Your Republic Is Calling You (26 page)

"So what's wrong with your car?" she asks.

"I don't know. It won't budge. I didn't want to get dirty so I didn't even pop the hood. I'm sure my insurance company is going to take care of it."

"Can you get it to start?"

"No."

"Maybe the battery's dead," suggests Ma-ri.

"Yeah, I think that might be what it is. My sister-in-law's going to be pissed that I'm late."

"Oh, right, she's looking after your son?"

"Yeah. I think she's got a new boyfriend or something. These days, she gets really annoyed even when I'm only a few minutes late."

"I have jumper cables," Ma-ri offers. She means it to come off as casual, to let him know that he can borrow them, but as she says it she feels cheap. It feels as if she's trying to seduce a man walking down the street. She wonders if it's because of her tone, or because of the offer itself.

"Wow, you have them in your car?"

"Of course," she says, getting up confidently.

He follows her outside, surprise etched on his face. The security guard runs over, hands her the keys, and says excitedly, "Oh, hi, I already pulled out your car."

Her Golf, which was parked underground, is already outside, waiting for her. For a while, the guard has been encroaching into her territory, little by little, without bothering to ask if it was okay.

"Thank you," she tells him, and gets in her car. I-yop gets in the passenger side. She turns on the engine and idles, warming it. She catches the annoyed look on the guard's face through the rearview mirror.
What the hell, is he jealous?
She shakes her head.
What's wrong with me today? Why am I thinking that every expression and tone means something? Have I become too sensitive? Or are relationships between people always like this?
Ma-ri moistens her lips.

The guard comes up and knocks on the window. "You forgot to lock the doors of the office and turn out the lights. Want me to do it?"

"No, I'm not going home yet. Mr. Kim's car battery died, so I'm going to jump it for him," Ma-ri explains.

"Ohh," the guard sighs, relieved, and nods, moves aside, and helps her back out. She drives down the alley and into the pay lot. I-yop rolls down his window and yells at the attendant that Ma-ri shouldn't be charged because she's here to jump-start his car. She pulls up in front of I-yop's car. The two cars are face to face, as if greeting each other. With the car running, she takes out the cables from the trunk, and connects her car battery's + to I-yop's +, and her - to his. Her cast keeps banging against various car parts, and each time that happens, I-yop yelps on her behalf as he hovers nearby, staring down at the exposed innards of the cars.

"Get in," Ma-ri orders.

He gets into his car, as if he's never done this before.

"Try it," Ma-ri calls.

The car starts. He steps on the gas a couple of times to test it then gets out, looking happier. "Wow, that was amazing."

She smiles listlessly. She unclips the cables from each car as he watches. He lowers the hoods of both cars.

"Keep it on for at least twenty minutes," she advises.

"Okay, thanks! I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, when's the cast coming off?"

"I don't know. Hopefully soon."

He nods like a good little boy and gets back in his car. She gets in hers, backs away, and leaves the lot. He leaves too, behind her. She parks in front of the showroom again. She tells the guard that he should just leave it there, that she's going to come back for it later. She looks at her watch; it's 6:35. It's almost time for her to meet Song-uk. She goes back inside, locks her desk, and turns off all the lights except for the lamp in the showroom. She washes her hands in the
bathroom and touches up her makeup. Her lipstick has faded away. She reapplies it carefully, making sure everything else looks good, then finishes up and wipes her hands with a paper towel. She wants a cigarette badly, but doesn't want to smell like smoke the first time she meets Song-uk's friend. And her youthful lover hates it when she smokes. She nods at the guard as he wishes her good evening, and waits for the light to change at the crosswalk.

The light turns green, and she crosses the street along with the other pedestrians, her footsteps falling in time to theirs. She gets into a cab.

"Kangnam station, please."

The cabbie starts the car without a word.

W
HEN MA-RI SUDDENLY
pops out of her office and drives behind the building with I-yop, Chol-su thinks she's with Ki-yong. He hurriedly maneuvers a U-turn to follow them, but she's already in the pay lot behind the building. Chol-su realizes the man with her isn't Ki-yong when he sees that they're connecting jumper cables to the cars. Ma-ri goes back to her office and Chol-su returns to his spot on the opposite side of the street and parks, waiting for her to leave. She does shortly, but this time she leaves her car behind, crossing the street on foot. Why is she leaving her car? Is she going to grab a bite to eat somewhere close? Is she working late? But as soon as she crosses the street, she hops into a cab, which bolts forward, passing him. Caught off guard, he zooms after the cab moving slowly southbound. Kangnam during rush hour is always chaotic, with cars fighting over every available inch of the road. Chol-su dials Jong to report the current situation, that Ma-ri has abandoned her car and, based on the fact that she's entering an area with a lot of people,
she's probably meeting up with her husband. He requests backup assistance. Jong is a little skeptical of his theory. He thinks this tactic is too obvious, and admonishes Chol-su to be careful, since this could be a ploy to distract him. He adds that it might be a while before the backup officers arrive.

The cab comes to a stop at the entrance of Kangnam station. Ma-ri hops out and strides into an alley behind the New York Bakery. Chol-su parks his car in a no-parking zone, sticking a label that says "Official Duty" on the dash, and follows her on foot. She doesn't seem to be at all aware of the tail, instead appearing more concerned with pushing through the crowd and not bumping into anyone. She stops at her destination, takes out a small mirror from her purse, and checks her reflection. She puts away the mirror. She's standing in front of a red sign that says
WINE-AGED PORK BELLY.
Exhaust fans pointing toward the street pump out the smoke from burning fat.

Chol-su stopped eating meat five years ago, after reading a book called
Simple Food for the Good Life
by Helen Nearing, the wife of Scott Nearing. The book informed him that Scott died at age one hundred, and Helen at ninety-two. Chol-su wants to live a long life. If he told people that this is his life's wish, they would think he's insane, so he's never revealed it to anyone. But he believes that several decades from now, life expectancies will be lengthened to a degree unfathomable today. He wants to maintain his health until then, so he can take advantage of the pending medical revolution. He looks around. How many of these hundreds of young people will live for a long time? A few decades ago, a seventieth birthday party was reason for celebration, but now it has become ordinary, an unexciting milestone. A voice deep within him asks what he expects to accomplish by living that long. His goal is to lead a long life, to achieve old age for
its own sake. Some want to be Casanova, others want to be Napoleon. A few want to conquer all the Himalayan peaks taller than twenty-five thousand feet. Still others want to walk around the world, while some people want to break the world record for the fastest one-hundred-meter dash. All Chol-su wants is to live a very long time, so he will watch those men—who brag about their successful careers or have a ton of women flocking to their sides—die helplessly. Every person enters this theater called Earth with the same ticket. Doesn't it make sense that you want to watch as much as you can before you have to leave?

Helen Nearing said that eating meat was unnatural for humans. It makes sense if you think about it. If an apple tree grows in the street, we would pluck an apple off a branch and eat it without guilt. But nobody would rip a leg off a chicken passing by. Chol-su agrees with that basic premise. Eating meat is cruel. To boot, human intestines evolved specifically to digest vegetables, making it longer than that of carnivorous animals. That means that meat ends up rotting as it slides down each intestinal curve. He thinks that makes sense, too. He always felt heavier the day after he consumed a lot of meat. But it's hard to avoid meat in this society, especially since he works in such a macho environment at the Company. When his department goes out for dinner, he orders bean paste soup and rice as soon as they get to the restaurant, saying he's starving. He fills up on lettuce wraps of rice and hot peppers. Within the first year, the chronic sensation of a full stomach disappeared and his complexion cleared up. His breath no longer stank and he stopped burping. Every morning, he gets up at dawn and runs along the river, and he lifts weights at night. Now, whenever he smells meat cooking, he feels nauseated.

Chol-su also read
Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle
Culture
by Jeremy Rifkin, the writer of
Entropy: A New World View.
His beliefs grew firmer. He carefully read the detailed descriptions in the book that revealed the terrible living conditions of cattle, pigs, and chickens, raised solely to be killed. He couldn't comprehend the cruelty of humans. He decided to quietly lead a vegetarian life. Well, it wasn't really vegetarianism, since he refrained only from eating beef, pork, and poultry. He didn't think there was any reason to avoid wild seafood, since it wouldn't have been injected with antibiotics or fed genetically engineered crops, and there wouldn't be the additional problem of animal cruelty.

But something strange started to happen after he shunned meat. Before, he'd go on dates, to see movies or to have dinner. He didn't meet anyone he thought he could marry, but he believed it was just a matter of time. He believed he would eventually meet his future wife, and didn't think much about it. But women disappeared from his life completely once he stopped eating meat. For whatever reason, he lost touch with the women he used to see, and he grew apart from his former girlfriends. They all got married or fell in love with other men. He couldn't get a second date with the women he did go out with. He bored them, and they'd be yawning by 10:00
P.M.
The only difference between then and now was that he had stopped eating meat, but he didn't go around confessing that fact. He even wondered whether meat had pheromones in it. Or maybe the women detected something in him that was a turn-off, perhaps the sluggishness of someone who has given up all competition. Most women might be into aggressive men who weren't picky about food and preferred to live a fuller but shorter life. But he doesn't really dwell on the problem. Helen was twenty years younger than Scott, he reassures himself, and there's no reason he
wouldn't be able to find someone like Helen, someone who loves that he's a vegetarian. Anyway, despite everything, he's proud of himself, proud of the way he was able to reverse a habit he maintained for thirty years. This shows that he can change many other aspects of his life. And his body is clean, not weighed down with toxins and waste.

Ma-ri walks straight into the pork belly restaurant, without an ounce of hesitation despite the foul odor it is emitting. She quickly becomes less attractive to him. It isn't a pretty picture to imagine the hot, rancid cooked fat passing through her mouth, stomach, and intestines. He can't easily shake the image. He peers into the restaurant through the gap between
WINE-AG
and
ED PORK BELLY
on the window. It's dark inside. The interior is decorated in a Zen style, pretty nice for a pork belly restaurant. She's sitting in a corner. He squints, trying to see the man she's facing. It isn't Ki-yong. The guy looks to be in his early twenties, probably still in college, and it doesn't seem like he's a client or a member of her family. His shaggy hair covers his forehead and eyes, and he's wearing big baggy jeans with frayed hems. Another young man comes out of the bathroom and joins them, and they start pouring soju into one another's glasses.

K
I-YONG EXITS THE
subway at the Uljiro entrance and walks past Lotte Department Store. It's rush hour—the buildings surrounding the street are vomiting a mass of people. It's nearly impossible not to bump into someone. The Westin Chosun is located behind the department store. He circles the hotel first before going into the lobby. He pauses at the Wongudan Shrine, the final display of vainglory of the waning Choson Kingdom, which lasted until the Japanese occupation in 1910, and glances at the cars parked in the valet
lot. That would be where the authorities would park a fully rigged surveillance van. But he doesn't see any windowless vans. He studies the people on couches in the lobby. Nobody is acting suspiciously. Soji is sitting beyond the concierge desk, reading a book.

This hotel is a good place to hide out in case he needs to bolt. He could disappear among the shoppers if he goes toward Lotte, and the Sogong-dong underpass in front of the hotel stretches all the way to Namdaemun Market. He could hide in the numerous tunnels that make up the shopping centers under the streets that lead to Myongdong or to City Hall, or dash down the nearby dark alleys. Even the Westin's underground garage is perfect for escape, as it's connected to the parking lot of the President Hotel.

He looks at his watch. It's 6:15. He places a call from a phone booth. In the place of a standard ring, he hears the tune of "Russia Romance."

Soji picks up. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Hi. Why are you calling from this random number?"

"Oh, my phone battery died. I'm in a phone booth. I'm running a little late. Sorry."

"That's okay."

He listens carefully to see if she sounds unnatural. They hang up, and he walks out of the booth, continuing to watch her through the glass. Nobody approaches her and she doesn't get a call. He waits for ten minutes. She's just sitting there, reading. Still, he waits a little longer. It can't hurt to be careful. He walks toward Myongdong, but spots a line of cops standing guard. What's going on? Is a diplomat or a high-ranking official coming through? Is there going to be a protest? He doesn't feel like going through a tunnel of cops. He stops and, pretending that he's getting a phone call, presses
his cell to his ear, and doubles back toward the hotel. He pauses at the entrance of the hotel and looks around again.