Your Republic Is Calling You (30 page)

She presses "Confirm" and the screen orders, "Please swipe your card."

Song-uk hurriedly takes out his wallet. "I'll do it."

Ma-ri quietly stops him.

He waves his credit card around, the one that was given to him by his architect father. "No, I'll pay for it."

"No, no, let me."

"Song-uk, you do it," Panda urges from behind.

She announces, somewhat firmly, "If I don't pay I'm leaving."

A hush descends over the boys as they step back. She gently swipes her card along the long black groove in front of the screen. The computer of the unmanned room-by-the-hour motel sends her information to the credit card company over the Internet. Visa checks her credit and returns the okay signal. Finally, she is given the go-ahead to have
as much sex as she wants with these two young guys in the motel room. When the card goes through, the computer informs them of their room number. They head to the elevator without speaking. Ma-ri isn't worried about what is about to happen. She can't figure out why she insisted so adamantly that she would be the one to pay for the room. She could have let the guys pay for it, which would have been fair. Why didn't she let them?

Her phone starts buzzing again. This time she's able to take it out more easily than before, but it's the same unknown number. Annoyed, she shakes her head and turns her phone off. A long time seems to pass before the power turns off. When the doors open, they enter the elevator. The inside of the elevator smells faintly rancid, but also like dried roses. The tiny elevator shoots up to the fifth floor so quickly that, when the doors open, she's worried that they have opened so soon because of faulty wiring in the door mechanism.

Their room is 503. The knob turns easily and the door opens. They go inside. She places her purse on the vanity and the boys toss their bags on the floor, marking their territory.

"Go wash up," she tells the two guys, who are standing around awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"Okay," they say, and go into the bathroom together, at ease as if they were brothers. She can hear the water running, them snickering, something falling on the floor. She sits on the bed and looks around. She remembers stories about Nazi concentration camps, Buchenwald and Auschwitz. She read about them a long time ago, about how Jews stood in a line in front of the gas chambers. Jewish leaders pointed fingers at those who were not standing in line in an orderly fashion. "This is why we are called dirty Jews!" They took off their clothes neatly and put them in baskets inscribed with
their names. If they bathed, were deloused, and shaved, they would become clean Jews. Without balking at the orders, they walked into the gas chambers docilely. Apparently rumors about executions abounded, but they tried not to believe them and followed the Nazis' orders.

Ma-ri faced a range of options before she reached this bed. She could have run away, she could have pretended to go to the bathroom at the restaurant and disappeared. Even now, she can get up and leave. But one thing led to another. A small decision led to another small decision, and finally turned into a decision that couldn't be reversed. They were all linked together. She can't remember why she agreed to this at Napoli, but in any case she agreed to it, and because of that she went to the wine-aged pork belly restaurant, bought them food and drink, came to an unmanned room-by-the-hour hotel with them and even paid for the room. At this point the only thing that's keeping her in this room is that stupid credit card. If only she hadn't paid! She's already been charged sixty thousand won for this room.

But she couldn't have left even if the boys had paid for the room. Getting up and leaving after they paid would have been unfair; she would have been betraying their agreement. She regrets her foolish decision to charge the room on her card. It's true that it gave her pleasure to do it. Soon, she will spread her legs for the two guys, at their mercy. But since she paid for it, the acts looming ahead become the product of her free choice. The guys are merely hired gigolos. Ma-ri thinks that it isn't true that men are the seducers. She tries to convince herself that it's actually the opposite.

The water is turned off in the bathroom. She holds her breath. She can't deny it—she isn't comfortable here, no matter how she frames it, how ardently she believes it, or how she imagined it would be. In a few minutes, she will
have to reveal her body to two twenty-year-old college students with wrinkle-free skin. Her stomach, which pooches a little, still retains stretch marks from her pregnancy with Hyon-mi. She suffers from eczema, and her groin is discolored as a result, a shade darker than the rest of her body. And her thighs are big lumps of fat. She feels as if she is waiting for a gynecological exam. She definitely isn't in that excited state that usually comes right before sex. She wipes her sweaty palms on the sheets. She gets up. She doesn't want to be sitting on the bed when the guys come out of the bathroom. She doesn't want them to think she's desperate. She gazes at the small balcony garden, composed of pots of sanseveria and cacti. The balcony is walled in by translucent glass and brightly lit, making it hard to tell whether it's day or night. She looks at her watch. It's after 8:00
P.M.,
but it looks as if it's only two in the afternoon.

Song-uk and Panda come out of the bathroom, each with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"You, you, your turn," Panda stutters.

She takes out a pouch from her purse and walks into the bathroom. Song-uk pokes his head in just as she's about to shut the door. "How are you going to wash yourself with your cast?"

She looks down at her arm. "Oh, right."

"Can we help you?" asks Song-uk, glancing at Panda.

She thinks for a moment. "Just you, Song-uk."

Song-uk comes into the bathroom triumphantly. He unfastens the buttons of her blouse, raises her arms above her head, and pulls it off. He unhooks her bra and tugs off her skirt, opening the bathroom door slightly to toss it outside. Ma-ri takes off her underwear herself, bunches it up and puts it on the grill of the radiator. She steps into the tub and raises her left arm high to keep the cast dry. Song-uk grabs
the showerhead and turns on the water. A stream of water splashes her feet and travels up her body, slowly. It's cold at first, but it soon warms. Song-uk, having undone his towel, turns off the shower and nuzzles her nipple. She shakes her head. He squeezes some body wash onto his hand and soaps her groin. She closes her eyes. He slides the foam all over her body, the suds warm and soft, tickling her.

"That's enough," she says.

Song-uk rubs the valley between her buttocks. His slippery hand grazes over her anus and moves down further. She bends forward slightly. He slides his hands, covered in bubbles, over her breasts in a circular motion.

"You know why men like breasts?" he asks suddenly.

"Why?"

"Because they look like women's asses. It's basically your ass attached to the front of your body. Otherwise they wouldn't need to be so big, it would be enough just to have nipples. Men look at women's tits and think about asses."

"That makes no sense."

"I read it somewhere."

She looks down. His hard penis nods along as he soaps her, aimed at her breasts. Song-uk turns on the shower again. Water rains down on them. Ma-ri looks down at her body. The foam being washed off makes it look as if someone spat on her. During her first time, at eighteen, the guy spat on her because she was bone-dry. He rubbed the spit on the head of his dick and pushed into her. Ma-ri closes her eyes. Where the hell did that motherfucker learn to do that? Song-uk sprays the foam off with the showerhead.

"Turn around," he orders.

She turns, showing him her back. The water pounds the crevices of her body she can't see. He carefully pats every inch of her just-washed body dry with a towel. It's an intimate gesture she'd expect from a husband. Though Song-uk is still holding the towel, she hugs him, her body still damp. His dick presses into her stomach. She kneels and takes him in her mouth, sucking hard. She stops after a minute and looks up. "You know I love you, and only you, right?"

"Of course I do."

"I want you to know that I never wanted this."

"I know. I'm the one who wanted you to do it," Song-uk reassures her.

"Think about it for a minute. Do you really want me to be with another guy? Is it going to be okay for you?"

"You won't be doing it with another guy, it'll be just you and me. He's there to aid us, like a dildo."

"You love me, right?" Ma-ri asks.

"Of course! I'm more in love with you right now because I know you're doing this for me. I'm never going to forget it."

"So ... how ... with him ... No, never mind."

"What? Just say it."

"So, how far do you want me to go ... with him?"

He grins, as if wondering why she's bothering to ask. He lowers his arms and holds her head down. She puts her mouth around him again.

"All the way. I want to watch someone else do you. Just think that you're doing it with me. It's all just fun. Let's not think too hard about it."

The head of his hard dick rubs against the top of her mouth and pushes into a deeper place.

C
HOL-SU SITS IN
his car, gazing at the sign that says
MOTEL BOHEMIAN.

"Bohemian, my ass," he mumbles, stretching out in the small space. Wistfully, he recalls the Volkswagen Passat he test drove in the morning with Ma-ri and the way the leather
seat nestled his body. He reaches over to the passenger seat and picks up his phone, then changes his mind and tosses it back down. With both hands, he sweeps up the hair that has fallen into his eyes. It's damp from the humidity. He wants to wash his hands. He gets out and walks into the motel. From the ceiling, two surveillance cameras stare down at him, resembling a fly's double eye, and the only thing Chol-su finds on the other side of the sliding doors is an LCD screen. He swivels around. It doesn't look like there's a bathroom. He really needs to wash his hands.

"How can I help you?" a deep voice rings out from above.

Chol-su reflexively looks up at the small speaker attached to the ceiling. "So it's not really an unmanned hotel," he remarks.

The voice asks again, uninterested, "How can I help you? Are you looking for someone?"

He replies to the ceiling, "No, I just needed to use the bathroom."

"If you go out the door and turn left, there's a subway station about nine hundred feet away."

"Thank you," he calls out, and leaves. Outside, he looks around. There's a construction site next door, perhaps for another motel, as well as a faucet that was installed to wash the wheels of the dump trucks that go in and out of the site. It's dark at the construction site and nobody's around. He turns on the faucet. Water gushes out, the pressure higher than he expects, splashing his suit. He adjusts the water pressure and washes his hands. He wants soap. He returns to his car and dries his hands with a tissue. He looks at Motel Bohemian again. He went through all sorts of situations working for the Company, but this is the first time he finds himself waiting outside an hourly motel. Ma-ri entered the motel triumphantly, like a queen, dragging two young men
with her. They were standing behind her like servants. They would now be in the throes of passion somewhere up there. Does she do this often? In any case, it's obvious to Chol-su that she has no idea what's going on with her husband. If she did, she wouldn't be engaged in this kind of activity right now.

He dials a number. "It's me, sir."

"You're still there?"

"Yes."

"Chol-su, I don't think that motel's the spot."

"Could it be that this is all part of Kim Ki-yong's plan?"

"You sure it's not just you dying to join them?" Jong jokes.

Chol-su frowns, takes his ear off the phone, and swears, so quietly that only a master lip reader would understand, "Motherfucker, you think that's a fucking joke?"

"So what should I..." Chol-su starts speaking into the phone again, but spies a young man looking around, appearing to be lost, then walking into the motel. He's walking rather quickly, and he looks like a typical college kid, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and wearing sneakers. "Wait, someone just turned up."

"Who? Ki-yong?"

"No, looks like a college kid."

"What about him?"

"He looks like the two guys who went in with Ma-ri. They must be friends."

"He could have an appointment with another bitch."

"I guess that's true, huh?" Chol-su replies, but then feels uneasy—he thinks he might have sounded overly disappointed.

Jong doesn't let that change in tone slip by. "You wish, Park, you wish."

Chol-su doesn't say anything.

"Okay, pull out now," orders Jong.

Chol-su hangs up and curses. He looks toward the motel, but the young man is already gone.

T
HE INSIDE OF
the small tent is stuffy. Ki-yong still hasn't decided. Should he stay? Go back? In the past twenty years, he never prepared for the possibility of this dilemma. Was it carelessness toward fate, or denial? He never went in for a physical either. He doesn't know his own blood pressure or blood sugar levels. He never believed that it would make a difference, that he would meet death peacefully, in bed, surrounded by family.

After Gabriel García Márquez was diagnosed with lymphoma, he spoke about the reason he smoked so assiduously throughout his life. He explained that, as an intellectual-cum-antigovernment journalist living in Colombia, in a system that was close to anarchy, he never believed that he would end up living to such an old age. His homeland was the kind of country where, in broad daylight, someone would shoot a goalie who accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal post during the World Cup. Living in Bogotá, a city bombarded by assassinations and drugs, the smoke coming from the end of a Cuban cigar represented beauty. And he evaded lynchings, confinement, exile, and bullets, only to experience cancer.

Guns. Ki-yong imagines a small, gold, shining bullet exploding into his skull and covering it with gunpowder. It makes him feel like a young girl fearing and longing for her first sexual experience, the way Yukio Mishima felt about knives. Once he thinks of this, he can't shake the image; it sticks to him like a leech. He recalls how he aimed the Colt at Ji-hun's temple. His imagination tangles with what actually happened and his sense of reality quickly flies away. He feels a short, electric burst of clarity, as if he swabbed rubbing alcohol on his skin.