The Poor Grandma

20
Mrs. Euiseong Kim Recognizes Tschai, 1969


When Dano was married to Tschai in December, 1969, all things about Dano were in disarray. His parents had moved to Daejon City early that year, a much far greater place than Jumgock. His parents had come to the wedding which had been served at Andong Wedding Hall after all, in which his fifth- grade students of Kilan Elementary School and colleague teachers had been invited as major guests. His senior friend Young Gapp of Euiseong had come to the gala occasion, too.

It was a complicating cause that the Toung Doung and Boolim had moved to Daejon, by which Dano had subsequently been separated from his parents. Joongang University's commitment and Dano's trust in it had been a major cause for the Toung Doungs' transfer to Daejon City.

Dano had earlier staged a negotiation battle by correspondence with the Joongang University Administration in which he had expounded his future aspirations and a sincere hope for full scholarship benefits for the full semester from the academy. Initially the school's scholarship administration had said yes. But the school had said sorry the following spring: "We have failed to register you as a sophomore student of the Law College." Another default.

Touched by the letter of the commitment from a higher learning institution to guarantee his son a full financial support for the rest of the semesters and convinced by his son's determination to pass the judicial examination before the graduation, the Toung Doung family had decided to make a "daredevil" move to Seoul, disposing of all the properties including a well-built new house and a newly developed peach farm.

The Toung Doungs' dream, however short and mirage-like, of leaving the toils of the farm and making a decent life, was shattered at the last moment by “a person of default,” or an eternal loser who turned out to be none other than his son. So the meager amount of cash money made by the sale of a modicum of a real estate, if that were to be designated as such, had not been enough for the family to settle in the capital city of the country. That's why the Toung Doung couple had decided to move to Daejon City where several relatives of the family clan had been living while their son Dano had to remain at Kilan with his wife Tschai, with Dano retaining his job as elementary school teacher.

Toung Jahng and his wife, Dano's senior father and mother, or the oldest uncle and aunt, had held a reception party for Dano and his wife Tschai. That was good of them. But it was too bad that Dano's grandmother, Mrs. Euiseong Kim was still kept in solitary confinement.

Although she had been uttering incoherent mumbling about identities of her offspring and grandchildren, when Tschai got to "the cage", touching and holding her hand, and called halmonim, my dear grandmother, with a choking voice, there erupted a shining moment of her sanity from across the confinement hole, with Mrs. Euiseong Kim saying with a clear yet subdued voice, "You must be Dano's wife." Which pleased and startled the pair at the same time. There were no others about. Hardly had the sympathetic pair tried to utter some more comforting words toward her when her expression suddenly darkened and she got her lips tightened up for ever, as if the gate to her consciousness was banged shut.

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The journey to Daejon City, the purpose of which was to make a post-honeymoon appearance, was a traumatic reminder of repentance and pity. Dano was so remorseful of his own past stupidities and so pitiful of his parents' plights that he was shedding heartful tears so profusely that he often glanced as if they might have been discovered.

She was silent all through the train travel to one of the four big cities in the republic where Dano's parents, who might have been financially troubled and physically toilsome, must have been roughing it up. Guessing was loud all along the way but the situation on the spot was much more poignant.

A taxi of Daejon Station snaked its way to a poor-looking district to drop the young pair at a back alley, where shacks were put together like beehives. Toung Doung and Boolim were happy and embarrassed at the same time. "Why don't you send a telegram?" they wondered aloud. It was a little commotional with Boolim, like Keystone Cops, getting in and out of the room, disposing of the mess and making a decent mat on which the senior couple should get seated to be presented with big bows from their first son and daughter-in-law couple.

After special foods, of which some of them had been delivered from a near Korean cafeteria, were partaken of, there occurred inquisitive conversations of abnormal type, which were hesitatingly put forward and reluctantly answered. There was not a black and white television set but a second-hand transistor radio in the room, which filled the awkward vacuum between the two couples with dramas and situation comedies.

Almost all the resources of conversation done, Toung Doung told his wife to arrange the bedding for his son couple. "It will be so inconvenient of you two," Boolim said, looking apologetically at Tschai. "Not at all, Mother," Tschai held her mother-in-law's hand tightly. There was some room left even after the two couples had lain down for the night's sleep.

Toung Doung lay at the far end of the wall and Dano at the opposite end near the entrance; The mother and her daughter-in-law lay side by side but there was a considerable buffer area formed between the two because each bedding was separately shared with each other's husband. As Toung Doung switched off the light with a decent cough of "Good Night", the room turned into a labyrinth of pitched darkness.

There had been no windows. There might have been a lapse of time. Dano felt a tight squeeze in which Tschai's left hand was gliding down to Dano's crotch. Dano couldn't breathe. He restrained her inside at first by grabbing her wrist but his another organ didn't oblige: His penis rebelled with grand erection. Tschai turned and mounted him with feline agility and by one stroke of her right hand she clicked his hard stem tight shut into her stuff.

Then with a metronomic cadence she was doing it and enjoying it for quite a while. She forgot herself, Dano, the room, and whoever the human shapes around her. She clenched her lips hard and collapsed onto his abdomen with a mild shake, with fluids seeping down onto his stuff. He then exploded with force, letting her grit her teeth to keep from a hard shriek. She had another culmination this time.