The Red Queen

by Margaret Drabble

  A guide would be a good idea, agree Babs and Jan, and Dr Oo returns to the kiosk to see if he can raise one. Babs, at this point, thinks it would also be a good idea, before embarking on the walk, to visit the ladies’ toilet. She can see a pleasant-looking one conveniently placed by the non-ticket booth, clearly labelled in English writing. Like the Queen of England, Babs believes it is always wise to visit the toilet when one can. So in she goes, and finds that the facilities are indeed very modern. If this is also UNESCO money, it is well spent. There is nobody else in the building, and she seems to have a choice of cubicle designs: she enters one of the larger closets, and sits herself down on a fine throne-like ceramic sanitary structure, which calls itself, to her delight, in English, a ‘Royal Bidet’. So far, so good: the Queen of England would not have disdained this vessel. It is when Babs comes to an attempt to flush the toilet that she encounters a difficulty. There is no very clear way, as far as she can see, of activating the flush. She buttons up her trousers, and stares down in perplexity and mild transcultural panic at the array of symbols portrayed on a smart flat plasticated touch panel by the lavatory pan. A row of press pads is aligned by a display of what look like waves and dewdrops, in pretty nursery shades of pink and yellow and pale blue. There is also, alarmingly, a simplified picture of what must surely be a plump lady’s bottom, at which an energetic jet of water is pointing. This, too, has its own press pad.

  The last thing Babs wishes to do is to unleash a jet spray, so she knows she must avoid that one. The coloured dewdrops look milder, but somehow not quite right for her purpose. Perhaps she should leave the toilet unflushed? No, her Orpington training is too strong for that. She knows what is right. She washes her hands in the en-suite washbowl, dries them on a paper towel, and inspects once more the elaborate control panel, and the rest of this queenly cubicle. This time she is pleased to discover a good old-fashioned handle, set in the wall by the cistern. Yes, that must be the one.

  Boldly, she pulls it downwards. Immediately, a cacophony of sound, a great peal of bells, fills the entire building. It is a fire alarum or a distress signal. What on earth will happen now? She feels very guilty, like a schoolgirl who has set off a fire extinguisher by mistake. The bells keep pealing. She feels hysterical laughter rising in her. This is ridiculous. What on earth will Jan and Dr Oo think has happened to her? She had better get out of here quick and face the music.

  So out she rushes, straight into the arms of a young Korean woman, who has clearly come to rescue her. ‘So sorry!’ says Babs, as the young woman deftly pushes a wall switch and brings the hideous clamour to a sudden end. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ says the young Korean woman, in perfect English. ‘So many people make this mistake. It is no matter. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am,’ says Babs. The young woman is giggling. She thinks it is all very funny, and so do Jan van Jost and Dr Oo, who are waiting for her by the signboard that marks the beginning of the trail. Babs decides that there is no point in being embarrassed. It is too late for that. She gives a vivid account of the Royal Bidet and its mixed messages. Dr Oo gallantly responds with a description of another Korean device called the ‘etiquette bell’, which his sister tells him is to be found in many women’s lavatories in up-market locations in Seoul. ‘You press this bell for the sound of running water,’ says Dr Oo. ‘To disguise the sound of natural functions. We are a very modest nation. It surprises many travellers from Europe, I believe.’

  Babs remembers that the toilet, after all this excitement, remains unflushed. But she is not going back to deal with that now.

  The young woman who had come to her rescue now reveals herself to be an English-speaking volunteer guide who says she is happy to escort them for the beginning of their journey. She wears jeans, and a purple jacket over a bright lemon-yellow top, and she is slim and small and very pretty. She is delighted and surprised by the enthusiasm of her foreign visitors. And she is extremely well informed. She conducts them to what she says is the most scenic route – they must set off first outside the walls, on a rustic grassy path through woodland, in the green belt that surrounds the historic site. Perhaps, she tells them, Hwaseong means ‘Fortress of Grass’? Or perhaps it means ‘Flower Bud Fortress’? No one is quite sure of the word’s derivation. And then they must enter through the secret gate, and walk along the walls, and inspect the stone watchtowers, and the gun embrasures, and the wooden pavilions with their arrow slits and their painted ceilings, and the great gate of Paldalmun. Look, see how beautifully constructed are the walls, with their remarkable combination of large stones and bricks. Seventy thousand workers were mobilized for a year, and they were well paid and well fed by the standards of the day – a whole army of masons, carpenters, plasterers, painters and tilers had worked here. It was a magnificent undertaking, a great memorial to King Chŏngjo and the new technologies. It is all very fully documented, says their charming guide.

  Babs wants to ask what their guide knows about Prince Sado and the Crown Princess, but is afraid of revealing herself as a sensationmonger, more interested in human tales of murder and treachery than in architecture. She does not want to be a vulgar tourist. So she keeps quiet, and listens earnestly. It is a pleasant walk, whatever one’s interest in it, a fascinating walk. The walls remind Babs a little of the walls of the city of York, of which she had once done the full circuit with Peter Halliwell, in the early days of their courtship. That, too, had been a conference outing, at the University of York. Peter had been giving a paper on kinship patterns in British Columbia. It had been the early spring, of their love and of the year, and the green slopes had been crowded with hopeful daffodils. But of course, the medieval walls of York are much older and more serious than these walls. These eighteenth-century fortifications, says their guide, are said by some historians to be more playful than real. There is an element of theatre and fantasy in this place. It was never besieged, in King Chŏngjo’s day. And when the Japanese came again, such defences were obsolete.

  By the time they reach the West Gate, Dr Oo has discovered that their guide knows his sister, and indeed at one point had studied under her. This is not very much of a coincidence, but it is sufficiently interesting to both parties to cause them to relapse comfortably into their own language. They forge ahead, chattering of family connections and of the legendary domestic stress of the approaching Harvest Festival of Chusŏk, which seems to distress Koreans as much as Christmas distresses most of Europe. Babs and Jan van Jost follow more slowly. Babs is a little worried that Jan may be getting tired: she feels protective about him, but considers it would be rude to enquire after his health or stamina. So they walk along together in silence, for a few minutes. They pause, to lean on the wall and gaze along the curving battlements towards the bustling modern city. The stone of the wall is warm.

  ‘And how was China?’ she asks. ‘Was it your first visit to China?’

  He does not reply for a moment. He sighs, and shakes his head, but not, she thinks, in answer to her question. Then he reaches into his jacket pocket, and extracts a crumpled packet of cigarettes, and lays it upon the top of the wall, and stares at it, as though it contains some kind of answer to some other question that hangs in the air. Eventually, he says, with what she now recognizes as his habitual politeness, ‘Would you mind if I smoked a cigarette?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she says.

  ‘Do you think it is acceptable, to smoke in an historic site?’ he asks.

  ‘I can’t see that anyone would mind. We are in the open air, after all,’ she says.

  ‘I haven’t seen any signs,’ he says, as he extracts a booklet of Pagoda Hotel matches from his breast pocket.

  This reminds Babs that she had seen ‘No Smoking’ signs and designated smoking areas in the gardens of Changgyeonggung, the Palace of Glorious Blessings, otherwise known as Historic Site No. 123. It may be that smoking is indeed prohibited on these city walls, for this is an orderly and regulated country. But she does not see it as
her duty to point this out to him. She is not a school prefect or a policewoman. Why should he not enjoy a cigarette? No, she thanks him, she won’t have one herself, she doesn’t smoke.

  ‘Neither do I,’ he says, as he cups his hand carefully round the small flame. ‘I gave it up. But I took it up again, in China. I’ll quit, when I’ve finished the pack. It was quite difficult, my time in China. Quite stressful.’

  He looks towards her and smiles at her, as he savours the smoke. His nostrils wrinkle at her as he smiles. After two draws, he extinguishes the cigarette neatly, on the underside of a chunk of UNESCO restoration stonework, and carefully replaces the stub in the pack. She admires his consideration.

  He looks at her again, and seems to be about to say something important. Their eyes meet again. She rather wishes now that she had accepted a cigarette from him. Smoking together would have been a further form of bonding. The stub from a cigarette offered to her by Jan van Jost would have been a trophy. She could have preserved it, as she had once romantically preserved, unwashed, a glass from which Peter Halliwell had been drinking. She had kept it for months at the back of her kitchen cabinet.

  Had van Jost, when younger, been a womanizer? Had he been a seducer of students? She hopes he cannot read her thoughts, but she rather suspects that he can. She credits him with supernatural and telepathic powers. Moreover, she is increasingly tempted to believe that he is looking at her with some form of heightened interest. Does she want him to make a move, or to say whatever it is that he has to say? No, she thinks not. Her life is complicated enough. It is enough to know that she is once more looking good, that she no longer feels herself to be gross and disgusting. She is not in need of any further affirmation. She smiles at him, in a cheerful public manner, and diverts her gaze to the space beyond him, where Dr Oo and their guide have paused to wait for them. Babs waves, and Babs and Jan van Jost resume the perambulation, hastening their step to catch up with the other couple.

  After an hour and a half, they agree that the site is too large and its monuments too scattered to be comprehended in one visit. Babs would have liked to have seen the tombs and memorial tablets of Prince Sado and his queen, but she gathers that they are at some distance, and would require another taxi ride. She will have to return, says Dr Oo, another day, to this fortress, and therefore to this country. Prince Sado and his queen will lure her back again one day for a second visit.

  So they take their rest on a sunny bench in the Pavilion of Flowers and Willows, surrounded by a nursery class of very small children clad in dungarees and shorts and jeans and T-shirts with multilingual slogans. The children are supervised by a teenage nursery school teacher and a plump pavilion guard in a pantomime costume of yellow, black, blue and red, with a magnificently tasselled hat and a tasselled wooden sword. Dr Oo takes a photograph. Then he gets out his mobile phone and makes arrangements for a taxi to meet them to take them back into town for lunch. He has conferred with his sister’s ex-student, and has been advised of an excellent restaurant in Suwon with good food and good atmosphere. Would Professor Jan van Jost and Dr Halliwell be willing to try sitting on cushions, Korean style? There is a room with Western tables, but the Korean style might be of interest?

  The sister’s ex-student says she would be delighted to join them for lunch, and they settle down round a low table to a feast of innumerable small dishes of rice and soup and herbs and roots and mushrooms and fishes and thin slivers of meat. A matronly lady hovers around them in a proprietorial manner, and plies them with beer and rice wine, and ladles clear broth into their bowls from a steaming cauldron. A mood of decorous conviviality is engendered, and Babs Halliwell is encouraged to tell against herself the story of her disastrous attempt to order a Korean meal when she was running alone round the city.

  ‘I had forgotten that magic word,’ she says. ‘What was it, Dr Oo? Bip-Bop-Bap? Bim-Bop-Bap? Bi-Bim-Bap? I just can’t keep it in my head. And then I got these nasty cold red noodles.’

  ‘The food in China,’ says Jan van Jost, ‘was excellent. But there were too many banquets, too many speeches. And I am too conventional, I did not like the feet.’

  What feet, they want to know. The feet of ducks, he thinks they were. They were white and of a gristle texture. They were prized as a great delicacy, he says, but not by him. The black slugs were not so good, either, he volunteers. Snakes, says Dr Oo, are still quite popular in Korea, for rejuvenation purposes. Also, it is true that we eat dog. Bold Babs says that she has nothing against people eating dogs. If people are prepared to eat chickens and cows and ducks, then why not dogs? Dr Oo says that his favourite Dutch dish is mussels, chips and mayonnaise. It is an improbable gastronomic combination, but it is very good, says Dr Oo.

  The French cuisine remains the greatest in the world, says van Jost, who reveals that his mother had taught French and English in a Dutch secondary school. Their pretty Korean guide says she is a Buddhist and a vegetarian. Not all Buddhists are vegetarians, but she is a vegetarian. She does not eat chicken or pig or cat or dog, though she does eat a little fish.

  Their small talk wanders to stories of the raw and the cooked, of the pure and the impure. Van Jost has met Lévi-Strauss many times, it seems. (Babs had thought Claude Lévi-Strauss had been dead for decades, but it seems that he is still in the land of the living. Peter Halliwell’s father had been acquainted with Lévi-Strauss. Had Jan been acquainted, therefore, with Peter Halliwell’s father? She does not ask.) They discuss taboos and multicultural eating habits and the things they could not, would not be induced to eat. They speak of that classic work Green Eggs and Ham, and the well-deserved global popularity of its author, the American children’s writer and educationalist Dr Seuss. Yes, his work is certainly well known in South Korea, says their Buddhist guide. It is used in schools as an English primer with much success. Then they speak of globalization. Jan says his next conference is entitled ‘The Risk of Globalization, or the Globalization of Risk’. It is to be held in December on El Hierro, which is, he tells them, the most westerly and least visited of the Canary Islands. ‘A little winter sunshine for all of us pale professors,’ says van Jost, with a dry white smile. ‘I think I can give the same paper as I gave yesterday. It is a multipurpose paper. I can add Prince Sado to my text, perhaps. “The Leaden Casket and the Rice Chest”.’

  ‘I suppose,’ says Babs, ‘that if you wanted to, you could spend your entire year going from one conference to another?’

  ‘I could,’ he says, ‘if I did not feel obliged to finish my next book. But it may be that I will never finish my next book. And what would that matter? There are too many books in the world already.’

  Babs does not particularly want to talk about his next book, or indeed about any of his books, because she is uneasily aware that she has never actually read any of them. She has read bits of some of them, and she has read bits of other people’s books about them, and she has had many interesting conversations about them, but she has never sat down with one of her new hero’s seminal world-famous volumes and read it through from cover to cover. She knows what he stands for, and what he writes about, but her knowledge of his ideas has percolated into her consciousness indirectly, from non-textual sources. It has permeated her by osmosis; it has reached her by convection currents. She is a fraudulent disciple. This makes her feel morally uncomfortable, and anxious to change the subject. Moreover, she is also by now physically uncomfortable: sitting cross-legged for hours has been bad for her circulation, and if she doesn’t get up soon she will have an attack of deep-vein thrombosis, and Dr Oo will have to carry her off to hospital. She wriggles, and heaves, and rearranges her long legs. She notes that her trousers are by now looking very crumpled. They were not designed for this kind of usage. Time to get back to the Pagoda Hotel and the twinned bed and the trouser press, thinks Dr Halliwell.

  She is beginning to recall that this evening in Seoul there will be a British Council function at which she will be expected to say a few words. Time to get back to
modern times.

  Dare she ask Jan if he intends to be so gracious as to attend the British Council buffet dinner, to which he will surely have been invited? No, she dare not. She feels humble, and wishes she had read at least one of his books right through. But he is smiling, still, as they stagger to their feet, and revive their blood flow, and smooth down their crumpled garments. She is immensely impressed to discover that there will be no haggling over the bill because Jan van Jost had mysteriously pre-paid it. He is a man of the world, a gentleman. She is suddenly sure that he will be there this evening.

  And, indeed, several hours and a couple of conference papers later, there he is, at her elbow, the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. He has attended the British Council reception, and listened respectfully to her few well-chosen public words of gratitude for hospitality received. Babs is beginning to think that perhaps he has an end in view. Babs knows a thing or two about men, and this man is behaving like a man with a purpose. By now, she also knows a few more things about him in particular, though she is not clear whether these facts have reached her through general conference gossip or from Bob Bryant or from other sources. Van Jost, she is by now aware, has been several times married, and his current wife is said to be Spanish. That would figure. He lives in Paris and in Seville – or possibly Barcelona?

  And here he is, by her side, as he had been at the Dutch Embassy, ready to escort her to the minibus that awaits to return them to the Pagoda Hotel. He sits himself down by her, and says, in a quietly attentive and intimate tone, ‘It has been a long day, but a good day. I am so grateful to you and Dr Oo for this morning. It was a very unusual expedition.’