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In the Mood for Love Gu Hyo-seo Translated by Brother
Anthony of Taizé
Introduction:
The title of
this story presents something
of a problem for the translator. The original
Korean title consists of four
Chinese characters, 花樣年華, (flower-like-years-bright), a
conventional Chinese
expression meaning “the most beautiful or happiest time
of one's life” and
often used to refer to the moments of beautiful
but short-lived youthful love.
In the year 2000 the phrase was used as the
Chinese title of a famous Hong Kong
movie. The subject matter, with two unhappily
married people falling in
hopeless love, and the outstanding performances by
Maggie Cheung and Tony
Leung, made it a movie that long remained in the
minds of those who saw it. The
original Chinese title is the title by which the
movie was also known in Korea,
and it is therefore also the Korean title of this
short story. However, when
the movie was released with an English title, it
was called “In the Mood for
Love,” the title of a popular song from the 1930s
which the director Wong
Kar-wai heard while finishing the post-production.
The link between the movie
and the title of this story is therefore probably
best preserved by using the
movie’s English title. Memories of the film remind
readers of the impossibility
of extra-marital love. Presumably Gu Hyo-seo took
this into consideration when
he was writing his story. It was February when he went down
south to view the plum blossoms in Gwangyang. Around
February 15. He
was sure that plum trees bloomed in February. Why did
he think he knew that? The only possible explanation
is because he had graduated from a Korean language and
literature department. Or, to be precise, wasn’t it a
department of Korean language education?
He sometimes used to quote passages from books
such as the Gu
Wen Zhen Bao (True Treasures of Old
Literature). Or a woodblock edition of
The Story of
Chunhyang. Or it might be The Tale of Hong
Gil-dong,
or the Maecheon
Yarok (Unofficial Records of
Maecheon). Boring quotations. That was what
people who knew him used to say — all of them titles
anyone would have heard at least once while studying
for the university entrance exam, even without being
in a Korean literature
department. But only the titles, without ever reading
them. Or just glimpsed as the source of texts selected
for the linguistic aptitude test during the exam. Yet
he tried to show that he really knew them. It was not
so much that he knew a lot; rather, the less other
people knew the more he could claim to know. And
even if he knew, he did not know fully. So he went off
to view plum blossoms in February. That was not
necessarily something linked to the Korean literature
department. If there was a connection, it
might have had more to do with his character than with
his college major. It
can be conjectured that in one or another of the books
he had read, it said that the second month of the year
was the flowering time for plum trees. It probably
eluded him it meant the second lunar month. His
graduation thesis was about classical literature, too. But
he went to Gwangyang in February by the solar
calendar, and about that it can only be said that it
had nothing to do with his college major. His choice
of “around February 15” can be seen from the same
logic. Probably he was unsure if it was early or late
in the month so he chose the middle. That’s the kind
of person he was. Anyway,
until he arrived in the plum orchard in Gwangyang, the
words inside his head never lost certainty: “Plum
trees bloom in the second month of the year.” * “I’m
coming down to Gurye.” Shooting
out a brief remark then waiting for the other person’s
response was his usual method of talking on the phone. “To
see me?” It
was Song-ju. Kim Song-ju. Thirty-five. Teaching on a
short-term contract in Gurye. Her husband was a clerk
in an agricultural cooperative down there. With one
son attending nursery school. His relationship with
Song-ju was limited to a phone call once in a blue
moon. This call was made the day before he left for
Gwangyang. “Yup.
Well, something like that, anyway.”
Something like that . . . There was something
hidden behind those words. The plum blossoms were
ready to emerge as needed. He knew that Gwangyang was
not far from Gurye.
The reason why he wanted to go down south was
not to see plum blossoms but to see Song-ju. The plum
blossoms was a pretext. Afraid that his intention
would be too obvious, he spoke as he did, ready to
bring up the plum blossoms if needed. “What’s
up, Bach Ajeossi?” “Me?
Why?” “You’ve
never once said you were coming down here before.” “Well,
you’ve never asked me to come down, either, have you?” “Oho,
is that why you’ve never come?” “Of
course.” “I
see.” “Like
I said.” “So
what’s suddenly made you say you’re coming down?” “It’s
plum blossom time, isn’t it? The flowers, that’s why.”
On the point of saying that, instead, he continued, “I’m
going down because I want to see you, what other
reason do I need?” he insisted. Song-ju
asked lightly: “Do you like duck stew?” “I
like the broth.” “What
about the meat?” “So
long as there are lots of chives in it, I finish it
off, meat and all.” “There’s
a place that’s always crowded. I’ll have to book.” So
it was he went down to Gurye without ever mentioning
plum blossoms. That was very fortunate. If he had
mentioned plum blossoms at the start he would never
have been able to go down to Gurye or Gwangyang. Since
it was only February. And then he would never have
been able to see Song-ju.
“I said there have to be a lot of chives,
mind,” he added.
“Show me a duck stew restaurant that doesn’t
cook it with chives. Better than that, the spicy salad
of wild parsley this place serves will really make you
sit up,” Song-ju chimed in. * Song-ju
was thirty-five, he was thirty-nine. They were only
four years apart in age. Yet, Song-ju had called him
Ajeossi — Mister,
a friendly term for a middle-aged guy — ever since
they were in college.
There, Song-ju had been the only female student
to call him Ajeossi. Why? Everyone else called him Hyeong, Oppa, or Seonbae
(elder brother or senior student); Song-ju alone
called him Ajeossi. He had entered university a year
late after repeating the entrance exam, then came back
after completing his military service, so he was a bit
older — but still he was only twenty-five, yet she
called him Ajeossi.
You might wonder what difference it made; the
fact was he really liked Song-ju, a lot. But the way
she called him Ajeossi got in the way. Of coming
close. Just like a yellow card.
Not only had they been in the same class, for
him everyday university life was a matter of mixing
with everyone for better or worse, regardless of age
and so on, as it was a matter of meeting the same
students and professors every day. Yet, whenever he
heard himself being called Ajeossi, he felt himself
shudder. He felt as though he was in a game of freeze
tag.
“Why call me Ajeossi? I’m only twenty-five.”
Two months after his return from military
service, he had barely managed to say something to
Song-ju. Only barely, because whenever he was in front
of her, he began to tremble.
“Well, Bach Hyeong won’t do, neither will Bach
Oppa and Bach Seonbae . . . doesn’t suit you.” Song-ju
spoke slowly. “Mr. Bach is just right but it’s
awkward, calling you Mr., so I say Ajeossi. It’s a lot
better than calling you Grandfather Bach, isn’t it?” “Do
you really have to call me Bach?” “Would
you rather be called Bong-han Ajeossi?” Song-ju’s
heartlessness almost brought tears to his eyes. “But
do you have to add Ajeossi, I mean?” “It
makes me feel comfortable.” Heartless
Song-ju was pretty, so he felt like crying. “It makes
me feel uncomfortable . . .” was something he could
not bring himself to say. He
had become Bach after submitting an assignment without
writing his name. A lecturer who was unfamiliar with
his name asked during class one day: “Who
submitted an attached file with the name BH.hwp?” Somebody
called out in jest: “Bach?” Once
the laughter died down, in one corner of the classroom
a student raised a hand. It was his. From that day
onward, Song-ju called him Bach Ajeossi. Later, she
shortened it to just Ajeossi. He
reckoned Bach was not a bad nickname. It was because
he did not like his given name, Bong-han, that he used
to write the initials BH. Bach felt like an acceptable
kind of tag. The problem was that it did not really go
well with familiar honorifics like Hyeong or Oppa.
Later it dropped off like a propellant stage from a
rocket, leaving Ajeossi dangling on its own, and that
was an even bigger problem. When
the new semester began, the number of students back
from military service increased to three and he was
able to free himself a little from his Ajeossi
obsession. Because, perhaps feeling a bit apologetic,
Song-ju called all the returning students Ajeossi,
democratically. * “Right. Speak
up.” Once they had
finished eating the duck stew, Song-ju challenged him. “It was
delicious, really, the wild parsley.” “Not about
that.” “No? What
then?” “Why you’ve
come down to Gurye.” “I told you.
I wanted to see you.” “You expect
me to believe that?” “You find it
hard to believe?” “If I said I
wanted to see you . . . would you believe me?” “Really?” “You see . .
. So come on. Quickly.” “Quickly?” “Yes.
Quickly.” Her “quickly”
left him at a loss for words. Because he understood
she did not mean “speak fast.” “Speak frankly, Ajeossi,” was what
he understood. Of course, he
had come down because he wanted to see Song-ju. The
plum blossoms had merely been an excuse he was going
to produce if necessary. But if he said he had come
because he wanted to see Song-ju, that would only
bring things back to the starting point and their
quarrel would most likely start all over again. The fact that
it was bound to become a quarrel made him feel rather
sad. Because he was not unaware of what Song-ju meant
when she told him to speak quickly. She meant neither
“speak quickly” nor “speak frankly.” “Can’t you be a
bit more straightforward?” That was what she meant.
That “a bit more” was what mattered. Because Song-ju
already knew. That ever since their university days he
had always been keen on her, and that his feelings
were no different now. But Song-ju
and he both thought the same. It was not likely, even
if he spoke “a bit more” directly that their
relationship would change from what it had been
before. Even though he was unattached, unmarried,
Song-ju was a married woman with a husband and child,
so what could they do? If Song-ju
urged him to speak quickly, it was not because she too
was wondering what should be done. She simply wanted
to hear a reply containing a little more clarity. No
matter what might follow after. Surely people are like
that? First, she wanted to hear the words. After all,
it wasn’t something that can’t be said. By
comparison, he was much more timid. Even though he had
come down to Gurye in order to see Song-ju, he had
prepared his excuse involving plum blossoms to the
best of his ability. “Let’s be
going.” He stood up
first. “Where are
you going?” “There’s
somewhere I want to go.” “I knew it.” He drove
rapidly southward, following the river. He reckoned
that now he could say he had come to see the plum
blossoms. Since he had come to Gurye and met Song-ju,
the plum blossoms had ceased to be an excuse. “Gosh
. . . that’s the Seomjin River, isn’t it?” He
exclaimed in surprise, looking out through the window. “Didn’t
you come down to see the Seomjin River?” Song-ju
asked, as if to say, “Stop
pretending.” “If
I’d come down to see the Seomjin River, why would I be
so surprised? It’s the first time. Why did I feel that
I knew it so well when it’s the first time? Is it
because poets have written about it so much? But now
I’ve seen it for myself, ah, a thousand poems are
worth nothing. It’s only now that I see such a lovely
river for myself . . .” “You’re
a photographer and this is the first time you’re
seeing the Seomjin River?” “I
only take photographs of watches, jewelry, electronic
goods, nothing else. I earn a living in my studio. Of
course, I’ve seen the Seomjin River in photos. Often.” “If you
didn’t come here to see the Seomjin River, what else
is there? Where are we going?” “Do
you still paint sometimes?” He
tried to change the subject. “One
of these days I’m going to paint a thousand pictures
of the Seomjin River. It might seem impossible but
sooner or later I’ll do it, against all the odds. Why did I
marry a man from down here in the backwoods? At
present I’m held back by that husband and our child
but one day . . . Ah, rural life is hard. People
living in Seoul can’t imagine. Do you still write
poetry?” “Without
poetry I can’t get through a day.” “Pooh . . .” Song-ju must
surely have known that ever since university days he
had been called “a flunked poet.” He was all the time
trying to write poems for literary contests and all
the time tasting the bitter cup of failure. He kept
saying he could not live without poetry, and that made
him happy. It was as if at present he was more in love
with loving poetry than writing it. “There’s a
line that goes, ‘In a previous existence I was the
bright moon, How many more lives must I go through
before I become a plum blossom?’” “I was
wondering why those quotes weren’t flowing.” “That’s from
one of the more than one hundred poems the scholar
Toegye wrote about plum blossoms. Wow, comparing
himself to the moon is already awesome, and then he
says that a plum blossom is something unattainable.
How could anyone avoid seeing plum blossoms?” At last he
had mentioned plum blossoms. But Song-ju’s reaction
was merely: “Do
you still enjoy reciting that kind of stuff?” “If
you heard the story about Toegye, who was mad about
plum blossoms, and the singer Duhyang, who expressed
her love for him by giving him a present of a plum
tree, you would be heartbroken.” But
Song-ju simply replied: “There’s
no point in just reciting, you have to write
yourself.” Whereas
he had been expecting her to exclaim, “Ah, you came
down because of the plum blossoms!” *
It was only when they reached the entrance to
the Blue Plum Orchard that he suddenly realized that
all the way down along the Seomjin River he had not
seen a single plum blossom.
There was no reason why the trees in that
orchard alone should be in bloom. As they sped along
the deserted roads he had not been paying attention.
In part because of the river, and more because of
pretty Song-ju.
Since he had been heading for the orchard,
there was nowhere farther to go. He parked. Feeling
absurd and wretched, he looked around at the slopes of
the orchard and the river.
“I see it all, now.”
Song-ju spoke.
He feigned ignorance. “What?” “It
was all for nothing, right?” “Sin
Heum wrote, ‘Plum blossom never sells her fragrance
though she be cold all her life long . . .’ Plums
blossom when it’s cold, don’t they?” “Surely
the poem’s more concerned with fragrance than cold
weather?” “Although
‘Without cold that pierces to the bones there is no
way the fragrance of plum blossoms can prick the
nostrils,’ surely?” Lacking
in confidence, he failed to add that the words were
from a poem by the Zen Master Hwangbyeok. “That
one’s focused on fragrance, too, not cold weather.” Song-ju
was not easily defeated. Wasn’t Bach Ajeossi saying
that he had come down to see plum blossoms, not her? “Surely
Master Bou was not lying when he wrote, ‘The lunar
year’s last snow fills the air yet the plum is
blooming. Snowflakes scatter, I cannot tell if they
are snow or plum blossoms . . .’?” “He
wrote the last month of the lunar year?”
“Yes. The last month’s snow.”
“But still A-jeo-ssi . . .”
“You know, in this situation that Ajeossi
sounds just right.”
“Indeed. You think so, too?”
“Because I’m feeling a bit embarrassed.”
“No matter what Shin Heum or Master Bou says,
what’s plain is that the plum trees here are not in
bloom.”
“Exactly.”
“Plum Blossoms in the Snow is
only a figure of speech. Plum trees don’t flower until
next month.”
“Indeed. As you say.” * He
wondered what difference it made. Plum blossoms had
only been an excuse in the first place. He had come
down because he wanted to see Song-ju; now he had seen
her, so it didn’t matter if plum trees bloomed in
autumn.
Song-ju might be a thirty-five-year-old mother,
still to his eyes she was as pretty as ever. She had
said that rural life was hard, yet Song-ju showed no
signs of developing wrinkles — which he thought
charming, really — or growing fat. She was there,
before his eyes, a dazzlingly pretty woman.
He recalled something that happened during a
student group outing, the blandly named “membership
training,” the college bonding rite at the start of
one semester. It had been somewhere in Yangpyeong, by
a stream flowing slowly in a grove of poplar trees. Or
were they willows?
He could not recall anything that happened
before or after. The shock had been such that whatever
had happened, before or after, all seemed to have
completely vaporized from his memory. The only thing
stamped like a brand on his mind was Song-ju’s
extraordinary performance. Almost the only other thing
he could recall were crimson flowers like poppies
blooming here and there.
They had been playing some kind of game and
Song-ju had been caught. The penalties were as boring
as the game itself. Either a song or a dance. He had
expected a snatch of song, but suddenly Song-ju began
to twist madly.
Madly might be an extreme way of putting it,
but that had been the impression he got. It was so
incomprehensible; he felt he was being betrayed. He just
couldn’t
stand watching her.
Every time he saw Song-ju he used to mutter to
himself, “During the Japanese occupation female
primary-school teachers must have been just like that
. . .” She was so like a school teacher, one produced
from a mold dating several generations back. He
thought she was the most typical student of the Korean
Education Department (that was the right department).
Then when she represented her team and reported
their homework assignment she was always so nice and
tidy, her speech mellifluous. Every time she did it,
the pink glimpsed inside of her mouth was like a
freshly washed, well ripened peach. Whether she was
wearing a skirt or blue jeans, they always looked as
smooth and neat as if they had just been taken from
the wardrobe. She looked as though she wouldn’t run,
even in an earthquake. It was that Song-ju who had
sprung to her feet and danced, shaking the earth on
its axis. Shoulders and breasts, waist and behind all
shimmied violently. The students sitting around
cheered and applauded madly. The response was the more
heated for being so unexpected.
His feelings at that moment were shame and
mortification. He felt that his own special sweetheart
was dancing vulgarly, recklessly revealing herself to
the bloodshot eyes of drunkards.
But in fact Song-ju was not his sweetheart, and
the dance was not vulgar at all. It was simply the
natural talent of someone who had been learning to
draw and to dance since childhood. He alone was
shocked and ashamed. Sorrow that he could not
monopolize Song-ju’s immense sensuality, shame that
she allowed the male students' glittering gazes, a
feeling of defeat for not being able to control even a
tiny fraction of all that. That was what he felt. He felt sick,
as though he had been stepped on and beaten up by
hundreds, by thousands of people. As if a scream would
burst out if touched by just a fingertip, his whole
body (though it was really his heart) felt like a
wound that had swollen like a balloon. However, far
from being disappointed with Song-ju, while he was
feverishly having such a hard time his whole body had
grown full of that same irresistible Song-ju. That was
what he realized once he had pulled himself together.
His body had become a complete host to Song-ju.
He had been sensing that it might happen, as
soon as he returned after military service. There were
just the faces he saw first as he entered the
classroom after an absence of two and a half years.
Among them was Song-ju, and as soon as he saw her he
found himself afflicted with a sudden, persistent loss
of willpower. If there is such a disease. * “It’s
a haiku!” He
exclaimed as they walked aimlessly up a path in the
orchard. “You’re
making leaps as ever, I see.” “Poetry
is always a matter of leaps, isn’t it?” “I’d
have a hard time trying to keep up with your leaping.
A haiku out of thin air . . .” “Look! Over
there.” He pointed to
a place where huge boulders were sitting together,
natural rocks, wide and round, beneath the branches of
the plum trees still devoid of blossom. Not just a
few, either. Here and there in the orchard countless
others lay scattered. “It’s a stone
orchard, not a plum orchard!” “The plum
blossoms falling, Mother of pearl is spilt on the
table.” He recited in
a slightly nasal tone. “A haiku?” “I forget who
it’s by. Was it Yosa Buson? The sight of fragments of
mother-of-pearl set in a black table reminded him of
plum blossoms.” “But
what about it?” “I
used to wonder that, too. But look there.” Song-ju’s
eyes focused. For a time she said nothing. On each of
those many large boulders, all alike, plum blossoms
seemed to have fallen, have piled high.
“Goodness . . .”
“They can’t have deliberately looked for fields
with all these stones to plant a plum orchard. Yet,
obviously . . .”
“Certainly plum petals have fallen onto the
rocks and seeped into them for a long while. Is that
what you mean?”
“The stillness, a cicada’s cry
seeps into the rock.”
“Is that another haiku?”
“By someone really famous. Bashō. Though the
quotation isn’t exact.”
They hurried toward the pile of boulders. As
they came closer, the plum-blossom
patterns in the rocks grew clearer. They looked around
in all directions. Every stone was full of plum blossoms.
“It’s incredible.”
Unable to close her gaping mouth, Song-ju gazed
at him. The face she had so longed to see.
“I have loved you for a very long time.”
“You have seeped deep
inside me, too, Ajeossi.”
Did they nearly play out such a scene? They had
never gazed deeply enough into each other’s eyes. The
moment was too short; they ended up resolutely looking
away from each other. *
If he had come to Gurye taking the plum blossoms
as an excuse, it was because of what might be called a
space Song-ju had opened. He called her sometimes, but
mostly Song-ju had been the first to phone.
“I don’t know why I’m living like this.”
She had been on her way home after classes were
over when suddenly she had thought of Ajeossi, she
said, and so she called him.
“I was just catching my breath while the car
was stopped at a traffic light when I caught sight of
my fingers on the steering wheel.”
So she had begun.
“The nails on two fingers of my right hand are
untouched. This morning I trimmed my nails but I
skipped two. The ring finger and the little finger.
Really!”
His reply: “Countryside traffic lights don’t
stay at red for long. Can you keep talking?”
At which Song-ju immediately raised her voice.
“Now I’m parked by the roadside. What do you
think?”
He already knew that Song-ju did not dislike
him. Ever since university days. But they had never
come to be a “campus couple” or sweethearts. Intense
shyness, a degree of defensive obsession, the
subsequent loss of opportunities, Song-ju’s marriage
and move to the country, then later the possibility of
impropriety, as well as the distance between Seoul and
Gurye, had all been seen as reasons, but actually
neither he nor Song-ju knew the real reason. One
hesitation after another had brought it about.
In their university days he had been a really
well-liked person. When he rose to report on an
academic excursion, the female students sitting at the
back would scream in the way pop idols are cheered
nowadays. For that reason, once when a female student
was sick and had been absent for a long time from
several classes, he visited her rented room and urged
her to return to school. He took his ukulele with him
and played Carnival’s “Goose’s Dream” for her and the
next day she came back to school.
He studied so well that he kept winning
merit-based scholarships (nobody could equal him in
memorizing, he was a genius at quotations) while he
was bold enough to argue with professors or older
students. The main reason was the way he looked
something like Won Bin, the young actor who in those
days was making his début in the KBS series “Propose.”
“Something like” was what he might have said, in all
modesty, while others pointed out they looked “very
similar.” There being no special reason why she
should, Song-ju did not dislike him. The problem was
that when it came to Song-ju he lacked almost all
willpower. Not that it was really a lack, for the fact
was that he was intimidated by his excessive
willpower.
Once, after his return to school, during the
second class of the Ancient Sijo course, he was
reporting his research into the activities of the
singer Yi Se-chun from the time of kings Sukjong and
Yeongjo. At that time he could still not recognize the
new faces.
“Yi Se-chun, a famous singer early in the reign
of Yeongjo . . . ” as soon as he began to speak he
froze. “If you could give me a chance to present
during the next class . . . ” that sentence he was
likewise unable to complete; he left the podium
awkwardly. Head bowed, he quickly returned to his
seat. All because of Song-ju. In those days he did not
even know her name. She was just quietly blooming in
the middle of the classroom, a small, bright, crimson
flower. Haughtily.
Haughty, the word seemed made for such a
moment. Not that she looked arrogant. She was simply a
student serenely attending a class she was registered
for. She was quite calm and collected, it was to his
eyes alone that she looked haughty.
If thanks to DNA or some such he had a
perfectly round circle in his subconscious, Song-ju
had forced her way in and settled there and filled
that circle completely. In today’s lingo, he’d lost
it. Perhaps that was why still now he could not forget
the name Yi Se-chun. Because it was the name that had
stamped itself on his mind in that moment of confusion
when the image of Song-ju had come and embedded itself
in him like a thunderbolt.
It was also why the name of Song-ju’s closest
friend had become transformed into Yi Se-chun.
He had completely forgotten that friend’s real name.
It was the name he recalled when he had been
engrossed in rapturous thoughts of hoping for nothing
more in the world than just a chance of sharing even a
single glass of beer with Song-ju. Yi Se-chun.
She wasn’t called Yi Se-chun,
but Yi Se-chun was the only
name he remembered her by. So he spoke to Yi Se-chun.
“How about having a beer today? My treat.”
Just as Yi Se-chun
came to mind whenever he thought of Song-ju, Song-ju
was always beside Yi Se-chun, being her closest friend
and dormitory roommate. He lived in the dorm too. The
three of them met at six in front of the library,
walked down the university’s long central avenue and
out through the main gate. Along both sides of the
avenue far too many overblown roses were shedding
their petals like bubble gum
syrup.
The evening breeze felt cool and the lights
were beginning to come on in the bars in front of the
campus. After slowly walking down the food alley, they
drank draft beer and ate German-style sausages in a
beerhouse at the far end. Yi Se-chun
was from Gangneung, her father a middle-school Korean
teacher. It was her father who had decided she would
study Korean Language Education, too. Her mother ran a
piano academy. “She’d
said her fingers were too short, she could never
become a pianist; sometimes that made her cry like a
baby,” Yi Se-chun
said, at which he asked, “Can’t you become a pianist
if you have short fingers?”
In between talking with Yi Se-chun
he was able to learn, for example, that Song-ju was
from Jeonju. That was how it had been since. The
conversation consisted almost entirely of lively talk
between him and Yi Se-chun.
Although he was bursting with curiosity about Song-ju.
In the bar, too, Song-ju kept calling him Ajeossi.
As a result, Yi Se-chun misunderstood. She
thought he liked her. When she finally discovered the
truth she exploded in anger. Feeling sorry and wanting
to comfort her, he had offered to sing for her. Only
the song in question, accompanied on his ukulele, was
“Goose’s Dream.” But everyone already knew the story
of the “comforting concert” he had offered the
absentee student in her room.
Hearing the rehashed song, Yi Se-chun
felt justifiably hurt and for a while stopped going
around glued to Song-ju as she had before. About a
month passed before they were again inseparable, but
he continued to feel apologetic for a very long while.
To Song-ju, not Yi Se-chun. *
“You don’t know how terrified I used to be of
going to the dorm cafeteria.”
Sitting down on a large boulder studded with
plum-blossom patterns, he spoke. The sand banks
along the shores of the Seomjin River shone cool below
them.
“Don’t know? Behind my back I sensed it all.”
“Behind your back?”
“You never arrived in the cafeteria ahead of
me, did you, Ajeossi?”
“You knew?”
“Of course, I knew.”
It was inevitable. Being incapable of
approaching Song-ju directly, he followed her around
at a distance. His only means of access had been Yi
Se-chun but now she would not
so much as look at him. So in the cafeteria he always
came in after Song-ju and stood in the queue separated
from her by at least ten other people.
“I almost never sat at the same table with you.
Even if I did, I would be sitting at the farthest end
diagonally across from you. In those days the tables
each held about ten students.”
“Twelve.”
“Did you notice how awkward and uncomfortable I
was while eating?”
“I noticed. Since you were diagonally opposite
me.”
“Since I was diagonally opposite?”
“The way you were always able to get the end
seat diagonally opposite . . .” “Get the end seat?”
“On your own it would have been hard, surely?
It’s when two people feel the same that ‘the end seat
diagonally opposite’ becomes possible, no?”
Suddenly feeling a chill, he hunched his
shoulders. Twelve people . . . Song-ju’s memory was
sharper.
He did not dare watch Song-ju eating but
Song-ju had seen him. Despite “feeling the same” he
had been much more timid. Song-ju, knowing everything,
would arrive first at the cafeteria, then cope with
his gaze staring at her back from further behind in
the queue.
Tearing his gaze away from the Seomjin River,
he glanced stealthily at Song-ju’s profile. Why was
she telling him this only now? He longed to ask but
once again the same dread got in the way. Just then
Song-ju suddenly spoke and he was startled.
“You should have stopped eating if you were
that scared of going to the cafeteria.”
Hearing what sounded like a reproach, he
finally looked straight at Song-ju. She was smiling
brightly as a flower. He too smiled as he replied.
“But that sort of fear came from the premise
that I absolutely had to go to the cafeteria.” “Absolutely had to? “Yup. Absolutely had to.”
Moreover, there can hardly have been a student
who ate in the dorm as regularly as he did. Especially
in the morning, he invariably went to the cafeteria at
the right moment. Long before classes began, the
barely awake female dorm students would come thronging
to the communal dining room, pushing through the quiet
morning air that had not yet lost its dawn vigor.
Along the path to the cafeteria, depending on the
season, magnolias, hydrangeas, canna and wisteria
would be blooming. The students’ still not completely
dry hair gave off the smell of shampoo. On such
mornings, the sight of Song-ju’s freshly washed rosy
cheeks was a source of tremendous dread.
A strange dread that he had no wish to avoid.
On all those days, eating all those meals, his heart
would pound and he would have no idea how the food
tasted. Did Song-ju really know about all that, even?
He was curious but the question that emerged from his
lips was completely off the mark.
“What’s Yi Se-chun doing?”
“Yi Se-chun?”
“Your closest friend.”
“A-jeo-ssi!”
“What?”
“Her name is Hye-jin. Yi Hye-jin.”
Perhaps dreading something, as in the old days,
he once again gazed down at the slowly flowing river. *
She replied that Yi Hye-jin,
who was not Yi Se-chun,
was working at a high school in Anseong. She had
married two years later than Song-ju then got divorced
a few years ago, after falling in love with a man she
had met at a teachers’ training session.
“So now?” he asked.
“Still at the same school.”
“Is she all right?”
“What’s all right? She’s okay.”
“Okay?”
“She’s living alone. Her parents look after the
baby.”
She had quickly gotten divorced while the man
kept postponing his own divorce. “He probably doesn’t
want to break up the family.” Song-ju said. “Anyway,
it’s like a boring melodrama, you know.”
“A melodrama.”
“At the same time she keeps saying she’ll never
forget him, more melodramatic stuff, I guess. Yet
still they meet secretly from time to time, inventing
all sorts of pretexts. Her
face is only half the size it was. You wouldn’t
recognize her if you saw her. Yet she doesn’t seem fed
up.”
“Really. Yi Se . . . Yi Hye-jin.”
“Yet for some reason I’m really jealous of her,
she being a regular teacher. It’s grim being a
temporary teacher. No other temp is treated as we are.
Do you realize that temporary teachers have absolutely
no human rights?”
“Is it that bad?”
“Take the way they wait for a woman teacher to
become pregnant. When she comes back from maternity
leave the temporary teacher has to leave the school,
giving up the position. Quite often it means they lose
touch with kids they had grown close to. I’ve even had
to drive halfway across the country to work every day.
Rushing about with no time to trim your fingernails.
I’m thinking of quitting it all and taking up
painting. The deputy head once demanded a meeting at
ten in the evening and I had to comply.”
“You’ve got a husband earning money, and do you
really have to do that kind of work where even your
basic rights aren’t respected?”
“Don’t talk about my husband. He assumes that I
married him because there was nobody else. A guy in
charge of a backwoods branch of an agricultural co-op.
I have to cook even ramyeon for him, with kimchi, egg,
leek, seaweed, too. In the bathroom, if a bottle of
shampoo or rinse is empty, unless I clear it away the
empty container just stays sitting there. Likewise,
toothbrushes, soap, towels just go on being used and
left there accumulating. When the toilet paper runs
out, in the end I’m
the one who has to put in a new roll. Otherwise he
pulls some tissue out
of the box and goes into the bathroom with it.
I ask you! If I were him, I’d change it. His hair is
falling out in tufts, but if I tell him to clear out
the hair caught in the drain after a shower, he
doesn’t do it. Once he’s taken out and worn a pair of
shoes, they stay lying about in the entrance hall and
I have to put them away. Then after he’s used the
portable telephone he just throws it down so it
doesn’t get recharged and starts to beep, so in the
end I’m the one who has to put it back on the stand .
. . I should have taken the qualifying exam for a
regular teaching job earlier and given up on
housework, but I’m too old now.”
“You say all that, yet you don’t look a bit
unhappy. Besides, you’re only thirty-five.”
“There’s no point in keeping on at someone who
doesn’t have a way to understand my situation.”
“Even when you say that, you’re still
laughing.”
“Laughing? Lost for words, that’s why.”
“Even though there’s no plum blossom, your
laughter makes the world brighter.”
“It’s the Seomjin River that makes the world
bright. One day my ambition is to paint a thousand
pictures of it. It’s my reason for living. When I look
at the river I can breathe freely. It’s a really
pretty river. A very pretty river.”
Because you’re pretty, he murmured to himself.
It had been like that already at university and
Song-ju’s expression was almost never somber. She
looked just as she had before. “Anyway,” she asked,
“Don’t you feel lonely, living alone, Ajeossi?”
“It’s . . . so so.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m utterly lonely.”
“You don’t look a bit lonesome. You look smug
and selfish. Just like someone who’s made a name for
himself in his field.”
“I’m melancholy.”
“Shall we have an affair? You’re unmarried so I
won’t agonize like Hye-jin.”
He laughed loudly and a moment later Song-ju
followed suit, guffawing. Then abruptly, as if
realizing something, they both stopped laughing and
stared at each other. It was almost as though they
were unable to disguise completely the desire hidden
behind their exaggerated show of good or bad. The
silence that took the place of the laughter once it
ceased was sharp-edged.
One, two . . . three seconds or less was all
that glance lasted, but it was already the second
vivid look of the day. It was as though the sound of a
plum blossom opening could be heard coming from
somewhere.
“That’s really amazing, isn’t it?” He was the
first to look away. He pointed at the plum-blossom
patterns engraved on every rock. “What
are these if not plum blossoms?” Song-ju
replied. “They
must be plum blossoms?” “Yes,
plum blossoms.” “I
came in February and saw plum blossoms!” “You
saw indeed.” “We
can come at any time and still see plum blossoms.” “That’s
right.” “If
we think so, then it’s true.” “Right.”
Their exchange went on endlessly. Neither of
them pointed out that the white fragments embedded in
the granite were not plum blossoms. They
insisted. An icy winter wind was still blowing, the
river flowed slowly. *
He returned to Seoul with a busy mind. It was
because of one thing Song-ju had said that he held
onto firmly.
They parted in front of the duck restaurant
where they had first met. Standing there, against a
backdrop of a group of middle-aged men picking their
teeth as they left the restaurant, Song-ju waved.
“Write lots of poems.”
Song-ju spoke through the open car window.
“Paint lots of paintings. You can do it.”
He stretched his neck as he spoke. It was not
that they were not sorry to part, yet their farewell
words seemed neither ardent nor serious.
The words that stayed with him had not been
part of Song-ju’s farewells.
Song-ju had asked a question: “I’m curious
about one thing.”
“What?” he asked. Song-ju
looked at him briefly. Her eyes were full of mischief.
He was wondering whether he might come back again when
the plum trees were in flower. They were slowly
walking down the path through the orchard.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Why didn’t you reply?”
Song-ju explained her question. She had
occasionally written to him, baring her heart. Her
words were clear. She had bared her heart. Whenever
she had the time. Occasionally.
“Oh, I never received anything. Where did you
send them?”
“To your Cheollian email address. I sometimes
read what you wrote in a photo magazine. To the email
address printed at the end of the essays.”
He explained that, unfortunately, he had
stopped using that Cheollian address a long time ago.
Confused by too many IDs and passwords, nowadays he
only used one portal. Not Cheollian. Belatedly, he
handed Song-ju his business card.
“I see . . . . That’s what it was.”
“But did you, really?”
“What?”
“Send me emails?”
Song-ju seemed to be delaying her reply. It was
only after they had come all the way through the
orchard and reached the road that she spoke.
“Yup.”
“Yup,” not “Yes.”
He did not even realize that what had stayed in
his heart was that one word of Song-ju’s, Yup. All the
way back to Seoul, it seemed to keep coming, welling
up from the bottom of his heart. Yup. Yup. *
As soon as he reached Seoul, he could not help
turning on his computer. Recalling his old ID and
password, he tried logging on to Cheollian several
times but without success. Either the account had been
closed after some time had elapsed unused or he had
forgotten the password. Although he had been able to
verify his ID from a back issue of the photography
magazine without difficulty.
He let two days pass like that. Song-ju’s heart
was either imprisoned in the depths of an old email
account or it had vanished completely somewhere in
outer space.
If it had been an ordinary letter on paper,
instead of an email, it would still be wedged
somewhere, even if he had been unable to read it. If
he had burned it, there would still be ashes. Online
data that had been deleted was a weird kind of
absence, not subject to the law of the conservation of
mass.
On the morning of the third day after his
return from Gurye, as he was eating his breakfast of
toast, a fried egg and coffee while watching
television, he had the impression that a word was
slowly rising up from the depths and gradually
becoming clearer. “Island.”
It was a program called “Walking into the
World,” dedicated to Ireland. As he kept hearing the
word “Ireland” in the narration, the country’s name
did not immediately become clear but with the passage
of time seemed gradually to become plainer.
It was because what was rising up from deep
inside him was not that country’s name but the title
of a movie. The spelling was different but in Korean
both words were written in the same way.
After seeing that movie, he had used “island”
as his password.
With his mouth still full of bits of toast, he
logged on to Cheollian. At last, the firmly closed
lock opened. He nearly spat the scraps of toast on the
floor. There were forty-six emails from Song-ju. All
those emails had arrived on their own, waited so long
that they had fallen asleep hoping to be freed from
their spell.
The mouse clenched in his hand trembled. “It’s
raining.” “Today I was really angry twice.” “I steamed
some potatoes.” “I’m out of coffee.” “I’m bored.” “I
drank two cans of beer.” “Have you died, Ajeossi?” “I
hate summer.” “I fried too many pancakes.”. . . the
subject lines
were awaiting just a click, as if about to open
shining eyes at any moment.
He read them one by one. Just the titles,
slowly. Spending about twenty seconds on each one.
After he had read all the subjects, a long
while, the word “plum spring”
suddenly came to his mind. That did not mean “a spring
where there was plum blossom”
or “plum blossoms beside a spring.” “Plum spring”
meant plum blossoms bursting up
like a spring or becoming a spring and flowing. If he
clicked on those forty-six emails, he felt that plum
blossoms would come bursting forth like a spring and
go flowing endlessly; then, overwhelmed all
of a sudden by inexhaustible petals,
he would have a stroke.
Although she had seemed to be remote, in fact
approaching silently like an underground source would
be Song-ju’s heart that had retained and accumulated a
bouncing force corresponding to all the time it had
waited and delayed.
Quickly, he opened a file with the name “Jade
Dew of Crane Forest” and found a poem by a Buddhist
nun that he vaguely remembered. All
day long I wandered seeking spring, but could not
see it; Till
my shoes wore through, I
walked on treading on clouds above the hills; Returning
home weary, I smelled plum
blossoms
laughing in my
garden; Here
on the
top of
plum tree
branches, spring was already ripe.
He went back to his emails. Slowly, without
haste, he selected the option “All” in his “Received
Mail” menu. In a flash, a check appeared before each
of the titles.
Fifteen at a time, three times, he clicked
“Delete.”
Down to the last remaining one, all of them. * Those
moments when their eyes had met in the orchard. Two
glances, brief but profound. He reckoned that by their
vividness they would provide sufficient nourishment
for him to go on being happy while yearning for her
for several more years.
“No emails arrived.” He phoned Song-ju.
“No emails?”
“I finally squeezed out the password and logged
in. Nothing.”
“There was nothing there?”
At that, Song-ju burst out in a lengthy fit of
laughter. She laughed so hard it sounded as if she was
crying.
“Really, Ajeossi!”
Song-ju stopped laughing with a hiccup.
“Me? What?”
“Did you believe that?”
“Of course, I believed.”
“Your hopes were dashed.”
“Stop kidding.”
You are so like me it makes me feel sad,
were words that did not pass through his lips. He did
not want to say it, nor did he feel sad. Because he
reckoned it was for the sake of a happier life for
both of them, in order to love that life.
“Anyway, I guess it’s good to phone like this,”
Song-ju said.
“Me too,” he said.
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