Seoul Survivors

by Naomi Foyle

  Reluctantly, Mee Hee held out her arm. The two spots where she had stuck the pin were red and swollen, smeared with blood. Dr. Tae Sun examined them carefully.

  “It’s been a hard day for you, hasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “Shall I give you something to help you sleep?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “And tomorrow, do you want to move into another house, with your other sisters?”

  His lips were slightly parted, wet; his eyelashes delicately curling upward behind his glasses. She had never noticed that before.

  “No, no,” she stammered. “I like it here. I won’t be lonely. I promise. Maybe you could . . . come and visit me sometimes?” Aghast, she dropped her head. “Or my sisters could come and keep me company.”

  Dr. Tae Sun rolled down her sleeve. “I’ll tell Dr. Kim that you’re happy to stay here alone. And of course I’ll come and check up on you. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Ten minutes later he was back from the dispensary. He gave her two herbal sleeping pills and watched her take them, then rubbed a soothing ointment onto her arm. He was so close to her she could smell the fresh soap-powder scent of his shirt, and beneath it, the light musk of his body.

  “Sleep well, Mee Hee,” he said, softly. Then he stepped out again into the humid, chirruping night.

  After he had gone, she turned off the lamp and sat quietly in the living room, praying for Su Jin’s wellbeing and for Dr. Kim’s forgiveness until the candle sputtered out.

  The next day, Dr. Kim arrived at the village. The women gathered in the Meeting Hall, sitting on the cushions Dr. Tae Sun had set out. Mee Hee sat beside So Ra in the second row, trying not to look at the three doctors. There was a grain of rice from breakfast caught between the floorboards. Later she would gouge it out with her fingernails, but for now she must keep still.

  “My sisters,” Dr. Kim began, “I have good news. Su Jin is probably in Pusan. At least, we know she took a bus there yesterday.”

  So Ra squeezed Mee Hee’s arm as a ripple of whispers ran through the room.

  Beside Dr. Kim, Dr. Dong Sun cleared his throat. “It’s a shock to everyone that Su Jin has left us without saying goodbye, but everything possible is being done to find her, so we can help her settle in a new life.”

  Dr. Kim stepped forward now. In her green silk jacket and floor-length skirt, she moved like a shimmering flame in the morning light. But her presence could not warm Mee Hee. She fixed her eyes on the hem of Dr. Kim’s skirt, the pointy satin tips of her floor slippers.

  Her sisters nudged each other, and the room fell silent. “I am very sad, of course,” the scientist said, “to think that Su Jin wanted to leave. As you all know, much care has gone into making this village your home. Please, I beg of you, if there is anything that makes you anxious, let me or the Doctors Che know your worries and concerns.”

  “Is there anyone here unhappy about our village life?” Dr. Dong Sun asked. “If so, please, speak now.”

  The silence was unearthly now. As if everyone one in the room had stopped breathing. In front of Mee Hee, Chin Mee slowly raised her arm. “Please, I’m sorry,” she said, in a voice as tremulous as a reed flute, “I love it here—but I know that Su Jin wanted to get married one day. Maybe that’s why she ran away. I think some of us would like to get married too. Would that ever be possible, Dr. Kim?”

  Dr. Kim beamed down at Chin Mee. “You are beautiful young women; of course you’re all thinking about husbands. But please, let me reassure you that as soon as you have given birth to the Peonies, you will be introduced to fine men from the local area. These men will be offered jobs in the village, and anyone who wants to get married will have complete freedom to do so.”

  Now Older Sister stuck up her hand. “Excuse me, Dr. Kim, but will they want us? Why would they want to look after our children?”

  Some of the women gasped. Dr. Kim raised her hands. “Older Sister, have you ever read the Bible?”

  “Not myself, but Younger Sister talks about it—all the time.”

  The women laughed, but Dr. Kim shushed them. “Ask Younger Sister to read you the story of the birth of Jesus. He was the Son of God, but his earthly father, Joseph, cared for him and his mother as if they were an ordinary family, joined by love and blood. Isn’t that right, Younger Sister?”

  Younger Sister, beside Older Sister, flushed with pride. “That’s true, Dr. Kim.”

  “All the men we introduce you to will be honored to help raise the Peonies. And of course if you want to have children with them, you’ll be able to do so.”

  Around her, Mee Hee’s sisters admonished each other. See, I told you so. How could Su Jin leave?

  “Now,” Dr. Kim continued, “I want to ask a very special lady to come to the front of the room. Lee Mee Hee?”

  For a terrible moment, Mee Hee felt as if she might empty her bladder on the floor. It was coming now: the denouncement, the shame. She had lied to all her sisters and now she was going to be punished. Her face burning, she stared at Dr. Tae Sun.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mee Hee,” he said softly. “Come.”

  Somehow, Mee Hee got to her feet and stepped in front of all the women. Reaching out her silk-clad arms, Dr. Kim hugged her. This couldn’t be happening. Mee Hee held herself stiffly, conscious only of the scientist’s perfume, the intoxicating scent of night-flowering jasmine.

  Finally, Dr. Kim released her and turned to the women. “It’s very hard to lose a special friend,” she said. “Mee Hee will be lonely over the next few days and weeks, but I want to ask all of you to help make her feel supported and secure.”

  Mee Hee couldn’t let this continue. She had to speak. “No, no,” she said. Her tongue stumbling over the words, she gestured at her sisters. “I’m not lonely. I have so many special friends. My sisters give me all the love I need.”

  The women broke into applause. Some were crying, their faces shining.

  Dr. Kim herself wiped away a tear as Dr. Tae Sun placed his hand on the small of Mee Hee’s back. “Thank you, Mee Hee,” he whispered. “You may sit down.”

  The floor was solid and the cushion was soft beneath her. Mee Hee felt her spine lengthen. There was nothing to fear. Dr. Kim had forgiven her. And she hadn’t even had to confess.

  30 / Pig Bar

  Sydney entered the anbang feeling weak and humble and incredibly grateful to Da Mi. Anyone else would have been furious with her for taking such stupid chances with a married man when she was supposed to be a role model for the Peonies. But Da Mi just kindly and firmly strapped her into the Chair, explaining that it might take two weeks or more to fully move beyond her attachment to Jae Ho. To start with, they would work on calming her nerves and helping her to feel in control of her emotions once again.

  She put on the goggles and floated for a long time in the healing pink and orange river of light. At the corners of her vision she sensed the Peonies dancing around her, their gentle presence making her feel peaceful, safe, secure. Then Da Mi began to speak, voicing positive thoughts that Sydney echoed in the chamber of her mind: I am strong and beautiful. I let go of people who belong in my past. My future is filling up with love. Finally, when she was glowing and feeling invincible, Da Mi’s voice brought her slowly back into the room.

  She felt fantastic that night, but the next day she went into free fall. Words were just words: her future wasn’t filling up with love. When she got home and closed the door of her apartment, her life was empty, empty, empty. Crying bitterly, hating herself for being a needy fuck-slut, hating Jae Ho for his selfishness and silence, hating everything in her apartment for reminding her of him, she peeled his drawing down off the wall. She couldn’t quite bring herself to rip it up, but she stuck it face-down in her junk drawer, beneath a tangle of recharger cables and a sheaf of papers she needed to hire an accountant to sort out. Then she collected all the clothes Jae Ho had ever pulled off her body, stuffed them into a black bin bag and dumped the bag out on the stre
et.

  Good girl, she heard Da Mi say in her ear, and for a second she felt a surge of power. But this momentary relief quickly faded. She bought a bottle of white wine, and went back up to her apartment to drink it. She woke up with a headache. And shit—she had to pack an overnight bag for a photoshoot out in the countryside with a new photographer. She pretended not to understand his English and nearly got fired; but the other girls were sweet to her, and at least she wasn’t in Seoul for a couple of days.

  On Friday she had another session. This time Da Mi talked to her first, for a long time, about secrets. How powerful they were; and therefore, in the wrong hands, dangerous. The secret she and Da Mi shared was like a seed in fertile earth, that one day would blossom into a marvelous flower for everyone to see. But the secret of an extramarital affair was like a seed buried in toxic soil, watered by betrayal, lies, vulnerability and selfish greed. The flowers it bore were stunted, distorted, discolored. Often, they never even budded at all. In the Chair, Sydney repeated the old affirmations, and one new one: I choose my secrets wisely.

  When she woke up Saturday morning she felt lighter, free of rage and self-pity for the first time in ages. She spent the weekend pottering about, tidying her flat, and shopping for new clothes to replace the ones she had thrown out. Monday she had another session and felt even better afterward, so when Jin Sok called on Thursday to suggest going out she enthusiastically agreed. She was going back in the Chair the next day. That was practically two weeks, wasn’t it? What could go wrong?

  She met Jin Sok in Hongdae at a new basement place, Hong Gum Dwae Gee, or Golden Pig Bar. It was a “Techno-Opera Lounge,” though with its black walls swathed with purple plastic sheeting it looked more like a goth’s bedroom. It was empty apart from the DJ and a young couple sitting at a table nursing beers and prawn crackers, but even so, the place had a certain something. A French singer was warbling from the speakers as Jin Sok led Sydney across a metal dance floor that trembled and boomed beneath their feet.

  “Look.” Jin Sok pointed to the wall behind a crushed-velvet sofa. “New painting Jae Ho.”

  Jae Ho. Her first test. Sydney faced the painting.

  The canvas was large, nearly six feet tall, and unusually, oval-shaped. No, she realized, it wasn’t a canvas: it was a piece of chipboard, the kind you might see lining a construction site. It had been painted with a swarm of rapid red, orange and gold brushstrokes, the textured board beneath adding to the fiery effect. As if going back to the construction site, though, over the flames Jae Ho had sprayed the black outline of an erect cock and balls. It was a crude, stencil-like image, but it also seemed odd: like a visual puzzle. The balls were shaped like a horizontal figure eight for some reason, and the head of the cock was tipped by a black almond-shaped flame. The whole painting was framed with a twisting length of barbed wire, spray-painted gold.

  Her stomach felt fine, her heartbeat remained normal. “Is candle?” she teased.

  “Is Buddha!” Jin Sok laughed.

  What? Oh yeah. The cock did look like a guy meditating: the tip was his head, the figure eight his crossed legs. Despite herself, she smiled. Jae Ho was such a joker.

  The puzzle was solved: or was it? As she shifted her attention to the gold paint gleaming and gliding in the background Sydney felt a flicker of wonder, a strange dawning sense of familiarity, and then, slowly, something almost like pride. For hidden in the brushstrokes, she realized, were the flick of her hair, the twitch of her signature smirk, the slow stirring motion of her hips upon Jae Ho’s, the long arc of her arm stretched upon her pillow in the morning. Like the drawing he had given her, the background of the painting was a burning map of her own rhythms and curves.

  Was a sense of awe a strong emotion? She didn’t know, but it couldn’t be bad, surely.

  “Is Korean toilet sex!” Jin Sok guffawed. “Is from his last show—wife’s gallery. Many people upset. Pig Bar owner pay big money. Jae Ho very happy man.”

  She dragged her eyes away from the painting. He hadn’t told her about the show—well, why would he? He wouldn’t want her there. She had been his dirty secret, that was all.

  But that was okay. Everything was okay. She let go of people who belonged in her past, and she chose her secrets wisely now.

  “So, can only artists get a drink in this place?” she complained, plopping herself down on the sofa. Like a genie appearing from behind a purple curtain, a young woman in a short skirt and chunky space boots flounced across the dance floor, a tray jutting out from her hip. Her shoulders were set square, her hair pulled back from a flat, freckled face.

  “What do you want, motherfucker?” she barked at Jin Sok.

  “New waitress!”

  They both pealed with laughter, and Sydney was introduced to “sculptor and international artist” Kim Moon Sun.

  “I go to Canada soon,” Moon Sun told Sydney. “To Toronto—to study.”

  “Great. Your English is excellent.”

  “Thank you. I study hard. I can say, ‘you lousy asshole’ too.”

  “What about ‘you racist scumbag’?”

  “‘You racist scumbag’? No, I don’t know. What does it mean?”

  “Racist means someone doesn’t like you because you are Korean, or black, or whatever,” Sydney explained. “Scumbag is, like, used condom. Is good expression. In Canada I use it a lot.”

  “‘You racist scumbag!’ Thank you very much. Please, Sydney, what are you drinking? My service.”

  Sydney ordered a beer and Moon Sun spun back to the bar.

  “Chartreuse Fish Eyes, everyone in love with you,” Jin Sok told her.

  “Chartreuse?” Jin Sok’s vocabulary was so wild. He knew more colors than the iPod people, but they still had trouble sometimes arranging how to meet.

  “Chartreuse green Paris drink.” He leaned over and flicked an eyelash off her cheek.

  The French singer drowned in an oncoming wave of No-Funk. Moon Sun returned with two beers, the club door swung open and a short, plump Korean woman wearing a pirate’s headscarf and a Lucky Strike T-shirt sailed in. Behind her, smiling and laughing, was Jae Ho, arm-in-arm with a woman in a long white crocheted dress. Her face was still and smooth as stone, but her eyes flitted about the room like black butterflies. Sydney recognized her right away.

  “Annyonghaseyo!” Jin Sok roared, rising to greet the party.

  Jae Ho winked at Sydney and pulled up a chair. Sydney froze as his wife squeezed in beside her on the sofa.

  “Sy-duh-nee,” Jin Sok said expansively, “I want you meet my little sisters.” With a courtly gesture, he indicated the pirate queen, who was perched on the arm of the sofa. “This Hae Lim, special woman in Korea. She owner of Pig Bar and Trapdoor. Her husband Song P’il you meet—owner Gongjang. They Hongdae mafia.”

  Everybody laughed. Sydney nodded at Hae Lim.

  “And this please is Noh Eun Hee. She wife my little brother. He painter, she gallery owner, they perfect couple, yes?”

  Sydney forced a crooked smile as Eun Hee took her hand. “Small En-gli-shee. So-ree.” Caressing Sydney’s bare arm, she said something in Korean to the others.

  “She say you have beautiful skin,” Jin Sok translated, solemnly.

  “Kamsahamnida. I sorry no Korean. I very sorry,” Sydney babbled.

  Eun Hee intently scanned her face. “You know my husband?”

  Sydney’s stomach was crumpling like a ball of tinfoil. She could only hope the weird lighting in the club hid her red-hot cheeks. “I know his painting, in Gongjang,” she managed. “And this one here.” She lifted her head briefly toward the furnace on the wall. “He is a very good artist, I think.”

  Jae Ho grinned and translated. He seemed perfectly relaxed, clapping Jin Sok around the shoulders, helping Hae Lim place the drinks order with Moon Sun.

  “Ah.” Eun Hee leaned back on the sofa and spoke rapidly in Korean to Jin Sok.

  “She say you have very interesting face,” he told Sydney. “She think maybe you Ru
ssian. Or Spanish.”

  Sydney couldn’t look at her. “You are very beautiful,” she blurted, guiltily.

  “Oh no.” Eun Hee shook her head and hid her mouth behind her hand.

  “Too many beautiful women. Photo please,” Jin Sok demanded, pulling his Leica out of his case. Hae Lim obligingly squeezed in beside Eun Hee, then Eun Hee’s hand was in Sydney’s hair, pulling her head into the shot, and the women’s cheeks pressed together, temples touching, as Jin Sok took the picture.

  “How old?” Eun Hee asked when the camera was put away.

  “I am twenty.”

  “Are you married?”

  She shook her head, and swallowed. Right now, not being married felt like being a total failure.

  Hae Lim bubbled up with a comment and the Korean women had a spirited conversation, apparently in agreement.

  “They say young Korean women today, they losing what it means to be wife,” Jin Sok explained. “For older generation, is important care for husband, be gentle with him, serve him well. But for under-thirty, not the same. The new Korean woman, she always putting herself first. They are sad about this.”

  Moon Sun was striding purposefully toward them, a tray of drinks in her hand. Jae Ho beckoned her impatiently, and Sydney felt a flash of contempt. Did Eun Hee wait on him hand and foot? Then Jae Ho said something flirty to Moon Sun and the waitress responded by snatching his beer bottle away and thrusting it at Jin Sok.

  Jin Sok and Hae Lim doubled over in laughter as Jae Ho shrugged mournfully and gazed fondly at Eun Hee.

  There was nothing she could do. Sydney sat back and let the Korean jokes and conversation swirl around her like the DJ’s tragic arias and Eastern European folk disco. Finally Jin Sok invited her to dance, and she made the sheet metal floor crash and rumble with her heels. When she returned to the table, Moon Sun was setting down a massive pig’s head on a golden platter. The Koreans gasped in unison.

  “Is from opening party,” Hae Lim explained. “I want photo, Jin Sok, please.”