by Young-Ha Kim
"Do you like Klimt?"
The woman looked me in the eye and answered, "No."
"But why are you only looking at his paintings?"
"It's none of your business."
Her accent soared with a Chinese inflection. She might have been from Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Macao. She poured Coke into her glass and drank it. Thanks to my attempt at a conversation, I could now stare sitting across the table from her. Her unmade face was freckled and darkly tanned. It dripped with unhidden fatigue. I wanted to spend the night with her, to welcome dawn with my arm under her travel-weary head. I focus on myself when I travel. My life in Korea is devoted to separating those who could become clients from those who couldn't. I don't live that way when I am abroad.
"Where are you from?"
"Hong Kong," she answered curtly. "What about you?"
"Me? I'm from Hell."
She frowned, then laughed. "So you live in an interesting place."
"It's boring there. Nothing ever changes. So, I guess you're traveling. Where were you before coming to Vienna?"
"Berlin. It rained for three whole days. The only thing I saw was the hotel bar." She closed her visitor's guide, took out a Marlboro, and lit it. "What do you do?"
What do I do? Sometimes I say I'm a therapist, sometimes I say I'm a writer. But I still pause every time I get this question.
"I'm a novelist."
"Have your books been published in English or Chinese?"
"No."
She appeared to lose interest. I get this a lot when I travel. A novelist without a book published in English is treated like a bum.
"What about you?"
"I've done a lot of things. I worked in a department store, for one. There are a lot of department stores in Hong Kong."
"Can I ask how old you are?"
"Twenty-one."
I was a little taken aback. She looked too unhappy to be twenty-one.
"Is this your first time in Vienna?" I asked.
"Yeah. It's not easy to get out of Hong Kong. This is my first time abroad."
Some people live in one city their entire lives. For people in Seoul it would be unimaginable to stay put for two whole decades. I studied this woman from Hong Kong, a part of both Britain and China; a city and a country at the same time. She told me she'd lived in crowded Hong Kong her entire life.
"Where are you staying?" I asked.
She took out a map to check. "A pension on Mariahilferstrasse."
Mariahilferstrasse connected the heart of the city to Vienna's western district. A lot of cheaper lodging was clustered there, and her pension wasn't too far from my hotel.
"Do you want to go sightseeing with me tomorrow? This is my third time in Vienna," I offered.
"Sure, why not."
"Let's meet in front of the Vienna Opera House at ten." I marked the location of the Opera House on her map. She opened her small eyes wide and looked at the map, then stood up. I went back to my hotel, packed, and went down to the bar for some beer. A fat old woman tending bar poured me a beer, topped with dense foam, with an experienced air. I took out the Judith postcard I'd bought at the museum and gazed at it.
"Is there any special way you want it?" I asked Judith on her last day. Judith stared at me blankly, as if she didn't want to think about it, then pushed the decision on me. This happens quite often, so I wasn't flustered.
"What do you think would be the best for me?" she asked.
"Why don't we start by eliminating the methods you don't like?" I took out my laptop and opened images I presented to clients.
"You don't want to be hanged, do you?" I double-clicked on the first picture file, a picture of a dead person hanging from a tree on a hill.
"No, I don't think I'd like that feeling on my neck." She touched her neck with her left hand.
"It's actually pretty simple. People think you're in pain for a few minutes and die, but that's not right. If you put a noose around your neck and kick away the chair, the noose catches your neck and breaks it. At that point, most people lose consciousness. That's why some people die even though their feet are on the ground. If it took three or four minutes of kicking around to die, that wouldn't be possible."
"I still don't like that option."
I opened the next file. A man was sprawled in a tub filled with pink water.
"This method has usually been used in the West. Roman aristocrats favored it. Your blood circulates faster when you're immersed in hot water and your death comes quicker. It takes a lot to cut your artery, but once you do it, it's very relaxing. You can die watching your blood seep into the water. You'll be in a state of shock because of the amount of blood you lose and you'll feel weaker and weaker, and hazy. But I don't recommend it."
"Why not?"
"A few of my clients insist on slitting their wrists but then ask me to do the cutting. I don't like to have blood on my hands. And participating actively ruins the significance of my work."
"I guess that's true. So you don't do it?"
"I never do anything I shouldn't do."
"So did they end up choosing another method?"
"No. They were able to do it on their own. Though we had to talk more before they could."
"I see."
The way Judith looked right at that moment is seared in my memory. She was vivacious. She was showing me a side of her that made her a completely different person from when I first met her.
"This is exciting. My life has always been an uncontrollable mess. I'm always somewhere I don't want to be. But it feels different now," she said, minutely upbeat.
Her excitement validated the importance of my work. She no longer had a Chupa Chups in her mouth. She didn't take her eyes off the laptop screen, as if she were eagerly learning how to use the computer.
It's thrilling to have a client like Judith. I felt comforted when I thought of her. I ordered another beer and sucked it down in one gulp. I went up to my room, took a shower, and fell asleep.
The next morning, when I got to the Vienna Opera House, the woman from Hong Kong was already there. She had on dark sunglasses and was holding a Coke can.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked.
"The Art History Museum of Vienna."
"Sounds good."
She downed the rest of her Coke and followed me. If you walk to the west away from the Opera House, you hit the Art History Museum and the Natural History Museum. April in Vienna was still chilly, the wind strong and piercing. We had to hunch against the wind.
The Art History Museum housed the Hapsburgs' fine art collection. Facing it was the Natural History Museum, which used to be a palace. Standing in Maria-Theresa Square, looking at the majestic Renaissance architecture, we agreed that the art inside would be comparatively boring. But we decided to go into the warm building to get away from the gusty wind. We checked our coats and belongings and, feeling unburdened, walked down the corridor that aristocrats would have sauntered through ages ago.
Like we expected, the pieces on display were nothing exciting: mummies of Egyptian pharaohs, jackal statues guarding the mummies, castrated but grand limbless Greek warriors.
We lingered in front of a Kuros statue, excavated in the fifth century B.C.
"Isn't that amazing?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. I hate dynamic statues."
We went up to the second floor, which displayed mostly post-Renaissance works. We wandered around casually as if we were looking at scenery. A special exhibit, Eroticism in Masterpieces, was in one corner of the gallery. We entered the room without much thought.
There were paintings by Titian, Rubens, and Caravaggio, with characters like Mars, Eros, Venus, and Zeus. I felt for the artists who couldn't depict love between real people and could only show eroticism through the prism of mythology. I wasn't turned on no matter how hard I tried to get in the mood. The eroticism in the paintings was too refined and cloistered to affect me. I pulled on her arm.
"Let's go."
We bought sandwiches at the museum café. I drank the water I had been carrying with me all day and she had a Coke. She looked more tired than she did the day before.
"Is it true that the night view of Hong Kong is amazing?" I asked.
"It's probably better than Hell."
We laughed.
"But that's a dumb question. Nobody thinks he lives in an amazing place," she countered.
She was right. I took another sip of Evian and lit a cigarette.
"Where are you headed after Vienna?" she asked.
"To the same place you're going."
"Where do you think I'm going?" Her eyes widened.
"Florence."
Since she came to Vienna from Berlin, I was certain she would go south. From here, Florence is the only southern city for which you can leave at night. If she were heading to Eastern Europe, she would have left from Berlin.
"How did you know?"
"People from Hell can read minds."
"I think Florence will be warm. Berlin and Vienna are too cold."
For someone from Hong Kong, even this weather would feel severely cold. That night she didn't go back to her pension.
The next night, in a train to Florence, we got a six-person compartment for just the two of us. She fell asleep as the train passed through the plains of Lombardy. I kept shifting around in my seat and gazed at her sleeping figure, instead of staring out the window.
The previous night, in Vienna, she'd fallen asleep like that. As soon as we had sex, she greedily gulped down some Coke from a plastic bottle. It seemed her thirst was unquenchable. She drank and drank until she could see the bottom of the bottle. When she was done, she fell asleep, as if she had finished all she had to do.
It's easy to have sex when you can't really communicate. I can focus on the sensations without thinking about anything else. She mumbled a few phrases in Cantonese and I was happy that I didn't have the need or the duty to understand. She probably felt the same way.
When the train arrived at the Italian border, customs officials and police officers boarded to check passports. Her passport had been issued in the name of Queen Elizabeth II. She looked for her Coke on waking, but her bottle was empty. She became flustered. I offered her my water bottle. She grimaced and refused it.
"No. I don't drink water."
True, I hadn't seen her drink water. She always drank Coke or some other soda.
"That's strange. Why won't you drink it? Don't they drink water in Hong Kong?" She glared at me. The hatred in her eyes was so piercing that I leaned back despite myself. "What?"
"Never offer water to me. I don't want to drink water. Ever!"
I was irritated, and also taken aback by her tone. The train crossed the border, stopped briefly in Padua, and continued on to Florence.
I fell asleep for a little while. When I woke up, it was still nighttime. The stars outside the window shone brilliantly. I cracked open the window. The noise of the wheels clattering on the tracks got louder. But she was sound asleep. The night air didn't feel chilly. Was it because we were getting closer to Florence?
At that moment, there was a loud bang accompanied by screeching brakes and falling bags. She woke up. I stood up and stuck my head out of the window, but couldn't see anything. The conductor said something hurriedly in Italian and German over the PA system, but I couldn't understand it.
"Do you know German or Italian?" I asked.
"No."
We sat there, waiting for news. It seemed that either the train had collided with something or someone had activated the emergency brake. We sat in our empty compartment, blankly staring at each other. One hour went by, then another.
"Have you ever loved anyone?" she asked me.
"No."
"I have. When you work in a department store, a lot of men hit on you. We can't turn them down because we're in the service industry. We have to just smile and not get angry. I used to sell tea at the department store. This one guy bought tea every day, and talked to me. I never knew whether he wanted to buy tea or talk to me. Then one day he stopped coming. That was my first love. Because of that I don't drink tea."
"Did you sell water after that?"
She glared at me. "You're a fucking asshole."
I was shocked at those words. She knew how to swear in English. She grabbed my Evian bottle out of my hand and guzzled the water down, as if on a dare. I watched her, feeling nervous. She emptied the bottle, glared at me again, and went out to the corridor. I followed her with my eyes. She headed toward the bathroom, swaying, then collapsed in the middle of the corridor. People, who had been milling about outside, tired of the delay, rushed over to her. I ran out, pushed through the crowd, and held her. I tried to get her on her feet. She bent over and started to throw up. I didn't know what to do. I ran to our compartment for some tissues and a plastic bag.
It had been two hours since the train stopped. So she wasn't motion sick. What was it? She yanked the tissues and plastic bag out of my hands to clean up her vomit. She disappeared into the bathroom, snapping, "I told you not to give me water!"
"I won't in the future," I murmured, chastised.
The train started moving slowly while she was still in the bathroom. Another announcement was made in Italian and in German.
I caught myself thinking of Judith again. After mulling over several methods, she finally chose gas. I expressed my reservations: "That's a little dangerous."
"Dangerous? Ha!" She laughed. It was a little funny. I was warning of danger to someone dreaming of suicide.
"Gas sinks to the floor because it's heavier than air. It could leak downstairs or even explode if someone breaks down your door."
"An explosion would be interesting. But I don't want to go with so much fanfare. Isn't it your job to make it work?"
There was a way to do it. After a certain time, I could call the police. She liked that idea. I explained the procedure.
"Around eleven P.M. you seal the door and windows so the gas doesn't leak out. Next, you unplug everything, including the phone. If something sparks it could blow everything up. Then go next door and ask them to keep an eye on your apartment because you're going out of town. So if someone comes by, they can tell him you're not here. Then you write a will. You could also write it in advance. If there's a will, the cops will quickly determine it a suicide. It's good to write a will in detail. The police are suspicious of vague wills. If a murderer wrote the will, it's usually vague. You should specifically mention people close to you. Like, so-and-so, I'm sorry for doing such and such. That will make things easier for me to deal with."
"That sounds hard."
"If it's too hard, you can choose something from examples I have, but I think it's good to write your own will since it's the last thing you'll ever write."
She sat down to write her will right away. She tore up a few drafts but diligently wrote away. I watched TV and drank whiskey.
We arrived in Florence, the city of flowers, around eleven in the morning. We were three hours late. As soon as we got off the train, we got her a Coke. She chugged it greedily. We walked leisurely over to the Duomo, the symbolic structure of Florence. In front of the majestic church, decorated in white and green marble, there was a baptistery made from the same marble. Carvings in relief by Renaissance sculptors like Ghiberti graced the doors on four sides of the masklike Duomo.
"I don't like towers," she said, glancing up at the bell tower of the Duomo.
"Why?"
"They make me sick."
We sat on the Duomo steps and smoked. She snuffed her half-smoked cigarette out and remarked, "When I love deeply, I vomit."
"You loved a tower?"
"Dumbass. Nobody loves towers. I want to see the Ponte Vecchio." She showed me a picture of the Ponte Vecchio in her guidebook. We passed the Galleria degli Uffizi and arrived at the bridge lined with disintegrating, generations-old shacks.
"I've wanted to see this bri
dge for a long time," she told me.
"How did you know about it?"
"I had a British Airways calendar, and January was the Ponte Vecchio. I liked those rickety houses. That picture had the sun setting over the bridge. Isn't the bridge beautiful?"
But the bridge wasn't that beautiful in real life. It looked like a shantytown about to be dismantled. It failed to hide the hardships it had gone through over the years.
"I like how everything is mixed together and mismatched. And it's warm here." Her voice was tinged with suppressed tears. It was true; Florence was much warmer than Vienna. We went to the flea market and a couple of art museums, then back to our small and shabby hotel. She showered and changed as soon as we entered our room. I drank a lukewarm beer I'd bought at the store.
"How do you have sex in Hell?" she asked, sipping beer.
"I don't have sex in Hell."
"Liar. I think the only thing you do is have sex."
"Why do you think the only thing I do is have sex?"
"Because you make me sick."
"Then why did you sleep with me?"
"You know when you feel like throwing everything up? My stomach is always filled with weird things. That's when I feel the urge to have sex."
"What did you do after you quit your job at the department store?"
"I worked at a bar."
"Were you a bartender?"
"No, I was too young. They wouldn't let me mix drinks."
"Then what did you do there?"
"I was a mannequin."
"A mannequin?" I thought of the movie Mannequin. It was about a man who loved a plastic model who turned into a person. Are humans that much better than mannequins? Why do cartoon monsters and cyborgs want so badly to become human?
"I was a mannequin sitting on the bar. I wasn't sitting at the bar, I sat on top of it."
"What were you doing up there?"