Enfant Terrible

Ayoung Kim

In the middle of the 2018 winter Olympics, I burst into my grandmother’s house completely naked. Sporting only eyeglasses and a smile, I said “hello” in a sing-song-voice, “An-young-haa-say-yo!”

To say I’d given my grandmother and aunt a great shock is an understatement. They slammed so hard against the back of the couch they nearly gave themselves whiplash—like a rollercoaster ride that comes to a sudden and unceremonious stop.

They howled in unison—my grandmother’s mouth a sunken hole when she doesn’t put her teeth in. I had ruined their TV viewing pleasure—significant because it was the games in which enemies North and South Korea had fielded a common team. The Pyeongchang Olympics had been billed as the “Friendship Games,” as North and South Korea courted one another like a divorced couple trying to fall in love again. It didn’t work. It left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. So did I.

I hadn’t seen my grandmother or aunt in years, so it wasn’t like we were on close terms. It wasn’t like I spoke Korean or my grandmother spoke English. It wasn’t like we sent emails to each other every day. It wasn’t like I lived next door and my shower broke so I ran over to finish rinsing off at their house. It wasn’t like they were born-again Christians, and I was not. Wait, it was like that. They were born-again Christians. I was not. 

It wasn’t like a cute baby escaped the bath naked; it was a middle-aged, stark, bare-bones-of-winter naked. I had goosebumps. My grandmother’s house smelled like kimchi. I smelled like icy wind.

My presence offended them. 

My grandmother and aunt shouted and shrieked at each other, at me, and, somehow, I ended up in the bath. 

My aunt laid out my night clothes—her old clothes. She laid out my day clothes—her old clothes. She stressed that I must remain dressed. My grandmother laid out her Bible and teeth. I laid out my blanket on the floor of my aunt’s bedroom.

On the second night, I sprinted naked into my grandmother’s house. I hustled into my aunt’s polyester tracksuit, but not before my grandmother spotted me. She hollered in protest. Her granddaughter must stop running around naked, must stop being in her house naked. What if the neighbors saw me? What would they think of her? 

That night, sitting with the covers folded over her lap, by the light of one desk lamp, my aunt solemnly confessed, “Grandmother and I think you are crazy.” She shook her head, her voice utterly humorless, as she issued her indictment, “It is sad. You like to be naked.” Her face stern and stony, she continued like a prosecuting attorney. As proof, she submitted, “Plus, your hair is so messy. You went out of the house with messy hair.” My aunt mashed her hair over her head, strung it over her eyes in a reenactment of my lunacy. I bit my lip. To burst out laughing would have been insolent. Shaking her head, she announced, “You are a crazy person.” The next day she left me a book about people who go wrong because they aren’t Christians.

You like to be naked.

As if I relished stripping in my grandmother’s garage and running around in the frigid frost. As if I was a winter exhibitionist. A naked heathen who confirmed their worst suspicions: Enfant terrible! J’accuse!

Maybe I was ghostly, maybe I was ghastly, maybe I was religious, awaiting my nighttime baptism in the bathtub. Maybe I put my face under water and prayed for purification. Maybe that explained the Epsom salt, grainy in the drain, clinging like crystals in my hair—my mad, lunatic hair.

I had been installed in my aunt’s room, to share the room with her.

This arrangement didn’t last long. Apparently, they thought my craziness was contagious. My grandmother—hewn from rough peasant stock—decided she had the inner armor to ward off the evil emanating from her granddaughter. Thus, my grandmother slept in my aunt’s bed, my aunt slept in my grandmother’s bed, and I remained on the floor in my aunt’s room.

Maybe I had just returned from India. Maybe I had lice, bedbugs, and mites burrowing and making homes in my flesh. Maybe I had warned my aunt that, out of respect for their house, I would not bring in any belongings—even clothes—due to the infestation. Maybe she said she understood, maybe she said she approved. She didn’t.

After two mornings in a row of combing white nits and eggs out of my hair, I shaved my whole head with a cheap, drugstore razor. I’d never done this before. In the years I had lived in monasteries in Thailand, I had witnessed the ritual of shaving heads for both monks and nuns. A novice monk or nun wielding a straight-edge blade would glide it over the scalp in smooth strokes. There was none of that for me. Using dull office scissors, I hacked off large hunks of hair. Instead of elegant, gliding strokes, I dragged the razor clumsily over my scalp, cutting my head in several places.

I left their house. I hailed a taxi to take me to the train station. My driver peered at me from the rear view mirror. Gently, he asked, “Do you have cancer?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Nah, I’m just crazy.”