by Suah Bae
Talking in bed ought to be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside the wind’s incomplete unrest
builds and disperses clouds about the sky.
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind.
—Philip Larkin, [Talking in bed]
“In terms of how I myself read it, this poem is a record of the ultimate sleeping place, i.e. a house,” Banchi said. “I first came across it back when I was living in Vienna, you see. Maria encouraged me to read Larkin’s poetry. I can guess how wildly exciting she must have found it; not only his poetry, but his life, personally uninhibited and crammed with great achievements. I was a student newly arrived in Europe, so I just found it all fairly baffling. Anyhow, according to her, Maria once met Larkin in person, in London some time in the early eighties. Though that was all I ever heard about it. Not until I lived in Vienna did I come to realise that in certain cases a house can be a place for those who wander while staying put; that, unlike in my home city, many people lived alone, seeming to spend their entire lives wandering from one interior to another; that these houses took up residence inside their flesh, a vast number piled up in a single person’s flesh; that to them, roaming was the fundamental essence of life, that the paths trod by their feet or swept by their gaze formed a delayed caravanserai of which they themselves were ignorant. And it seemed as though these feet-travelled paths were saying of the one who trod them, I am not a tree, which is why I leave this house for that. And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why. At this unique distance from isolation. From a certain point onwards, I began to understand all manner of sentences I encountered as records of houses and places of residence, cities and sleep, current and flow, visiting and leaving. The feeling that life is ‘conceptualised space.’ The feeling that the houses that had piled up like that would eventually reveal themselves as the final bed. The feeling that the substance of life is ultimately a conversation had in a bed which is a place that no one knows.
One day an unfamiliar young man with a small frame and a shaggy beard turned up at Maria’s house. In t-shirt and jeans, dwarfed by an enormous backpack which looked to be at least twice his own size. Without even removing his dirty trainers, the kid went into our room, rolled his sleeping bag out on the floor, and lay down. And then promptly fell asleep. He was clearly dead on his feet. He spoke Spanish; he was Argentinean. The three of us lived together in that room for a while. Maria was entirely oblivious to his existence. When he ate, when he slept, even when he changed his underwear, she acted as though he wasn’t even there. After a few days of this I was bursting with curiosity, so in the end I asked, Maria, do you know that kid? And she replied that she’d never set eyes on him before, but she’d known that he would be visiting, which is why she’d cleared the space by the window, to leave enough room for a person to lie down. You know how chaotic Maria’s room was. In keeping with her beliefs, she lived without any furniture, with all of her belongings—clothes, books, musical instruments, bottles of water, and plates of food—scattered over the floor. That was her way of life. How did this come about? I asked, and she answered, I’m Karakorum.”
“She said she was what?” Kyung-hee asked. “Karakorum?”
“What’s Karakorum? I asked, and she told me that it was an organisation which shared houses among its members, or else members among its houses. Shares houses among its members? I repeated, initially unable to grasp what she was saying. You mean, sharing houses with complete strangers? That’s right, Maria said. “Karakorum provides houses for wanderers. Through each member agreeing to share their own house with any other member, that is. Anyone who has a house—here, the concept of ‘house’ applies equally to a single basement room, just a bare place to sleep, as to a mansion—can become a member. Once you’re a member, it’s your duty to provide a place to stay for Karakorum members from all over the world. No matter who they are. But there are no strict conditions such as your ‘house’ having to come up to a certain standard, like a hotel or B&B, or your having to provide meals and change the bedding. I mean, you can do all that if you want, but the basic principle is quite loose: a house, or a single room, or even just a space big enough for someone to roll out a sleeping bag and lie down, with a roof to keep them out of the rain, is fine. Even a room shared by several people—like we’re doing now—is absolutely no problem. In other words, joining Karakorum means having simultaneous sleeping places all over the world. Whenever we travel to another city, the first thing we have to do is ask around the various Karakorum of that city to find a house that’s currently accepting visitors. Jose (this was the first time I learned the Argentinean kid’s name) lets wanderers stay in his house in Buenos Aires, and I do the same in Vienna. And there are Karakorum in so many other cities doing just the same. If, at some point, we end up travelling to India, we’d be able to stay in an Indian Karakorum’s house. Were we to arrive at an airport anywhere in the world, we’d be able to go straight to a Karakorum. Now do you understand?’ Maria said. I was as baffled as ever. ‘We’ would be able to stay? Even though I wasn’t a member of Karakorum? When I voiced these doubts, Maria answered that since she’d put my name down alongside hers, I was a Karakorum too.”
“In that case, your Karakorum was the room in Vienna where you lived with Maria, or is this house in this city also—to put it symbolically—the possession of a Karakorum?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Back then, I rarely ever used the internet, so the online community known as the world of ‘Karakorum’ was a complete mystery to me. It’s still a mystery now. But Maria can’t have registered my address in this city. If she had, some wanderer of the world would have turned up at my house one day and strolled in without so much as a by-your-leave—just like we did with this city’s European beer hall and office supplies shop, poking our noses around without even the decency to buy anything—and set up camp in this guest bedroom-cum-living room, squeezing in with my young son. And they would have insisted that they were a Karakorum, and, accordingly, had a room even in the forgotten city of Karakorum.”
“And they would have been able to stay here freely, without even any rent…”
“Maria said that Karakorum is a world free from rent. Whether you stay in a palatial villa in Buenos Aires, a studio flat in Vienna, or even in the real ruined city of Karakorum. Even after Maria’s lengthy explanation, there were so many thoughts running through my mind. What if Karakorum had truly existed? What if there had truly been a wide palace with sixty-four pillars, built of dark green bricks, and an ancient city of black walls and black mountains, in the heart of the steppe wilderness? A city like a divine eye, occupying the entire core of this world even while constantly shifting from place to place. What if there had truly been a city of wandering, which opened its doors to dust-covered wanderers who came there from every corner of the sky? That city of memory that is wandering even now, a city of the air made up of fluttering leather tents, ceilings with bells and drums suspended from them, and silk curtains, what if, rather than simply being a nostalgic memory which flashes into our minds one day, such a city truly existed in the same dimension as us? What I mean to say is, that wandering which you insist you possessed, that movement, those simultaneous footsteps which are time’s true form, what if they were truly there, not merely as a linguistic component, no more than the expression of a shadow or paradox, unrelated to our individual existences, but there as an object, as flesh, as the smell of leather and skin…”
5. Is it surely night?
In that room, even in the moment of waking, Kyung-hee didn’t slip fully out
of that violent dream. The dream’s conclusion had been a man in semi-transparent linen clothes. The man crossed a milky river of molten lime and receded into the distance, displaying a mysteriously broad, flat back. The clacking of some dead animal skeleton’s ribs, suspended from the ceiling, grows distant. I grow distant from it. Some shore where the distance from the dream is growing gradually hazy. Kyung-hee woke there alone. The window was open; beyond it, the world was made up of ambiguous sounds and an aged, reddish light, so indistinct it could equally have been morning or evening. She recalled the scene of the dream’s conclusion, a swarm of earth-coloured grasshoppers springing up from a vast expanse of dried ground, their bodies so transparent as to render them invisible. Every time her bare feet touched the earth, the winged creatures sprang up from between sharp blades of grass and narrow grains of soil, hundreds at a time; they vibrated their wings in the air, producing a slender fluting sound. The fact that she had woken up in a winter sleeping bag told Kyung-hee that she was, as ever, travelling.
There wasn’t a single item in the room worthy of being called ‘furniture.’ But it was filled with so much clutter it was difficult to find any empty space: clothing strewn across the floor, moving boxes which still hadn’t been unpacked, books arranged any old how, thick winter gloves, albums and posters, a china mug half-full of coffee, tall Wellington boots, a bag, etc. An enormous cello case stood next to the door, underwear had been spread out to dry over the heater, and a huge framed photograph leant against one wall. It was an ordinary-looking landscape photograph of a vast ranch, featuring a snow-covered mountain peak off in the distance, a faint green pampas grassland, and gently sloping hills. Cows were dotted here and there on the ranch, and among them was a man on horseback, apparently a ranch hand, his hands resting slack on the pommel. His wide-brimmed hat left the upper half of his face in shadow, his mouth and jaw revealed below the black. On the music stand, intended for practising the cello, was a newspaper clipping of a photograph of Domingo. He was on stage at the Bayreuth Wagner festival, during Lohengrin. Kyung-hee was dizzied by her inability to tell how long she’d been asleep, whether it was now morning or evening, or even, though the likelihood was slim, an unusually overcast afternoon, or a night of rare and especial brightness; whether she was hungry or merely thirsty, whether the air was cold and dry; her inability, even, to make out her own features. From the other sleeping bag there in the room, rolled out in the opposite corner to hers, unzipped, Kyung-hee could at least ascertain that she hadn’t been the only person sleeping there. Two large moths with fluttering wings were quietly trembling over the floor, their lives exhausted. The sounds coming from outside the window were like the hoarse, thick cries of wild geese.
As soon as she stepped out into the narrow corridor, Kyung-hee discovered a small kitchen where, despite the lack of space, the door had been left open. She poured herself a glass of water, drained it, then took some bread from the fridge. She had no way of knowing whose bread it was but, overwhelmed by a sudden hunger, she decided to just eat it first and think about replacing it later. The tiny sink was full of dirty dishes, and the two-person table was cluttered with empty bowls and biscuit wrappers, dirty plates, a butter dish, and a bowl of prunes. After carefully pushing these aside to clear a bit of space, Kyung-hee made some coffee and sliced the bread. The sound of a door banging closed announced that someone had just gone into the bathroom. On the other side of the door a dog gave a low bark. Sitting on the stool and leaning back against the wall, Kyung-hee chewed the bread. And she thought about how long she’d been travelling for, and how much money she had left. The answer was probably ‘almost none.’ She recalled how, when she’d first had such thoughts, she would be struck by unease and a cold, slippery terror. Accompanied by a heavy terror which caused her heart to flutter, then sunk it in sadness. But that didn’t happen anymore. ‘Almost none,’ but Kyung-hee knew a producer who had been wanting to record her voice for a few years now, and though they’d never yet managed to find a time that fitted in with both their schedules, she believed that he would help her out with some money. And even if this turned out not to be the case, the money issue was unlikely to cause any major problems for a while yet. Because Kyung-hee is Karakorum. Because she is a traveller who might be bound for Karakorum. And yet, an unrealistic stubbornness dwelled inside this optimism, a wild animal’s fierce determination not to let life grind it down. If the day did eventually come when there was nothing else for it but to write a begging letter to her parents, it might be better for Kyung-hee to bare her teeth and gobble herself up.
Just then, someone stepped soundlessly into the kitchen. The young woman, who looked to have just stepped out of the shower, was so much taller and larger-framed than average that Kyung-hee was jolted out of her reverie, instantly imagined that she had come face-to-face with a beautiful young female giant, tall as a statue and with an expanse of white skin. With her wet hair twisted up on top of her head, and wearing a red bathrobe that looked hopelessly insufficient to conceal the hillocks of her breasts, the pale young woman strode over to the fridge, opened the door, and got some juice from a bottle, all without paying Kyung-hee the slightest bit of attention. And then, still without giving Kyung-hee so much as a single glance, she padded back to her room, her bare feet softly kissing the floor, and closed the door. As before, a dog’s growling leaked in through the gap in that door, this time along with murmured words. A lilting radio, or else a boyfriend, Kyung-hee thought. The thought passed through her mind in an instant, that both of those things seemed the exclusive possession of plump youths of university age. Kyung-hee pulled on her jacket and shoes and left the house.
There was no sun in the sky, but nor was there a moon and stars, or even clouds. Neither could Kyung-hee spot the glinting body of an aeroplane or satellite. Is it night? If nothing else, at least it was clear that it wasn’t night right now—because an old woman, people frowning severely, children with satchels slung over their shoulders, and a line of bicycles, were all passing through the streets. Most of those on bicycles were youngsters in jeans; an orderly procession following someone who had a flag sticking out of their backpack, marking them as the leader. It seemed to Kyung-hee that she glimpsed the word ‘Karakorum’ written on the flag, but she couldn’t be sure. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she had yet to wake up, that she was lingering at the veiled threshold of sleep. Arriving at your lodging after a long flight and then sleeping like the dead, it generally stands to reason that you feel like that for the entire next day, Kyung-hee thought. That you’re itching to get out of the house and head off in whatever direction you choose, to walk on and on without any idea of a destination. Your steps guided only by the faintest light, like the shadow of a huge mushroom.
After a while walking like that, generally following the tram line but with no real idea in what direction, Kyung-hee came to an enormous, complicated main road. She was looking up at the opera house, with its elegant stone colonnade and a beautiful facade carved to look like draped fabric. The procession of bicycles which had flitted past her around half an hour earlier were now parked up there, the riders listening to the guide giving an explanation. They all had wireless earbuds, and the guide a wireless microphone, so he didn’t need to bellow over the din of the traffic. For this reason, the handful of passers-by who wandered over, their curiosity piqued as Kyung-hee’s had been, found it impossible to make out what the guide was saying.
Kyung-hee sat on a bench in front of the opera house. She examined the items in her handbag. A faux-leather wallet with some coins and paper money, gloves and scarf, a black ballpoint pen, terracotta-coloured lipstick, a brochure for the opera house, throat lozenges, a natural history encyclopedia, and an envelope containing a letter. This was on a company’s letterhead paper. “…and so, though this is extremely regrettable, our agency now finds itself in the unavoidable situation, due to a deficit having accumulated in the meantime, of being able to carry out only a minimum of the previously-arranged
recording schedule, and, of that, the parts which it had been arranged that you would record…” Just then, it struck Kyung-hee that the shabby, grey-bearded homeless man sitting on the next bench was none other than the opera singer Domingo who, unfortunately, had vanished from public memory after singing “Nie sollst du mich befragen, noch Wissens Sorge tragen, woher ich kam der Fahrt, noch wie mein Nam’ und Art”. The man was wearing a long black cloak, had a grey scarf muffling his neck and jaw, and was sitting with his head so deeply bowed as to give the impression that he had fallen asleep. The wind scudded down to the earth from the height of the aeroplanes passing overhead, whipping the exposed skin of any who raised their faces to look up at the sky. Incited by the invisible sun, dust motes turned into radioactive particles of electricity before they even touched the ground, embedding themselves one by one in people’s hearts. Sheets of darkly opaque fog were flowing over their heads like the shadows of huge black ships, heading out to the sky’s open water. As though in submission to the fate that is nature, Kyung-hee bowed her head, returning her concentration to the faint, distant letter towards which she remained utterly indifferent. “…but were we to propose another project to you, might you be able to participate as a voice actor in a performance project, a project which would consist of a single radio artist performing onstage what was originally a two-person recitation…”
‘Starbucks.’ Looking up from the letter, Kyung-hee felt a strange sense of relief as soon as her gaze alighted on that sign; she stood up from the bench and hurried over as though having discovered a place of refuge.
Kyung-hee ordered two lattes. But only managed to get one. Several people—foreigners, tourists, opera-goers and people out for a casual stroll, Starbucks aficionados—were standing there clutching receipts, waiting for the coffee for which they had already paid. After Kyung-hee had taken her first latte, she waited for a while until a second latte appeared on the counter, conveyed there by the brusque hand of the salesgirl. Only this time, before Kyung-hee even had time to reach out, another customer whisked the coffee away. A disappeared latte. Unable to tell whether it had been the second part of her order, Kyung-hee continued to wait. A cappuccino dusted with cinnamon, an espresso, another espresso, and three lattes materialised in swift succession. But these latter were all small lattes, whereas Kyung-hee had ordered large, so she moved aside to let a noisy gaggle of schoolgirls scoop them up. The salesgirl washed her hands under the tap, then went calmly outside to smoke a cigarette. Kyung-hee waved to get the attention of another employee, a short, sullen-looking man who dragged himself over and asked what she’d ordered. Kyung-hee held out the receipt and pointed to the part which said ‘2 lattes.’ Give me these, she said. You already got them, didn’t you? the man snapped back. Only one, Kyung-hee retorted, speaking slowly so as to make herself clear, and that went cold ages ago. The man, who clearly couldn’t care less, turned his back on Kyung-hee until he’d finished making not one but five lattes, which included those ordered by other people who had just produced their receipts. When he plonked the tray with the five lattes onto the counter, the milk froth in each cup sloshed up, splattering drops of coffee onto the tray. The door opened and closed again. While it had been open, a pigeon had flown inside, causing a small but lively commotion among those who had been drinking their coffee. As it grew nearer to the time for the opera to start, there looked to be a correspondingly greater number of people both entering and leaving the Starbucks. Gazing out through the full-wall window, Kyung-hee thought she saw Jelinek crossing the street. Looking utterly ordinary, with a dappled scarf and a leather-and-wool coat, alone, not attracting anybody’s attention. And not paying attention to anybody, either. Yet perhaps it was merely an illusory scene which Kyung-hee’s weak eyesight fabricated on her retinas. The door was opened again and the pigeon flew back out, leaving behind a faint henhouse smell, and Kyung-hee eventually got her hands on the second latte. The man standing on Kyung-hee’s right turned to his petite, copper-skinned young wife, stroked her cheek, and murmured, My lovely Cambodian woodpecker.