One Hundred Shadows

by Hwang Jungeun

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Eventually there was only one matryoshka, concealing one less layer than it had before. I’m sorry, I said again, and Mujae said, It’s all right, nothing to worry about, then turned on the tap to wash the radish.

  —

  The thing about matryoshkas, Mujae announced while he grated the radish, is that they’re hollow to begin with. There’s nothing inside of any substance. There’s just one matryoshka inside another, that repetition is itself what defines a matryoshka, not any actual object part, so in fact it’s more precise to say that a matryoshka contains an eternal recurrence than a number of smaller matryoshkas. So it’s not as though anything has ceased to exist because it broke; all we’ve done is confirmed that it never existed in the first place.

  That sounds so futile, Mujae.

  Futility is precisely why I’ve always thought that a matryoshka resembles human life.

  The radish had been reduced to the size of a fist, and Mujae used it to point at the matryoshka.

  I’ve always thought that’s what life boils down to. Little by little, seeing all the shadows rising around me, I consumed these thoughts, or should I say I became consumed by them. How about this story, for instance. When I was in middle school I lived with my mother and sisters, in a part of town where not many other people lived and even fewer visited, except if they’d taken a wrong turn in their car, because it was far from any main road and didn’t lead on to anywhere else. Behind our house lived an old lady who went around collecting discarded cardboard boxes to sell, but one day she had a run-in with an old man who’d come from another area to scavenge boxes, and they got into a fight. I went outside to see what all the fuss was about, and saw the two of them facing off in the middle of the street, arguing loudly over a heap of boxes and rags. They used swear words I’d never even heard before and cursed each other viciously, tearing rags from each other’s handcart and hurling them away into the street. The old man slunk off after a while, leaving the woman to her spoils. I watched her as she shuffled back into her house, thumping her chest, her face twisted with resentment. I saw her shadow hanging over her, its hugely swollen head outlined against the breeze-block wall, its concrete festooned with trumpet creepers. She left her handcart in the middle of the street. It was still there hours later, when night fell, which did make me wonder, but I left it at that, and only later found out that the old woman had died that same day. Some locals found her sprawled out in her yard. The grownups told us that her heart had seized up from a chronic disease, but I overheard them whispering among themselves about how the old woman’s shadow had hounded her to death. Even after her children came and held a funeral for her, her handcart remained where she’d left it. There wasn’t much in it, just a few boxes, lumps of Styrofoam and torn sheets of plastic, and as I looked at it I thought, A person can die for the sake such things, a person can die and this is all they leave behind, feeling like something had fastened its teeth into me and bitten a chunk out of my side. That’s the story, anyway.

  Mujae was gazing steadily into the simmering broth, clutching a handful of dry buckwheat noodles.

  Eungyo, I don’t really think there’s another world after death, and I thought it was inevitable for a person to feel more or less hollow, no matter their individual circumstances. The essence of human life, if there is such a thing, is futility, that’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be, and so there’s no call to make a fuss about it. That’s what I thought, anyway. But lately, my thoughts have been somewhat different.

  Different in what way? I asked.

  For instance, is it really so natural and inevitable for an old woman to eke out a living by scavenging cardboard boxes? Is that part of the essence of human life? Is dying like that down to the individual, nothing to do with anyone else? And if it’s not natural and inevitable, just sufficiently common to be accepted as such, isn’t that futility even worse than if it was simply the essence of life?

  —

  Eungyo, it’ll be too sharp if you put in so much radish and spring onion.

  I like it sharp.

  It’ll be too sharp.

  Mujae scooped out a spoonful of the mixture from my bowl and poured in some soybean broth. Ice cubes clamoured to the surface, and I added some of the noodles. Mujae and I ate in silence. The ice chilled the noodles so severely that my teeth ached whenever I had to chew. Sunlight streamed in through the open door, slanting onto a corner of the table. Every so often, presumably due to clouds shifting in front of the sun, that bright patch would abruptly darken. I sat there watching it for a while, and when I looked up again I saw Mujae’s shadow, risen. It was there by his side, smaller than he was and similar in shape, but the face was dark and dry, couldn’t really be called a face. Mujae was lost in thought, leaving the shadow unchallenged. Mujae, I said, but his expression remained blank as he continued to move the cold noodles into his mouth.

  Mujae.

  Mujae.

  With a lump in my throat, I called his name in a voice so faint that I wondered whether I was actually producing any sound. The shadow slid one arm onto the table. Its black hand, strangely elongated but with defined fingers, seemed pointed towards me. I thought it might reach out to me, but it remained where it was, unmoving.

  I held myself equally still. Now that his shadow had risen, it seemed as though Mujae was no longer present. He looked faint, and there was something vague about his movements, even though they were entirely ordinary, transferring noodles to his mouth, chewing them slowly and swallowing them down. Sometimes the passing clouds must have been quite large, as it would take some time for our surroundings to brighten again. As the room shifted between light and dark the shadow gradually sank back down. It went back to being the kind of shadow that is subordinate to the body, its movements only echoes. Cicadas chirred in chorus, a sound like metal grating on stone. Mujae was busy removing a lump of mustard that was clinging to his noodles. I used my chopsticks to tweezer a piece of pickled cucumber, but my hand was trembling and I ended up dropping it into my soup. I stared at it, chopsticks hovering in midair.

  Eungyo, Mujae said, your soup will get salty if you leave that there.

  It’s all right.

  Do you want a fresh batch?

  No.

  Are you full?

  No.

  What’s wrong?

  Mujae.

  Eungyo?

  I want a different kind of soup, not cold like this, something hot and clear and refreshing that heats you up from the inside, and lots of it. I sniffed, wiped my nose and finished my noodles.

  A soft alarm sounded, indicating that the dryer had finished its spin cycle.

  Island

  In that case, let’s go and have some hot and clear and refreshing soup, Mujae said. I thought he was suggesting we go out right then, maybe to one of the clam noodle restaurants nearby, but it was the following weekend when he called me at home.

  I’m leaving now, so meet me in eight minutes.

  That was all he said before he hung up, which happened so fast I didn’t even get the chance to ask where were supposed to meet. Hastily blasting my hair with the hand dryer, I wondered how he’d managed to come up with not five or ten but precisely eight minutes, which I was still puzzling over when those eight minutes were up. I opened the window and looked out, but I couldn’t see Mujae anywhere. Not knowing how far we might be going, I slipped on a pair of old flip-flops and went outside. Mujae was standing at the entrance to the alley, leaning against a car whose ability to drive without falling apart looked dubious at best. Mujae beckoned to me and I ran over. Let’s go get some soup, Mujae said, opening the passenger door for me. I was laughing so much I had to clutch my sides.

  Mujae, I spluttered, did you find this thing in a dump?

  Mujae grinned from
ear to ear.

  We set off in search of some soup, something hot and clear and refreshing. Bouncing up and down in the sagging seat, I fiddled with the mirror and rummaged through the door compartment. There, I found a notebook with an insurance card slipped between its pages, a single cotton work glove, and two cassette tapes of childrens’ songs. Mujae said that everything except the insurance card belonged to the car’s previous owner, who’d bought himself a new used car just last week, which sounded weird, a new used car, but in any case, that’s how he’d become a car owner, for only thirty thousand won, the price of a decent toaster. That’s so cheap! I exclaimed, and Mujae said, that’s because it’s such a wreck! The engine made such a terrific din, it sounded as though the car was hurling a stream of curses at the other vehicles. I pushed the button to lower my window, only to discover that the mechanism only worked one way; I tried pulling it back up with my hands, but had to give up and leave it as it was. It was fun. Even the wind whipping my hair over my face was fun. When Mujae braked for a red light the car juddered like it was having a seizure.

  It’s shaking!

  It is!

  We both roared with laughter.

  It was odd to be so excited by riding in a beat-up car, but I was happy, which made me laugh out loud, happy to be happy.

  What kind of soup are we having? I asked.

  Clam soup, of course, if you want something clear and refreshing.

  Manila clams?

  Manila clams, yes, and other clams too.

  Other clams?

  There are plenty of clams besides manila clams, Eungyo. There’s scallops, king clams, hen clams, venus clams, razor clams, butter clams, ark clams, hard clams, surf clams, and short-necked clams, Mujae said, skillfully manoeuvring the car through the traffic as he rattled off this list of names, some of which I’d heard before and some of which were completely new. The afternoon sun sparkled on the car bonnet, on those bits of paint that weren’t chipped off.

  Are we going to eat all those clams, Mujae?

  That’s right.

  Wow.

  Are you happy?

  Yes.

  I’m happy that you’re happy.

  I’m happy that I’m happy, too.

  Chatting in this way, we crossed the provincial boundary.

  —

  At the dock we were given a map, which showed how the island resembled a sock, carefully removed so as to retain its shape. The map also clarified that the island itself had two docks in total, one at the southern end and one at the east, ports both large and small, and had once boasted a number of salt fields, though only one now remained. I repeated those words to myself, salt fields, while Mujae announced that the boat had arrived and turned on the car’s engine. We crawled onto the deck, rumbling and clattering. The boat ride took about twenty minutes, so we decided to go out on deck rather than stay sitting in the car. We stood by ourselves, a little way off from the people feeding seagulls, and watched the dock recede into the distance as the boat moved further out. Behind the concrete tetrapods that formed a breakwater, the cars that hadn’t been able to fit onto the boat were lined up. From somewhere in the bowels of the boat came a continuous thump, thump, thumping sound, as though the keel was knocking into something, though the boat kept moving slowly but steadily forwards, churning a reddish-brown wake. Mujae and I held on to the railing, less giddy than when we’d first started out.

  This boat is as much of a wreck as your car, Mujae.

  I moved towards the bow to get a different view, somewhat disoriented at first by the sight of a very similar dock not receding but approaching. The breakwater on the island was just a narrow strip, sloping up to a road that forked in two. We went back to the car and waited our turn; we’d been one of the first to drive onto the boat, so we were among the last to disembark. At the fork, Mujae took the right-hand road without hesitation. We drove along with the sea to our right and a rocky mountain path to our left. The rice paddies to our left looked to be lower than sea level.

  They say the rice here tastes especially good because it grows in the breeze from the sea, Mujae said.

  I stuck my head out of the window and peered at the waves, the wind forcing me to squint.

  Eungyo, it’s dangerous to stick your head out like that.

  I can see better this way.

  There’ll be a much better view from the lookout point.

  Are we going there?

  Why not? Mujae said, then added, After we have some soup. We drove through a wide field flanked by paddies and arrived at a small port. A cobbled breakwater stretched down to the mud flats, with a cluster of single-level shacks specialising in raw fish. We went into the first one and ordered clam soup. Neither Mujae nor I was a fan of raw fish, but the owner insisted on serving us some raw shrimp, saying they’d been caught that same morning. As we savoured the creamy sweetness of the shrimps’ transparent flesh, a large pot was delivered to our table, chock full of fist-sized clams. Once the clams had cooked fully in the boiling soup, Mujae fished them out and put them on my plate, naming each one in turn. This one’s a scallop, this is a king clam, this is a butter clam, no, wait, a hard clam … or a butter clam, perhaps? The clams alone were enough to fill me up, and towards the end of the meal I grew drowsy, almost nodding off with my spoon still in my hand. The window behind Mujae was open onto the sea, the tide so far out that all that could be seen were the gleaming mud flats. Several fishing boats were stranded near the shore, sticking out of the mud skew-whiff. Does the tide come in as far as those boats? I asked Mujae, and the owner stuck his head out of the kitchen and answered, It comes right up to the window. If the sea comes right up to the window, I pondered drowsily, what happens when there’s a typhoon? What will happen to all the people? When the sun began to redden we left the breakwater and walked back to the car.

  Did you like the soup? Mujae asked. Was it hot and refreshing enough for you?

  Yes, I liked it, and yes, it was hot and clear and refreshing. Thank you for bringing me here, Mujae, I said, and Mujae smiled.

  —

  I’ve been here before, you know, Mujae said as he drove us towards the island’s western corner.

  When? I asked.

  A couple of times when I was in college.

  You went to college?

  I did, but I quit pretty quickly. I didn’t think what I was learning there was worth getting into debt for.

  Mujae turned into a temple compound and parked the car. The path leading up the mountain had a steep gradient, and was so narrow that two cars would have only just squeezed past each other. It was flanked by basic shacks selling mung bean pancakes and unfiltered rice wine. A couple of places had touts outside, turning smelt on a brazier while calling out to passers-by to come and enjoy a meal. The narrow path was thronged with temple goers, most of whom seemed to have come in big groups. The air was thick with the smell of frying eggs. Mujae and I walked up to the temple’s entrance, a single-pillar gate of ancient, weathered wood, where a woman wearing blackened gloves was handing something out to everyone who went by. Just to taste, she said as she dropped one in my hand, and it turned out to be a chestnut, small as an acorn and with the same shiny shell. It had been scored at the top and roasted over charcoal

  How is it? Mujae asked.

  So good, I mumbled with my mouth full. Mujae darted back to the gate and returned with a bag of chestnuts.

  Crack, crack, I shelled the chestnuts and popped the yellow kernels into my mouth as I puffed my way up the slope. It was so steep that I wondered how we’d get back down without tumbling head over heels. I was so busy chomping on chestnuts than I kept having to stop and catch my breath, so Mujae soon overtook me. I looked up when he called my name and saw him there at the top of the slope, looking oddly lonely.

  Are they that good, Eungyo?

  They really are.

  What
’s so great about them?

  I hurried up the last of the slope while Mujae waited for me.

  A flight of stone steps led up from the temple grounds, zigzagging up the mountainside. After one hundred and eighty steps I stopped counting and just concentrated on moving my legs. My calves were soon aching so badly that it was an effort even to lift my feet up, but just when I was thinking I would have to stop I stumbled onto flat ground. There was an observation deck with long wooden benches and, higher up, a round-faced Buddha had been carved into a steep rock face. A flat rock jutted out above the Buddha’s head like a mushroom cap. Mujae and I climbed right up to the statue, but we were worried about disturbing those who had spread out mats to pray, so we came back down to the observation deck.

  A cat! someone cried out, and we followed their pointing finger to find a pregnant black cat gracefully navigating the steep slope, padding through a carpet of fallen leaves.

  The observation deck jutted out from a high bluff, overhanging the sea. The sun was just beginning to set. Mujae and I sat side by side with our backs to the Buddha statue, gazing out at the lilac-tinged water. The sky was a subtle blend of blues, yellows and reds, merging hazily with the sea at the horizon. I could see the car park, much further away than I’d thought, and beyond that the mud flats and the one remaining salt field. The tide hadn’t yet come in, so the mud flats still stretched on into the distance. The abandoned salt field was red, though I couldn’t guess the reason. Each island, a sparse, dream-like smattering on the vast sea, bore a tall electricity pylon. Like objects seen in a rear-view mirror, the islands and their towers seemed nearer than they were in reality, fading away little by little and leaving me utterly rapt, wondering where the electric current went when it passed beyond the sea.

  The sky looks amazing, Mujae sighed.