Seoul Survivors (11 page)

“If you need,” Sam added, “I get you University London MA. Help you get good jobs, very quick. Small investment; big profit. Think about it.”

The Korean girls were poring over a magazine. Jake lit a cigarette and took an order from a beefy Aussie in a Hawaiian shirt.

The knot in Damien's stomach loosened a fraction. “I got a line on a
hagwon
job,” he told Sam. “How much is a CELTA certificate?”

“For you, two hundred thou. Come tomorrow with cash, I get by Wednesday.” Sam gave him a thumbs-up and returned to the till. Damien raised his glass to Jake, who toasted back, draining the rest of his beer.

“And now, if you'll excuse me, Day,” he said, checking his hair in the mirrored tiles behind the bar, “my public awaits.”

The Korean girls screamed and whistled as Mama Gold launched into a rocking rendition of “Ajumma's Umbrella.” Sam put another martini in front of him. Damien reached for his wallet, but the Korean shook his head.

“Jake buy tonight. Don't worry, me and Jake, we look after you.”

Sipping his drink he scanned the crowd, checking out the talent. Beside him the Korean girls tittered and he made out the words “Hu-gee Grant.” Christ, was he going to have to pretend to be an aging ponce to get laid here?

No, what he needed in Seoul was not sex, but a fifty-hour work week. In fact, he decided as he finished his drink, it was time for a little self-discipline. Time for a personal vow. Until he got that Canadian passport in his hand, Damien Meadows was flying solo. No chat-ups, no snogging and definitely no shagging. There would be strict limits on alcohol and drug intake too, both of which had in the past led directly to serious cash flow crises and the inadvertent acquisition of mentally deranged girlfriends.

The crowd was going crazy for Mama Gold's big number: “Are You Married? Why Not?”

Sam leaned over to him. “Damien, you want some E?”

“Nah, thanks, Sam. Taking a break from the old chemicals for a while.”

Sam looked disappointed. “Is present—I bring back with me from Canada. Good times. We go Hongdae after, dancing.”

A bit of clubbing, one last E for the road. Why not?

“Okay,” he agreed. “If you're having one too.” He could start that new austerity regime on Monday.

At the end of Mee Hee's second week at the hotel, a
weaguk saram
arrived. He was the first foreigner she had ever seen. His hair was not quite yellow but a sandy-brown, and his eyes, Su Jin reported, were blue like the sky on a spring morning. She had just returned from the market as he arrived, and was soon sitting cross-legged on Mee Hee's bed, telling her and Older Sister exactly what had happened.

“His name is Mis-tuh San-duh-man.” She enunciated the English words slowly but proudly. “Dr. Dong Sun told me. He's a friend of Dr. Kim's. He's American but he speaks Korean. And he's a born capitalist.”

“What does that mean?” Older Sister harrumphed. She had made it clear that she thought Su Jin talked a lot about things she didn't know much about, and maybe Su Jin did. But Mee Hee liked that about her.

“I'm telling you,” Su Jin hissed, “after he got his keys, he went through the hotel register to see how many rooms were being used. There was one empty, and he's asked Dr. Dong Sun to rent it out as storage space.”

She flicked her hair triumphantly, but Older Sister pursed her lips. “Sounds like common sense to me.”

“It must be costing a lot to feed us,” Mee Hee offered shyly. “If he helped the doctors bring us here, he must be looking for ways to pay the bills.”

“We're going to be making his fortune!” Su Jin glared at Older Sister. “He's come to inspect his merchandise, that's what I think.”

And indeed, over the next forty-eight hours the American poked his big nose into every aspect of the hotel operation, from the kitchen to the laundry to the medicine dispensary. None of the other women had ever seen a
waeguk saram
either, and they chattered about him endlessly behind his back: how old was he; was he Dr. Kim's lover; did you see the way he reprimanded the cooks for idling when there was work to be done? In his presence however, even Su Jin was struck dumb by his beaked profile, his sharp gaze and his basic but snappy command of Korean.

Finally, with the occasional help of Dr. Dong Sun as translator, Mr. Sandman gave a short talk in the lobby. He introduced himself as the Company Director of VirtuWorld, the project they had graciously agreed to be a part of. He explained that Virtu meant goodness and innocence, and expressed the hope that their terrible experiences in the North would help them embrace the close-knit life of caring and sharing he and Dr. Kim had planned for them all. He now wanted to play for them a special
dee-vee-dee
, narrated by Doctor Kim, to explain the ideals of VirtuWorld.

A new
dee-vee-dee
? Nothing could have excited the women more. Hushing and shushing each other, they sat enthralled as Dr. Kim's familiar face appeared on the screen, welcoming them all, at last, to VirtuWorld. Mee Hee watched with her hand over her mouth as Dr. Kim took them on a guided tour of this magical land, all castles and towers, silks and fine foods, fairies and princesses. VirtuWorld would be like an island in Seoul, she told them, where people would go to escape from the stresses and pressures of life. It would be a place of peace and plenty, where nothing evil ever happened, where all suffering would be eased. On this island lived special, fairy children who would enchant the people and soothe their fears. Of course the children were not really fairies, but flesh and blood humans, growing from babyhood to adults as the years went by—and this was why they, the sisters, were so important. They had all been hand-picked by Dr. Che to be mothers to these precious fairy children. So that the boys and girls wouldn't have to work every day, and would have time for a real childhood, there would be many of them, at least two sets of twins for each woman, born three years apart. Although everyone would grow up together, of course, each mother would always be able to see and to hold and love their own children.

Of course they could choose not to be a part of this wonderful opportunity, in which case, jobs would be found for them in China's South Korean communities, but Doctor Kim very much hoped they would all want to stay. She would come to meet them all in their new home in the mountains of Kyonggi Province, south of Seoul, where she would explain the simple—painless—scientific procedure by which they all would become pregnant with their first sets of twins.

“Please,” she implored, “come to South Korea. Let me take care of you.”

As the screen filled with an image of Dr. Kim's gentle face, the quiet sound of restrained weeping spread throughout the room. Her
own yearning lodged in her throat, Mee Hee turned to her sisters for reassurance: this paradise being offered to them—was it really real? Would someone please hold her hand, embrace her, say
yes, we are saved now, truly Mee Hee, saved
. But Little Sister, her eyes closed, was clutching the cross she wore around her neck. The Buddhists were chanting inaudibly, their lips moving in time with their nodding heads. Su Jin sat behind them by herself, an expression of fierce concentration on her face.

Her sisters had suffered so much, as had she. Mee Hee gazed again at Dr. Kim's noble features. This fine lady had saved their lives, plucked them like grains of rice from the mouth of death. Perhaps there was a God, as Little Sister said, who called some people to him early and asked others to keep living, to keep trying to be strong. Or perhaps, as the Buddhists argued, it was her karma to have left home, to start afresh with all her sisters, to help Dr. Kim. She couldn't say if she believed any of these explanations; she just knew she was alive, not buried in a shallow grave beside her son. And if she didn't keep living, who would care that he had ever existed?
No
, she thought, as she sat in the darkened room,
I have to have more children now, to tell them about their older brother Song Ju, to make sure he will not be forgotten once I myself have gone.

Mr. Sandman clicked the lights back on and passed around a photo of the village in Kyonggi-do. The women gasped over the picture: a place they already knew in their hearts, a plateau between two green mountains, on which stood a large hall with a tiled roof, surrounded by clusters of small thatched houses. The sisters would be moving there as soon as they were well enough to travel, Dr. Dong Sun announced.

Then Mr. Sandman held up a black booklet with South Korea stamped in gold on the covers: their new passports. Their own photographs would be inserted beside false names. Mr. San-duh-man said they must be sure to memorize these names—this was a private enterprise, so no one in the government knew of this project.

Finally, as a special gift, he gave each of them a framed, signed photograph of Dr. Kim. As the women were exclaiming how beautiful she was, Mr. Sandman said goodnight and they applauded loudly as he and the doctors left the room.

Her sisters sat discussing the village—how cozy it was, how much like their old homes in the North, what a perfect place it would be to bring up children. Mee Hee fingered the carved wooden frame of her photograph of Dr. Kim. One of the houses was for the doctors,
Mr. Sandman had said; they would be living in the village, staying forever, to help the women with their pregnancies, and to give birth, and then to look after all the children as they grew. She tried to catch Su Jin's eye. Perhaps they could share a house together too.

But Su Jin, a stony frown on her face, was scratching a mosquito bite on her ankle. A droplet of blood rose up beneath her one long fingernail and as it smeared darkly across her leg, a sharp, bony fear nudged Mee Hee beneath the ribs. Why wouldn't Su Jin look at her? Why did she argue so much with the others? Why was she the only one who wasn't happy?

Then Su Jin looked up, stuck out her tongue at Mee Hee and started chatting to Younger Sister. Mee Hee exhaled, and pressed the photograph of Dr. Kim to her chest. Why did she have to worry so much about everything? She needed to be calmer, more accepting and peaceful. She was going to place the framed picture on her bedside table, she decided, so that the doctor's tranquil face was the first thing she would see in the morning, and the last thing at night.

Sydney danced until she was gasping for a drink, then she stepped up, panting, to the bar, where Jin Sok was talking to two stylishly dressed Korean men.

“Sy-duh-nee my new model,” he told his friends proudly. “She live in Hongdae now. Soon be very famous. Sy-duh-nee, this Park Song P'il, owner Gongjang. This Han Jae Ho, very big artist in Korea.”

Song P'il was a wiry man with a deeply etched face and bright eyes. He was wearing a tight purple top and natty leather braces, and moved oddly, like a bird. Jae Ho was more solid and composed. Over a white T-shirt flecked with black paint he wore a blood-orange linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, smooth forearms. Beneath his thick, spiky hair his dark eyes openly roamed over her.

“
Pangapsumnida
,” she said.
Pleased to meet you
. She offered her hand to Jae Ho. The artist lifted it to his lips and kissed it. The gesture was arch, but his mouth was full and sensual.

“Ooh, gentleman,” Jin Sok teased. Flustered and flattered, Sydney pulled her hand away. Song P'il peered alertly at her then, with a fetching grin, he reached behind the bar and began rapidly flicking a light switch. The blue bulbs above the DJ broke into a strobe, sending the dancers into audible convulsions. The bouncer appeared at the door. Song P'il bowed, and ducked out of the club.

“Same same,” Jin Sok said. “Police come, need talk to. But Jae Ho buy you drink.”

“Yes, what you drink?” Jae Ho inquired. As he reached to get the bartender's attention, his linen sleeve brushed her bare arm. He was a little shorter than she was—most Korean men were—so she pulled up a stool to even the difference. His eyes exploring her face and breasts, he passed her a vodka and soda.

“Blonde hair: nice. Look green in light,” he said.

Jin Sok laughed, and she playfully punched him in the arm.

Jae Ho nodded appreciatively. “Very violent girl. I like. How old you, Sy-duh-nee?”

It was only the nine hundredth time she been asked that since she got off the plane from Vancouver. “Twenty,” she replied pertly, as if rapping his knuckles with a fan.

“Ah, so young. You married?” Totally boring Korean question number two.

She shook her head and waited for the inevitable cry of, “Why not?”

But Jae Ho only raised his eyebrows, then said, “You brave girl come Korea all by yourself.”

Sydney wrinkled her nose. “Oh, no—I came with a friend. Then I met Jin Sok.”

“I saw her photo. Lipstick poster. Pow!” The photographer punched the air and Sydney wanted to hug him again. Just a week ago, celebrating her move, she had got pissed and tried to kiss him, but he'd just tucked her up on her bed-mat and gone to sleep beside her as if nothing had happened. In the morning he'd told her he was gay-celibate. “I had many boyfriend, Sy-duh-nee, many years. But now I want be monk: clean inside again.” She'd never felt so safe with anyone.

“So, are you a house painter, Jae Ho?” she asked, plucking lightly at his spattered T-shirt. The fabric was thick, the best cotton, and a little damp with his sweat.

“House paint?” he frowned. Jin Sok translated, chuckling, and poked his friend in the ribs. Jae Ho got the joke, and cuffed his hand away.

“Oh, Sy-duh-nee get even! Good, good. No. Not house paint. This shirt famous in Gongjang. Is shirt I wore when I paint this.” Reaching under her, he swiveled her stool until she was looking at a square blue canvas on the wall behind her.

The painting's churning surface was divided in half by a thick black horizontal slash. Above and below this dividing mark there was something delicate, almost brocaded, about the texture of the paint that made Sydney want to reach out and trace its details with her finger. She stood up to take a closer look. Mingled within the blue brushstrokes were the imprints of long hairs, fragile wings of insects, dried petals and scraps of what looked like Korean hand-made paper, the kind Jin Sok had used in a shoot last week.

Still thinking hard, she returned to Jae Ho. “It's amazing,” she said. “It's like . . . a trapped soul.”

He turned to Jin Sok. “Sy-duh-nee very intelligence girl. Very beauty too.”

She reached out lightly, fluttering her hand along his sleeve. “
Komapsumnida
, Jae Ho.” That was the formal way to say thank you.
It suited her, now she was a professional model, out meeting artists in Seoul.

It was nearly four o'clock when Damien and Jake got to Gongjang. Hailing a friend, Jake pushed onto the tiny dance floor. Damien bought a bottle of water and sat down on the sofa beneath the violent, inedible jam stain on the wall. Staring at that painting would really do a number on his head tonight. He was already half-regretting his decision to take Sam's E.

The music, however, was sublime: an insinuating mix of techno-trance and battery-acid jazz. The crowd was throbbing like a blood-blister, but thinning enough to let the dancers shine. As another wave of his E high warmed his sternum, Damien rose and sidled over to Jake. A blonde girl was dancing in front of him. He tried to side-step her and she turned to face him for a moment. The impact of her smile nearly knocked him off his feet.

The room was wobbling, his head was spinning. It was like the girl had sucker-punched him, right back into that black funnel he'd spent years trying to scramble out of. His dad was there too, gazing at a parade of blonde girls swinging by, saying sadly over and over,
That could have been our Jess, couldn't it, Damien
?

NO, NO, IT COULDN'T, DAD
, Damien had always wanted to shout. No girl Damien had ever met or seen—on telly, in a magazine, in real life, wherever—none of them could ever have matched Jessica; she was peerless. And she was never going to grow up either. She would be a little girl, always. If he did manage, on occasion, to pull her image out of that black hole he kept her in, she was unchanging, but ever-shining. Like a crystal. A hard star that would never burn out.

But now, here, in front of him, Jessica had blossomed back into flesh.

Her face fixed in a tight expression of private intent, the blonde slowly rotated her hips. Her hair was streaming down her naked back, and an alto sax cajoled sweat and honey from her limbs. Then, as the music built up momentum, she started head-banging and her glinting hair filled the air. She was Jessica, grown up; Jessica concentrating; Jessica dancing; Jessica shutting out the world.

As Damien stared, a Korean skinhead moved in close to the blonde and raised his sculptured arms above his head. As if feeding off each other's energy, they twisted and touched, grooving, shimmying, shaking, bumping hips.

A dancer pushed past Damien to the bar, jolting him out of his trance. He reached into the sea of bodies, wrenched Jake off the dance floor and pressed his mouth to his friend's ear. “Jake, that girl, right there, see her?”

“Yesh, mate, I shee her, oh by Jove, I shertainly do,” Jake slurred.

“Do you know her?” Damien tried not to shout.

“Good grief! Itsh my maiden auntie!”

“No, really, is she a friend of anyone's?” He didn't care that he sounded desperate.

“I wish; I can but wish.” His eyes rolling around like marbles, Jake beamed down the cleavage of a girl in front of him.

Feeling ridiculous, Damien let go of his friend, but Jake moved in closer. “Looksh like she's got a boyfriend, old chap. Shome of them do go native, y'know.”

“She just looked familiar, that's all,” Damien muttered.

Jake clapped him on the back. “She'sh a model, goofus. She'sh on all the VidAds. In gold make-up? You must've sheen her a million times.”

He peered at her again through the crowd: yeah, Jake was right, she was the GrilleTex
^TM
girl. He just hadn't recognized her without the gold leaf plastered all over her face.

Fuck it—minor celebs, who needed 'em? And what was the point of meeting her, anyway? Why risk getting himself wound up over Jessica all over again? Since he'd got into the swing of things in Seoul he'd had just one dream about her and then nothing, nada, no more screaming in his head, no more vast empty feelings in his gut . . . And really, he was happy to let things stay that way.

He let Jake pull him back onto the dance floor as the model and her Korean boyfriend hugged and headed over to the bar.

As the night wore on the music segued from Nu-Destruction tinged with soul to disco dipped in cream. All Damien wanted to do was lose himself on the dance floor, but it felt as if he were hypnotized: he just couldn't stop watching the blonde model flirt with her Korean friends. Okay, she was younger than Jessica would be now, but she was his sister to a T: everything from the tip of her nose to the angles of her elbows. That was Jessica bossing the boys about; Jessica singing along to a pop song; Jessica hugging the huge white teddy bear on the stool underneath the speaker. Like a record stylus skidding out of control, Damien's mind lurched
between the nightclub in front of him and a distant place he'd once called home.

With a start, he realized he was crying.
Crying?
This was too much—this wasn't normal. He was on
E,
for fuck's sake; he was supposed to feel
ecstatic
. But he was sweating now, a burning, freezing sweat that dripped sour sizzling droplets down his chest and into his stomach.
His stomach.
Oh no—oh yes—

Damien barged into the men's bog, elbowed aside a Korean surf-punk and spewed up into a sink. The jet of vomit seared the back of his throat, but instantly his head felt clearer and his stomach light as air. He rinsed his mouth out, then the sink, and stared at himself in the mirror.
Christ, Day, don't go psycho on me now.
Breathe.
That's better. Take a chill-pill. Breathe.

Back in the club, the skinhead and his friends were propping up the bar by themselves, watching the blonde as she returned to the dance floor alone. Calmly, Damien wove his way back to the sofa to find his bottle of water. The blonde was about twenty, he reckoned. She was very cute, but she had a boyfriend. And it wasn't her fault she looked like his dead twin sister. He had to leave her well alone.

“Hey, Dames, wanna share a cab home?” Jake slurred in his ear, and yeah, it was probably time to go. But then an ancient, way-too-loud Blur song sawed the air in two and the blonde was prancing right in front of them, promising to do all the boys . . .

“That's your cue, buddy,” Jake snickered.

“Nah,” Damien muttered, but Jake gave him a wicked sidelong smile and a shove.

He staggered into the blonde's arms. She pushed him off her. They made eye-contact. Her glance punched him in the heart, but she just kept grinning and twirling, and behind him, Jake cackled with laughter.

The tight weave of the crowd had loosened and all those remaining in the nightclub were able at last to survey the spaces between each other, to assess the multiplicity of ways that emptiness could shift and loop and morph. Blur drowned in the oceanic currents of deep house, and the music, impure and never simple, at last attained a lustrous peace. As Damien danced with the blonde, a monumental black man, a techno-titan, shimmied around them, birthing new worlds of music and movement from the drops of sweat he wiped from his brow. A lean Korean taunted the room, two green
Glo-sticks never still for a moment in his hands. A posse of skateboarding dudes kept the flow above and below, while an Indian woman in a tight black and white dress brandished her cigarette like a torchlight of approval.

Chucking up had been the best thing he'd done in weeks. Damien's high was subliminal now. He lifted his bottle of water to his lips and the blonde stretched out her hand—to request a sip or to drench herself with the whole thing; he didn't care. She tipped her head back too quickly, spilling water down her chin, then she smiled and rolled her eyes and wiped away the shining liquid with the back of her hand.

“Thanks,” she mouthed, and he recovered sufficiently to smile back as she waved him goodbye, slipping back through the crowd to her barstool and her three creepy friends. Then Jake was pulling at his sleeve: time to go. Yeah, while he was still glowing, floating, radiating love, charged with awe at the amazing powers of a Universe that resurrected people, brought them back to you in all their beauty and glory. His panic ten minutes previously felt like a million years ago. And now it all made sense, why he'd dreamed about Jessica, why she'd followed him on to that Han Air flight. She'd been telling him to watch out—he was destined to meet
this girl
.

It was six-thirty and Sydney was out on the street again, blinking in the woozy light. Jin Sok flagged a taxi and offered her a ride, but she knew where she was and her flat was only ten minutes' walk away. He kissed her goodbye, jumped in and was gone.

Savoring the sight of the cotton-puff clouds in the east, she stopped for a moment on the steps of a designer clothing shop. She was just about to move on when someone slid an arm across her shoulders and stuck a small, stiff thumb in her mouth.

Her heart pounding, she twisted around. Jae Ho was behind her, chuckling. “I sorry, Sy-duh-nee. I frighten you?”

“No,” she lied, adrenalin racing through her body. But he wasn't threatening her. He was Jin Sok's friend, his eyes twinkling as he watched her recompose herself, and as she jutted out her chin and assessed his stance in return, she felt the shock to her system transform into the slow burn of interest.

He looked good in the daylight. Fit and alert. Impulsively, she stroked his T-shirt. His stomach was broad and hard beneath the soft cotton. Laughing, he grasped her wrist and dragged her hand down to his groin; she gasped, and pulled away. He let go. Held her gaze.
It was a dare. She reached for his thumb, pulled it to her mouth and bit the firm tip.

“Ni-suh, Sy-duh-nee,” he approved, pulling her to him by the waist. “So bad girl.”