Your Republic Is Calling You

by Young-Ha Kim

  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.

  PISTACHIO

  11:00 P.M.

  SO THIS IS what's been going on," Ki-yong says, sitting next to Song-gon, handcuffed. Song-gon is like an actor who just stepped off the stage after a performance. The disguise is still there but he's acting completely differently from his stage persona. His inarticulate bumbling mannerisms are
gone, and his bad posture is nowhere to be seen. He's still bald but now it looks like the symbol of a confident winner.

  "No wonder. I had no idea you were behind it. I just thought that everything happened really easily for me. There's no way that banks would be that lenient in real life. I thought it was because I was good, smart, and adapted really well to capitalism. I can't even begin to imagine what you guys would have been saying about me, jeering behind my back." Ki-yong is calm.

  Song-gon reassures him. "It wasn't exactly like that. You did well for yourself too, sir. A couple of our movies managed to draw a big audience. You didn't have any big hits, but you did have a few medium hits."

  "No, no. Capitalism isn't that easy. Right? But good job with the acting, Song-gon. I really didn't catch on."

  "No, it wasn't acting. This persona you're seeing right now, this is an act. At the office, I just acted the way I do when I'm at home, watching porn and picking my nose and napping. I was in a theater group for a little while in college, and they used to say that when you act, you're not creating something that doesn't exist, you're really discovering something within yourself."

  Ki-yong isn't in the mood to sit there as if nothing is happening to him, listening to stories of Song-gon's brave exploits. He feels as if a snake were crawling up his throat. "You asshole."

  "What?"

  "You're an asshole."

  Song-gon doesn't say anything.

  "Admit it!"

  The muscles in Song-gon's face stiffen. "I was just doing my job."

  "That's why you're an asshole. You just do your job without thinking about what the consequences are. That's exactly what an asshole is," Ki-yong retorts, staring straight into his eyes. Sitting there in the dark, he can sense every tiny movement, the tension rippling through Song-gon's muscles. "I can't believe you guys were working behind the scenes all these years and I didn't suspect a thing..."

  "I really am sorry about that," Song-gon says, in a way that doesn't sound like he is sorry at all. He sounds like a government official dealing with an annoying, complaining citizen. In this formal, polite man, Ki-yong is unable to glimpse the Song-gon he has known for years—the Song-gon with bad credit and the porn addiction.

  "You know you would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes, sir."

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  Only now does Ki-yong start to understand why Order 4 was issued. He thought the order came down because a workaholic successor of Lee Sang-hyok had come across his file. A successor with a strong loyalty to Party ideology and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Stumbling across Ki-yong's file, he would have wondered why Ki-yong was stranded in Seoul, and ordered his return. But maybe, for the past few years, the North and the South have engaged in an intense but frighteningly silent tug of war with him in the middle. He's like a trap for roaches—stuck deep in the corner under the sink, believing he's isolated from everything, but all the while emitting a scent into the world, signaling his presence. He was neither harmful nor harmless, but at some point, though he didn't notice it, the subtle balance of power between the North and the South that had been maintained for years was destroyed.

  Of course, these guesses could be completely wrong. All he knows for sure is that he didn't know anything, and the fact is that he still doesn't know anything.

  Another voice rings out from behind Ki-yong. Song-gon gets up and awkwardly greets the man. Song-gon doesn't sit back down, and the man motions with his chin, signaling that he should go away. Song-gon leaves the bench shaded by the wisteria vines.

  "Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Jong. My men call me Supervisor Jong." Jong introduces himself and settles down next to Ki-yong. He takes out a bag of pistachios from his pocket and holds it out. "Would you like some?"

  "No thanks."

  "Please, try one. They're from California; they're especially tasty if they grow in dry climates. They have to be hard and firm on the outside but moist on the inside."

  "Okay then." Ki-yong takes some pistachios in his hands, shells them, and tosses a few into his mouth.

  "You've lived in this neighborhood for a while now, right?"

  "About five years."

  "You must have enjoyed the rising property values in this neighborhood."

  "Well, a little. Not as much as in Kangnam, of course."

  "I bought a house in Chunggye-dong four years ago. It's about forty pyong, and prices have risen quite a bit because the neighborhood's known for its good cram schools."

  Silence envelops them, broken only by the crumpling of the pistachio bag and the sound of Jong biting into the nuts. Several more students walk past them.

  "I understand you have a daughter?" Jong inquires politely.

  "Yes."

  "Is she a good student?"

  Ki-yong drops the pistachio shells on the ground near his feet. "Yes, she's pretty good. She's like her mom, smart."

  "I have a son, and he's so crazy about basketball that he won't sit still with books. It's a big source of worry for me," Jong confides.

  "Well, if he's talented at it..."

  "If he had some talent it would be ideal, but that's not really the case. By the way, your wife is quite a beauty."

  Ki-yong looks at him, puzzled.

  "Oh, no, don't take it the wrong way. We were waiting near your wife's work because we thought maybe you'd come see her there. She probably didn't even notice that we were there."

  Ki-yong closes his eyes and thinks about Ma-ri, lying on her back, legs spread open, two guys having their way with her. He opens his eyes. He wonders if those scenes were broadcast live to an unknown place, like a reality program. "If I were to turn myself in...?"

  "We'll arrange it so that you do it with the two others."

  "The two others?"

  "Oh, please don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. This kind of thing is a lot like filing your taxes. You can file by yourself, but that's not as advantageous as it could be. You know what I mean, since you're a businessman, right? You just have to think of us as the accountant. If you leave it up to us, we'll take care of you. You just have to understand that you will have to pay a fee."

  "A fee?"

  "But it's win-win for everyone. You know how they talk about revealed comparative advantage in international trade? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You give us what we need, and in return we'll protect you, our client. That's the kind of thing we're good at."

  "Is that really true?"

  "If we work together and help each other out, everything will be fine. Even if they were to send people down south—which they may or may not do because they're running out of American dollars—or if the prosecutors' office senses something. Especially since, as you know, this isn't a standard criminal case."

  If anyone were to overhear them, they would think this is a conversation between a corrupt corporation and an accountant, scheming about cooking the books.

  "So is Han Jong-hun with you too?"

  Jong grins and bites down on a pistachio shell, emitting a loud crack. "Of course. It's not like he's so special that he doesn't need us."

  "So nobody's gone back?"

  "Not that we know of. You never know, though, because this world's always shrouded in fog," Jong explains.

  Two men wearing black jackets come forward and whisper to Jong, who nods and orders, "Okay, tell them to stay in their places. We're not done yet."

  The two men bow and walk away.

  "I guess the boys are a little cold," Jong explains.

  "What's going to happen to me?" Ki-yong asks, looking down at his handcuffs.

  "It depends on what you decide to do. If you decide to do the right thing, it's all going to be over quickly."

  "So if you investigate and discover that I've done a lot of bad things, what happens?"

  "We're not a church."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that we're not the kind of place that will absolve you of the crimes we didn't know ab
out."

  "So what will happen to me?"

  "First, if you have committed any crimes we have to know about them. Then we move on to the next step."

  Ki-yong raises his head. "Why aren't you taking me into custody? Why are we still sitting on this bench?"

  Jong smiles. "There's still something you have to do. The show must go on, as they say."

  Song-gon and Jong speak in identical theater analogies. Why are they acting like this? Are they making fun of him with stupid jokes about college theater troupes? Is this their entertainment, or is it a tool to whittle away his wariness? Or are they just trying to convince him that all of this is only a play? Why are they doing this? Maybe they are actually afraid of Ki-yong, the victim. Like the chief priest in ancient times who performed sacrifices, they might be terrified about empathizing with the being that is to be sacrificed, worried that they will become emotionally damaged. They might be distancing themselves from this situation where a man's life is dangling by a thread, by making idiotic jokes and awkward analogies, wearing forced smiles. When Ki-yong thinks of it that way, he pities them, and feels freer, though only a little bit. For the first time since this morning, he can step away from the torrent that has swamped him and look down at the situation from a different, detached place. How could anyone be free of fear, just because he works for the government? It must be stressful for you guys, too, to have to deal with this crap.

  "What do I have to do?"

  Jong takes out a black digital watch from the inner pocket of his jacket. "You should wear this watch. It's an electronic bracelet. Once you put it on, it's hard to take it off, and in any case, it'll send us a signal the instant you try to remove it. See, it looks exactly like a watch. It's really light, too, so you shouldn't have any problems on a day-to-day basis. Of course, it also works as a watch and has an alarm function."

  The watch has CASIO written on its face.

  "Why aren't you taking me in right now and interrogating me?" Ki-yong asks.

  "Oh, there's no reason to rush into it. We can tackle it slowly, step by step. After tonight, you can just go back home and act like you usually do. That's it," Jong explains.