Sketch (4)

"How about this one?"

"Hmm. No."

"Then this?"

Photograph after photograph arrived. Not every email that came in was a tip, but among them, serious leads numbered a solid fifty at least.

Jay flipped through them one by one — then his hand stopped.

He had thought he would only know for certain if he went and saw the place himself.

The photo on the monitor was poor quality, the focus locked on a parked car so that the background blurred into haze. But the moment he looked at it, he knew.

"…Nari. I think I found it."

"Well?"

"I'm sure."

Once they arrived, the memory sharpened into something unmistakable.

"It's the house at the very top."

The uppermost house on a sloping alley of red brick that wound its way downhill. Ironically, it was not far at all from the home Nari shared with her grandmother — a twenty-minute bus ride.

Nari and Jay climbed the incline. The last house was a two-story old building, and out front an elderly woman was watering her flowerpots.

"Oh? Who might you be?"

Because the house sat at the dead end of the alley, the grandmother looked up at the two of them walking toward her and asked.

Nari answered.

"We came looking for a house someone used to live in a long time ago."

"Used to live in? I've been living here for decades myself."

"Do you happen to remember a mother and a little boy who rented a single room here about seventeen years ago?"

At Nari's words, the grandmother's eyes went wide.

"Oh my goodness — then is this young man next to you Ji-hoon?"

At a name they were hearing for the first time, both Jay and Nari's eyes widened.

"Jay — I think your name was Ji-hoon."

"…I think that's right. The moment I heard it, I remembered."

According to the grandmother, they had not even been renting, and it had not been a single room.

"Here. The mother and child looked so pitiful I told them they could just stay if this was all right."

What the grandmother opened and showed them was a tiny storage space under the stairs leading up to the second floor.

"…If Mother was about my height, she wouldn't even have been able to stretch her legs."

At Nari's words, Jay stared into the storage space and could not speak.

A room that had felt very small even to his childhood self. Seeing it as an adult, it was only slightly larger than a single public toilet stall.

Using the information the grandmother had given them, Jay and Nari went down into town and stopped at the barbecue restaurant where his mother was believed to have worked. Fortunately, the place was still standing after nearly twenty years.

"Hmm? Who are you talking about? We've had so many people work here over the years."

The old man at the counter tilted his head — then a voice called from the kitchen.

"You talking about Seon-hwa, by any chance?"

"Seon-hwa? Ah, that must be it. Right, right."

Nari's eyes lit up at what seemed to be a lead on Jay's mother.

"Seon-hwa? Could you tell us more about her?"

"Her name was Lee Seon-hwa… was it? It's fuzzy. Was Seon-hwa a Lee, or a Park?"

"That's right. She was a Lee."

At the voice from the kitchen again, the old man nodded and went on.

"She was a girl who scraped by with everything she had. She'd fill her stomach with food customers left behind and never wasted a single coin. But she was so bad at the work that I remember her for that. Normally I would have let her go, but her situation was so pitiful I kept her on."

After interpreting for Jay, Nari asked,

"Do you know what became of her after she left?"

"One day a man showed up out of nowhere and took her away."

"A man?"

"And the kid stopped coming around at some point too. So we figured she'd remarried."

They thanked the old man and left the restaurant. Nari hesitated over whether to soften the translation — then squeezed her eyes shut and relayed it to Jay exactly as it was.

But rather than darken further, Jay's face — which had been rigid ever since seeing the storage space at the end of the alley — eased at those words.

"If she remarried, that would be a relief."

"Yeah?"

"But if she's remarried and living well… would it really be a good thing for me to go looking for her?"

Looking at Jay's face, Nari smiled.

"Whatever choice you make, Jay, I'll respect it."

"Wouldn't you feel disappointed if we stopped here? You've worked so hard for me."

"If our journey ended here, I'd be a little sad — but if it doesn't, then it's fine."

"Of course it doesn't."

Jay grinned at her.

A few days passed. In that time, Jay and Nari made inquiries about his mother and the man who had taken her. Then, through an unexpected channel, the man contacted them first — an email that came in through the address they had made public.

"Lee Seon-hwa?"

It was the name of Jay's birth mother that they had heard at the barbecue restaurant.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The repetitive beeping of a heart monitor filled the theater. Nearly two hours of runtime had already passed, yet the moment the audience heard that sound, the film's opening scene slammed back into their minds with visceral force.

A close-up of a man's upper body, standing frozen outside a hospital room, his face full of hesitation about going in.

By now the audience knew his name was Jay Miller, and they knew every step of the path that had brought him to this place.

Silence ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠settled over the Theater am Potsdamer Platz so completely that even the sound of people swallowing seemed loud.

Creak—

Jay opened the door and went in, followed by a nurse and Nari.

It was a four-person ward, but the moment he stepped inside, Jay knew at once which of the women he had come for. He could not have said how — only that some instinctive pull brought him to stand before the patient named Lee Seon-hwa.

A gaunt, wasted woman lay sleeping quietly on the bed. The one unusual detail: her hands were blue.

He had found his birth mother, yet Jay's expression was unexpectedly calm.

"Why are her hands like that?"

The woman's hands, under his gaze, were not merely blue — they had darkened almost to black.

Jay turned to the nurse behind him.

"What is this woman's diagnosis?"

The nurse gave an awkward smile.

"It's very late… but I'm still so glad you came."

This patient was well known even among the nurses.

"Her diagnosis is Alzheimer's. Dementia, in other words. I don't need to explain what that is, do I?"

The nurse bent down and pulled something out from under the bed.

Seventeen years earlier.

It had been three years since the diagnosis. The symptoms were steadily worsening.

Was this what it meant — to forget the moment you turned around?

She was certain the customer on this side had ordered something, but the second she turned away, it was gone.

"Hey, lady. I've been asking for two more servings of pork jowl for ages — why do you keep not bringing it? Twice means you're doing it on purpose. You looking down on me?!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Tears welled in Lee Seon-hwa's eyes as she bowed her head in apology. It was not because of the customer raging in front of her.

…Raising him any longer with a body like this would just be selfish. What sin did I commit to receive such a cruel punishment at this young age?

Five years earlier.

On that last night, watching her little boy who had no idea that when the sun rose he would be parted from his mother for the rest of his life, she had muffled her sobs so as not to wake him and wept in silence.

"I told him not to come back. I told that tiny child who didn't even know what longing meant — don't miss your mother, forget everything, and never come back. Because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was going to forget it all to dementia anyway."

The woman on the hospital bed, her body wasted to skin and bone, somehow found the strength to look at the social worker and wail, tears streaming without end.

"But that — that regret is so unbearable. Why won't the memory of talking to myself while looking at my sleeping son on that last day disappear? Dementia is a disease that steals your memories. So why does that one stay lodged in my chest for a lifetime…"

"I know. It's all right, Seon-hwa."

The social worker had heard this story from Lee Seon-hwa dozens of times already. And yet every time he listened to this woman's story, the tears still came.

She pounded her chest with her fists, wringing herself out, and bowed her head without a word.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Whether the apology was meant for the social worker holding her hand and crying with her, or for the child she had sent away to a distant country — she repeated only that she was endlessly sorry, until exhaustion overtook her and she fell asleep.

Present.

Sensing the nurse reaching for something under the bed, Lee Seon-hwa's eyes fluttered open. Whether her gaze found any memory in Jay's face was impossible to tell, but she slowly parted her lips.

"…I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She murmured an apology meant for no one anyone could name, then, as if the effort had drained her, drifted back to sleep.

Jay said nothing as he looked at her. His face held an expression beyond any words.

What the nurse pulled out from under the bed was a children's sketchbook and a set of crayons worn down to stubs.

She held the sketchbook out to Jay. He took it and turned the first page.

…Banknotes?

Inside, the pages were filled with ten-thousand-won bills colored in green crayon.

"…She always said that if she was going to go find her son, she needed to earn a lot of money — so she kept drawing ten-thousand-won bills."

With trembling hands, Jay turned the page. The next page was full of ten-thousand-won bills too. He turned another. And the next. And the next.

After several pages, the green had run out — and the bills were colored in blue.

Jay closed the sketchbook with shaking hands and looked down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the crayons worn to nothing.

The screen held only those crayons in frame, and silence blanketed the audience.

Then the camera showed Jay's large hand gently enfolding those hands — blue with crayon, darkened almost to black, so pitiful — and his voice was heard.

"Hello. My name is Lee Ji-hoon."

The sentence he had practiced countless times over the past few days for the moment he would meet his mother.

Only then did the audience realize that this film, which had begun with the English narration "My name is Jay Miller," had ended with Jay's own voice in Korean: "My name is Lee Ji-hoon."

And on the black screen, the title of the film — Sketch — appeared, and the screen went dark.

A sketch is the preliminary drawing made before the real picture. Like the youth of Jay and Nari, still standing before the true painting of their lives.

In its dictionary sense, it also means a short one-act play — a skit. A sketch.

And it was also his mother's sketchbook.

A silence so complete it felt as though the vast theater were empty settled over the hall — and then, from here and there, the sound of sniffling began to rise.

Film student Neil Benson could not hold himself back any longer. He shot to his feet.

Clap. Clap. Clap!

He flung his arms wide and brought his hands together with everything he had.

Chris stood. Film critic Franz stood. And then everyone in the theater was on their feet, pouring out unstinting applause.

Looking out at the audience crying and clapping all around them, Yeon-woo and his companions rose as well.

If not the power of cinema, what else could make ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this many people stand up crying and clap like this? The film I made this time… this is a real film.

Emotion surged up, and tears gathered in Yeon-woo's eyes too. For the past several months he had lived as Jay. This was the moment that long journey came to a close.

"Hic…"

At the sniffling beside him, he looked over to find Seo Ji-eun barely holding back tears, her eyes brimming.

Yeon-woo pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out.

"Hwaaaah."

The moment she took it, the sobs she had been barely containing burst free. She wiped the fat tears rolling down her face with Yeon-woo's handkerchief and blew her nose.

Hmm… blowing her nose in it is a bit…

Just then, Director Park Chan-hong came up from behind and slung an arm around his shoulders.

"Well?"

Yeon-woo grinned at him.

"I can feel the power of film."

"So can I."

Park Chan-hong released the shoulder hold and patted both Yeon-woo and the still-weeping Seo Ji-eun on the shoulder.

"Thank you. For making my dream real. Both of you — Jay and Nari."

"Thank you for giving us the chance to be part of such a wonderful work."

"Me tooo… hic."

Hearing Seo Ji-eun's voice, so choked with tears that the words were barely intelligible, Yeon-woo and Park Chan-hong both burst out laughing.

Behind them, the standing audience did not stop applauding for several more minutes.

Meanwhile, Jeong Yu-jin of the Hansaeilbo — dispatched from Korea to Berlin — unlocked airplane mode on her smartphone with a face streaked in tears and snot, and typed at speed.

Eleven-forty at night, Korea time.

Reporter Kim of the Hansaeilbo, who had just finished washing up and was about to go to bed, looked at his phone and tilted his head.

"…Jeong Yu-jin. If you just send me 'actually insane,' how am I supposed to write an article?"