The Plotters

by Un-su Kim

  He checked the tray carefully for any bone fragments he’d missed and swept the ashes together with a broom.

  ‘When I die, I’m going to cremate my body right here,’ Bear said mawkishly. ‘People like us should go the same way they do.’

  ‘That would be a good thing.’

  ‘Yes, a very good thing.’

  ‘But if you die, who’ll do the cremating?’

  Bear looked stumped.

  ‘Yes, well, I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Bear put the bone fragments into an iron mortar and began grinding them by hand. He ground them down very fine, careful not to let any of the bone dust fly out. Beads of sweat sprang up on his forehead. Even after the bones looked fully pulverised, he ran his fingers through the ash and resumed grinding whenever he felt even the slightest shard.

  Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Bear set down the pestle. He carefully transferred the pulverised bone to a maple-wood box, wrapped it in a cloth and handed it to Reseng. The ashes were still hot. Reseng put the wooden urn on the passenger seat of his car, took an envelope from his pocket and gave it to Bear, who took out the bills and counted them twice.

  ‘Would you like a receipt for your taxes?’ Bear said with a grin.

  ‘As if I file taxes.’

  ‘Drop by more often. That’s the only way we’ll both make ends meet. I’ve been dying lately,’ Bear said with a pout. Reseng smiled weakly.

  Reseng got in the car and started the engine. The sun was peeking over the ridge. As the sunlight touched his face, the tension left his body and he felt dizzy. He put his hand on his forehead and rested his head against the window.

  When the car still hadn’t moved, Bear came over and tapped on the glass.

  ‘You okay?’

  Startled, Reseng looked up at Bear through sunken eyes.

  ‘If you’re tired, take a nap before you leave.’ Bear looked worried.

  Reseng shook his head. ‘I have to get going.’

  He gave Bear a nod to show he was okay, then released the brake and put the car in gear. He made his way down the mountain, towards the highway that would take him back to Seoul. The reflection of Bear waving in the rear-view mirror grew smaller and smaller, until it was gone.

  THE DOGHOUSE LIBRARY

  Of course there weren’t any actual dogs there.

  Old Raccoon was hardly the type to raise dogs in a library. He’d named his library ‘The Doghouse’ to make fun of people who made a big show of frequenting libraries but never opened any actual books, or possibly to make fun of himself for having spent a good sixty years of his life looking after a library that sat empty of people most of the time. He’d even hung a large signboard engraved with the name ‘The Doghouse’ right above the entrance. People visiting the place for the first time usually stared up at it dumbfounded, their heads tilted at a quizzical angle, or laughed. Then, after a second, their faces would turn sour.

  ‘Wait, is he calling us dogs? What the fuck?’

  What was he thinking when he hung that sign right above the entrance to his library? Reseng attributed it to the cynicism typical of traditional, uptight intellectuals who spent their lives confined to private rooms, the walls padded with books. Unless it was Old Raccoon’s way of thumbing his nose at the world that had taken a young librarian leading a simple, happy life with his books, albeit saddled with a limp from a childhood bout with polio, and made him work for years and years as a middleman for plotters and assassins. Whatever the reason, the sign brought him no end of amusement.

  Reseng thought it was childish. If this were his library, there was no way he would have hung that sign. But life never goes the way we want it to, and so, if he had found himself forced to hang that sign, through some odd combination of complicated and underhanded stipulations and well-timed blackmail (as if anyone would blackmail someone into doing something so random!), then at least he would, of course, have brought in a few actual dogs. Along with books from all over the world about dogs.

  He pictured a young scholar raising his eyebrows at him and asking, ‘But Mr Reseng, what kind of name is that for a library? “The Doghouse”? Are you trying to insult humanity’s noble world of the mind?’

  Reseng would give the young scholar a polite, dignified smile and say, ‘Why, of course not, young man. I haven’t the slightest intention of flipping the bird at humanity’s noble world of the mind. What on earth makes you think that? Perhaps we need to start with your prejudiced notion that books and dogs don’t belong together.’

  He would point to the dogs strolling casually among the crowded shelves.

  ‘Look at these dogs. Aren’t they magnificent? And right over here, from D-11 to D-43, are all sorts of books on the subject of dogs. This library has the world’s largest collection of books on dogs. We’ve got books on chihuahuas, collies, shepherds, greyhounds, St Bernard’s, retrievers. We have books on every single breed of dog in the world. And not only that, this library also has books on dog food, dog breeding, dog lineage, canine interspecies conflict and a lot more. You might even say this library is the spiritual heart of dog-kind—the canine Vatican, if you will.’

  At last, the young scholar would nod.

  ‘Ah, yes, I understand now! Your work is quite impressive!’

  ‘It is a sacred task.’

  The canine Vatican. Wouldn’t that be something? The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like both the dogs and the books would appreciate it and feel elevated by it. But Old Raccoon had not intended any such elegant metaphor. Instead, his choice of the word doghouse hinted at the fact that the library (established in the 1920s, right when Imperial Japan was renaming its colonising strategy from Military Rule to so-called Cultural Rule) had survived for decades in the shadow of authoritarianism, that it had a shameful and obscene history of its own as the headquarters of every major assassination in South Korea’s modern history, and that he was disgusted with himself for being a part of that shameful history.

  But Old Raccoon chose that life. Why pick on poor, innocent dogs for the choices he’d made? Seriously, what did dogs ever do wrong?

  X

  Ten a.m. Reseng entered the Doghouse Library.

  It was empty as usual. The sole employee, a cross-eyed librarian, greeted Reseng, her gaze pointing at some spot he could only guess at.

  ‘Good morning!’

  Her cheery voice echoed like a lark’s cry from the domed ceiling. That high-pitched voice vexed him every time. It sounded far too bright for a place built during the colonial era by a Japanese master craftsman and left to rot over the next century. He gave the librarian a curt nod and headed straight for Old Raccoon’s study.

  ‘He has a visitor,’ she said, rising from her seat.

  Reseng paused. Who would come to the library this early with a job for them?

  ‘A visitor?’ Reseng asked. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘That tall, smart-looking gentleman. The really polite one.’

  Tall, smart and polite? Someone with those qualities would have no reason to be skulking around here. Reseng tipped his head in confusion.

  Her voice turning impatient, the librarian added, ‘You know, the guy who wears nice suits and sounds really cool and dignified all the time.’

  Reseng snorted. She meant Hanja. The cross-eyed librarian thought Hanja was polite and smart and cool and dignified. And all the time, apparently! What on earth had given her that idea? On the other hand, maybe Reseng was the one who had the wrong idea. After all, Hanja was rich, had a fancy degree from Stanford and was constantly acting the part of a gentleman. Though Reseng could not get on board with the idea that the guy was handsome, he couldn’t argue with the fact that Hanja was tall. Reseng nodded and headed again for Old Raccoon’s study, but the librarian rushed over and pulled at his arm.

  ‘He told me not to let anyone else in. Not today.’

  She stressed the words not today, as if this day were some once-in-a-lifetime event. She had a tight grip on his arm. H
e looked pointedly at her hand and then slowly up at her face. She let go.

  ‘Which one of them told you not to let anyone in? Old Raccoon or Hanja?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Hanja. But Mr Raccoon was standing right next to him when he said it.’

  Reseng looked at the closed door. Given how early Hanja had rushed over, he must have been pretty angry about the changes Reseng had made to the plotter’s instructions. Reseng put the maple box containing the ashes of the old man and the dog on the round table in front of the librarian’s desk. He sat down and took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. The second he lit up, the librarian frowned at him.

  She sat down at her desk and began to knit; he assumed this meant she’d already completed her tasks for the day. The wool was red. She hadn’t got far enough with it yet for him to tell what she was knitting. Reseng had never once seen her read a book. She never even read newspapers or magazines. She just sat by herself at her desk in that deserted library where no books were ever read or checked out and, naturally, were never returned, and passed the time knitting or cross-stitching, or painting her nails every color of the rainbow.

  ‘What is that?’ asked the librarian, pausing abruptly in the middle of a row. ‘Japanese sweets?’

  She was looking at the box he’d placed on the table. The maple box was wrapped in a white cloth and looked unmistakably like a wooden urn. Reseng had no idea what made her think it was sweets.

  ‘Yeah, they’re Japanese sweets. But they’re not for you, so keep your paws off ’em.’

  She stuck her lower lip out at him. It was covered in a thick coat of bright red lipstick. Right above her mouth was a beauty spot that seemed disappointed not to have been born on Marilyn Monroe’s face. She’d applied dark red shadow all around her eyes, and her eyebrows were shaved and replaced by two crescent tattoos. The overall effect made her look odd and simple-minded. That said, other than being cross-eyed, she wasn’t bad-looking.

  She resumed knitting and seemed to forget all about Reseng sitting in front of her. Her knitting was faster now, but there was still something sloppy and uncertain about her work. She probably had trouble focusing on the stitches.

  ‘You should get surgery,’ Reseng said.

  She looked up at him in confusion.

  ‘I said, you should get surgery.’

  ‘What surgery?’

  ‘For your eyes. To uncross them. They say it’s a simple procedure nowadays. Doesn’t even cost that much.’

  She looked taken aback. Her expression seemed to say, Don’t you have enough problems, you idiot? Stay out of my business. Or possibly it was saying, I don’t care if my eyes are flipping inside out—why should I care what a loser like you thinks?

  ‘It’s no one’s business what I’m looking at,’ she said curtly.

  She gave him a long, lingering glare. This time, her expression clearly said, Be warned: your insolence will not be tolerated; you’ve made me very angry. But with one eye pointing at the ceiling and the other eye pointing at the stacks to the left, that warning came off as more comical than stern. Not that Reseng didn’t take her seriously. It’s just that it’s next to impossible to make a serious threat when you’re staring simultaneously at the floor and at the ceiling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.’

  She didn’t respond. Instead she muttered something indecipherable and kept on knitting, her irritation spelled out all over her face. He assumed she’d told him to fuck off under her breath.

  Old Raccoon had gone through a lot of librarians. Most of his reasons for firing them were pretty frivolous. He had fired librarians because a book was misshelved, because a two decades-old book had a tiny tear on the cover and had been left unrepaired for over a month, and because there was too much dust on one of the over nine hundred shelves. He’d even fired one librarian for setting a coffee cup on top of a book. Of course, there were plenty who’d left of their own accord. One left because she said there wasn’t enough work to do; another said the place was so dreary that she felt like she was suffocating; another said being alone in the constantly empty library made her feel like a character in a horror movie. And one librarian’s mysterious reason for leaving was that ever since setting foot in the place, she hadn’t been able to read so much as a single sentence.

  Reseng had got along well with most of the librarians regardless of how long they lasted. He considered them friends—his only friends, in fact, with whom he could talk about books. With them, he was able to share the thoughts and emotions the books had aroused in him. Which may have been why talking to librarians always left him feeling a certain sense of kinship and peace of mind.

  It usually didn’t take long for the librarians to wonder about the peculiarities of the library. They would steal a moment when Old Raccoon wasn’t around to cautiously ask Reseng what the purpose of the library was and what institution it belonged to. Anyone who found themselves working in that odd place with its crabby owner for longer than a month would naturally start to wonder. Each time he was asked, Reseng explained that it was a members-only library for high-ranking government officials.

  They would tilt their heads and say, ‘But I’ve never once seen a government official come in to read or check out a book.’

  And Reseng would say, ‘That’s why our country is so messed up,’ and laugh.

  But the cross-eyed librarian had never, not even once, asked any questions about the place. When she first started the job, she didn’t ask where her desk was or what her tasks were. Worse still (or according to the same logic), she didn’t ask where the bathroom was or where the broom was stored. It was like she had no curiosity, interest or complaints about anything outside cross-stitching, nail art and knitting. When Old Raccoon gave her instructions, she listened with those unsettling eyes of hers aimed any which way and silently got to work.

  So far, she’d lasted a good five years at the Doghouse Library without asking a single question. She had probably been there the longest of all the librarians who’d worked for grumpy, fickle Old Raccoon. She paid no mind whatsoever to what sort of place this library was that stayed empty all year round, or who these people were who came in from time to time with mean, secretive looks on their faces. She just reported for work in the morning, and wiped dust off the books. The rest of the time, she feverishly knitted or cross-stitched. But most surprising of all was her unfailing ability to shelve the books so accurately that not even Old Raccoon, who was more exacting than anyone, could find fault with her. Reseng was forever surprised and dubious at how perfectly a librarian who never read could keep books so well organised.

  She was, by far, the strangest librarian he’d ever met. Now and then Reseng would mention a book he was reading, and she would instantly reply in a monotone, chin resting on her hand, ‘C-54 has other books like that. Go and have a look.’ What else could he do, of course, but head straight for C-54, feeling vaguely disconcerted and let down.

  Until recently, the library’s collection had held steady at two hundred thousand books. Old Raccoon used to order new books regularly, but would throw out the same number just as regularly. He claimed he did that because there was no room, but they could have easily stored hundreds of thousands more. The real reason he threw them out was that more books would have meant adding more shelves, and Old Raccoon was loath to move the existing shelves that he had long ago arranged just so. As far as Reseng could remember, the shelf layout in the Doghouse Library had never once changed. Neither had Old Raccoon’s method for sorting the books. Nor did he make room for new categories of books that appeared with the changing times. As a result, books that could not be sorted into one of Old Raccoon’s existing categories went straight into the discard pile, even if they were brand-new.

  When their time came, Old Raccoon placed a black strip around the discards. It was his own special form of sentencing, a funeral procedure for books that had reached the end of their life. The same way ageing
assassins were added to a list and eliminated by cleaners when their time came. Of course, a book’s life span was determined by Old Raccoon alone, and neither Reseng nor the librarians could understand why certain books had to be tossed.

  The books with black bands were gathered by the librarian and stacked in the courtyard to be burned on Sunday afternoons, the librarian’s day off. Old Raccoon could have sold them to a secondhand bookshop or even to a recycler, but he insisted on burning them.

  Reseng was fond of Old Raccoon’s abandoned books. Though he couldn’t quite explain why, he felt they deserved his love. And they were the only books he was allowed to take home from The Doghouse. On Sunday mornings, before the books were burned, Reseng would peruse the pile next to the petrol can and pick out those he liked. After he had finished, the remaining books were left scattered around in the yard, unwanted by either Old Raccoon or Reseng; they looked as pathetic and hopeless as prisoners of war standing before a firing squad.

  ‘You don’t have to burn them,’ Reseng would say. ‘You could sell them to a second-hand bookshop instead.’

  Each time, Old Raccoon responded in the same way: ‘Every book must follow its own destiny.’

  In other words, the particular destiny of the books that had belonged to this ridiculous, godforsaken place where no one came to read (not even the librarian!) was to be as bored and miserable as court ladies, their untouched virgin bodies wasting away as they pined in sorrow, never once to be loved by the king, until they eventually grew too old and were cast out of the palace.

  Reseng was confident in his knowledge that the library would be around for at least as long as people were. He had faith, not in the books themselves, but in the shelves and in the edifice itself that held them. What had sustained The Doghouse all this time were its large, wooden bookshelves, carved from the same priceless Chunyang pines used to build palaces during the Joseon Dynasty. Books came and went, but those heavy shelves, lovingly crafted by a famous furniture-maker during the colonial era and still pristine and unwarped ninety years later, never so much as budged.