No One Writes Back

by Jang Eun-jin

  “If you become a bestselling author, then what?” I ask.

  “Even if that happens, I’d still go around selling them,” she says.

  Her answer takes me by surprise.

  “Why? You’d be able to have faith in bookstores then,” I ask.

  “At first I did it because I didn’t have faith in bookstores, but that’s not the only reason anymore,” she replies.

  “What other reason is there?”

  “I just like to go around meeting people. It’s even better when I meet someone who buys my books, and I also like to sign my own books.”

  Suddenly, I’m curious about her book.

  “Why eat toothpaste and soap?”

  “If you’re curious, buy it and read it.”

  The sullen expression on her face never leaves.

  46. We get off in a small town near the sea. Though it’s a small town, we find the station square swarming with people as we come out. Whenever the wind blows, the salty smell of the sea and the smell of seafood come rushing in. The woman stops in her tracks at the center of the square and looks around. She seems to be looking for a spot in which to sell her books. She walks toward a wooden bench next to a streetlamp. Then she jumps up on the bench with her shoes on and begins to play the harmonica. The music sways the heart. Drawn to the sound of the harmonica, people gather one by one around the bench. They are like a swarm of mosquitoes, blindly rushing toward the light of a streetlamp in midsummer. They all look like people whose train hasn’t arrived, people who have nowhere special to go, or people who have just gotten off the train. When a number of people have gathered, the woman displays her books as she did on the subway, advertising them. The people look a little nervous, not the way they looked when they were listening to the sound of the harmonica. People who rush in blindly tend to turn around mercilessly when they find out what is wanted. She was just trying to sell something, they say, and go into the station with indifference, looking as though they’ve been betrayed by someone they trusted. Some people throw us a few coins, thanking us for the music, and get on their way. The people who had gathered around leave one by one. In the end, just the two of us remain.

  The key, therefore, lies in not having people gather blindly. Her sales tactic seems somewhat problematic. People feel tricked because she lures them in with music, and then pulls her books out.

  “How can we get people interested?” I ask.

  “ . . .”

  “I asked you earlier, didn’t I? Why the narrator eats toothpaste and soap. Do you remember what you said?” I ask again.

  “If you’re curious, buy it and read it,” she recalls.

  “Bingo! That’s it. We have to pique their curiosity,” I say.

  “How?” she asks.

  “Mark your books and have them take a look. Pick out the sentence you’re the most proud of, sentences you like the most, and dialogues or paragraphs that can trigger their curiosity,” I say.

  She’s hard at work leafing through the book. Once again, she begins to gather people by playing the harmonica. Little by little, people come flocking once again, though fewer in number than before.

  47. I sit down on the bench with my legs crossed in a refined, elegant way. Then I put the book on my lap and read to the audience. The woman continues to play the harmonica next to me, very quietly. The music is just at the right volume that it doesn’t interfere with either the reading or the listening. My reading begins with the provocative, perplexing sentences, “Today, I ate toothpaste. Tomorrow, I will eat soap.” The people perk up their ears at that first sentence alone. Their faces seem to be asking, why would someone eat such things? And they continue to pay attention.

  I read with great care the sentences the woman has picked out. I don’t stutter, and I don’t make a single mistake. My pronunciation couldn’t be more clear and precise. I clearly emphasize parts that should be emphasized, and I put emotion into parts that need to be emotional. The atmosphere grows quite serious, and the people fall deeper and deeper into her sentences. The sentences trigger the audience’s curiosity, and my clearly pronounced words prick their ears like thorns.

  When the reading is over, there’s applause everywhere. I introduce the woman to the audience, telling them that she’s the author of the book. The audience is even more intrigued, and there’s another round of applause. Someone raises his hand high and asks the woman a few questions, and the woman, looking a little shy, answers the questions. When the question and answer session is over, people who want to find out why the narrator eats toothpaste and soap buy some books. The woman signs the books with a flair. In this way, people who remember her name and her sentences get on trains headed to different cities. They won’t forget her, not even in those cities.

  48. “How come you’re so good at reading?” the woman asks.

  The woman, who had been looking sullen the whole time before we arrived in the small town, finally looks a little touched. I tell her that I’m good at reading because it’s something I’ve been doing since I was little.

  “They were my words, but they didn’t sound like my words; they sounded pretty decent. What’s your secret?” she asks.

  Like the words of an author who said that writing becomes a temptation to someone who can’t speak, someone who can’t speak articulately is also tempted to write. They can’t help it. Having given up on speaking freely with people, I resorted to written words. Written words made me feel comfortable, and naturally, I began to spend a lot of time reading or writing. Mostly, I read novels and poetry, and when there was something I wanted to say to someone, I always wrote a note instead of making a phone call. Whenever I was reading, I made an effort to read aloud if possible. When I read aloud, I felt as though I were listening to the words spoken by someone else, and also as though I were talking to someone. When I read books out loud, I stuttered a little less than I did when I was speaking. I became disciplined enough later that I didn’t stutter at all, at least not when I was reading books. Written words are laid out in advance, so there’s no pressure. Ideas flowed easily in the form of writing, no matter what kind of writing it was, and words flowed easily when I wrote down those ideas. I believed that someday, I would be able to speak with words flowing out of my mouth like that. And just as I believed, I can now speak with the words flowing out of my mouth. Like the cry of a newborn baby, my words came spilling out all at once when something tapped me on my buttocks. Once my words came spilling out, I could no longer stay at home, for I felt stifled there.

  “You’re telling me that you used to stutter? That’s a lie. Who’d believe that after hearing you read the way you just did?” she says.

  Sometimes, I wish it were all a lie, too. I wish it were a lie, when I want to go back to the time before my words came spilling out. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve read before the public. I’d only read aloud by myself, hiding in a small room.

  49. The woman says that she’ll treat me to dinner. This time, I feel that there’s a good enough reason to accept the offer, so I follow her without complaint. Walking ahead, she enters a pretty big family restaurant in front of the station. It feels as though we have become a family. But it must be a little too early for us to be acknowledged as a family. We’re held back at the entrance by an employee. It’s because of Wajo.

  The woman pleads with the employee, but to no avail. The employee, too, pleads with the woman, saying that the customers won’t like the dog. It seems almost as though they’ll even give us money to leave. The woman explains that the dog is tame and clean, as you can see, but it’s no use. In the end, she even begins to scold the employee. Now that I think about it, she’s a bit quick-tempered, and quite aggressive. At her violent protest, the employee comes up with a compromise and tells us to keep Wajo tied outside and go eat, just the two of us.

  I watch in silence to see how their argument will turn out. I feel indifferent, because I’d expected as much. This country is not friendly enough to dogs to allow them into
restaurants. Dogs would probably not be welcome even at restaurants that serve dog meat. For that reason, the kinds of places we prefer has naturally come to consist of takeout restaurants, McDonald’s, and street snack stalls. But once in a while, I crave something other than fast food, something served in a restaurant, something like the food my mother cooks. Especially when it’s cold or raining. There is a way, of course.

  50. I drag the woman out, and enter an alleyway with no one else around. As she watches, I put on my sunglasses and take out the fluorescent outfit to put on Wajo. Excited, she snatches the outfit from me and puts it on Wajo herself. With a look on her face that says she understands me at last, she searches for my eyes beyond the dark sunglasses. For a brief moment, our eyes meet through the black barrier.

  Once again, we challenge ourselves to “eating at a restaurant.” This time, we choose a samgyeopsal restaurant. Just as we expected, it isn’t easy. The proprietor doesn’t look too happy. This time, he seems more displeased with me, a blind man, than with Wajo, disguised as a guide dog. It goes to show that an outfit alone can create misconceptions about people and dogs, and that misconceptions can change in an instant. I feel bitter that we need the permission of a restaurant proprietor just to eat a single meal, but the cooperation of a normal person is required for an abnormal person to live like a normal person. In order not to be denied, excluded, rejected, and shut out. While the proprietor hesitates, the woman steps forward and speaks up in a sharp voice. This, too, can be considered cooperation of a normal person.

  “You do know about the Disabled Welfare Act, Article 45, Clause 2, which states that if you deny the entrance of a guide dog for the disabled, you must pay a three-million-won fine, don’t you?” the woman says.

  Humans are animals that cower before legal clauses. They can make them obey. The proprietor is unable to say anything, like a dog with its tail down. We are admitted without a problem, thanks to the woman who stated the clause with finesse.

  Sitting without reserve and without discrimination, I ask, “Was that clause for real?”

  It must have been, since you’d have to know a lot to write a novel.

  “Not at all, actually. You have to be an accomplished liar to write a novel,” she says shamelessly.

  But thanks to the accomplished lie of the novelist, we can eat our fill of sizzling samgyeopsal. Wajo, too, has his fill of meat, for the first time in a while. It even occurs to me that I should take advantage of that clause, too, somewhere down the road.

  “Repeat that clause,” I prod the woman.

  “What did I say . . .” she says, making an effort to remember as she turns over the meat.

  In this world, lies go over better than the truth more often than not. Lies set your mind at unease, but your body at ease. And so we finish our meal at ease for the first time in a while.

  51. Having filled our stomachs, we head toward the motel. My body is shivering and I feel a cold coming on. It’s best to stay out of showers, and I shouldn’t have rushed so.

  “Is there a motel you know?” I ask, my teeth chattering.

  “This is my first time here, too. So we should stay at the same motel, right? You freaked out at the idea before,” she says.

  I clam up. It seems that tonight, we should just pick any motel. Even though all motels look pretty much the same, it isn’t easy to get rid of the compulsion to choose and decide.

  The receptionist at Motel Arabian takes out a key as we enter.

  Then he rubs the key holder with his thumb, as though it’s a magic lamp, and asks, “Are you here for a rest, or to stay the night?”

  We must look like a couple. I ask him for two rooms, and he seems to think that we’re using separate rooms because we had a fight. I pay for the woman’s room as well as mine. Thus I settle all my debts.

  52. The sign reads “motel,” but inside, it looks more like a shabby inn. The ambience and the furniture layout make me feel as though I’m back in the motel I stayed at a month into my journey. I hadn’t been feeling well back then, either. Traveling was a lot more of a strain than I’d imagined, and I was having my first crisis since I set out. To overcome the crisis, I downed two bottles of soju I’d bought at a convenience store without anything on the side. The drink spread through my veins like poison. I felt drained in an instant, and my mind seemed to scatter like grains of sand in a desert. I felt out of it, and extremely depressed.

  In a state of extreme tipsiness and depression, I made a decision as to whether or not I should continue with my journey. As soon as the decision was made, all kinds of other decisions regarding life came rushing at me, as though they’d just been waiting for the chance. In the end, I was led to the ultimate question of whether or not I should continue to live. For a brief moment, I felt acutely how unbearably painful life was, and felt that everything was futile. Suddenly, I really wanted to die. Later, another self within me made the impulsive decision to die, all by himself.

  Following the order in my head, I got to my feet, reeling as I did. I fastened dusty shoelaces to a rod on the wall, where you were supposed to hang clothes. To make sure that the rod was sturdy, I even tried pulling it out. It was sturdy. It didn’t seem likely that the rod would break or fall in the process. A failed suicide attempt would only bring deeper humiliation. Everything was ready now, so it would all come to an end when I put my neck in the right spot, lightly and simply as if hanging a hat on a nail.

  I took a deep breath, and put my neck through the loop. The earth, as though it had been waiting for the opportunity, pulled me down to the floor with all its might. I felt great pressure as though the shoelaces were cutting my throat. So this is what it feels like to choke, I thought. I wanted to die with dignity, but I must have been in a little pain, for my legs flailed around and I began to cough. Wajo heard the sound and began to bark. Little by little, I began to lose my consciousness. It felt blissful in a way, and also as if I were dreaming. Tens of thousands of thoughts and memories of things that had happened squeezed their way into that brief, confused moment, like shattered fragments of film.

  At that moment, I saw my flushed face on the vanity mirror across from me; I was about to die. Beneath my reflection, I also saw Wajo, barking with his tail down. What would happen to the blind dog if I died here? He’d get sold off to some strange place, get beaten by nasty people, or starve to death out on the street while wandering around strange places. This thought suddenly pierced my mind. Then I seemed to sober up a little. And in that moment, I saw the face of my grandfather, who had asked me if, after he passed away, I would care for Wajo. The faces of my family flashed through my mind one by one, vanishing like clouds. In the meantime, my reflection in the mirror was growing more and more ghastly.

  Wajo seemed to sense the gravity of the situation, for he bit one of my flailing feet and wouldn’t let go. It seemed that he was trying to pull me down. The more I struggled, the more fiercely he bit. My flesh got torn, and blood dripped to the floor. When I came to, I was lying on the floor. The earth had pulled me down. Still hanging on the rod were the dirty shoelaces, dangling there where my neck should have been. Perhaps it was Wajo who had pulled me down.

  53. One prevents the suicide of another, who then prevents the suicide of yet another. If I’d died back then, if the earth and Wajo hadn’t worked together to stop me, I wouldn’t have been able to save another. I put the shoelaces, which had choked my neck, back on my sneakers, and left the motel the next day. What I was wearing were not sneakers, but a pair of deaths. Whenever the thought occurred to me that two deaths were weighing down on my feet, I felt a desire to walk more, and with each step I took, I seemed to move further and further away from death.

  One day, when I thought I’d moved very far from death, I met a man on a bridge. 32, the man, had taken his sneakers off and placed them neatly side by side, and was about to go up on the rail. I ran toward him with all the strength I had. One pair of deaths was running in order to save another pair of deaths. I barely man
aged to grab his arm and jerk it back. If I’d arrived just a second later, his body would have become food for the fish. Barely having escaped death, he gasped for breath. I, too, gasped as I stared at him, who had just escaped death. The look on his face said that a failed suicide attempt doesn’t bring humiliation, but a changed perspective on the world.

  We sat side by side for a long time on the bridge. I told 32 about my suicide attempt at the motel. I also told him how, whenever I looked down at my sneakers, I wanted to run far away from death. When I said that, he stared fixedly at my shoelaces.

  Then he said, “Would you trade shoelaces with me?”

  “Shoelaces, not sneakers?” I asked.

  I hesitated at first because it was an unusual suggestion, but in the end nodded my head in consent. We immediately traded our shoelaces. 32’s shoelaces were fluorescent. They looked a little awkward on my white sneakers, but I didn’t think they looked bad. My soiled laces made his clean sneakers look dirty at once, but he didn’t seem to think they looked bad, either. We parted ways on the bridge. I turned around slightly and saw him walking briskly, looking down at my shoelaces from time to time. At that moment, I felt with all my heart that I was lucky to be alive and not dead. The earth and Wajo had saved not just one life but two, and in the end, dozens of lives.

  54. My body is covered with red spots. I feel like just crawling into bed. But I can’t, for I know all too well that even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. A habit that has been a part of you for a thousand days cannot be abandoned because of just one case of cold. The red spots might subside after I finish writing a letter.