ALL THE CARS entering the apartment complex stop at the security booth. When a resident's car affixed with an electronic tag approaches, the gate goes up automatically. But if it's a visitor's car or a taxi, they have to receive permission from the security guard before going in. Ki-yong sits in the shadows behind the security booth, in the nook where residents stack Styrofoam boxes for recycling. It's dark enough that the guard, who just finished the rounds, can't see him. The security booth's bright lights make the corner look even darker than it really is. From there, Ki-yong is able to see the cars entering the complex without revealing himself.
Ma-ri hasn't come home yet. He is worried that someone might have taken her away. He hasn't been able to reach her all night. If someone got to her, it's probably the NIS. She might not have been that surprised to learn the truth about him. He imagines her expression as she says, "Oh, I see. I always thought there was something a little odd about him."
He shifts around. Behind him, he hears boxes falling over. He turns his head. A tan cat is hunched on some boxes, eyes glistening.
Ten minutes before ten, a taxi stops at the gate. Ki-yong recognizes Ma-ri sitting in the back seat. He almost missed her. Why did she take a cab, instead of her car? Ki-yong hesitates for a moment. If he pauses any longer, the cab will go straight into the complex. Thankfully, she's alone. He bolts toward the bright booth and jerks open the passenger door. She recoils, shocked.
"Ma-ri," he calls.
"What's going on?" asks the driver, turning around in surprise.
Ki-yong checks the fare on the meter and hands the driver fifteen thousand won. "Keep the change," he tells him, and pulls Ma-ri's wrist. "Get out for a second. I have to talk to you."
"Can't we talk about it at home?" she protests.
"It's important. Why would I do this if we could? Please get out," Ki-yong pleads.
"No, I'm tired."
"Look, have you ever seen me do something like this?"
"No, what's going on? You're scaring me. I want to go home, I really am tired."
"Please, Ma-ri."
The driver stops the meter. Behind them another car pulls up, waiting for them to move. Having no choice in the matter, Ma-ri is led out of the car unwillingly, as if she is a stubborn radish he plucks from the ground.
Ki-yong and Ma-ri pass the dry fountain and go toward the bench under the wisteria vines, where it's dark. It's cold. Ma-ri sits down, then gets up. Finally, she slowly sits back down again.
"Ma-ri," Ki-yong says.
"What?"
He hesitates. "Do you know which one word you say to me most often?"
"What?"
"'What.' You always ask 'what.' Even when I just call your name, you say 'what.' Isn't that right?"
"Did you just drag me out of the cab to pick a fight? What the hell is wrong with men? Why do they think they can do whatever they want? Do you think I'm some toy?" Ma-ri's voice gets louder.
"Fine, fine. I'm not about to ask you to change the way you speak to me."
"What do you want?"
"I was going to do it over the phone but I couldn't reach you."
She takes out her phone and opens it. The blue light shines on her chin and bridge of her nose.
"You're not in my missed calls list. When did you call?"
"I called a couple of times. I got a new phone."
"Why didn't you text me?"
"It wasn't the kind of thing I could tell you by text."
Ma-ri is quiet.
"Did anything out of the ordinary happen today?" Ki-yong asks.
Thousands of images spiral in Ma-ri's head—yelling at the driver of the SUV, fighting with the cop, lying tangled with the two guys. The montage sparks several emotions, exploding in her brain like fireworks. What is the "anything out of the ordinary" he's referring to? How can he possibly know everything that happened to her today? Does he really know? Her heart pounds. This is why he has accosted her like this, she thinks, instead of confronting her at home in front of Hyon-mi. But then it must definitely be about the Motel Bohemian. But how did he already know about this? Did he get a private investigator to follow her?
"No, what do you mean?" she says cagily, on edge.
"Really, nothing happened?"
"I'm telling you, no."
"Then where are you coming from right now?"
"I had dinner with my coworkers. Why are you interrogating me? Are you accusing me of something? Did you do something? What's going on?"
"You didn't tell me you were having dinner with people from work," Ki-yong points out.
"You left before I had a chance to tell you," Ma-ri retorts. She raises her right sleeve, inviting him to sniff it. He gets a faint whiff of cooked protein and fat. Ma-ri regrets spraying herself with the deodorizer earlier.
"I have to tell you something," Ki-yong says again.
"Can't you tell me at home?"
"Please, please just listen to me."
She nods reluctantly. Heavy fatigue washes over her, but she struggles to keep her eyes open and look at her husband. There's something about him that makes her uneasy, something unfamiliar. "Okay, go ahead."
"If nothing's happened yet, we might get lucky. We might have nothing to worry about. But I doubt that's the case. We're definitely going to go through something. But before that happens, I have to—I mean, you—you have to hear it from me not from someone else—well, I think it's better if you hear it from me."
Until that moment, Ma-ri was still under the magnetic power of sex. But now she senses something in Ki-yong's demeanor, something she has never witnessed in fifteen years of marriage. She understands he's about to reveal a secret that will neutralize her affair, right here in the dark under the wisteria vines. Even though she knows it is useless, that she will be told soon enough, she starts guessing his secret in her head. Did he cheat on her? It couldn't be any old affair, from the way he's talking, so maybe he slept with her best friend, or with someone she's very close to? Did something happen at work? Was he involved in a hit-and-run? No, has the hit-and-run he committed years ago been revealed? Her guesses jump from one to another speedily, but nothing seems quite right.
"Don't be surprised, okay? First of all, I wasn't born in 1967."
Ma-ri always thought he looked old for his age. "So your birth certificate's wrong?" she asks.
"I suppose you could say that. Anyway, I was born in 1963. And my name isn't Kim Ki-yong." Ki-yong is hurrying through the facts, as if he's decided to reveal all of his secrets at once. "My real name is Kim Song-hun. I was born in Pyongyang and came to Seoul in 1984. I got into college, and you know everything from then."
She smirks. This isn't the reaction Ki-yong expected.
"I don't believe it. It's all lies," she says.
"No, it's all true."
"Can't be. No way. Don't worry, I'm not in shock or anything. I just don't think any of that's possible."
A dump truck clanks by on the road beyond the apartment complex, thumping over a speed bump.
"It is possible," Ki-yong insists.
"No, no way." She tries to put conviction behind her words, but her voice is shaking.
"Why not?"
"There's no way I would have been in the dark for so long. I'm your wife, and you know how perceptive I am!"
Ki-yong once heard that all the famous spies in history were failed spies. The best of the best were never discovered, so they retired quietly and died anonymously, having enjoyed their retirement. Failed spies became known because they couldn't keep their secret anymore and had to confide in someone, or leaked their identities by not being very careful, or were seduced by money or women. These men became famous for their lack of success. On the other hand, some spies are like decades-long employees of big Japanese conglomerates, guaranteed employment for life. They don't stand out, they work without drawing attention to themselves, and they don't leak company secrets. To compensate them for their discretion, they are given good retirement and pension plans, and are allowed to enjoy their old age in peace. They are not privy to top-priority information that can be sold, so they aren't ever tempted. You can even say there's no such thing as a completely incorruptible human; anyone who hasn't gone astray just hasn't been seduced by something that can win him over.
Ki-yong has now become a failed spy. All that's left is his quiet removal from this world. One day has changed everything. Nothing has changed in the world; he's the only thing that has changed. For the past twenty years he hasn't succumbed to temptation—or maybe he's just never faced a truly tempting alternative—and wasn't in possession of interesting information that would be in high demand, and he followed all the orders sent down from the North. But his life has veered from its comfortable path and is careening into the unknown. Whether you're a spy or something else, it's deflating to be a failure. He looks at his wife sitting next to him, now the wife of a failure.
Ma-ri asks, her voice trembling and low, "Are you ... really a spy?"
He doesn't deny or concede the fact. They remain in silence. A black plastic bag floats in the air, past the flower garden. The bag twirls at the edge of the road and drifts back up into the air.
"What's really going on? Are you seeing someone? Is the company bankrupt? Do you want a divorce? Is that what it is? What's going on? Tell me. I'm having a hard time believing what you just told me, so help me understand," Ma-ri insists.
He takes out the fake passport from the suitcase and hands it to her, without a word. She reads it under the faint light, taking in the fake name printed under his picture. "Unbelievable," she says in a low voice, as if uttering a Buddhist chant. She drops the passport on the ground. She's dizzy. She isn't sure if it's because of her fatigue or because of this sudden disclosure. He picks up the passport.
"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before," Ki-yong explains.
She doesn't say anything.
"Ma-ri," Ki-yong says.
She still doesn't say anything. They sit there, side by side, without saying a word for a while. The black plastic bag reappears, dragged back by a funnel of wind, dizzily whirls around, then disappears again.
Ma-ri buries her face in her hands. She looks up at him. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"I got an order this morning."
"What order?"
Ma-ri is shocked into silence again.
"I don't want to go," he says, his voice shaking slightly.
She opens her arms. He bends over and buries his face in her embrace, holding on to her. She smells like barbecued pork belly, disinfectant, and cigarettes.
"At first I lied to you," Ki-yong continues. "But you have to understand that the real me is the one you've known since college. I lost touch with the North and I worked hard to survive and I tried my best to live here, without anyone to lean on. I've even forgotten that I'm originally from up there."
"What happens if you refuse?" Ma-ri asks.
"They'll know for sure that I've betrayed them."
He feels her nod.
"I still can't forgive you," Ma-ri declares.
He raises his head from her chest. "I'm sorry I lied to you."
"That's not why I can't forgive you," Ma-ri explains. "Listen. People make all sorts of choices in life. It's the same with me, too. You recognize several junctures where you're forced to make a choice. I've become myself today because of those choices. Do you know what I mean? That's why people shouldn't travel through time. If we could go back and change even the most trivial thing, this world, this reality that we see, none of it would exist. So what I'm trying to say is—basically, you asshole, if I hadn't met you fifteen years ago, or even if I'd met you but known the truth, I would have made a different choice. I would have gone on to make another choice based on that, and I might be living a completely different life right now. Even this morning, I didn't regret anything in my life because it was all a product of my choices; I knew I had created my own life. Of course, I sometimes chose wrong or made mistakes, but I was fine with that. I'm most terrified of my own foolishness. I was stupid before and today—yeah, even today. Now I get it, my stupidity is a chronic illness. I'm unchangeable. Wait," she says, when Ki-yong tries to soothe her, "I'm not done yet.
"I know what you're thinking, what you want to tell me. I'm not crying. I don't have the right to do that. I'm pathetic. I'm a pathetic piece of shit. I shouldn't be here. I'm stupid, but I didn't even know it. I thought I had it all. I always thought it was my fault that you didn't open up to me, so I tried really hard. I did, I really did. But at some point I realized that there was a limit to that kind of effort, so I gave up. But that's not where it ends, because it wasn't enough to just give up on you or communicate with you. During all of this, I was closed off to other people because I was hurt, because I couldn't even communicate with the person I was closest to. Do you understand what that did to my self-confidence? I shrank into myself and avoided people and was cowed, and that's how I spent my twenties. Oh, you really are an asshole. You knew what you were doing all along, and you were never on my side even when you knew I was having a hard time with everything. You didn't even think to comfort me. I always thought that was just the way you were, so I'd tell myself, Okay, I'm going to try to understand, because that's what he's like—there was no way I could change you. But if I had been able to build a really intimate relationship with you, if I had succeeded, I might have become a different person. Don't you think so?
"What really pisses me off right now is that you knew how much pain I was in, but you were comparing it with your own and dismissing mine. Isn't that what went on in your mind? Whenever I complained that I was having such a hard time, you must have jeered at me secretly, thinking, That's nothing. I'm a spy, I have a secret I can't tell a single soul. What Ma-ri is going through is nothing compared to that kind of pain. Isn't that what you thought? I get it now. You have that damn superiority about pain—you arrogantly think your pain is the absolute worst, and you judge others' pain against it. You're an egotist, a self-righteous pig. An egotist thinks he's the only one who's going through difficult times, laughing at other people's hardships, and believes that because of his unique pain, he can do whatever he wants. You always have that expression on your face. You walk around like life's beaten you, like you're depressed, but really, you're looking down at everything and everyone, superior and arrogant. Sure, I knew that about you, but I was compassionate. I thought it was understandable that you ended up like that, because you were an orphan, because you had to raise yourself. I figured I just didn't know what it was like for you because I had a fairly easy life.
"Shit, I really was stupid, really fucking stupid. I can't even think of another word to describe myself. How can you be so calm right now, after all of this? Did I ask you to tell me everything? No! What about me? What's going to happen to me? I'm practically forty and I can't do anything with my life at this point. I always thought this was the best I could do, and so I was fine with having less, with achieving less, but now you're telling me I could have been living a much better life? That all of this is because of your deception? What the hell am I supposed to do? Say something."
Ki-yong just listens quietly.
She breathes in deeply. She continues her rant. "I always thought people got upset when someone betrayed them because they were angry at being lied to, at having the wool pulled over their eyes. But now I see it isn't true. Betrayal dismantles your confidence. That's why it's so upsetting. Now I can't believe in anything. I can't tell if I enjoyed my life until now, or if I'm doing the right thing, or what. How can someone this stupid do anything well? How can I do anything well in the future? I'm probably just going to get used by everyone. Don't you think so?"
"Calm down," Ki-yong says.
"Just stop acting so cool and collected. This really isn't the time," she snaps.
"Okay, I'm sorry."
She sighs loudly, and he rubs his face with his hands. His hands feel rough against his skin.
Ma-ri opens her mouth again, but she sounds calmer this time. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," Ki-yong confesses.
"You must have thought of this possibility during the fifteen years you were lying to me," she says.
"I didn't think anything one way or another. I never actually thought this day would come."
"Are you going to go back?"
Ki-yong remains silent.
She shakes her head slowly. "No, if you were going back you wouldn't have waited for me like this. You would have just gone back without saying anything to me. Right?"
"Yeah." It's only then that he realizes why he waited to accost her like that.
"You don't want to go, do you? You think of Seoul as your home, since you've lived here for twenty years, right? Does this mean you have to turn yourself in?"
"Yeah."
She sniffles. "Don't take this the wrong way. I'm calm now, okay? I understand what you told me, and I know why you did all of that to me. I mean, you were young, too. You couldn't have said no when the higher-ups told you what to do."
"The Party didn't order me to marry you. I chose you," Ki-yong emphasizes.
"Well, you must have had their permission," Ma-ri points out.
He nods.
Ma-ri probes deeper. "It's because I was in the Juche Ideology faction, right? You probably thought, If I play this correctly, I might even be able to bring her over to our side."
"That might have been what I was thinking," Ki-yong concedes.
"I just want you to know one thing," Ma-ri says. "I'm saying this from a really calm place now. I'm rational again. I'm not angry and I'm not looking at this pessimistically. This sniffling is from crying earlier on. Right now I'm totally fine, okay?"
"Yeah, it seems like you are."
"Whenever I'm in a situation where I don't know what to do, I wonder what my father would have done. He always knew what to do in any given situation. Maybe because of his animalistic instinct, which helped him survive in that kind of world."
"He did always know what was going on," Ki-yong says, remembering his father-in-law, who never warmed to him. Ki-yong tried and tried to get on his good side, but the elderly liquor wholesaler seemed to know something about Ki-yong that nobody else could sense. He died without ever approving of him. He was unhappy with his daughter's decision to marry him, and even after the wedding there wasn't much chance for Ki-yong to get close to him. Ma-ri knew that, too, so she didn't bring up her father often with Ki-yong.
She gets up and throws away the tissues she used to mop up her tears. She sits back down. "Go back."
"What?" Ki-yong can't believe his ears.
"Go back. That's what I want. I'm sorry, but I like my life as it is. If you don't go back, they might send someone to take care of you."
"It's not like I'm a close relative of Kim Jong Il," he protests. "I'm not important enough to have my own assassin sent from the North."
"So then why are you being recalled?"
"I have no idea. I'm sure someone's just come across my file."
She scratches her cast. "Ugh, it's so itchy it's driving me crazy. Unless you go back, you'll never know why they're ordering you to return, right?"
He nods.
"And, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to change my name and live as a totally different person in a strange neighborhood."
"What are you talking about?"
"If you give yourself up, wouldn't the government move us somewhere else? What about Hyon-mi? Have you even thought about what's best for her? She's just started to enjoy school after quitting Go. What are we going to tell her if we have to move? I want to keep her safe. Think about it. If you go, we're all fine. They're going to relax and they might even send you back for some other mission. Then you can pop back in our lives as if you were abroad on business. If you do that, they're not going to send down an assassination team, and we don't have to be in hiding, living under assumed identities in some sleepy regional city somewhere. Don't you read the paper? All the fathers in the world gladly sacrifice everything for their families. You hear about all those Korean fathers working hard, making money, while they send their families abroad for the kids' education. They eat ramen and wire all their money to the kids. It's not even going to be that bad for you—you're from there! Your parents are still up there, aren't they?"
"My father's still there."
"And you have friends, right? Why do we have to be afraid for our lives because of your goddamn situation? We shouldn't have to change our names and address for that. I really had a difficult time making my way in the world, you know. Do you remember when I tried to find a job after having Hyon-mi? I got rejected from every job I applied to and I had to start from the bottom from managing insurance policies bought with pennies saved by housewives, and now I've worked my way up almost to where I want to be. I'm nearly there. But you just want to—"
"Okay, okay. I get it," he acquiesces, dejected.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? But you have to think about your daughter. Think about her future, about what she'll have to go through, okay?"
"Okay. But I have to say I thought you'd tell me to stay, even if you were just being polite, even just once."
Ma-ri puts her hand over Ki-yong's freezing hand.
"I'm sorry, but this is what it means to be a mother. I'm not just a woman, I'm a mother first."
"Yeah, that's true," he says, nodding. "But I'm not going back."
She drops his hand, stunned. "What? Are you insane?"
"I thought about a lot of things today, wandering the streets. I really did. I even went to see a fortune-teller. You know I don't believe in that stuff. I'm scared. It will have changed a lot back there. It's going to be different. My father will be there, but he will be old, and if I go back, people who don't even know why I was sent down in the first place are going to decide my fate. Even if I live, I might spend the rest of my life in a dark underground tunnel, training young agents about to be sent to Seoul. It's really a terrifying idea. You don't know what it's like, to live your entire life on a set that looks exactly like Seoul. I've seen it. And the thing is, that may be one of the better scenarios. Something worse could happen to me. All I'm asking is for you to help me. We've been married for fifteen years no matter what happens, and it's not like we can turn back time," Ki-yong pleads.
"No, I can't help you, Ki-yong. You can hate me for it, but you have to go. That's what's going to happen. Think about it rationally, Ki-yong. If you really didn't do anything wrong, like you're telling me, there's no reason for the Party to punish you."
"You're really cruel," Ki-yong shoots back.
"I'd really love it if I could tell you all sorts of nice things, but we don't have the time," Ma-ri snaps.
"Is this payback for me lying to you?"
"No, I'm just thinking about the best solution for everyone. Don't get so upset. We had fifteen good years. And I know you weren't one hundred percent happy with me; I'm not a perfect wife, and I'm not good at being supportive. Why are you balking at this when you can make a whole new life for yourself?" Ma-ri asks.
"Okay, I'm going to ask you one last time. Why can't you sacrifice just a little bit? Please? I'll make it up to you. After I give myself up to the authorities and all of that's done—well, I'm sure I'll have to go to prison for a few years. But after that, after I get out, I'll be the best husband, the best father," Ki-yong tries to convince her.
"No, I told you. That's not possible. Why are you making it so difficult?"
"Even if you don't like it, I have the right to live with you in that apartment," Ki-yong announces.
She exhales and throws down her ace. "Okay, I'll tell you why you can't do that. I'll tell you all about where I was and who I was with today. There's no way you can bear to live with me after you hear about it."
Ki-yong hears from Ma-ri, from Ma-ri's mouth, from Ma-ri's tongue and lips, in too much detail, about the young man who reveres Mao and Che Guevara, the stuttering Panda, the third guy who wasn't able to get into the room at the Motel Bohemian. He has to hear it. But as he hears it, he feels like he's listening to a twisted version of a Brothers Grimm fairytale. It's unreal and fantastical. It sounds like a story from one of Freud's patients. He's hearing this story from Ma-ri, but he can't believe that it's something she's experienced. A woman meets a boy and falls for him. She's then kidnapped, locked up in a tall tower, and waits to be rescued. But the situation becomes worse and worse...
He asks, despondently, "You think I'm going to believe that?"
"It's up to you whether you believe it or not. But right now, I'm not the same woman as the one you woke up next to this morning. I've learned that in life, there's a moment where you have to say no. This is precisely that moment."
"This is all very easy for you," Ki-yong says, dejected.
"It's not," Ma-ri says.
He gathers his thoughts. Even if everything Ma-ri told him is a lie, even if she just made it all up to hurt him, there's one thing he can't ignore—she doesn't want to be with him anymore. That much is true.
"Fine," Ki-yong says.
Ma-ri looks into his eyes.
"I'll go. I'll go back," Ki-yong says glumly.
"Good, I'm glad you made the right decision. I know it's hard for you. But you should go. That's the only decision that makes sense."
"What?"
"I'm taking Hyon-mi."
"What?" Ma-ri bolts up from the bench. From far away, a dog barks incessantly. "Are you crazy?"
"No."
"You can't take her to that hellhole!"
"You know, people live there, too," Ki-yong points out.
"People are starving up there! They don't even have gruel to eat. You know all of this better than I do."
"No, it's not that bad. It's just that there isn't any fast food or computer games. Oh, and none of this pressure to succeed in school, the tutoring, the grueling college entrance system, the drugs, the underage sex."
"You can't take her."
"You used to believe that NK was the solution to all of our problems, too, once upon a time. Right? Don't you remember? You used to be so jealous of Lim Su-kyong, who got to go to Pyongyang."
Ma-ri tries to control her mounting panic. She bites off her words. "Back then. I was young. Now, the political landscape is different."
"Fine, let's assume you're right. Let's say that the North is worse off than it was before. But I think we need to give Hyon-mi the chance to decide. I'm not talking about choosing an ideology; I'm talking about choosing a parent. She should get a say in who she wants to live with."
"Why does Hyon-mi have to be responsible for your mistakes?" Ma-ri seethes. "You're the one who hid your true identity and lied to us. Why does Hyon-mi have to make such a difficult decision?"
"This is a cheap shot, I guess, but you've brought it on yourself. You think you have the right to be a mother when you're out screwing twenty-year-olds, and a spy doesn't have the right to be a father? Do you think that makes any sense?" Ki-yong snarls, his voice rising.
"Oh, so now the gloves come off? Were you always this much of a coward, you asshole?" Ma-ri doesn't stand down.
"Why don't I have even the tiniest right to my own kid?"
Ma-ri takes out her cell. Her hand trembles. "I'm going to call the cops on you. I'm going to call 112 and report that you're a spy. I'm completely serious. Go away."
"You can't do it. Don't do it."
"There's no reason why I can't. After I call the cops and you go to prison, I'm going to file for a divorce, no, an annulment. Kim Ki-yong doesn't even exist, he never did, so I'm going to win hands down. I know I will. Don't come near me," Ma-ri warns. "Seriously, I'm going to scream."
She presses 1 twice, and glares at Ki-yong, her thumb on the 2. "I really don't want to have to do this," she says, her voice icy.
"Fine, fine. Okay. You win."
She moves her finger away from the keypad, whips around, and starts to walk away, but then stops and looks back. "Bye. Be careful." Her voice is small, trembling, barely reaching Ki-yong's ears.
He takes a deep breath. He says, quietly, "Go ahead, go inside. Hyon-mi's probably waiting for you."
She walks toward their apartment building. As she does, she realizes that the fatigue that was draped heavily around her shoulders earlier that evening has vanished. A new energy courses through her veins. She gets farther and farther away from Ki-yong and disappears into the darkness.
KI-YONG WATCHES HER stalk away. He sits back down on the bench. A strong feeling of dejection rips through him, shaking his body and spirit like a powerful tornado. All of the feelings he was suppressing throughout the day burst forth, as if a dam has caved in. He cries, silently. He silences his painful, visceral sobs by clamping his mouth shut. It's the first time he has cried since coming down south. He remembers being in the hospital when Hyon-mi was born. He thinks back to his wedding day, too. Both were oppressively hot days. Both times, he was on pins and needles, worried that someone would appear, reveal his true identity, and wrest his wife or child away from him. He suffered from nightmares for days prior to the wedding and the birth. Nightmares were like an old, loyal pet dog for Ki-yong. He couldn't get rid of them, but he couldn't keep them with him all the time. His dreams were filled with the vanishing faces of his wife and daughter. Sometimes the wedding guests turned and attacked him, like zombies. Once he dreamed that his newborn daughter bared her teeth at him, enraged. But at some point, his old pet dog nightmare went away. And he started to feel comfortable in his staid life. Like any middle-aged man, he could look back and think, Ah, those difficult, lonely younger days. But that nostalgia was merely a product of Ki-yong's delusion, his arrogance toward his fate.
He wipes his eyes, blows his nose, and clears his throat. He takes out his phone. He presses the numbers slowly, very slowly. The phone rings for a long time but nobody picks up. He sits there with the phone to his ear, patiently. Finally, she answers.
"Hello?"
"Soji?"
"Oh, Ki-yong. Where are you?"
"I'm just out."
"Are you okay?"
"You sound like you have a cold. It's cold outside, right?"
"Yeah, it's a little chilly."
There is a silence.
He swallows hard. "Soji," he starts.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"The thing you said back at the Westin Chosun—you still mean it?"
"Still mean what?"
"That you don't think you're going to be a teacher forever. Do you still mean it, that you want to leave for someplace like Hemingway or Joyce and write?"
She doesn't say anything for a long time.
He waits for her to answer, patiently. It feels like eons.
"Ki-yong, you've never seen my house, right?"
"No."
"When I got home—I left a huge mess trying to find your bag—I felt unsettled. So I cleaned my house, a large-scale cleaning, which I haven't done in a long time. In the middle of the night. But now that I did that, the house is too clean. It's an old house, although it's going to be redeveloped at some point."
"I see."
"Do you ever get the feeling that the ghosts in your house are welcoming you when you walk through the door? Even though nobody's here, when I walk in it feels like someone's talking to me."
"Yeah. I know what you're talking about." The wind grows chillier. He shivers. He wonders if your body temperature drops when you shed tears.
"The kids are amazing," Soji continues.
"What kids? Oh, your students?"
"Yeah, some of them have a real gift for language. When I'm teaching kids like that, I feel like I've achieved something great. Hyon-mi's one of those kids."
"But you're a writer first and foremost."
"I'm not sure if that's true, though. I've been satisfied a number of times as a teacher, but I've never been happy with myself or my work as an author. Doesn't that mean I can't call myself a writer?"
"Well, a teacher and a writer are pursuing different objectives."
"Exactly."
They share another lengthy silence.
"Ki-yong," Soji says, "you're really a great guy. I know that."
"Do you? Really? Then why don't I know it?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's just, well, I don't have any interest in knowing whether I'm a good guy or not."
"So?"
"I realized something today. I think I always believed that people were worried about very abstract things. Like life, fate, politics, that kind of thing. You know I like math," Ki-yong tries to explain.
"You always said that it was the purest abstract world."
"Exactly. Time flies so fast when I'm working on an equation. I always thought everyone had that side to them. But now, today, everyone's..."
"Everyone's what?" Soji asks.
"Everyone's just struggling to survive. They're doing everything they can to survive. Why was I the only one who didn't realize that?"
A few high school students coming home from cram school pass Ki-yong's bench. He pauses for a moment.
"Ki-yong, you know Henry David Thoreau, right? He said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Another bout of silence hangs in the air. The students' voices recede. Ki-yong's mouth is dry. It's unbelievable that this moment is so vivid, this very moment at which his life is coming to an end, as he's falling out of the sky without a parachute.
"I think..." He changes his mind. "Never mind."
She doesn't say anything.
"Take care. I just wanted to call before leaving."
"I know what you're thinking," Soji blurts.
"You do?" He laughs, then realizes that Soji would have heard him through the phone. She might think he's laughing at her. "I talked to Ma-ri just now. A minute ago."
"Oh..."
"I talked to Ma-ri..." He pauses, his emotions taking hold of him again.
Another short silence resonates in his ear. Soji doesn't ask what he and Ma-ri decided—her way of informing him what she decided to do, without uttering a word. He understands that she doesn't want to interfere in his life anymore, that she isn't going with him on such a dangerous excursion. He changes the subject. He has to grow up a little, be a little wiser, even if it's at the very end. "Never mind. I almost said something I shouldn't. Okay then, take care."
"Okay, I should go to bed anyway. Let's talk again tomorrow."
"I'm going to throw this phone away soon. I don't think we'll be able to talk for a while. But I know you'll write something great."
"Safe travels," Soji says.
He closes his phone, and notices that someone is standing next to him. Someone very familiar.
"Hello, sir, here you are. I've been looking for you."
HYON-MI PLAYS WITH the phone, huddled in her bed. The house is quiet. Only the cat is there, sleeping next to her peacefully. She stretches out and taps the cat's leg. The cat tucks her leg under her body, but doesn't bother to open her eyes. Hyon-mi pets the cat's other leg. She presses down on the cushiony pink pads of her feet, too. She starts to feel better. Hyon-mi decides she should call, and starts dialing.
"Hello? Hi, it's me. I'm home now ... Thanks, I had a lot of fun. Is Chol home now?...Yeah? I wish I got to meet him. I guess he got there right after I left, huh?...Oh, here, at home? Nobody's here yet. My parents are like, always late ... Oh me? I don't know, I'm just gonna watch some Go on TV ... No, it's so much fun!...What do you mean, I'm like an old lady? It's 'cause you don't know how to play. It's really a lot of fun, I'm totally not kidding ... A-yong? What about her? Oh, she had something to do today ... I don't know, why are you asking me?...Sorry, sorry, I'm not mad at you ... Yeah? So what did Chol say?...Really? That's hilarious ... Really? Oh my God, really?...Yeah ... Yeah, yeah ... Huh? What do you mean, before—before when? Oh, you mean what we did before? Oh whatever, I don't know. Well, how do you feel about it?...Huh? Just say it ... Well, I felt a little weird ... I don't know. Is Chol right there next to you? Isn't it weird talking about this stuff with him there?...Really? Still ... Children's Go? Yeah, I know how to play. It's hard if you play with people who are good ... Of course there are rankings ... Yeah, if you go online there's a ton of pros. It's different from Go but it's pretty much the same concept. It's basically who can see further ahead... My mom? Oh, she hurt her arm a while ago ... Yeah. Exactly. But she's still a good driver ... She lets me do basically whatever I want ... It's not that great, are you kidding? Oh, but my dad came to school today ... Yeah ... Yeah. But Soji went out to see him ... What? I'm good at Korean lit ... huh?...Soji? Oh, I guess she's around my dad's age?...What, an affair? No way. My dad's not the kind of person who would cheat like that. Hey, don't joke about stuff like that!...Okay. Yeah ... What's Chol doing?...Oh, okay. So he really likes to spend time by himself, huh. He doesn't get bored?...Yeah, I guess you're right. There's a ton of things these days you can do by yourself ... Oh, really? Oh wait, I think my mom's home. I gotta go. Bye, good night!"
Hyon-mi pads out to open the front door. She's right—it's her mother, her limp hair dangling against her cheeks. "You're not in bed yet?" Ma-ri asks, stroking her daughter's hair.
"No, it's still early!"
"How was your day?"
"Fine."
"Did you eat dinner?"
"Yeah, it was a friend's birthday today so I ate at the party."
She takes off her heels and puts them away. "Which friend?"
"Just a friend."
"Who?"
"Jin-guk. It's A-yong's friend."
"Oh, that boy who does ham radio?"
"Yeah."
Ma-ri takes off her clothes and throws them over a chair. She'll have to get them dry-cleaned tomorrow.
"Mom," Hyon-mi says.
"Yeah?" Ma-ri goes into the bathroom and turns on the water.
"Jin-guk lives in the same room as this kid named Chol."
"His older brother?"
"No, they're just friends."
"I guess it's a big room."
"No, it's just as big as mine. But the funnier thing is his parents don't know Chol's there."
Ma-ri rubs face wash over her face and rinses it off with one hand, which isn't easy. She pats her face dry with a towel. "Okay. Go to bed. You have school tomorrow," she says carelessly and drags herself into the bedroom. Her earlier invigoration is gone and the deadly fatigue has come over her again. She wants to lose consciousness, now.
"Mom, you know what?" Hyon-mi says, grabbing her sleeve.
Ma-ri cuts her off coldly. "Hyon-mi, Mom's really tired right now, okay? Let's talk tomorrow."
Hyon-mi storms into her room and slams the door. Ma-ri doesn't have any energy to deal with Hyon-mi. Still, she takes the time to shut all the windows tightly and to double-check that the latch to the front door is fastened. She draws the curtains and manages to crawl into bed. She tries to think about something but she's instantly sucked into sleep.
While her mother is wandering dizzily among various dreams, Hyon-mi thinks over the events of the day. Suddenly, as if cold water burst out of a showerhead, she understands something.
Chol doesn't exist.
He exists only in Jin-guk's head. Everything that doesn't make sense can be explained by this: Jin-guk's strange behavior and the tiny bedroom that couldn't possibly be shared by two boys. She closes her eyes. She thinks of Jin-guk, who is lying in the dark in his bed, chatting with an imaginary friend named Chol. Instead of being afraid, she feels sad for him, and she imagines holding him tightly. She decides that she will have to get rid of Chol, erase him from Jin-guk's imagination, and take his place. No, it won't be that hard to do that, she thinks, and pulls the blankets up to her chin.