by Yun Ko-Eun
The writer went on to a different tourist destination without bothering to describe Mui. Yona felt queasy. She kept thinking about what would complete the writer’s sentence: ‘Mui, it’s, it’s something like …’
The group got more drunk. Yona looked over at the entrance to the bar. The building opened on to a view of sea, or maybe the sea opened on to the building. There was nothing about the opening that you could call a door (or maybe the door was open so wide that Yona couldn’t see it). All Yona saw was a plaque hanging above the opening, bearing a sentence that apparently indicated the theme of this place. According to the guide, the sentence meant, ‘Drinking is happiness’.
A crowd of local teenagers unfolded music stands in the alley and began to perform. Now the only people outside were Yona and her group. Violin, guitar, drum—the performers played a pleasant melody, the noises cacophonously jumbling together on the street. The whole act charmed Yona: the smiles that showed these teenagers were happy to have listeners, smiles that showed they were bursting with happiness as they performed here, their giggles and then moments of seriousness. Even the teacher’s daughter, always distracted, was now a serious listener.
After the performance ended, the teacher walked up to the front and asked the musicians a question.
‘What’s the name of your band?’
‘Thank you teacher,’ the teens replied.
It wasn’t clear if that was the name of the band or an expression of gratefulness, but anyhow, it was refreshing to see joy among the ruins of Mui. After Thank You Teacher finished their songs, an elderly man dragged his body to the front of the small crowd and began to play the accordion. His legs curled backwards like a merman, and his hat sat open on his knees. Yona found it exciting to watch the accordion expand, making space as it produced sound. According to the guide, this man had been one of the youngest people on Mui during the head-hunting incident, and now he was one of the oldest survivors to remember such events. During the long decades since the massacre, the man’s body still hadn’t recovered. The old performer who’d lost the use of his legs played his instrument so resonantly that it made the six onlookers reflect once more on why they were there. Yona couldn’t point her camera at him. She just stood and listened to the melody as the accordion expanded and contracted.
Someone, probably a local, offered to take a picture of Yona’s group. Yona’s camera had now recorded the final items on this trip’s itinerary: today’s activities. She pressed the replay button on her camera and looked at the last picture she’d taken. The camera had a total of six hundred photos, and Yona began to peruse them one by one. But as soon as she saw the Unda child riding on a plastic washbasin, she immediately pressed the delete button.
3
THE CUT-OFF TRAIN CAR
THE DAY AFTER CHEERING HERSELF UP with alcohol, Yona overslept. She missed breakfast for the first time since arriving in Mui. The group had agreed to meet in the lobby at 10 a.m., and it was already 9.40. Yona felt like throwing up. The ominousness of last night’s dream lingered, even if she’d forgotten the plot while washing her face. Maybe she’d dreamed about returning to Seoul. It was the sixth morning of the trip, and today they were heading back. Just like on their way here, the travellers would be going through the airport in Vietnam. According to the schedule, they’d be boarding in the late afternoon, and in the evening they’d touch down at Incheon Airport.
At 9.50, Yona called the front desk and asked for assistance with her luggage. Five minutes later, an employee wearing a loose-fitting uniform drove up in a golf cart. The slim but sturdy man loaded Yona’s suitcase and small bag on to his vehicle. It was just like the day she’d arrived. During her stay here, every time Yona requested something from the front desk, this man appeared. Only when it was time to leave did she read his name. A gleaming tag with the name ‘Luck’ written on it was pinned to his chest.
‘Was it a good trip?’ Luck asked.
‘Yeah, I learned a lot,’ Yona replied.
‘Well, have a safe trip back.’
All Yona had in her wallet was a few hundred-dollar bills. She noticed that she was carrying a single two-dollar note as well, but that wasn’t money she’d intended to use. It was a lucky two-dollar bill someone had given her long ago as a present. Finally Yona pulled it out of her wallet.
‘Luck, these two dollars are lucky,’ she said. ‘If you carry this bill around with you, you’ll have good fortune.’
Luck smiled when he saw the money.
The travellers left Mui. Their return route was a little different from the one they’d taken to get here. Now they were going by train rather than by bus. The train from the coast headed towards Ho Chi Minh City’s airport; this time, the journey was slightly faster. Everyone in the group sank into their seats and slept or sat quietly. They wouldn’t arrive for two more hours, but Yona couldn’t stand how uncomfortable her insides felt. She’d drunk too much last night. She felt nauseous, and her stomach gurgled. She walked to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, but even after twenty minutes of waiting, it was still in use. When she knocked on the door, she could clearly hear a tapping noise coming from inside. Finally she decided to find a bathroom in another car. Placing one hand on her chest and another on the tops of the seats, she tottered forward.
There wasn’t a toilet in every train car, so she had to walk for a while before she came across an empty bathroom. Had she ever appreciated a toilet this much? Yona flopped to the ground and almost hugged the porcelain. It had taken her thirty minutes to find and use the facilities. Everything changed in those thirty minutes. Eventually Yona began to walk back in the direction she’d come from. The train wobbled from side to side as always, but something seemed different. The train was now shorter than the distance Yona had walked to reach the bathroom.
At some point in the past thirty minutes, the train had divided into two parts, like those flatworms that could regenerate after being cut in half. Yona realised that now there were only five cars. The bathroom had been in car two, and her original seat in car seven. When she opened the door at the end of the fifth car, she saw only empty tracks following the train like a long tail.
Yona’s seat must have been in the part of the train that was cut off. She vaguely remembered an announcement that the train was splitting into two different routes. The problem was that Yona was now on one of the routes, and her bags and fellow travellers were on the other. The two halves of the train were long separated. It had originally been an express train, but now Yona’s half was making local stops. Yona needed to know what direction this half was going, but she had no way to find out. Someone who looked like a train employee came up to Yona and asked for a ticket. After looking at Yona’s, she shook her head.
‘Can’t I stay on the train?’ Yona asked. ‘I need to go to the airport! My luggage and group are all in the other cars—what should I do?’
Yona said it once in Korean and twice in English, but the employee didn’t understand. Even so, she comprehended the situation and explained something energetically in the local language.
‘Two stops ago, the car you were supposed to be on shifted on to different tracks. That train’s an express. You won’t reach your destination on this local track. There are no more trains heading in your direction today. If you want to get to the airport, you’ll need to look into other forms of transportation. This seat’s not available any more.’
Yona couldn’t understand the words, but she managed to catch a few things from the woman’s gestures and the atmosphere. Your seat’s not here; please get off.
The train soon reached the next station, and when the doors opened, Yona was the only person to step out.
She was incredibly lucky to at least have her handbag on her. Yona took out her mobile phone and dialled the guide’s number. As soon as the call connected, Lou burst into a fit of anger.
‘Where are you?’
Lou’s aggressive tone of voice shook Yona. The situation was urgent, but Yona hesi
tated before answering:
‘I went to the bathroom, and then the train …’
‘Ms Ko, I told you on the first day. The train splits in two during the ride, and sometimes the two halves end up going in different directions. That’s why I told you only to use the bathroom in your car. I warned you. Do you realise how much we’ve been looking for you? And do you know when the plane leaves? Get to the airport now, whatever it takes. Where are you?’
‘I don’t know what the name of this place is. It seems like the sign is in the local language, but I can’t read it.’
‘Take a taxi or something. Take anything, just make it to the airport in time. If people don’t understand you, you have our trip’s brochure. The thing that Jungle handed out. If you look at the back cover, there’s a map. Point to the airport on the map. Are you listening?’
Yona felt sorry for underestimating Lou. Lou was a competent guide. And right now, Yona was an incompetent traveller. The brochure was sitting inside her suitcase, and the suitcase lay on top of seat twelve in car seven.
‘That booklet with the map on it, it’s inside my suitcase,’ Yona said. ‘You know what my suitcase looks like, Lou. I’m sorry.’
‘Then grab a taxi, quick. I’ll explain where you need to go. Hand the driver the phone.’
Holding her mobile phone in her hand, Yona tried to hail a taxi, but her call had already disconnected. She put the phone in her bag. She tried to pull out her wallet but couldn’t find it. Yona’s wallet was packed inside a small pouch along with her passport, but they had both disappeared. Everything Yona needed now was gone. She felt like a child had crawled inside her head, a child who made a mess out of exactly what his mother had just tidied. If you thought about it, everything had gone to ruins. Yona hadn’t left her passport in the hotel, had she? Otherwise the resort would have contacted the guide. When Yona and the others got on the bus leaving Mui, Lou had checked all their passports. Yona definitely had her passport then, because that was why she could board the bus—so did Lou have it now? Yona pulled her phone out and called the guide again. She’d been worried for a while about the fact that her phone battery had only one bar left, and the moment the call connected, the phone began to beep. A low battery warning sound.
‘Lou, is my passport with you?’
All Yona could hear on the other side was a deep breath.
‘Yona. Money—do you have money?’
‘I don’t even have my wallet. I have some cash that I was carrying separately, but it’s not much. What should I do? It seems like people don’t really understand English here.’
‘Well, first we have to go through the necessary procedures. I’ll contact the manager. Since you don’t have your passport, even if you make it to the airport, you won’t be able to do anything. You’ll have to join us later. So, Yona—’
Yona held the suddenly silent phone and sunk to the ground. It wasn’t that she’d never travelled, or that she’d never been pickpocketed, or that she’d never forgotten something at a hotel, but this current situation was all too unfamiliar. It was probably because of the language barrier. Yona couldn’t read any of the place names here, or understand them if people said the names aloud. No one understood what Yona said, either. She saw a bus in the distance, labelled with the route name ‘Gyeongbok-gung to Mapo’. One of the fake Korean routes that the guide had mentioned at some point. The bus drove away without coming closer.
Yona recalled the website that had predicted the day of her death. No matter how much time she had at the beginning, eventually her remaining lifespan would dwindle to nothing. Now Yona had lost another hour’s worth of life.
‘Ask Paul about the way.’
As soon as Yona read the message, her phone died. It seemed like it had turned off for good this time. Yona tried to find a train station employee, but all she saw were passers-by. A tourist information kiosk was too much to hope for here. This was just a station that she was supposed to have passed through. Even if she tried to talk to someone on the street, the person wouldn’t speak Korean or English. No one was selling tickets here, so Yona couldn’t just awkwardly stand on the platform waiting for help. Yona realised that she didn’t have much travel experience in countries where she didn’t speak the language. The places she’d been to before were destinations where she could at least use simple tourist English. Of course, even if the language here was unfamiliar, conversations on buses and in train stations kept to a certain script. Most of them went something like this: ‘Would you like a one-way or round trip ticket? Just one?’ But this was the first time Yona had been somewhere she couldn’t communicate at all. Yona regretted that she hadn’t learned any Vietnamese, that she’d left the guidebook with simple Vietnamese phrases in her suitcase. The few words of Vietnamese that Yona did know were only used in happy situations, so in urgent times like this, they’d be as useless as a bounced cheque.
Thankfully, someone at least understood the word ‘hotel’. Yona walked down a few blocks as the stranger had directed and entered an alley lined with buildings that must have been hotels, even if they didn’t really look like them. It had only been a few hours since she’d left the train, but it felt like days had passed. Standing at the end of the alley, Yona looked up at the sky. She couldn’t see the sun, and she felt a little nauseous. Only after poking her head into the first eight hotels lining the street did she find an English speaker, on her ninth try.
‘Do you by any chance know someone named Paul?’ she asked.
The hotel employee roundly pursed his lips and repeated ‘Pa-aul?’ back to Yona several times. He asked Yona who Paul was, but Yona obviously didn’t know, either. Then she remembered that the guide had said she would contact Belle Époque’s manager. When Yona asked the employee to help her get back to Mui, he seemed confused. ‘You need to go to Mui?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Mui. I’m trying to get to the Belle Époque resort there, and I was told to ask Paul for directions. So, um, can I use your phone? I just need to call one person.’
Even though she assumed that her group’s plane had already left the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Yona wanted to double-check. The hotel employee let Yona make a call, but the guide’s phone was turned off. She must have already boarded the plane. The man looked at Yona.
‘I don’t know Paul,’ he said, ‘but I do know the way back to Mui. You have to go to the port first. Not from this train station, though. Get on a train here and then transfer at the next stop. But there’s probably not much time before the last boat leaves.’
Eventually the helpful man decided to take Yona to the dock himself. He hurried outside like it was his job to solve Yona’s problems, and it didn’t matter if the front desk remained empty. Yona boarded his motorcycle and put her arms around the man’s waist. It was a blessing that she’d lost her suitcase, she thought. The man’s motorcycle plunged into an enormous crowd of similar vehicles. Yona covered her ears and nose tightly to protect them from the dust clouds and the din. The hotel employee chattered on like he didn’t care if she was listening. He claimed that he could determine if two people riding a motorcycle together were dating, married or just friends, based on their posture.
‘Considering the way you’re sitting right now, you’d be . . .’
After passing through a long tunnel of jarring noises, the man starting speaking again.
‘You’re sitting like a piece of luggage. So you’re not really a rider, you’re more like cargo.’
Yona didn’t understand the difference between lovers and couples and friends and luggage, but she replied, ‘I guess that’s right.’ She tried not to look flustered. This man seemed trustworthy, but even if he wasn’t, she had no other options. Yona maintained a calm demeanour as she struggled to touch her body against his as little as possible. But suddenly she was overcome by a desolate feeling, like the clouds of exhaust that surrounded her. The harbour was on a street that took a long time to get to by motorcycle, and only after reaching the harbour did Yona’s sur
roundings grow familiar. She recognised Phan Thiet. There was the large supermarket in the distance, where they’d bought toothbrushes and coffee on the first day of the trip. Like most people who didn’t come across tourists frequently, the man on the motorcycle seemed to feel a combination of curiosity about Yona and responsibility for her. With his guidance, Yona made it to the harbour before the last boat, easily bought a ticket and finally met Paul.
As it turned out, Paul wasn’t a person; it was the name of a shipping company. Every boat travelling between Vietnamese coastal cities and Mui belonged to Paul. Yona’s body weakened when she learned this. She couldn’t tell if she was disheartened or reassured.
A bout of rain noisily erupted over the harbour, and scores of raindrops fell on to the deck. Yona had of course ridden this boat in this direction five nights and six days ago, but now that she was alone, it felt unfamiliar. There weren’t many other passengers. A few of them sat in a damp, dark corner of the vessel and stared intensely at Yona.
It was 9 p.m. when they arrived in Mui, but no one was out on the pier. Thankfully, a Paul employee heard Yona say the words ‘Belle Époque’ and called the resort for her. A car soon arrived at the port. As soon as she saw Belle Époque’s logo drawn on the car, Yona filled with relief. She felt further from Korea than ever, but at least there was one familiar place in this foreign land: the resort she’d stayed at a few days ago.
At Belle Époque, though, no one had heard about Yona’s situation.
‘Did no one contact you?’ she asked.
When Yona enquired if they’d got a call from the guide, the manager pulled a strange face. He flipped through a few documents, called someone, and said ‘Okay’ as he hung up the phone.
‘Neither your guide nor the travel company is picking up. Business hours are over for the day,’ he told Yona.
‘The guide’s on the plane, too.’
