Winter in Sokcho

by Elisa Shua Dusapin

  ‘It was my day off,’ I said in my defence.

  I should have done it anyway, he retorted, in case new guests arrived. As if we were swamped with bookings, I thought to myself.

  Park kept one eye on me from behind the counter all morning. He must have noticed I was treating the Frenchman differently from the other guests. It was almost two weeks since Kerrand had arrived. He wasn’t around much but he left his door open, even when he was out. I cleaned his room meticulously, doing my best not to disturb his belongings. Occasionally I came across sketches of his main character. Nothing definitive, he threw away a lot of paper. I’d find the woman from the night-time drawings in the wastepaper basket, ripped to shreds.

  My mother had arranged for us to meet that afternoon so she could buy me a traditional outfit. Lunar New Year was coming up and she felt it was time I started dressing like a woman. That made me laugh. I hadn’t worn the traditional Seollal costume for years, but my aunt, my mother’s older sister, was coming to visit us from Seoul. My mother would do her best to make me look shiny.

  Kerrand came walking towards me along Mother Kim’s alleyway carrying his bedspread, unaware of the sheet of ice underfoot. I was about to warn him when he slipped and fell. I ran over to him.

  ‘It’s too dark.’ He winced as he picked himself up.

  ‘It is winter.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  He dried himself off, his face ruddy from the cold.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I lied.

  I looked around us.

  ‘The neon lights, the whole thing. You get used to it.’

  He rubbed his gloves together to brush off the dirt. I pointed to the bedspread on the ground.

  ‘So you’ve decided to give me your washing after all?’

  He picked up the bedspread, my attempt at a joke apparently lost on him. He apologised for having spilled ink on the bedding. He seemed embarrassed, I said it didn’t matter.

  ‘Can I leave it with you?’

  I held my arms out. He shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t mean for you to carry it, I just wanted to know if you could wash it.’

  ‘Yes, I told you I could.’

  ‘Shall I put it in the machine?’

  ‘No, it needs special stuff for the ink.’

  His shoulders dropped.

  ‘Leave it all in your room, I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘It’s in the way there. Let me put it somewhere for you.’

  I’d be late for my mother, but I didn’t mind. If anything, I was quite pleased.

  In the laundry room, I told Kerrand I’d googled him and found some of his work online. He asked me if I read comic books. Not very often. But I was interested in them.

  ‘You have a book coming out soon, don’t you?’

  ‘So my publisher says.’

  ‘Stuck for inspiration?’

  He gave a wry laugh.

  ‘Inspiration’s only a small part of it.’

  ‘Your drawings are really good.’

  It occurred to me that I knew nothing about art. I didn’t know how pictures were supposed to be judged.

  ‘What I mean is, I like them.’

  I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to describe what I liked about his drawings, not in English anyway. And I hadn’t spoken a word of French for two years. I daubed stain remover on the bedspread, uncomfortably aware of Kerrand’s presence behind me. I hadn’t used any deodorant and the heat and steam were making me sweat. Finally, he left the room. I unfolded the sheet. The shirt he’d been wearing the evening I’d watched him drawing fell out. I rubbed the fabric between my fingers, unlocking its lingering odour of incense and ginger.

  MY MOTHER looked on while the shop assistant had me try on various outfits. We agreed on one in red and yellow, the colours of youth. A jacket with balloon sleeves and a silk skirt that sat underneath my breasts and covered me all the way down to my feet. I looked obese.

  As we came out of the shop, my mother turned to the window display and pointed to a pink blouse with gold embroidery.

  ‘What do you think of that for me?’ she asked.

  I laughed. She pursed her lips and looked down. I tried to put things right by saying I wasn’t laughing at her, she should try it on, she hadn’t bought herself anything new in ages. She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and said it wasn’t her style anyway.

  I hardly ever saw my mother without her waterproof work overalls. She had on a pair of velour trousers that day, with sensible shoes, her hair tied back with a red bandana that clashed with her lipstick. She was holding her hand to her diaphragm as she walked, her breathing laboured. I gave her a worried look, she said it was nothing, just a twinge. Probably the humidity. I told her she should make an appointment to see the doctor.

  ‘Stop fussing. Come on. Let’s eat somewhere. For once I have a chance to spend some time with you.’

  I followed reluctantly.

  We stopped at a stall near the entrance to the port and she ordered a vegetable and seafood pancake with some local makgeolli rice wine for us. When the food arrived, I tried to work out how much I’d be eating, weighing up the size of each mouthful.

  ‘Good choice of colours,’ my mother was saying. ‘You can wear the dress again for your wedding. You’ll need to watch your figure so you can still fit into it.’

  I started to eat, chewing faster and faster, swirling the makgeolli in my bowl with the tips of my chopsticks. Gulping down long draughts. The dense whiteness of the alcohol coating my throat as it slipped down towards my stomach. My mother was talking about the fish market, about the catch coming in late. She needed fugu for the Seollal meal in a week’s time and there was nothing but octopus available. I’d stopped listening, I was eating, drinking. I’d lost all control.

  My mother was the only fishmonger in Sokcho with a licence to prepare blowfish. Their organs contain lethal toxins but with the right skills, you could use the translucent flesh to create real works of art. My mother served it whenever she wanted to dazzle her guests.

  I coughed. Makgeolli spilled onto my coat. Still talking, my mother dabbed at my coat with the paper napkin she’d used to wipe the grease from her mouth. The patch on my coat began to smell of sour milk. My mother topped up my bowl, smiling happily. I felt sick. I carried on eating and drinking, stuffing myself. It was always the same when I was with her, I couldn’t stop myself. She ordered another pancake.

  ‘You look so lovely when you eat, my girl.’

  Barely able to swallow, I gulped back my tears. When it was time to leave I got up and staggered awkwardly back to the guest house, my stomach distended from overeating.

  IT WAS customary to celebrate Seollal with the family. Tteok soup followed by a trip to the cemetery to place rice balls on the ancestors’ graves. My mother expected me to be there. I made arrangements with Park, I’d cook the tteokguk in advance, he’d only have to reheat it for himself and the girl with the bandages. And Kerrand too, should he deign to sample my cooking.

  The girl had been spending all her time in her room since the boy left for Seoul. I’d find her clothes tangled up on the bed along with psychology magazines, the personality tests all dutifully completed. From time to time I’d do one myself, just to compare. Are you more of a dog or a cat? She was something in-between, I was a cat. Sometimes she’d come and watch television in the lounge, a drama series, a Hong Kong Chinese film. Another layer of dressings would be removed from her face. You still couldn’t make out her features.

  Sokcho was bedecked in finery in readiness for Seollal. Strings of lights were hung along the main street as far as the great steel arch, its light-blue metal structure adorned with an inflatable dolphin for the occasion. The dolphin leered, brandishing a sign that dangled from its flippers, bearing the words ‘Rodeo Street’.

  In the supermarket, I stopped in the manga and manhwa section. It wasn’t very well stocked. No western books at all. I scanned the t
itles and eventually found one of the few manhwa novels I’d read and enjoyed. A tale of a mother and daughter in Ancient Korea. Clean lines, bright colours, a world away from Kerrand’s drawings. I bought it.

  Kerrand was in the visitors’ lounge, leafing through the Korea Times. He saw me come in and closed the paper. I handed him the manhwa.

  ‘It’s in Korean, but there’s not much dialogue.’

  He flicked through the book, running his finger along the strips like a child learning to read. He looked up after about ten pages. He was hungry. Did I want to have dinner with him? Caught off guard, I didn’t know what to say. He looked at me expectantly and I offered to make us some radish soup. No, he said he’d rather go out. I was hurt. But I kept it to myself and suggested we go to one of the fish places down by the water.

  STALL-OWNERS WERE stretching tarpaulin sheets in front of their stands to protect them from the wind. The customers, old men. Shouts mingling with the chilli and fermented cabbage smells of kimchi and steam from the soups. One stand serving octopus, another crab, raw fish. Kerrand was shaking his head. The noise, he said, the smells, the lack of space. He needed peace and quiet. There were no more stalls beyond the quayside, only Dunkin’ Donuts. A decision was needed. In the end he picked out a stand I wasn’t familiar with, away from the others, the quietest one.

  Three tables, a tarpaulin rigged up overhead. Red plastic chairs. A waiter spread a bin bag over the table by way of a cloth, then brought us two glasses of hot water. We were sitting in a draught. Kerrand braced his shoulders against the cold. Did he want to go somewhere else? No, he said, this was just fine. The waiter came back with a simplified menu in English. We didn’t need it, I said, I could read the Korean written on the wall. He ignored me and put the menu on the table.

  ‘Which of your parents is French?’ Kerrand asked.

  I looked up at him, taken aback.

  ‘I asked the owner of the guest house. Out of curiosity.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘What I thought he’d say. That you were French Korean. And that you spoke perfect French.’

  ‘Park doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he doesn’t speak French.’

  I explained that my mother was from Sokcho. I knew nothing at all about my father except that he was working as a fishing engineer when they met. The waiter came to take our order. Grilled fish, a bottle of soju. Kerrand was watching my every move. I stared out towards the kitchen behind him, avoiding his gaze. Tiling, dirt floor, knives clattering, soup gurgling on the stove. I fiddled with my chopsticks. Kerrand drew his chair closer to the table.

  ‘Your cut’s healed nicely.’

  ‘It wasn’t very deep.’

  I had to be careful where I put my legs to avoid touching his. The waiter came back with the soju, fish, kimchi and potato salad. Kerrand ate a spoonful.

  ‘Mayonnaise. American influence, even here …’

  ‘Mayonnaise comes from France, not the US.’

  He looked up, amused. We ate in silence for a while. Kerrand was holding his chopsticks all wrong. I showed him how to hold them the right way. After a couple of mouthfuls, he went back to his old way of holding them. I didn’t see any point in insisting. He wasn’t saying anything, so I asked him how he was spending his days. Going for walks, exploring the area, looking for inspiration. Had he travelled to all the places he’d drawn for his hero? Yes, to most of them. He’d never been to Korea before.

  ‘So I suppose the last book in the series will be set in Sokcho?’

  ‘You already asked me that.’

  ‘That was two weeks ago. You hadn’t decided then.’

  ‘Do you think Sokcho would make a good setting for a story?’

  I said it would depend on the story. Kerrand leaned towards the table, as if he wanted to let me in on a secret.

  ‘If I set it here, will you help me?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Show me things.’

  ‘There’s nothing to do in Sokcho.’

  ‘That can’t be true.’

  I took a few sips of soju. My cheeks were getting warm. I was quiet for a moment and then asked him where his interest in drawing had come from. He didn’t know exactly. He’d always read comic books. He spent hours copying his favourite strips when he was little, maybe that’s how it began.

  ‘Have you achieved what you hoped to do?’

  ‘Well, I certainly never imagined I’d get to where I am now.’

  He turned away to extract a bone caught in his teeth. Then he asked me again. Would I agree to help him if he needed me?

  ‘Otherwise you’ll leave?’

  ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

  ‘No.’

  He smiled, satisfied. But would he let me watch him draw in return? He took a drink of his soju and said:

  ‘If you like.’

  Sometimes when people say ‘If you like’, what they mean is ‘I’d rather you didn’t’. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t read his tone of voice. All I knew was that I didn’t like the way he said it.

  All night long the town was entombed in frost. The temperature fell to minus twenty-seven degrees, the first time it had happened in years. Curled up under the covers, I blew on my hands and rubbed them between my thighs. Outside, against the onslaught of ice, the waves struggled to resist, moving ever more slowly and heavily, cracking as they collapsed in defeat on the shoreline. I bundled myself up in my overcoat, the only way I could find sleep.

  IN THE MORNING, the radiators in my room and the one the Japanese man had occupied weren’t working. The water in the pipes had frozen. Park said I could use the portable heater from reception until he could get the pipes repaired. The reception had a stove he could light. I reminded him that the stove was a relic from the 1950s, it was useless. I’d already tried. Anyway, the sewage pipes were blocked up, it was impossible to breathe in my room. I suggested I move into the room next to Kerrand’s. Park sighed. Nothing worked any more in this dump. There was no other option.

  Mother Kim was trying to relight her cooker. Seeing me approach with my clothes and my bag of toiletries, she slumped dejectedly against the counter. We’d just have to wait. So long as it didn’t last too long. Her freezer only worked every other day, it was no good for the meat. Customers were scarce enough as it was.

  Kerrand was at his desk. All that separated us was a thin paper wall. He offered to help me move. No need, I’d already brought everything over.

  In the bathroom, his brushes, left there to dry. A trail of ink and soap dripped from the tips, sucked towards the drain in the basin. A tumbler with his toothbrush, a tube of French toothpaste. I used some to brush my teeth. It had a nasty taste, a mixture of washing-up liquid and caramel. I smoothed out the tube so Kerrand wouldn’t see I’d used it. Wet socks hanging over the back of a chair. Since the incident in the laundry room the clothes he’d been giving me to wash had all been spotless. I ran a bath, undressed. The water was too hot. I sat on the chair and waited, my glasses steamed up. I was fed up with them. I thought about it and decided I’d stop wearing them around Kerrand. They made my eyes look small. I looked like a rat.

  In the bath, I had fun floating as flat as I could below the surface, keeping my whole body under water. Something would always end up poking out, a bit of my stomach, a breast or a knee.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Kerrand was waiting by the door, holding a towel. He’d taken off his jumper. His skin visible beneath the linen shirt. He glanced almost imperceptibly over my breasts beneath my nightgown, down my legs and quickly back up again. I realised with disgust that my scar was completely exposed. He said goodnight and hurriedly shut himself in the bathroom.

  In bed later, I heard the pen scratching. I pinned myself against the thin wall. A gnawing sound, irritating. Working its way under my skin. Stopping and starting. I pictured Kerrand, his fingers scurrying like spiders’ legs, his eyes travelling up, scrutinising the model, looking down at the paper again, looking back up to m
ake sure his pen conveyed the truth of his vision, to keep her from vanishing while he traced the lines. I imagined her dressed in a single piece of fabric from her chest to the top of her thighs, leaning one arm on the wall, tilting her chin upwards to say something to him, teasing him, sure of herself. And then something would spook him, again, and he’d spill the ink and make her disappear.

  The pen scratches merged to become one long, slow sound, like a lullaby. Before I fell asleep, I tried to hold on to the images planted in my mind, knowing they’d be gone by the time I woke up.

  WITH THE GUEST HOUSE paralysed by the cold, there wasn’t much for me to do. I washed the breakfast dishes and hung around in reception with Park. The television was on. He watched and I surreptitiously scanned the classified pages in the papers, looking for job vacancies in Sokcho. Dockyard supervisor, sailor, diver, dog walker. I went online and read synopses of Kerrand’s stories, I followed his hero to Egypt, Peru, Tibet, Italy. I looked at ticket prices for flights to France and calculated how long I’d have to work at the guest house before I could leave, even though I knew I would never do it. The Japanese cat over the computer waved its paw. That same tedious grin. Hard to believe I’d found it cute at first.

  A beetle hauled itself across the desk and came to a halt next to my files. It must have survived by hiding away indoors before the first frosts came. I took hold of it delicately. Its legs started waving around in the air, its antennae reaching out, almost as if it was pleading with me. I turned it over to inspect its belly. Nice. All smooth and rounded. Park told me to crush it but I didn’t want to harm it. I never killed those beetles. I threw them out of the window to die outside in their own time.