Your Republic Is Calling You

by Young-Ha Kim

  Jin-guk knocks on the door.

  "Yeah?" Hyon-mi calls.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Are you mad at me?"

  "No, I'm coming out." She flushes. The water is sucked down to the bottom, free-falling into the depths of the plumbing system. She straightens her clothes, checks her face, and walks out. He's standing outside the door, looking guilty. His face is flushed. She reassures him as if she were his mother. "Jin-guk, I'm fine. It's okay. Let's go look at the pictures in the album."

  He follows her to the sofa without a word. They sit a bit further from each other than before and flip through the pictures together. He looks just like he used to as a baby. His one-hundredth-day commemorative picture shows him with his penis exposed, smiling. He looks surprised on his first birthday. He ages quickly in the picture album. He goes to kindergarten in white knee socks, then quickly becomes a Boy Scout in uniform. The little boy who rides on the carousel in his mother's arms turns into a student going to cram school, waving from the bus. She suddenly wonders what it must be like to be a mother. She wonders whether it will happen to her. She assumes it will be terrifying, but isn't that the same with kisses? Life is a continuous cycle of once-terrifying things becoming normal.

  NESTLED IN A dark corner of an Internet café, Ki-yong glances around. The room is filled with teens, smoking and immersed in StarCraft, Lineage, and CartRider, and unemployed men killing time. There are a couple of girls talking into webcams, earphones covering their ears. People are focused only on the monitor in front of them—nobody cares about anything else. He looks over at the monitor of a high school kid next to him, who's immersed in playing StarCraft. The war zone is a dry, barren land. The enemy rushes forward as bullets shower down, but no matter how many bullets they fire, Confederacy marines are falling fast. There is only one point to the game: survive. The marines in the bunker don't retreat even after it's taken, returning intense fire at the Zerglings who come at them, but the Zerglings are cruel and uncaring, tearing them to pieces. The adrenaline-pumped Zerglings, trampling the bunker, attack the command center, while the hydrolisk reinforcements go straight for the SCVs. Two broodlings burst out from a Firebat's body, and the queen, flying over, infests the command center with toxins right before it's destroyed, claiming it as her own. From the command center, the Zerg pumps infested Terrans and sends the walking suicide bomb toward the Terrans' siege tanks. The marines, who surrounded tanks on the hill in a last, protective stand, will have no chance against such force. The boy's nineteen-inch LCD screen flows with blood. The situation is dire. But from twenty inches away, the desperation of the game fails to be conveyed.

  Ki-yong opens the bag Soji returned to him and finds the passport. The front page of the passport indicates one Lee Man-hee, not Kim Ki-yong. He sticks his hand in the bag and takes out the English edition of the Old Testament. It's hefty. He opens it. The Colt is still there, in the nook he cut out five years ago to hide the gun. The bullet that burrowed into Jong Ji-hun's head burst from that gun. Ki-yong closes the book and puts it back in the bag. The bundle of one-hundred-dollar bills is still there too. If he remembers correctly, it totals thirty thousand dollars. With that much, he can survive in Manila for a while.

  With the bag resting in his lap, Ki-yong grabs the mouse. He opens a search window and types, "Discount airplane tickets." A long list of Internet travel sites comes up. He clicks on one. He chooses Manila as the destination, but then switches to Bangkok. Then he decides to continue on to Paris. Of course, he wouldn't really go all the way to Paris; he would get off in Bangkok and vanish. He types in the name Lee Man-hee and gets his reservation number. He writes down that number and the name of a customer service agent in his notebook. It's an e-ticket, so he can print it once he gets to the airport.

  Only after he finalizes the reservation and purchases the ticket does he notice a small warning at the bottom of the screen. It reminds travelers to check their passports' expiration date. He takes out his passport again, opening it to the front page. The expiration date passed ten months ago. He stares at the passport, now as valuable as a piece of toilet paper. He flips ahead to look at the back page, hoping beyond hope that he has an extension, but it has already reached the maximum number of extensions allowed. He slides it back in the bag. He takes out the prepaid cell phone he bought today. He can't remember his wife's cell number because he always uses speed dial. After concentrating for a long time, he finally remembers it. His fingers fumble, his heart races. He calls the wrong number twice. He breathes in deeply, and manages to press the correct eleven numbers.

  MOTEL BOHEMIAN

  8:00 P.M.

  MA-RI STOPS in her tracks and tries to open her purse. Since she can use only her right hand, she has a difficult time getting it to open. The zipper is stuck on something. Song-uk holds her purse for her. She pushes her hand in and pulls out her vibrating phone. She doesn't recognize the number. Song-uk and Panda stand with their backs to her, looking around, as if they are bodyguards. Ma-ri doesn't answer her phone and instead slips it back in her purse.

  "Who is it?"

  "I don't know. I've never seen the number before."

  She closes her bag with Song-uk's help and looks up. A small, upscale motel, built of black marble, stands in front of them.

  "This is the place I was talking about. I found it online," Song-uk explains, and heads up the stairs first. She looks behind her for a second, as if she wants someone to rescue her, but nobody is paying any attention to their little group. She feels like a college freshman again, limping along the streets of Apgujong-dong with a sprained ankle.

  The three go through the automatic doors, but there's nobody in the lobby. In its place there is a touchscreen about twenty-five inches wide. A sentence floats on the screen: "Welcome, please choose your room." Ma-ri presses "Mediterranean Theme." A picture of the Mediterranean room whooshes into view from the right. They look at the scrolling images of imitation limestone wallpaper, bright lights, and a whirlpool bathtub. The room looks nice and large, the photo probably taken with a wide-angle lens. She looks at the guys, wondering if this is what they want. They nod in excitement. They are impatient. She feels in charge, dominating them like a showgirl onstage. When it was just one guy persuading her to do this, she thought of it as if she were being dragged to the motel against her will, but it feels different when there are two.

  She presses "Confirm" and the screen orders, "Please swipe your card."

  Song-uk hurriedly takes out his wallet. "I'll do it."

  Ma-ri quietly stops him.

  He waves his credit card around, the one that was given to him by his architect father. "No, I'll pay for it."

  "No, no, let me."

  "Song-uk, you do it," Panda urges from behind.

  She announces, somewhat firmly, "If I don't pay I'm leaving."

  A hush descends over the boys as they step back. She gently swipes her card along the long black groove in front of the screen. The computer of the unmanned room-by-the-hour motel sends her information to the credit card company over the Internet. Visa checks her credit and returns the okay signal. Finally, she is given the go-ahead to have as much sex as she wants with these two young guys in the motel room. When the card goes through, the computer informs them of their room number. They head to the elevator without speaking. Ma-ri isn't worried about what is about to happen. She can't figure out why she insisted so adamantly that she would be the one to pay for the room. She could have let the guys pay for it, which would have been fair. Why didn't she let them?

  Her phone starts buzzing again. This time she's able to take it out more easily than before, but it's the same unknown number. Annoyed, she shakes her head and turns her phone off. A long time seems to pass before the power turns off. When the doors open, they enter the elevator. The inside of the elevator smells faintly rancid, but also like dried roses. The tiny elevator shoots up to the fifth floor so quickly that, when the doors open, she's worried that th
ey have opened so soon because of faulty wiring in the door mechanism.

  Their room is 503. The knob turns easily and the door opens. They go inside. She places her purse on the vanity and the boys toss their bags on the floor, marking their territory.

  "Go wash up," she tells the two guys, who are standing around awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

  "Okay," they say, and go into the bathroom together, at ease as if they were brothers. She can hear the water running, them snickering, something falling on the floor. She sits on the bed and looks around. She remembers stories about Nazi concentration camps, Buchenwald and Auschwitz. She read about them a long time ago, about how Jews stood in a line in front of the gas chambers. Jewish leaders pointed fingers at those who were not standing in line in an orderly fashion. "This is why we are called dirty Jews!" They took off their clothes neatly and put them in baskets inscribed with their names. If they bathed, were deloused, and shaved, they would become clean Jews. Without balking at the orders, they walked into the gas chambers docilely. Apparently rumors about executions abounded, but they tried not to believe them and followed the Nazis' orders.

  Ma-ri faced a range of options before she reached this bed. She could have run away, she could have pretended to go to the bathroom at the restaurant and disappeared. Even now, she can get up and leave. But one thing led to another. A small decision led to another small decision, and finally turned into a decision that couldn't be reversed. They were all linked together. She can't remember why she agreed to this at Napoli, but in any case she agreed to it, and because of that she went to the wine-aged pork belly restaurant, bought them food and drink, came to an unmanned room-by-the-hour hotel with them and even paid for the room. At this point the only thing that's keeping her in this room is that stupid credit card. If only she hadn't paid! She's already been charged sixty thousand won for this room.

  But she couldn't have left even if the boys had paid for the room. Getting up and leaving after they paid would have been unfair; she would have been betraying their agreement. She regrets her foolish decision to charge the room on her card. It's true that it gave her pleasure to do it. Soon, she will spread her legs for the two guys, at their mercy. But since she paid for it, the acts looming ahead become the product of her free choice. The guys are merely hired gigolos. Ma-ri thinks that it isn't true that men are the seducers. She tries to convince herself that it's actually the opposite.

  The water is turned off in the bathroom. She holds her breath. She can't deny it—she isn't comfortable here, no matter how she frames it, how ardently she believes it, or how she imagined it would be. In a few minutes, she will have to reveal her body to two twenty-year-old college students with wrinkle-free skin. Her stomach, which pooches a little, still retains stretch marks from her pregnancy with Hyon-mi. She suffers from eczema, and her groin is discolored as a result, a shade darker than the rest of her body. And her thighs are big lumps of fat. She feels as if she is waiting for a gynecological exam. She definitely isn't in that excited state that usually comes right before sex. She wipes her sweaty palms on the sheets. She gets up. She doesn't want to be sitting on the bed when the guys come out of the bathroom. She doesn't want them to think she's desperate. She gazes at the small balcony garden, composed of pots of sanseveria and cacti. The balcony is walled in by translucent glass and brightly lit, making it hard to tell whether it's day or night. She looks at her watch. It's after 8:00 P.M., but it looks as if it's only two in the afternoon.

  Song-uk and Panda come out of the bathroom, each with a towel wrapped around his waist.

  "You, you, your turn," Panda stutters.

  She takes out a pouch from her purse and walks into the bathroom. Song-uk pokes his head in just as she's about to shut the door. "How are you going to wash yourself with your cast?"

  She looks down at her arm. "Oh, right."

  "Can we help you?" asks Song-uk, glancing at Panda.

  She thinks for a moment. "Just you, Song-uk."

  Song-uk comes into the bathroom triumphantly. He unfastens the buttons of her blouse, raises her arms above her head, and pulls it off. He unhooks her bra and tugs off her skirt, opening the bathroom door slightly to toss it outside. Ma-ri takes off her underwear herself, bunches it up and puts it on the grill of the radiator. She steps into the tub and raises her left arm high to keep the cast dry. Song-uk grabs the showerhead and turns on the water. A stream of water splashes her feet and travels up her body, slowly. It's cold at first, but it soon warms. Song-uk, having undone his towel, turns off the shower and nuzzles her nipple. She shakes her head. He squeezes some body wash onto his hand and soaps her groin. She closes her eyes. He slides the foam all over her body, the suds warm and soft, tickling her.

  "That's enough," she says.

  Song-uk rubs the valley between her buttocks. His slippery hand grazes over her anus and moves down further. She bends forward slightly. He slides his hands, covered in bubbles, over her breasts in a circular motion.

  "You know why men like breasts?" he asks suddenly.

  "Why?"

  "Because they look like women's asses. It's basically your ass attached to the front of your body. Otherwise they wouldn't need to be so big, it would be enough just to have nipples. Men look at women's tits and think about asses."

  "That makes no sense."

  "I read it somewhere."

  She looks down. His hard penis nods along as he soaps her, aimed at her breasts. Song-uk turns on the shower again. Water rains down on them. Ma-ri looks down at her body. The foam being washed off makes it look as if someone spat on her. During her first time, at eighteen, the guy spat on her because she was bone-dry. He rubbed the spit on the head of his dick and pushed into her. Ma-ri closes her eyes. Where the hell did that motherfucker learn to do that? Song-uk sprays the foam off with the showerhead.

  "Turn around," he orders.

  She turns, showing him her back. The water pounds the crevices of her body she can't see. He carefully pats every inch of her just-washed body dry with a towel. It's an intimate gesture she'd expect from a husband. Though Song-uk is still holding the towel, she hugs him, her body still damp. His dick presses into her stomach. She kneels and takes him in her mouth, sucking hard. She stops after a minute and looks up. "You know I love you, and only you, right?"

  "Of course I do."

  "I want you to know that I never wanted this."

  "I know. I'm the one who wanted you to do it," Song-uk reassures her.

  "Think about it for a minute. Do you really want me to be with another guy? Is it going to be okay for you?"

  "You won't be doing it with another guy, it'll be just you and me. He's there to aid us, like a dildo."

  "You love me, right?" Ma-ri asks.

  "Of course! I'm more in love with you right now because I know you're doing this for me. I'm never going to forget it."

  "So ... how ... with him ... No, never mind."

  "What? Just say it."

  "So, how far do you want me to go ... with him?"

  He grins, as if wondering why she's bothering to ask. He lowers his arms and holds her head down. She puts her mouth around him again.

  "All the way. I want to watch someone else do you. Just think that you're doing it with me. It's all just fun. Let's not think too hard about it."

  The head of his hard dick rubs against the top of her mouth and pushes into a deeper place.

  CHOL-SU SITS IN his car, gazing at the sign that says MOTEL BOHEMIAN.

  "Bohemian, my ass," he mumbles, stretching out in the small space. Wistfully, he recalls the Volkswagen Passat he test drove in the morning with Ma-ri and the way the leather seat nestled his body. He reaches over to the passenger seat and picks up his phone, then changes his mind and tosses it back down. With both hands, he sweeps up the hair that has fallen into his eyes. It's damp from the humidity. He wants to wash his hands. He gets out and walks into the motel. From the ceiling, two surveillance cameras stare down at him, resembling a fly's double eye
, and the only thing Chol-su finds on the other side of the sliding doors is an LCD screen. He swivels around. It doesn't look like there's a bathroom. He really needs to wash his hands.

  "How can I help you?" a deep voice rings out from above.

  Chol-su reflexively looks up at the small speaker attached to the ceiling. "So it's not really an unmanned hotel," he remarks.

  The voice asks again, uninterested, "How can I help you? Are you looking for someone?"

  He replies to the ceiling, "No, I just needed to use the bathroom."

  "If you go out the door and turn left, there's a subway station about nine hundred feet away."

  "Thank you," he calls out, and leaves. Outside, he looks around. There's a construction site next door, perhaps for another motel, as well as a faucet that was installed to wash the wheels of the dump trucks that go in and out of the site. It's dark at the construction site and nobody's around. He turns on the faucet. Water gushes out, the pressure higher than he expects, splashing his suit. He adjusts the water pressure and washes his hands. He wants soap. He returns to his car and dries his hands with a tissue. He looks at Motel Bohemian again. He went through all sorts of situations working for the Company, but this is the first time he finds himself waiting outside an hourly motel. Ma-ri entered the motel triumphantly, like a queen, dragging two young men with her. They were standing behind her like servants. They would now be in the throes of passion somewhere up there. Does she do this often? In any case, it's obvious to Chol-su that she has no idea what's going on with her husband. If she did, she wouldn't be engaged in this kind of activity right now.