ‘Jay Miller’, and how he came to this place.
There was silence, and it seemed that the audience swallowed their saliva loudly in the Potsdamer Platz Theatre.
Druck-.
Jay opens the door and enters, followed by a nurse and Nari.
It was a room shared by four people, but as soon as he entered, Jay knew at once who the woman he had visited was one of them.
I don’t know how I knew it, but I stood in front of the patient ‘Lee Sun-hwa’ with an instinctive attraction.
The emaciated, skinny woman was lying on the hospital bed and sleeping quietly.
The peculiar thing is that his hands are blue.
Although he met his birth mother, Jay was surprisingly calmer than expected.
“Why are your hands like that?”
The woman’s hand, which Jay was looking at, was dyed black because it was not pure blue.
Jay asked, looking at the nurse behind him.
“What’s this guy’s name?”
At Jay’s question, the nurse smiled awkwardly.
“It’s very late, but I’m really glad.”
This patient was also famous among nurses.
“This person’s disease name is Alzheimer’s. Dementia in Korean. Do you know what it is without explaining it?”
The nurse leaned over and pulled out something under the bed.
***
17 years ago.
It’s been 3 years since I was judged.
The condition gradually worsened.
Is this what it means to forget when you turn around?
Apparently, the customer over there must have ordered something, but when I turned around, I forgot.
“No, Auntie. Since the two servings of regular meat are different, why don’t you keep bringing them? Twice is intentional. Are you ignoring me?!”
“Sorry Sorry.”
Tears welled up in Seonhwa Lee’s eyes as she bowed her head and apologized.
It wasn’t because of the customers who were angry in front of them.
‘····It must be greed to grow up with a body like this anymore. What crime have I committed to receive such a harsh punishment at this young age?’
***
5 years ago.
I spent the last night watching my young son who never dreamed that he would say goodbye to his mother when the sun came up, and he silenced his voice for fear of waking up, and quietly shed only tears.
“I told you not to come back. I told that little child, who didn’t know what missing was, not to miss his mother, and to forget everything and never come back. Because I also have dementia and will forget everything anyway.”
The woman on the hospital bed, skinny and skinny, looked at the social worker to see where that energy came from, and cried endlessly with tears.
“But, that’s so regretful, why don’t the memories of talking to myself while watching my son sleeping on the last day don’t disappear? Dementia is a disease in which you lose your memory. But why stay in your heart for the rest of your life…”
“I know everything. It’s okay, Seonhwa.”
The social worker was a story he had already heard dozens of times from Lee Sun-hwa.
However, whenever I listened to this woman’s story, I always had tears in my eyes.
A woman pounding her chest with her fists and squeezing it while bowing her head silently.
“Sorry Sorry.”
Are you talking to a social worker who holds his hand in front of you and weeps together, or to a child who has been sent to a distant country?
I was tired of repeating myself saying I’m infinitely sorry, but suddenly I fell asleep.
***
today.
Seonhwa Lee slightly opened her eyes as she felt the nurse’s popularity pretending to take something out from under the bed.
He couldn’t tell what kind of memories his eyes were recalling when he saw Jay, but he slowly opened his mouth.
“···Sorry Sorry.”
He mumbled words that he did not know who he was apologizing to, and then fell asleep again after a difficult time.
Looking at Lee Seon-hwa like that, Jay was speechless.
Jay’s face with indescribable expressions.
What the nurse pulled out from under the bed was a children’s sketchbook and worn-out crayons.
A nurse handing out a sketchbook to Jay.
Jay took the sketchbook and turned the first page.
‘···money?’
It was filled with ten thousand won bills painted in green.
“…you have to make a lot of money to go find your son, so always draw 10,000 won.”
Jay turned the page with trembling hands.
The next page was full of 10,000 won.
passed it again
On the next page, and on the next page.
As I turned several pages, the 10,000 won bills were painted blue to see if they had run out of green.
Jay covered the sketchbook with trembling hands.
And I looked at the worn-out crayons.
There was silence in the audience while watching the screen lit up with only crayons at an angle.
And soon after, he showed Jay’s large hand, which quietly wrapped around his shabby and dark blue hand, covered in blue crayons, and Jay’s voice was heard.
“Hello. My name is Jihoon Lee.”
A sentence that Jay has rehearsed countless times over the past few days for when he met his mother.
The audience finally noticed that the movie started with the English narration, ‘My name is Jay Miller.’ and ended with Jay’s Korean voice, ‘My name is Jihoon Lee.’
And with the title of this movie “Sketch” on a black screen, the screen went black.
A sketch is a sketch that is drawn before drawing.
Like the youth of Jay and Na-ri, before they began to paint a picture of life in earnest.
A short one-act play in the dictionary meaning. In other words, it meant a sketch.
And it’s my mom’s sketchbook.
There was a lie-like silence in the large theater, as if there was no one there, and then all of a sudden, squeaks could be heard everywhere.
And Neil Benson, a film student, couldn’t stand it anymore, so he left his seat and got up.
clap clap!
Then, with his arms wide open, he clashed his hands with all his might.
Chris stood up, and so did the film critic Franz.
Soon after, everyone in the theater stood up and gave generous applause.
Yeon-woo and his companions stood up watching the spectators crying and applauding here and there.
‘If it’s not the power of movies, what can make these people cry and get up and clap? The movie I shot this time is a good movie.’
Tears welled up in Yeon-woo’s eyes at the rising emotion.
For the past few months, Yeonwoo has been living as a J.
This is the moment when the great journey comes to an end.
“Ugh…”
I looked to the side at the sound of a sneeze, and Seo Ji-eun was barely holding back her tears with a tearful face.
Yeon-woo took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to him.
“Huh.”
Seo Ji-eun bursts into tears when she receives the handkerchief.
With Yeonwoo’s handkerchief, she wiped the tears falling like chicken poop and blows her nose.
‘Umm….’
Blowing your nose is a bit…
After that, director Park Chan-hong came up to me and hugged me.
“What is it?”
Seeing director Park Chan-hong like that, Yeon-woo laughed.
“I can feel the power of the film.”
“So am I.”
Then, director Park Chan-hong relaxed his shoulder and patted Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun, who was crying.
“Thank you. For making my dream come true. Both Jay and Nari.”
“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do such a wonderful piece of work.”
“Hey girl. Ugh.”
Hearing Seo Ji-eun’s voice, who doesn’t know what she was talking about, Yeon-woo and Park Chan-hong burst into laughter at the same time.
The spectators standing looking at them did not stop applauding for several minutes after that.
Meanwhile, Hansae Ilbo reporter Jeong Yu-jin, who was dispatched to Berlin from Korea, quickly turned off the smartphone airplane mode with a face full of tears and runny nose.
– senior! Breaking news from the Berlin Film Festival. The movie “Sketch” is really crazy.
11:40 PM Korean time.
Reporter Kim of the Hansae Ilbo, who came out after washing to sleep, looked at his smartphone and tilted his head.
“···No, Yujin Jung. How do I write an article if I only send ‘I’m really crazy.'”