by Heekyung Eun
“I told you that rare occurrences can happen more frequently as the number of samples grows. For example, it seems like coincidence for you to meet some woman who’s buying tampons on the same day as you in the same small corner store, but such a thing would be commonplace in a big supermarket. Your part of the city, overcrowded with apartment buildings, is more like a big wholesale warehouse than a neighborhood. My brother may have met you anywhere, a coin-operated laundromat, a convenience store, a bar, a real estate agency, an ice cream shop, an auto body shop. He might have stepped out of the way when you rode by on your bicycle. He could have made eye contact with you when you both ordered the same dish in the curry restaurant across the street, or perhaps you had appointments at the same time and walked one after the other to the subway station. Maybe you’ve seen my brother around once or twice, so that made you think he looked familiar.”
“It’s possible. Let’s say that the things he did, like adjusting his ring tone to match mine, or revealing himself as a Sagittarian, or pretending to be left-handed, could have been based on information acquired thanks to my friend’s big mouth. And he’d also know that I ride a bike or that I like curry if he happened to see me in the neighborhood. But was it necessary for him to deliberately have a box of apples delivered to me and pretend it was a mistake? I certainly wouldn’t have rejected a conversation with your brother, no matter where or when he wanted to talk to me.”
“It wouldn’t have been as natural as going in search of a parcel that was delivered to the wrong address. The possibility of you letting a complete stranger that you met somewhere earlier in the day into your home and then serving him apples is much smaller.”
“That’s precisely the difference between someone like you and me. I’d rather entertain doubts about cause and effect being in too perfect accord. The events of that day were just like that. Although they themselves were extraordinary, every situation was too natural and there was nothing at all awkward about your brother’s manner. It was like skillful acting. In fact, it gave me doubts. What’s this? This is all going the way I wanted much too naturally. I feel like I’m getting mixed up in something. You know, suspicions like these. What do you think I did in the end?”
“Did you let my brother deceive you because you wanted to make him your destiny? It’s called the Barnum Effect. The world is full of naïve people who are unwilling to accept their own fate and want to attach reality to it by force.”
“I asked your brother directly. Did you follow me home from the fast food restaurant and sneak a peek into my mailbox? Of course I needed courage to do that. Your brother is obviously more likely to be the victim of stalking than me. But as I’ve told you many times, I don’t believe that life moves in perfect accord with laws.”
“I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. It’s not like him to tell the honest truth about everything. He’s very good at deceiving others.”
“Your brother told me how he found out that there was another Yoojin Lee living in Apartment 805 in Building A. The conversation we had was nothing like the one I just had with you, in which you reconstructed everything in terms of cause and effect. You came here acting like you know all there is, but you don’t. You’ve been insisting that your brother’s memories are different than mine. Memory is not as simple as DNA.”
“You talk as if you know my brother better than me. Let me hear what he said about how he came to know that there was a Yoojin Lee living in Apartment 805 in Building A.”
“One day, your brother had a few drinks and drove back to the apartment building drunk. He went out to drink more after he parked his car in the parking lot.”
“He’s an alcoholic.”
“But the next day, when he went down to the parking lot, he discovered that his car had disappeared. He clearly remembered seeing the familiar logo printed on the building when he had driven into the lot, but despite all his efforts, he couldn’t find the car. He informed the police, but he still hadn’t heard anything after several days.”
“I know all about it.”
“Your brother went drinking again a few days later, and afterward he was on his way home, this time by taxi. He put his hand in his pocket and discovered that his cell phone was missing. Thinking he might have left it in the pub, he told the taxi driver to turn around and go back. But they got into a big argument. The driver was treating your brother like a drunk, speaking abuse and insults.”
“It’s not news that he sometimes has fights.”
“Your brother stopped the taxi on the road and got out, and the angry taxi driver swore at him and sped off. Right after the taxi left, he realized that he’d left his wallet on the back seat. He waved his arm frantically toward the taxi, but it was no use. He ran after it, saw the license plate number and reached into his pocket for his cell phone so he could report the incident. Of course, there was no cell phone. It had really been a horrible day for him, but that wasn’t the end of it. He said it was as if he’d been driving on a highway with countless cars and, suddenly wrapped in some unknown terror, felt like getting out from behind the steering wheel and running away.”
“Didn’t he say that he sometimes suffers from panic attacks?”
Yoojin thought for a moment. The look on the brother’s face as he’d told her about it came vividly to her mind.
“He looked around only after the taxi had completely disappeared from view. The streets and the buildings were all unfamiliar to him. There was no way to tell where he was. The late hour made it frighteningly dark and desolate. Off in the distance was a high-rise apartment complex with windows lit here and there, massive, like a mysterious castle. He turned and, with no particular plan in mind, unable even to venture a guess at his current location, started walking in the direction the taxi had gone. Without his cell phone, he couldn’t even call anyone for help. He came across a public phone booth and was happy for a moment, but he didn’t have a single coin in his pocket. As someone so accustomed to living in the city that it permeated him to the core, he was a complete stranger to such a situation. That an isolated state like this lay hidden behind the everyday, with only a single layer between, horrified him more than anything. He walked slowly, like a wind-up doll, with scarcely a thought in his mind, and as he made his way home, walking through the night for two hours, he was overcome by the sensation that his insides were slowly emptying.
“When he arrived at his building, he was completely worn out and had grown faint. But then a strange thing happened. As he walked up through the parking lot, he noticed that his lost car had returned and was sitting right there. Anyone would’ve shuddered with fright then. But for your brother, I think it was much more intense. He told me that a sudden awareness came to him, causing him to physically tremble. He realized that it was not his car that’d disappeared, but he himself.”
“I must reiterate: my brother has somewhat of a mental problem. His head is full of indecipherable garbage that disregards the rules of rationality. He has nothing but childish, disjointed ideas. He’s been taking medication for a long time, you know.”
“I trust my own feelings more than the information you’ve given me here. In your language, isn’t that the art of finding advantage in life?”
“Anyhow, are you saying that the returned car told my brother about you? Did it come back with a mouth?”
“Your brother said that when he saw his car back after its disappearance, he felt as if he’d returned tired and worn out from a long journey. Before taking the elevator up to his apartment, he went over to the nearby mailboxes and casually took out a few pieces of mail addressed to Yoojin Lee. Then he went up to Apartment 805 and entered the number on the keypad at the front door. It wouldn’t open, though he tried several times. He stood there for a short time with his forehead pressed against the cold, locked door. It was the strangest night he’d experienced in his entire life. Haven’t you ever had that kind of moment? Surely everyone has at some point, in a single spontaneous, bizarre moment, shudder
ed in panic at being trapped in the narrow gap between presence and absence? Your brother too would have been seized by a sudden fear in front of the locked door, as if he’d been lost in space and was returning to a residence that was forever lost to him, as if he’d momentarily come upon a time and place that didn’t exist in this world.”
“As if he’d been compressed and was experiencing a black hole firsthand.”
“With cold sweat dripping from him, your brother examined the mail he was holding. Only then did the letter A for the building on the address catch his eye. That’s how it happened. In a drunken state, he had originally parked his car in the Building A parking lot and then, only half-conscious as he was that night, once again mistakenly went to Building A. He didn’t even realize that he was in a different building because the two are twins, built in the same form with the same materials. He put the mail back in its proper place and moved his car to the Building B parking lot, but he was unable to sleep that night. He did not even entertain the idea of going to see the Yoojin Lee in Building A. Your brother isn’t foolish enough to drag nighttime events into the daytime.”
“What you’re saying, then, is that the person named Yoojin Lee living at the same address in the very next building, as well as the mistakenly delivered apples, was all just coincidence? Fine. It may be coincidence that you and my brother are both named Yoojin Lee. But do you think it’s just chance that it’s also the name of the translator of the book you were reading?”
“That occurred to me after your brother left. I thought a lot about us bumping into each other in front of that same bookshelf. So I have to ask: is he by any chance the translator?”
For the first time in a while, a smile appeared on the man’s face. “I can’t blame you for thinking that. Especially after seeing the American university sweatshirt he was wearing.”
“But he probably isn’t. Even though the book was lying there on my desk, your brother didn’t say a single word about it. I guess it’s possible that he didn’t see it, though.”
“How could I have known that you had a book translated by Yoojin Lee if he hadn’t seen it? You know, the more I listen to you, the clearer it becomes. You really don’t think much of my brother.”
“You sure go out of your way to make my decisions for me. And you’re completely wrong again. Why would I have even come here if I didn’t like your brother?”
“You didn’t come to see my brother. You came to see Yoojin Lee.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Of course there is. Yoojin is not my brother’s name, it’s mine. The translator is me, too. The mountain bike, the university in San Francisco, the taste in planners, and even the sweatshirt, they’re all mine. My brother has spent nearly his entire life with me. This time, too, as he has countless times before, he was merely doing an impersonation of me. Like my parents used to say, I’m the angel and he’s the devil. He does as he pleases, behaving recklessly, childishly, irresponsibly. Even when he ordered the apples, he had to use my credit card because his own won’t work. Your hostility should be directed toward him, not me. You’ve got the wrong person. The one you thought was your destiny is actually me. I hope you’re not too embarrassed.”
“You seem to think that if I’d been in the same situation with another person, identical in appearance, I’d automatically have the same feelings for that person. If it’d been you and not your brother who came for the apples that day, I’d never have come here. It’s not objective information that moves people. It’s unexplainable sensations and feelings. Do you think human existence can be understood through closed-circuit cameras in a crowded city? Sure, it’s possible nowadays to be informed about all the happenings around the world through an Internet connection without leaving your dark little room, but there’s no way to get a real sense of life there. No, I’ll wait in this café until the person I came to meet shows up.”
“Even though the truth has been revealed?”
“Other than your brother having a twin like you, none of this new information has put me off.”
“Not even him deceiving you into thinking he was Yoojin Lee?”
“Now that I think of it, he never actually said he was. Contrary to your analysis of cause and effect relationships, perhaps he took no pleasure in posing as you? You know, something else just occurred to me. If I’d asked your brother if he was Yoojin Lee, he would’ve told me he had a twin, and then today’s unpleasant conversation wouldn’t have been necessary. Oddly, though, I didn’t ask him about that. Don’t you think it’s the unexpected, the things that depart from the script and the rules, that make the world go around?”
“I don’t really care whether you wait for him or not, but he won’t come. I told him I’d confess everything to you.”
“Why do you need to make a confession when your brother did nothing to deceive me? By asking you to come and tell me he’d be late, wasn’t he in effect saying that he didn’t care if you told me you two were twins?”
“You still believe he’s going to come, don’t you?”
With that, the man suddenly burst into loud laughter, causing Yoojin great distress.
3
S WAS STILL in the emergency room, but her face was calm, her treatment having been duly administered. Yoojin had hurried over and looked rather worn out. In the country hospital that took in injured skiers from the resort, people were running this way and that. Four skiers, including S and her boyfriend, had been hurt in a ski lift accident. They could hardly be called hospital patients, though, judging from their clothes or the topics of their conversation or their boisterous behavior. S talked continually about the accident. In the morning, from when her shoelaces kept coming undone, the ill omens began. At the ticket office and in the bathroom, she’d been cut in front of several times as she stood in line, and she’d even lost her hat. She’d twice spilled coffee from a vending machine, and she’d fallen down three times on the slopes trying to avoid the lingering beginners. S’s boyfriend was worried about her and suggested that they go back to their lodgings and come out to ski again at night, but S insisted on giving it one last go. On their way up the slope on the ski lift, the accident occurred. S looked tenderly at her boyfriend leaning back on the bed opposite and then bent toward Yoojin. She spoke in a low, whisper-like voice. “Sagittarians are supposed to meet their destined loves in January. I think it’s come true.”
“Did you meet someone new at the ski resort?”
“No. You see, all this time I’ve been sure that I love my boyfriend, but I’ve had doubts about whether he’s truly my destiny. If my true destiny were to come along in the meantime, and I didn’t realize it, what then? I’d be letting the real one slip away. But going through this accident with him, I feel more certain than ever that my boyfriend is the one I’m destined to be with.” S beamed at Yoojin. “Soon something good is going to happen to you, too, Yoojin. You’re a Sagittarian, you know.”
“I think it already has.”
Yoojin told S about the mistaken delivery and the man she’d met because of it, as well as the argument she’d had with his twin brother.
“Sagittarians are very argumentative, after all,” S said. “So what did you do? Did you wait for him to come? Did you actually meet him?”
“I was going to wait for him, but then you called. I rushed over here. I guess I could have asked that unpleasant man for his brother’s phone number, but with you in the hospital, I was too preoccupied to think of it.”
“My destiny’s arrival has prevented you from meeting yours.”
“If it’s really meant to be, I’ll meet him again, I guess. Maybe at a bookstore or a fast food restaurant.”
S abruptly shook her head. “No. Something’s just occurred to me. I remember that man. While you were browsing the shelves, a bookstore employee led him over to where we were. She pointed in your direction. ‘The book you want is over where that woman is looking. It’s our last copy.’ He stood behind you, waiting impatiently for yo
u to put the book back, and I got a really clear look at his face. He was definitely not the same man who was sitting in front of us at the restaurant.”
“You saw him too? So I wasn’t the only one interested in him?”
“Is it wrong for me to look at an attractive man who’s just the right age? I still hadn’t found my destiny by then, you know. Anyway, both men were wearing black coats, so there was a similarity. And they were both good-looking. But the man at the bookstore had a bit of a pudgy face. The one at the restaurant was the slender, pretty-boy type. I guess the man who came looking for the apples must have been the second one, judging by looks. He wasn’t at the bookstore. I guess he just saw that book sitting on your desk and mentioned it to his brother because he’d translated it.”
“So you’re saying that the man from the fast food restaurant and the man who came to my apartment are the same person?”
“Think about it. A man appeared at these four places: the bookstore, the restaurant, your apartment, and the café. Except for the twin brother at the café, you think they were all the same guy. So that makes two different men. But if I’m right, and the man you saw at the bookstore was a different man altogether, then there were three men in all. And you don’t even know for sure that the one from the fast food restaurant was the same guy who came to your door. The four men might have been four different individuals right from the start.”
“And if you include the translator Yoojin Lee, that makes five people altogether. Imagine that. Until I found out about the twin, I’d actually thought that all five were the same person.”
“Still, it’s strange. If there really was a mix-up with the delivery, then there has to be someone living in Building B with the same name as yours. But didn’t you say Yoojin Lee’s brother lives there?”