Tongue (14 page)

From the bar, a woman I know waves at me. She’s a news anchor who often comes to Nove and eats only the crusts when she eats bread because she’s afraid of gaining weight. I almost don’t recognize Chef, who’s sitting next to her. He doesn’t like to come to these events. If Mun-ju hadn’t asked us to cater it, he might not have come at all. After discussions with the magazine, we decided to go with scent as the party’s theme. You can’t neglect the preferences of the people attending the event you cater. My strategy in catering events is to put out a few memorable and special dishes that are light but filling. An adjective hides behind the word “scent”—sensual. Sensuality triggers a desire to touch and eat, awakening the senses. The sense of smell is powerful, the sense most closely linked to taste. From a cook’s point of view, the scent of food is a necessity for skinny women who avoid eating. Tonight many known gourmets have come to the party. It’s important to sate them and tickle their taste buds, but you shouldn’t completely satisfy them. If they’re satisfied, they’ll want something better. You have to leave some expectation for the next course. It’s important to make food that sustains the appetite. Gourmets are capricious, preferring to eat out and be critics instead of cooking at home, wanting to experience even more flavors and desiring satisfaction from food that doesn’t exist. They are finicky and demanding and temperamental, but I need them.

For the first dish of the buffet, I have prepared oysters. It’s not the peak season for oysters because this is when they breed, but at least it’s not June or July, when they lay eggs. There’s no need to make many appetizers. It’s sufficient to use sight and smell to lightly awaken the appetite before the actual meal. I place lemon-spritzed oysters on the half shell between ice carvings
surrounding a large fountain of ice. Fresh oysters emit a marine-fresh smell, and the lemon juice hints at tropical fruit ripened in the sun. I also have a ceviche of olive-oil-marinated turbot garnished with chopped shallots and caviar that goes well with the white wine we’re serving with the oysters. It’s an appetizer that will turn heads: the white turbot, light-purple shallots, the pink fig sauce, the shiny black caviar.

The mains are salmon with scallop sauce and rib eye with sauce périgueux. I purposely don’t make enough for everyone. Even if you give it out for free, if there’s too much food it doesn’t look pricey or fresh. For those who will be coming late, I prepare light bite-size sandwiches, canapés of cheese, caviar, and paprika, cinnamon-sprinkled ravioli filled with watercress and melon, and dark-red cherries. And also dessert, which can never be omitted. The colors of my dishes are varied and gorgeous and sensual, evocative of the theme of scent. The chocolate at the end of the buffet table contains over 90 percent cacao. It’s chocolate that’s almost a drug—even a tiny bite will intoxicate. I sprinkle powder from this chocolate onto ice cream made from cheese and fresh cream. It would have been very expensive if Mun-ju hadn’t gotten the vendors to sponsor the event.

I got a present for Mun-ju, a black vase shaped like a squat candlestick decorated with red roses and ivy, which she placed in the middle of the buffet table. Amid the warm, silken food and the flowers and the sparkling, jewel-like crystal stemware, the guests eat and drink and talk and laugh and hug and blow away smoke and dance in a way that makes even the smallest movements look erotic. Mun-ju, wearing a breezy chiffon dress, is acting the hostess, flushed, mingling. She winks when our eyes meet, to say, It’s perfect, it’s a smash! Everyone is laughing and everyone is giving off a fragrance. In the center is the table draped with a white cloth and on top are my dishes, the product of several days of planning and preparation.

I break away from the crowd and lean against the wall and start drinking cold, salty margaritas. It’s fine to get a little tipsy on a day like this. My lips burn, soaked in alcohol and salt. I push a canapé into my mouth. I pop the caviar with the tip of my tongue. I feel sweetness, saltiness. Even though I put just a morsel into my mouth, I sink completely into the caviar’s unique and vivid taste, as if I’m a butterfly with taste organs on its front legs, sensing sweetness if one leg touches nectar. The music continues to play and it’s as if the party is never going to end. I didn’t eat a bite all evening because I was cooking. I should eat something. I fetch another margarita and down it quickly.

I think I smell a burning cube of sugar. Is it the scent of a violet? The fragrance that blooms disappears, then opens. The smell of Se-yeon’s perfume. Marjoram. Is she here? Midsniff, I open my eyes wide. The anchor who was at the bar is swishing by me. Her perfume swirls in the air like a long breath and dissipates slowly. The intense scent lingers like the fluids left on after-sex bedsheets, the smell that captivated him. The fragrance throws me off balance, appearing in an unexpected place. Do I give off a scent, too? I stick my hand, still wet and swollen, into my pocket. The most sensual of aromas is the essence of a young raven fed only boiled eggs for forty days, then killed and preserved in myrtle and almond oil. The smell that all women want to give off and that all men want. Musk is altogether too common, but it excites people instinctually. In Elizabethan times, women slipped a peeled apple between their arms and, when it was soaked in sweat, gave it to their lovers to smell. Smell is the longest-lasting memory. People stay and go, but smell transcends time. The smell of an apple soaked in sweat, the scent of a raven killed after a diet of boiled eggs. I want to be like these extreme pheromones, creating explosions of taste. I don’t want to be helpless, stumbling like this.

“Haven’t you had too much to drink today?” Chef comes and sits next to me.

“Didn’t you say I could take tomorrow off?”

“You’re going to burn out if you work like this.”

I feel him looking at me. I pour some Almaviva, a Chilean wine, into his glass and pick mine up. Almaviva is named after the character in
The Barber of Seville
, popular at festivities. The wine glides gently down my throat—multiple layers of velvet. I don’t think I’m drunk yet. “Those people, they look really happy.”

“It’s a party. There’s wine and food.”

“Yes. Weddings always end with a reception, and there’s cake for birthdays.”

“Because it’s social.”

“What is?”

“Food.”

I’m quiet.

“Like you need food when you do business.”

I nod. I think I know what he’s talking about. Like people make offerings for religious ceremonies.

“Is everything okay with you these days?” Chef asks.

“Everything’s fine.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s just—I can’t sleep very well.”

“… About Mido.”

“Yes?”

“They decided to hold their meetings at the restaurant from now on.”

I’m confused.

“It’s because of you. The food was good that night.”

I’m quiet.

“Good job.”

“… Thank you.”

“I just wanted to say that.” Chef looks away, toward the front of the room. I pick up my wineglass again and take a deep gulp. Chef complimented me for the first time a little before I quit Nove, four years ago. The first time I heard praise from the mentor who taught me for more than ten years. This is the second time. The wine becomes hotter and heavier. Am I getting drunk? It doesn’t matter even if I am. It doesn’t matter even if I want to cry.
Good job
. His voice echoes in my ears. My chest is burning up. I’m not happy. I bow my head. As if to admit to myself for the first time how much power Chef has over me.

“Paulie’s dead.”

Chef is stunned.

Seok-ju came by two nights ago.

He had to explain Paulie’s death to me, and he knew that a phone conversation wouldn’t suffice. Looking reluctant but knowing there was no way around it, he timed his arrival to when I got home. He rang the bell and waited for the door to open, and finally, five minutes later, he walked in. He went around the dimly lit house and put Paulie’s blanket, empty plastic bottle that was his toy, Frisbee, comb, cleanser, shampoo in a bag. They were things I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. When the dog smell on the sofa, cushions, and rug disappears, all traces of Paulie’s life here will be gone.

I understood Paulie’s death. My dog happened to die, and that’s all there is to it. Animals want to mark their territory when they go to a new place. It’s their instinct. Cats leave their scent by rubbing their faces on everything, and a badger drags his anus on the ground. A dog gets used to a place by urinating. Nobody likes an old dog that roams around a perfect house and urinates everywhere. And Se-yeon never liked dogs in the first place. Finally she pushed Paulie into the bathroom and closed
the door. When Seok-ju came home he took walks with Paulie, but because of her he kept him locked in the bathroom. The dog with whom he had spent the most difficult time of his life. He tried to convince Paulie and to train him. But an old dog can’t adapt to a new place. Because he already has his established ways. There were two more bathrooms downstairs, so they had no reason to open that door unless it was to take Paulie out. Leaving for Kuwait on a business trip, he pleaded with Se-yeon to walk Paulie once a day. Three days passed. She forgot about him. Paulie didn’t let out a single moan, and when she finally remembered and threw open the bathroom door, he expressed his anger by flinging himself at her.

The last Sunday of April when he came to pick Paulie up, Se-yeon came with him. But she didn’t look like she wanted to come into the house. We stood in the yard while he went inside to get Paulie. Se-yeon said she would try her best with him, but she wasn’t confident. She adjusted her sunglasses and added, I’m sorry.

Just as she didn’t want to come into the house, Paulie balked at leaving it. Se-yeon and I stood side by side for a while. I gave her some advice about Paulie. If Paulie is agitated or violent, don’t ever look him in the eyes; if he comes near in a threatening way, she should stand still like a tree. With her feet together and her hands around her neck and her elbows touching her chest. The neutral stance that demonstrates to the dog that you mean no harm. So, like a tree, I said. I guess I would look a little stupid like that, Se-yeon replied, and it’s possible that we nodded and smiled a little.

Paulie probably wanted to express how angry he was. A dog expresses himself like a dog. With his mouth wide open, showing his canines, he jumped toward Se-yeon’s neck. Because it’s a good place to lightly bite and let go. Se-yeon, in terror, instinctively slammed Paulie’s head with what she had in her
hand—a skillet. A dog and a human have to understand each other’s language, and that didn’t exist between Paulie and her. Paulie’s sharp, pointy teeth were about to touch her neck and she swung her arm and hit Paulie’s head and Paulie dropped to the floor. A dog’s teeth could rip through thick deerskin. She had to protect her life from an angry dog. Trembling with fear, she hit Paulie’s head over and over again with the skillet. Even if the dog merely wants to warn, his teeth are strong enough to gouge a hole into a child’s cheek. Nobody could fault her. She kept pounding and screaming until Paulie was dead, his legs stretched out, blood from the top of his head drenching his thin, soft, silky coat and the floor.

I told her, Like a tree, I said to myself.

He looked at me, wondering what I was talking about.

Please go away now
.

I didn’t want to cry or vomit in front of him. Afraid I would ask him to stay, that I would cling to him saying how difficult it was, I firmly told him again to leave.

It hurts me, too, that things turned out this way, he said, looking down as he slipped his shoes back on.

It’s probably more guilt you’re feeling than hurt, I said, adding, That is, if you’re a human being.

I wave off Chef, who wanted to walk me home, and leave. If he comes to my door I might not be able to say goodbye. I want to cry and sit somewhere. My chest tightens. I have so many things I want to say, about to burst out of my chest. I drank too much. My feet are walking but I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where my house is. It’s May but I’m shivering. If I had a glass of water, I think I could get a grip on myself. I think I’d be able to figure out how to get home. I walk unevenly into the underground walkway as if I’m being sucked in. Large empty boxes are lining either side. I steady myself, a hand on
the wall, and throw up. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Small, black, round grains of sand roll onto my hand. The caviar. They look like ovaries. I have to vomit again. I force myself up and look around for the exit. A man’s head pops out of a box at the end of the line, like a mushroom. The homeless are lying in the lidless boxes, one in each. Yeah, because it’s nighttime. Everyone is sleeping. I have to go home. I try to straighten up and walk in a straight line. The man, who has a cigarette in his mouth, spits outside his cardboard box and glares at me like a wild beast. I stop. I raise the corners of my mouth and smile. The man extinguishes the cigarette. I take a few steps toward him. He tosses the cigarette lightly near my feet, as if to test my reaction. I smile again and raise my eyebrows and widen my eyes. I briefly avert my gaze, then look straight at him again and feign another smile. This is what it’s like, I realize. I tense my legs so I don’t sway. This is what it was? That smile you gave him, I say to Se-yeon. The man gets up from his box and pulls my arm. Let go, I giggle. The man puts his hand over my mouth. I want to sing and drum. Like at the beginning of a festival, when a fire is set on a living sacrifice.
I won’t yell, let go
. I’m tugged into the box. The men in the other boxes peek out and turn their faces away, bored, not interested. The man, breathing hard, pushes my shoulder to the bottom of the box with his knee. I grin.
Don’t hurry. All you have to do is just poke me, like I’m a small fish
. The man, standing in front of me blocking my view, lowers his zipper. A short thick thing with protruding veins nods toward me, close to me, as if it would poke my eyes. Like one of the thousand taste buds on your tongue when you look through a microscope. The living bumps on the tongue, pillars that can discern what is tasty. As if I’m holding on to a lifeline, I grab it with both hands and hang on.
Hey
. I open my mouth.
What do I look like right now? Do I look like a woman? No, no, do I look like a cow or
a pig about to be sacrificed? When you kill a cow you stick a knife deep into its throat. Then hot, thick blood bubbles out. And then you cut off its head. Then you take a hook and spear the tongue to keep it still
. Shit, what’s she mumbling? The man, who is gripping my hair with one hand, fluidly lights a cigarette with his other hand. He exhales into my face. I swallow it. The man knows now. That I can’t leave, that I don’t have a reason to. Tears drop noisily onto the bottom of the box, like the hot, thick blood of a cow.
It’s really so bright here, like the middle of a market, like the butcher’s, where dead animals are laid out under bright lights. I want to be my own sacrifice. Before you kill me, sprinkle flour on my head. Decorate me with cornstalks. Now kill me, eat me up. Or burn me and let me fly away. The smell of me roasting will go up to the sky and make the gods happy. The people who set fire to the sacrificial should shout with glee. I will burn up. I want to die cleanly. I want to be reborn. The flames will push toward me insistently and rage with force and fall slowly calm. I want that pure feeling, the desire of first love. If not, just melt me so I become clear water, what I was in the beginning. I want to erase this pain. Here, here’s my mouth. This is the entrance that shows who I am. Stuff it up, stick a blade into my throat. Shut it up. Hurry up
. Kneeling, holding the huge taste bud with both hands, I open my mouth as wide as I can. It pushes into my mouth without hesitation. But tell me, why was she holding a skillet at that moment? Why was she holding it at that moment? I ask, choking, my eyes searching the air.