by Heekyung Eun
“Miss Yoojin Lee, the person you came here to meet is actually my brother,” he said, adding a moment later, “I’m his twin.”
On his face there rose a polite expression, like a request for understanding. It was an expression that could be used to tell lie upon lie.
“Something urgent came up, so my brother said he’ll be a little late. He asked me to come in his place to deliver that message. He doesn’t know your phone number, so there was no other way he could contact you. Fortunately, my office is in this area.” He smiled faintly. “When some unexpected trouble arises, everyone wants safeguards. But this time it’s nothing to fret about.”
“The two of you are identical twins?”
“We have the same DNA. We’re destined to pass this same DNA on to our own children. Even our mother can’t tell the difference between us when we are sleeping in our pajamas. But anyone close to us can tell us apart if we move or start to speak. You could say that our individual identities become obvious through our lifestyles. Even cars that are identical when shipped from the factory become different, depending on each individual owner. That’s to be expected, isn’t it? Though we were born from the same egg, my brother and I are two very different beings. Our parents used to say that we were like an angel and a devil with the same face. But that was when we were in our teens.”
The man had finished his business, thought Yoojin, so she couldn’t understand why he didn’t get up and leave, or why he was going on about his personal history. Furthermore, it was unnecessary for him to keep insisting that he wasn’t his brother: at the moment no one wished it more than Yoojin herself. Still, he gave no indication that he was planning to leave anytime soon.
“Inside their heads, people have their own systems of analyzing information. In other words, through their thought processes they deal with impending matters judiciously and selectively. The thought process, however, is made by a system of subjective memories. That means it’s far from objective truth. Because of this, much more unexpected happens in this world than expected. What do you think about that?”
“Well, I could care less.”
“Let me reiterate. Consider the five senses and the mental capacity of a human being. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, the amount of information we’re presented with on a daily basis is enormous. People know far more than they think they know. But if we could recall everything we know, we wouldn’t have any control over our lives. For that reason, people selectively accept only that which is appropriate for their own thought processes. That’s precisely how a system of memories is made. It’s kind of like a manual for making judgments. But the problem is that the manual is extremely subjective and partial. When something arises that can’t be analyzed with the manual, people usually just label it chance and that’s the end of it. In reality, there is an inevitable cause and effect relationship in all the happenings in the world. The information that the manual needs to help you determine the relationship between cause and effect is missing.”
“So are you saying that I’m now involved in some cause and effect relationship that I don’t even know about? You make it sound so complicated.”
“You think you met my brother by chance, don’t you? Or, to use a more arbitrary term, destiny?”
“Then you’re saying it was some kind of scientific phenomenon?” She’d been quietly listening to him, wishing for the unpleasant sophistry to come to an end, but his audacity went too far. She sat up in her seat and straightened her back. “According to you, humans unconsciously expose a vast amount of personal information, right? I too cannot even guess how much information about myself I’ve made known, nor to whom. To people who live in the same neighborhood, who have the same job, hobbies, or a similar routine. Anyway, you’re saying I’ve unknowingly encountered a large number of people in many different places, and the people I’ve met have defined information about me by their arbitrary standards and are keeping it in their own system of memories. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? Even though you didn’t recognize me when I came in here, it seems that you know more about me than I thought. Let me hear something else from your abundance of information about me.”
Suddenly the man turned toward the counter and signaled to the server with his hand, but he didn’t order anything, which Yoojin thought odd. The server, who had been instructed by the man not to interrupt his conversation until he was called for, came and asked him if he was expecting more guests. He thought for a moment and answered no. The server was about to ask something further, but instead, shrinking under the man’s icy demeanor, he bowed submissively and returned to his work. Yoojin wanted to ask him if his twin brother was coming then, but she also kept quiet, not wanting to provide him with something he’d expect.
“A few days ago, a delivery service brought you a box of apples,” the man began. “Although you hadn’t ordered any apples, you accepted it because the address and the name were plainly yours. You must have thought that someone had sent it to you as a New Year’s gift. So you ate some apples. Then, the very next day, a man rang your doorbell. You know who that was, don’t you?”
“Another one of your acquaintances?”
He ignored Yoojin’s sarcasm. “It was my brother. He asked if you had the mistakenly delivered box of apples, and you, having opened it, must have been at a loss. But my brother didn’t look at all like a rude or dangerous guy. No, he was just the opposite. Most women like him. He was tall, looked naïve, and he dressed smartly, too. He gave off an intellectual air and was, in short, just the type of man you desired. When you invited him to come in out of the cold, he even politely declined at first. After he sat on the chair you offered, he displayed his sense of humor by saying he wanted an apple instead of tea; you apologized and said you’d reimburse him, but he said he didn’t need to get the apples back because you’d already given him an apology, using the homonym of apple (sagwa) and apologize (sagwa) to make a joke.
“Although it was a brief meeting, you were probably thinking throughout the conversation that you and my brother had many things in common. Seeing your bicycle leaning against the wall in the entryway, he started to talk about the numerous places he’d traveled on his mountain bike. You listened to him with keen interest because you like traveling. It was the same with the Matisse painting. He asked you whether you’d been to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and you were surprised, saying you’d bought the poster in the souvenir shop at that very place. You added that you couldn’t forget about the splendid brunch you’d had in the museum’s outdoor cafe. Then my brother said it was indeed one of his favorite places and that he used to go to school in that area. Surely you remember his cell phone ringing then. His ring tone was a John Lennon song, just like yours. But that’s not all. Later, when you cut up an apple and he speared a piece of it with his fork, you realized that you were both left-handed. Also, you both were Sagittarians, and you had the same day planners. Then you went on about how Hemingway and Picasso had used the same brand of planner.
“My brother stood up to leave at the proper time. And as he was going out the front door, he said, there’s an Irish pub I go to occasionally. Would you like to go with me some time? He also wanted to treat you to dinner at the Indian restaurant next to the pub, if you happened to like curry. Both the pub and the Indian restaurant were places you liked. When coincidences spring up, people wonder, is this simply chance, or is it a sign of destiny? You opted for the latter. The series of events that day were enough to hypnotize you into thinking of my brother as your destiny.”
Yoojin was about to reply, but the man went on.
“My brother told you why the box of apples was mistakenly delivered to your house, didn’t he? The Everville complex where you live has two buildings, Building A and Building B. Before Building B was built, the name of Building A was just Everville, with no letter attached to it. So out of habit, the original residents of Building A don’t specify which building they live in but continue to use just Everv
ille on their address. For this reason, all mail without a building letter written on it is invariably delivered to Building A. You live in Apartment 805 in Building A, and my brother lives in Apartment 805 in Building B. When he told the delivery service his address, he said simply ‘Everville Apartments’, and so the box of apples was delivered to your home.”
“You mean he had the apples delivered to my place on purpose? Why would he go to that kind of trouble?”
“Please just listen. You were so embarrassed because you’d already eaten some of someone else’s apples, and perhaps more importantly, you lost some of your composure because of your feelings for my brother. Didn’t you check the shipping label on the box? Wasn’t it strange that, apart from the address, even the name was the same?”
“Are you telling me that your brother already knew my name and address?”
“Don’t you remember seeing the name Yoojin Lee somewhere recently?”
Of course she remembered.
She believed everything had begun one afternoon last year when she was with S. They’d met at a big bookstore around Kwanghwamoon. Yoojin bought a novel and a collection of prose to read while she was alone over the holidays, and S chose New Year’s Fortune through Horoscopes. They also bought a couple of the planners that were on sale as they passed by the stationery section. Then they had lunch at the fast food restaurant attached to the bookstore. S went on enthusiastically about her plans to go skiing with her boyfriend. They talked about their hopes for the New Year. When Yoojin said that she wanted most of all to have a boyfriend, S clapped her hands playfully. S and Yoojin were the same age, both born in December under the sign of Sagittarius. A short time earlier while shopping for books, they’d leafed through the one that S eventually bought and had read that Sagittarians of their age would meet their destined love in January.
The name of the translator of the collection of prose that Yoojin had bought that day was Yoojin Lee. It wasn’t unusual for her interest to be piqued when she encountered someone with the same name as hers. In her school days, she found someone with the same name in her class nearly every year. Among people she didn’t know very well, having one thing in common was enough to begin a friendship.
“You may never have thought of Yoojin Lee as a man’s name. According to your system of subjective memories, Yoojin is a woman’s name. But my brother and I were born in the U.S. while my parents were studying there. Eugene is a man’s name there. There’s Eugene O’Neill, Eugene Levy, Eugene Smith. If you stop and think about it, you too have processed the name Yoojin as a male name. Your system of subjective memories simply didn’t select the data.”
“Do you call it subjective judgment when someone associates herself with her own name?”
“It’s not that black and white. It’s a question of the parts and the whole. In this world, nothing happens without a reason. The world is completely governed by order, though it’s not something you can see. That’s why rational forecasts are possible. The study of statistics proves through numbers that something that appears to have happened accidently is in actuality a necessary result. As the number of samples becomes greater, even extremely rare events occur more readily. So the more predictions you make, the higher the probability that you’ll be correct. It’s a common trick used by those with ‘supernatural’ powers to make as many predictions as possible.”
“Sorry, but what does that have to do with me ignoring the possibility of Yoojin Lee being a man?”
“Your name is Yoojin Lee, the one living in the building next to you is Yoojin Lee, and the name of the translator of the book you bought is also Yoojin Lee. How can something like this have happened accidentally?”
“You say accidental, and it’s precisely that. It’s coincidence, isn’t it?”
“We give significance to chance occurrences. Someone has the same birthday or is wearing the exact same clothes; you keep hearing the same song in different places, or you read a book with the same idea you were thinking; you and another person say the exact same thing simultaneously, or every time you look at a clock, the hour and minute hands point to the same number. Things like that. But the probability of such phenomena occurring is merely low. The problem is that people want to believe there is some special significance. For this reason, the art of detecting coincidence has been continuously cultivated through natural selection because the ability to discover meaningful connections between various events has served as an important advantage to the survival of humankind. Your case is no exception. You think something happens repeatedly by chance and you attach meaning to it, as if it’s destiny.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to find the inevitable causal relationship somehow.”
“If my brother had known everything about you beforehand, fabricating coincidence after coincidence between you and him wouldn’t have been difficult. The destiny you thought was there didn’t really exist after all. You must be familiar with the famous scientist’s words, ‘God does not play dice.’”
“For that matter, it has been concluded that God does play dice, hasn’t it? Of course, the argument that he doesn’t is still out there. But if there are times when he plays and times when he doesn’t, it means that he does play. Like you said before, the question is about the parts and the whole, isn’t it? I also believe scientists. They continue to make new discoveries and investigate the relationship between cause and effect. But with new discoveries perpetually being made, there’s still so much in this world that remains unknown. We have a tendency to put our faith in recently discovered laws, but that doesn’t mean we can call them absolute laws.”
“If we don’t make judgments and preparations using laws, the world will be thrown into chaos. Are you saying we should live without concern for anything? Things like weather forecasts, traffic information, marketing, and criminal investigations are possible precisely because we have analysis and predictions based on laws. Art creates tension by betraying the established patterns of human thought, just as jokes can be made when they run contrary to the patterns that everyone anticipates.”
“The other day when I was driving my car, I called the police traffic division to ask why the road was blocked with so much traffic. It was simple. They said it was because there were too many cars. It was only by chance that there were so many cars. Crime is the same. Scholars usually search for the cause in personality disorders, family problems or the pessimism of society, but in reality random crimes are being committed more and more frequently for no reason at all. It’s meaningless to apply laws there.”
“If people don’t think rationally they will go through life constantly being deceived. Just like you.”
“Have I been deceived? I’m sorry, but except for you and your brother being twins, there isn’t anything you’ve told me that I didn’t already know.”
“Does that include that my brother’s actions were deliberate?”
“What if those deliberate actions were just what I wanted?” Yoojin jutted her chin out a little. “I’m not blaming you for misjudging me. You attempted to reconstruct my existence and judge me by trying to collect the missing information, but you have no idea what goes on inside the head of a person like me. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t follow the laws you understand so well. I’m not an impetuous person who’s so easily convinced that there’s someone who has the same name and address as me. I’m very good at remembering people’s faces.
“I first became aware of your brother standing behind me when I was browsing in the bookstore. He waited quietly until my friend and I moved away from the bookshelf. I thought he had the same interests as me. I also sensed goodness in him, not like other people who push their way in just so they can grab the books they want. I caught a quick glimpse of his face out of the corner of my eye when I turned to go to the counter. That’s how I was able to recognize him when he came and sat down at the table across from my friend and me when we were eating fried chicken. So, you see, I was in fact secretly watching him.<
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“He didn’t seem to be listening to our conversation. He was lost in thought, quietly eating his hamburger. You think I became interested in him because he was well prepared with knowledge about me, but that’s the hole in your theory of everything being connected through cause and effect. Do you understand? Even if your brother and I’d had nothing particular in common, I still would have come here to meet him. You probably wouldn’t understand, but those decisions were made when I first saw him.”
“If you’re interested in my brother, there must be some reason. Perhaps he looks like someone you know. Or maybe you feel he showed you some unexpected kindness.”
“Aren’t the events that occur purely by chance the real driving force behind the world? If everything that happens can be put in some presupposed category, you can scarcely call that life. I don’t know if you’ve heard what John Lennon said. He said that life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Your brother didn’t plan anything. Why do you think I was so surprised when I saw your brother standing outside my door? That’s right. It’s unusual for a guy I met by accident in a bookstore, a guy who didn’t leave my mind for several days, to live in the next building and even have the same apartment number. But I became suspicious when I discovered that his name was also the same as mine. I started to wonder if your brother had intentionally found out my name and address, and that he’d had the apples delivered as an excuse to come to my place. I was also worried about my friend making such a racket in the bookstore that day. In your words, I spread around too much information. I’d gone straight home from the restaurant that day, so I wondered if he might have followed me, or even if he’d known who I was from the beginning.”
“That’s it exactly. You’re living in an area full of high rise apartments. You hardly see any people on the streets even though there are so many of them living in the area. It’s a system in which you are completely isolated from your neighbors. Instead, there are closed-circuit cameras everywhere to control and care for you. Even in moments when you feel that you’re completely alone, you’re actually sharing your time and space with countless unknown neighbors.