Almond Read online

  Inside, I’m told to lie down on something cold. I’m sucked into a white tank. Beep beep beep. I hear strange sounds. My boring space trip ends there.

  Then the scene changes. I suddenly see many more men in white lab coats. The oldest among them hands me a blurry black-and-white photograph, saying that it’s the inside of my head. What a liar. That’s clearly not my head. But Mom keeps nodding as if she believes such an obvious lie. Whenever the old guy opens his mouth, the younger guys around him take notes. Eventually, I start to get a little bored and fidget with my feet, kicking at the old man’s desk. When Mom puts her hand on my shoulder to stop me, I look up and see that she’s crying.

  All I can remember about the rest of that day is Mom’s crying. She cries and cries and cries. She’s still crying when we head back to the waiting room. There is a cartoon playing on TV, but I can’t focus because of her. The defender of the universe is fighting off the bad guy, but all she does is cry. Finally, an old man dozing off next to me wakes up and barks at her, “Stop acting miserable, you noisy woman, I’ve had enough!” It works. Mom purses her lips tight like a scolded teenager, silently trembling.

  5

  Mom fed me a lot of almonds. I’ve tried almonds from America, Australia, China, and Russia. All the countries that export them to Korea. The Chinese ones had a bitter, awful taste, and the Australian ones tasted kind of sour and earthy. There are the Korean ones too, but my favorite are the American ones, especially the ones from California. They have a soft brown hue from absorbing the blazing sunlight there.

  Now I will tell you my secret how to eat them.

  First, you hold the package and feel the shape of the almonds from the outside. You need to feel the hard, stubborn kernels with your fingers. Next, you slowly tear the top part of the package and open the double zipper. Then, you poke your nose inside the package and slowly breathe in. You have to close your eyes for this part. You take it lightly, occasionally holding your breath, to allow as much time as possible for the scent to reach the body. Finally, when the scent fills you up from deep inside, you pop half a handful of them into your mouth. Roll them around in there for a while and feel their texture. Poke the pointy parts with your tongue. Feel the grooves on their surface. You have to make sure not to take too long. If they get bloated from your saliva, they will taste bad. These steps are all just a lead-up to the finale. If too short, it will be dull. Too long and the impact will be gone. You have to find the right timing for yourself. You have to imagine the almonds getting bigger—from the size of a fingernail to the size of a grape, a kiwi, an orange, then a watermelon. Finally the size of a rugby ball. That’s the moment. Crunch, you crush them. You will taste the sunshine all the way from California, flooding right into your mouth.

  The reason I bother going through this ritual is not because I like almonds. At every meal of the day, there were almonds on the table. There was no way of getting around them. So I just made up a way to eat them. Mom thought that if I ate a lot of almonds, the almonds inside my head would get bigger. It was one of the very few hopes she clung to.

  Everybody has two almonds inside their head, stuck firmly on somewhere between the back of your ears and the back of your skull. In fact, they’re called “amygdalae,” derived from the Latin word for almond because their size and shape are exactly like one.

  When you get stimulated by something outside your body, these almonds send signals into your brain. Depending on the type of stimulation, you’ll feel fear or anger, joy or sorrow.

  But for some reason, my almonds don’t seem to work well. They don’t really light up when they are stimulated. So I don’t know why people laugh or cry. Joy, sorrow, love, fear—all these things are vague ideas to me. The words “emotion” and “empathy” are just meaningless letters in print.

  6

  The doctors diagnosed me with alexithymia, or the inability to express your feelings. They figured that I was too young, my symptoms different from Asperger’s syndrome, and my other developments didn’t show signs of autism. It’s not necessarily that I was unable to express feelings, but more that I was unable to identify them in the first place. I didn’t have a problem with making sentences or understanding them like people who’d damaged the Broca or Wernicke areas in the brain, which dealt with primary speech functions. But I couldn’t feel emotions, couldn’t identify other people’s feelings, and got confused over the names of emotions. The doctors all said it was because the almonds inside my head, the amygdalae, were unusually small and the contact between the limbic system and the frontal lobe didn’t function as smoothly as it should.

  One of the symptoms of having small amygdalae is that you don’t know how it feels to be afraid. People sometimes say how cool it’d be to be fearless, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. Fear is an instinctive defense mechanism necessary for survival. Not knowing fear doesn’t mean that you’re brave; it means you’re stupid enough to stay standing on the road when a car is charging toward you. I was even more unlucky. On top of my lack of fear, I was limited in all my emotional functions. The only silver lining, the doctors said, was that my intelligence wasn’t affected despite having such small amygdalae.

  They advised that, since everyone has different brains, we should see how things go. Some of them made rather tempting offers, saying that I could play a big role in uncovering the mysteries of the brain. Researchers at university hospitals proposed long-term research projects on my growth, to be reported in medical journals. There would be generous compensation for taking part, and depending on the research results, an area of the brain might even be named after me, like the Broca area or Wernicke area. The Seon Yunjae area. But the doctors were met with a flat refusal from Mom, who was already sick of them.

  For one thing, Mom knew Broca and Wernicke were scientists, not patients. She had read all kinds of books about the brain from her regular visits to the local library. She also didn’t like that the doctors saw me as an interesting specimen rather than a human being. She had given up hope early on that the doctors would cure me. All they’d do is put him through weird experiments or give him untested medicines, observe his reactions, and show off their findings at a conference, she wrote in her diary. And so Mom, like so many other overprotective mothers, made a declaration that was both unconvincing and clichéd.

  “I know what’s best for my child.”

  On my last day at the hospital, Mom spat on a flower bush in front of the hospital building and said, “Those hacks don’t even know what’s in their own goddamned brains.”

  She could be so full of swagger sometimes.

  7

  Mom blamed stress during her pregnancy, or the one or two cigarettes she had smoked in secret, or the few sips of beer she couldn’t resist in the last month before her due date, but it was obvious to me why my brain was messed up. I was just unlucky. Luck plays a huge part in all the unfairness of the world. Even more than you’d expect.

  Things being the way they were, Mom may have hoped that I would at least have a large computer-level memory like in the movies, or some extraordinary artistic talent in my drawings—something to offset my lack of emotions. If so, I could’ve been on TV, and my sloppy paintings would’ve sold for more than ten million won. Unfortunately, I was no genius.

  After the Mickey Mouse Hairband Incident, Mom began “educating” me in earnest. On top of its tragedy and misfortune, the fact that I didn’t feel much basically implied serious dangers ahead.

  No matter how much people scolded me with their angry looks, it didn’t work. Screaming, yelling, raising eyebrows . . . I couldn’t grasp that all these things meant something specific, that there was an implication behind each action. I just took things at face value.

  Mom wrote down a few sentences on colored paper and pasted them onto a larger piece of paper. She put them all over the walls.

  When cars come too close to you → Dodge or run away.

  When people come too close to you → Make way so
that you don’t bump into them.

  When others smile → Smile back.

  At the bottom, it said:

  Note: For expressions, try to mirror the expression the other person makes.

  It was a little too much for seven-year-old me to grasp.

  The examples on the paper got longer and longer. While other kids were memorizing multiplication tables, I was memorizing these examples like studying the chronology of the ancient dynasties. I tried to match each item to the appropriate, corresponding reaction. Mom tested me regularly. I committed to memory each “instinctive” rule that other kids had no problem picking up. Granny tutted that this kind of cramming was pointless, but she still cut out the arrow shapes to glue onto the paper. The arrows were her job.

  8

  Over the next few years, my head grew bigger, but my almonds stayed the same. The more complex relationships got, the more diversions I encountered that hadn’t been covered by Mom’s equations, and the more that happened, the more I became a target. By the first day of the new school year, I had already been marked as the weird kid. I was called out to the playground and made fun of in front of everyone. Kids often asked me strange questions, and I answered straightforwardly, not knowing how to lie or why they were laughing so hard. Without meaning to, I stabbed a dagger into Mom’s heart every day.

  But she never gave up.

  “Don’t stand out. That’s all you need to do.”

  Which meant I couldn’t let them find out that I was different. If I did, I would stand out, which would make me a target. But learning rules as basic as move-aside-when-a-car-closes-in was no longer enough. It was now time to master exceptional acting skills to hide my abnormality. Mom was like a playwright and never tired of using her imagination to come up with different situations. Now I needed to read the true meanings behind words, as well as memorize the proper intentions behind my responses.

  For example, when kids showed me their new school supplies or toys and explained what they were, Mom said what they were really doing was “bragging.”

  According to her, the correct answer was: “That’s awesome,” which implied “envy.”

  When someone said positive things like I was handsome or I did a good job (of course, I had to memorize separately what “positive” statements were), I should respond as follows: “Thank you,” or “It’s nothing.”

  Mom said “Thank you” was the sensible answer and “It’s nothing” was more laid-back, which could make me look much cooler. Of course, I always chose the simpler answers.

  9

  Because of her poor handwriting, Mom printed out each hanja for happiness, anger, sadness, joy, love, hatred, and desire from the Internet on letter-size paper, one big character at a time. With a tsk-tsk sound, Granny scolded Mom that everything should be done with effort and care. Then she traced those letters big as if she were drawing pictures, even though she couldn’t read hanja at all. Mom took the letters from Granny and pasted them all over the house like family creeds or talismans.

  Whenever I put on my shoes, the character for happiness smiled at me from above the shoe rack, and every time I opened the fridge, I had to see the character “love.” At bedtime, “joy” would look down at me from the head of the bed. The words were randomly placed around the house, but Mom superstitiously made sure the negative characters, such as the ones for anger, sadness, and hatred, were all pasted on the bathroom walls. As time passed and with damp bathroom air, the paper creased and the negative letters faded. So Granny would rewrite them regularly, eventually learning them by heart and polishing them in stylish calligraphy.

  Mom also created a “human emotion game” where she would suggest a situation, and I’d have to guess what the related emotion should be. It went something like this: What are the correct emotions when someone gives you tasty food? The answers were “happiness” and “gratitude.” What are you supposed to feel when someone hurts you? The answer was “anger.”

  One time I asked Mom what I should feel when somebody gave me bad food. The question caught her by surprise. She puzzled over it for a long time and responded that at first, I could feel “angry” at the bad taste (I remembered a couple times when Mom criticized a restaurant for its awful taste). But she said people could still feel “happy” or “grateful,” depending on their personality. (I also remembered that every time Mom complained, Granny would scold Mom to just appreciate having food at all).

  By the time my age hit double digits, there were more instances when Mom needed time to tell me how I should react or when her answers were vague. As if to suspend all additional questions, she told me to just memorize the basic concepts of the main emotions.

  “You don’t need to get into the details, just nail the basics. At least it’ll make you seem like a ‘normal person,’ even if you might seem cold.”

  To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less. Whether I was normal or not made little to no difference. To me, it was as subtle as the differences in the nuance of the words.

  10

  Thanks to Mom’s persistent efforts and my mandatory daily training, I slowly learned to get along at school without too much trouble. By the time I was in fourth grade, I had managed to blend in, making Mom’s dream come true. Most of the time, it was enough to stay silent. I had discovered that if I kept quiet when I was expected to get angry, it made me look patient. If I kept silent when I was supposed to laugh, it made me look more serious. And if I kept silent when I was expected to cry, it made me look strong. Silence was definitely golden. I still habitually said, “Thank you” and “I’m sorry.” They were the magic words that helped me get through most tricky situations. That was the easy part. As easy as being handed a thousand won and giving back a couple hundred won in change.

  The hard part was when I had to hand someone a thousand won first. That is, to express what I wanted and what I liked. It was hard because to do it, I’d need extra energy. It was like paying first when there was nothing I wanted to buy and when I had no idea what anything cost. It was as overwhelming as trying to make big waves on a serene lake.

  For example, if I happened to look at a Choco-Pie I didn’t actually want, I had to force myself to say, “That looks good.” And then ask, “Can I have one?” with a smile. Or, if somebody bumped into me or broke a promise, I had to shoot back, “How could you do this to me!” Then cry and clench my fists.

  Those were the hardest tasks for me. I would rather not have been involved in them at all. But if I seemed too calm, like a serene lake, Mom said I could also be labeled as a weirdo. She added that I should act out these emotions once in a while.

  “Human beings are a product of their education, after all. You can do it.”

  Mom said everything was for my sake, calling it love. But to me, it seemed more like we were doing this out of her own desperation not to have a child that was different. Love, according to Mom’s actions, was nothing more than nagging about every little thing, with teary eyes, about how one should act such and such in this and that situation. If that was love, I’d rather neither give nor receive any. But of course, I didn’t say that out loud. That was all thanks to one of Mom’s codes of conduct—Too much honesty hurts others—which I had memorized over and over so that it was stuck in my brain.

  11

  To use Granny’s own words, I was more “on the same wavelength” with her than with Mom. Actually, Mom and Granny didn’t share any similar physical or personality traits. They didn’t even like the same things—aside from the fact they both loved plum-flavored candy.

  Granny said that when Mom was little, the first thing Mom ever stole at a store was a piece of plum-flavored candy. Right after Granny said, “The first,” Mom quickly shouted, “and the last!” and Granny simply added with a chuckle, “Good thing she stopped at stealing candy.”

  The two had a special reason for loving the plum candy. Because it has both sweet and blood taste. The candy was white with a mysterious sheen and a red stripe across its surfa
ce. Rolling it inside their mouths was one of their precious little joys. The red stripe would often cut their tongues as it melted away first.

  “I know this sounds funny, but the salty blood taste actually goes well with the sweetness,” Granny would say with a wide smile, a bag of plum candies in her arms, while Mom looked for ointment. It’s strange, but I was never bored with anything Granny said, no matter how many times I heard her say it.

  * * *

  Granny came into my life out of nowhere. Before Mom became tired of life on her own and reached out for help, they hadn’t talked for nearly seven years. Their sole reason for cutting family ties was because of someone not in the family, who later became my dad.

  Granny lost Grandpa to cancer when she was pregnant with Mom. From then on, she had dedicated her life to making sure her daughter wouldn’t be picked on for being a fatherless child. She basically sacrificed herself for Mom. Fortunately, Mom—though not exceptional—did pretty well in school and made it to one of the women’s universities in Seoul. All these years Granny had worked hard to raise her precious child, only to have her fall for some punk (that’s what she called Dad) who sold accessories at a street stall in front of her college. The punk declared his eternal love to Mom, putting a ring (quite possibly from his cheap accessory stand) on her finger. Granny vowed that the marriage would take place over her dead body, to which Mom retorted that love is not for some nobody to sign off on for approval. Mom got a slap on the cheek as a result.

  “If you disapprove so much I might as well get pregnant!” Mom threatened. Exactly one month after, she made good on that threat. “If you have the baby, you’ll never see me again.” Granny gave Mom an ultimatum, and Mom left home, making it real. That was how they cut their ties, or so they thought.