by Anna Premoli
I am still absorbed in my thoughts and have not decided whether to ring or not when Mark’s voice suddenly makes me jump with fright. I turn round guiltily and find him standing on the stairs behind me.
“Good morning, Maddison, do you need anything?”
His stern, very formal voice sends a shiver through me. And not one of pleasure. The decision not to knock on his door would clearly have been the right one. Good to know, for next time.
Wow! Mark is dressed for jogging and is still red in the face from the exertion. It unnerves me to see him looking so perfect and without a hair out of place at this time of the morning. This ‘born ready’ thing of his really gets on my nerves, especially because it reminds me that I never am.
“Good morning,” I mumble in embarrassment. I feel like a thief who has been caught in the act.
“Did you need something?” he asks in that superior tone that I already know very well, with the addition of a pinch of undisguised forbearance that suits him perfectly.
“Actually I wanted to ask where I can find a place to have a good western breakfast. I’m suffering from coffee withdrawal,” I reply, trying to justify my presence.
He comes to the door and I move aside to let him pass. “I can’t think of anywhere. Seoul is full of coffee houses, but they all open around noon,” he answers, whilst gesturing with his hand for me to get out of the way so he can open the door. What’s he scared of, that I’m going to see his combination?
Theatrically, Mark is still waiting for a moment before giving me the coup de grâce. “Koreans eat savoury food for breakfast – rice and kimchi, usually. I thought you would have found that out for yourself…”
I know that anyone else in my position would have done everything possible to find out all there was to know about the country they were being transferred to, but the truth is that I was afraid – in a total blue funk about finding out things that might have demotivated me even more. And apparently, I wasn’t far from the mark.
“Ah…” slips from my lips. That’s it, the KO. Game, set and match to Mark Kim – who likes to win easy. And there’s that bloody fermented cabbage again!
Even Mr Cheerful here, when he finally decides to raise his eyes to look at me, seems shocked to see how crestfallen I am. I see him contemplating what to do.
“Come on – I drink coffee too and I know what it means not to be able to get your hands on any,” he says finally, inviting me into his apartment – his Bluebeard’s cave. “I’ll make a sacrifice and share my daily ration of caffeine with you.”
I get the feeling that he’s trying to crack a joke, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Anyway, given how hard he obviously found it to invite me in, it would be really rude to refuse, so without waiting for him to ask twice I go inside. I’m curious, I’ll admit.
The first thing I notice is that his apartment is at least twice the size of mine, with an imposing and well equipped kitchen. It has a shiny glass table that could seat ten people perfectly comfortably, although I imagine he has never actually invited anyone in, so as to avoid guests leaving footprints on the floor. It is all so perfect that I doubt it has ever been touched by a human being. The picture is rounded off by a sofa in very light beige, all in very good taste, which must have cost him a small fortune. Unless the company paid… It’s one of those sofas upon which you’d never dream of having dinner while watching television – you’d be so scared of ruining it that you’d end up sitting on the floor.
I’ve always thought that decor says a lot about a person, and this apartment only confirms my suspicions about its tenant, in the event of further proof being necessary.
Mark pulls out two white cups from a cupboard, hands me a giant jar of Nescafe extra strong and points to the kettle.
“Koreans drink a very questionable type of coffee. I call it brown water. That’s why instant seems wiser: it’s not the greatest, but at least the concentration of caffeine is authentic. Listen, I need to take a shower after my run, do you think you can make the coffee in the meantime?” he asks.
Good God, who does he think he’s dealing with?! It’s only instant coffee!
“Sure. Go ahead,” I say quietly. How hard can it be to boil water?
He thinks for a second, then leaves silently. So all I have to do now is work out how to operate the kettle, which at first glance doesn’t look particularly intuitive. Too many buttons for a contraption that in theory is only supposed to do one thing.
My personal war against certain infernal so-called ‘hi-tech’ gadgets has been going on for some time, and my past battles haven’t had encouraging results. If it didn’t mean having to justify myself to Mark, I think I’d probably start looking for a normal pan to put on the hob. But in this kitchen there is no hob – there’s a range straight out of a James Bond movie. I should have guessed: even more buttons, even more strange symbols. Now that I think about it, the kettle actually looks easier to operate…
After a good five minutes pressing all the buttons either individually or in dangerous combinations, the light finally comes on! The noise reassures me that the machine is starting to heat the water, and fortunately it’s extremely fast: I’m just victoriously filling the two cups with steaming liquid when Mark returns.
He’s either very fast at showering or, more probably, does not trust me and had his shower at turbo speed out of fear that I might burn his house down. Typical male behaviour.
He’s wearing a pair of faded jeans that fit perfectly and a blue shirt with the collar turned up. Vanity or just natural elegance? Seeing him walking about barefoot makes the scene look almost homely.
Mark is still holding his towel, using it to dab at the unruly hair which falls across his forehead. As he comes closer I get a waft of a lovely male shower foam.
“I’ll tell you where you can get instant coffee that’s worthy of the name. But you’ll have to do without fresh milk: it’s hard to get because we don’t use it much here. But there is powdered milk. Pretty atrocious, if you ask me,” he informs me, leaning on the kitchen counter.
“I have trouble digesting regular milk, I usually drink lactose-free. Do you think there’s any chance of getting any?”
Mark looks at me incredulously. “I think I can categorically exclude that.”
From a shelf he pulls out a small sugar bowl that reminds me of my mother’s Chinese one. It looks old and not an object that someone like him would choose. Almost out of place with everything else. Then he opens another cupboard and a giant pack of melba toast and a jar of blackberry jam appear. “No butter, of course. Where there’s no milk, there’s no butter. Not to mention that it would be terrible for your figure,” he adds.
I must have gradually got used to him and to his digs because I’m not particularly surprised by this statement. After all, it’s just the latest in a long line of them.
The smell of the coffee is so good that it makes me feel as though I can put up with anything – even his unkind statements about my figure. Which, incidentally, is very good. My secret is to alternate periods of ongoing diets with periods of stuffing my face. Exactly what every doctor who knows his stuff would recommend. Who has the perseverance to eat healthily all the time, come on?
And so, standing in his kitchen, we eat the melba toast and enjoy the coffee in silence, each lost in our own thoughts and too embarrassed to make small talk.
“Do you go jogging?” he asks suddenly.
If he’s trying to find common ground, he’s made a big mistake: The only sport I like is the one I watch on TV. More precisely, I like the princess costumes the skaters wear.
“No, I don’t like running for the sake of it,” I tell him.
“So what do you like then?” he asks, looking at me doubtfully.
“In the morning, sleeping in,” I say, in confirmation of his suspicion. It is clear that he had expected a similar response. His smirk is living proof of it. “But sometimes I might go running. If it’s not too cold… or… or too hot�
� And if it’s not raining. In short, if the conditions are… are optimal,” I stammer. I don’t know what other rubbish to make up, but at the sight of his disapproving expression I just can’t keep my mouth shut.
Mark looks at me sceptically. “All right, I’ll knock on your door when the weather conditions are ‘optimal’. You might be lucky, September’s the ideal month for people who like jogging.”
It sounds like a threat.
Let him just try to get me out of bed – I’m known for my foul mood when I’m woken up too early.
“Why not, after all it can’t hurt me, can it?” I answer with a smile that says he can forget making me go running.
Desperate to change the subject, I turn to rinse my cup, but with a firm grip he blocks my hand before I can turn on the water. “Leave it, there’s a dishwasher. I’ll put everything in there.”
We stand there frozen in that position for just a moment too long: me clutching my cup, he in turn holding my wrist. I swallow, trying to look away from his hand.
“A dishwasher for someone who lives alone? What a waste of water and energy,” I tease him in the hope of breaking the strange atmosphere.
My plan proves successful because Mark lets go instantly.
“Actually, it’s been proven that you waste a lot more water when you wash the dishes the old fashioned way. There’s nothing worse than letting the water run in the sink.”
Apparently he always has to have the last word, not to mention that he seems to think he’s some kind of ultimate bearer of all truths, from economics to environmental engineering. I’m almost tempted to reply in kind when I remember that:
a) he did offer me coffee and melba toast
b) from tomorrow he will be my boss and there is no need to further worsen relations, which are already pretty tense.
I therefore place the cup on the side and watch him put it inside his super hi-tech dishwasher. It would take me a month just to turn the bloody thing on.
“Thank you for breakfast. Can I ask you one last favour? Can you tell me how to get to the nearest supermarket?”
Mark gives me the necessary information, but in the end he asks, “Do you want me to take you there?”
It’s obvious that he’s not over the moon about the idea, but feels compelled to ask.
“Thanks, but there’s no need,” I answer quickly. No way am I going to the supermarket with him – I’m sure he’d disapprove of all my purchases!
He immediately gets the message, pulls his head back between his shoulders and replies, “Ok, then.”
Wow, talk about persistence…
“Thank you for breakfast,” I repeat as I begin my escape.
“It was the least I could do, given the circumstances,” he feels compelled to say, as though justifying having provided me with coffee. Clearly, he doesn’t want me getting too used to his ‘kindness’.
Before the situation can become even more embarrassing I escape across the hall and take refuge inside my small apartment.
The morning flies by and I spend it busily unpacking: the main problem is that I have too many clothes and too few closets, and I’m scared that stuffing everything that I dragged from England into them is really going to be a big job. After about two hours of hard work I decided to throw in the towel. It’s time to leave the apartment: sooner or later I have to face the city.
Will our heroine will be able to complete today’s mission of going shopping, I wonder?
Once outside, the weather surprises me: the air is warm but not humid and the timid sunshine immediately puts me in a good mood. I still remember Mark’s description of the place: Seoul is a huge conurbation that houses ten million people in its urban area alone and is divided into twenty-five vast districts called gu. In turn, the gu are divided into more than five hundred districts called dong, divided into numerous tong and even more countless ban. I have just realized that Koreans love to do everything in little pieces, and are completely devoid of imagination: in fact, even the name Seoul derives from archaic Korean and means ‘capital’.
To complicate my life, they’ve seen fit to house me in the district with the most unpronounceable name of all: Yeongdeungpogu. I’ve got it written down on a piece of paper that I must never lose – I don’t want to run the risk of not being able to get home. Our dong is called Mullae, and we are right on the border with the dong of Yeouido. According to Mark, this wonderful neighbourhood is considered the financial heart of the city – it’s near the river and has a large city park within walking distance. What more could you want more from life? Well, a Starbucks wouldn’t be bad, for a start.
*
I walk calmly along the streets, which are almost deserted, probably because it’s Sunday. Everybody I encounter turns to look at me: I suppose being a blonde girl might be an attraction in this city. A bit like being a B-list celebrity.
The Korean girls I see are lovely – tiny and slim, with their hair shiny and black, or just slightly lightened. However, I don’t find the boys particularly attractive: they’re a bit short and skinny for my taste. As I watch the people pass by I realize that Mark must feel like a fish out of water in this city.
I manage to reach the supermarket safely and am confident that I know how to make my way back. Full of new-found energy, I grab a bright green basket and set off to explore the maze of shelves in front of me. After trawling up and down the aisles for a bit, I find my longed for extra strong instant coffee and decide to buy some biscuits, honey and apricot jam, too.
With these stockpiled, I should be able to survive for a while without being obliged to beg Mark for anything.
With my anxiety finally gone, I start to look around at the thousand oddities in the supermarket: tofu in all its possible forms (incidentally, I hate tofu, which has no taste but still manages to stink), some strange meat that I can barely recognize and a whole shelf of what I guess is kimchi, cooked in every possible way and with all kinds of weird things in it. I pick a jar at random and try to work out the list of ingredients, but of course it’s all in Korean. I am undecided whether to try this fearsome national dish or simply declare defeat from the outset. I’m not averse to new foods per se, but this red jar is not at all inviting. It’s really time that I ran some risks, though, despite being famous for not doing! That has to change eventually, right? Which means that this is a good occasion for it – the kimchi will be a rite of passage: it will be a kind of link between my past life and the future.
I feel very proud of myself when I put the doubtful-looking jar into my basket along with all my other purchases. The queue at the till is short but interesting, and, as usual, all eyes are focused on me. The lady in front of me, who might be about the same age as my grandmother, looks at me and smiles without hiding her curiosity. Not knowing what else to do, I reciprocate the smile.
When my turn finally comes, I can finally stop smiling like an idiot. I empty out my basket and watch the clerk scan my precious purchases one by one. When she’s done, a rather high figure lights up the till display. For a moment I panic, but then I remember the absurd exchange rate in this country. At the sight of my slight hesitation, the cashier decides to say something – in Korean, of course. Not only do I not understand it, I don’t even have the faintest idea of how much I am spending, so without further ado, I hopefully offer her my credit card.
The girl turns it over in her hands, inserts it into the machine, then gives it back to me with an uncomfortable expression. “No chip,” she says sadly, indicating that it doesn’t work in her machine.
“Magnetic strip?” I suggest, pointing to the black stripe on the back of my credit card.
“It does not work…” she responds, mildly resentfully, in basic English. “De-magnetized.”
What now? It is true that in England all the cards now have the chip and the magnetic stripes have been dead for years, but how on earth can a country that should be absolutely at the cutting edge not have a bloody microchip reader? Yes, I might have de-magnetized
my card, but who hasn’t done that?
“Cash?” I say to the cashier, pulling out British banknotes from my wallet. The polite smile of a moment before dies upon her lips.
I have the impression that we have reached a stalemate. The queue behind me starts to rumble politely. While I’m trying to evaporate in embarrassment, two ladies behind me seem to be comparing notes on how to find a solution to my dilemma.
Thank God I didn’t let Mark come with me! If he’d witnessed the scene I would have definitely had to put up with at least a couple of hours’ worth of being lectured about it.
As though mysteriously summoned, the imposing figure of my boss unexpectedly materializes at the crime scene. What the hell is he doing here?
Without batting an eyelid, and as though invested with a divine mission, he makes his way through the people to reach the checkout. I stand there watching while he discusses my situation with the cashier. After managing to get a laugh from the girl, he hands her his credit card with chip and brand new magnetic stripe, so polished that it practically shines. Either he only got it the day before yesterday or he never buys anything.
“Are you trying to rob the supermarket, Maddison?” he asks sarcastically, finally deciding to talk to me while we’re waiting for the transaction to go through. Once my shopping has been paid for he does the same with his own, careful to humbly apologize to the queue behind us.
Ok, maybe I should have accepted his help this morning and not ventured out alone in a strange city, but that smarmy little professor expression that appears on his face every time he looks at me had prevailed over my rationality.
“No, I was just trying to learn how to take care of myself. Tomorrow I’ll change some money and pay you back what I owe you,” I say. “Thanks for your help.”