Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction

by Claude Lalumiere

  Big Myoung grinned. Maybe it is time you got married, Wonjjang.

  “Not a chance,” Jang Won said aloud, and released the figurine. It bounced into the air. Luckily, he caught it as he turned to see his boss strut into the huge shared office. Big Myoung followed his gaze.

  Lee Dong Jae, the operations manager for the Special Talents Division of LG Seoul, had entered the room with a serious look on his face. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he hollered: “Everybody!”

  Once the whole office had stopped what it was doing and turned to listen, he said, “Good afternoon! We’ve decided that this evening we’ll host an important dinner meeting to celebrate recent successes and discuss the future of LG Superheroes Division. All food and drinks will be complimentary, of course. Everybody is expected to attend. That is all. Thank you!”

  As Lee left the room, applause crescendoed and then died out, replaced by the soft, continuous murmur of voices.

  “Here we go again,” said Jang Won aloud.

  “Mmm hmmm,” replied Big Myoung. I guess you won’t have to lie your way out of the matchmaker appointment this time.

  I never lie…, Jang Won thought-mumbled.

  Big Myoung pushed his sunglasses up his nose and grinned so wide you could see the gold crowns holding his molars together.

  In five thousand years of culture — or so high-school teachers had always claimed — many wonderful things had been created, invented, and conceived by the genius of the Korean people: the world’s first movable metal-type printing machine; the Hangeul alphabet; the miraculous dish known as kimchi; the most complex realization of Confucianism on Earth. But to Jang Won, none of these creations even held a candle to soju.

  Soju was magical: a glue for friends, a remedy for anger, a succouring balm in times of pain and heartbreak. Soju warmed the heart on lonesome, rainy nights and dampened the fires of hopeless passions and sorrows. Jang Won had occasionally heard foreigners compare it to vodka, but it was nothing like that measly Russian stuff. It was miraculous, an almost holy liquor, made from the rice, pale sweet potatoes, and wheat of his homeland and distilled in the blessed factories of the Hite and Chamisul corporations. And it was dirt cheap.

  Chilled green bottles of the stuff cluttered all the tables at which Jang Won and his co-workers were seated: soju and grilled meat, they were as inseparable as man and woman, hammer and nail, baby and mother’s breast.

  Soju plus meat was a tried and true formula. But Director Lee’s latest discovery was a coup — a restaurant that offered the best soju, delectable pork, and private rooms where food and liquor could be accompanied by the other remaining joy of life: singing. A karaoke restaurant: this was a revelation!

  “There are only a few of these in Seoul,” said Lee. “It’s a new kind of business… So everybody, let’s enjoy! Great job, everyone, especially Park Jang Won and his team! Kombei!” he bellowed his toast, raising his tiny soju glass.

  “Kombei!” the entire staff roared back joyfully, glasses raised. In unison, they knocked back their soju in a single shot and applauded.

  Jang Won politely grabbed a bottle and refilled Director Lee’s glass first. Lee nodded appreciatively, and declared loudly, “Let’s eat!”

  With that came trays of raw pork and beef to be grilled at the tables and, with the meat, more soju and, with the grilling, singing and drinking and mouthfuls of grilled pork wrapped in lettuce, the bite of garlic and hot pepper paste … and singing, and again and again the little cups of soju.

  The shop-talk at the managers’ table, though, bored Jang Won. He made an effort to nod at all the uninteresting observations, polite and insincere flatteries, and uptight jokes, but his eye kept straying to the foreigners’ table, off to one side. They seemed to be enjoying themselves less than their Korean co-workers, who were vigorously drinking, singing, and eating. Neko especially drew his gaze. Dressed in a blue pinstripe pantsuit, she was speaking politely to Kevin — that is, Blastman, who had come to the party in typically undignified American street clothes: jeans with holes in the knees, and a T-shirt. Real shoopahs wear suits, Jang Won thought viciously, and noted that, in street clothes, Blastman even had a bit of a potbelly.

  That was interesting. Not so perfect after all, huh? Jang Won thought, and shifted his attention back to his own table. He glanced at Lee, whose was talking seriously about something boring. Jang Won felt his face burning, and he knew it was bright red from the soju. He could swear he was hearing Neko sweetly calling his name.

  “Jang Won! Mr. Park! Mr. Park Jang Won-sshi!”

  He turned, realizing that he really was hearing his name being called, but not by Neko. Some of the office girls were gesturing to him, and he realized what song was coming next. It was his old standard, the song he always sang at every party, and which was considered, among his co-workers, famously his.

  He excused himself, rose on wobbly legs, and hurried to the open space beyond the tables with moments to spare. Grabbing the microphone, he scrunched up his face and sang so hard that his throat itched inside, and his heart actually ached:

  Oh Seagull! Oh Seagull!

  You know the pain in my heart!

  Oh Seagull! Oh Seagull!

  Go and tell her, tell her ears my secret fascination!

  Opening his eyes, he crooned and implored until he caught himself gazing blearily into Neko’s eyes. He saw the look on her face — awkward, amused — and slammed his eyes shut again, opening them only when he heard Director Lee behind him, furiously shaking a tambourine and screaming the backing vocals at the top of his lungs.

  When the next tune started, someone else — some office girls Wonjjang had never met — hurried up to take their turn at singing.

  “Y’know,” Director Lee said to him, “When management decided that we needed a ‘Globalized Shoopah’ team, I doubted we’d find anyone to run it. Not many men could deal with a bunch of foreigners like that. And I had my doubts about you. But you’ve done well with your team! Maybe you might be able to recover after all…”

  “Recover?” Jang Won asked him, shaking his head to clear it.

  “Never mind…” Lee quickly said, smiling awkwardly. “More soju?” he offered, holding up a full bottle.

  Jang Won shook his head. “Excuse me, sir,” he said apologetically, his stomach feeling suddenly upset.

  “Yeh, yeh,” Director Lee slurred, removing his arm from around Jang Won’s shoulder. As Lee sat down, Jang Won made his way to the foreigners’ table, where his team was seated, and plonked himself down right beside Neko. He felt everyone’s eyes on him as he asked her whether she was having a good time.

  “Yes, boss,” she said stiffly, “but…”

  “Yes?”

  “Um… Where is the powder room, here?” she asked anxiously in well-spoken Korean.

  “Over there…” he said, gesturing with his head, but it lolled so much that she wandered off in the wrong direction. Jang Won wondered if she was trying to escape him.

  That hurt, but he said nothing as he watched her stop a waitress and get proper directions. When she was gone, Jang Won turned to Kevin, and said in English, “We’re friend,” pointing at himself and then sticking a finger in Kevin’s chest.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Friend,” he repeated, slowly and emphatically. “You country, me country, it’s a friend,” he said, and clasped his hands together demonstratively. “USA … is a … help Korea. Many time before … I … someone is doesn’t know. But I am know. Help! And now you and me is a special friend country. And you and me too.” Claiming himself a full, abandoned little glass of soju — Neko’s perhaps — he hoisted it high. The American smiled magnanimously, clinked glasses with Jang Won, and then they knocked their soju back.

  Kevin made a face as if he didn’t like the taste of the stuff. That troubled Jang Won, suddenly.
<
br />   “You momma is … very missing?” Jang Won asked Kevin. It was another miracle of soju — it could make a man ask any question, in any language, to anyone.

  “Uh, dude… Do I miss my mom, you mean? Or does my mom miss me?”

  Jang Won nodded and lost track of everything else the American said in response. “Unh,” Jang Won nodded affirmatively. “You missing momma is very … yes?”

  More gobbledygook poured out of Kevin’s mouth.

  “So, you are make a love for … it’s a Neko … yes?”

  Kevin’s expression changed. “I’m sorry, what do you mean, sir?” He looked as if he were just about to get angry, but wasn’t sure whether he had understood correctly.

  Jang Won’s interest in the conversation waned. Suddenly everything slowed, and he was swept up by a deep, powerful clarity.

  A mumbling sound to his right drew Jang Won’s attention, and when he turned he saw that E-Gui was explaining something to Kevin, in English too complicated for Jang Won to follow. Jang Won really wanted to hit E-Gui, then … for saving Kim, for making him feel small, for getting in his way.

  “No, no, no … you no … understand…” Jang Won slurred at Kevin. “You … love her is not, and very! Not trust… She Japan girl. Can’t trust. You, me, friend. You no trust her, trust me, only, okay?”

  “She’s my teammate, sir, I need to…”

  “No! You country, she country make … Boom!” he gestured dramatically, sloppily, and a few empty bottles scattered. Nothing of what he was trying to convey came across: the Japanese imperial occupation of Korea, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese shoopah-attacks on Hawaii and Seoul and Beijing and California a few years after the war… Didn’t Kevin know any history?

  Jang Won struggled to listen as Kevin spurted gobbledygook again. “Yes, I know. I’ve thought … Hiroshima … mutation … impossible … destined…” Jang Won caught only random words. He gulped down another glass of soju and chased it with some grilled pork while someone refilled the cup. The kid was still talking. Americans were so damned talkative. Kevin’s expression was less annoyed, though, and more thoughtful.

  “Kevin!” Neko’s voice called from outside the room, like heavenly music. “Come on … get out … promised … ride home…”

  Kevin smiled, bid Jang Won goodnight in polite, atrociously pronounced Korean, and rose to leave. Jang Won howled after him, but then he felt hands on his shoulders again and heard the intro to another of “his” songs, though he couldn’t remember which one it was. The office girls were calling his name: it was time to stand.

  He sang … sort of. Singing, yelling, muttering — it was a manic blend of all three, but the basic feeling must have come across, because his co-workers cheered for him enthusiastically. He swung his hips, raised his free hand dramatically, wailed his heartbreak. Someone handed him another shot of soju as the song ended, and Jang Won passed the microphone over his shoulder to the next guy, whom he assumed to be a junior employee. He drunkenly mumbled, “Here you go, kid,” not bothering to look at who was next in line.

  “Kid?” A blow connected with his cheek, jolting him into clarity. “When were you born, you son of a bitch? You slobbered all over the mike, too, you filthy drunken gaesaeki!” This was delivered in a voice reeking of soju, and “gaesaeki” — literally, dog-baby — was one of the worst insults there was in the Korean language. Worse, the karaoke machine was between tracks, so everyone had heard it.

  Jang Won looked up to see who’d insulted him. It was Keun Dwaeji! The Keun Dwaeji! Now, sure, he was just a portly old pig-headed man — literally, a man with a pig’s head — in a leather jacket. A washed-up desk jockey with a record tarnished by helping the Park and Chun dictatorships suppress the pro-democracy movement in Kwangju. But he’d also once been the legendary shoopah who’d led Team Hanguk against the Medvyed Mafiya in Vladivostok, who’d saved the island of Ddokdo from the Japanese back in the 1980s. Jang Won had pissed off a national hero.

  Keun pulled his enormous black custom sunglasses off his snout and flexed his arms inside his huge brown cow-skin jacket. “And they call me a pig?” His curly pink tail trembled with rage.

  Jang Won weighed his options, with all the rationality of a filthy-drunk superhero in trouble. After a moment, he simply shrugged and leaped at the pigman. He slammed his left fist, and then his right, into the pig’s head. “You…” (jab) “might…” (kick to the crotch, and Keun’s yellowed tusks flashed) “be…” (left hook) “older…” (a chop to the throat; the slow old hog’s hoof slammed into his chest, but he couldn’t feel it) “but—”

  He was about to leap up and bring all of his weight down onto the pig’s snout when a dozen very strong shoopah arms grabbed at him, holding him still. Dwaeji was being restrained, too, but not as vigorously.

  Jang Won looked around, and saw the shock on everyone’s faces. Director Lee was shouting. Keun Dwaeji had been Lee’s teammate back in the 1970s; once, in a single day, they’d saved both Jeju Island and the president from a Communist attack. But Jang Won wasn’t feeling apologetic. He lunged again but couldn’t move at all. A string of cuss words spewed from his mouth, and then he went silent and stared the pigman in the eye.

  The music had stayed off after the fight had started, and the room was utterly silent. Jang Won inhaled deeply, defiantly. Then he horked up a gob of phlegm, and spat.

  The glob landed right onto the tip of Dwaeji’s snout, amid shrieks of disbelief.

  Jang Won snarled fiercely. “That’s how old I am,” he shouted, “Old enough to know washed-up when I see it! Who caught Kim Noh Wang, hmm? Me! I did!” he roared, looking around proudly. Keun Dwaeji struggled again, but Jang Won ignored him. He was looking at the faces of his team, staring in disbelief: E-Gui, and Laotzu, and … Kevin and Neko? What were they doing back here?

  His pride deflated, punctured by shame.

  Had he just claimed sole credit for the capture? Surely people would understand what he meant. He scrambled, trying aloud to piece together what he had meant. Their faces were so … disappointed. His head swirled with pride, anger, embarrassment, regret, and a strange, taunting lust for Neko.

  That is, until he landed face-down on the sidewalk outside the karaoke diner, and the doors slammed shut behind him.

  4. I’m Do It’s My Job

  Jang Won sat up suddenly, karaoke songs and nightmarish chittering still swirling around in his head. He was on his bedroom floor.

  After his morning pee, he stumbled to the kitchen. Soju was wonderful, but the day after hurt, same as with any other liquor. Maybe worse. Jang Won’s mouth tasted like a month-old soup, forgotten in the back of a bachelor’s fridge.

  He sat down at the kitchen table and thumbed through a catalog that the matchmaker had apparently left behind the night before. It was page after page of beautiful smiles. He had to wonder whether marriage wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “Rhee Ryang Hee,” he read aloud, gazing admiringly at her face. It was hard to judge her body type, for she was in a traditional Korean gown that furled out from the bust, but she was probably lovely. “Hobbies: singing patriotic songs; studying our Dear Leader’s speeches; performing traditional Korean music on the keomungo.” Strange, he thought. It’s a North Korean instrument, isn’t it? A Korean proverb about who was most attractive, “Nam Nam Buk Nyeo,” ran through his head: Southern men, Northern women. In the blur of his hangover, it had a nice ring to it. He thumbed through the book enthusiastically, until his empty stomach grumbled for breakfast.

  A bowl of kimchi stew sat on the table, right at his usual place. He spooned a little into his mouth and grimaced. It was cold.

  “Umma!” he called out.

  No response came. Sunlight streamed through the window, onto the counter where she’d left the dishes and pots and half-chopped vegetables sitting. She’d never have done that. He called out to h
er again, and when no response came he rubbed his eyes and stared at the stew.

  Then he saw it.

  In the middle of the table sat a note written in Korean, in scribbly blue ink:

  To Wonjjang,

  The knockout drugs have worn off, finally? Your dear and darling Umma will be blown to pieces if you don’t capitulate to the demands on the back of this page, all of them, in the next 48 hours. Fail in any way and your mother dies. Meet us at the top of Mount Halla at noon two days from now.

  From:

  A Friend of Kim Noh Wang

  He flipped the page over, and his heart sank. The demands included money, experimental equipment from top-secret LG techlabs, and the release of a long list of Kim Noh Wang’s Nork buddies and associates.

  His heart raced. How was this possible? What about the complimentary LG alarm system and the apprentice-shoopah guard detail? He’d given up on having a secret identity, in accordance with the LG business plan, because of these safeguards. He imagined his poor umma, vicious but frail, arguing with some North Korean henchman. The Nork wouldn’t stand a chance in an argument with her, of course.

  But then, he wouldn’t have to. One little injection would shut her up … forever.

  A wave of guilt passed through him, the only son, the only one she had in the world.

  Jang Won knew what his mother would say, if he rescued her: “You see? If only you were married, like a normal man, this wouldn’t have happened!” A pang of guilt went through him: if he had come home early, sober, maybe he could have protected her. He cussed at himself and hurried to the shower.

  About half an hour later, in his best black three-piece suit (and with a clean uniform stowed in his briefcase), Jang Won finished his last officeward bound and landed on the ledge outside the window he always came in through.

  It was closed. It was never closed, not even when he was late like today. He pounded on it until Big Myoung finally showed up to open it for him. The telepath had tears in his eyes.