A Day Like a Dream
I looked at Min-hwa and thought she had lost her mind. Of course, the object of that madness was the order we ourselves had built. A cold dread settled over me. I thought of all the stories of people who had thrown themselves into the pseudo-religions society treated as a social ill. Wasn't this woman the textbook case? A woman who had cast away her family and fortune for a faith—and that faith was the one in which I sat, calling myself its leader. I was not free of the problem. Anxiety began to take hold of me.
"I'll say it again. I'm giving all of my fortune to Jisin."
I turned to look at her. When she had said it before, I had half taken it as a joke, or something she was simply saying. The expression on Min-hwa's face now belonged to an entirely different order of seriousness.
"Master Go Myeongsuk said that actually donating property is rather complicated, so she told me to leave it under my own name for now. But the true owner is Jisin. Sell it if you want. Tear it down if you want. Do whatever you please. It isn't Cheonsiman-gyo that owns it—it's you. I've already drawn up a power of attorney so that Jisin can exercise my property rights without my consent."
Min-hwa looked back at me and smiled.
"But you can't just take the fortune. You'll have to take me with it."
No—I don't need the fortune. I would be more than content with this woman alone. I was about to ask her something when Min-hwa spoke first.
"Discuss the details with Master Go. She has my lawyer's contact information, so she'll get in touch if she needs to. Tonight is for just the two of us—Jisin and me."
Min-hwa rose from the bed and came into my arms. I asked her nothing more about the matter. More precisely, I chose to treat Min-hwa's words as those of a woman whose eyes had been briefly dazzled by a pseudo-religion. She might be ready to give everything now, but I had no desire whatsoever to use that and take anything from her. All I wanted was to borrow, for a little while, the love of a woman I might never meet again in this life. Before long she would come to her senses, and when she did, I hoped she would realize that nothing had been taken from her.
We drank and had sex through the night. I lost count of how many times. Until dawn began to break, we wandered from room to room of the house, making love, and finally collapsed asleep in the living room. The only place we did not enter was her daughter's room. She seemed to want that space left untouched, and I agreed with that feeling completely.
Our bodies were drained of every last scrap of energy, but neither of us slept deeply. We stirred awake in the small hours, and Min-hwa suggested we go down to the basement sauna. Both of us looked thoroughly disheveled. Min-hwa made a phone call somewhere.
"I told the housekeeper to come. Clean up a bit, and prepare something for a hangover breakfast."
I must have looked a little awkward. Min-hwa stroked my face and said,
"Everything shows on your face, Jisin. I told her not to come down to the basement, so don't worry."
I sat in the tub with Min-hwa in front of me, my arms around her. The fatigue seemed to melt away. Only the soft lap of water could be heard.
"Won't you miss your child if you send her abroad?"
I asked carefully. I worried I might be touching a sore spot, but I still wanted to hear the answer.
"If I miss her, I'll go to her. That child never clung to me much, even when she was very little. She has the idea of a mother, but she doesn't know sticky maternal affection. Neither do I."
When I only listened, she went on.
"I made a marriage I didn't want. And I had a daughter I didn't want. I thought everyone else lived that way too. I didn't complain, and I didn't rejoice either. A nanny raised the child. I threw myself into social life under the pretext of doing it for her."
Min-hwa spoke with far more composure than I had expected. Clearly all of this had once been a source of torment for her as well, but I suspected she had largely overcome it by now.
"Once I passed thirty, I began to feel I had married far too young, and that the world I saw was a little different from the world other people saw. The more I felt that, the harder I threw myself into society—but I started to sense that the people around me weren't sincere."
I gently drew her closer from behind. Her full breasts filled my hands. By now it felt natural for my hands to rest on her body. I lightly cupped her breasts. Both of Min-hwa's hands rested on my knees.
"The world I had lived in for decades began to crumble, bit by bit. There was emptiness, and there was listlessness. And then I heard Jisin's words, and it was as if I had found the light. At the gatherings I secretly recorded Jisin's sermons and listened to them over and over through the night. Your voice traveled through my veins and into my body, and it melted away all my loneliness and every worry I had."
That my words had moved her was something I was grateful for, and to some degree I deliberately preached to people with that aim—but at the same time, the thought crossed my mind that there might be others as far gone for our order as this woman. Against those practical doubts of mine, Min-hwa's recollection went on.
"One day I understood. I knew what I had to do from then on—what I had no choice but to do. I will live forever at Jisin's side, for Jisin's sake. I want to pour that conviction into helping others find salvation too. Personally, I would like to be with Jisin twenty-four hours a day—but for the people who still haven't heard Jisin's words, I'll go out on my own two feet and spread them."
Min-hwa smiled with quiet satisfaction as she said it. I was a little at a loss. I couldn't decide whether I ought to thank her or tell her to snap out of it.
"Do you know who my most successful convert has been?"
Surely not her husband? From what Myeongsuk had told me, he didn't sound like that kind of man.
"My father and mother."
"What?"
I was genuinely startled.
"As my parents grew older, they started saying more and more things that made them sound weak-hearted. They're at an age when they should be able to live in peace… and that made me so sad for them. So I brought them to Cheonsiman-gyo."
It left a bitter taste. Not other people—her own parents. Of course I wasn't doing anything wrong, exactly, but something about it still sat uncomfortably with me. I asked carefully,
"So? How did the two of them react?"
Min-hwa turned and beamed at me.
"Same as everyone else. At first they only went to the gatherings reluctantly, but these days they get restless on days when there isn't one."
Could it be? I had told a great many stories that touched people's hearts. I had researched material that wasn't bound to any particular age group, stories that could completely soak a person's soul in the span of an hour or two. Lately I had put even more emphasis on moving them, and for first-timers I often told stories that struck their weak points so cleanly they were left stunned. What kind of stories? Even if I told you the material, not just anyone could do it. They were the product of the skill I had built up over more than a decade. Give me the time, and I had the gift of speech to lift people up and set them down again at will.
Min-hwa checked the time and rose from the sauna. Breakfast would be ready by now, she said. We put on bathrobes and went up to the first floor. Like the fairy bride from the old tale, someone had cleaned the house and laid out a meal in our absence and then vanished. I heard later that it wasn't one person but a whole team—people who moved as one unit, cleaning and preparing food with military efficiency, then disappearing before the household ever saw them.
We settled our stomachs with a Korean breakfast, then sprawled around the living room. I kneaded Min-hwa's breasts without pause, as if trying to get my money's worth. Even so, they were breasts I never grew tired of touching. I thought I would be happy to spend the rest of my life like this—but that was only a thought. I still had to return to my own place, the renovated motel.
Min-hwa wanted to come with me, but she said she had a prior engagement. She insisted on driving me, and went to shower and get ready. The Min-hwa of last night—hair loose, clinging to me as if starved for sex—had, in the space of a few minutes, transformed into an upper-class lady in a neat suit and an elegant updo. Next to her I could only look shabby and feel smaller. Her necklace, her rings, her bag, her clothes—every piece of it was clearly expensive luxury goods.