It does still rise from time to time, but I tell myself it’s no big deal. I can bear it as long as I tell myself that. It’s not really true that it’s no big deal, but the more I tell myself that it is the easier it becomes to believe it, and with time you really do end up convincing yourself. After all, shadows might rise, but they can also fall, can’t they? It’s risky, I know. Right now I can tell myself that it’s no big deal, but there’ll be a day when that doesn’t work anymore, when it categorically is a big deal, and that’ll be the end, Eungyo. My shadow will pull me after it, somewhere infinitely far away.
Mr. Yeo got a screwdriver out of a drawer and began to fiddle with the shell of the amp.
—
The repair shop had two desks. Mr. Yeo used the one by the window, and I used the other. The metal top of Mr. Yeo’s desk had startled to buckle in the centre from the weight of the amps, and neither of its three drawers would quite close properly, having been bent slightly out of shape. The long, shallow drawer that slid under the top of the desk contained dozens of screwdrivers, and the other two, arranged down the left side, held such an enormous variety of things that it would be difficult to give a precise inventory. Several years ago when I started working in the shop, my first task was to turn those two drawers upside down and rearrange their contents.
Some of the things that were in the drawers were: bits of wire, screws, screwdriver handles with the heads broken off, cassette tapes, labels, blister packs of pills, prescription slips, scrap paper, iron filings, electrical wires, bits of foil that had come off something or other, IC chips, broken pieces of circuit boards, punctured freezer bags, biro refills, sewing needles, soldering lead, a wristwatch, bottle caps, leather strips, rubber bands, cords, wadded tissue, plastic film canisters filled with glue or textile conditioner, coffee powder, dust balls, squashed cigarette stubs, shrivelled bugs like hard little nibs of corn, folded circuit diagrams, some desiccated material I found impossible to identify and, most bizarre of all, some bra hooks.
The bottommost drawer, which was also the deepest, contained coins in addition to those other things. Small change got tossed in there, and a thick layer of coins had accumulated at the bottom, which I discovered once I’d pulled out the rest of the clutter. I spread some newspaper out on the floor and spent half the day kneeling there, sorting through the coins. Mr. Yeo grumbled about the constant clinking, but didn’t actually tell me to stop. Those who’d seen me counting the coins when they came to open up shop in the morning checked back in the afternoon to see if I was still at it. When I was finally done counting, just before sunset, the total came to one million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand, six hundred and forty won. I’d divided the coins by denomination as I counted, and now I put each pile into separate envelopes. They were so heavy I had to haul them to the bank in the cart we used for transporting amps. I had to stand in front of the counting machine for what felt like an age, pouring in the coins in dribs and drabs, waiting each time for the machine to register them. Finally, it confirmed the total amount: one million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand, six hundred and twenty won. I decided that we could afford an error of twenty won, and deposited the lot in Mr Yeo’s account. It had been years since he’d even glanced at the coins, and had no idea that the drawer had contained such a hoard.
The years passed and the drawer filled up again, but Mr. Yeo always insisted it be left as it was, that we ought to wait a while longer. That drawer was like a microcosm of the shop itself; both were dark as the inside of an iron whale’s belly, and materially infinite. It looked as a slightly higher dimension, let’s say the 3.5th, had had a hole torn in the bottom of it through which everything had come crashing down. I spent my first year working there rearranging this and that. All the spare parts that Mr. Yeo left lying around got stored neatly away in drawers or cabinets, which I then labeled so we knew what was where. I divided the electrical wires, screws, and tools into separate groups. I devised a system for the amps, which had previously been stored in whatever order they’d come in, in teetering piles or clustered around the entrance to the shop. The shop was somewhat better organised once I’d finished, but still so crammed with stuff that first-time visitors would stand in the doorway with their mouth hanging open and ask how we ever managed to find anything.
Mr. Yeo had been there in that shop, fixing audio equipment, for more than thirty years. Given his skills he could have charged much more than did, but his laid-back nature could sometimes be frustrating – fussy customers were quick to take offense, while rude ones received short shrift from him. In such cases, Mr Yeo would put a little dot of paint inside the appliance or piece of equipment then, when the irate customer could find no one else to do the repairs, yet was too proud to admit defeat, so would get a friend to bring the selfsame item back to Mr Yeo, or came themselves, all sunny smiles and feigned ignorance, he would wait until they’d left then open the lid, check the paint mark and gloat. And then he would fix the item and return it, also feigning ignorance.
The shop’s window, whose glass bore a film of age and weather, looked out onto the sea of flat roofs which clustered around the noodle place where Mujae and I had eaten. Cats often slunk around on the sheets of corrugated iron. The shop’s windowsill was almost rotten through; its black, damp wood crumbled like wet biscuit when I poked it with a finger. Sometimes, when a typhoon was raging, I’d have trouble falling asleep, picturing that old windowsill being sucked away by the fierce wind and whirled up into the air, ending up wedged somewhere in the iron rooftops.
—
Hey, it’s me, Yugon said as he barged into the repair shop. Mr. Yeo, will you lend me two thousand won?
What for? Mr. Yeo snapped back.
I plan on spending it, Yugon announced, placing a hand on his chest.
On what?
On a lottery ticket.
Oh, hell.
This time, the numbers are unmistakable.
Have your unmistakable numbers ever been otherwise?
This time, it’s different.
How?
It’s different in that the numbers are unmistakable.
Yugon perched on a stool in a corner of the shop and launched into one of his usual rambling speeches. My toes have been aching since I got up this morning, and the weather is always bound to be terrible when my toes ache like that, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky at first, so I lowered my guard, more fool me, because wouldn’t you know it, by this afternoon I could feel the air growing heavy, and on my way here I saw a couple of umbrellas in a bucket outside a shop, I think they might be for sale; I think I left an umbrella here before, actually, I’m not sure if you’ve still got it, but in any case it must’ve come in handy sometime, so that’s all fine by me; things getting left behind, that makes me think, you know, isn’t it always a bit tricky when there’s only one piece of rolled omelette left between two? Do you like rolled omelette? I do; he rattled this off as though he didn’t care whether anyone was listening, constantly fiddling with the calculator on his lap, its plastic worn smooth and shiny from him always carrying it around.
It was hard to guess Yugon’s age. He had a youngish face, but his shabby clothes looked strangely old fashioned, yet surprisingly neat and tidy given how worn they were; then again, he didn’t always wipe his nose when he needed to, and he looked smart yet slow at times, and tactless yet much too tactful at others. Yugon dropped by the repair shop once or twice a week. According to Mr. Yeo, these visits had been going on for more than a decade now, since Yugon was a boy, so I could only guess that he was between thirty and forty. He always had a wad of lottery tickets stuffed in his pocket, tied up with a rubber band. Whenever someone showed an interest in this bundle, he would feverishly tap out something on his calculator then tell the person to look at the numbers, saying that they were the result of such and such a calculation, and therefore it was unmistakable that they would be the next combination to come up in the lot
tery.
He would say,
You can’t expect too much from people, but the lottery, that’s a different matter,
or,
Will you lend me two thousand won?
and he would take the money if it was offered, but sometimes, even if his request had fallen on deaf ears, he would just carry on talking about this and that as if the money was neither here nor there, so it didn’t seem that money was necessarily the reason he came. Sometimes he would show up after an absence of weeks, looking thin and pale, sit silently on the stool for a while, and then leave.
When I asked Mr Yeo why he thought Yugon visited, Mr. Yeo said he came because he was lonely.
Lonely?
Some of the audio dealers who worked at the market asked Mr. Yeo why he gave money to a guy like that, but Mr. Yeo seemed more chary of them than of Yugon.
Is it okay if I have some water? Yugon asked. When I said it was he got quietly up from his seat and made his way deeper into the shop, manouevrng cautiously so as not to bump into any audio equipment. He stared at the rack on the top of the water dispenser and, after great hesitation, took a paper cup and half filled it with cold water. He tried to mix some hot water in, but realised that the safety button on the hot water valve meant that two hands were required. He stared down at the hand clutching the calculator, stumped; putting it down was clearly not an option. I knew it was bad manners, but I couldn’t help staring as he floundered, juggling the calculator in one hand and the paper cup in the other before finally having the bright idea of tucking the calculator under his arm. Yugon gingerly extended a finger towards the safety button and succeeded in releasing the hot water. Finally, he transferred the calculator back to his left hand, and took a slow draught of his drink.
Hello, said Mujae. He stepped into the repair shop, greeted Mr. Yeo, set two newly-fixed transformers down on the floor, then turned around and left. I hadn’t seen him since our lunch together, that time when we’d sat there repeating whorl, whorl, so I stared at him despite myself, wondering if he was really going to leave just like that, when suddenly he turned around and beckoned. I raised my eyebrows to check if it was me he was beckoning. He nodded, and I followed him out of the shop. Mujae fished some small vivid globe from out of his apron pocket and held it out to me. It was a flowerpot, round and russet as a ripe persimmon, with two thick seed leaves sprouting from it. It was made of plastic, smooth but not shiny. If you make a sound, he said, it moves.
The leaves, arched like a pair of eyebrows, bobbed up and down as if to verify this.
I took the flowerpot, which Mujae said he had bought on his way to work, and stared after him as he turned, tossing out a casual ‘see you later’, and walked away. I went back in to the repair shop with the flowerpot balanced on my palm. Yugon, who in the meantime had returned to his spot by the entrance, regarded me quietly for a while.
Are you ill? he asked.
No.
Your face is flushed.
No it isn’t. I placed the flowerpot on top of the cabinet, its leaves busily waggling up and down.
A Mouth That Eats a Mouth
In August, the rains came. It rained almost every day. It seemed as though the rain might never end. Whenever the sky cleared it was a matter of moments before it began to darken again, before fat raindrops would thicken into pouring sheets, then gradually thin out into a steady drizzle that would last all through the night. I found it stifling to sleep with a blanket, so on chill nights I just had the boiler on. One morning, I was in the middle of opening the fridge when I spotted a tiny green frog. I only just managed to avoid stepping on it. It was about the size of a thumbnail, and its skin had a clear yellow tinge. I picked it up and sat it on my palm. Its tiny buttocks resembled a ripe cherry, and when I prodded them the frog puffed up its chin and shuffled around on my palm. I’d always thought that being cold-blooded meant frogs would feel cold to the touch, so I was surprised to find that wasn’t the case. The frog’s toes were clearly separated, each one small, thin, and see-through. I was taken aback to think that I might have crushed it. On my way to the bus stop I passed a clump of foxtails growing in a flowerbed and set the frog gently down on a leaf, which bent slightly under its weight. The frog remained motionless, angled down towards the ground, then abruptly hopped off the leaf and vanished into a thicket.
I got off the bus and crossed the parking lot, swinging my umbrella at my side. While I was waiting for the lift I spotted a notice on the wall and scanned it absent-mindedly. The notice gave the date, time, and place of something called the ‘Tenants’ Meeting regarding the Demolition of the Electronics Market’. When Mr. Yeo arrived I asked him what it meant, and he said that there’d been talk of demolishing the market for a long time, but that nothing concrete had ever come of it.
I suggested that maybe they were holding a meeting because something was really going to happen this time, but Mr. Yeo just shrugged and said that in any case it was still a long way off. But a new notice appeared after the date of the meeting had passed, and banners were hung up, and everything started to feel very uncertain.
—
How about we go for some rice wine?
But it’s Monday.
What does that matter? All this rain is chilling my stomach. Mujae walked on ahead, and I followed after. On our way we ran into Yugon. He was pacing up and down at the entrance to the market, clutching a paper bag containing a multiple-tap to his chest. From the way Mujae greeted him, it seemed that Yugon was also a frequent visitor at Mr. Gong’s workshop.
I’m cold, Yugon said, his voice low and dejected. I don’t have an umbrella, and my trousers are soaked.
Mujae suggested he come with us. We found a place near the bus station and sat down. Mujae and Yugon shared a kettle of warm rice wine, and I ordered a beer. The waiter brought us cucumbers and seaweed salad as snacks. There were roast blowfish fins floating in Mujae’s and Yugon’s cups.
Is this a tail?
I think so.
It looks like a big moth.
That makes it seem spooky.
It’s kind of spooky in itself.
We drank in silence for a while, glancing from the liquid sloshing in our cups to the rain coming down outside. My ankle had gone to sleep so I tried to massage the feeling back in to it, startled to find the skin icy cold. Lately, I’d been going home with wet ankles every day. I started to wonder about the frog. Was it still living in the flowerbed? Was it doing well there? The flowerbed was small, so the frog might have stayed there only briefly. Frogs can’t really understand about flowerbeds, so it might have leaped out into the street and been trampled for real this time. If the frog really had died like that, was it my fault for putting it in the flowerbed? With these thoughts niggling away at me, I finished half my beer. The restaurant window was a haze of condensation. Mujae rubbed his finger over the glass, revealing raindrops clinging to the far side of the pane. The smell of vegetables being stir-fried in soy sauce drifted over from the kitchen. Yugon drank his rice wine slowly, setting the cup down after every sip so he could touch his calculator.
Do you know what a woodlouse is? he asked.
Of course, said Mujae.
A woodlouse, not a pill louse.
Is there a difference?
Oh yes, said Yugon. They’re completely different organisms. He moved his finger over the table’s surface, describing a tight little circle.
Pill lice can roll up into a ball like this, but woodlice can’t. My room is infested with woodlice. I’ve no idea where they come from, but when I look they’re everywhere. I kill as many as I can, but there’s just no getting rid of them.
Woodlice don’t actually do any harm, Mujae offered. It’s not like they suck your blood or anything.
Yugon straightened up and looked sternly at Mujae.
Whether something is harmful or not is a matter of personal standards.
According to my own standards, woodlice are quite harmful enough. Even the dictionary says so, although the basic reason is their lack of aesthetic appeal. They’re tiny, they have lots of legs, and they scuttle about. If a creature like that crawled into my ear while I’m asleep, wouldn’t that count as harm?
Has that ever actually happened? I asked.
It’s perfectly possible that it might, Yugon said, looking me straight in the eye. And that’s not a chance I’m prepared to take. Even the thought is enough to make me shudder. A woodlouse crawling into my ear! That’s why no one is allowed to tamper with the Bible in my room.
The Bible?
That’s what I use to kill them. It’s the ideal thickness, and always flies just as far as you need it to. Wall or ceiling, it gets the job done. You just open it up, aim, and throw.
By way of demonstration, Yugon brought his palms together at chest height then peeled them apart as if opening a book.
Of course, with the amount of woodlice I’m dealing with, both the Bible and the walls get dirty pretty quick. The Bible’s alright because it’s got so many pages, but every now and then I have to put up new wallpaper.
I see.
It’s a terrible nuisance.
A group of men in suits barged in to the restaurant and proceeded to kick up a fuss. They stayed standing just inside the door for an inordinate amount of time, shaking their umbrellas dry and exclaiming about the weather, arguing loudly over the relative merits of one table over another, before they all finally piled in to one that was tucked away in a corner. As they jostled past our table, smelling of rain-soaked fabric, a stiff bag threatened to brush against me. I flinched away, hunching my shoulders in an effort to make myself smaller, and at that moment Mujae asked me how my shadow was doing these days.
My shadow? I echoed, momentarily surprised. It’s okay, nothing special. At least, it’s shown no signs of rising again.
One Hundred Shadows Page 3