by Anna Premoli
The morning goes along calmly enough, if you can call this feeling of being suspended in mid- air calm. A vacuum seems to have formed around me: no one dares ask me anything, and everyone’s pretending to be very interested in their PC screens. Jess has understood my bad mood on hearing the news of the transfer and in her own way she’s trying to cheer me up, by offering me marshmallows and liquorice. She’s always saying that sweets are the cure for all ills. I’m not too convinced myself, but I might as well try it, because I can’t think of any others. It’s sweets or suicide, so I’ll go for the sweets.
As I feel myself succumbing to the darkest gloom, I write an email to Jane to briefly fill her in on developments.
Dramatic news: I’m not going to New York, I’m leaving for Seoul in two weeks…
All I’m after is a bit of human sympathy, and you’d think it was pretty clear from what I’ve written that I want to wallow in misery and total despair. But that’s not how Jane sees it, apparently.
Cool! Lucky you, getting the chance to eat all that yummy kimchi! :-)
I blink in puzzlement at her message. Kimchi? I don’t even know what a kimchi is, I’m sure that I’ve never heard of it in my life. Slightly nervously, I start investigating on the internet and find out that it is a popular dish in Korea made of fermented vegetables with spices: it’s usually prepared with Chinese cabbage, to which a pile of hot chilli is added. The site completes its explanation with a photo of something so revolting looking that it would appear awful even if it were actually the world’s most succulent dish – and I’m afraid that this kimchi stuff does not fall into that category.
I am so disgusted by my discovery that I don’t notice Mark Kim magically materialising behind me. I am certain his stealthy step is intentional. It’s clear he’s trying to work out what I’m reading, so I jump to my feet and say to him in a menacing voice, “Aren’t you accustomed to respecting other people’s privacy in Korea?”
He draws back instinctively and stares at me, looking puzzled. My eyes are blazing and I think I might actually have intimidated him, which is nothing short of amazing. Mr Kim seems like a man who is more used to frightening others than to being frightened.
After a moment’s hesitation he gives me that glare of his, which somehow manages to be both suspicious and resentful at the same time. And to think that I only had the pleasure of meeting him a few hours ago!
“Actually, John sent me to look for you – we’re going out for lunch,” he says stiffly. “I didn’t mean to startle you, you were so focused on your work…”
I can tell that he’s being sarcastic, but his tone of voice is so serious that all the others fall for it. Not me, as I clarify with a dirty look.
God, I swear I hate him so much I could kill him. If it had been anybody else I might have thought that I was being unfair to him because he represents the transfer in my mind, but in his case I’m afraid it’s personal. This is probably only the third or fourth time that we’ve spoken, but I have the impression that too much has already been said. Despite not yet knowing anything about him, I’m sure that nothing that I may find out in the future will change my mind, even if it turns out he’s a martyr or a philanthropist – not even if one day he invents a cure for all diseases known to man.
Anyway, I do my best to pretend to be friendly and give him a smile. The attempt, however, is not particularly effective.
“No problem,” I say, and grab my coat and handbag.
Out of the corner of my eye I see that John has just left his office and is heading toward the lift, so I set off too, a silent Mark in tow, and, enveloped in a cloud of palpable tension, the three of us descend to the ground floor, leave the building and walk along the busy streets of London. And lunchtime in London can be really busy.
John and Mark immediately begin exchanging company gossip, as if that was all they’d been waiting to do, and I’m reluctantly forced to accept that they really do think highly of one another, given the way they solicit each other’s advice. I feel a bit of an outsider to the conversation, and every time I open my mouth only rubbish comes out. Perhaps I’d better just give up and walk in silence.
I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I’m hardly taking any notice of what’s going on around me, until suddenly my damn heel slips on a flagstone that’s still slippery from the morning rain. I’m preparing to land heavily on the ground when, in the middle of my descent, two large hands grab me firmly, preventing the humiliating tumble. At first I think it must be John, who was walking by my side, but when I raise my head, my gaze meets the dark (in every sense) eyes of Mark. It’s an awkward moment to notice that he has incredibly long eyelashes; if he were a woman he wouldn’t need to use mascara. Since when have men been allowed to have eyelashes as incredible as that?
I have no idea how he managed to grab me – he must have leapt like a cat to my assistance.
“Be careful! You don’t want to fall and hurt yourself, it might delay our departure! That’s all we need, you breaking something!” he reprimands me, as though speaking to a child. Is this guy for real?
Seeing as he helped me avoid looking like a bloody idiot, though, I thank him, despite my embarrassment, and try to compose myself.
I’ve regained my balance, but his grip shows no signs of letting up: he holds me anchored to him as though I were fragile. While my cheeks start to go bright red, totally against my will, I find the presence of mind to remove his hands from my waist. The contact is minimal, but it’s still electric. Mark says nothing and merely stares at me with a strange expression in his eyes. Before I can make even more of a fool of myself – which, I admit, would be difficult, but I am known to relish a challenge – I walk off and catch up with John, who’s a few metres ahead.
“You’re blushing,” my boss teases me, in a murmur.
“Oh don’t be stupid! Anyway, where is this bloody restaurant?” I ask, pretending to be perfectly at ease and determined to change the subject. Fortunately the Italian we’re booked in at isn’t far away.
I love Italian restaurants, and I’m crazy about pasta. I don’t even look at the menu, I already know that I’ll have my usual mushroom tagliatelle. At the thought that I won’t be able to indulge myself with it when I’m in a bad mood in Korea, I’m overcome by a wave of sadness. I’m about to emigrate to a distant land where they only eat fermented cabbage.
Fermented. Cabbage.
The horror…
This far from reassuring image of Korean delicacies translates into a suffering sigh. John doesn’t notice anything, but Mark, the man from whom no detail escapes, instantly shifts his watchful eyes to my face. And just like this morning, they don’t look at all satisfied with what they see. I’m very tempted to tell him that he shouldn’t stare at people as though he were looking right through them, and that I don’t think it’s polite.
I’m about to open my mouth when John interrupts the hostile silence by summoning the waiter. For once today I agree with him: ordering food is the priority.
Lunch is proceeding without major problems: the food is great and the conversation between John and Mark doesn’t require much input from me – I’m in company, but it is as though I were alone, immersed in my own thoughts.
I have so many of them flying around in my head that I don’t even notice John has left the table to answer a phone call. When I turn my attention back to lunch, I notice that Mark is looking at me severely without even trying to hide it. He’s direct, if nothing else.
“I don’t particularly like being observed,” I warn him, feeling uncomfortable. “And that’s practically all you seem to do.”
He smiles, almost amused.
“Sorry,” he says, not looking sorry at all, “but I’m trying to find some little clue as to what I can expect from you.”
“What do you mean?” He doesn’t know what to expect? What should I say, then?
“Well, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t want to go to Seoul,” he says, raising a glass of red wine a
nd staring somewhere into the distance.
“There’s not much mystery about that…” I mutter. Well done, Sherlock Holmes, on solving another difficult case.
“And that in itself would not be a problem, if I were able to work you out. But I’m finding it strangely difficult.”
I open my curious eyes wide – I have absolutely no idea where he’s going with this.
“You’re a very bad liar, because it’s obvious what you’re thinking from your face. But there’s something else that’s impossible to decipher. And yet at first glance you seem quite ordinary. Strange,” he concludes flatly, as if he wasn’t insulting me. Which he is, for God’s sake!
For about ten seconds I sit there immobile, paralysed by his words. Me, ordinary??? I’m about to pour that red wine over his head when an idea strikes me – a brilliant one! Why don’t we work together to keep me in London? At the end of the day, we might actually have a common goal.
My anger vanishes instantly, gradually transforming my expression into something much more enigmatic, and an honest to God smile appears on my face.
“I don’t want you to think that this is an insult as opposed to a fact,” I say, trying to prepare him, “but I sincerely believe that you are a windbag who, sooner or later, will inflate yourself so much that you’ll pop. And I can also tell that you think I am a total idiot. So why don’t we join forces to try and make sure I stay in London?” I say, fluttering my lashes while forcing myself to smile.
Mark, who a moment before had been calmly drinking his wine, suddenly starts to choke on it. Could that have been my fault, I wonder to myself as I watch him struggle to regain control?
After he has resumed breathing normally, he has a sip of water. I, however, do nothing at all except continue, undeterred, to smile angelically.
“What did you say?” he asks, still coughing from time to time.
“You don’t like me, and you’re not doing anything to hide it. Come on, don’t tell me you’re surprised that I find you obnoxious too…” I whisper in a sweet voice. They’ll be giving me an Oscar by the end of lunch.
“Generally, people don’t find me obnoxious at all,” he says resentfully. Good to know – as well as being presumptuous, he’s also touchy. He’s a man, I should have known he would be.
I’m not going to say that this lunch is actually nice, but it’s certainly improving. It’s almost fun.
“Let’s hypothesize for a moment that long ago I was promised a colleague with tons of experience and a brilliant CV, and then I learn that I’m going to be babysitting a young English woman. A woman who, from what I can see, will find it hard to settle in a new country because she doesn’t want to go. A woman who, at first glance, doesn’t even seem too interested in having a career…” He raises an eyebrow and looks at me to gauge the effect of his words. “So if you were in my position, what would you think of that?”
He’s right, I know, but I couldn’t care less about his point of view. I’m not that noble. What I care about is my problems.
“What about if we forget about hypotheses and come back to the real world?” I propose in a bored voice. Better to get straight to the point. “You don’t want to work with me, and I don’t want to go to Seoul. I say that we should join forces so that I can stay here in London and you can take someone much more suitable with you.”
Mr Kim retires into silence while he reflects upon my proposal, and in his eyes I see a slight glow of interest.
Meanwhile, John returns to the table, completely unaware of how things have been evolving. If he notices the tense atmosphere, he doesn’t comment in any way.
After lunch we return to the office, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I get back to work, but I’m far from relaxed.
The first thing I do once I’m back at home is to call Jane. Since it’s only seven in the evening, I’m absolutely, mathematically certain that she’ll still be in the office. She never leaves before nine or ten, and never has dinner at home. And I doubt that she puts in all those hours just because she loves what they sell in the company’s snack machines.
As soon as she picks up, I get straight to the point.
“Jane, it’s a nightmare! What am I going to do? I don’t want to leave London, and I certainly don’t want to spend a year living in Korea!” I bombard her with words almost without taking a breath.
My friend can’t hold back a tinkling, harmonious laugh. I’ve always been deeply jealous of people who know how to laugh gracefully, because I tend to sound a bit coarse when I do.
“You know that in your shoes I wouldn’t mind getting out of London for a while? I honestly think that this transfer will do you good. Getting away from your family and the whole working environment of your office is exactly what you need. You need challenges, dear girl,” she says, sounding convinced.
Jane doesn’t know what a quiet life is – for her, it’s important to always have new goals. In the past six years she has spent nine months in New York, six months in Hong Kong and as many again in Paris. Sometimes she gets tired of London and goes to live on the other side of the planet. Or, as I put it, she goes to live in an office on the other side of the planet, because it’s obvious she never really has a moment to actually enjoy the various cities that she’s lived in. And an office in London is probably just like any other office in the world.
I, on the other hand, like to put down roots. I like to know what to expect and to have the same challenges to face in the morning. There is something very reassuring about conducting a predictable life. Not to mention that starting all over again requires a strength of character that I’m afraid I just don’t possess. I don’t want to change everything now that I have finally found a kind of precarious balance in the utter chaos I like to call my life.
Ok, I’m not crazy about my job and I don’t have a great social life, but even though I do get bored now and again, I feel that a bit of security is priceless.
“To be honest, I think I need some peace and quiet…” I reply resignedly. She’ll never understand my point of view anyway.
“No, my dear, you need waking up! And South Korea sounds like a brilliant opportunity to me,” she says, trying to encourage me to seize the moment. She’s wasting her breath: it takes a lot of energy to get a body that’s put down roots in a specific part of the world back into motion – it’s so much easier when you’re doing it with a body that’s already in motion – like hers.
“Even assuming that Seoul is this really nice place that you’re telling me it is, which it absolutely isn’t, you have no idea about how painful the guy I have to work with is! A certain Mark Kim, who has hated me since the moment he saw me. Believe me,” I moan loudly, “not even you would be glad to be going…”
At the other end, all Jane does is giggle. Which isn’t much help at all, I can tell you.
“Good God, Maddison, you can’t expect everyone to fall in love with you straightaway! But generally you’re pretty good at entering into people’s good graces after they’ve known you for a while. It’s one of the things about you that I’ve always envied,” she confesses, sounding sincere.
There’s something that Jane envies about me? I’m amazed.
“I would agree with you, except you haven’t met this guy. Believe me, he really hates my guts something awful,” I insist.
My friend laughs even louder. I am glad that she finds it all so amusing…
“Why on earth should he hate you so much? You’ve only just met,” she says, when she’s finally managed to stop. Yeah, good question.
We reflect seriously for a moment. “In all honesty I think he realized that I’m not actually crazy about the job that I do,” I admit reluctantly. I don’t know how he did it, but something tells me that I might be right. It’s always extremely unpleasant to find that someone has seen through your act. The truth implies a weakness that’s a little unnerving.
“I’ve already told you, Maddy: you do like your job – you just like moaning about life even m
ore.”
Jane can be really blunt sometimes.
“Thinking about it, I get the feeling he could see everything that I feel about this job in my face the very moment he saw me,” I reflect thoughtfully.
“Well that’s no bad thing. That way, he knows what to expect from you, and you won’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not,” she concludes seriously. I had phoned her hoping to be comforted, not to have uncomfortable truths thrown in my face.
“Jane, come on, have some pity, for God’s sake! Let’s change the subject – today’s already been challenging enough,” I beg her. I can almost hear my friend smiling at the other end of the phone line. I wish I could too. Eventually we say goodbye: she goes back to the job she loves so much, and I go back to getting worked up.
It feels like the whole world is ganging up on me today.
Chapter 2
Flights of Fancy – In Every Sense
The last two weeks have flown by with amazing speed. I feel like a prisoner on death row who is waiting for the executioner to turn up but who still hasn’t had time to actually get their head round the idea of what’s going to happen. I think that it’s only been in the last few days that I’ve really understood how Marie Antoinette must have felt as she waited for them to take her out to face the guillotine. Just for the record, it’s not very pleasant.
In the last week I’ve packed, boxed up all my belongings and even sublet my flat. From a formal point of view, I’m ready to leave, but psychologically I couldn’t be feeling less prepared.
My ‘brilliant’ plan to stay in London did not yield the desired results: John has completely closed himself off from me, hiding away and, on the rare occasions when I have been able to see him, my tears have not, unfortunately, managed to make him change his mind. Well, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy mission.
And he’s not the only one: I have a very strong feeling that everyone in the office is trying to avoid me. The cowards!