KI-YONG LIKES going to Seoul Art Cinema, where the old Hollywood Theater used to stand. The theater shows the works of filmmaking titans of times past, relying on government funding to finance its operations. He feels safe and cozy, sitting inside a dark, empty theater. He sometimes relaxes so much that he falls asleep. Here, he doesn't feel like an outsider. People come to see old films and they don't care who else is watching. These movie-goers are capitalist snobs, who put on a show of being hip and ironic to conceal their snobbery. Large cities breed anonymity precisely because of this attitude, this pretension of sophistication. Everyone can live together, each person's real self hidden away. Homosexuals, criminals, prostitutes, and illegal immigrants like Ki-yong. But he's not sure if his analysis of his fellow movie-goers is correct. He would probably never be able to understand these young Seoulites. They may be pretentious, they may not be. Maybe, because they grew up watching all kinds of movies from all over the world and got tired of Hollywood's current predictable fare, they have gone back to the origin of all the copies. Maybe they have ended up sincerely loving Luchino Visconti and Ozu Yasujiro.
Ki-yong didn't live the cultural experiences the others take for granted. He spent his childhood ignorant about King Kong and Mazinger Z, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, Donald Duck and Woody Woodpecker, Superman and Spiderman. Instead, he had to study Steve McQueen's Papillon and The Great Escape, movies that played on TV during every holiday in the South, and experienced Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur on cable. He didn't know about the time the soccer titan Cha Bum-Kun was a Bundesliga star. He couldn't say, like the others, that he remembered the huge pop phenomena Kim Chooja and Na Hoon-Ah. At Liaison Office 130, he memorized and rememorized cultural facts and took quizzes on a weekly basis, but he learned his cultural history only intellectually. He could answer the questions but couldn't feel what the answers meant, and this made him think of himself as a human made of circuits and microchips. He knew more facts about Cho Yong-pil and Aster and Seo Tae-ji than anyone else, and could rattle off the history of professional baseball or the student movement of the 1980s, but this knowledge didn't fill the emptiness. He remembered the shockwaves created by Lee Mun-se's second album and the Korean baseball series of '86 and '87 when Sun Dong-yul's Haitai beat the reigning champs, Samsung, but that memory could never be a substitute for his emotional citizenship.
The tedium exuded by these movie buffs intimidated Ki-yong. Everything that elicited the disinterested comment "This is so lame" was unknown, or at least new, to him. He devoted energy and time figuring out which parts were boring to others. It was the life of a transplant, having to give his all just to understand the mundane.
At the Anguk-dong Rotary, he walks toward Nagwon Arcade. Old men are clustered in front of the Seniors' Welfare Foundation, selling magnifying glasses and black-market cigarettes. Others, wearing wool caps, wander among the peddlers, trying to amuse themselves. Ki-yong weaves through the cigarette smoke billowing from the groups of old men, passes the rice cake stores displaying special prices for weddings, and goes up the stairs of Nagwon Arcade. Nagwon— Paradise. The normally ordinary word feels unfamiliar to him all of a sudden. When he was young, he went around referring to socialist paradise this and socialist paradise that. At the time he never doubted that the phrase referred to Pyongyang and North Korea. But now he thinks it is a brazen slogan. Paradise? Was it Hitler who said that the masses are fooled by big lies?
The first time Ki-yong felt doubt about the slogan was at Lotte World. Right after he came to the South, the "This is Lotte World" ad was always playing on TV. Fireworks burst above a lake while actors danced around in Snow White and raccoon costumes. He didn't understand why South Korean children were so fond of raccoons. Only later did he find out the raccoon was the mascot for Lotte World. He bought an all-day pass. A ticket that got you into all the rides—this was a concept similar to the logic of his world.
But when he actually entered the theme park, it wasn't the brilliant shows or the heart-stopping rides that shocked him. He was amazed that so many people patiently lined up for popular rides without fighting. Everyone waited for their turn, their faces elated with expectation. Nobody cut in line and even if someone did, nobody got angry. Everyone had to line up like that in Pyongyang, too, for the boat to cross Taedong River or to enter the School Children's Palace. There were always people who cut in line. Young soldiers doing ten years of service did it for the long years they would sacrifice for their country, the Party members did so out of a sense of privilege, and some did just because they knew someone up ahead. So tension mounted as the lines got longer. People became irritable and were poised to explode at the littlest thing. Cutting in line wasn't the only problem. Sometimes, without notice, people were turned away, for the simple reason that all the items were gone, or because of unforeseen circumstances. Then the line that had been building for hours would just melt away.
Of course, he wasn't a wide-eyed hick who confused Lotte World with paradise. But sometimes, riding the subway past Chamsil station, the stop for Lotte World, he felt a little off balance—a wave of gentle nausea. He remembered the frightening thought that flitted through his mind while he was at Lotte World—that a socialist paradise might be a lie and Lotte World might be the true paradise. Shocked by his audacity, he tried to repress it by scrambling onto an inane raft ride with no line and bouncing down a darkened tunnel.
He passes stores selling musical instruments that line the second floor. A pimply-faced kid stands next to the ponytailed owner of one store with a covetous look on his face as the owner plays Gary Moore on an electric guitar. Ki-yong stops in front of a store selling harmonicas. He looks at the harmonica's double set of reeds, capable of producing two layers of sound.
The apartment building where he was born and grew up had a long, dark hallway, with faint light coming in through each end. Doors lined the hall on each side, opening into small apartments. People called these harmonica apartments. If looked at from above, the layout would have resembled harmonica reeds. There wasn't any privacy. The walls were thin, and you opened your front door practically into the apartment across from yours. There were few light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and even those were low-watt bulbs, so it was always dark in the middle of the hall, and the corners that never saw sunlight smelled like mildew. Ki-yong's home was near the middle of the harmonica. It faced west, so in the evening the waning sun lengthened into the apartment. Sometimes wind blew in from one end of the hall and dashed through the window on the opposite side, and the apartment building would wheeze. The wind, breezing through the narrow hallway, would sound a higher note and retreat when encountering open doors or objects. Sometimes it would slam doors shut and hum toward the end of the hallway and the sunlight, lowering its tone. Only when someone in the apartment at the very end of the hall came out and closed the window did the harmonica ever stop sighing.
Ki-yong's father enjoyed fishing and often took his son to Taedong River. Father and son would sit quietly, their fishing poles drawn. They would dump the fish they caught in a bin and walk home. His father was an engineer who constructed dams. He designed the dams at Yalu River and Imjin River and was respected as the foremost expert in the industry. Hydropower plants were a very important resource for North Korea, which suffered from a dearth of electricity. The locations of dams and hydropower plants were shrouded carefully to guard against American bombing operations, so his father lived under layers of surveillance, so much so that when he went to Moscow to study, briefly in the 1970s, he wasn't given much freedom. He had to report everything that happened on a daily basis to the security agent.
Not long after Ki-yong came south, he realized that all such security measures were useless. America knew exactly what North Korea was up to. The higher-ups in the North probably knew this too. The spying was not protection from America, but an exercise of habitual bureaucratic routine. Up north, anything could be classified as top secret. Even the quality of the river water was confidential information. Without any sanitation facilities, factory discharge laced with heavy metals and daily sewage poured into the river. But any language that chipped away at the legend of the socialist paradise was prohibited. Even uttering something that was legal, depending on who said it and in what way, could be considered taboo, and innocent acts sometimes led to being branded as a spy for American imperialists.
"Are you cold? Do you want the heat pouch?" Ki-yong's father offered.
"No, I don't need it."
His father slid the hook out of the fish gills and tossed the catch in the bin. The fish was a decent size. "Look. It flaps around because it's out of the water."
"Is there a fish that doesn't?" Ki-yong asked.
His father tossed his line back into the river. The fish flopped around in the dry bucket. "No. If there is no water, fish open their gills and flap around, then die. When you're building a dam, you sometimes erect beams and pump water out through a tunnel, so that you can pour in concrete. The fish that don't manage to get out are left dying at the bottom. Comrades are happy to gather them up and make stew, but there are so many you can't eat them all. So they rot. And smell. It's quite disgusting; it makes you want to vomit. So listen carefully to what I am saying. Don't be a fish; be a frog. Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground. Do you understand me?"
That was the last time they went fishing together, right before Ki-yong was selected as an operative trainee of Liaison Office 130. His father sensed what his son's future would hold. His father's advice to become a frog was prescient. Ki-yong adapted well to this chaotic South Korean society, able to survive on his own even after Lee Sang-hyok was purged in a factional struggle.
That day, holding the fish bin with his father, Ki-yong silently padded down the hallway of the harmonica apartment building. It was right after sunset so the hallway was darker than usual. The smell of cooking wafted from each apartment, mingling in the hallway. Some families were making soup seasoned with soybean paste, and others were boiling vegetables. His stepmother, who had been waiting for them, took their bucket. Water was already boiling on the stove.
"Did you two go visit with the King of the Ocean?" his stepmother teased them about their long absence.
His father laughed and started to peel off his jacket. "We had to catch at least one to save face around here, didn't we?"
His stepmother expertly slit the fish's belly and scooped out its guts. She cleaned and scaled it, cut it into three or four chunks, and dropped them into the boiling water seasoned with red pepper paste. Ki-yong's younger brothers gathered around the pot, their spoons already in their mouths. His stepmother scolded them, glancing at his father and Ki-yong. It was before food became scarce, though there was always more food available in Pyongyang than in other regions.
His stepmother was a middle school teacher. Sometimes parents would bring her rare gifts to ask for favors, so their family was better off than other households. Though his stepmother worked the same hours as his father, she had more duties since she had to keep house, too. His younger brothers' pockets always jangled with nails. They picked them up from construction sites and played a variant of marbles with their friends. They would try to throw a nail and hit another, and if one were pushed out beyond the line, the striker would take that nail. Their pants always had holes in them, ripped by these sharp nails, but their stepmother mended the pockets under a dim light without complaining, even though they weren't her own children. "You can't carry such sharp things in soft material," their stepmother once said, and the youngest one retorted, "Mother, there's a Chinese saying that a gimlet in a pouch pokes its way out!"
"Children, that's not what that means!" Father interjected, looking up from the paper and shaking his head. Though he studied water and dirt, he was knowledgeable about Chinese classics. He explained, "It means a talented man commands attention without trying."
The younger children giggled and wrestled around in the tiny room, and it was hard to tell whether they understood the point. By now, they probably finished their mandatory ten years in the army and were assigned to jobs, and his stepmother would still be leading her life somewhere.
Unlike his stepmother, Ki-yong's birth mother came from a very good family. She was from Chaeryong in Hwanghae Province. A right-wing faction murdered her father, so the family was given the respect due to a family of a political murder victim. Most members from such families ended up in key positions in the Party and the People's Army.
His father's background wasn't as illustrious. He was a Communist prisoner of war who chose to return to the North after spending time at the camp on Koje Island in the South. The returned prisoners of war weren't welcome anywhere. Only a tiny minority was given any opportunity for education and work, to showcase the generosity of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung. Ki-yong's father was one of the lucky ones. He studied hydraulics in Moscow and returned to Pyongyang in 1959, immediately becoming a functionary in the hydropower department of the Pyongyang Electric Power Design Office.
Ki-yong's father, a returned POW, and his mother, a member of the Workers Party of Korea, were a most unlikely pair. Ki-yong never heard the story of how they met. Nobody spoke of it. In any case, they met and married. Their relationship didn't seem to have been forced on them. If his father's status had been higher, that might have been a possibility. This unlikely couple was assigned a newlywed apartment typical of Pyongyang—a living room and one bedroom, narrow and long—and held a simple wedding ceremony at the groom's workplace. Nobody forecast a terrible ending. They were on good terms and didn't seem to have any problems. In the photograph taken that day, Ki-yong's young, shy mother linked arms with his father, looking happy.
They had Ki-yong a year after the wedding and two more boys after him. Ki-yong's first memory is of Father standing in front of a bright window with a big, mischievous smile, kissing his mother on the nose. His mother frowned, saying it tickled, but her expression frightened Ki-yong. After that, he would burst into tears whenever she frowned, and when he got older he would turn and run away. The adults thought it was funny and would ask his mother to frown, dissolving into laughter when Ki-yong got scared. But later, after his mother met her tragic end, people said that Ki-yong must have seen something ominous that only a young child could detect.
His mother went crazy, very slowly. She worked at the Party External Commercial Management Office. She usually dealt with transactions having to do with China, Hong Kong, or Macau, focusing on numbers and money. She would sometimes go to Beijing on long business trips. Her job, dealing with foreign currency and traveling abroad, was coveted by other families of political murder victims. But it proved to be a post that overwhelmed his mother, who had frail nerves.
Ki-yong never found out what really happened. People said that she had been sacrificed by the inner politics of the Party External Commercial Management Office, or that she had been falsely incriminated by other families vying for that job, or that she had been involved in a very serious fraud and received a severe reprimand from her supervisor. Ki-yong didn't want to know which it was. Anyway, his mother left that job, and after taking some time off, she became the manager at a foreign currency shop, which catered to people who bought foreign goods with foreign currency acquired through various channels.
If one took her background into consideration, it was an assignment that was almost shameful, but she went to work every day without revealing her true feelings. She did receive a good salary, and there were quite a number of people who slipped her an extra something to get certain items. But she didn't allow exceptions or give anyone special treatment. She didn't forgive herself if the numbers didn't match up. She stayed at the shop long into the night until the numbers matched, working the abacus over and over. Since there wasn't any corruption and it looked like she was working hard, nobody thought she had such a serious problem. They would just cluck, saying, Comrade Yu Myong-suk is so conscientious.
The store was on the way to Oesong Middle School. On his way home from school, Ki-yong sometimes stopped by to say hello. His mother would whisper that someone at the back of the line was criticizing her. "Listen carefully. Those women always say negative things about me behind my back."
Ki-yong listened in on the women's conversation; it wasn't true. They were just chatting about their lives. They were happy, exuberant because they were buying expensive items with foreign currency—but to his mother, everything was a secretive plot.
"Mother, they are not talking about you," Ki-yong would say, but his mother would frown and shake her head.
"I can read lips. I learned to do that in the People's Army. But it doesn't matter if they talk behind my back. The Great Leader and the Party support me."
Even then, Ki-yong didn't think she was suffering from a disease. He didn't think much of it, really, since he expected her to hear all sorts of complaints on the job, having to face people and their demands on a daily basis. She was normal at home, waking up before the 7:00 A.M. siren, efficiently cooking breakfast for the family, eating with them, and leaving for work with Father.
When Ki-yong turned fifteen, his mother grew suspicious of his father. Or it may have been that she had been suspicious of him for a long time. A note she found in his pocket triggered her doubts. A pretty feminine script looped across the paper, "A flower blooming, hidden on an unknown road. Do you know this nameless flower? Please know my feelings when you smell this flower as you walk along a bumpy road." Father explained that it was the lyrics of the song "We Will Go with the Song of Happiness in Our Arms." While Mother knew the song as well, she believed it was a love letter, that a tramp in love with her husband had written the note under the guise of a song. Father told her that he had heard it on the radio and liked it, and asked one of the workers under his supervision to jot down the lyrics for him, but Mother's suspicions weren't dispelled. One day, when Ki-yong and Father were fishing at Taedong River, Father slid a cigarette between his lips and said, "I'm worried about your mother."
Since their home was a two-room apartment, no secret could be kept from the children. The layout forced them to grow up quickly. Ki-yong realized that Father was not asserting his innocence. Instead of saying he was hurt by her suspicions, he was saying he was worried about Mother. Ki-yong understood vaguely what that signified but didn't show it on his face.
Mother also lamented about her situation to Ki-yong. "Since you are the eldest son, you have to take my side no matter what happens. Your father was always popular with women. His nose is always in a book, so when women chase after him he doesn't know what to do and just ends up going along with them." Mother stopped and lowered her voice, looking around. "Shh. They're listening in next door, those sneaky rats."
"Mother, please stop!" Ki-yong spat out.
Mother looked bewildered, then sank into a deep despair. "You don't believe me either!" she accused.
Ki-yong looked away. It would have been preferable to deal with some other problem. He wouldn't have minded if Father had really cheated on her, he hadn't been a party member, or he had committed a more serious offense. For a moment, Ki-yong wished he had a different mother. He wanted his mother to be a comforting, warm, unsuspicious, mature woman.
She shot at him, "I knew it. You're on his side because you're a boy."
Mother threatened Father that she would complain to the Party and to his bosses. Father ignored her. One weekend, leaving Mother alone at home, Father took the three boys to the ice skating rink. The two younger ones glided on the frozen pond, blissfully ignorant of the situation at home. The large thermometer hanging at the rink indicated a temperature of fourteen degrees. Little kids rode on sleds while the older ones skated, and when they got hungry they gnawed on corn on the cob they had stashed in their pockets. Ki-yong had put on Father's skates; they were a little too roomy. To this day, he remembers clearly what Father said to him at the rink. "What is Juche Ideology?"
Ki-yong hesitated, then reeled off what he'd learned in school. "It is a revolutionary ideology putting forth that humans have creativity, consciousness, and independence, and decide their own fate."
Father looked tired. He squinted as the low-hanging winter sun shone on his face. "Do you really believe humans are that mighty?"
Ki-yong couldn't believe his ears. This was forbidden talk, something that was near impossible to hear at school. "Pardon?"
Father lit a cigarette. The spark from the match jumped to the cigarette paper and flared brightly before it extinguished.
"The ancient Greeks believed that the world was composed of four elements."
"We learned that at school."
"What are they?"
"Water, fire, air, and earth. Greek philosophy soon became dialectic materialism..."
Father cut him off. "That is right. As you know, I make dams to capture water. Of those four elements, I studied water and earth. I don't know much about the rest. I was never interested in how humans did what. Juche Ideology ... well, it is probably right. It's a good thing for a human to create his own destiny through creativity, consciousness, and independence. But remember when there was a flood in Hwanghae Province two years ago? If the dam floods over and bursts, humans are the same as dogs or pigs. They're just swept away."
"Isn't that why people like you put theory into practice and build dams to control nature?"
"That's only a temporary solution. The last war was all about fire. Pyongyang went back to the stone age because of American bombs. After that was the era of earth. We picked up our shovels and erected cities. Through the Chollima Movement, we built a republic as good as any other. Now it's the era of water. Water appears placid from the outside but there's actually a very powerful energy within it. That's why we have to control water. We're doing that now, but nobody knows what will happen. Soon it will become the era of air. It may be the most painful era, more than the periods of fire, earth, and water. You can't see air but without it, people can't breathe."
At the time, Ki-yong didn't know what Father was trying to tell him. But soon, he understood that Father was deriding the pointless self-centered worldview of Juche Ideology, and was accurately prophesying North Korea's future. Years later, in the early 1990s, after a series of floods, the so-called arduous march began. It was the era of starvation, where the only available food was grass and bark and dirt. Stomachs went empty. The era of air. People said, If this is how it is, let's fight with anyone, be it South Korea or America. Let's go all the way until the very end.
Father changed the subject. "Your mother is a child of the earth. She's from a farming family. But as you know, I'm a child of water."
Ki-yong's grandfather was a boatman on Taedong River. He remained one even when the Japanese built a railway bridge over the river and luminaries like Natsume Soseki, Yi Kwangsu, and Na Hye-sok traversed it by train. When Ki-yong's father came back from Koje Island, his own father was waiting for him in a hut on a riverbank dense with weeping willows. Like the willows, a few of whose branches were always dipped in water, Father had a damp and dark side to him. Even his preference of talking frankly, instead of beating around the bush, was more characteristic of water than of earth or fire. Ki-yong, who was quick to catch on to nuances and possessed a good ear for language, understood that waterlike Father was telling him that he was being trapped by Mother, the earth, and that at some point the water would breach the earthen walls and go where it wanted. But this knowledge made Ki-yong feel uncomfortable. Why were they getting him involved in their arguments?
Ki-yong was a good skater. Even in ill-fitting skates, he turned corners faster than anyone and stopped precisely, with a spray of ice. Ki-yong bent low and shot forward, his legs stretching and lengthening. He went around counterclockwise on the outer edge of the pond as the beginners in the inner circle slowly wobbled around in the other direction. The chilly wind slapped his cheeks, but it wasn't painful. The smoke from a small fire of weeds, kindled to ward off the cold, billowed, aromatic and sulfurous. Ki-yong glided faster and completed a loop. He straightened and placed his feet parallel to each other, braking to a stop with a flourish, sending up a shower of ice chips.
That day was the first time he spoke with Jong-hee, a girl who lived on the same floor as Ki-yong's family, at the southern end of the hall. Her cheeks were red and her small nose was pert. At 7:20 A.M., when all the students gathered at the meeting place and marched to school together, grouped by class, their eyes met. It happened again at the skating rink. Jong-hee smiled, a red knitted scarf looped around her neck, and Ki-yong slid past her, missing his chance to reciprocate. Fifteen-year-old Ki-yong didn't have the courage to double back to say hello. But as he rested by the wooden post, watching his breath turn white, she came over to him, her long limbs moving elegantly.
"You're a very good skater."
Ki-yong was self-conscious about the gaze of his father, who was probably observing this from somewhere, and that of his school friends. He felt a little proud, too, but didn't know how to express this pride, and so it was a sort of pointless emotion.
"Are they your skates?" Jong-hee asked finally, when Ki-yong didn't say anything.
"No, my father's."
"So you can speak!" Jong-hee flashed him a smile and pushed off toward the inner circle. It was an embarrassingly unsophisticated conversation, but it was Pyongyang in the mid-1970s. Openly dating symbolized one's ideological laxity and was the subject of severe criticism. Nobody knew what to do or say to a girl at the ice rink; it wasn't only Ki-yong who was terribly inept. Dating was a clear taboo. Their interaction that day wouldn't have been that strained had he known that he would soon vomit on her, and twenty years later, would unexpectedly bump into her.
Jong-hee was well known in school. From the age of eleven, she was chosen to represent their school in large-scale Mass Games with children from all around the country, to celebrate the founding anniversary of the Workers Party or the War Victory Anniversary. More than eighty thousand children were divided into ten teams, and each came out and performed awe-inspiring, circuslike aerobics routines. Jong-hee was tall and good enough to be in the front row of her team. The performances went on for twenty days and all the schoolchildren in Pyongyang went to watch. Everyone dressed up—students in uniforms, men in suits, and women in blue or red hanbok. The crowd walked between the large columns and gathered in the Main Theater.
The aerobics routines were composed of scenes from revolutionary history, such as the armed anti-Japanese struggle. Ki-yong and the rest of the boys tracked Jong-hee's movements with their eyes, proud of their school representative. She leaned back, picked up a small ball and threw it high in the sky, did a running start like a doe, and launched into a somersault, catching the falling ball with her legs. More than one hundred girls threw the balls high above their heads and caught them with their legs in unison, and not a single one dropped the ball. Jong-hee looked more mature than her age because of her vivid eye makeup and red lipstick. Ki-yong and his friends watched Jong-hee's leaps and turns with their mouths agape, envious of the children who lifted her up and marched away.
Why would someone like that talk to him? Ki-yong couldn't believe it. A little later, when he looked for her, she was already gone. His brothers grew tired of sledding and the sun was dropping behind Moran Peak. They gathered their skates and sleds and went home.
A few days after their skating excursion, Father went to check on a Yalu River dam and power plant. A fissure had been discovered in the dam, which was built during the Japanese occupation, so a drove of functionaries from Pyongyang had to go to Sinuiju. That day happened to be Ki-yong's sixteenth birthday. Everything was symbolic: there was a fissure in the dam, Father wasn't home, Pyongyang was experiencing a blackout, and his two brothers were chosen as school representatives to go on a trip to Myohyang Mountain. Ki-yong felt an inexplicable dread for having to spend his birthday with only Mother.
"Mother will cook chicken stew for you. I'll bring you a present from Sinuiju. What would you like?" Father asked.
"A foreign-made ballpoint pen, please." Ki-yong actually wanted a good pair of shoes. But he ended up asking for a ballpoint pen made in a foreign country. Father ruffled his hair and left for work.
Father took the 6:00 P.M. train from Pyongyang station. As soon as it left, Pyongyang tumbled into darkness, as if someone had flicked off the light switch. Nobody knew if the blackout involved a problem with the hydropower plant or the electricity line coming into Pyongyang. Nobody in the North had any inkling about what was going on. The paper and television didn't mention it at all, leaving rumors to fill the void. In darkened Pyongyang, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Blackouts were routine. Or it could be a blackout drill to prepare for an air attack. But there was no siren that indicated the onset of a drill. Ki-yong walked home from the subway station. The December sun set early; it was already dark. Ki-yong stopped by his mother's foreign currency store. The unlit store was closed. Ki-yong shook the steel shutters a few times, but when nobody came out, he headed home. He climbed the stairs of the harmonica apartment building and approached his unit, the savory smell of chicken stew greeting him.
"Mother, I'm home!"
No answer. It was dark inside the apartment and the gas burner was on, casting a bluish glow. Ki-yong turned it off and went into the master bedroom. Mother wasn't there either. Did she go somewhere to borrow a candle? Ki-yong went out to the hall and looked around, peeking into a few apartments with open doors, but she wasn't to be found. Instead, he bumped into Jong-hee, who was coming home from practice. Even under the faint candlelight, he could tell that she was smiling at him. She bounced down the hall, her steps lighthearted and airy, revealing her talent for gymnastics. Ki-yong went back inside and tossed his book bag under his desk. The aroma of the chicken stew wasn't quite as strong anymore. He went into the bathroom, scooped some cold water they had saved in the tub into a big bucket and thoroughly washed his hands, face, and neck. It was dark in the bathroom, so dark that he couldn't even see his face in the mirror. Ki-yong searched like a blind man for a towel, but then slipped and fell. He tried to get up but fell again. The floor was slippery, coated with something wet. Ki-yong, sitting on the bathroom floor rubbing his aching tailbone, realized that there was someone else sitting on the floor, next to him. He reached out and felt clothes and then a brassiere under the clothes. He patted the face and the waist, then started to scream. It was a body, crumpled.
Ki-yong bolted out into the hall and sprinted toward the end of the hallway, where faint light was coming through. He panted, leaning against the railing. He could hear his breath and found himself feeling inhuman, like an animal, a wild hog cornered during a hunt. Jong-hee ran out of her apartment, candle in hand. Ki-yong was covered in blood, but it looked like dirt in the dim light. His neighbors rushed out, surprised by his screams. Jong-hee boldly embraced Ki-yong and led him toward the narrow balcony hanging at the end of the hallway, where people couldn't see them. The westerly wind from the Yellow Sea battered them. Ki-yong, on his knees, in Jong-hee's arms, drew in ragged breaths, then vomited warm, sour liquid onto her chest.
"What's wrong? What's going on?"
He didn't answer. Jong-hee drew Ki-yong's face deeper into her stomach, holding him. His face was buried in his vomit on her school uniform, the blood from his hands dyeing her clothes.
"It's not my fault. It's really not my fault."
"Okay, okay. What's wrong?"
"Mother. I think Mother is dead." Ki-yong's speech was garbled, so Jong-hee didn't catch "is dead." But she did hear "Mother." Dancing candlelight illuminated the apartment windows across the way.
"It's all right, it's all right. It's all right now," Jong-hee soothed. She led him back slowly to the hallway. Perhaps she was worried that he would jump from the railing. People were still gathered in the dark hallway, murmuring. Like ghosts wandering around subterranean cemeteries, their faces and candles floated in the air.
"What's going on? Hey, aren't you...?" The man who lived across the way from Jong-hee pushed a candle in Ki-yong's face and his eyes widened in shock as they registered the dark blood covering the boy. He took a step back. All the candles rushed toward Ki-yong, like a horde of moths. Ki-yong's bloody body and face glowed in the darkness, as if he were a Caravaggio painting.
Ki-yong tried to say "in the bathroom," but it came out "uhhhaahhhuhh." He pointed weakly toward his home. As soon as they heard the women scream, the men rushed into Ki-yong's apartment without bothering to take off their shoes. Candles paraded into his apartment. The hall was dark again. Jong-hee was still holding Ki-yong's hand, but nobody noticed.
Only later was Ki-yong overcome by an intense anger—after agents from the Ministry of People's Security came by, took the body, and sent telegrams to Myohyang Mountain and Sinuiju, and after Ki-yong changed into clean clothes provided by the neighbors. Why did she have to cut her wrists on his sixteenth birthday? Did she hate him that much? Why did she have to do it on the one day Father wasn't around? Ki-yong wanted to ask her these questions. After some time passed, a clinging guilt tempered his anger. If he had listened more attentively to Mother's complaints, if he had come home a little earlier instead of playing basketball with his friends, no, if he had never been born ... Uneasy thoughts dogged him, tormented him.
Father was brought back to Pyongyang and underwent an investigation conducted by the Ministry of People's Security, and the records kept in Mother's store were searched. But nobody found anything. It was the kind of situation that rendered Communists helpless. Suicide meant you left the socialist paradise of your own free will, for no good reason. Officially, their society didn't have suicides; without known statistics, nobody knew what the suicide rate was. In the end, the Ministry of People's Security found evidence of Mother's insanity. In a cabinet in the store, they found meaningless statistics and accounting books that she had been compiling in the few months before her death. The records didn't match the items in the storeroom or other records held by agencies that provided the goods. Transactions that existed solely in Mother's head filled more than twenty books. Nonexistent people bought made-up items in great quantities, and these imaginary transactions were meticulously recorded. Nobody had thought twice about her, a hardworking woman who never made a mistake, because so many books were created in such a short time and there was no problem in the actual circulation of items.
Later, when he arrived in Seoul, Ki-yong saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Watching Jack Nicholson go crazy in a cabin in the snow-covered Rockies, he remembered his mother, which he hadn't done in a long time. As Jack Nicholson typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over on several hundred pages, he imagined Mother, sitting alone in her store, tittering like an idiot. He couldn't finish watching the movie. From then on, Ki-yong kept a safe distance from The Shining and chicken stew. But now, almost thirty years later, he wondered if she would have killed herself if there hadn't been a power outage and she could have continued to write in the books like she did every day. Maybe Father's business trip, the sudden blackout, and his birthday—three unusual events—merged and broke her rhythm, unfastening the safety latch located somewhere in her brain.
Ki-yong saw Jong-hee again in 2001, in Seoul. He was sitting in a subway car, on the northbound Line 3, crossing the Han River. A woman was staring at him, sitting across the aisle. He glanced at her too, but couldn't place her. He tried to remember. Who was she? She was wearing a neat slate-colored skirt that came to her knees, and looked to be in her late thirties. Although she had faint lines around her eyes and on her neck, she was a beauty, with symmetrical features. Her hair was tied back, secured with pins and an elastic band. Her wrists were thin, and she had narrow shoulders. There was something old-fashioned about her makeup. Her eyebrows were thin and drawn in, her lips were red, and she wasn't wearing mascara. She was gripping the handle of her purse as if her life depended on it, looking frightened out of her mind, or maybe sad. It was an expression he couldn't decipher. He looked away, and she looked down at her lap hastily. But soon, they were staring at each other again.
A subway car is laid out awkwardly, forcing people to stare at each other from across the way. The aisle's too wide to say hello, but it's too narrow to just ignore someone, so it's always difficult to decide where to look. Ki-yong squinted and studied her face again. The more he looked at her, the more it convinced him that he knew her. But he couldn't remember where he'd seen her. She wasn't someone in the movie business, and she didn't seem like someone he went to school with. If it had been someone who did publicity for movies, she wouldn't have stared at him like that, making him uncomfortable. He wanted to ask, Who are you? But if he had gotten up from his seat and walked over, people would have stared. He couldn't go up to a woman whose name he didn't know and ask, "Excuse me, who are you and why do you keep staring at me?"
Her gaze was testing Ki-yong's patience. The train was still clattering across the Han River. She twisted her lips into a wry smile. There was something unnatural about her expression, revealing a tragic plea. That's when he realized who it was. He never imagined that he would see her in Seoul. Jong-hee. He whispered her name to himself, but his voice was so low that the sound evaporated as soon as it escaped his mouth. But she was reading his lips. Her expression stiffened, and when the car stopped at Yaksu station, she bolted up and hastily left the car. Ki-yong followed her out. She was walking briskly toward the transfer station, toward Line 6. He dodged the sea of people coming toward him and followed her. She kept looking behind her, frightened. Finally, stumbling like she would fall over, she started running. Ki-yong started running too. Why was she here? And why was she so desperately running away from him?
Finally, he caught up to her, close enough that he could grab and stop her. She backed up against a wall and her breath came out in rasps, her shoulders tense. People walked by, glancing at them. She was crying. "Please, please."
"Jong-hee, what's going on? You're Jong-hee, right? Right?" Ki-yong asked.
She kept repeating the same words. "Please, please," she said, seeking his generosity, hands clasped and bowing her head in supplication.
"All right, I'm sorry. I won't do anything. I'm going to go, so you can get up, okay?" He tried to help her up, as she was sliding down the wall, but she shrank away as if she had touched a snake.
Ki-yong raised his hands, palms open, and stepped back.
She got up with difficulty. "Thank you. Thank you."
Ki-yong turned toward Line 3. Only after she saw him leave did she start walking toward Line 6, with cautious steps. Ki-yong looked back after a while, but she was already gone.
A while later, he learned that she and her husband had escaped the North via Macau and Bangkok. He looked it up online, which revealed their route and reasons for escaping. In the twenty-first century, leaving North Korea had become a nonevent, something that wasn't all that shocking. People he used to know in Pyongyang might be living in Seoul, and he might even bump into them on the street.
Jong-hee was the last person he saw before he was selected to go into Liaison Office 130. She was a member of the most renowned dance troupe in the North, Mansudae Art Troupe. He told her they wouldn't be able to see each other for a long time. She knew exactly what Liaison Office 130 and Office No. 35 entailed, and that he would be sent down south as an agent. He realized why she had looked so terrified when she saw him on the subway. She must have thought he had orders to kill her. It wasn't a ridiculous thought. In 1997, Lee Han-yong, a nephew of Kim Jong Il's wife, was shot to death in front of his South Korean apartment by the Operation Department assassination squad, which then went back north, evading capture.
Ki-yong heard later that Jong-hee's husband, who had managed North Korea's overseas slush fund in Macau, opened a restaurant in Seoul, specializing in North Korean cold noodles. Jong-hee, who used to be the best dancer in North Korea, made a living serving cold noodles with her husband. He did want to go say hello, but he never went. He didn't want to scare them when they had finally managed to lead a peaceful life. It was also possible that, if he appeared, they would call the policeman helping them settle in South Korean society. But he sometimes thought of her, and remembered the warmth of her belly, where he had briefly rested his head.
KI-YONG ORDERS AN Americano at the café at the theater and sits down in a black metal chair that resembles the body of an ant. A few people from the Film Forum office greet him. How are you? Did you come to see a movie? What movie are you importing next? A torrent of polite words pours onto him. All the men are wearing the same hip uniform of black, horn-rimmed glasses. Ki-yong takes out his cell phone and presses a speed dial number, but he doesn't hear a ring. A recorded voice tells him that the subscriber is unavailable. He enters the phone number manually.
"Hello?"
"Hi, is Mr. Han there?"
Silence. The woman raises her tone a little. "Who's speaking?"
"I'm a friend."
"Mr. Han is abroad on business?"
Ki-yong recognizes her voice. Whenever he goes to Jong-hun's office, she sits there, typing away on IM. She always ends her sentences with a question mark. He decides to pretend not to know who she is.
Ki-yong asks, "Abroad? Where? That's sudden."
"I don't know. I'm not sure either?"
Ki-yong swallows. He's never heard of an owner of an automobile parts franchise leaving for business overseas this urgently. After a moment of silence, the woman on the other end asks, clearly annoyed, "Hello? Who is this? Are you really a friend?"
"Okay, thank you." Ki-yong is about to hang up without answering her question when she says, quickly, "Is this Mr. Kim?"
"Yes, you recognize my voice."
"Of course."
Ki-yong is surprised; he thought she had only been focused on her instant messenger.
"I actually don't know where Mr. Han is. Two days ago he ran in, took some things, and left right away. And there were so many phone calls today. Mrs. Han came by, too. She was worried out of her mind; she said he hadn't come home in two days. Do you have any idea where he might be?"
"Has he ever done this before?"
Her voice grows louder, indignant. "No. I've been here four years, and he's never even been late!"
"Was he in debt? Did he get calls from creditors?"
"Debt? You're asking the same things as the cops. We have no debt."
"The cops came by?"
"I think Mrs. Han filed a missing persons report. They came by a while ago and turned the office upside down."
Ki-yong knows he has to hang up. "I'll ask around, too, but I'm sure he's fine."
"If you find him, can you call Mrs. Han?"
"Sure." Ki-yong hangs up. Something is definitely happening. Maybe he just didn't notice the signs of change in the past few days.
Ki-yong and Han Jong-hun entered Liaison Office 130 the same year, both stationed under Lee Sang-hyok. Lee Sang-hyok groomed them and sent them south, along with two others. When Lee Sang-hyok was purged, the four of them were the only agents who were stranded in the South. When it became clear that the lines of communication were severed, one agent left Seoul to study in Seattle. He received a PhD and became a professor, and later became an American citizen. Ki-yong doesn't know what happened to the fourth. He kept in touch with only Jong-hun. But they didn't rely on each other or maintain a close friendship. When the power that united them disappeared they reverted to their true natures. They were like astronauts who were once connected in outer space, but returned to their separate lives back on Earth. Ki-yong and Jong-hun had to survive on their own in South Korea, where they didn't know another soul, and support their newly forming families. They met up sometimes for a drink, but their conversations were as mundane as the small talk at any South Korean high school reunion. How are you? Do you think Roh Moo Hyun will become president? Will the economy fare better next year? How's the wife? I can't believe I have this potbelly. Sometimes they stopped by a karaoke bar to sing along to pop superstars Kim Gun Mo and Shin Seung Hun. They never talked about the possibility of receiving Order 4. Fear always circled them, making it difficult for them to fully enjoy their time together. Afraid that voicing the unmentionable would make it come true, they stuck to dull topics. But now, the very thing they dreaded has become reality.
In 2002, Ki-yong bought a forty-inch television. It was right before the World Cup, but that was just a coincidence—he didn't buy it for the games. Ki-yong invited Jong-hun to his apartment for the group qualifier match between South Korea and Portugal; he probably had the tiniest unconscious urge to show off his new TV and apartment. Jong-hun was still living in a twenty-pyong rental, but Ki-yong was the proud owner of a thirty-pyong condo.
"Nice place," Jong-hun said, handing Ki-yong a six-pack of beer.
"Oh, right, you haven't been here since we moved in."
"It's nice and big, perfect for a family of three."
"I took out a loan," Ki-yong said, embarrassed. His embarrassment was part of a complicated mix of emotions. Ki-yong achieved a dream that people born and raised in Seoul were often unable to attain, and now he was bragging about it. He wondered if Jong-hun, his oldest friend in the South, who knew where he'd come from, could detect the snobbery deep within him.
"I'm sure," Jong-hun replied. "Nobody buys a home with cash. So where's the missus and Hyon-mi?"
"Ma-ri's going to be late and Hyon-mi went downtown to cheer on the Korean team with her friends."
"Oh, the kids are going to yell, Goooo Korea," Jong-hun laughed, imitating the popular cheers. "It's been a long time since it was just the two of us." They sat side by side on the sofa and drank beer, snacking on dried squid and seaweed.
Jong-hun ventured, "I still don't really care for seaweed, since we never ate it growing up."
"Yeah, you're right—they didn't grow it in the North. But when you get used to it you really end up liking it. Do you want something else?"
"Do you have dried fish or something like that?"
Ki-yong brought out dried pollack. The South Korean team, led by Coach Hiddink, was giving the Portuguese a run for their money.
"Remember the 1966 World Cup?" Jong-hun asked.
"The one in London?"
Every single person north of the demilitarized zone knew about this famous game. It was North Korea's best performance in an international setting.
"Choson beat Italy and went up against Portugal in the quarterfinals, remember?"
Choson—the North Koreans' name for their country—was so unfamiliar to Ki-yong's ears after all this time that he was rendered speechless for a minute. "I watched that game over and over when I was a kid," he replied.
"You remember Pak Sung Jin, that player for Chollima Soccer Team? The man who scored in the forty-second minute in the second half against Chile and who scored one against Portugal..."
"Oh, yeah, him."
"He's my uncle."
"Really?" Ki-yong sat up, surprised. Pak Sung Jin, along with Pak Doo Ik, was a North Korean sports hero. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Jong-hun smiled bitterly. "I was afraid people would want me to show them my soccer skills. I'm terrible at sports but if I tell people about my uncle, everyone wants to see how well I play."
"I bet."
"When my uncle came to visit us when I was young, all the kids in the neighborhood came over. My uncle would line them up and toss the ball to each kid, telling them to head it. The kids would bump it with their heads and go back to the line to wait for their next turn."
"Do you think they're watching this game up north?"
"I doubt it. Maybe it will be recorded and shown later."
As the game neared its end, their bodies jerked and tensed with every move on the field. Every time a player took control of the ball, they moaned. Then, when Park Ji-Sung fired a volley into the back of the net they both sprang up from the couch and cheered. But Jong-hun's elation subsided when Park Ji-Sung ran over to the benches and leaped into Guus Hiddink's waiting arms. He sat back down and downed some beer. "I still don't understand it. Why do they need a foreign coach? The players dye their hair and the coaches are foreigners; how can anyone say this team is representing our nation?"
Ki-yong didn't agree with this sentiment, but he didn't refute it either. Nationalism was the backbone of politics, especially in the North. Although the religious worship of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il could be dismantled somehow, nationalism would live on for much longer. Ki-yong's belief solidified every time he saw Jong-hun. Jong-hun might no longer trust or be loyal to the northern government. The childish delusion that everyone in the world revered the Juche Ideology and its creator, Kim Il Sung, must have been shattered soon after he reached the South. But he resisted changing certain values instilled in him from childhood. Jong-hun didn't cede an inch of his belief that the Korean people were superior. In his mind, the Korean people shared a pure, unique bloodline—this belief went far beyond nationalism.
Ma-ri wasn't home even after the South Korean team beat Portugal and cemented its ascent to the top of Group 1. The two friends switched to hard liquor and drank some more. Jong-hun, trying to sound casual but revealing a hidden desperation, blurted: "Do you dream at night? What kind of dreams do you have?"
Ki-yong doesn't remember what he replied. But he does remember being cautious, on guard, knowing it was a dangerous question.
But where did Jong-hun go? Ki-yong tosses his coffee cup in the trash can and starts down the stairs of the Nagwon Arcade.
KO SONG-UK PLUCKS HIS copy of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China from his bag and lays it on the table. He thinks the cover of the book, which faintly depicts Mao's chubby face by a convergence of a million little dots on a red background, looks good against the white tablecloth. He leafs through the book to the page he was reading on the subway, the scene where Snow, who followed Mao and the Red Army as he covered the Long March, attended the Red Theater in Pao An. Snow described several one-acts about the resistance against Japan but the part that grabbed Song-uk's attention was something called the Dance of the Red Machines. "By sound and gesture, by an interplay and interlocking of arms, legs, and heads, the little dancers ingeniously imitated the thrust and drive of pistons, the turn of cogs and wheels, the hum of dynamos—and visions of a machine-age China of the future," Snow wrote in 1938. Young dancers miming machines—Song-uk imagines it to be quite a powerful image, and wishes he could have seen it in person.
Song-uk likes the vibe of communism, revolution, the color red, and machinery. These four things go well together. Mao's and Stalin's ideologies seem cooler than Bakunin's anarchism. Song-uk feels mildly turned on when he watches a proud parade of endless gray uniforms marching across a vast square like Star Wars clones, flanked by grand architecture, amid the rippling red flags, like a well-oiled, fast-spinning machine—error-free. It's similar to having a fetish for and collecting Third Reich SS uniforms. But he doesn't really want to march across a square with the sun blazing down on him, raising his straightened legs high. He just likes watching the footage on cable documentary channels. It's like discovering 1970s art rock bands that nobody knows about. If he talks about Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, everyone becomes quiet, as if they don't know what to say in response. Song-uk mistakes this silence as awe for his esoteric taste. This is understandable; he is, after all, only twenty years old.
When he glances up, Ma-ri is standing by the table. He lets his eyes linger over her voluptuous chest. He grins at her in greeting. She sits down across from him.
"Have you been waiting long?" Ma-ri asks, putting her purse down.
Song-uk whispers, "You have beautiful breasts."
"Oh, come on," Ma-ri says, narrowing her eyes, but she doesn't seem displeased.
"Still have the cast, huh?"
"Yeah, they're taking it off this weekend."
"It's gotta be so annoying."
"Yeah, it's so itchy!" Ma-ri acts babyish despite herself.
The waitress, wearing a white apron, comes over with the menus. Ma-ri glances through it, then pushes it to the side and looks at Song-uk's copy of Red Star Over China sitting on the table.
"Red Star Over China?"
"You know this book?" Song-uk asks, surprised.
Ma-ri wonders what she should say. I know you think I'm a middle-aged woman, but at one point I used to pass a human wall of cops on my way to school, scared, with that book in my bag. And at that time I never even dreamed that this book could be left out in the open at an Italian restaurant one day. But of course Ma-ri doesn't say this. She regrets even acknowledging knowing what it is. But it's too late.
"Isn't it about Mo Taek-dong's Long March?"
"You have to call him Mao Tse-tung these days, the Chinese way."
"Same thing."
"You must read a lot."
Ma-ri smiles. "I used to. Not anymore. What are you getting?"
"I'm going to have the seafood risotto. What about you?"
"I don't know. Um ... I ... Oh, this one, the tomato and mozzarella salad."
"You don't want anything else?"
"No, I'm not that hungry." Ma-ri turns her head, and the waitress catches her eye and comes over. She takes out her notepad. It doesn't escape Ma-ri's attention that the waitress is chilly toward her but smiles warmly at Song-uk.
"Can we get a seafood risotto and a tomato and mozzarella salad?" Song-uk asks.
Ma-ri waves Song-uk off. "No, actually, I'll have spaghetti vongole."
"You changed your mind?" Song-uk asks.
The waitress crosses out what she wrote and scribbles the new order with a cool expression.
Ma-ri addresses the waitress. "Hold on, please."
"Yes?"
"I'll just have the first thing I ordered."
"The first thing?" The waitress sounds annoyed.
"The tomato and mozzarella salad."
The waitress jots it down and asks, as if by rote: "Would you like anything else?"
"Want a Coke?" Ma-ri asks Song-uk. He nods.
"A Coke and some warm water, please," Ma-ri requests.
The waitress nods and leaves their table.
"She smiled at you," Ma-ri says, glancing back at the waitress.
Song-uk laughs good-naturedly. "What, are you jealous?"
"I wonder what she thinks we are?"
"I thought we said we wouldn't talk about things like that. I don't like chicks like her; she has no taste or class."
"You don't prefer girls your own age?"
"Nah. Why do you let our age difference bother you so much? I'm not your average guy."
Ma-ri feels outdated, like a record player or an ABBA LP. This sort of affair would be impossible were it not for a twenty-year-old law student's not-so-average tastes.
"Have you thought about it?" Song-uk asks.
"About what?"
"The thing I asked you about before," he says innocently, like a little boy asking for a cookie.
Ma-ri laughs awkwardly. She can't get angry at Song-uk, but she can't pretend that everything is fine. "I don't think so."
"It's really not that complicated. Think about it really simply."
"All I need is you." Ma-ri completely believes in what she's saying as soon as the words leave her mouth.
But the young man sitting across from her isn't interested in her conviction. "You're already wet, right?" Song-uk's foot starts pushing its way under Ma-ri's skirt. He slides his tongue out mischievously.
Ma-ri closes her eyes. "Stop. I'm not going to change my mind just because you do this."
Song-uk's foot moves away, his face sullen. "You're acting like my mom!"
"What?" Ma-ri can't speak. She feels as if dry cotton is being shoved down her throat. She calms herself and says, slowly: "Are you really going to be like this?"
"We love each other. Why can't we do this?"
"Love is supposed to be exclusive. I love you and you love me. If I love you and love someone else, that's breaking the rules."
"If you loved me you would do what I wanted." Song-uk presses his lips together stubbornly and glares at her.
"And what if I don't?"
"Then you don't love me," Song-uk says forcefully.
"You ... really ... think ... so?" Ma-ri shapes her mouth around the words; uttering them pains her. Her words float toward Song-uk but fall limply to the floor—he is a fortress.
"Yes."
"So if I don't do what you want, you're going to leave me?" Ma-ri asks, but she is retreating, bit by bit, and he knows this, too. He pursues relentlessly.
"If there's something I want to do I have to do it," Song-uk says, then stops talking, obstinate.
I suppose you can say something like that if you grow up hearing what a gifted child you are, study at the best undergraduate law department in the nation, tutor high school kids for fun to buy yourself the newest tablet notebook, and hang out with friends who want to become judges, prosecutors, diplomats, or politicians. I'm sure if you say something like this, everyone usually feels guilty and says they're sorry and lets you do whatever you want. I'm different. I know what kind of person you are. I think you expect me to be maternal with you, but that's not part of the deal. I'm a woman, not your mother. Ma-ri drinks some water. The waitress comes over, puts down a Coke, and tops off her glass.
After she leaves, Song-uk whines like a child: "I won't ask you to do something like this again, really. Just this once. I can't sleep at night because I keep thinking about it. I can't study because I can't concentrate."
"You're so stubborn."
"No, Ma-ri, you're too old-fashioned. Why is everything else okay but not that? We're not even married."
"Aren't you worried that you might lose me?"
"Yeah, but I know that you'll be fine with it in the end."
Where does he get this confidence? She's starting to realize that it isn't going to be easy to make his desire wane.
"I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be back." Ma-ri takes her purse into the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror. Crow's-feet adorn her eyes and her hair is losing its luster. Through the door that is slightly ajar, she glimpses Song-uk's confident face. He's young, and he'll be young for a while. And I'm getting older. It's the bare truth. A kid on a student's budget, with bad fashion sense, is controlling a woman with money and a good job. Other than his youth, what does he have that I don't? She feels the way she does when she uses one of her credit cards, knowing full well that she's nearing the limit, hoping against her better judgment, telling the clerk, "This one will probably go through." She can sense defeat looming, but she doesn't want to acknowledge it just yet.
A woman enters the bathroom, taking a lighter out of her purse.
"Can I bum a cigarette?" Ma-ri asks.
The woman, whose hair is in a short, straight bob, hands her a Marlboro Light. The woman stands by the window, while Ma-ri smokes in front of the mirror. She feels calmer. Fine. I'll do it. He wants it so badly. I'll do it. But not too easily, no. I'm going to make him regret asking me to do that, make it so that he'll be too embarrassed to talk about it to his friends. No, what am I thinking? I can't do it. Of course I can't do it. No means no. Ma-ri takes one last drag, snuffs out the cigarette, and washes her hands.
She goes back to the table. The waitress is serving their food and doesn't move out of the way, although she knows Ma-ri is waiting to get past her. Ma-ri sits down after the waitress finally leaves. Song-uk frowns as he picks up his fork. "Did you smoke again?"
"Yeah, I was feeling nauseated. Does it smell really strong?"
"You promised you were going to quit."
"I did, but..."
"You know I hate it."
"Sorry, I'll really quit."
"Promise?"
"Yeah. Come on, eat." She cuts a small piece of tomato and cheese. "So," she says.
He looks up. "Yes?"
"Why do you hate it when women smoke? I'm curious."
"I don't mind women smoking in general. I just don't want my woman to smoke."
"Why not?"
"What?" Song-uk, unable to answer this unexpected question, sinks deep into thought. Why doesn't he like for his woman to smoke? It's an interesting question. Sometimes he thinks the girls who smoke on the benches in front of school look cool. He likes the way women wearing evening gowns in films noirs smoke long, thin cigarettes. So why does it bother him when Ma-ri smokes? "I don't know. I just thought of this, but maybe it's that I don't like the expression a woman makes when she smokes."
"What about it?"
"It's like she's complacent or something, when she's leisurely blowing smoke. It makes me feel like they're pushing me, or guys like me, away. You know what I mean?"
"No, not really."
"Um, well, in high school, the girls would always be talking and giggling in groups. Guys feel uncomfortable when that happens. It's like they're laughing at us. They're definitely laughing, as if to say, 'Look, we don't need you, you guys are stupid. You're always checking us out, even though you pretend that you're not.' You know, something like that. And that's what it's like with smoking. They're always closing their eyes to better enjoy it. When they do that I feel small."
"You're jealous."
"Yeah, I think so. I think women really understand pleasure." He lowers his voice. "Like, you come so many times. A guy comes once and that's it. And we don't scream or faint when we're coming. Sometimes I wish I were a woman."
Hearing those words, a switch somewhere inside her flicks on, unleashing an intense surge of lust. She wants to leave right now and roll around naked on a white-sheeted bed. She wants to practically beg: I won't smoke anymore. I'll do whatever you want. Just get up and let's go to the nearest hotel right now. Suddenly, the kid sitting across from her looks like a powerful sultan.
"Am I boring you?" Song-uk asks.
"No, it's interesting. I think that makes sense."
"There's a book called War and Violence, and it says that soldiers rape and kill women when they're at war because they want to get back at them for having been oppressed by them. During peacetime women ignore soldiers, snickering at them when they walk by and refusing to have anything to do with them."
"You think so too? You think women ignore you?"
"Well, not really, but I feel like sometimes they're teasing me."
"When?"
"You do it too, Ma-ri."
"Me?"
"Like now, when you know how much I want it and all you do is tease me for months."
"But..."
"Don't make excuses, you know it's true."
"I still have a cast," she says, her tone already apologetic.
"I like it better with the cast. It's sexier. When will I ever be able to do it with a woman in a cast?"
His seafood risotto is getting cold. She keeps thinking that his food shouldn't get any colder, not food that will go into her young lover's mouth. She looks anxiously at the risotto. Her fingertips are trembling, and a faint shudder of disgust shoots up from her shoulders to her chin.
She blurts out, "Fine."
"What?"
She cuts the remaining mozzarella in half. "I'll do it."
"Do what?" he teases.
"Forget it then." She watches as his mouth stretches into a grin.
"Really?" He's so thrilled, truly, with all his heart. His eyes sparkle.
Forgetting for an instant exactly what is making him so happy, she is simply happy that she can make him that elated.
"Thank you, thank you," he says.
She slides another piece of cold cheese onto her tongue. She can't taste anything. "But I don't want it to be with someone you don't know. I want it to be someone you know well, someone who can keep it a secret."
"Okay, I know someone who's perfect for this. He's in my class in school. He's one of my best friends from childhood. He even passed the first round of the bar exam, and basically he's an awesome guy."
"So passing the first round of the bar exam makes him awesome?"
"Well, that's not what I meant. I mean..."
She holds up her hand. "Stop, I don't have to know everything. It's fine if you're really that close."
"How's tonight?"
"Isn't that too soon?"
"Too soon? I've been waiting for months!"
She's actually relieved. She can't believe she refused for so long, when he's this giddy. She feels a little guilty. "You're really excited about this, aren't you?"
"I'm so proud of you is all. How about seven?"
"Okay."
"Dinner's on me."
"It's fine. You're a student, I know you have a tight budget. It will be my treat," Ma-ri offers.
"Are we going to go somewhere good?"
"What do you want to eat?"
"He likes barbecued pork belly. What about that restaurant with the wine-marinated pork belly?"
"Sure, I'll see you there."
Trembling slightly from all the excitement, Song-uk shovels the remaining seafood risotto into his mouth, checking his phone as he eats. When it buzzes with the arrival of a new text, he switches his fork over to his left hand and starts typing with his right thumb. She figures he must be texting his law school friend. What is he writing? Is he already telling him about her? She gulps down the lukewarm water. The waitress comes by and fills her empty glass. She feels deserted, like she's abandoned in a vast open space, even though she's sitting in the middle of a bustling restaurant. She takes out her cell phone. There are two texts, one from Ki-yong.
—Might be late tonight. She wonders what's come up. The next text is from Hyon-mi.
—B-day party after school. Will eat dinner there. Don't worry.
She feels unsettled that nobody will be home for dinner. It's as if her family is conspiring to push her toward Song-uk. She sends a message to Hyon-mi that she will be late, too, but just types "OK" to Ki-yong. When she glances up, she catches Song-uk looking at her. Thin veins are crisscrossing the whites of his eyes. For some reason she thinks of a lump of fish roe in a pot of overboiled stew.
HYON-MI CHECKS THE text message that has just arrived in her inbox. She returns her lunch tray to the front of the room and heads down to the snack bar with A-yong for some banana milk. Hyon-mi's addicted to banana milk; she craves it even after she drinks three or four cartons. Milk in hand, the girls walk toward the bench near the flower bed outside. A gaggle of girls pass by them, and Jin-guk appears close behind.
"Hey," A-yong calls.
Jin-guk only notices them then.
"Hi," A-yong says again.
"Hi," Jin-guk replies, blushing slightly. A couple of boys passing by glance at them.
"So who's coming later?" A-yong asks.
Jin-guk looks around. "You guys and two of my friends."
Hyon-mi interjects: "Do we know these guys?"
"No, probably not."
"Oh, they don't go here?"
"No, they don't go to school."
"They don't go to school?" A-yong asks, surprised.
"Yeah, why, does that matter?" Jin-guk's expression reveals that he was expecting such a reaction. "But they're not the kind of guys you think they are."
"Oh, so what kind of guys do we think they are?"
"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Jin-guk retorts.
Hyon-mi and A-yong exchange glances.
Jin-guk, fidgeting uncomfortably, scratches his head and adds, "But I hope you do come."
Hyon-mi and A-yong look unconvinced. A-yong speaks for them both: "Well, we'll think about it."
Jin-guk's cheeks grow redder. "Okay, text me later."
"Have fun, even if we don't come."
"Aw, no, you guys really should come," Jin-guk tries once more, then leaves for the snack bar.
Hyon-mi tosses the empty banana milk carton into the trash can. They trip along the flower bed toward the flagpole. A group of boys, squeezing in a game of basketball during the lunch hour, run around with their hands outstretched, like apes.
"Jin-guk's kinda weird, huh?" A-yong comments.
Hyon-mi nods. "Yeah, don't you think his friends would be weird too?"
"Yeah, but I like that."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't like the kids at our school." A shadow falls across A-yong's features.
Hyon-mi squeezes her friend's hand. They burst into giggles and break into a run. They stop abruptly, breathing hard.
"My mom's working late today," Hyon-mi remembers.
"Yeah?" A-yong welcomes this piece of news. "Then we can go home a little late."
"What about your cram school?"
"Whatever, it's just one day. I wish I didn't have to go, like you."
"I wish I could go, but my stepmother won't give me the money."
A-yong laughs and playfully punches her on the shoulder. Hyon-mi yelps an exaggerated "Hey!" and bolts into the building, A-yong on her heels. The music indicating the end of lunch follows their footsteps and echoes through the campus.