Your Republic Is Calling You

by Young-Ha Kim

  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?" M
a-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.