Your Republic Is Calling You (28 page)

Soji's expression stiffens. "That's it?"

"Well..."

"Are you telling me you've given me something to write about? Am I supposed to thank you or something?"

"No, that's not it. You have to understand, I just got my return order this morning, and I have to go back tomorrow. It's so cruel, don't you think? I've been chased the whole day, and I've only just managed to evade them. Now I'm here, and I'm able to relax for the first time today."

"You do know that under the National Security Law it's a crime to not report North Korean spies, right?"

He nods.

"You know I'm committing a crime just by sitting here looking at you?"

"Yeah."

"I always thought it was an interesting crime: you're breaking the law not by doing something, but precisely because you're not doing something. I always thought people who get caught for this must feel so frustrated. Helpless."

"Look, I'm sorry."

"I take back whatever I said earlier about how ignorance doesn't help mankind. I was being flippant in my own ignorance. Now here I am, committing a crime for just knowing something about you."

Ki-yong lowers his head and eats another sliver of ginger and a clove of marinated garlic. He wonders how strongly he would smell of garlic if he were caught now and interrogated.

"Ki-yong."

"Yeah."

"Don't go."

"Then what should I do?"

"Give yourself up."

"Aren't you scared of me? I'm an agent and a member of the Party. I've sworn allegiance to the Party and the Dear Leader."

"You've changed. I mean, you must have changed. I know you. You like hirasake, sushi, Heinekens, and movies by Sam Peckinpah and Wim Wenders. You like the story of Meursault shooting the Arab and you underline the elegant prose of a far right-wing pundit, Yukio Mishima. You eat seafood pasta at Sunday brunch. You drink scotch at a bar near Hongik University on Friday nights. Right? I think you just told me because you don't want to go. You secretly want me to talk you out of it, isn't that right?"

"Don't you think all of those preferences were merely a part of my disguise?"

"Why would you do that? To make me feel comfortable with you so you could recruit me to the other side?"

"Maybe."

She closes her eyes, as if to gather her thoughts. "You know the plays that are on extended runs, for ten or twenty years? You're like those actors who have been in the play for so long that they don't remember who they were before the play. You live that same role every night, no matter how you live during the day. So then you find yourself confused, since the Ki-yong at night has more continuity than the Ki-yong during the day. You know how the portrait of Dorian Gray ages instead of the man himself? I don't know who you were before, but you've become so good at this particular role that it's come to a point where it's hard to tell which part is you and which part is the character. Like Dorian Gray's portrait being the real Dorian and Dorian Gray the man being fake, I think this is the real you. Forget about your original self."

"The authorities up there don't think that. They think that this Ki-yong is the fake one. They forgot about me for over ten years, but now someone's found me and is trying to make the agent in the file and the real me become one and the same. It's like, everyone's clapping, the show's over, and I've come back to the changing room."

She reaches across the table and grabs his hand. Her tears drop onto it. "Don't go, Ki-yong."

"If I don't, they're going to send someone to kill me." Plus, he would be arrested by the South's public security authorities and charged with murder. But he doesn't say that.

"You won't be safe even if you go back," Soji insists.

"But if I go back I'll have a fifty-fifty chance to live. If I don't..."

"You always have a fifty-fifty chance to live. If you die, that's it. Those odds mean nothing. The odds when you're playing Russian roulette are one out of six, but every time the trigger's pulled, the odds are always fifty-fifty. You live or you die. Don't you think that's true?"

He doesn't say anything. She cries, silently. He wonders why she's crying, but he's oddly comforted by her tears. The waitress comes over and pours them tea. Soji takes her hand away to wipe her eyes. The tea is warm and soothing.

M
A-RI PICKS
up the soju bottle. The brand name, "Like the First Time," is printed in a font that resembles a wood carving, under the wings of a bird in flight. She reads out loud the sentence at the bottom of the label: "Soju made from all-natural mineral alkali water."

Song-uk holds out his cup. She pours some soju in it, and toasts, "Like the first time!" Though she says it without much thought, she feels like she's begging.

He smiles mysteriously and repeats after her. "Like the first time."

They clink cups. Song-uk's friend grabs his cup, too, looking a little left out. His Von Dutch hat is pushed low over his eyes, making it harder for Ma-ri to read him. She forgets his name as soon as she's introduced to him. Song-uk refers to him as Panda, which he says is because of the dark circles under his eyes. If Song-uk hadn't told her that Panda is the top student in their class, she wouldn't have been able to deduce it from his appearance.

Their three cups come together in a whirl as they clink, and each drinks. The twenty-proof alcohol is bland, not too strong and not too weak, and it coats their tongues as it trickles down their throats.

"So, going back to what I was saying," Song-uk addresses Panda. The heavy beat of dance music in the restaurant muffles his words. "That's nihilism."

Panda smirks. "Wha ... wha ... what's nihilism?" he stutters.

"What I'm saying is that even though people wear T-shirts with Che's face on it when they go on vacation, it doesn't mean that his vision was meaningless. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the Che souvenirs are something separate from revolution. Where do you think the Cuban people would be right now if there hadn't been a Cuban revolution? Cuba would have been turned into another Haiti, with political instability, coups d'état, endless confusion..."

"How ... how ... how would you know that?" Panda rebuts.

Ma-ri, toying with her cup, wonders whether you can still become a great judge if you have a stutter.

"All the other countries in Latin America are like Haiti."

"Not Chi ... Chi ... Chile," Panda says.

Song-uk, revealing his annoyance, retorts, "Are you telling me that you support that dictator Pinochet?"

"Wh ... wh ... what I mean is, some countries' governments are stable. Whether it's because of Pinochet or not."

"Are you saying you're condoning terrible torture, kidnapping, massacres, coups d'état?"

"Well, what about the massacres ordered by Mao in the name of the Cultural Revolution? Millions died in China. He was worse than Stalin," Panda shoots back, not even stuttering this time.

"So you're saying Pinochet and Mao are the same?" Song-uk doesn't let it go.

"Look, guys, the meat's burning," Ma-ri jumps in.

The two look down at the grill, at the smoke curling up from yellowish pieces of pork belly.

"I'm leaving if you guys keep fighting," Ma-ri adds.

Song-uk glares at Panda and tries to appease Ma-ri. "I'm sorry, but we're not fighting, we're just having a political discussion. We're just on different sides of the debate."

She scratches her left wrist.
So you can differ in political opinions and can have sex in the same bed.
"Okay, whatever. But all this meat's burning to a crisp while you guys go on and on. What about a discussion on vegetarianism? Why not talk about how the poor animals are painfully exploited?"

The mood turns somber. Song-uk slides over toward her and whispers, "What's wrong? Are you pissed that we've been talking among ourselves?"

Ma-ri shakes her head. Her left arm itches like crazy. "Pissed? No, I was just curious."

Song-uk looks over at Panda and indicates with his head that they should leave. Panda picks up his bag. "Should we go?"

She looks around the restaurant. The air is smoky with the burning fat and cigarettes, as if a fog had settled indoors. She wants a cigarette badly. If she could smoke one, just one, she'd be able to suffer through this uncomfortable situation. "Let's stay just a little longer."

It's unbearable inside, but she doesn't want to leave. If they go outside, they will take her, triumphantly, like males of the Stone Age, to some darkened motel room.

"Why? We're basically done eating. Should we go get a drink?" Song-uk suggests. He turns off the exhaust fan and
stuffs the few remaining bits of meat resting on the grill into his mouth. The hot air, which has been warming the back of her neck, vanishes, as if someone has yanked her scarf off from behind. She gets up, slinging her purse over her arm. The two young men follow her. She goes to the cashier and hands over her credit card.

"It's forty-five thousand won," the smiling owner says, and holds out a spray deodorizer. Ma-ri hands it to Song-uk, who sprays it on her back. The artificial lilac scent assaults her nose. Ma-ri explains, "If I don't do this, the smell of the meat will be overpowering..."

The owner holds out the credit card slip. She signs it, takes the carbon copy, and pushes the door open.

"Thanks for dinner," Panda says.

Song-uk pats his friend on the back proudly, as if he had paid for dinner, and Panda puts his hand on Song-uk's arm in a friendly gesture. To Ma-ri, they look like good-natured chimps.

I
T'S ONLY PASTA
in tomato sauce, but Hyon-mi thinks it tastes great. It's hard to believe that a boy of fourteen made it. The noodles are silky but chewy, cooked perfectly al dente.

"Jin-guk, where did you learn to make this?"

"My mom. Why, you like it?"

"Yeah, it's awesome."

"It's really easy. Although it would've been better if I put more stuff in it. Have some pizza, too," Jin-guk offers, indicating the large Pizza Hut box next to the small dish of pickles.

"I'm getting full already," Hyon-mi says, and picks up a piece of mozzarella-laden pizza. She washes down a mouthful of pizza with some Coke. She's feeling better. She didn't
feel that great when she arrived at Jin-guk's because of her fight with A-yong, but the smell of tomato sauce and Jin-guk's warm welcome lifted her mood. And spaghetti and pizza are two of her favorite foods.

"Where's everyone else? Are they at cram school?" Hyon-mi asks.

"Oh, Chol? He just went out for a sec."

"Oh, he was here already? Is he the one who doesn't go to school?" she asks, looking around.

"Yeah."

"Where'd he go? To the store?" Maybe he went out to get beer or cigarettes. A straight-A student, she's never participated in anything illicit, but she knows her peers drink and smoke.

"Nah, he's just a little shy."

"Oh, so he left because of me?"

Jin-guk waves his hands around, flustered. "No, no, he's coming back. He said he needed some fresh air. He collects guns—oh, not real guns, just fake ones—and they have some good models at the flea market today, so he decided to go take a look. He said he was meeting the seller at the subway station."

"Oh, okay. Is he the only one who's coming? What about the others?"

"Yeah, the other guys couldn't come because of cram school."

She nods and puts her Coke down.

His eyes sparkle. "Chol, though, he's mad funny. He studies with a gun strapped on him. When he gets home, he puts his gun on, and plays computer games or reads. Isn't that crazy?"

"Yeah, totally."

"Sometimes he'll like, take it out of the holster and shoot it and put it back in."

"What does he shoot at?"

"Just the ceiling or something. I don't know. He's just really into guns."

"What's his name again?" Hyon-mi asks.

"Chol."

"Why doesn't he go to school?"

"He doesn't need to."

"Huh?"

"He knows everything. He just goes to the library if he needs to look something up, or he goes online."

"His parents seem kinda crazy," Hyon-mi remarks. "A-yong's parents are sorta weird, too."

"They are?"

"Yeah, they believe in some weird religion. Like, they think they can live forever or something."

"Huh."

There's a short silence.

Hyon-mi speaks first. "Jin-guk, do you think people can live forever?"

"I dunno, what do you think?"

"I think there has to be an afterlife of some sort. Otherwise life's meaningless. Oh, did you see that article in the paper yesterday?"

"What article?" Jin-guk tilts his head, curious.

"Some guy who owns a video store killed an eight-year-old girl, and like, threw the body into a field and burned it, and his son helped him do it. You didn't see it?"

"Oh, that."

"It'd be so unfair if there's no afterlife for a kid like that, you know? All she was doing was returning a video for her
mom, and it's like, so pointless if your life is over, just like that."

"Maybe."

"Do you think that's why there are ghosts?"

Jin-guk laughs. "Hey, there's no such thing as ghosts!" He picks up his empty plate and gets up, taking hers in hand.

Hyon-mi says, "Y'know, I think that there's more out there than what we can see."

Jin-guk puts the dishes in the sink and turns on the water. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, turning around.

Hyon-mi wiggles her toes. "When you're playing Go—remember I used to play? Anyway, when you do, the empty points are like, way more important. It's called a liberty, when there's nothing on the point. So you win when you have a lot of liberties, when there are a lot of empty points. So maybe it's important for there to be more unseen stuff in our lives. I don't know. What the hell am I trying to say?"

Jin-guk wipes down the table. "Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about. Wanna go hang out on the couch? The chairs in here are so uncomfortable."

She gets up and the chair makes a screeching noise.

"Oops," Jin-guk says, shrinking a little.