“This apartment faces south.”
The realtor stood by the veranda’s sliding door, showcasing the sunlight that spilled into the living room. Specks of floating dust caught in the shimmer, scattering down to the wooden floor.
“So, it stays a little warmer in the winter than the other apartments.”
I took one step toward the veranda.
“Your sister was looking for apartments facing south?”
My feet just touched the light.
“She said she wanted a two-room?”
I mumbled, “Yes, I think so.” I should have put on some makeup. At least some BB cream or lipstick. I left the apartment confused. Sister had texted, asking me to go and see an apartment. It was a good apartment, a reasonable deposit, and a good location, she said. I thought Sister wanted to move sometime next year. Not this soon. Shouldn’t she talk to Mother about the divorce first? I nibbled on my lips and turned to the realtor.
“I have a question about the move-in date.”
The woman looked up from her cell phone.
“Your sister didn’t specify a date,” the realtor said. “She said if the place is right, she’ll put in the deposit and sign the contract right away.”
How long had Sister been looking? Since when? Before or after she asked me? I hadn’t even said yes to moving in with her. Sister was doing it again, deciding everything on her own.
“If you’d like, you can take photos.”
“Can I?” I asked.
“Of course.”
The realtor moved away from the veranda. A large parking lot with a barrier wall surrounded the apartment complex. Behind it, a glimpse of a busy intersection. The distance to the road was not too close, good for the noise. I took a photo of the veranda, then one of the living room with the sofa, the coffee table, the small bookshelf, and the realtor and a man who stood against the walls. I wondered if I should retake the photos. If I could get better shots.
“You won’t find an apartment like this. The deposit is a lot cheaper too.”
With only Sister working, she should have been looking for a one-room or a studio, somewhere far from Seoul. There was no way we could afford an apartment like this. A recently built, two-room apartment. Eight hundred square feet. We could get a loan, but this was too much for just the two of us. It cost too much. To live here, I would need to work. Maybe a full-time job.
But Sister would have liked it. The apartment was in Seoul, farther away from Dalbit. I looked around. Everything was new. Fully renovated. A marble kitchen island with three stools. A built-in refrigerator. An electric stove. And the subway station was only about a ten-minute walk. It’d be good for the commute. When I took a step, the floor was soundless, smooth, without any dents or cracks. My feet slid across. The wallpaper was crisp, neither wet nor sticky. It’d be a dream to live here. Here, I could keep every window and every door closed, without the need to ventilate.
The owner of the apartment stood beside the realtor. The realtor turned to him, and he wiped his forehead. The realtor whispered to him. He whispered back. She nodded.
“He said he can leave some of the furniture if you want. He wants to move out as soon as possible. If your sister can move within two months, he’s also willing to negotiate the deposit fee.”
The realtor pointed at the bookcase, the three stools, and even the three-seat leather sofa. That would be good. If we could also negotiate the deposit fee, it could help us save some money. But two months was too soon. I still couldn’t believe we might live together. Live here. The realtor handed me some pamphlets.
“There are some older apartments in this neighborhood that are cheaper. Would your sister be interested in them by any chance?”
“I’m not sure,” I murmured. “I’ll ask her today.”
What would Mother say? I didn’t even want to think about it. The tug from both sides. Mother, trying her best not to yell, her voice rising. Sister, reading from a script that she had already prepared, a deadpan voice. Each standing at the far end of where they stood and hurling screams at each other. Sister would never make Mother understand. About the divorce, about my moving out. Shouldn’t they try to talk? What was Sister thinking?
“The master bedroom comes with a bathroom and a built-in wall closet.”
The realtor motioned for me to follow. We walked past the living room, the man gesturing at me to go ahead. I bowed.
The realtor and the man seemed to know each other well. About an hour ago, the realtor and I were waiting for the owner in the parking lot. She looked at her watch. Telling me, Sorry, she’ll be here soon. I was about to ask her just how long when I saw him. The man in a suit. He ran up, fumbling through his pockets to take out his keys. The realtor looked surprised. Where is Jung-sook unni?
The realtor pointed to a door.
“This is the master bedroom.”
When she opened it, they both backed away, giving me some space to go in first. I took a step in, standing on the threshold. A draft of fresh breeze rushed in from the open window, the curtains fluttering. The master bedroom was much larger than I’d expected. Especially with only a bed and some taped boxes inside. I winced, holding back a cough. Something foul was in the breeze, quickly rotting, hitting the very back of my throat. I stepped back, catching the man’s whisper. My lunchtime’s almost up. I have to go soon. He stared down at his watch. The realtor stepped forward.
“It’s a good size. You could fit in a queen-size bed and a vanity. Over there, that’s the built-in closet.”
The realtor pointed at the wooden closet, its sliding door slightly open. Behind it, a peek of a black scarf. The walls were warm and white. The floor, light-brown and wooden. I folded my arms. I must look young to the realtor and the apartment’s owner. A girl in an oversized sweater and jeans. Sister should have come, not me. She would have known what to do. I looked away from the stack of boxes, the rumpled blanket that had been hurriedly pushed aside on the bed. On the floor, leaning beside the bed, there was a large photo. The realtor stepped toward me, pointing to the bathroom door.
“This is the master bathroom.”
The man’s cell phone rang.
“Look inside,” the realtor said. “There is a lot of storage space.”
The bathroom. I wasn’t sure what to look for. Maybe I’d check if the water was running well? I remembered hearing Mother mention something about faucets, when Sister was moving out for the first time. Something about water pressure. What else? The realtor turned on the light and opened the door.
“There are shelves around the walls. You could put a lot of things there. There’re some drawers beneath the sink too.”
The door opened to a mirror. Inside the mirror, my face. Looking stunned. Paralyzed. My eyes wide, my lips tightened. I tried to smile, nodding to the realtor as I stepped closer to the bathroom, leaning in to see the glossy blue and gray mosaic tile walls. The caulking around the sink, the countertop, clean and without mold. The dark granite floor was polished. The realtor was right. We could store so much in this bathroom. The granite countertop stretched from one wall to another. Enough space to put Sister’s cosmetics. And right above the sink, there was a hanging glass shelf. It held a cup with three toothbrushes, a contact lens case, bottles of lotion and ointments, packs of relief patches. My own face in the mirror looked so raw. So naked. Flushed red.
I realized I was holding my breath. Refusing to smell, or to swallow. Anticipating the familiar stench.
The realtor turned to the man, whispering.
“What did unni say?”
But here, I thought, here.
“She forgot,” he said. “She had a doctor’s appointment today.”
Away from home, I would finally sleep in. I would never wake up to the sound of the moaning floorboards, the screeching kettle, or the spurting faucet. The cries of our house would be so far away. The kettle would hiss for tea or coffee. Sister could walk the floor a thousand times, and I wouldn’t wake up. My eyes would hold the colors of my dreams. Here, the vanity would hold soft colors, pink and beige towels. We could hang an array of colors on the rack. Maybe a warm berry towel on a long winter day. A bright yellow towel on the first day of spring.
I dropped my gaze to the sink, hearing a drop. The faucet wasn’t turned off. Not all the way. From its spout, a single droplet fell. Then another droplet. Here, I wouldn’t have to. In Seoul, I wouldn’t have to bend forward, let down my hair. Grab the sink’s rim and hold on, standing naked in the cold. Here, I could lay my body in the bathtub. Hot water streaming, floating in the gentle ripples. Finally, a bath inside a bathtub.
I wanted to believe.
“Would you like to see the tub and shower?”
I couldn’t answer her. Or even move. I knew what we would find.
I saw them when she opened the shower door.
The yellow shreds, stuck onto the faucet, the countertop, and the floor. Scattered here, as they were scattered at home. A torn sponge, dark-stained towels tossed inside a red rubber basin. Pushed against the wall, a bathtub. I forced myself to swallow, stomach writhing, nose prickling at the smell I knew so well. Sister and I used to toss in our beds. Covering our noses with our pillows, holding our breath, gagging. Sister would make me sniff her clothes. You smell it? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell whether our skin and our clothes smelled of the bones. Every time Mother washed them, Sister flung open all the windows in the house, never going out unless she drenched her body with perfume. Bergamot, rose, amber, sandalwood. Sister would ask, Do I smell like the bones? Empty, I had always told myself. If I moved out, if I lived in the city, it would be empty. My bathtub would only hold my body. I’d keep it empty, without the smothering heat, without the steam, without the stench.
But here. The bones lived here, as they had lived in our home. Their deep handprints on me, on us, all over our bodies. The walls and the floor were seeped with the stink of dead flesh. Hot, putrid.
“I’m thinking of taking her to the countryside.”
“That’d be good,” the realtor said.
“This place reminds her too much of him. Too many memories.”
A heap of dark, grungy bones. Piled up so high, burnt, dark, broken. Here, Sister used to say. At home and staring at the bathtub, she’d say to me: One day, we are going to lie here. The man glanced at his watch.
“I’ve seen everything,” I told them both.
The realtor walked me back out into the living room, the man following behind, murmuring something about the possible move-in date. I stumbled to the veranda, needing fresh air. Where, the thought wrapped its hands around my neck. If the bones waited for me even here, where was I going to go now? I opened the door and gaped, taking a deep breath, trying to escape their ever-reaching fingers. I focused my eyes on the parking lot below, the intersection. The afternoon. The sun was radiant as ever in the cloudless sky.
It was past five by the time I got off the bus in Sister’s neighborhood. Tae-kwun had texted. He said there was this coffee shop. It had opened on Jeju Island a few years ago, and now, there were a few branches opening across Seoul. Try their Earl Grey Einspänner. It’s their signature drink. I think you’ll like it. The branch closest to Sister’s apartment was located in one of the buildings that surrounded the round city square.
On every building, signboards hung their tired faces, waving their letters dipped in colors of red, yellow, purple. The coffee shop was at the end of the street. I coughed, waving away clouds of thick cigarette smoke, which drifted from the alleys in between the buildings. Men in suits, and in delivery jackets. They were smoking, crouched or leaning against the wall, their dazed eyes reflected off their flashing screens. Their fingers tapping, tapping, tapping.
Tae-kwun was right. It was a quaint little coffee shop. Small, among other tall modern buildings. Rustic, with a window box of fully bloomed balsam flowers. The exterior walls were red brick, the blue window shutters welcomingly open. He said it was a good place to study.
At the center of the city square, just outside of the coffee shop, ten or more people were huddled. Crowded around something. Or someone. Maybe an accident. I did not enter the coffee shop and instead stepped closer to the crowd, curious. People were holding up their cell phones, recording. Whispers filled the air, Should someone call the police? I stood on my toes, trying to see past the crowding heads and shoulders. What is she doing? She’s been at it for hours.
“You.”
A frail voice.
“You need to take a good care of them.”
Calm. Not minding all the eyes around her. It was a woman.
“Polish, dry them. Make sure you take a good care of them.”
I craned my neck.
“A bad rain can make them rusty. You, you have to keep a good watch on them.”
Her hair was a mess of big black curls.
“Don’t forget to hang them to dry. Don’t forget to put them away when it rains. I forgot. And look, look at the rust here.”
The woman’s eyes were large, fluttering black curls whipping against her hollow cheeks. Her arms hung loosely, her long black dress dragging on the ground. The woman looked as if she were drifting. Like she had no spine, no bones in her body, just skin, swaying slightly. She was hanging a series of windows on a clothesline.
The woman stood in the center of the contraption, under the pouring rays of sun. She smiled, swaying as she walked. She crossed the length of the clothesline, which stretched for twenty or thirty feet. There were three of them. One set up diagonally on the right. One facing the crowd. Another on the left. The woman stood in the crisscross, turning in circles between them. Is it some kind of a performance? Whispers ringing. An act? The woman crouched, pulling up her dress, showing her pale ankles, her thighs. She peered through one of the windows. Slim, with a simple white frame. Through the glass, I saw the intersection. The red traffic lights. The crowd, glancing back at the woman, at me.
“Hang them. Hang them on a good day.”
She looked unnatural, grotesque. Something familiar in her gaze. She reminded me, I realized, of the old man.
“You don’t want them to be broken. You want them to open. Open, so you can see the moonlight.”
The woman began to polish the windows, the glass squeaking as she wiped. I shuddered, wondering where she had gotten them all. How she had dragged them out here by herself. I remembered the old man. How he carried those windows and doors on his back. Tied them around his waist with a rope. The old man’s stumbling steps, leaving a grim trail on the road.
“Finally,” someone said. “They’re here.”
Two policemen were approaching. Telling people to move aside. The crowd began to split, but the woman’s eyes were elsewhere, closing and opening in a rhythm so slow, so sleepy. As the police came near, the woman began to shake herself awake. She turned in my direction, searching.
The policemen asked her to put down the window. To leave. The woman continued, as if she could not hear them. When the two policemen reached her, they tried to take the window from her hand—she ran, straight toward me. I screamed as the woman grabbed me, her grip strong around my arm. I tried to pull away, but her fingers held tight. I sputtered as her blank eyes saw me and nothing else. She pulled herself closer, her face only an inch from mine. She smelled of saliva, drool unwashed, left on her lips.
“You can get out of there.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“There’s a window.”
I fought as her jagged fingernails dug into my flesh.
“A window, I saw a window,” she said. “You just have to find it. You can get out of there.”
She pulled me closer.
“Let me go,” I muttered, panicked. “What’s wrong with you?”
Suddenly, her grip loosened. I stumbled back, hitting the people behind me. The policemen dragged her away, grabbing her by her waist, screaming at her to stop, to comply. The woman flailed. I looked down at my wrist, reddened and scratched. All eyes were on me now, every face turned. Whispers, asking if I was all right, if I was hurt, if I knew this woman. I shook my head, no, no. The police were dragging the woman away, but she was still looking at me. Her emaciated body. Her cheeks puffing. Her bare feet kicking as she screamed.
“A window, there’s a window in the hotel—”
I ran to the bus stop.
It was no mistake. The windows had been hung exactly that way on the rooftop in front of Sister’s apartment that rainy night. I held up my arms, still feeling the woman’s strong grip. Remembering the moment she had pulled the window close, then peered through it. Had she said—a hotel? I flinched.
A text from Tae-kwun.
How was the Earl Grey Einspänner? If you liked their coffee, there’s this one coffee shop in Ttukseom I’ve been wanting to try. You want to go together this week?
Seoul, I thought, would be different. But she was just like the old man in Dalbit. Both stark in their madness. Somehow recognizing me, knowing me. I’d thought if I spent a few days in Seoul, I’d never dream that dream again. Away from home. Away from the bones. Still, it felt real. Even inside that renovated apartment, inside the glinting bathtub, was the same sight and the same stench I had always known. The stench I—we—had been born into.
Hurrying away from the city square, I raised my eyes up to the surrounding apartment complexes. Housing how many homes, how many people—how many graves. There were graves here.
A medal. Back in that apartment, in the master bedroom, there had been a medal sitting beside the bed, hung over a large photo. In the photo, there was a boy. His name, sewn on his uniform. Corporal Kang Woo-bin. He had been fitted into a sailor hat and uniform, his glasses thick, his smile awkward. Even here, I swallowed. Even here, so far away from home, we lived with the war.
A skull. There was a skull inside that beautiful new bathtub. A white skull. A skull yet young.