by Ha Seong-nan
He had never been to Incheon. He had blindly stepped onto an Incheon-bound train, but had no idea where to go next. It might have been somewhat easier to find an apartment, but instead, he had to find a house with just the street address. He didn’t know the station closest to the house, so he had no choice but to go all the way to Incheon Station, which was the last stop. A piece of paper was stuck on the other side of the package. It was probably the release form that Lightning had told him to get signed. Scrawled in the margins were some notes, plus a rough sketch of a map and a series of seven digits, which he assumed was the professor’s phone number. At a glance, the map looked like an anchor or the male gender symbol, and the writing was barely legible: Nasan Shopping Center, Dohwadong three-way street, Civil Defense Educational Center, Donghwa Fish and Tackle, three-forked road, right turn, Prosperity Pharmacy, magnolia tree.
Finding the house by consulting the map and notes wasn’t going to be easy. The notes mentioned a three-way street near the fish and tackle shop, but the map omitted the three-way street. And a magnolia tree? A magnolia tree blooms in early spring and loses its blossoms so quickly that thin, bare branches would be all that would be left right now. The man tried to remember what a magnolia tree looked like without its blossoms, but he couldn’t. If he wanted to get to Athens on time, he couldn’t afford to wander aimlessly. Why hadn’t he said no to the boy’s request? He began to grow annoyed with himself.
Outside, the same boring scenery paraded by and ringtones sounded throughout the train. They passed motels with unlit neon signs that faced the tracks. The signs were old and dusty.
“Mommy, why does that house have so many windows?”
A young woman and her little girl were sitting diagonally across from him. The little girl had been looking out the window the entire time. It seemed she was just learning to talk; she asked her mother question after question. The motels obviously looked different even to the child’s eyes.
“Oh, that? It’s called a motel,” the mother whispered.
“What? I can’t hear you,” the girl said, rubbing her cheek against her mother’s.
The mother raised her head and cast a furtive glance at the other passengers. Perhaps she, like him, was picturing that intimate act.
“You don’t need to know.”
The child moved away from her mother, and once again glued her face to the window.
The train rattled along, beating out a regular rhythm. The man’s head was resting against the window, vibrating along in time. He tried to think up some funny jokes.
The woman knew all kinds of jokes. There wasn’t one she hadn’t heard before. When they first met, he’d thought she was collecting jokes the way some collect folktales. To come up with the latest, he looked through the five most popular daily papers every morning and went into the jokes chat room on the PC Communication website. He even flipped through women’s magazines at the bank. But before he could go any further, she’d already known the punch line. Make me laugh. If you make me laugh, I’ll give myself to you. When she propped her chin in her hand and watched his moving lips, a feeling of frustration came over him. Out of habit, he felt for his phone in his back pocket every time a cell phone rang.
Whenever the train went around a bend, the connecting doors slid open and he got a clear view of the other cars. Three high-school girls in uniform were walking in single file through the cars, heading toward him. They flicked the grab handles as they walked, making them swing in semicircles behind them. They chattered non-stop. The passengers stared after them. The girls were tall, and though they were dressed in the same school uniform, each girl looked a bit different in it. Their shirts were wrinkled and sweat-stained, and the skirts looked as if they had been shortened, stopping well above their knees and clinging to their hips and thighs, ending in pleats like fish fins. Each step exposed their thighs through the side slits. All three carried large identical shopping bags.
They passed him, joking and poking one another in the side. They smelled of sweat and perfume, and wore foreign brand-name backpacks that were popular among students, with character keychains dangling from the zippers. First a stuffed Donald Duck went by, and then Hoppangman, the moon-faced Japanese cartoon superhero with a red-bean bun for a head. The man, who had been trying to think of a funny joke, glanced up at that moment and made eye contact with the third girl. She had dark, round eyes like black beans and smooth, milky skin. What dangled from her bag caught his attention. It was a keychain with a clear plastic cube containing three dice, each one a different color. Every step sent the dice bouncing off one another.
He couldn’t think of anything funny. It was 4:35. At the bank where the woman worked, the automatic shutters near the entrance would be coming down now. She was three years older than him and it was her twenty-ninth birthday that day. Until he’d met her, he’d always been surrounded by women with large mouths. Once in kindergarten, he had drawn a picture titled “My Mom.” Whenever he gazed up at his tall mother, who constantly nagged him, all he could see was her large mouth moving ceaselessly. In the picture, his mother’s mouth took up two-thirds of her face. “My Mom” had even received an honorable mention in a nationwide children’s art competition. But when he had first seen the woman counting money through the bank window, he hadn’t known anyone could have such a small mouth. Her lips had been pursed so tightly she’d had only a trace of a mouth, like that of a Japanese geisha. He loved her small mouth.
He caught the cloying whiff of perspiration and perfume again. The girls who had gone on to the next car were coming back. Though the entire car was nearly empty, the girls chose to sit directly across from him. The three shopping bags went onto the overhead shelf. The thin one sat squeezed between the two larger girls. He looked down, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. One of the reasons he avoided taking the subway was because he didn’t know where to look. Once he’d found himself in a bit of a fix because he’d kept making eye contact with a stranger who was sitting across from him.
As soon as he lowered his gaze to the floor, he saw the girls’ legs. Now that they were sitting down, their short plaid skirts rode up their thighs and became even shorter. Their six bare legs were as fresh as turnips just pulled up from the field, and their calves were round and firm. The girls hugged their backpacks and started to whisper back and forth. The key chains that dangled from their bags each resembled its owner. Like ordinary teenage girls, Donald Duck, Dice, and Hoppangman laughed for no particular reason. Donald Duck couldn’t close her knees because of her chubby thighs. He glimpsed them glued together past her open knees. As for Dice, though her knees were clamped shut, her thin thighs formed a triangular gap under her crotch. His gaze kept being drawn to that spot. It was quiet inside the train, and he could hear every word they were saying. Maybe he’d get lucky and pick up a funny joke.
Below their dusky knees were scratches, scabs, bruises, and even insect bites. He learned they were juniors at an arts high school. Seventeen. It was an age when scrapes and falls were still common. They laughed hysterically at things that weren’t funny, things he already knew. Maybe the woman, too, had laughed just as easily when she was seventeen.
“Seriously. I think I only got half right.”
At Dice’s words, the other girls’ faces stiffened. For a moment, they said nothing. Then the girl whose face was as round as Hoppangman’s nudged Dice with her shoulder. “Not this again.”
Donald Duck ate a Pepero cookie stick, breaking off the end little by little with her front teeth. Pursing her thick lips, she said, “That’s what you said last time and you ended up getting the highest mark.”
Dice let out a big sigh. “I’m serious this time. I guessed on half.”
They took out their exams from their backpacks and started going over the answers. They groaned each time they learned they had gotten the answer wrong. The man kept glancing at their legs. All of a sudden, Dice’s knees, clamped shut until now, relaxed and spread open. He didn’t miss the trian
gular gap widen. He coughed and turned toward the fire extinguisher, but then Donald Duck’s pudgy thighs came into view. Unless he moved to another seat or closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to escape their legs.
The girls seemed completely oblivious to his growing discomfort. In fact, they didn’t even seem to see him. Donald Duck twisted her body to the left and crossed her right leg over her left. Her skirt hung down the seat, exposing her thigh, which resembled a boiled potato. The elastic bands of her stockings cut deep into her flesh. Scooting her butt forward, she switched legs and crossed them again. The man caught a flash of her white panties. She now spread her thighs in the man’s direction. It seemed she had suddenly put on weight; white stretch marks crawled all the way down to her calves.
“At this rate, I won’t get into a Seoul university.”
Dice stretched her arms above her head, and her knees relaxed even more. Just then sunlight shone into the gap. Deep inside the crevice was a mole as large as a coat button. He was a young, healthy man of twenty-six. His thoughts immediately rushed to that secret spot where the two legs met. His white shirt grew damp and clung to his back. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He swiped his forehead repeatedly with his sleeve. Her thighs made him picture her round, firm buttocks and the dimples above.
The girls’ reckless behavior continued. So engrossed were they in their conversation about university entrance exams and how they’d bombed their finals that they didn’t seem to notice anything else. They were the ones to blame for wearing such short skirts with slits on the side. If an older woman had been present, she most certainly would have had a word for them, but the entire car was now empty. The girls twisted and fidgeted endlessly in their seats. They crossed their legs and even spread them apart several times. Then it was the man who closed his legs in alarm. His curly hair, which he had spent half an hour straightening with a blow-dryer, grew damp and began to curl again. He seemed completely invisible to them. Bupyeong Station was announced. The girls lazily got to their feet and retrieved their shopping bags from the overhead compartment, standing with their backs to him. As they bent to put on their backpacks, their short skirts flipped up and they flashed their rear ends at him, as if they were doing the can-can. Then they stood by the doors next to him. The smell of sweat wafted over.
The subway approached the platform. The girls burst into laughter.
“I won, didn’t I?” Dice said.
Donald Duck and Hoppangman each took out a 5,000-won bill and placed them on Dice’s palm. Dice rolled up the bills and stuck them in the front pocket of her shirt.
“Men,” Donald Duck muttered, munching on her cookie stick.
Hoppangman kicked the train doors. “They’re worse than Pavlov’s dogs. They start drooling as soon as the bell rings. How can there be no decent men out there?” She slammed her fist into the doors. “Jesus died a long time ago.”
Dice snatched away Donald Duck’s cookie stick and popped the rest into her own mouth. “You don’t think Jesus was a man?”
The girls spoke loudly on purpose. They were no longer the same girls who had been comparing test answers and worrying about university admissions. The doors slid open and they stepped off, cackling.
His face was flushed with all the fantasies still ringing in his head. He wiped his face with his sleeve. Dark smudges appeared. Just as the train started to move again, there was a tap on the window. He turned around to find the three girls peering at him, their faces right up against the glass. They laughed maliciously. Dice brought her hand up to his face and then slowly raised her middle finger. Her lips moved deliberately. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he read her lips. Fuck you.
There was a long line of taxis in front of Incheon Station. The drivers stood outside their vehicles, smoking, while waiting to pick up fares. Someone ran by, bumping into the man’s arm. He blindly got into a taxi.
“Where to, mister?” the driver asked, hurriedly grinding out his cigarette and climbing inside.
He had no idea where to go. The driver looked at the man in the rearview mirror.
“The Civil Defense Educational Center. No, I mean Nasan Shopping Center.”
When he couldn’t decide on the destination, the driver said in a burst of annoyance, “Hurry up and pick a place.”
The taxi driver let him off at the wrong spot and drove away. When he had walked over two blocks, a building with the sign Nasan Shopping Center appeared. His sweat-soaked jeans were plastered to his legs, and his skin chafed with each step. He wanted to take a shower. His cologne had long since faded away and there were now yellowish half-moon stains under his arms.
Lightning’s notes were all mixed up. After he passed the shopping center, he turned right and saw a Chinese restaurant instead of a fishing store. The woman would have changed out of her bank uniform by now and was probably catching a taxi to go to Athens. He hadn’t been able to think of a funny joke, let alone buy her a gift. Right then, the phone number on the package caught his eye.
Professor Byeon Yeongseok politely gave him the directions to his house. It was an awkward distance, too far to walk, yet too short to take a cab. He started out blindly in the direction the professor had said. It was a sweltering day. The man scuffed the tips of his leather dress shoes on the cracked, uneven pavement. Far ahead, he saw the fish and tackle store. When he turned right after passing the store, he spotted a long alleyway lined with similar-looking houses.
He had to slow down to spot the magnolia tree amid the other trees that rose past stone walls. A schoolgirl was plodding along about fifty meters ahead. She dragged her feet, weighed down by her backpack, which seemed full of books. An electrical pole came into view. The professor had said to watch for an electrical pole, that if he came to one, he was almost there. The girl stopped and unrolled the waistband of her skirt. The skirt, which had been much too short, now hit below her knees. In that time, the man caught up to her. She glanced back and in that second, he noticed the keychain that dangled from her backpack. Inside a clear plastic cube were three dice of different colors.
Dice’s sleepy-looking eyes, dark as black beans, glinted. Her gaze darted around the alley to make sure there was no one nearby. She spat on the ground, and then came closer. They were nearly the same height. He could smell sweat, soap, and perfume on her. The large shopping bag she had been carrying was gone and her green nametag flashed from her shirt front pocket: Byeon Myeongju. Right then, everything clicked. Byeon was not a common last name.
Dice whispered quickly, as if to herself. “So you actually managed to follow me here.”
People have more courage when they’re in a group. But now, she was alone.
“All I did was follow the ringing of your bell,” he sneered.
“What do you want—a slap or a date?”
“Please, don’t flatter yourself. I’m not here because of you. I’m here to meet Professor Byeon Yeongseok.”
He didn’t miss the slight tremor in her pupils.
She spat again. This time, the wad of saliva hit his dress shoe. “You asshole, wasn’t that enough of a show for you? How much more do you want?”
When he tried to resume walking, she spread out her arms and stood in his way. “You actually plan to tattle on me? You obviously don’t know, but I’ve been at the top of my class for eleven years straight. Why would my father, who’s never even met you, believe anything you have to say?”
“Let me worry about that. That dark mole on your thigh will be proof enough.” He strode forward and started examining the house numbers on the front gates. Dice ran up to him and tugged at his sleeve.
“Come on, what do you want?”
Her voice was composed once more. He smiled as she tried to strike a bargain with him.
“If you get back on the main road and keep going, you’ll see Nasan Shopping Center. Wait for me there. I’ll be going to the library soon.”
She then walked up to a gate and pressed the doorbell.
“Who is
it?” said a dignified voice from the speakerphone.
“Dad, it’s me.”
Her voice, shrill until a second ago, now became the tired voice of a high-school student.
The man added quickly, “Lightning Delivery!”
Having figured out the situation just then, she glared at him. “Jesus, what shitty luck.”
The automatic gate opened to reveal the house hidden behind the stone wall. Flagstones dotted the grass that stretched all the way to the front door. Dice, who led the way, tripped on one of the stones. The magnolia tree, which had lost its blossoms, couldn’t even be seen from where it was, hidden behind a large chestnut tree. A middle-aged man came to the front door and took Dice’s backpack from her.
“Dad, I’m so tired I’m going to collapse,” she said, her voice now that of a spoiled child.
“That certainly was a lightning-fast delivery,” the professor laughed as he signed the release form. Dice stood glowering behind her father.
The man sauntered out of the gate. The voices of father and daughter drifted over the wall. “How did you do on your exam?” the professor asked. Her peevish voice soon followed.
He stood in front of the pole and smoked a cigarette. The number of cars had multiplied noticeably as it got closer to rush hour. All of a sudden, the man remembered that he was supposed to meet the woman. He glanced at his watch and realized it was ten to six. There was no way he could get to Seoul in ten minutes. Plus, he was so hot and tired that his brain felt like a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. No matter how hard he tried to wring out a funny joke, he couldn’t think of one. He took out the cell phone that had been pressed against his rear end all day in his back pocket. He turned it off.