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was famous enough to be in the news if he had not brought it over himself. My mother, who started each day by yelling at the cleaning girl the way other people might say good morning, had given the girl her usual morning greeting and was sitting at the table. My brother said that Aunt Monica was visiting death row inmates, and my mother replied,
How noble of her. That’s the kind of sacrifice you have to make when you’re a nun.
So noble. Can you make an appointment for me with a neurosurgeon at your hospital? I need another check-up. Something must be wrong because my head is killing me. I didn’t sleep a wink yesterday. Those pills you gave me last time didn’t work. Whenever I take them, my makeup flakes. I must be getting old because I can’t sleep and I can’t take any more pills that are bad for my body. My skin is a mess.
    My brother, quiet as usual, didn’t say a word, while I ate a sandwich made with ham and lettuce on organic wholewheat bread next to our hypochondriac mother. My brother’s eyes met mine.
Don’t worry, Mother
, he said, his voice untiringly sympathetic.
They ran several exams but didn’t find anything wrong with you
.
    I added,
Mom, he’s right. How on earth could modern medicine ever fathom a nervous system as sensitive and exquisite as yours? A refined woman such as you has no choice but to bear it.
    Breakfast that day ended as it always did, with my mother shouting at me. It was a typical morning. She screamed at me to quit my awful cabaret gigs and go study abroad or something. I said I would be happy to do so. By then, the fun of being a pop star for a year had been losing steam, and I thought if I left home, I would be able to enjoy a quiet morning for a change. I had grown tired of bellowing in harmony to my mother’s octave.
    “Sorry,” I said to Aunt Monica. “I messed up. I said I’m sorry.” Surrendering seemed better than continuing to stand my ground. I wasn’t sure why I thought so, but I was afraid she might start crying. “But Aunt Monica, you’re not really taking me to see those… is that right?… death row inmates? They’re not going to ask me to sing the national anthem, are they?”
    “That’s who we are going to see. If they ask you to singthe anthem, sing it. Is there any reason not to? Better to put that voice of yours to some good use rather than shove it in the garbage. Make a left at that fork in the road.”
    She’d said it again. Garbage. It felt mean of her to take the maudlin words I had said in the hospital and use them to provoke me, and I started to get a little angry. When I turned left, as instructed, I saw a sign for the Seoul Detention Center.
    Would singing the national anthem be better than sitting down with the young psychologist my uncle had brought along with him at that boring hospital and answering questions like,
What are you so angry about?
and
Why did you get angry?
and
Did you have similar thoughts when you were a child?
As usual, I calmed myself down by thinking,
Who cares? Don’t think too much about it
. At least the detention center would not be as boring as the hospital.
    We showed our ID cards at the front and stepped through a barred door. As we passed through, the door shut behind us. The moment the cold clang of metal against metal rang out in the dark, empty hallway, strange thoughts came into my head.
    The temperature inside that place was always a few degrees colder than outside—the chill lingered for a long time after. This was true not only in the winter but even at the height of summer. It was, as someone had once said, a place inhabited by darkness. We passed through another door and it too closed behind us. There was a large inner yard that didn’t look as if it were used by anyone. Several men dressed in blue prison uniforms were pushing a handcart on the other end of the yard, and further away, beneath a white plaster of Paris statue of the Virgin Mary, stood a small tree. Christmas tree lights in gaudy