Tongue

by Kyung-Ran Jo

  I rub my eyes. A huge white horse stands in the middle of the room. I close my eyes, open them. A man wearing a white bathrobe stares down at me … Who is it? Like I’m looking through heavy fog dispersing slowly, I realize it’s Chef. I’m about to raise myself up, but remember that I’m not wearing anything and that I’m not in a kitchen but a hotel room. I tug the blanket up to my chin. What time is it? Are they back from the seafood restaurant? Where’s Choi and why is Chef here? Even though I’m lying down and Chef is just standing there, it’s not awkward—it’s as if we’ve done this before. All we’ve done was stand next to each other in a narrow kitchen, bumping into each other. I raise my neck with effort, to get up.

  “Just stay there.” His voice booms in the dark.

  I’m surprised.

  “Just five minutes.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “I’ll stay just five minutes and leave.”

  All of my vitality drains out. I hear cloth brushing against cloth. Chef is undoing his belt and taking off his bathrobe. Should I close my eyes? Even if I do it’s not completely dark. I don’t want to be nervous right now, like a fool. It’ll be okay as long as I don’t waver. Chef lies on top of me. He grips my hands holding the blanket and pulls them up toward my ears. I can feel his weight, his warmth, his breath on the other side of the thin blanket. Only our elbows to our fingers are actually touching, and his left cheek rests on mine. But it still feels like our entire bodies are touching. Nervous relief and sighs fill my chest. If I can’t turn the clock back by five minutes, there’s only one thing I can do. Lie quietly and wait for time to pass.

  “Breathe.” His voice sounds so loud.

  “… Okay.”

  “I’m not going to do anything.”

  I know.

  “So please just stay still.”

  Yes, that’s what I’m doing.

  “I’m going to go soon.”

  I don’t want to ruin our friendship of thirteen years, formed one drop at a time. “You’re too heavy.”

  He moves a leg off me. It’s easier to breathe. Chef is the kind of person who would forgo pleasure that might later bring guilt. We have to be able to eat toast comfortably at the hotel café tomorrow morning, as if nothing happened. We have to be able to complain that the coffee is too weak or that it’s flavorless. We lie there, looking at each other, not saying a thing, listening to faraway sounds. The night around me is dreamy and dizzy and too hot, like when you eat too much fermented mango.

  “Every time I look at you I’m reminded of her.”

  I stay silent.

  “I used to be alive because of her.”

  Is he talking about his ex-wife or his dead daughter? I’ve known him for a long time but I know next to nothing about his private life. But I wish he wouldn’t say that I remind him of either of them.

  “I didn’t have the chance to love her fully. I didn’t have enough time.”

  He’s talking about his daughter. “You can say anything you want.”

  He’s surprised.

  “Because we’re leaving tomorrow. We’re going home. Don’t do it there. Don’t be this close to me there.”

  “… Okay.”

  I want to nod but I can’t move. His face is pressing down and his shoulder is flattening and his leg is pushing down, his entire body smashed on mine.

  “I wanted to remember her growing up. When I gave her baths I used to put her heel into my mouth. Babies don’t have much of a heel before they walk. It’s just a soft and squishy foot. It would move around in my mouth. A shock would go through my entire body—she was alive, and so was I. When it felt heavier in my mouth I knew—Oh, she’s grown this much. After she turned one, I couldn’t even put it in my mouth. She was too big. Then she started walking. I felt a loss but I liked to see her walking and jumping and running with her heels that were starting to harden. I was happy that I was alive.”

  I’m quiet. Four days after the five-year-old was kidnapped, she was found in a manhole near their house. “What did it taste like?”

  Chef doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

  “Her heel.”

  “… Sweet. Really sweet and tender.”

  “Like a green grape?”

  “No, it was purer and cleaner.”

  We’re quiet for a moment.

  “I’ve been to Dohoku,” I say.

  “Right.”

  “It’s famous for its horse meat. It’s amazing, the marbling of the bloodred and white, showing through the paper-thin slices of meat. I put it in my mouth and the juices of the meat welled between the crevices of my teeth. Like a horse was slowly walking into my mouth. It filled me up. Was it like that?”

  “Yeah, that’s what it was like.”

  “Right.”

  “… No matter where you go, you can’t find that taste.”

  “You probably can’t.”

  “Yeah, it’s the taste of something that doesn’t exist in this world.”

  “A special taste.”

  “I wanted to re-create that taste.”

  We’re silent for a moment.

  Are you crying? My cheek is wet, warm. It’s as if we’ve touched the deepest parts of each other, the parts that are untouchable.

  “I have someone like that, too. Someone who makes me feel like I’m living.”

  Chef doesn’t say a word.

  “I didn’t have enough time with him either.”

  “Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself anymore.”

  “If it were easy it wouldn’t be love.”

  Chef is quiet.

  “Don’t tell me that’s not true.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You know how there’s a taste that can’t be substituted by anything else in the world? There are people that can’t be substituted by any other person.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “This is enough for now.”

  “Yeah, this is enough.”

  “Yeah.”

  We stay silent again.

  He unglues his face from my cheek. I watch him letting go of my hands, lifting his shoulders, slowly moving his legs away from me. I close my eyes. Because if I were to see his body, I might continue to recall this vivid sensation, which feels like a hot root pushing through me.

  “But you,” Chef says, slipping into his bathrobe, about to step away. “You’re so small.” His voice brims with heartbreaking emotion and the love he couldn’t give in its entirety, as if he were talking to his daughter, frozen in youth.

  I hear the door shut.

  My heart hasn’t wavered, I whisper into the darkness. But somewhere, something in my being has bent, as easily as a grapevine. I turn over on my side. My body heats up, as if someone has put his mouth around my heel.

  CHAPTER 19

  HUMANS AND DOGS yearn for attention and love. While humans worry about what others think of them, dogs are more interested in your behavior. Dogs react differently if the other person is more dominant. But if a dog doesn’t get his way, he will gradually begin to use threats, even if he’s the most well-trained dog. Paulie, though confident and wise and graceful, has begun to think up ways to threaten me.

  One day after it rains, Paulie plods into the living room from the yard. Mud is covering his beautiful golden-red fur and he smells musty. With mud caking everything but his eyes, Paulie barks once as if to tell me that he rolled in the mud on purpose, jumps onto the sofa, then leaps onto the butcher block. What are you doing, Paulie? I yell. Paulie glances at me and continues on, as if he wouldn’t even consider stopping until he gets what he wants. I don’t budge. I sit on a kitchen stool, not looking at him, pretending to read the magazine in front of me. A dog’s eyes are different from a human’s, but all eyes are sensitive to movement. I toss the magazine aside and stand up. Paulie, hesitating, lies down, his front paws placed side by side. Seok-ju doesn’t come to see Paulie anymore. Of course, he doesn’t come to see me, either. I want what you want, Paulie. But he do
esn’t want what we want. You should understand that by now. I gently stroke his head to soothe him. Only the odor of the mud reverberates in the room. I push my hand deeper into Paulie’s coat. His scent’s completely evaporated now. You can’t wait obediently anymore, right, Paulie? You use your nose to understand and remember the world. Right? We’re having a conversation. A depressed dog, like a depressed person, shows physical symptoms—erratic behavior and eyes so cloudy that he wouldn’t be able to recognize his owner. We must be suffering from the same illness, and I think we communicate as best we can about it. But that turns out to be an incorrect belief.

  A few days later, when I come home from work, Paulie is rolling a dead cat around like a ball, and when he sees me staring at him, a hand to my mouth, he plops down on top of it. As if to say, I’ve always liked smelly, squishy things. When I manage to pull Paulie away and stick him in the tub, he latches onto my neck. It’s not really a bite—he puts pressure on my neck with his muzzle the way he does when he pushes my knee, but we aren’t playing catch or wrestling like the other times. I feel a sudden terror. Dogs show their unhappiness with their mouths. If they’re pushed into a corner, they bite, even if it happens to be their owner. Paulie is agitated. I need to be calm. I have to be more attentive to his needs. Even though I’ve already turned on the water, I put the showerhead down on the floor as if to show him that I mean no harm. Whether you’re a dog or a human, if your needs are unfulfilled, you will feel like attacking. Is this what I’m really afraid of?

  Paulie is still baring his teeth, revealing his beastly side. I turn off the water and slide down to the floor. We sit in a puddle, our bottom halves wet, staring at each other. You can’t do this, Paulie. I grab the scruff of his neck and raise him up, glaring into his eyes. A bite to the neck is a challenge to hierarchy. I sharply slap his skinny nose. If he continues to misbehave, the only thing left to do is stop feeding him. No. I lose my resolve and drop my hand. I shake my head. I have to think about what’s best for this old dog. What would be the best for Paulie? As if waiting for a new challenge, Paulie breathes hard, looking seriously into my eyes. I turn away from him in a firm and exaggerated gesture so that he will understand it, even with his failing eyesight. I want to say, Now we’re over.

  I need to be firm. I don’t have the right to keep a dog when all I do is just look at him. I have no right to keep Paulie. Paulie is here not because he wants to stay with me but because he doesn’t have a choice. A dog doesn’t stay by his owner’s side in the face of danger out of love or loyalty. He’s merely waiting for what happens next. Humans think it’s because the dog loves his owner, but a dog is only a dog. I grab Paulie in an embrace. Paulie is only a dog. He’s merely his dog. Okay, I’ll bring you back to him, I whisper into Paulie’s ear. So you can stop being like this, Paulie. The perfect place for this dog is the house he, Paulie’s first owner, is living in. This is the last thing I can do for Paulie.

  Before I send Paulie to him, to them, I realize something: Even the most well-trained dog will not move the way we want him to, and a dog feels terror, desire, curiosity, anger, satisfaction, hesitation, and loss just like us. A human instinctively wants to cuddle and protect a smaller and weaker being, furry and soft, with big eyes and a round head. And when Paulie is not acting up, he is so beautiful and gentle and loyal. Even though I know she can’t stand dogs, I dial her number, which I still know by heart, in the hopes that she will feel maternal toward him.

  MAY

  The fourth rule is, to have all ingredients and materials necessary for the preparation of your dishes ready and handy before you commence cooking, so that nothing need be hurriedly done…

  —Henriette Davidis’ Practical Cook Book

  CHAPTER 20

  IN THE SUBWAY CAR on line three, I see a woman holding a large globe. I am going to work two hours earlier than usual, to meet the delivery of a big, twenty-five-kilogram perch and ten kilograms of blue crab from Wando Island. The woman looks straight ahead, her overstuffed duffel bag leaning on the seat next to her and the colorful globe on her lap, perhaps on her way to somewhere far. It’s unexpected to see a globe in an uncrowded subway car, and I stare at it as if I’ve never seen such a thing. When you spin a globe it feels like you can go anywhere in the world—the world is as small as your kitchen. But just as you can never see the Southern Cross from the North Pole, you can never see the other side of the world. You can leave whenever you want, but a time may come when staying here is beyond your willpower. The plastic globe sways on its axis with every shake of the subway car.

  I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. My stop is announced. I open my eyes. The woman is no longer across from me. Neither is the globe, which looked heavy for its size. I manage to slip out just before the doors close. I pause momentarily while climbing the stairs. I can’t recall whether the woman was holding a globe, or a newborn baby swaddled in a colorful blanket, or a lapdog. Was I dozing in the early-morning subway? I keep walking, thinking it would have been better to see someone holding a big, slightly cracked melon instead. At least you can eat a melon. I haven’t been able to fall into deep slumber all spring. When reading a book or drinking herbal tea doesn’t help, I go into the yard and pace, barefoot, watching the sunrise. Now even Paulie isn’t there, Paulie, whose warm tongue used to lick my face.

  The gigantic fish is splayed across the butcher block, dripping water. It’s so fresh that I think its eyes will fly open, tail flopping. A century ago the perch wouldn’t have arrived in an ice-filled Styrofoam box but in a clay jar of honey. Tension flits in the air among the six cooks who gather around the fish with their knives. Last month, I decided not to handle fish for a while. I feel warmer than usual and my palms sweat—the worst hands with which to touch fish. I’ve never been this hot before. I don’t know why this is happening. I gaze down at my palms. Is it because I’m completely alone? I shake my head. These thoughts only make my palms warmer. It’ll get better when the seasons change.

  It feels like warm—and cold—liquid is seeping out of my body, like juice from cutting a ripe peach. I can’t do anything but wait for time to pass. If you want to pursue something, it means you have desire. There’s something I want to grab firmly with these two hands. I stand in front of the large oven that reflects my face and whisper: The hours I wait with desire will certainly be mysterious.

  It’s disappointing that I can’t handle the perch—the tiger of the sea—but I step back. A fish this size has a lot of flesh and allows you to bring out all kinds of flavors. One hand supporting my chin, I glance at Chef, wondering how this one will be prepared. I think of Chef every time I look at a perch, just as I’m reminded of a cow or yellow paprika whenever I see Munju. What do people think when they look at me? Do they associate me with a vegetable or a fish? Chef picks up a knife, slides it along the dorsal fin, and slits the body open. Everyone, even Manager Park, gathers around the fish, curiosity gleaming in their eyes. Chef will carefully divide the body, cheeks, collar, stomach, liver, small intestines, and gills and distribute them to the staff. Then he will tell them to make a dish out of it—homework. This is how Chef uses a perch, as expensive as a whole calf. Another reason you don’t leave Nove once you start cooking here. A few years ago I parboiled the liver of a perch in salted water before stewing it in garlic sauce. Chef’s opinion was that my concoction was fine, but that it didn’t show enough imagination and tasted one-dimensional.

  The kitchen becomes busy all of a sudden. While the others work on the perch, I take charge of marinated blue crab for the staff meal. Shellfish live underwater and breathe through their gills, periodically shedding their shells as they grow. The time to get the plumpest and sweetest shellfish is right before they shed. Blue crabs in May are packed with eggs—they don’t taste as good after they lay eggs. Chef makes the soy sauce used for the marinade. Soy sauce is the one condiment I’m not very comfortable using. If Grandmother were still alive, I could learn from her. Grandmother used a pear reduction to satisfy al
l the need for sweetness in her cooking, and when she made marinated crabs she used pear juice instead of sugar for the soy sauce. Worm-mottled pears, old pears, frozen pears—they all turned into sweet, clear pear reduction when they passed through Grandmother’s hands. Chef believes that a young person can’t handle soy sauce. By the time I learn how to make and handle it, I may no longer be young. My wish is that I will still be in this kitchen.

  The darkest soy sauce, like the darkest caviar and olives, is the best. Soy sauce has to be black and have a tongue-seducing aroma, but it can’t be overly viscous and you should take care to use only the appropriate amount. The squirming crabs are piled into a nickel bowl. One even lurches and claws its way to the top. If they were lobsters, we would immediately snip the muscles in their claws. Lobsters, the most belligerent of shellfish, eat each other when they are kept in a confined space. We don’t do anything to the crabs yet, though, because the flavor suffers when a knife touches living crabs. Now I should pour the soy sauce over the crabs. After boiling and cooling the sauce, I dip a finger into the liquid and stick it in my mouth, rolling it around on my tongue. Sour and salty and sweet and profoundly weighty, like when I take a sip of good wine. I pour the sauce over the live crabs. They writhe as if in protest. Now all I have to do is wait until they die, then trim the claws.