by Jang Eun-jin
I’d always thought that the best place to put your confidence to the test was the bus or the subway. I, too, wanted to put myself to the test someday. After gaining confidence through my journey, I wanted the public to confirm that my stutter had indeed been cured. I’d sold books for the woman in the square, of course, but the people who had gathered there had come of their own will, out of curiosity. But with subway passengers, I couldn’t tell what they were thinking because they couldn’t leave their seats and run. If I could persuade with words those whose minds I couldn’t read, I must have gotten better indeed.
The kind of person I consider the most courageous in the world is someone who sells things on the bus or the subway, and someone who can sell things on the bus or the subway is someone who can overcome any trials.
95. Confidently, I go stand in the middle, pulling the cart. It’s quiet and still on the subway, so I have no trouble getting the passengers’ attention. I bow in greeting, and briefly introduce myself. Things are great so far. The response doesn’t seem that bad, either. Next, it’s time to advertise the book.
I open a book, and read a passage in a resonant voice so that the words may reach the people’s ears. Like an actor on stage, I try to make the emotions come alive as much as possible as I read the dialogue. I seem like someone else, even to myself. What I’m doing is something that can be done only by forgetting and abandoning myself. The thought that I’m fighting a desperate fight penetrates every fiber of my being. The passengers must feel something, too, for they seem to pay greater attention to my voice.
When I finish reading, I close the book. Afraid that it might grow awkward if I stop here, I tell a joke and an amusing story. Then, before things cool off, I quickly start passing out the books to the passengers. Even after I return to my spot, I rattle off the random things that come to my mind so that things don’t die down. I wonder if I look silly, and want to turn into a passenger and see how I look right now. I also wonder if I’m doing all right.
There was more I wanted to say, but the announcement comes on and the subway comes to a stop, making me stop midway. Why is one stop so short? The doors open and a throng of people get on the subway, creating a bit of commotion. At that moment, my eyes meet those of a woman with long hair who, having failed to find a seat, is reaching out for a strap. Her pupils grow large in an instant. The doors close and the train begins to move. She just stands there as though she has forgotten all about the strap. She doesn’t lose her balance, even amid the rattling.
Standing face to face with the woman with long hair, I feel as if I’ve stopped breathing and turned into an ice statue. I feel thirsty and dizzy. I grab a strap in a hurry because I feel like I’ll collapse if I don’t hold on to something. The train speeds up. My body reels against my will. The reeling makes me forget momentarily about the task at hand. I even forget what I was doing here just a moment ago. The woman looks at me anxiously as though to ask me what’s wrong. I finally come back to myself.
I swallow, say my last words to the passengers, and start walking stiffly to collect the books. I pass the woman with long hair, and pass her again on my way back. From somewhere comes the smell of coffee. A number of books are collected, and a number of bills come into my hands. But I can’t tell how many bills there are. That’s not what matters right now. I pull the cart and go sit down next to the woman. From the other end, the woman with long hair is still staring at me.
“Mission accomplished. You didn’t stutter once,” the woman says, taking the books and bills from me.
Breaking out into a cold sweat, I say in a trembling voice to the woman who’s counting the bills, “L-let’s g-get off at the n-next s-station.”
“Why are you stuttering? Are you tense?”
“L-let’s j-just get, off!”
“What’s wrong, when you did so well?”
The announcement hasn’t come on yet, but I leap to my feet and go toward the door, dragging Wajo with me. Why is one stop so long?
96. I leap out like a spring as soon as the doors open. The woman comes out after me. I feel like I can finally breathe. At that moment, however, a voice behind me yanks at me. I remain still for a few seconds as if I’ve been caught doing something bad, and turn around slowly. She’s looking at me with an incredibly bright smile on her face. Her gums never showed, no matter how brightly she smiled. She looks like an illusion, or a vision.
“Jihun? It’s you, Jihun . . . isn’t it?” she asks.
Her bright smile loosens up my stiff body in an instant. As though to tell me that she’s neither an illusion nor a vision.
“Why are you running away? It’s . . . it’s me who should be running,” she says.
Why am I running, indeed? Just as she said, she’s the one who should be running, and I should be running after her to catch her. How I’d missed her. How I’d searched for her once. Why was I running like a coward when she, whom I couldn’t see no matter how I longed to see her, was right before my eyes? It’s probably because it’s so unexpected. I’d never imagined that I’d see her again, and on the subway, no less, in this little town I’d never been to before. Sometimes, dramatic situations happen in the most unexpected places.
Her face, looking at me, is full of questions. My mind is full of questions as well. But the subway doesn’t seem to be the right place to ask and answer those questions. We start walking toward the exit at the same time.
She asks cautiously, “Are you busy?”
“No, not at all. Not at all.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Traveling. What about you?”
“I came to stay for a bit at my cousin’s.”
Our conversation isn’t awkward at all. The three years’ gap dissolves in just ten minutes, as if we saw each other just yesterday. As if it’s only natural. It’s an incredible phenomenon of time. Once above ground, she takes the lead, walking vigorously, as if she’s lived in the town for a long time.
“Should we go for some coffee? There’s a good coffee place around here,” she says.
“Coffee?”
“You liked coffee, Jihun, didn’t you?” she asks.
I nod my head quietly and follow her. And the woman follows me. The woman’s face is full of questions, too. I hand her Wajo’s leash and ask her to watch him for me for a little while.
“Who is she?” she asks.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say.
97. We walk into a quite large and luxurious coffee shop. The woman takes Wajo to a corner seat across from us and turns on her laptop. She’s going to work on her novel.
“What shall we have today?” the woman with long hair mumbles, as though we had coffee together just yesterday.
I always left it up to her make the selection for me. The first thing she always said, looking at the menu, was “What shall we have today?” It’s astonishing how she hasn’t changed at all. It makes me a little angry. If she had changed even a little, I could think of her as someone else. The coffee she selected for me was always perfect, like magic, for the weather or the way I was feeling that day. I’m sure it’ll be the same today.
I actually don’t like coffee. Before I met her, coffee was a drink that had a completely different flavor and aroma. It smelled very good, but tasted like bitter Chinese medicine, not at all like the aroma I knew. It was something I drank only occasionally, not for its own flavor, but for the sugar. I came to acquire a taste for coffee after I met her, but after we broke up, it once again became something I drank only occasionally. That’s what it means to break up. To go back to the way you were before you met someone.
After we place the order, she stares at me intently and asks, “How have you been?”
She’s probably asking how I’ve been since we broke up. She’ll feel hurt if I say I’ve been well, and sad if I say I haven’t been so well.
“So-so. What about you?” I say.
“Same here. By the way, you were selling books on the subway, weren’t you?”
>
“Yes.”
“So I wasn’t mistaken. Didn’t you say earlier that you were traveling?”
She looks worried, probably thinking that I’ve resorted to becoming a salesman because of financial difficulties.
“I was helping someone out. Selling things on the subway was something I’d always wanted to do, you know,” I say.
“I remember. It was because of your stutter, wasn’t it? Hey! You don’t stutter anymore, do you?”
“No. Not anymore.”
It seems that, unlike me, she’s taken by the new me. Would she not have run away if I hadn’t stuttered back then? I wonder, looking at her sparkling eyes. Perhaps I want to blame her leaving me on my stutter. I could understand if that had been the reason for her change of heart. It would be difficult for anyone to love a stuttering man for a long time.
When the Yemen Mocha Mattari we ordered is served, she explains that it’s also known as the “van Gogh coffee” because his hardcore fans drank it often, wanting to connect with him. There’s a cup of coffee and some toast on the table where the woman is sitting. She feeds Wajo a piece of toast, then looks at me as she takes a sip of her coffee. She might be glaring at me. Then she begins to tap away at her keyboard. A coffee shop is a romantic place to write a novel in.
“So if you’re traveling, what about your job?” the woman with long hair asks.
“I quit.”
“When?”
“Around the time we broke up.”
“Was it because of me?”
If I said yes, would she feel a little guilty?
“I had some problems, and couldn’t go on working.”
“Three years . . . So you’ve just been traveling all this time?”
“Yes.”
“So you didn’t get married?”
“No. Did you?”
“I did.”
I nod my head quietly, as if to say I’d expected it. I drink my coffee, having nothing more to say. The coffee is bitter. I’d expected it, but I do feel a little sad. It feels as though she really did abandon and run away from me. Her choice, as usual, was excellent. She had ordered a coffee with such a flavor, anticipating such a moment. The bitter coffee tastes of sadness. It’s the flavor of van Gogh. After she tells me that she got married, all the questions I’d meant to ask her fade away. As if marriage were the end.
98. How much time has passed? I think I’ve had at least three or four cups of coffee. My ex-girlfriend gets up from her seat with her bag in hand, saying she’s going to the restroom. The woman comes over to me, bringing Wajo with her, as though she’s been waiting for the chance.
“Haven’t you been sitting here for too long? My butt’s getting numb. It’s been five hours already,” she says.
Has it really been that long? It doesn’t feel like we’ve talked that much, but time flies.
“I bought this at the bookstore across from here. There’s only a few pages left now,” she says, showing me the novel in her hand.
Most of the pages in the book, quite thick, have been flipped over to the left. She’s trying to tell me how much time has gone by. No, she’s warning me, in a classy way, that I should get up from my seat before she finishes reading the novel. Still, I don’t think I talked that long; I think she just read at an abnormally fast rate. At that moment, my ex-girlfriend returns to the table. The woman hurries back to her own table with Wajo.
“Who is she? I’ve been wanting to ask. You were with her on the subway, too, weren’t you? Is she . . .” she trails off.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Then what?”
Could it be that she’s jealous? But she’s married. Should I just say that the woman’s my girlfriend? So that she, too, would have closure?
“I met her while traveling,” I say.
Am I still hoping for something?
“What about the dog?” she asks.
“That’s Wajo.”
“So that’s Wajo?”
She’s never met Wajo. She’s only heard of Wajo’s history from me.
“So you’re traveling with Wajo. It must be hard,” she says.
“Hard for Wajo,” I say.
I finish the remaining coffee. The dregs have settled to the bottom.
“I’m hungry. Do you want to go get something to eat?” I say, putting the cup down on the saucer with a clink.
I glance over and see that half the coffee still remains in her cup. She never leaves her coffee unfinished. Like Turks, she always tried to read her fortune for the day based on the pattern of the dregs at the bottom. She used to read my fortune that way, too. That’s why I couldn’t leave my coffee unfinished when I was with her.
I say as though to correct a mistake, “I forgot. You have to read your fortune, don’t you?”
She looks touched that I haven’t forgotten her habit. Despite my thoughtfulness and concern, however, she gets up from her seat.
“I don’t want to know my fortune today,” she says.
When I raise my eyebrows, she says as though to correct herself, “Actually, I don’t do stuff like that anymore.”
“How come?”
“Because I don’t think it works.”
99. Once again, she takes the lead. The place specializes in pasta. Coffee and dinner. It feels as though I’m back in the days when we were together. I feel a flutter in my heart, though not as intensely as I used to feel. Does she feel the same way? I wonder. Regardless of being married, I mean. I want to find out how she feels, but I can’t. She’s married. The moment I find out how she feels, this sweet night out will turn into a sordid affair.
After the meal, we make our way over to a quiet bar. She was the one who suggested we go for a drink. It seems that she’s changed a little, too, since I last saw her. At last, I’m beginning to detect the changes one by one. In the past, she couldn’t drink at all. No, no one could stay the same always. Not in the face of time.
“I prefer beer over coffee now,” she says.
“Are you still running the café?” I ask.
“No, I wrapped that up a year ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to study.”
“Study what?”
“Coffee.”
She was a skilled barista. It seems, though, that even an expert like her has more to study.
“Why do you prefer beer when you want to study coffee?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says.
I met her while delivering mail. She was someone who brewed coffee at a café and waited every day for a letter from her sweetheart, and I was someone who delivered the letters she awaited. The letters from her sweetheart came by air mail, and her letters, too, reached the man, who was studying abroad in England, by air mail. She used to sit by a café window, drinking coffee and writing letters. Whenever she took a sip, the silver stud on her red tongue glittered alluringly.
For a long time, I watched their romance with pleasure. In today’s world of e-mail, it was unusual to see people who wrote letters. In addition, their letters weren’t the kind that could arrive overnight. They had to persevere, anticipating and waiting longer than did others. That alone made me feel that their love was different, and special. I thought I was one of the people cheering them on.
She gave me a cup of coffee as a token of gratitude whenever I delivered her a letter. She also gave me a cup of coffee when she gave me a letter to be delivered to England. So I was a walking mailbox for her. It was a pleasure to be a mailbox for her. Drinking coffee was a pleasure, too, so the first time she asked me if I liked coffee, I declared that I loved it, as if I had a taste for coffee. I think anyone would’ve done the same.
100. Then one day, I began to notice that their correspondence was growing few and far between. Even when she sent a letter, he made no reply. He was telling her that he was breaking up with her by not writing back. Around that time, her anticipation for me grew more desperate, and I felt bad whenever I went to see her empty-ha
nded. As if it were all my fault. She no longer wrote letters, either, probably tired of waiting for a reply. Thus they broke up without a word. After that, another stud was added to her tongue.
I wanted to comfort her in my own way. When I had some time left after my rounds, I would stop by her café for a cup of coffee. She gave me coffee on the house even though I no longer delivered letters to her. It was like a habit. A habit is something more mysterious and confounding than affection. Affection is a conscious thing, but habits are subconscious. I thought at the time that perhaps what’s real is dominated by the subconscious.
As if out of habit, we sat talking for half an hour almost every day at her café. I even made up an excuse to frequent the café, saying that I just couldn’t do my job without drinking coffee because I got drowsy, when in fact, the coffee made my stomach burn like crazy. I thought being a postman was an awful job that didn’t give you the time to go out with girls, but ever since I got to know her, I even came to think that there was no better job. I could develop feelings for someone, and could even go talk to her and have coffee with her while on the job. When I thought about it, the relationships I’d had before I met her lasted six months at most. The short moments we spent together led to a short relationship.
She once said to me, “Do you know that people look their sexiest not when they’ve taken off their clothes, but when they’re concentrating on their work?”
“Huh?”
“You look sexy. When you deliver letters.”
I couldn’t really understand what she was saying. A postman could look sexy? But in my heart, I thanked my mother, thinking that I had the greatest job ever. Around that time, I was becoming louder and more talkative at home.
101. I admit now that as I delivered the letters, I always hoped that they’d break up. I’d never once cheered them on. Clutching their letters in my hand, I even cast an ominous spell on them. I was probably jealous of the relationship they had. The kind of pure and noble relationship in which they sent each other letters by air mail. Writing letters was something I was also good at, so I probably wanted to be someone who wrote her letters, too. Perhaps I thought that I was the only person who could make the right kind of reply to her letters.