번역: 아버지가 되어 아들이 되다
Now that I’m a father, I’ve become a son
Now that I’m a father, I’ve become a son
Under the dark sky, I was stuck like a frog on a broad back. My memory flickers, shakily disappearing like the glow of a sunset. My father was always so strict. However, he gave me a piggy back that day. I went back home to the countryside on my first holiday from university and as I was sleeping next to my father he suddenly hugged me, a grown university student, and tried to fall asleep with me in his arms, as if the heat did not even bother him. On a snowy day in Cheongnyangni market with fried pork for two and a bottle of soju, my father told me to fill his glass and after downing it offered me a glass. One autumn evening at the dinner table, when without thinking I started talking about my older brother who had passed away long ago, my father cried like a baby, wiping away big fat tears. My father was someone I did not dare call ‘dad’ to his face but when I was away at high school left notes in my room, always signed ‘dad’.
The baby emerged from the operating theatre and like a mannequin did not move. Red faced, the outer edges covered in coarse powder, cased in thick glass, he slept askew in front me. From hospital to postpartum care, from postpartum care to home, he now sleeps again in his cot. He cries continually since coming home. He wakes from his sleep, cries and sleeps again. It’s been four days since he’s come home. There’s no time to register whether this child is my son, busy feeding and putting him to sleep, day and night is forgotten. Briefly, when all is quiet, I steal away to the bathroom where the mirror reflects back grey hairs that were not there before.
I can hear the sound of rain. Next to the baby I too lie and listen to the white noise that help babies sleep. I always wondered what my father was thinking. Now I’m a father. But now all I can think about is doing everything I can physically and mentally, to prevent this life in front of me from expiring. The person who gave me a piggy back, who hugged me, who drank with me, who cried tears in front of me, wrote ‘dad’ in his notes to me, I’ve become that person. Now that I’m a father, I’ve become a son.
*한국어 원문:
( 실마리 브런치북 [길 위의 젊은 나에게] 중 04번째 글 )
*안내 글
영국인 아내가 한국인 남편의 생각을 깊이 이해하고 싶다며 번역을 자청했습니다. 번역이 언제 모두 끝날 지는 모르겠지만, 적어도 아내가 남편의 생각을 이해하며 번역해 나가는 과정 그 자체가 가장 의미 있는 일일 것입니다. 아내의 손끝에서 나의 생각은 언어의 옷을 갈아입습니다.
