Here is the true enemy of capitalism. This is not a statement about my parents who were socialists. As known to all, my parents were not theoretical or armchair socialists like some student activists in the 1980s, but real warriors who fought against capitalism in actual warfare, armed with carbine rifles and operating all over Jirisan Mountain during the Korean War. After I was born, however, they did little to stand up against capitalism. At most, they spent long, long winter nights longingly reminiscing about their early days when they had been the living enemies of capitalism, whispering under their comforter to avoid being eavesdropped upon by others. To be exact, therefore, they might well be called former socialists. They were eternal socialists at heart, though. But who gives a damn about heart? Apart from their fight against capitalism during the Korean War, they didn’t have any skill, money or even youth, and after their release from prison, came back to the world ruled by capitalism, where they barely made ends meet as inexperienced farmers at the bottom of capitalist society until their deaths. They had a great cause in their minds, but didn’t reveal it to others, and even if they had revealed it, the great cause would have become a dagger that would end up stabbing them. Thus, since my parents were already old when I was born, they were merely the dead enemies of capitalism. All they left me were persistent poverty, a considerable amount of debt and an abstract concept called socialism that was as persistent as poverty. Nonetheless, the word socialism, which was only an abstraction that I was fed up with, was imprinted on all the memories of my life like a branding mark, and inevitably I ended up having a peculiar interest in its enemy, namely capitalism. Holy crap!

     While the name Jeong Ji A will remind most readers of the partisans’ daughter, I am repeating this obvious story over and over again while sober, since I would like to show my real self in order to help readers believe that the unbelievable and unreal story which I am about to tell is, in fact, based on absolutely real facts, just as my parents’ story was based on reality. Thirty years ago, I began to feel the urge to write the story about my friend and her family who were deemed the true enemies of capitalism. They were rare human beings in the capitalist age, whom I termed the “autistic family.” Being a realist, however, I dared not write about them because their life seemed too unreal to be true in the eyes of others. Only recently have I made up my mind to write this story, but not because I have some noble and brave aspirations to tell the world about the emerging true enemy of capitalism in this age when socialism, the only former enemy of capitalism, has collapsed. Rather, I write it because I just want to play, free from being the partisans’ daughter and also from being a realist, more and more lightly, like the dust or like the wind, into thin air and without a trace.

     Now, let us proceed with the story. But first, I would like to ask for understanding on one point. The story of this family is unbelievable, but not exciting. Otherwise, they would not be the autistic family. There is no narrative in the life of this family. It is highly likely that this story will end up as a monotonous report on their everyday life. The inability to dramatize their monotonous everyday life shows the limitations of my capabilities as a writer, which I deeply regret, but this task is beyond my capacity at the moment. Hence, I would appreciate it very much if readers could read it through, feeling a sense of wonder or relief in the fact that these human beings were also our contemporaries, and taking comfort in these small feelings.

     The pillar of this is my friend, Bang Hyeonnam, who was born the second daughter of a family desperately longing for a son because her father was a fifth-generation only son, as observant readers may have already guessed from her name. Her parents were sincere enough to name their first daughter Hyeona, which was quite an elegant name for a girl at that time, since eldest daughters were considered to be fundamental to the keeping of a household in Korea. Faced with the tragic reality of having another daughter, however, they were overwhelmed by the pressure to have a son at all costs, and when naming their newborn daughter, could not help using the word nam, which means “man” in Korean, in obvious hopes of having a son the next time. In short, the birth of Hyeonnam was a sheer tragedy totally unwelcomed, which didn’t need to happen and should not have happened. It is uncertain whether her self-consciousness as a purposeless being was the primary cause that drove her to become an enemy of capitalism or not. Still, it is certain that it inevitably affected her growth. Having unintentionally aggravated the conflict between her paternal grandmother and her mother with her birth, Hyeonnam mastered the mysterious secret of going unnoticed wherever she was early in her childhood, since her grandmother used to lose her temper whenever she saw her face. Due to her mysterious secret, I also could not notice her existence even though both of us had gone to the same college and taken the same courses in a class of only forty-six students in the same department for three years.

     I clearly remember the moment when I first became aware of her existence. That day, drinking with several other students, I had one glass too many and kept swearing at the dictatorial government to go with my drink and finally made arrogant verbal attacks on my friends, seniors and juniors who were there with me, all of whom were greenhorns just like myself. While the unfortunate victims were trying to calm their anger with a glass of cheap maksoju, my eyes were searching for the next victim. Then, Hyeonnam came into sight, who seemed half invisible, disappearing into the background. I immediately sobered up. My drunken bravado was only for those who were used to it and I even regarded it as my strong point, like an occasional charm performance for fans, and therefore, the mere appearance of a stranger instantaneously made me feel ashamed of my act. While I was blushing and perplexed under the influence of alcohol and shame, she faintly smiled at me. It was a really thin smile that I’d never seen before. I used the word ‘thin’ to describe the sparse and watery nature of her smile, although I was unsure if it was a proper adjective to describe it, but I felt like her smile might turn into something like clear water at any minute. With that smile on her face, she spoke to me.

     “I like college. . .”

     She said this, although I could not understand how it was related to what I’d just rattled on about, and then I replied to her despite myself because her low voice, which always required an ellipsis as I would later discover, had a magnetic pull that drew in listeners in a weird way.

     “Why?”

     “Because we don’t change classes. . .”

     I was, and still am, burning with an unsatisfiable desire for the unknown world, and couldn’t understand what she’d said at that moment. For many readers feeling like myself, I’d like to make a superfluous interpretation about the meaning of her words that I finally deciphered years later. Hyeonnam has a fear of all that was new. In addition to her natural timidity, the primal experience of her birth, had developed into a fear of all new things. Thus, she lived in fear for twelve years, from elementary to high school. Since she was afraid of having to meet strangers, she had diarrhea every day and also had indigestion whenever she ate something, and consequently, weighed only 36 kilograms at the time of high school graduation. For reference, she was 163 centimeters tall, the same height as me. She’d weighed even less, but gained about three kilograms by the end of the semester. She’d relax a bit around December, but the winter vacation began at the same time, and then the school and classmates became unfamiliar to her again. She felt awkward when school started again in February, and to make matters worse, had to change classes again in March. Her priority wasn’t studying, as her school life resembled a fierce battle for survival. In college, however, time passed by while with familiar faces. It was almost a miracle to her. The first sign of the miracle was revealed in the form of weight gain. She started gaining weight in her sophomore year. She even weighed as much as 53 kilograms when I first met her during my junior year. College life was as good to her as the Garden of Eden. Without clearly understanding what she meant, I thought that her remark was just a symptom of shyness, and asked back with a giggle.

     “By the way. . . Who are you?”

     She casually answered as if this were a common reaction.

     “I also started my undergrad in creative writing in ’84. . . My name is Bang Hyeonnam. . .”

     It was a dreary fall day in my junior year, but I didn’t recall that name. Her face was also unfamiliar, of course. I hadn’t even heard of her name, and it was not because of her secret skill, but because of my laziness, since I didn’t remember when I’d attended any class for the last time. However, her next words were another story.

     “I’ve seen you often at drinking parties. . .”

     Even at this historic moment when Hyeonnam and I had our first conversation in three years, the others were enjoying their drinks as if we weren’t even there. All seemed to have completely forgotten about my existence even though I’d just made a fiery speech in front of them. This was absolutely due to her secret skill. Then I finally realized her secret of camouflaging her existence. There’s nothing special about it. As with all secret skills, however, she’d put great effort into mastering the method over a period of years. First of all, her facial expressions and gestures never showed any anxiety or fear. If so, all eyes would have been on her immediately. Then, without a word, sound or move, she vaguely mimicked the behavior of the others, such as laughing and drinking. When done simultaneously and naturally, people weren’t aware of who was right next to them. It turned out that she’d shown up at various department events more often than I had. Still, most classmates, like myself, couldn’t remember her. Being her roommate, I was the only one who knew that she never wore a skirt during all her college years. She came from a poor village in Sanggye-dong, Seoul, and spent four winters with a single jacket made of thin cotton. Only I knew about her shabbiness. She was always around others, but like a shadow. I’d never seen such a quiet person. And I’ve yet to meet another.

     From that day on, we lived together until graduation. She was having difficulty commuting long distances from her home in Sanggye-dong to Anseong. I didn’t know why, but she nodded right away when I asked her to live with me. My cohabitation with her was neither bad nor good. I would rather say that it was weird. I’d never seen such a lethargic person before. My parents lived like ghosts without any power in this capitalist society, but in their hearts, they lived on a battlefield where bullets rained down, with a firm belief that both body and mind must be strong. I lived with such parents for twenty years. Back then, I felt no respect for them, but their way of life must have seeped into my life, like the way many drops eventually make an ocean. I couldn’t understand her lethargy at all.

     We were roommates for about a year and a half, and I had no memory of seeing her do something. Truly, she did nothing at all. Except for one thing. She read lying on the bed. That was hard to believe. At that time, we were young, only twenty-two years old. Eager to write a good story, I couldn’t sleep well at night when I felt humiliated by a brilliant story written by one of my friends, which was better than mine in terms of metaphor or writing sense or whatever. Then, I started to read anything I could get my hands on, but the great masters of literature drove me to drink out of despair; simultaneously, I also engaged in on-campus protests, marching arm-in-arm with other protesters, sometimes shouting slogans in the street as well. I was constantly doing something, filled with a desire to know more, to do something and to become someone, seething like magma in my mind. Despair and hope repeated like the four seasons during my youth. Meanwhile, Hyeonnam always kept still wherever she was, like at the drinking party. She studied creative writing in college for four years, but never wrote a single story. The only evidence that she was a creative writing student were a few, quite elegant sentences in the three or four letters she sent to me during breaks. She was capable of writing such good sentences, but she never tried. I once asked her why she didn’t write at all, and she just shrugged it off without a word.

     She was young and did nothing. I thought that it was an insult to youth, and further, to life itself. It somehow felt like an insult to me or to my way of life, too. One day, I could no longer refrain from asking.

     “What on earth do you live for?”

     Hyeonnam answered languorously with her typical thin smile.

     “Well. . . If I stand up, I want to sit down, and if I sit down, I want to lie down, and if I lie down, I want to sleep. . .”

     Her answers were always like that, either ludicrous or annihilating the question itself. I once asked her if she’d ever write a novel.

     “Do I have to?”

     A typical answer.

     “Why’d you decide to study creative writing, then?”

     “Just because. . . I thought that all I’d have to do was read books. . .”

     In retrospect, she was right. You don’t need to become a writer just because you have a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. Becoming a writer doesn’t change who you are. Anyway, in those days, it was inconceivable for me not to become a writer. I also couldn’t understand a person who studied creative writing in college, but didn’t try to become a writer. From my perspective, living meant becoming something different, something better than the present—becoming a writer, a wife and a mother.

     Hyeonnam didn’t try to become anything. She didn’t want to. Most of the time we lived together, she wanted to sit when standing, lie down when sitting and fall asleep when lying down, as she herself said. While we were living together, she spent more than two-thirds of her time sleeping. She lay in bed almost all day long during weekends. Until then, I hadn’t known that humans could sleep so long, and that it would be all right. Only later did I realize that every moment spent outside was stressful for her, that sleeping was the only way to relax, and that she felt so comfortable with me she could fall asleep beside me. I shook her awake many times, worried about her, since she kept sleeping without eating or going to the bathroom for two days in a row.

     Her favorite place was her temporary bed made of a metal frame with a plank of wood on top of it. Even when awake, she would lay motionless in bed as still as death. The level of stress she experienced in her everyday life was beyond my imagination. I’ve been friends with her for thirty years, but still cannot fathom the extent of her difficulties, and I can only assume how hard it must be for her.

     One sunny spring day, I was making gimbap for our picnic lunch. Lying in bed like a still life as usual, Hyeonnam blurted out, “I guess I was a fifth-grader when I had the test. . .”

     I assumed that it must have been very hard for her because tests were stressful for everyone.

     “That day, I flipped over the test paper, and the letters were upside down. I freaked out. . .”

     I had no idea what on earth she was about to say. If the letters were upside down, she could simply turn the test paper upside down, which was no big deal.

     “I couldn’t read the letters because they were upside down. I thought that I could read them properly if I moved my chair to sit on the other side. . .”

     If you’ve already understood what she said, you’re either a genius or have an autistic family member. Or you just didn’t think about it. It took me twenty years to fully understand the exact meaning of her words. Anyway, the point is this: in the old days, most test papers were printed on both sides. They were handwritten by teachers, of course. Since the paper orientation wasn’t automatically set by a computer, sometimes you had to flip over your test paper from left to right like turning a page of a book in order to properly read the letters on the reverse side, and at other times, had to flip it from bottom to top to read them properly. It was absolutely up to the teacher. In her case, she flipped over her test paper like turning a page, and the letters were upside down, which was a common mistake. The problem could’ve been solved simply by turning it in the proper direction. Yet, our Hyeonnam couldn’t do it. It never crossed her mind that she could turn it herself, and instead, she just sat there and gave a deep sigh, gazing blankly at the upside-down paper throughout the test; she thought that she had to move her chair to the other side of the desk to read, but couldn’t do it because the seat was occupied by another student, and so she didn’t know what else to do. Toward the end of the test, the teacher finally figured out what was happening, and turned it for her with a sigh deeper than hers. She was finally able to read it. It was a miraculous moment for her.

     I came close to shouting, “Are you serious?” If her ability to understand had been a little lower, I would have had doubts about her. Her letters sent to me, however, had shown the fact that her understanding and insight were probably better and never worse than mine. Consequently, she was not a fool, but I wondered what kind of thinking process had prevented her from even considering turning the upside-down test paper, and that day’s conversation was to be my big doubt for the following twenty years.

     Twenty years later, her son resolved my big doubt. Since we lived within a five minutes’ walk from each other, we were on our way to the market one day when we ran into her little son on his way home from school. Seeing us together, he briefly hesitated and scuttled away into an alley without saying hello. He didn’t know how to face his mother’s unexpected appearance in public, and therefore, sheltered himself in the alley in order to avoid the awkward situation. At that moment, the whole story of the test paper incident was finally revealed, which had been a mystery to me for over twenty years. To an autistic person, people can seem like strangers, and they must prepare their hearts or make a firm resolution before facing an unfamiliar situation. Even their own family members can cause unbearable stress, not to mention outsiders. Then, more serious problems can be caused by things or situations, as exemplified by the test paper. Most people feel stress in new situations, but in the case of Hyeonnam, it took at least a year for her to adjust to a classroom and to stop having diarrhea. Things can also be triggers sometimes. When the most technophobic person is faced with a new machine, or when an exceptionally timid person sits behind the steering wheel for the first time, machines are not mere objects but the cause of fear. Yet, Hyeonnam was afraid of a test paper. Test papers don’t go into reverse if touched the wrong way, nor do they delete the manuscript you wrote all night long the moment you click the wrong button. Yet, she thought that she couldn’t move the test paper, just like she couldn’t move other people as she pleased, and that she should move herself instead. Everything was like the test paper, to her.

     Shy as she was, Hyeonnam didn’t come back home one night toward the end of the last semester. I called her parents in Seoul to see if she’d gone to their place, but she wasn’t there. After four days, she came home nonchalantly, as if she’d left home that morning.

     “Hey!” I shouted in anger. Her calmness triggered me after being worried about her for the past few days.

     “What’s wrong?”

     I would’ve smacked her on the back if she’d been my daughter. We used to share a self-deprecating joke with each other that our faces were our weapons whenever we heard people speak ill of classmates just because they were good-looking. Still, she’d been missing for three days without any notice, and dared to ask back, “What?”

     “Where have you been? You didn’t even tell me!”

     She answered in a thin voice, taking off her dark blue cotton jacket and crawling into bed.

     “The National Security Agency.”

     “Where?”

     Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it sounded like she’d been to a friend’s house whose name was National Security. It took a few moments for me to realize what she had just said, and I was even more shocked by the fact that someone like her had done something to be detained by that kind of agency.

     “What for?”

     “They were looking for our senior, Gihun. . .”

     He was a senior student in the same department, allegedly wanted for his union activities.

     “Why’d they ask you about him?”

     “I was in his study group. . . A long time ago. . .”

     Startled by her answer, I pulled the blanket off her in haste. Back then, detainees at the National Security Agency usually weren’t released uninjured. I checked her forearms and back, but her body looked perfectly clean.

     “Are you okay?”

     “I didn’t know anything anyway. . .”

     “Were you in his study group? You of all people?”

     “He insisted so much. I went there about three times, and just sat there without saying anything, and then he didn’t call me again. . .”

     In those days, everyone and their mother participated in the student movement, but there were also people like her who was accidentally mistaken for an activist for such an absurd reason.

     “Did they just believe you and let you go?”

     In fact, what else could they do but believe her? In addition to her camouflaging secret, she also had a skill in making others believe her completely. Her tricks weren’t that special; those who looked at her face couldn’t help but believe her in the end. She nodded casually.

     “I told them that I had no money to pay the fare, and they gave me a ride home. They told me over and over not to make friends with bad people in the future. . .”

     I burst out laughing. I felt like I could understand the confusion of the agent who’d interrogated her. One of her various nicknames was Bang Beobeo. It came from her habit of gawking and stuttering in a very difficult situation. Those who saw her only in this situation regarded her as a simpleton. She must’ve been gawking and stuttering at the National Security Agency, too. They must have sighed heavily, regretting that they’d arrested such a kid in vain. Thus, they just let her go. In those days, she was probably the first to be detained by the National Security Agency for three days and four nights, and treated with such kind consideration when she left the premises. Both the dictatorial government and the National Security Agency couldn’t do anything to her. The activist group that recruited her also couldn’t change anything about her. She was barely noticeable, but turned out to be as strong as a martial arts master if one judged the strength of human beings by their changelessness.

     Our college life came to an end with the National Security Agency incident. I didn’t search in earnest for a job to become a writer, and she didn’t, either, since there was nothing she wanted to do. Then I started working for the publishing team of a social movement organization and got her involved, suggesting that she should keep up with the changing times, which was silly of me in retrospect. She hesitated without giving an answer. I didn’t understand that her hesitation was a refusal, and made my suggestion stronger. To my shame, it actually wasn’t a suggestion. Rather, I was criticizing and blaming her as an intellectual for living a life that avoided the troubles of our times. And intellectuals don’t know jack about it. For reference, I voluntarily withdrew from the organization immediately before its dissolution that resulted not only from government repression, but also from radicalism and many other organizational limitations which can’t be revealed here. Her insight was always better than mine. Without realizing it, I spoke to her impudently and passionately all day long until she grew weary and finally gave in.

     “Well, if you insist. . .”

     She nodded unwillingly. I mistook this for agreement or sympathy. I realized much later that she rarely said no. A refusal would take considerable energy, and there was nothing so hideous that she had to refuse by exerting so much energy. In short, there was nothing she earnestly strived after nor anything she’d rather die than do. Life has taught me a lesson about this. If you’re earnestly striving after something, it also means that you hate to do something else to death. Ironically, it was this aspect of her personality that made her stay in the world one way or another, although she had no intention of getting involved in it.

     Hyeonnam met her husband in this organization. He was also her first boyfriend. That didn’t surprise me. Having a relationship was too much for her, afraid as she was of all things unfamiliar. At the beginning of any relationship, a lover is only a stranger, too. It would take a few years for her to feel closer to a stranger. Most men wouldn’t wait that long, and usually didn’t even notice her. On the contrary, this man noticed her very quickly, and followed her day and night. He did it over a very long period of time to let her grow familiar with him. Six years later, she told me that she would marry him, but I vehemently opposed it.

     “You’ll starve to death. At least one of you has to earn a living.”

     I knew him well. I even liked him. He was, however, too similar to her. He was way too poor, just like her. Furthermore, he was a blue-collar worker.

     “We’ll take care of ourselves. . .”

     It was the firmest expression I’d ever heard from her. I still believe that her firmness came from the great power of love.

     She married a man most similar to her, and had two sons similar to her, eventually forming a family that passes by unnoticed in the world. I’d like to describe the everyday life of this family about ten years ago which isn’t much different even today. I’d appreciate it if readers could understand my inevitable decision to give up the novelistic structure and to make a statement this way. Nothing changes in this family’s life except for the fact that they grow older every year. Thus, I cannot but catch a certain moment in their life on a certain day, which is just like any other day, and show it as it is to readers.

     Anyway, late one night, her husband is reading Marx’s Capital in the living room of their 600 square-foot apartment. He reads it for no particular purpose. Having graduated from a decent university, he became a blue-collar worker to participate in the labor movement, but eventually stopped being an activist to become an ordinary worker, doing his best to make ends meet. I haven’t asked him why he still reads Capital. I can only vaguely guess. He has been disappointed with something, but still cannot give up the dream that is already in his heart. In this, he’s different from Hyeonnam. It’s very fortunate for her family. Those who cannot give up their dreams, even though they know they’re unachievable, are hard workers. The same was true of my parents. Thus, he works hard to earn money. His annual income is 30 million won. He reads Capital every night, like reading the Bible, which is the only remaining evidence that he’s a college graduate, that is, an intellectual of his times.

     Around that time, Hyeonnam and I have a drink at a covered street stall in the neighborhood. We go about once a week. Every time we eat there, she receives calls from home. Her ten-year-old and seven-year-old sons take turns calling her. To think that Hyeonnam could have sex before marriage. She was carrying her eldest son at the time of her wedding. Such is the exquisiteness of human life. What’s more, it’s also the beauty of history. Greedy people are not the only survivors. Autistic people also survive in the world, hiding themselves and silently blending into others or into an era, like Hyeonnam, and secretly staying alive to preserve their primordial genetic structure. Maybe owing to them, this greedy world can go on without exploding.

     Anyway, her two sons call her every five minutes to ask her the same question.

     “Can I play on the computer for just five more minutes?”

     “No, you can’t.”

     I feel so frustrated that I take her phone to talk to them.

     “Hey! You can play. Your Mom will be home in about an hour.”

     Even after I tell them what to do, they’ll call her again in five minutes without fail. Whether their mother is watching or not, there’s no way for them to do what is forbidden without her permission. Their honesty is incredible. If I were them, I’d play on the computer, and simultaneously call my mother to tell her to come home right away, blaming her for coming home so late. That way, I could pretend to be waiting for her while at the same time play computer games behind her back without being anxious. All the members of her family, including her two sons, are awfully honest. That much honesty may well be described as such. Their honesty is beyond an acceptable level.

     Their apartment was once infested with flies, and Hyeonnam devised a clever solution. The deal was ten seconds of playing computer games per fly. They killed flies with flyswatters all day long, counting the number of dead flies. If they got confused by the time they caught the thirteenth one, they would count from ten again. It was frustrating enough to do that all day long only to spend a few more minutes on the computer, and on top of that, they were recounting from ten, which made me worry whether they’d be able to make a living in a world like this. Unlike before, however, I didn’t say anything. I’d worried that Hyeonnam and her husband might starve to death, but they even had children and were still alive and well. These honest children would also survive one way or another. After all, they didn’t have any unattainable dreams. The eldest son’s dream was to become a Yakult lady.

     “You’ll never be able to become a Yakult lady.”

     “Why not?”

     “You’re a boy.”

     After a moment of distress, the boy gave an answer.

     “Then, a Yakult gentleman.”

     He also knew that he needed a job to make a living. Yet, he was afraid that he’d have to get a job working with strangers in an unfamiliar world. A Yakult lady, however, stayed in the background. She delivered Yakult products through delivery slots, and that was it. He didn’t give up his dream of becoming a Yakult lady even after he went to middle school.

     Later on the same day, the eldest son couldn’t fall asleep in his room. He was afraid of having to go to school the next day, and also afraid of having to join the military someday. After he’d learned the fact that all South Korean men are drafted into the military, he could hardly get to sleep at night, and if he fell asleep, he had dreams about being forced to join the army. In his dreams, he was taken away from home to an unfamiliar world filled with strangers. Having a nightmare every night, he became afraid of falling asleep. The second son, who was only seven years old, couldn’t get to sleep, either, tossing and turning in bed beside his elder brother. He didn’t know what the military was, but being a boy, he knew that he’d be also drafted someday, and his elder brother’s terror got into him, too.

     Hyeonnam could hardly get to sleep, either, worrying about doing lunch duty at her sons’ school the next day. The school was full of unfamiliar kids. (I’d appreciate it if readers could understand her fear. When it came to kids, she was scared of unfamiliar kids as much as unfamiliar grownups.) In addition, she had to face other parents and teachers. Being near them was frightening enough, not to mention facing them. Still, mothers in general were great. Hyeonnam had changed, too. If it had been her own problem, she would have avoided the situation by making herself almost invisible, but as a mother, she was determined to face them anyhow. As to how she did that, I’d better leave it to readers’ imagination. Her husband fell asleep in the living room, with his head resting on Capital. He was no less sensitive than the other members of his family. His sleep was the result of hard manual labor.

     After a few more years, they were living in a country house in Yongin. In the end, the family moved there because they transferred their sons, who had trouble adapting to school, to an alternative school. It was a small, combined elementary and middle school with less than thirty students. Located in the mountains, the school didn’t provide school buses, and since there was no suitable house they could rent nearby, Hyeonnam hastily took driving lessons just before they moved. The autistic family’s challenge to driving was so turbulent that I once considered writing a book about it. Whenever she made a right turn at the driving school, her car got stuck in a flowerbed. She was so nervous that the driving instructor gave a deep sigh instead of getting angry. She’d learned from all the instructors of the driving school one by one before she got her driver’s license. A week after her move to the country house, I called her up.

     “Did you go shopping?”

     “Not yet. . .

     “Why not?”

     “I’m afraid of driving. . .”

     “What have you been eating, then?”

     “Just. . . this and that. . .”

     They were eating “this and that,” as if the Korean War were still going on. I rushed to Yongin immediately. She got into my car to go to the market, making endless exclamations.

     “You’re so great.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “How can you look backward?”

     When she was behind the steering wheel she could only look forward. She couldn’t change lanes. When she tried, the whole family screamed in the car, looking backward and to the side. “Now! Now! No!”

     “You’re so great.”

     It was the nicest compliment that she’d ever paid me. And just because I could look in my rear-view mirror and side mirrors. I was perplexed, not knowing whether I should be angry or pleased. When I won an annual spring literary contest, or when I received such-and-such literary award, she didn’t care at all, showing neither admiration nor acknowledgement. Aside from that, she rebuked me on every occasion. Each time I published a collection of short stories, she called me about two months later.

     “You wrote again.”

     What did she mean? I kept silent wondering if she were reprimanding me, and then, her next words sounded ridiculous and heartless.

     “You keep writing on and on.”

     She was reprimanding me, indeed. The problem was that this made me reflect on myself. I must have been influenced by her and her family. I kept silent as I did, and then, she threw a stronger punch.

     “If you really want to write, write in private. Then throw it away.”

     She was telling me not to waste resources and not to cause trouble to society for trivial things. Holy crap! I might not have looked it, but I was not a prolific writer! I was on the verge of flaring up in anger, but suddenly felt ashamed of myself. Yes, I could have done what she said, and then, why did I insist on publishing it somewhere to be read by someone?

     Having screwed me over like this, she now told me I was great. She meant that I was great because I could look in the rear-view mirror. Was she kidding me? Anyway, her driving experience ended after a year. I gave her my Daewoo Lanos that I’d bought for 3 million won and driven for three years, and she had many bitter experiences with the car for a year until it met its fate. Her insurance premium was 1,870,000 won at the time. For reference, while the car was in my ownership, my insurance premium was less than 400,000 won. I’ll leave it to the readers’ imagination what kind of accidents might have happened. Still, there was nothing fatal. Meaning that no one was hurt. The reason being that she never drove faster than fifty kilometers per hour.

     But as I itch to talk about her numerous accidents, I’d like to bring only one of them to light. Her car was approaching the entrance of a parking lot. The driveway was wide enough to be a two-lane road but without any marked lanes, unfortunately. She couldn’t figure out where to go without visible lanes. Trembling in fear, she made a right turn. There was a food stall covered with transparent vinyl on the left side of the entrance. While she was trying to make a right turn on the broad and wide road, her car pulled to the left and hit the stall. She was driving five kilometers per hour. There was almost no impact, of course. Customers in the stall were wondering what had just happened, drinking and watching the incident. She hit the plastic curtain on one side of the stall, and in surprise, backed up her car without turning the steering wheel. Then, she drove forward. She hit the stall again. Even more confused, she backed up straight again. Then, she drove forward again. She hit the same spot three times. Unable to bear the sight of her driving, a meddlesome customer jumped out.

     “Ma’am! Get out of the car!”

     That day, thanks to the drunk customer, she safely entered the parking lot. Luckily, there was no claim for damages because she’d only hit the stall’s plastic curtain. We made little jokes about it: “Ms. Bang is scarier than Ms. Kim.”¹ “Ms. Kim is running, but Ms. Bang is flying above her.”²

     Living in a remote area in Yongin, the family seemed to be so helpless that I visited them often. One Saturday, her sons welcomed me by jumping up and down in joy. Only when I visited the family, they could enjoy a barbecue party, namely the taste of country life. Hyeonnam washed home-grown vegetables, while her husband went out into the backyard, saying that he would be the one to fire up the grill that day and call us when ready. The children had made great efforts to grow those vegetables. At first, the backyard was not an ideal place to grow vegetables because there were too many stones. They made a deal: ten seconds of computer games per stone. They picked up hundreds of stones, counting them as usual. If they got confused by the time they picked up the twenty-sixth one, they recounted from twenty, of course.

     We finished all preparations and waited for quite a while, but her husband didn’t call for us. I got impatient and went outside. In his navy-blue company uniform, he was tearing up a magazine page by page and throwing the pieces onto the grill. I watched what he was doing. Many pieces of charcoal were placed in a row at the bottom of the grill so that none of them overlapped with one another in a truly aesthetic way, and he was tossing flaming pieces of paper onto them. I came close to shouting, “Are you a nitwit? Flames naturally burn upward!” I restrained myself with clenched teeth, since I couldn’t dare call him names as I wouldn’t even dare to do so to Hyeonnam that. Silently, I put charcoal starters at the bottom, and then placed charcoal on them to light the grill.

     “Wow! There’s nothing Ms. Jeong can’t do!”

     The novelist Jeong was able to become the savior of the family for such a thing. That kind of compliment always made me feel uncomfortable. My heart was saying, “Who are they?” Behind this question lie my true feelings about them. They admire petty skills that most people learn for living convenience. The family, however, only admires them without bothering to learn them. They’re not desperate enough to make an effort to learn. If I weren’t with them, they’d simply not have a barbecue. Regarding cars, they would simply not drive at all. Thus, it feels like there is a hidden meaning behind their admiration, as if they were saying, “You have so many unnecessary skills.” From the viewpoint of the family, therefore, I am a person who keeps writing banal novels for no good reason and who has many petty skills for no good reason. They have a point.

     Of all the technologies developed since the beginning of modern times, only two things have attracted the genuine admiration of the family. One is the flush toilet, and the other is the computer, or the internet to be more exact. The former needs no explanation, while the latter has become the best protection for the family. Ever since Hyeonnam discovered a whole new world in online shopping, she has purchased everything online. She doesn’t have to go to crowded shopping malls in this new world. Frankly, it drives me nuts to see her in a shopping mall. She loses her mind in front of a myriad of products. Presumably, it is similar to standing in front of millions of people. Usually, she cannot buy what she wants, and comes back empty-handed. The reason is that she doesn’t know what to choose out of so many products. A local grocery store equipped with basic necessity goods will suit her needs much better than a large superstore.

     Anyway, after the barbecue party, we were doing the dishes, and her husband was reading Capital while the kids were looking at the new Nike sneakers that I gave them as gifts. They continued looking at them for hours. They didn’t wear them, though. They kept the brand-new sneakers intact in the shoe cabinet, and would get familiar with them slowly as time passed. In the meantime, they’d keep wearing cheap sneakers bought online, which were already small for them and even had holes. I knew that they’d do that, and had bought sneakers two-sizes bigger than their actual size.

     The shoe cabinet of the family was quite a sight. A lot of worn-out shoes were piled up there, shoes that hadn’t been worn for a long time. They couldn’t throw away those old familiar shoes which had become almost part of them. The absence of desire for novelty is connected with the attachment to familiarity. I get rid of old things very rationally, as soon as they are no longer needed. To me, a new thing means something that I don’t know and also need to discover. As it turns out, there are so many things that I want to become, to have and to do, and therefore, I’m a capitalist human being full of desires. Me, the partisans’ daughter.

     Once, a student of mine demanded her boyfriend present her with a designer handbag in celebration of their one thousand day anniversary. He flatly refused, saying that a luxury handbag was not for a student, and then, her next remark was on everyone’s lips in the creative writing department for quite a while.

     “Even the partisans’ daughter has a Chanel! Why not me?”

     An older female colleague had given me the Chanel for free, since she was fed up with it. Yet, I secretly felt guilty. I like luxury goods. I just don’t have enough money, and just can’t buy them because it’s difficult and bothersome to save money to buy them. If I were rich, I’d buy any amount of Hermès, Manolo Blahnik and whatnot. Someone once criticized me for wearing high heels, saying that perhaps the partisans’ daughter had become a turncoat.

     “Capitalism is sustainable as long as capital is accumulated. I never accumulate it. Isn’t this a true anti-capitalist life?”

     Thus, I refuted the ridiculous criticism with a ridiculous sophistic argument. I was ashamed of my inner desires that were unworthy of the partisans’ daughter, but I still didn’t want to give in to the absurd criticism.

     The family members also have an eye for beautiful things and good machines. Whenever Hyeonnam finds something nice, her reaction is always the same.

     “It’s nice. Chomp, chomp.”

     She has turned the onomatopoeic sound of “chomp, chomp” into a word of her own, which implies an immediate renunciation that it is nice, but not hers. It means that she likes it, but doesn’t want to spend her energy on accepting it as hers and giving up the attachment to the previous one. They’re hungry, but don’t want to eat; they like nice things, but don’t want to have them. This is the life pattern of the family. They manage to live a life that is not uncomfortable on a worker’s income.

     Now, her husband’s annual income is about 35 million won. The couple’s parents are as poor as a church mouse, and they give a monthly allowance of 500,000 won each to both families to supplement their parents’ living expenses. Their eldest son is in high school, and the second son in middle school. They don’t own a house, and the long-term rental deposit for their house increases every two years. Still, they manage to scrape by. I’m sure that there are people in worse economic condition than theirs in this country. What matters is not the economic status but the self-sufficient status of the family. They do not have difficulty in the status quo. Their only hope is to live as they are without being bothered by anyone. The eldest son is so stressed out by school life that he is 172 centimeters tall but weighs only 46 kilograms, suffering from chronic indigestion and diarrhea, just like his mother. For health reasons, he doesn’t even think of going to a cram school, far from making his parents worry about paying for his extracurricular lessons. It’ll be okay if he goes to whatever college accepts him, and it will be also all right if he does not go to college. Their priority is his survival. The second son is no different from the eldest, except for the fact that he’s still young. What about expensive imported cars? Fearful of driving, they cannot drive any car, imported or not. What about traveling abroad? They may well try if they travel with a friend like me, who’s very close to them and has many petty skills, but it’s highly likely that they’ll give up after dwelling on it for two or three months, and they would not dare to dream of it on their own. Their only hobby is reading books, and they can borrow a lot of them from the library. They want to own a house because they’re tired of moving, but don’t dream of it, either, since their income is nowhere near enough to buy one. They hate big houses because cleaning is tedious, and also hate big gardens because they’re difficult to tend. A 700 square-foot apartment is good enough for them. These days, every day is sunny for Hyeonnam, apart from a little suffering that she inevitably has to interact with the world.

     One day, when we were about forty-three or forty-four years old, Hyeonnam was getting a cup of coffee with home-ground beans, and talked to me in a languid voice.

     “It’s so good.”

     “What is?”

     “I used to wonder if I could live like others.”

     “Me, too.” (I agreed with her in the sense that I also wondered if she could do it, of course.)

     “But now, I drink freshly brewed coffee, live in an apartment that is warm, have a husband that gets paid every month and also have a duck down parka. . .”

     So-called duck down parkas first came to the market during my college years. I didn’t know how much they cost. I only remember that they were too expensive for me to even think about buying one. Shivering with cold in cotton jackets, Hyeonnam and I felt envious of other friends in duck down parkas. Today, goose down parkas are in fashion instead, but it doesn’t matter. Duck down is warm enough for me. I don’t know what Canada Goose is, which allegedly costs way over one million won per jacket. If Hyeonnam knew about it, she would surely just pass by, saying, “It’s nice. Chomp, chomp.”

     Today, as usual, she’ll drink coffee and read a book at home, and whenever a delivery person rings the doorbell, she’ll nervously stutter and receive her package. Her husband will work all day for his family, come home to have simple dinner and read Capital. Their grown-up sons now want to become freelance programmers who are deemed better than Yakult ladies, and will pester their mother for five more minutes on the computer. Presumably, they won’t be much different twenty years from now.

     Maybe there are some readers who think that they’d rather die than live such a life, frustrated and driven almost insane by the story of this family, just as I did when I was young. To those readers, I’d like to say that suicide is a kind of desire, too. A frustrated desire causes a suicidal impulse. The family members have no desire, and therefore, feel no suicidal impulse. I’d like to ask readers to focus on this point.

     I’ve seen Hyeonnam’s life for over thirty years. She’s my dearest friend, but I have to confess that she frustrated me sometimes, and baffled me at other times. There were times when I seriously agonized over what meaning such a life had. I could have easily concluded that the life of her family had resulted from social maladaptation. Whenever this idea occurred to me, however, something troubled my mind. It wasn’t just because her words made me feel somehow uncomfortable by hitting the nail on the head: “Do you really have to write?” “Write it, and throw it away!” It’s not clear which came first, whether it was the insight to objectively see my inner desires, which I gained as I grew old, or the lessons that I learned from her life. Whichever it might be, as soon as I identified my desires, I finally realized the truth. The autistic family is the true enemy of capitalism.

     How can I define capitalism in a word? I’m not an economist, just a writer. Hence, I will follow the definition that common sense tells us. Driven by boundless human desires, capitalism is expanding like a monster in the system of reproduction on an enlarged scale based on mass production and mass consumption. People voluntarily throw themselves into unlimited competition for a slightly more convenient life—for a bigger refrigerator, a faster car and a new smartphone whose functions are hard to grasp. Socialism, the traditional archenemy of capitalism, propagates the idea that it is better for us to share old things together than to own new ones individually. At which point, the family will probably ask a question:

     “Why do we have to own these things?”

     Humans can live without a bigger refrigerator, a faster car or a brand-new smartphone. The family members deny desires, that is, the driving force of capitalism. Without gasoline, cars cannot move and boilers will not operate. Socialism suggests that we should keep our desires in check with our rationality in order to enjoy equal rights together. More fundamentally, this family turns off the power of capitalism by the absence of desires themselves. There is no stronger enemy of capitalism than this family. May these desireless humans be prolific!

     Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, they do not perceive themselves to be the enemies of capitalism, nor do they want to be. The desire to do something is absent. Ah! There exists only one desire. It is the desire to stay still as they are. This family can be the enemy of capitalism due to the absence of desire, but cannot be an actual threat to capitalism due to the absence of desire. I cannot tell whether I should be sad or glad. Nonetheless, I think of them when I feel tired of unlimited competition, or when I get knocked down by my own desires. One may live the same way as they do. Sometimes, I take comfort in the very fact that they exist in the same world as I do. Hence, I would like to recommend readers to recall Hyeonnam and her family when your kids pester you to pay for their language training abroad for their future careers, when you are passed over for promotion by a younger colleague, when your wife compares you with her friend’s smart husband or when you feel like your life sucks for such-and-such reason. If you ponder over the difference between our frantic lives in the midst of the formidable waves of capitalism and the ordinary life of this family, you will find out that the gap between the two is smaller than expected, feeling strangely relieved and consoled. If you can take small comfort in it, I’d like to ask you to do as follows: on your way home from work on the subway, if you run into members of an autistic family, looking like war refugees and lowering their heads toward their antiquated cell phones for fear of facing strangers, please maintain a distance, neither casting uneasy glances nor giving an encouraging look, so that they can carry on incognito. They’re commas in the miserable life of humankind that can never stop running forward with burning desires, and therefore, deserve to be left alone by themselves to rest.

Translated by Sohn Jung-in

[1] Ms. Kim is a byword for an unskilled female driver in Korea.

[2] There is a Korean proverb that says, “There are those who run, and there are those who fly above them.” It means that there is always someone else who is better.