Seoul Survivors (24 page)

“Where's Su Jin?” Dr. Tae Sun cast an anxious look down the table to the empty place beside Mee Hee. “It's not like her to be late for breakfast.”

At the next table Dr. Dong Sun was counting heads, lips moving, head nodding as he scanned the room. Her hands hidden in her lap, Mee Hee dug her fingernails into her palms.

“I haven't seen her this morning,” she said, hoping her voice wasn't quavering. That was true, wasn't it? She hadn't seen Su Jin since the sun came up, had she?

“Maybe she went for a walk,” suggested Young Ha.

“That's not like Su Jin either,” Older Sister guffawed. Some of the other women tittered, but Dr. Tae Sun shook his head with a worried sigh.

“There's no use everyone's food getting cold,” Dr. Dong Sun said firmly, getting up from the table. “Eat, everyone. I'll take a look around the village.”

The other women tucked into their egg-rice, chatting about the new looms, but the space at Mee Hee's side chilled her whole body, and her heart felt as empty as the brown bowl next to hers. She looked up at Dr. Tae Sun for comfort, but he was pale and distracted, his forehead crumpled, his mouth pinched. She kept her head down after that, barely able to chew, concentrating only on her throbbing palms. She wanted just to melt away, to become invisible. She would work nonstop in the garden all day, weeding, digging, doing the most back-breaking tasks.

But as the cooks were clearing away the dishes, Dr. Dong Sun returned and came over to her side. “I couldn't find her,” he said, not unkindly. “Let's go back to your house. She might have returned there after I checked.”

She nodded mutely and together they left the meeting hall and walked down the path. The morning was warm and humid, but the chill in her left side was beginning to numb her whole body. In contrast, her mind was spinning and clattering like a bobbin running out of thread. What on earth was she going to say to Dr. Dong Sun
when they reached the house? He must suspect that she knew he had helped Su Jin escape from—no,
leave
—the village.

With every step, Mee Hee felt colder and dizzier. Of course she would never tell anyone that Dr. Dong Sun knew where Su Jin was—she had promised Su Jin, and besides, Dr. Dong Sun would just deny it. Who would Dr. Kim believe, after all: a peasant woman, or her treasured doctor? But she couldn't tell him that his secret was safe with her without revealing that she knew what he had done, and that could be very dangerous. If Dr. Dong Sun thought for even a moment that Mee Hee might betray him, he could blame her for everything—he could say that she and Su Jin had stolen the money for the bus fare.

No, even if it meant she never had word of Su Jin again, it was better that Dr. Dong Sun thought she was as ignorant as all the other women. Feeling calmer, Mee Hee mounted the steps to her veranda. Dr. Dong Sun's tread crunched behind her on the twigs she had neglected to sweep away before breakfast.

“Su Jin?” she called out tentatively, as they crossed the threshold, half-daring to believe that she might have changed her mind and returned, but the
maru
room was just as she had left it: tidy and, apart from a ladybird crawling busily over the azalea, lifeless. As Dong Sun poked his head into the kitchen, the ladybird spread its shiny black-spotted red wings and flew away.

“She's not here,” Dong Sun announced, looking up at the rafters as if Su Jin might be hiding above their heads like a vengeful spirit.

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Mee Hee lowered her eyes. So far she hadn't had to lie. “Last night.”

“What time?”

“When we went to bed.”

“And you didn't hear her leave?”

Dr. Dong Sun was as still as a gecko, his eyes steady and quiet behind his glasses. “I was dreaming,” Mee Hee heard herself say. “I heard her getting up in the dark. I thought she was going to the bathroom. When I woke up she was gone.”

Dr. Dong Sun nodded. “I expect you thought she was out walking, that you'd see her at breakfast.”

Her heart gulped.
Yes
, she tried to say,
yes, thank you. That is what I'll tell Dr. Kim.
Dumbly, she nodded.

“That's fine, Mee Hee,” Dr. Dong Sun said warmly. “I know you're upset—but don't worry, Su Jin has a strong character; we both know
she can take care of herself. Come, let's see if Dr. Tae Sun's found her in the garden.”

But Dr. Tae Sun was standing sadly at the gate, his hair in disarray, sweat patches staining the armpits of his shirt. “She's not here, and the gardeners haven't seen her,” he blurted to his brother.

Mee Hee turned away from the neat rows of carrots and stared into the dark gaps between the trees that spread for miles, up to the top of the mountain and down into the valley. Su Jin was gone, and she was never coming back.

Before the weaving session that afternoon, the doctors called a meeting of all the women. Su Jin hadn't returned from her morning walk, Dr. Dong Sun told them, but the women were not to panic; the woods were perfectly safe and there had never been crimes or violence near the village. Probably she had tripped, perhaps broken her ankle. Search parties had been organized, the gardeners and the cooks' husbands would look for her. For the time being the women should stick close to the houses. There was no use someone else getting lost.

“It's the outhouse spirits,” Older Sister loudly declared. “She didn't believe in them, and now they've sucked her down head-first into the compost!”

“Please, Older Sister!” said Mee Hee's next-door neighbor, Cho So Ra. “Can't you see Mee Hee is upset?” She put her arm around Mee Hee, who wasn't the only one crying.

“We must all pray for Su Jin,” Younger Sister said softly.

“Yes,” chipped in Young Ha. “After weaving, we can pray or meditate together in the Hall. Would you like that, Mee Hee?”

Mee Hee's tongue was as dry as straw. Her sisters were so loving and kind, but she was a traitor, deceiving them, letting them all worry that Su Jin was dead or captured by bandits or lost and frightened in the woods. Still, Su Jin did need their prayers, out there alone, on her way to that big roaring dragon of a city.

“Yes, let's do that,” she whispered.

The doctors smiled.

“That's a wonderful idea,” Dr. Dong Sun said, “and just what Dr. Kim would like you all to do. She is fully aware of the situation, and she is also praying for Su Jin.”

“Can we return to the looms later, Dr. Dong Sun?” Young Ha asked. “I think we should ask God to help us right now.”

The women divided into groups, sitting in circles to pray or meditate. Mee Hee sat next to So Ra and tried to breath slowly and deeply.
Please, Household Spirits
, she asked silently,
please Buddha, please Baby Jesus, please Virgin Mary. Let Su Jin come home. Please let Su Jin change her mind and come back home
.

Supper was subdued. Rumors had begun to circulate, about a strange man in the forest. Older Sister swore he had exposed himself to the cook's daughter a year ago—tried to entice her into a cave, even. Some of the women spoke in praise of Su Jin, her intelligence and fearlessness, but Mee Hee sat silently, stirring her noodles with her chopsticks. If only she hadn't woken up last night, then she wouldn't be experiencing this intolerable pressure in her chest, this terrible feeling in her stomach like a hundred little knives trying to slice their way out of her. She could so easily comfort her sisters, but instead she was protecting someone who didn't care about any of them.

Mee Hee put her chopsticks down. Under the table, she felt with her fingertips for the small red-crescent ridges in her palm. As the day went on, terrible thoughts had been growing in her mind: Su Jin hadn't been going to tell her, Mee Hee, that she was leaving. Su Jin wouldn't have minded if Mee Hee thought she was dead. Su Jin had never loved or trusted her. Su Jin had thought she was a stupid, backward peasant. Su Jin was laughing at her now. As her fingernails bit again into her palm she broke into a cold sweat.

“Mee Hee isn't well,” So Ra said.

“Do you want to go and lie down?” Dr. Tae Sun asked in concern, and when she nodded, he said kindly, “Go and rest. I'll come and check up on you later.”

Bowing to the table, Mee Hee excused herself and left the Hall.

Back at the house, she lay miserably on her bed, half-listening to the drilling chorus of the crickets in the paddies, fingering the bluebird pin that Su Jin had given her in Beijing.
Hope
, she had said it meant hope, but Mee Hee felt drained of hope, of life, of all sensation except a dank, clammy feeling of dread.

She forced herself to sit up and look at the bluebird, caged in her fingers on her lap. When she opened her hands, the brooch caught the light from the bedside lamp and the enamel glinted like Su Jin's eyes when she was excited or insistent, shone like her blue-black hair after she had washed it and was letting Mee Hee comb it out. The bird was beautiful, but now it was meaningless. It was a joke, a cruel joke, a false bird, made of lead, that could never fly, never sing, never make a nest.

Reaching over to the table by her
yo
, Mee Hee turned the photograph of Dr. Kim so that it was facing Su Jin's bed. Then she undid the clasp of the pin. The point was sharp as a needle. Swiftly, she stabbed it into her forearm. A sizzle of pain shot up her arm. She removed the pin and a tiny liquid ruby rose to the surface of her skin. Quickly, before the heat in her veins could evaporate, she jabbed herself again. She was just lifting the pin to bring it down into her flesh for a third time when there was a knock on the front door.

“Mee Hee,” Dr. Tae Sun called out, “are you awake?”

She pulled her sleeve down over the droplets of blood. “Coming. Right away.”

Tae Hung Dong was under attack. Noise and glare ricocheted off the buildings and down the street; metal gates clanged open and shut, cocks were crowing,
ajummas
clucking, kids shrieking. A psalm was blasting from the church on the corner, competing for volume with a strawberry salesman in a blue Hyundai truck, blaring his prices out from a megaphone. Damien winced and put on his sunglasses. Sundays in the Dong: sheer cacophony. Normally he stayed home, cocooned in his expensive-but-essential-present-to-self sound-reduction headphones until he had to leave for his evening privates.

At least it wasn't raining. It had chucked it down for most of August, like it did every year, according to Jake, but today should be nice for a stroll in the park. If he was going to make it that far he needed more caffeine. He stopped at the Nescafé machine outside the DVD shop, plugged in a thousand
won
and pressed
milk coffee
. The recycled paper cuplet dropped down and a moment later the whiz of pre-mixed instant java hit the bottom. Brilliant. He reached in and grabbed the cup, remembering too late that there was always a pause and then a second stream of water. The extra jet rushed, wasted, through the grate. Shit. There were barely two centimeters of caffeine in his cup, a pathetic insult to his system.

He shoved his cup back between the plastic pincers and fed in another couple of coins—and watched as another paper cup was ejected down into his.
Fuck.
The twin jets of boiling water pushed it further in, at an awkward angle. Then the two cups jammed in the pincers.

It was impossible to retrieve them through the sliding plastic door.

His knuckles scraped for his efforts, his foot sore from kicking the machine, a vein throbbing in his forehead, Damien finally had to concede failure: once again a ruthless mechanical process had triumphed over simple human needs.

No. He would
not
be beaten. By forcing the second cup down to the bottom of the first, he finally managed to extricate them, spilling hot coffee all over his hands in the process.
Fuck. Fuck. Triple fuck
. He set the cups on top of the machine and stepped into the
convenience store to ask for a tissue. Fortunately, this was one of the Korean words he knew,
hyu-gee
. As in
hyu-gee
Grant. And
hyu-gee
pain in the arse.

For his labors and burns he got an extra half-centimeter of coffee. At least he'd stopped yawning by the time the taxi let him off in front of Pagoda Park.

Sydney was squatting in front of an old man sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, cooing over a cardboard box full of fluffy yellow chicks. For a moment something like panic twitched in his gut. He hesitated.
Get a grip
, he told himself fiercely,
she's just a girl you've met in a club—and she has some work for you
.

“Hi Sydney,” he said.

“Aren't they
adorable
?” She turned to face him, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. She didn't appear to be wearing a bra beneath her pink halter-top.

“They're mutants,” he warned her. “Seconds from the chicken factory. Fucked-up clones, or males—one of my students told me. The runts will die in a week, and the males all get killed anyway—that's why this old geezer has them.”

“No, I don't believe that. Look—they're perfect.” She seemed younger than he'd thought, maybe just twenty?

The old
ajosshi
ignored them and raised his arm to attract the attention of passing Koreans. Sydney stood up. She looked a bit peaky, with dark rims beneath her eyes, but at the same time she was almost quivering with that unreal animation hard-going party girls often got the day after, a sort of spaced-out second wind when they wanted to fuck all day and you just wanted to smoke dope and listen to Japanese experimental music.

“
Kamsahamnida, agosshi
,” she said to the old man, then took Damien's arm. She smelled of vanilla and oranges, and no, she definitely wasn't wearing a bra. “Well, I wish I could have one, even if it was a psychopathic serial-killer rooster without any claws. But I wouldn't know how to take care of it and I'd be too sad if it died.”

“Better start off with a Tamagotchi then. They're coming back in.”

“Really, for like the fourth time?”

“They have Korean ones now,” he told her, “rock stars you have to send to rehearsal and keep off drugs or else they fail to climb the charts. Psychologists thought that killing off electronic babies was too damaging for middle-school girls.”

She laughed, and put her sunglasses back on.

What was he doing, thinking about her breasts when she was about sixteen and her mouth was the spit of Jessica's? He had to go steady, have a cuppa, then get on to his evening class.

They walked to Insa Dong along chalky paths that wove around patches of grass and trees in Pagoda Park. The intersections were studded with statues of imaginary beasts, crosses between wild cats and armadillos. Under trellises in the shade, old men moved black and white stones across
baduk
boards, read newspapers or just sat quietly, their hands resting on their canes, a glassy, faraway look in their eyes. Most were wearing suits that had seen better days, the material thin and fading, like their faces. Two barbers had set up chairs in a corner and were busy trimming and shaving the elders.

Sydney pressed up against him. “Free haircuts for Korean War Veterans,” she told him. “My friend Jin Sok told me.”

Damien couldn't stop himself. “Is he the bald guy? At Gongjang?”

“Yeah, he's the photographer on my main modeling contract.”

Was he just imagining it, or was she casting him an amused look? Christ, how bloody pathetic was he, interrogating a girl he'd only known ten minutes about her friends?

“Hey, do you smell pot?” She was whispering now—and yeah, there was a whiff of something herbal in the air. “Where the hell is it coming from?” She took a few steps down an avenue of stunted pine trees and Damien followed, glad of the shade. Ahead of them stood the stone pagoda that gave the park its name. Centuries old and crumbling, surrounded by scaffolding, it resembled the fossilized spine of some ancient Gentle Giant. Indistinct images of Buddha were carved between the vertebrae.

They stood at its base and sniffed.

“There?” Damien gestured at a circle of tables set up by the back wall of the park. They ventured closer, to where Korean acupuncturists were treating elderly men and women, inserting dozens of small steel pins into their hands until they stood proud, metal harvests springing from gnarled, leathery soil. Crumpled tissue swabs blotched with brown blood stains littered the tabletops.

“This place is a bloody geriatric amusement park,” Damien joked.

“Whoah!” Sydney gasped. “Look at that.”

Beyond the tables, a small group of patients were standing around a grill where sheaves of herbs were burning over the coals. The Koreans were braising their hands, thick with needles, over the
heat, turning them slowly to allow the smoke to penetrate the rows of tiny perforations on both sides.

“Barbecued flesh,” Damien said. “I had no idea it smelled so much like pot!”

“Are you from London?” Sydney asked, abruptly.

Images from the news flashed into his head: people with no skin, or covered with tattoos in the patterns of the clothes they had been wearing. He shoved them aside. “No, Brighton, on the south coast. They're getting fall-out, but hey, the government says it's within the health and safety limits.”

“Lucky you're here, hey?” she said, quietly. Then she slapped his arm lightly. “Let's go celebrate that fact.”

Sydney took him to one of Insa Dong's famous teashops, a place with rounded walls and a log roof. The windows were obscured with dark green potted palms that reminded Damien of Mexico; the tables separated by an old railway track, complete with signal lights. Secluded in a cushioned booth, they ordered ginseng tea. As they waited, Sydney launched into tales of excess in the Apkuchong fashion world, where other models would scratch your eyes out soon as look at you, and Jin Sok, who turned out to be gay, was “her rock.” He was tired, and let her prattle on. She'd been scouted in Vancouver, she said, but was from a small town on the British Columbian coast, not far from a pig farm where some whacko had murdered a zillion prostitutes.

What would Sydney think, he wondered, if he asked her birth date?

Christ, he had to drop it, right now.
She's
not
Jessica
, he told himself fiercely,
so get that fucking ridiculous notion out of your head
. She was a cute, glitzy starlet, and maybe the reason she'd come into his life was to reassure him that Canadian girls could be sexy as hell. “Are you planning to go back soon? I've heard BC's great,” he ventured.

“No way—oh hey, wow!” The waitress set down two celadon cups of pale tea. Bits of ginseng root were floating on top. Sydney blew on the steaming tea, then opened her purse.

“Here's Dr. Kim's card—the scientist? She's
kyopo
, so there's no language problems.”

“Genetic Research International Productions,” Damien read out loud. “Sounds dodgy. So what's she after, then?”

Sydney pursed her lips. “She's not dodgy. She's doing really important work, trying to stop diseases.” There was an awkward pause.

Damien was on the point of apologizing when she leaned over the table. Her voice was a little husky now, confidential. “But she also does fertility treatments. I donated some eggs last month to help foreigners in Korea have babies. She's looking for sperm too. She pays half a million
won
, but I bet you could talk her up.”

Damien whistled silently in his head. So she was a real Canadian after all: save the whale, save the baby seals, save the Rocky Mountains, save the infertile foreigners in Korea. Examining the card, he thought through the offer. Half a million would be a nice chunk to add to his fund . . . but no, it would be crazy to squirt his genetic identity into some test tube—especially right before he got his new passport. Still, he didn't want to hurt Sydney's feelings.

“Sounds like a lot of money for a wank,” he joked.

Sydney was looking up at him from beneath her lashes, like a cross between Darla the Vampire and a cockapoo puppy. “It's not just a—a
wank
,” she pouted.

He pocketed the card. “Well, who knows; maybe I'll give her a call.”

“It's really easy work,” she persisted, “especially for guys.”

She was just a kid, and she was just trying to be nice. But Christ, he had to get her off his case. “Look, Sydney, it takes just one tiny change in the law and all those stray sperm are wiggling right back home to Daddy. I've got nothing against helping people; I just don't want some spotty kid turning up on my doorstep nineteen years from now demanding I put him through university.”

“It's not like that here—Da Mi is totally confidential.” Scarily, there was a touch of Nurse Ratchet creeping into Sydney's expression.

Damien lifted his teacup to his lips. He felt like biting the translucent green china. Jessica had always put on her heavy-duty face whenever she wanted him to do her bidding.

Abruptly, Sydney changed the subject. “Are you teaching English here?”

“Depends who's asking.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to pry.”

There was another strained pause, and Damien realized he might have offended her. She was just making small-talk, after all. Apart from Jake, Canadians didn't always get his sense of humor. Though, to be fair, he had sounded snarky. Christ, he had to lighten up.

“I'm just taking the piss. Yeah, I'm teaching, kids mainly.”

Sydney perked up. “Do you like it?”

“Sure, what's not to like? Half the time it's just a big love-fest; the other half I play the heavy and they have to obey my every command. I should have started doing it years ago.”

That made her smile. Her eyes were an amazing shade of green, like limes with gold pips. They looked extra bright when she smiled.

“Aren't you worried about Immigration?” she asked.

“Nah. I've only heard of one kindergarten getting busted, and my privates are all in Chamshil. The heat's off there now, so I'm just getting on with it really. What about you?”

“Oh, I have a work visa. My modeling agent got me a contract.” She thought a moment, then said, “Hey, Chamshil—do you ever swim at the Olympic pool?”

“I get there too late. My Chamshil jobs are from five to nine and the pool closes at six. It's a bit of a pisser, really. I used to go in the sea in Brighton.”

“Do you think you still would? I mean, do you believe the government about the radiation?”

He didn't want to think about Brighton. “Who knows?”

“I'd like to go to London.” Sydney asserted. “When it's safe again.”

Why were people so fucking desperate to visit London? Maybe the Mayor
had
organized those bombs. “London's just a maze of overpriced shops and overrated museums filled with tourists, terrorists and riot police,” he told her, tetchily. “And it rains all the time. Total mono-season. You'd be far better off back in Canada.”

“Canada?” Sydney wrinkled her nose. “I'm having way more fun here.” She nodded dreamily. “Umm. I love these bits of ginseng in the tea.”

Damien chewed on the bitter root and found his mouth puckering. This lunch was fizzling out. But then again, he was exhausted.

Sydney yawned. “I gotta get home and crash. Wanna swap numbers? We could go to a movie sometime maybe?” She sounded eager now, a little vulnerable, as if he might refuse.

She must be lonely, Damien realized. She's kooky, definitely; bossy, a bit; but pretty and lonely and mostly the right kind of nice. She hadn't said anything about high school or poker, after all.