Your Republic Is Calling You (13 page)

"Oh, right, you haven't been here since we moved in."

"It's nice and big, perfect for a family of three."

"I took out a loan," Ki-yong said, embarrassed. His embarrassment was part of a complicated mix of emotions. Ki-yong achieved a dream that people born and raised in Seoul were often unable to attain, and now he was bragging about it. He wondered if Jong-hun, his oldest friend in the South, who knew where he'd come from, could detect the snobbery deep within him.

"I'm sure," Jong-hun replied. "Nobody buys a home with cash. So where's the missus and Hyon-mi?"

"Ma-ri's going to be late and Hyon-mi went downtown to cheer on the Korean team with her friends."

"Oh, the kids are going to yell, Goooo Korea," Jong-hun laughed, imitating the popular cheers. "It's been a long time since it was just the two of us." They sat side by side on the sofa and drank beer, snacking on dried squid and seaweed.

Jong-hun ventured, "I still don't really care for seaweed, since we never ate it growing up."

"Yeah, you're right—they didn't grow it in the North. But when you get used to it you really end up liking it. Do you want something else?"

"Do you have dried fish or something like that?"

Ki-yong brought out dried pollack. The South Korean
team, led by Coach Hiddink, was giving the Portuguese a run for their money.

"Remember the 1966 World Cup?" Jong-hun asked.

"The one in London?"

Every single person north of the demilitarized zone knew about this famous game. It was North Korea's best performance in an international setting.

"Choson beat Italy and went up against Portugal in the quarterfinals, remember?"

Choson—the North Koreans' name for their country—was so unfamiliar to Ki-yong's ears after all this time that he was rendered speechless for a minute. "I watched that game over and over when I was a kid," he replied.

"You remember Pak Sung Jin, that player for Chollima Soccer Team? The man who scored in the forty-second minute in the second half against Chile and who scored one against Portugal..."

"Oh, yeah, him."

"He's my uncle."

"Really?" Ki-yong sat up, surprised. Pak Sung Jin, along with Pak Doo Ik, was a North Korean sports hero. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Jong-hun smiled bitterly. "I was afraid people would want me to show them my soccer skills. I'm terrible at sports but if I tell people about my uncle, everyone wants to see how well I play."

"I bet."

"When my uncle came to visit us when I was young, all the kids in the neighborhood came over. My uncle would line them up and toss the ball to each kid, telling them to head it. The kids would bump it with their heads and go back to the line to wait for their next turn."

"Do you think they're watching this game up north?"

"I doubt it. Maybe it will be recorded and shown later."

As the game neared its end, their bodies jerked and tensed with every move on the field. Every time a player took control of the ball, they moaned. Then, when Park Ji-Sung fired a volley into the back of the net they both sprang up from the couch and cheered. But Jong-hun's elation subsided when Park Ji-Sung ran over to the benches and leaped into Guus Hiddink's waiting arms. He sat back down and downed some beer. "I still don't understand it. Why do they need a foreign coach? The players dye their hair and the coaches are foreigners; how can anyone say this team is representing our nation?"

Ki-yong didn't agree with this sentiment, but he didn't refute it either. Nationalism was the backbone of politics, especially in the North. Although the religious worship of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il could be dismantled somehow, nationalism would live on for much longer. Ki-yong's belief solidified every time he saw Jong-hun. Jong-hun might no longer trust or be loyal to the northern government. The childish delusion that everyone in the world revered the Juche Ideology and its creator, Kim Il Sung, must have been shattered soon after he reached the South. But he resisted changing certain values instilled in him from childhood. Jong-hun didn't cede an inch of his belief that the Korean people were superior. In his mind, the Korean people shared a pure, unique bloodline—this belief went far beyond nationalism.

Ma-ri wasn't home even after the South Korean team beat Portugal and cemented its ascent to the top of Group 1. The two friends switched to hard liquor and drank some more. Jong-hun, trying to sound casual but revealing a hidden desperation, blurted: "Do you dream at night? What kind of dreams do you have?"

Ki-yong doesn't remember what he replied. But he does remember being cautious, on guard, knowing it was a dangerous question.

But where did Jong-hun go? Ki-yong tosses his coffee cup in the trash can and starts down the stairs of the Nagwon Arcade.

K
O SONG-UK PLUCKS HIS
copy of Edgar Snow's
Red Star Over China
from his bag and lays it on the table. He thinks the cover of the book, which faintly depicts Mao's chubby face by a convergence of a million little dots on a red background, looks good against the white tablecloth. He leafs through the book to the page he was reading on the subway, the scene where Snow, who followed Mao and the Red Army as he covered the Long March, attended the Red Theater in Pao An. Snow described several one-acts about the resistance against Japan but the part that grabbed Song-uk's attention was something called the Dance of the Red Machines. "By sound and gesture, by an interplay and interlocking of arms, legs, and heads, the little dancers ingeniously imitated the thrust and drive of pistons, the turn of cogs and wheels, the hum of dynamos—and visions of a machine-age China of the future," Snow wrote in 1938. Young dancers miming machines—Song-uk imagines it to be quite a powerful image, and wishes he could have seen it in person.

Song-uk likes the vibe of communism, revolution, the color red, and machinery. These four things go well together. Mao's and Stalin's ideologies seem cooler than Bakunin's anarchism. Song-uk feels mildly turned on when he watches a proud parade of endless gray uniforms marching across a vast square like
Star Wars
clones, flanked by grand architecture, amid the rippling red flags, like a well-oiled, fast-spinning machine—error-free. It's similar to having a fetish for and collecting Third Reich SS uniforms. But he doesn't really want to march across a square with the sun blazing down on him, raising his straightened legs high. He just likes watching the footage on cable documentary channels. It's like discovering 1970s art rock bands that nobody knows about. If he talks about Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, everyone becomes quiet, as if they don't know what to say in response. Song-uk mistakes this silence as awe for his esoteric taste. This is understandable; he is, after all, only twenty years old.

When he glances up, Ma-ri is standing by the table. He lets his eyes linger over her voluptuous chest. He grins at her in greeting. She sits down across from him.

"Have you been waiting long?" Ma-ri asks, putting her purse down.

Song-uk whispers, "You have beautiful breasts."

"Oh, come on," Ma-ri says, narrowing her eyes, but she doesn't seem displeased.

"Still have the cast, huh?"

"Yeah, they're taking it off this weekend."

"It's gotta be so annoying."

"Yeah, it's so itchy!" Ma-ri acts babyish despite herself.

The waitress, wearing a white apron, comes over with the menus. Ma-ri glances through it, then pushes it to the side and looks at Song-uk's copy of
Red Star Over China
sitting on the table.

"
Red Star Over China?
"

"You know this book?" Song-uk asks, surprised.

Ma-ri wonders what she should say.
I know you think I'm a middle-aged woman, but at one point I used to pass a human wall of cops on my way to school, scared, with that book in my bag. And at that time I never even dreamed that this book could
be left out in the open at an Italian restaurant one day.
But of course Ma-ri doesn't say this. She regrets even acknowledging knowing what it is. But it's too late.

"Isn't it about Mo Taek-dong's Long March?"

"You have to call him Mao Tse-tung these days, the Chinese way."

"Same thing."

"You must read a lot."

Ma-ri smiles. "I used to. Not anymore. What are you getting?"

"I'm going to have the seafood risotto. What about you?"

"I don't know. Um ... I ... Oh, this one, the tomato and mozzarella salad."

"You don't want anything else?"

"No, I'm not that hungry." Ma-ri turns her head, and the waitress catches her eye and comes over. She takes out her notepad. It doesn't escape Ma-ri's attention that the waitress is chilly toward her but smiles warmly at Song-uk.

"Can we get a seafood risotto and a tomato and mozzarella salad?" Song-uk asks.

Ma-ri waves Song-uk off. "No, actually, I'll have spaghetti vongole."

"You changed your mind?" Song-uk asks.

The waitress crosses out what she wrote and scribbles the new order with a cool expression.

Ma-ri addresses the waitress. "Hold on, please."

"Yes?"

"I'll just have the first thing I ordered."

"The first thing?" The waitress sounds annoyed.

"The tomato and mozzarella salad."

The waitress jots it down and asks, as if by rote: "Would you like anything else?"

"Want a Coke?" Ma-ri asks Song-uk. He nods.

"A Coke and some warm water, please," Ma-ri requests.

The waitress nods and leaves their table.

"She smiled at you," Ma-ri says, glancing back at the waitress.

Song-uk laughs good-naturedly. "What, are you jealous?"

"I wonder what she thinks we are?"

"I thought we said we wouldn't talk about things like that. I don't like chicks like her; she has no taste or class."

"You don't prefer girls your own age?"

"Nah. Why do you let our age difference bother you so much? I'm not your average guy."

Ma-ri feels outdated, like a record player or an ABBA LP. This sort of affair would be impossible were it not for a twenty-year-old law student's not-so-average tastes.

"Have you thought about it?" Song-uk asks.

"About what?"

"The thing I asked you about before," he says innocently, like a little boy asking for a cookie.

Ma-ri laughs awkwardly. She can't get angry at Song-uk, but she can't pretend that everything is fine. "I don't think so."

"It's really not that complicated. Think about it really simply."

"All I need is you." Ma-ri completely believes in what she's saying as soon as the words leave her mouth.

But the young man sitting across from her isn't interested in her conviction. "You're already wet, right?" Song-uk's foot starts pushing its way under Ma-ri's skirt. He slides his tongue out mischievously.

Ma-ri closes her eyes. "Stop. I'm not going to change my mind just because you do this."

Song-uk's foot moves away, his face sullen. "You're acting like my mom!"

"What?" Ma-ri can't speak. She feels as if dry cotton is being shoved down her throat. She calms herself and says, slowly: "Are you really going to be like this?"

"We love each other. Why can't we do this?"

"Love is supposed to be exclusive. I love you and you love me. If I love you and love someone else, that's breaking the rules."

"If you loved me you would do what I wanted." Song-uk presses his lips together stubbornly and glares at her.

"And what if I don't?"

"Then you don't love me," Song-uk says forcefully.

"You ... really ... think ... so?" Ma-ri shapes her mouth around the words; uttering them pains her. Her words float toward Song-uk but fall limply to the floor—he is a fortress.

"Yes."

"So if I don't do what you want, you're going to leave me?" Ma-ri asks, but she is retreating, bit by bit, and he knows this, too. He pursues relentlessly.

"If there's something I want to do I have to do it," Song-uk says, then stops talking, obstinate.

I suppose you can say something like that if you grow up hearing what a gifted child you are, study at the best undergraduate law department in the nation, tutor high school kids for fun to buy yourself the newest tablet notebook, and hang out with friends who want to become judges, prosecutors, diplomats, or politicians. I'm sure if you say something like this, everyone usually feels guilty and says they're sorry and lets you do whatever you want. I'm different. I know what kind of person you are. I think you expect me to be maternal with you, but that's not part of the deal. I'm a woman, not your mother.
Ma-ri drinks some water. The waitress comes over, puts down a Coke, and tops off her glass.

After she leaves, Song-uk whines like a child: "I won't ask
you to do something like this again, really. Just this once. I can't sleep at night because I keep thinking about it. I can't study because I can't concentrate."

"You're so stubborn."

"No, Ma-ri, you're too old-fashioned. Why is everything else okay but not that? We're not even married."

"Aren't you worried that you might lose me?"

"Yeah, but I know that you'll be fine with it in the end."

Where does he get this confidence? She's starting to realize that it isn't going to be easy to make his desire wane.

"I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be back." Ma-ri takes her purse into the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror. Crow's-feet adorn her eyes and her hair is losing its luster. Through the door that is slightly ajar, she glimpses Song-uk's confident face.
He's young, and he'll be young for a while. And I'm getting older.
It's the bare truth. A kid on a student's budget, with bad fashion sense, is controlling a woman with money and a good job.
Other than his youth, what does he have that I don't?
She feels the way she does when she uses one of her credit cards, knowing full well that she's nearing the limit, hoping against her better judgment, telling the clerk, "This one will probably go through." She can sense defeat looming, but she doesn't want to acknowledge it just yet.

A woman enters the bathroom, taking a lighter out of her purse.