Your Republic Is Calling You (21 page)

Ki-yong is rendered mute.

"Please take pity on me!"

Ki-yong looks around and grabs Pil's wrist. He has to calm him down. "Look, Comrade Lee, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, I'm not here to take you back."

Pil tilts his head to the right, uncertain. He doesn't seem to trust Ki-yong completely yet. "Really?"

"Of course. Why would I ask you to meet me here, if that were the case?"

Pil looks around again, his body relaxing a little. "I guess that's true."

"I understand why you're concerned."

"Wouldn't you be? You turned up out of the clear blue sky for the first time in ten years and dragged me here."

"Well, I didn't drag you," Ki-yong corrects.

Annoyed, Pil spoons up more ice cream but then stabs his spoon into his cup, as if he has lost his appetite. "So what do you want from me?"

Ki-yong studies his face. Dark circles and deep wrinkles shadow his eyes. He has gained weight in the past decade and seems to be in a general state of exhaustion. Ki-yong is reminded of Dalí's melting clocks. He pulls his chair closer to Pil. "I think Secretary Lee has come back."

Pil furrows his brow, looking nervous, as if he just woke up from a nightmare. His face is a dark question mark. "What? Lee Sang-hyok? I thought he was purged years ago."

"That's what I thought, too. I thought after that one thing we did, he"—Ki-yong twitches his right cheek and lifts his chin to one side, to signify something had flown far away—"was tossed out."

Pil nods in agreement. A hint of supplication lurks in his gesture of affirmation. "Is Lee Sang-hyok ... Is he here? In Seoul?"

"I'm not sure about that yet."

"And?"

"I don't really know myself. All I do know is that someone's found out about us."

Pil's breathing grows ragged, agitated. "But we were cut off so long ago!"

"This morning, I received"—Ki-yong holds up four fingers—"the order."

Pil looks even more worried.

"Someone called and told me to check my e-mail. I did, and it was definitely Order Four," Ki-yong explains.

"The return time?"

"Tomorrow at dawn."

"Shit," Pil spits, visibly shaken. "I mean, we were both Lee Sang-hyok's line. They wouldn't have just found you. No. No way. What the hell am I going to do about my son? He'd never be able to survive up there. He won't be able to deal with the change. It was so hard with this new school, too. At first I put him in regular school but he couldn't fit in. Those asshole kids. Having palsy doesn't mean you're stupid but the little fuckers stuffed dirty tissues into his mouth and kicked him around. Children, they're devils. These Seoul kids, these sons-of-bitches spawns of capitalism, they don't know what the hell living in a community means. They have no clue as to how to help one another. All they know is how to be selfish. And it's not even their fault, it's what their parents teach them."

"Calm down," Ki-yong orders.

Pil glares at him, his eyes burning. "You," he accuses.

"What?" Ki-yong tenses automatically.

"You, what are you, a fucking rat?"

Ki-yong scowls.

"The KCIA, no, now they're called National Intelligence Service. Did you go over to their side? You fucking asshole..."

"Hey, watch what you say," Ki-yong warns. Though he lowers his tone, every syllable is gnarled and harsh.

"Let's be honest with each other, okay? Let's put all our
cards on the table." Pil's rage brings out their regional Pyongan accent. That stops Ki-yong cold. He draws in a deep breath.
Calm down. Calm down. I can't get into this. I won't be pushed around by anything.

"I don't blame you for thinking this, but let me tell you once and for all that I'm not an informant," Ki-yong replies evenly.

Pil squints at him. He stands up, comes around the small plastic table, and all of a sudden, he tackles Ki-yong, like a kid goofing around. He swiftly pats him down, in a way that is hard to believe of a man who was sitting across from Ki-yong just a minute before, crumpled and unfit. He's looking for handcuffs or a gun. Ki-yong grabs Pil's shoulders and shoots up from his seat. They wrestle, entangled like boxers in a clinch. A plastic chair falls over with a clatter. The young clerk screams, "Stop!"

"Come on, you asshole, let's do this outside," Pil says to Ki-yong, rudely. They don't loosen their grips.

"Fine," Ki-yong says, nodding. They let go of each other but don't stop glaring. They raise the chair upright, apologize to the clerk, throw out their paper cups, and leave. The girls in the shop are still gabbing away, unaware of what has just happened.

Outside, Ki-yong raises his arms. "Search me."

"I did already." Pil looks around. "Sorry, but you would've done the same."

"Okay, so now we're fine?"

Pil shakes his head. "Not yet."

"What else do you need?"

"Are you trying to buy me? If it's about money, shit, I have no problem bowing down before money. I'm serious." Pil tries to gauge Ki-yong's reaction.

Ki-yong doesn't say anything but points to a small bar
across the way. It's still early for it to be crowded inside. It's the kind of bar that people going to see a movie at the multiplex visit to kill time with a few beers. They go inside, and the stale stench of old beer assaults their noses. It's dark and the employees are cleaning up.

"You open?"

As their eyes get used to the dark, they see silhouettes of young people drinking beer. An unfriendly bow-tied waiter shows them to a table. As they sit down, Ki-yong orders a Heineken and Pil asks for a Guinness.

"I hear a glass or two of beer a day is good for you," Pil says, as if the wrestling match they just engaged in happened a long time ago.

Today has been a shitty day for both of them. They were wrenched from their lives, which they were living in peace, one day at a time. Sure, there were some hard days, but they never encountered anything of this magnitude. They wait for their beer in silence. The waiter rushes over with two beers and bowls of tortilla chips and salsa. The waiter puts the Heineken in front of Pil and the Guinness in front of Ki-yong. They trade. Ki-yong gulps down the cold beer.

Pil opens his mouth first. "So? What are you going to do? Are you going back?"

Ki-yong eats a chip. "Remember Han Jong-hun?"

"Who?"

"From Liaison Office 130. Remember, the three of us..."

Pil frowns. "Oh yeah, him."

"He's gone. Yesterday he told his secretary that he was going abroad for business and they haven't heard from him since. His wife doesn't know where he is either."

"So what happened to him?"

Ki-yong glares at Pil. "Why do you keep hounding me? I don't know a thing. What the hell would I possibly know?
It's been a long time since our line's been cut, and I've been busy making a life, just like you."

"How would I know that's true?" Pil retorts, smiling sardonically. "How the hell am I supposed to know what you're up to? I really have no idea why you're telling me all of this."

Ki-yong tries to breathe evenly. His former comrade is even more nervous than he. It's no surprise that he's on edge and guarded, but Ki-yong wants to be able to complain too, and be reassured. "Look, for what it's worth, we're in the same boat. I don't know if Han Jong-hun went back or is in hiding. But we have to believe that since I got an order, you're going to get one too."

"How would you know that?" Pil asks aggressively, but he appears less enraged.

Ki-yong doesn't reply.

"Lee Sang-hyok was thrown out. The guy after him wouldn't touch our line with a ten-foot pole; he couldn't trust us. The guy after that probably didn't even know we existed. After a couple more guys, there would have been a real nitpicky guy, and he would have found you and Han as he was going through files. It's possible that they haven't found me yet, and it's not a given that they will. It's a mess up there, you know."

"I wish that were true," Ki-yong says.

"That's what I think—I think I'm safe. Nothing's happened yet."

Ki-yong sighs. "Fine, it sounds like you really know nothing. Don't worry. I'll take care of my problem myself."

Pil leans back, relaxing a bit. "Are you going to go up?"

"Maybe."

Pil leans forward. "You won't talk about me if you do?" Raising his glass to his mouth, he glances at Ki-yong in a conciliatory way.

"I don't know."

"I have a disabled son, like I was telling you," reminds Pil.

"I have a wife and daughter."

"I know. She was a baby then. What was her name..."

"When?"

"You know, then."

He knows what Pil means by "then." But he doesn't want to talk about that. He doesn't want to talk about Hyon-mi in that context, afraid that something nefarious will happen to her if he does. "Let's not talk about it."

Pil rubs his face, which crinkles under his hands like a mask. "Sometimes I dream that I'm bowling."

"Bowling?"

"I'm standing at a lane by myself, in an empty bowling alley. I know people are looking at me, but I don't know where they are. I stand at the line, feeling tremendous pressure to do well. I stick my fingers in the ball, get ready, and run forward," Pil explains.

"And?"

"I throw that ball as hard as I can, but the bowling alley's gone and all that's left is a smashed head—"

"Stop," Ki-yong interrupts, holding out his palm.

Pil doesn't listen. "I keep thinking it's a bowling ball and I try to catch it, but I can't. The head tells me that bowling isn't as easy a sport as you might think."

"What does that mean?" Ki-yong asks despite himself.

"How do I know, it's a dream. Anyway, he just keeps saying that. Bowling's not an easy sport. You need to control your mind. I don't know the exact words but it's all the same idea, and it gets really scary because, you know, it's a smashed head saying it. I slide my fingers in the dark eye sockets and pick it up like it's a ball. Sometimes the sockets are so slippery that the head keeps falling out of my hands."

Ten years ago, the final order—though back then they didn't know it would be the last—came down to Pil, Ki-yong, and Jong-hun. Their target was a mole with the code name North Star. They didn't know why he had to be eliminated, but the order was urgent, so urgent that it was conveyed to them without having been translated into code. Assassination wasn't their expertise, but they all understood that it wasn't the time to question the order. None of the three had ever killed a man. But they knew they had to do it and they didn't discuss their lack of experience.

Jong-hun was the decoy, entrusted to lure North Star to the designated place, and the assassination itself would be done by Ki-yong and Pil. Jong-hun met North Star in the dark underground parking garage of an apartment building, carrying a bag that was supposed to contain cash. Hidden behind a pole, North Star received the bag from Jong-hun with his left hand. He hoisted it up a couple of times to gauge its weight. Jong-hun got into his car first and drove out, and North Star went to his car leisurely, probably relieved that the deal went down smoothly. North Star got into his car and placed the bag on the passenger seat. He fastened his seat belt. He seemed calm. Watching him, Ki-yong felt as if a sprinkler were whipping around in his head, spinning and spraying adrenaline. When North Star settled in, Ki-yong walked toward the car, his jacket hiding a Colt .45 outfitted with a silencer. He rapped lightly on the window with his knuckles. The dark tinted window slid down, revealing the target's face.

North Star, looking surprised, smiled at him. "Hey, Ki-yong! Aren't you Ki-yong?"

He couldn't smile back. Could this be? Was this the famous mole North Star? In a split second, a million thoughts exploded and raced through his mind, so fast they nearly
paralyzed him. In contrast his words came out pedestrian and calm. "Hi, Ji-hun. Yeah, it's me, Ki-yong."

He slid the gun out of his pocket and pointed it at Ji-hun's head. Well, no, it wasn't as fluid as that. The sight caught in the lining of his jacket and he ended up having to tug it out, ripping his jacket in the process. It must have looked ridiculous, but his bumbling actually lent more gravity to the situation.

"Ki-yong, what are you doing?" North Star's smile faded. He didn't say anything clichéd, like "stop joking around." He could probably read Ki-yong's resolve from his violently trembling fingers.

"I'm sorry, Ji-hun, I didn't know it was you until now. I'm sorry. I can't do anything about it," Ki-yong said.

Pil, standing on the other side of the car, was taking out his gun in case Ki-yong missed. Ki-yong shot three times; two of them hit the target. North Star's chest jumped up violently and sank, as if he had been electrocuted. Ki-yong saw, very clearly, how his half-open mouth grew stiff. Pil opened the passenger side door and took the bag out. Before he shut the door, he glanced at the wound in North Star's cranium, pierced by the spiraling bullet, dark blood and brain matter gushing out like a newly dug oil field. Pil couldn't have known that the half second of death he witnessed would jolt him awake night after night for the next ten years, when he wasn't even the one who had pulled the trigger.

The nightmares Pil recounts to Ki-yong are intensely vivid and personal. There is something about assassination that is indeed similar to bowling, in that you focus, glare at the target, and slowly rush toward it with all your might. Ki-yong knows that this is what Pil wants to talk about. About that night ten years ago, when they hopped into their respective cars and drove out of the garage. They haven't seen
each other again until now, but they need each other to talk about this, since they are the only ones who went through this event.

"That guy, North Star," Ki-yong starts.

Pil empties his glass. The brown foam slides slowly down the side of the glass, like mud.

"We used to know each other in college," Ki-yong continues.

"Right, I forgot you went to college," Pil comments.

"Yeah, that's probably why I'm better off than you or Jong-hun," Ki-yong says frankly.

Pil smiles bitterly. "And that's what capitalism is all about. Polarization, academic elitism, succession of wealth, the Pareto principle."