by Jang Eun-jin
I myself hadn’t thought that this journey would last so long. I’d expected it would take a month or two, at most. It’s all because of the letters that the journey has become so prolonged. I’d planned to return home, if only to read the letters that came for me, and to write back. But sadly, not a single letter has come for me yet. So there was no reason yet for me to go home. I refused to give in after a while, thinking, let’s see who wins, which was partly the reason why I had come this far.
“What about you, 751?” I ask.
“My journeys are as inconstant as the moon; I don’t know when they’ll begin and end,” she replies.
“Isn’t it the moon that matters?”
“The moon? I’m a salesperson, you know. What’s important is the sixpence.”
“True, if sales is your only motive.”
“Are you saying I have an ulterior motive?”
“You started a conversation with me.”
“What if that, too, was for sales?”
“Did you follow me to sell a book, then?”
“I can’t say no.”
“Well, then, you’ve already suffered a loss. The money you’ve invested in me exceeds the cost of the book.”
“Books can be bought five copies at a time, or even ten.”
“Are you asking me to buy ten copies, now? Of the same book? It doesn’t matter how great a book is. One copy is enough. It’d be a waste to have several copies of the same book.”
“Too many to keep, but not enough to give away as presents.”
“The question is, is the book worth giving away as a present?”
“What if it’s a book like The Moon and Sixpence?”
“I’d buy a hundred, not just ten.”
She gulps down her beer; she must be angry that I won’t buy her book. She looks somewhat sullen, too. Meanwhile, the underwear beneath my jeans has become dry.
39. Stepping out of The Moon and Sixpence, I go in search of a mailbox as a ritual.
The woman sees the envelope I’m clasping in my hand and asks, “Who’s the letter for, and what kind is it?”
“It’s a letter saying hello to an acquaintance.”
“Do you write letters every day?”
“I do, because mine is a journey of letters.”
Today, I spot a mailbox quite easily. I slide the letter in, and immediately start looking around for a phone booth. I don’t see one, just as I expected. It seems that I’ll have to do a little more walking. The woman looks around, too, and asks me what I’m looking for. I tell her that I’m looking for a phone booth, and she takes out a cell phone from her pocket and hands it to me. I want to accept her offer, for it would make things easy, but decline because it, too, could turn into a debt. Luckily, I see a phone booth in the distance, and make straight for it.
My friend’s voice, which I hear at the same time the coins drop, sounds a little sleepy as usual, and he’s as irritated as usual as he picks up the phone. Then he comes around and goes on and on about how the “deadly woman” he discovered recently caught him peeping on her, and how he almost became a dead man. It seems, however, that he hasn’t given up his peeping fantasy. He even boasts that he’ll find an even deadlier woman and be sure to show her to me. I hear him out and hang up.
40. No one wrote me.
41. I see the train station in the distance as I come out of the phone booth. I think it might be a good idea to take the train and go somewhere a little far off. It doesn’t matter where. What I’ve learned on my journey is that the fewer destinations you have, the better. When there’s no goal, there’s no expectation, and when there’s no expectation, there’s no disappointment. Freedom is being able to go off when you feel like it. I walk toward the train station. The woman follows me again, pulling her cart.
I turn around and say to her, “Are you going to keep following me, when you don’t even know where I’m going?”
“So what if I do? It’s not like I have a clear destination. Wherever you go, 0, I can go. Books can be sold anywhere, and read anywhere, too,” she says.
Only then do I remember that I owe her. She’s saying in a roundabout way that I should pay her back. I veer toward the bank in a hurry, to get my debit card reissued. She follows me to the bank, too. I withdraw some cash with the reissued card, and hand her the money for the room. But she pushes away my hand, saying it isn’t money she wants.
Then she says, “You don’t seem to understand, but traveling means becoming indebted. You need to know what it means to be indebted so that you can help someone else out. If you must pay me back, you can pay for my room at the next place. It’d be more neat and efficient to pay back for a room with a room, don’t you think? If I don’t sell any books today, I may not have enough money for a room.”
It sounds as though she’s asking me to buy one of her books.
“Are you suggesting that we stay at the same motel again?” I ask.
“I guess we should, if you mean to pay me back, right?” she says.
I’m disgusted. I storm out of the bank, and start walking briskly toward the train station as if to run away from her. Suddenly, thick raindrops begin to pour down like a waterfall. The raindrops come pouring down in rough, white streaks, and I can’t see what’s right in front of me. I run. Wajo runs. The woman runs, too. And the cart runs as well. By the time we get to the station, we look miserable, like drenched little mice that have drowned in water. We look up at the sky through the glass door of the station. The sun is beating down, as if to pretend that it doesn’t notice the rain.
I ask the girl at the ticket window for a ticket for the first Mugunghwa train. I make the last stop my destination. The woman, who’s been standing behind me, gets the same ticket. For the seat next to mine.
42. It’s the woman, not me, who loses by buying the ticket, because the seat next to mine is always taken by Wajo before another passenger gets on. As if to prove that, and as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, Wajo sits down in her seat, and she looks stunned. She takes another seat without complaint, as if to say that she’s giving up her seat only because it’s for Wajo. There aren’t many passengers since it’s a weekday, so she’ll be able to sit in comfort for a while. I take out my MP3 player and start listening to music, afraid that she might try to start a conversation. She finally gives up, closes her eyes, and tries to get some sleep.
43. A pop song whose lyrics I don’t understand comes flowing out of my MP3 player. Unlike the subway, railroad trains make you think deep thoughts, and bring many people to your remembrance. Most of the time, the thoughts pass by in the form of memories, like scenery passing by outside the window. It’s probably because the subway, a transportation for daily endeavors, seems tough and complicated, and railroad trains, a transportation for more romantic pursuits, seem relaxed. There are two people who always come to my mind when I take the train.
109 was someone I often ran into when I took the Honam railroad line. He was a traveling vendor, selling things like snacks, gimbap, and regional specialties on a cart. Since I preferred the first seat in the first compartment of the train, or the last seat in the last compartment of the train, I naturally ended up talking to him. He had to replace the items often, so we soon came to know each other over the course of a few railroad trips. It’s difficult for people to get acquainted on the train, where countless people get on and off. Our relationship grew to the point where I can say with confidence that 109 and I are acquaintances, because there was the mechanism of “often” between us. I often took the Honam line, and 109 often sold things, pushing the cart. When he had a little time left over after selling his things, he often came over to where I was and struck up a conversation. The conversations that often took place between 109 and me never broke away from certain topics.
“I majored in fashion design. I even worked as a fashion designer at one point,” he once told me.
“A fashion designer and a traveling vendor. The gap is too wide, isn’t it?” I asked
.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“There was a girl I loved, but we broke up because of a little misunderstanding. On a train.”
“Do you want her back?”
“That’s impossible.”
“How come? Isn’t that why you’re looking for her?”
“I’m already married, and I have two beautiful girls.”
“Are you telling me that you became a vendor because you just wanted to resolve a little misunderstanding?”
“Because I wanted to live the rest of my life in freedom.”
“Whose freedom would that be?”
“Both hers and mine. And maybe the freedom of those around us as well.”
“If you find her, then what?”
“I’ll be free from this work, and go back to where I was before.”
Whenever I got on the train after that, I would first look for 109, even before I found my seat. But gradually, seeing him became less and less pleasant. Seeing him meant that he still wasn’t free. But I didn’t see him on my last train ride. I remember how I sent him a short letter that day. I don’t see him today, either, so I guess he really may have resolved the misunderstanding and found his freedom. I’ll be able to confirm my guess through his letter. If he writes me back, I may be able to hear about the “little misunderstanding” that had dominated his life.
44. The other person is none other than my older brother. My brother is the one who got me to go on my first train ride. I think it was his first train ride, too. My brother, who had been lying face down on his bed reading, resting his mind, suddenly jumped to his feet and started putting his on clothes. I felt nervous whenever he did something out of the blue like that. My brother was usually discreet, so when he showed a sudden change in behavior, it meant that he was likely to get himself into big trouble.
He put his hat on, put the unfinished book in his inner pocket, and looked at me, asking, “You want to come with me?”
“D-do you want M-mom to kill you or something?” I said.
“I’ll end up killing myself at this rate,” he said.
His words terrified me. I hastily put on my clothes and followed him, afraid that he might die. In other words, we ran away from home. My brother and I got on the train with no destination in mind. My brother, looking at ease as though he were used to taking trains, went on reading his book, and I was absorbed in the scenery outside, natural for someone who had never been on a train before. When the train passed through a dark tunnel, a sound of applause broke out from somewhere. My brother, as though he really had been on a train many times, said that you were supposed to applaud like that when you came across a tunnel. I asked him why, and he said, “Because that’s the rule that the majority has established.” He himself didn’t applaud, though. When I thought about it, it seemed only natural, since he was someone who belonged to the top 0.1%, not even the top 1%, of the Republic of Korea.
Before the tunnel came to an end, he threw the book, whose last page he’d just flipped over, onto my lap and said, “Make sure you read it.”
It was The Moon and Sixpence. I had a vague idea that the book must have been what led him to come on the train. It was after quite some time that I finally read it.
The railroad trip lasted three days. I began to grow anxious. I’d always known that my brother dreamt of breaking free, but the situation, growing more serious than I’d expected, was giving me indigestion. Nothing I ate on the train tasted good. My brother’s prep test was only a few days away.
“Your t-test is coming up soon. Sh-shouldn’t we go home?” I said.
My brother said something odd in reply.
“Jihun, do what you want with your life. Understand?”
“What?”
“I’m saying, don’t be a top student like me, you ass!”
“W-what’s wrong with being a t-top student?”
I’d always envied and been proud of my brother, who was a top student. I often fell asleep while praying to God in tears that I may be like my brother. My brother wasn’t the run-of-the-mill good student. He got the highest score nationwide on every single prep test.
“There shouldn’t be any more than one such strange and nasty creature in a family,” he said, looking very tired and unhappy, and depraved. I realized then that, thanks to him, I could go on living the way I was. As if I were a little slow. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I went down a little more, even. A life in which I didn’t have to get the highest score. Once I made that resolve, I felt as if I’d passed through a dark and stifling long tunnel. So in a way, my brother saved me on that rocking train, without even knowing the destination.
My brother and I returned home the night before his prep test as if nothing had happened. My mother and father let it pass as if nothing had happened. My brother’s first and last act of deviation ended on this somewhat flat note. My brother, of course, got the highest score nationwide on the prep test, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and no big deal at all. It seemed that on the running train, he had made up his mind to go after success like most people in the world. But he didn’t read any more novels after that. The Moon and Sixpence was the last novel he ever read.
45. Big cities become big cities because there are a lot of people and buildings in them. Arriving in a big city full of people and buildings, the train itself becomes a big city. The person who bought the ticket for the seat in which the woman is sitting must be a resident of a big city, too, or someone who came to visit a big city for a little while. The woman, who yields her seat to the person, goes to the bathroom compartment, pulling her cart. I feel bad for some reason, as if I’ve robbed her of her right. I go after her, taking Wajo with me. Actually, I feel more comfortable in the bathroom compartment when I’m traveling with Wajo on a train. It’s easier to put up with the dirty looks of the passengers and the train crew in the bathroom compartment.
The train passes through a big city. The woman, standing on a step of the entrance staircase with her arms crossed, looks out the window with a sullen expression on her face. I’m not sure if she’s mad at me, or is just absorbed in the scenery. As the train enters a tunnel, she yawns lazily. Suddenly, an image of her selling books on the subway comes to my mind. Along with the image comes the question I had on my mind at the time.
“Why do you sell books? When there are so many other things?” I ask.
“Because they’re books,” she says, without turning her eyes away from the window. She still looks sullen.
“Why don’t you sell more than just one, when you’re selling them anyway?” I ask.
“Because it’s my book,” she replies.
“I’m sure it’s your book, 751.”
“I mean, I wrote it.”
“Huh?”
I take a book from her cart, and compare the profile photo to her face. In a way, they look similar, but in away, they don’t. In the photo, she isn’t wearing glasses, and looks like a different person because it’s been Photoshopped. So has she been following me because she’s a writer? I mean, writers by nature like to observe, pry, and meddle. And they love to use what they learn in their writing.
“I can’t tell at all with the photo,” I say.
“Photographs are deceiving. They don’t perfectly reflect the reality,” she says.
“Why did you say you were a vendor?”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I said. After all, novelists are vendors who have to sell their novels. They have to write good novels and raise their brand value to make them sell. The only difference is that they disguise their products as art.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. I mean, why are you personally selling your own novels? Bookstores will do that for you.”
It seems that selling your own novels would be as difficult as selling your own body. If I said that, she’d probably say, how is it any different from selling the bread you baked, or the gimbap you made? But no one wonders, as they b
uy it, who made that gimbap. Gimbap is something you’re supposed to make and sell yourself. But novels are different. People think novels should be sold by someone else in order for them to maintain their dignity. The more commercial art becomes, the more it is accused of being vulgar. Who, indeed, would write novels if they had to sell their own?
In a way, I do wonder what the difference is between novels and things such as bracken and mackerels sold at the marketplace. There was a day when art was considered vulgar. If art isn’t considered vulgar today, it’s probably because at some point, it began to elevate itself and receive noble treatment, and naturally became haughty. After all, what the woman is doing isn’t all that different from what a famous author does, having a book signing at a large bookstore. A bookstore, in the end, is a somewhat refined marketplace. You can’t sell your own works without being passionate about yourself. The woman is more courageous and less hypocritical than those who neglect their own works, turning them into rubbish. Instead of asking her, I take another look at the profile. Toothpaste and Soap is her third full-length novel.
“A long time after my first novel came out, I went to the bookstore feeling excited. It’s thrilling to see your books on display at the bookstore. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find my book. So I asked an employee, who checked on the computer and told me that there were some copies in stock in the warehouse, and went to get them. So my books, not even two months after publication, had been removed to a dark warehouse. If they were on display where they could be seen, even a reader who didn’t know about me would be able to find them, but if they were stuck in a warehouse like that, only those who knew about me could buy them, by asking an employee. That’s the system they have at bookstores,” she said.
“So you lost faith in bookstores, is that it?” I asked.
“You could say that. I also thought, of course, that it’d be a novel attempt for an author to personally sell her own books,” she answered.
If she became a bestselling author, the novel would become a commercial product, not just a work of literature, so it would be easy to find it at little neighborhood bookstores and even discount stores. Then you wouldn’t have to go through such hassle to buy it. I can finally understand why she said she wanted to build a motel with novelists’ rooms. She wanted to become a famous author and have such a room. I think about it: a bookstore that doesn’t display a single copy of your book, and a novelist’s room that displays nothing but your books.