Offerings

by Michael ByungJu Kim

  “Huh?” The soju is fogging my brain.

  “If they were about to be sullied, couldn’t avoid it, they’d use it to commit suicide.”

  “Why kill yourself? Why not just use it on the attacker?”

  She lets out a sigh. “Well, I carry an eunjang-do.” She drinks.

  I can’t tell if she’s being figurative.

  The ajumma behind the counter places another heaping bowl of odeng broth in front of us, and Yun Hwa says, “We’ll eat it well, Imo.” She tells me the woman operates this place all night. She’s putting her son through hagwon, cram school, so he may have a shot at getting into a “Sky” university. Sacrificing so he may have an opportunity for a better life.

  “Sky?” I say.

  “You know, Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei?” she says. “The SKY schools. What they all reach for.”

  “Ah, like HYPSM. You know, Harvard, Yale—”

  “This little guy,” she says, holding up the green soju bottle. “Can’t get to sleep without him.” She smiles, a bit wistfully.

  Yun Hwa’s sadness arouses something primal in me, an urge to protect. But I also know it’s an urge I need to stifle. She’s a spirit in the night, I tell myself. Materialized here so we may lift a little of the sadness off each other, just for tonight.

  “The road to alcoholism is paved with bottles of soju,” I offer. Probably not the right thing to say.

  She pretends not to hear me. “Isn’t it nice here? Like a cocoon.” Or a womb, I think. She turns to me. “Oppa, we can just stay here all night, and drink.” She clinks her glass against mine.

  “We could . . .” I feel myself descending to a dark, familiar place.

  The pojang macha has nearly emptied. We’re the last customers remaining. I look at my watch: it’s four a.m. “I do have an early morning—”

  Yun Hwa sighs, finishes her bottle in one gulp. She has some difficulty pushing herself off from the table, and I grab her elbow to support her.

  Outside, the streets are covered in a sheet of fresh snow. As we walk, I say, “Something beautiful about walking in snow no one’s walked on. Don’t you think?”

  She nods in agreement.

  “Brings me back to childhood . . .”

  Staring straight ahead, she says, “Is your life going the way you thought it’d go?”

  The question stumps me. Stops me right in my soju-addled tracks.

  I start to say something about just following my destiny.

  “Aren’t we all condemned to our destinies?” she says.

  I stand there, and she turns to me. She slides her arms under mine, plants her head on my shoulder. The snow whirls down softly, silently all around us.

  Yun Hwa’s words ring in my head as I put her in a taxi. She rolls down the window and looks at me, gives me a sad smile. I wave goodbye until she’s gone.

  *

  In the morning, I come in late to work, feeling a bit like an impostor for my performance last night. But no one says a word. I learn the first rule of drinking in Korea: everything that happens in a room salon stays in that room. Only one colleague, a woman VP in the Seoul office, comments, in passing, “You survived.”

  The Monkey tells me I look like shit.

  Jack arrives an hour after I do, in worse shape. He mumbles an excuse about an important early call with New York.

  In the meeting room, we’re already gathered, ready to go over a slide presentation for the bond roadshow. The first slide is projected onto a wall: “Top 5 Reasons Jack Did Not Answer the Bell This AM.” Jack looks confused.

  “Reason number five,” the Monkey reads. “Had an important conference call with NY in a.m. no one knew about.

  “Number four. Hotel operator put in EST for the wake-up call.

  “Three. Had a hard time getting a cab.

  “Two. Got in some extra sets on the bench in morning workout.

  “And the number one reason Jack did not answer the morning bell . . . He got shit-faced the night before.” Thunderous applause and whooping all around.

  Jack holds his arms up, executes an exaggerated bow. “Glad to be a source of amusement for you,” he says, good-naturedly. “Fuck you very much.”

  We’re told the second rule of drinking, known as “ATFBB”: Answer the effing bell, bitch. The kunbeis, the singing, the fraternal hugs feel distant, happenings in a faraway land. Yun Hwa’s face comes back to me, but it seems disembodied, a character in a long-forgotten book. And the connection, if there was one, lost.

  The Monkey comes by our desks. “Everything copacetic?” he says. Never a salutary lead-in from a guy who has a sign on his desk reading, I’LL BE NICER IF YOU’LL BE FUCKING SMARTER. He picks up the draft credit memo Jack and I have been working on. “The credit stats are the stats,” he mumbles, flipping pages. “But, remember, it’s about the narrative. You gotta use the numbers to tell a story. We are storytellers. Use your imagination to sell . . .” He stops reading, wrinkles his nose. He drops the pages in a heap from splayed fingers, as if he’s touched dog shit.

  “Better put your thinking caps on, gentlemen,” the Monkey says. “Sharpen your pencils. Two weeks to bond launch.” He reminds us, unnecessarily, “D minus thirty.” One month to bond pricing day.

  II

  He who learns must suffer

  And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget

  Falls drop by drop upon the heart,

  And in our despair, against our will,

  Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

  Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  12

  Late January 1998

  As the meeting starts, I think of the Zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping.

  We’re having a final planning session for the sovereign bond offering, and we have the client to ourselves. The Sterling team is boycotting the meeting after a pissing contest over whose logo should appear on the bottom left, the lead position, of the investor presentation. Phipps argued alphabetical; Sterling insisted on the reverse, since it is alphabetical on the prospectus, the official selling document. I did not endear myself to the Monkey when I suggested maybe leaving out the logos altogether; after all, isn’t it the Korean government’s roadshow? Gandalf of Sterling decided to take a stand, “on principle,” he said with a huff, and declared a boycott.

  So this morning, after weeks of Catoesque table-pounding with “Sterlingo delenda est!” the Monkey has the stage to himself. Just the Mop team and him, in a one-handed meeting. And he is wired. He goes over a slide comparing Korea’s credit statistics with those of OECD member countries and the other Asian Tigers. “Here’s Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea . . . last,” he says. “But, but: pro forma for the rollover and eight to ten billion in new capital, we jump to second place!”

  In his exuberance, the Monkey makes suggestion after suggestion on the presentation. Jack, Jun, and I had spent day after day drafting and revising and polishing the presentation, now “v68,” to be used in the all-important meetings with bond investors. “We need more bullet points,” the Monkey says. “Can we do these slides . . . in portrait?”

  “The fuuuuck,” Jack says through clamped teeth. “We have to redo every goddamn page. This is payback—it’s got to be.”

  Late last night the Monkey had called the PTFT office at the Mop, and Jack picked up. The Monkey demanded someone fax him a memo he left there. Jack, running on fumes and in no mood to play errand boy, said he was busy, could it wait till morning? At which the Monkey exploded, saying, “Do you know who the fuck I am?” I could hear his voice clear through the phone.

  Jack said, calmly, “Do you know who the fuck I am?”

  “You?” the Monkey shouted. “How the fuck should I know who you are, you pissant!”

  “Good,” Jack said, and hung up.

  Jack has been keeping his distance from the Monkey this morning.

  “Can it get any better than this?” the Monkey says. “There’s a poetry, music, to doing a deal right. A form of ex
cellence. When it’s done just right, a deal transcends human endeavor. It’s godlike.” He’s no longer the Monkey; he’s a pig, blissfully wallowing in shit.

  “Oh, joy,” Jack says.

  To the Monkey and Jack and all the other bankers, this bond offering is a trophy transaction, but still just a deal. For me, it represents the last good chance to save Korea from financial doom. We have to market it exactly right to generate robust investor demand. Then there’s the pricing of the bonds—a delicate zero-sum game between the issuer and the investors. Bad pricing could bring down the government and even ruin the country. Where do my loyalties lie: my company or my home country? I can see the thin layer of ice melting off the branches out the window. I keep my eyes on an icicle resembling a hanging sword—a sword of Damocles, in my mind—melting, from top to bottom, a drop at a time. There’s a rhythm to the dripping. I feel a dizziness coming on.

  Director Suh has his eyes closed, meditating or dozing off, I can never tell for sure.

  I overhear a conversation from the back of the room. A Mop team-jang and one of his underlings:

  Team-jang: Ahem, how’s the team doing?

  Junior colleague: Neh, Team-jangnim, the team’s doing fine, working hard.

  Team-jang: (. . .)

  Junior: (. . . ?) Uh, shall I get them together tonight? It’s been a while since we had a team dinner.

  Team-jang: Perhaps. But if they have plans . . .

  Junior: I’m sure they don’t. You haven’t had a drink with us for a while.

  Team-jang: It has been a while . . .

  Junior: I beg you to consider. It’s necessary for the team’s morale.

  Team-jang: Shall we then?

  Junior: I’ll make the arrangements.

  Team-jang: (. . .)

  Junior: (???)

  Team-jang: Perhaps our foreign adviser guests also available?

  Junior: I’m sure they’d appreciate the opportunity to join . . . and pay.

  Team-jang: Leave it to you.

  Junior: Neh, Team-jangnim, I’ll get them right away.

  The junior guy gets up to go look for Jun.

  News comes over the TV of the annual ROK-US joint military exercise, called Operation Foal-Eagle, being conducted near Incheon. File videos of B-2 bombers and F-52 fighter jets swishing overhead, big cannons that fire like pistons, forbidding aircraft carriers looming on the horizon. Parachutes pop open in the sky, small flowers blooming, and Korean and American troops land side by side on a beach.

  North Korea has responded with a military parade. There’s footage of hundreds of neat columns of soldiers goose-stepping across People’s Square, with a precision the envy of the Rockettes. Koreans, North and South, do synchronization like nobody else. The Dear Leader watches the march with a beneficent smile, blesses it with a papal wave of his hand.

  I try to clear my head, hold my breath. Maybe I hold it too long. I feel the walls closing in. The room recedes . . .

  “Is he okay?” someone says, distant.

  I open my eyes, and I’m facedown on the cold linoleum floor. I see shoes shuffling across the floor. I can hear them talking about me. Their voices come from a tunnel.

  “Give him some breathing room—”

  “Someone call 119—”

  “—I know CPR—”

  Really, I’m fine, I try to say. If I could just . . .

  “Check his tongue—”

  “Who is this guy?”

  Me, I am a seeker of truth. A hunter of Great Whites, and giant marlin, a secret lover of Emma Bovary, the long-lost third brother of Hal Incandenza. I am a giant bestriding East and West, ever the twain, with a generosity of spirit so infinite I transcend space and time. I am a prism through which all light of mankind is refracted, into rays of blinding clarity. A synthesizer of Hegelian dialectics, connector of all things unconnected. I want to go home, and sleep. I am king of all kings, Nietzsche’s Übermensch, and answer to all questions and mysteries and prayers since the dawn of mankind. Home where there will be all the things I lost or forwent, everything returned. I want to go there, for there will be peace there, and rest.

  “Homerrgggg,” I gurgle.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Good God, man.” It sounds like Uncle Monkey. “Get ahold of yourself.”

  They keep asking me for my hotel, saying it’s all good, they’ll just put me in a taxi. The words and numbers float in my mind, but don’t settle. I can’t get the hotel address out. Home is where I want to go. I can only think where I can’t return.

  *

  When I wake up, I see the back of Minister Choi’s head. I’m lying on a sofa in his office, my head propped up by a cushion. There’s a low-pitched hum in the room that sounds a bit like a moan.

  “Excuse me,” I say, sitting up. My head feels heavy. “I’ll just . . .”

  “Should rest,” the minister says.

  “Anyo,” I say, and apologize. “Jwesonghapnida.”

  “Kwa-yoo bool-keup,” he says. Another of his four-character sayings, nuggets of Classics wisdom. This one I think means too much is worse than too little.

  “Americans speak too much,” he elaborates, unhelpfully. “They speak when they should listen. Teach when they should learn.”

  It feels late. I look for the clock, gather my shoes.

  “I hear you and my niece got along,” he says, turning his chair around to face me.

  It sounds like a question, and I say, “Neh.”

  The minister waits for more. But all I do is bob my head down and up and down again.

  “When this sovereign bond is done,” he says, “perhaps you will have more time. To get to know each other—”

  “I may not be here to see it through,” I blurt. “I need to go back to New York. To New Jersey, that is. Sir.”

  He lights up a Marlboro, looks hard at me. “Lee Yisa, I know you are overworked, but I do not need to tell you how crucial this dollar financing is to us, to our economic recovery. If we fail to raise eight billion, our country may not—”

  “It’s not that, sir. I know what’s riding on this assignment. It’s just, I have this personal thing to attend to . . . a family matter.”

  He squints at me as he sucks his cigarette.

  “My abuji . . . he’s ill. Very ill.” The words come out in a whisper. “I feel like I should be with him.”

  The minister closes his eyes, nods. “Duty to father. I understand. Of course I do. But duty to country, that is . . . a different order. We men are all sons, but how many of us get to serve our country in her moment of need? The opportunity to show our loyalty.” His eyes open, then widen. “Hanguk needs you.”

  “That’s kind, but you think too highly of me,” I say. “Any VP at Phipps could do the job. Jack could fill in—”

  “Lee Yisa,” he says, shaking his head. “If we cannot pay back the dollar loans, our economy, everything we have worked so hard for, over decades—collapse. Businesses go under, people, by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, out on the street . . .” He takes off his glasses. “You are in a unique position to help. Your experience, your background. You understand.”

  My head feels heavier.

  “Kamsahapnida, Jangkwannim,” I say and get up to leave.

  “You have been to the Forbidden City Palace? In Beijing?”

  I shake my head, sitting back down.

  “At the palace, in back,” he says. “There is a chamber, separate from the other 9,998 rooms. It is called the Chamber of Mental Harmonization. A small room, unceremonious, bare of furniture except a solitary wooden chair. That is where the emperor would go when faced with a big decision.”

  “Neh.”

  “The emperor would sit in that chair in that room and think. Momentous decisions on matters of state, life-and-death decisions, even important personal matters. In that room he would strive to free his mind of all desire. Empty it of greed, envy, ambition, lust. Make harmony in his mind. Then, and only then, could he make the best de
cision.

  “Lee Yisa, harmonize your mind,” he says. “For the big day.”

  13

  Early February 1998

  “Deal of your career,” Wayne promises when I pick up the phone. Not one to bother with greetings, or articles. “I’ve decided to sell Ilsung Motors, and I’m giving it to you, pardner.”

  “Selling Motors?” I say.

  “Shhhh,” he says. “Strictly confidential, as you M and A geeks like to say.”

  A sale of the third-largest automaker in Korea: undoubtedly a multibillion-dollar transaction, likely to be the largest in Korean M&A history. The advisory to shoot Phipps to the top of the Asia M&A league tables, the “bibles” in our industry. Not to mention a fat exclusive seller fee.

  “No pitch from Phipps needed? No beauty contest among advisers?”

  “Nope, and not Phipps,” he says. “You. Because I trust you.” He adds, “Important deal for the group.”

  I already have my soul-saving deal. “You know I’m working on the big-ass sovereign bond offering, right? We’re a month into it, I’m barely getting any sleep as it is.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “Just get your cowpoke ass to our HQ downtown.” He hangs up.

  Despite my feeble protest, I know, and Wayne knows, I can’t refuse him. It’s not lost on me how a deal of this size and profile would go over with the Phipps pooh-bahs. More than that, though, it’s Wayne’s entrusting me with what I sense is a make-or-break opportunity for the Ilsung Group and, though he doesn’t say it, for him. Trust is a burdensome gift.

  The Ilsung Group headquarters is located in the heart of the central business district. When Jack and I arrive, we see an old building, constructed during the Japanese occupation period, renovations and extensions patchworked over the years. The cumulative effect is of a glass-and-steel carapace welded onto the back of a giant tortoise.

  Sleet falls in daggers from the forbidding sky. In front of the entrance to the building, a group of men, fifty or sixty in all, are sitting on the ground, arms locked at the elbows. They have red vests on, matching bandannas. They punch their fists in the air, shout, “Job security and fair pay!” They chant rhythmically, in unison, “Human dignity! Unity!” Most of them sit with a large tarpaulin draped over them to protect against the wet chill, and their chant pulsates over the vinyl cover.