by Isis, Justin
Park looked at Tomo, who was sitting at the end of the table with a blank expression on his face.
—Well, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it out to Kyoto...
—Oh, I’m sure it’ll be during your holidays.
Junko returned with the rice and, after wishing Tomo happy birthday again, they started to eat. Junko had prepared chicken, roast beef and a salad. Tomo’s sister had made omurice, a thin swirl of ketchup atop the rounded yellow egg topping. As they ate, the two women continued their conversation about the wedding. Then, noticing Tomo’s silence, his sister said:
—You’ll have to show Seok-Hwan some of your paintings.
Tomo looked at her but didn’t answer.
After they finished dinner, Junko went to the kitchen, turned off the lights, and returned with a cake. They sang to Tomo and gave him his presents — first he opened a package from his sister containing a new watch, then moved onto the supplies Park and Junko had bought together. When he unwrapped the paints and pencils, he looked up and thanked Park.
—Go on, show him something, Junko said. Show him your paintings.
Tomo nodded, but looked somehow anxious. He glanced at Park, seemed to consider something, then got to his feet and headed for the hall.
—Come on, I’ll show you.
When they entered the room Tomo picked some of his clothes off the bed so Park could sit, then went to the desk and turned down the screen of his laptop.
—Did my mother buy those paints?
—I bought them with her, Park said.
—So it was her idea?
Park thought about it.
—No, not really.
Tomo walked away from the desk, towards the corner of the room. A group of three easels stood near the window, their canvases covered with plastic shrouds. After opening the window, Tomo removed the plastic and propped the canvases forward.
—Anyway, this is what I’ve been working on.
Park looked at the paintings. The first was a self-portrait done in oil, Tomo’s profile silhouetted against the bureau shelf in the living room. His posture was straight as he stared to the side. The second canvas depicted Park’s face. He recognized the source — it was taken from a photograph of him from last year, on a school trip. Wearing his old uniform, he was looking up somewhat blankly, as if he had just noticed the picture was being taken. But there was something wrong — Tomo had changed the angle, so that the left side of his face stood out. He could see the side of his nose and the edges of his eyes just turning into view. It was not an angle he was used to seeing himself from.
The third canvas was still just a sketch, but it appeared to be another rendition of Park. The features were wrong, though — the eyes were too narrow, too close-set. And the structure of the bones was different. Looking at it he felt a strange sensation, as if Tomo were trying to caricature him somehow.
—So what do you think of them?
—Yeah, they’re good, Park said.
—That’s all? They’re good?
—Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you.
Tomo sat in a chair by the desk. He looked at Park, then shifted his gaze to the paintings.
—So how does it feel to be sixteen, Park said.
Tomo walked to the edge of the room and put the plastic covers back on the canvases.
—I don’t want to get any older.
—Everyone’s getting older.
Tomo turned around.
—I feel like I’m never getting anything done. Even if I sit in a room alone all the time I never get anything done, I just end up repeating myself. I keep drawing the same things over and over or else I get sick of what I’ve done and throw it away.
—That’s just what you’ve been selected to do.
—You make it sound like I don’t have any choice.
Park leaned against the wall.
—Human lives are like little wind-up toys. When one runs down another one replaces it.
—So what’s better than that? Art?
—I knew you’d say that.
—What’s wrong with it? Tomo asked.
—Artists are also wind-up toys that have been set in motion. If they weren’t artists, they’d be politicians or comedians or something else. The shape of the mind determines the role. Everyone is given a role at birth and that role is their mind.
—But you can change your mind.
—You can change your opinions or beliefs but not your mind. When you pull off the body of a tick, its head is still under the skin. It’s the same with the mind. You can’t make your mind exactly the same as mine or move it around in time, so how can you do anything about it? But if we’re unborn, or dead, our minds are nowhere and so they’re not separate.
—But then they don’t exist.
—Non-existence is a hoax, Park said. The whole point of the hoax is that, in time, something can not exist, exist, and then not exist again. For example a person being born, living, and dying. I don’t believe that at all.
—You just contradicted yourself.
—I wouldn’t worry about that, Park said. Contradictions are also a hoax. The same people who believe that non-existence is separate from existence usually believe that it’s possible to contradict yourself. Let me give you another example: Christ is both God and man at the same time.
—Like a snail.
—What?
Tomo went to close the window.
—The snail and the shell can’t exist without each other, so the snail is both snail and shell at the same time.
—No, it’s different. The snail and the shell exist together, but the existence of the individual components is not a contradiction. But being God implies not being man, and being man implies not being God. The existence of Christ implies the non-contradiction of opposites.
—So what? What if he was just a man pretending to be God?
—No, that’s not it either, Park said. Christ isn’t an exception. The universe doesn’t allow oppositions to exclude each other.
—Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.
They fell silent for a time. Park looked again at the paintings under their plastic covers, remembering the portrait of himself. Although the plastic covered its eyes, he felt as if it were staring at him somehow. It bothered him that Tomo had studied his face so carefully. Although he didn’t know enough about art to tell whether Tomo was talented or not, there was something about the angle of the face that disturbed him, as if Tomo had captured a part of his existence in time. Trying to put it out of his mind, he said:
—Did you read the part in the Gospel of Mark that I told you to read?
Tomo turned back from the window.
—I looked at it, yeah.
—What’s your interpretation of Christ driving the demons into the Gadarene swine?
—You mean why he did it?
—Yeah.
—Because they were different.
Park sat up on the bed.
—No, they weren’t different. He was the same thing, something from outside. When he saw the demons, he started getting self-conscious, because they reminded him of himself. There’s no such thing as possession, the demons weren’t ‘inside’ the man — the possessed man and the demons were the same thing at the same time. Christ and the demons both had the same gimmick, except Christ was the better actor. There’s nothing a good actor hates more than seeing a bad actor ruin a role he’s played well.
—Christ’s death was better, though.
—His death was more dramatic, that’s all. I like the death of the pigs more.
—You think the death of an animal is more immediate than the death of a man.
—No, animals are metaphors too. They don’t exist outside of metaphor.
—You don’t think so.
—Animals don’t exist at all and have never existed, Park said. Animals are a hoax.
—What other things are hoaxes?
—Pretty much everything.
&
nbsp; Tomo was staring at him now.
—Is Mutsumi a hoax?
—Yes.
A pause.
—So you don’t like her.
—I didn’t say that.
—Okay. So who came up with her as a hoax?
—Her parents. When she was born, her parents decided to deceive their friends and family, and themselves, by telling everyone they had a daughter named Mutsumi. They told her the same thing and she believed it.
—Are you going to expose her?
—Even if I tried to do that no one would believe me. If a hoax goes on long enough no one believes it when you expose it. So you just have to keep living with it.
Tomo looked away.
—I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back, all right?
Park nodded and shifted to the edge of the bed to let him pass. After Tomo had left the room, Park got up and sat in the desk chair. He flipped up the laptop screen and watched it hum to life. He looked at the desktop, seeing mostly music and image files. Then, he noticed an open document in the taskbar. As he pulled it up, the screen froze for a moment and he realized how large the file was. But after a moment it loaded, and he scrolled to the top. It was a series of dated entries beginning two years ago — Tomo’s journal, he assumed. But only a few of the entries recorded specific events. Most of them were long spirals of thought and association, one idea darting to the next with few connective threads, the memories mixing with dreams. Sometimes an isolated passage caught his eye.
I feel like my mind has been exactly the same at every point in my life. I remember being in kindergarten and my mother took me into the classroom and I sat down next to Haruko Kawamura and Haruko asked why my shirt didn’t fit properly. I remember that moment exactly the same as I remember what happened to me yesterday. I don’t think I’ve learned anything since then.
Park flipped forward, then stopped when he noticed his own name come up.
I was with him today outside the entrance and we were smoking cigarettes he got from his girlfriend, I was looking at his face and thinking that he is never going to be more beautiful than this. He was looking away from me and talking like he always does, he stares into space when he talks and closes his eyes a little. He was wearing the shirt he got from 109 two weeks ago, the white shirt with the gold embossed letters that are starting to fade from being washed. It was still warm out and everyone was filing out of the gate and I could tell he was looking at everyone and their clothes, he was looking at everyone like he usually does and probably waiting for her to come out. I looked at the back of his neck, just above his shirt, and I was thinking how white his skin was when Masa from Photography came over and started asking me whether I’d prepared anything for the next meeting and I wanted to kill him for talking to me because I could tell Park was not really looking at him but at least listening and thinking even less of me, like he always does when someone comes over. When he was gone I asked Park whether he was going to be free on the weekend and he gave his usual excuses that I was expecting anyway and so I tried to smile but I think I just looked at him. He must have gotten sick of waiting because he got up and I followed him and walked to the station with him, thinking he doesn’t like me, he’s never going to love me, I will never be able to touch his face, hold his body or put my lips to his neck, I should have been born as a girl, I shouldn’t have been born at all, there was no reason for me to be born after they already had Maiko so I don’t see why they needed me and why no one has ever needed me.
The entries went on for hundreds of pages. Park scrolled through, skimming each one. In them he encountered a depth of self-pity that alarmed and disgusted him. But there was something impressive about it as well, a kind of abandonment, like a concealed form of pride. It occurred to him that Tomo had completed these pages without expecting that anyone would read them. In their disconnected sprawl he felt a self rising to the surface. Only his own role troubled him. Every time he caught sight of his name, he wanted to tear it from the screen.
Hearing Tomo’s footsteps outside, he closed the laptop.
—You okay? he asked as the door opened. You were gone a while.
—Yeah, Maiko started talking to me.
—She seems happy, Park said, getting up from the chair.
—Yeah, well her boyfriend’s a fucking idiot. Some kind of real estate agent, I don’t know what he does.
—I guess you can’t do anything about that.
They fell silent again, until there was another knock at the door. Tomo got up and opened it, and Park listened for the sound from the hall.
—There’s still cake left, he heard Junko say.
Without thinking, he looked back at the covered paintings.
•
On Sunday he called Mutsumi and told her to meet him in Shibuya. She protested; it was too far and she was tired. Why couldn’t he just come to her house, where they could be alone? He could tell she’d been out the night before and was probably hungover.
—I need to go to Shibuya, he said. I need to get my hair cut.
—Come out here and I’ll do it for you.
He thought of the train ride to Kanagawa. More than anything, he wanted to be alone.
—All right, he said. Just wait for me there.
He got dressed, made himself an omelette and headed for the station. As soon as he stepped outside he felt the mid-day heat soaking into his skin, and he regretted not wearing lighter clothes. Already he could feel the approach of summer.
When he reached the house he found the door unlocked. Mutsumi was in her room reading a magazine. When she saw him she got up and kissed him.
—What did you do last night? she asked.
—Had dinner with my friend.
She made to embrace him and he pulled away.
—I’m sorry, he said.
—Why? What’s wrong?
He looked over at the bed. Her clothes from last night were crumpled next to the pillow: white pants and a pink shirt decorated with silver English lettering.
—I think we should break up.
She looked into his eyes.
—Why?
—I don’t know, he said. No reason.
She kept looking at him. He was surprised how calm she was — he’d expected her to cry. At last she turned away and went to the dresser.
—I’ll have to find a new boyfriend, she said.
—I’m sorry, he said again.
She took her clothes from the bed, folded them and placed them in a green plastic basket next to the door. He stood rigidly in place, watching her. There was no sign on her face that anything was wrong. Perhaps she hadn’t taken him very seriously at all, he thought. But he remembered her eyes when he’d given her Sujung’s hair clip and the feel of her teeth on his neck. As she piled the clothes in the basket, he felt a great respect for her, as if she understood him completely.
—Come on, get in the chair, she said.
—What?
—I’ll cut your hair.
—You don’t have to, he said.
But she’d already taken out the plastic cape and draped it across the chair. He sat down and let her position it over his shoulders.
—I’m going to do what I want with your hair, she said. You don’t have a choice.
He nodded, and she took a pair of scissors and a comb from the dresser. He closed his eyes and felt her parting his hair. She worked quickly, tilting his head backwards and forwards, brushing off the plastic cape. He relaxed and focused on the feel of her fingers, the wet comb, the precise snip of the scissors. The warmth of the air passed through the open window, and he felt very calm.
—People should trust hairdressers more, Mutsumi said. I don’t think most people know what’s right for their hair.
—Do you think people will trust you when you start working?
—Yeah. I won’t give anyone a choice — there won’t be any magazines or anything. They’ll just come in, sit down, and they’ll have to trust me.
S
he moved onto his fringe, trimming it with quick, practiced motions.
—What if you can’t get their hair right? he asked.
—I’m always right. Some people are just stupid.
He felt her move to his side.
—There, almost finished. This suits you a lot better.
He opened his eyes. His hair had been thinned out, but remained the same length. Only his fringe was different. He could see his forehead now.
—It’s good, he said. Thanks.
Instead of answering she brushed the last of his hair from the cape and took it off him. He got up and looked around the room, then moved aside as she swept the hair from the floor. When she’d finished she sat down on the bed.
—I forgot to dry it, she said. Your hair’s still wet.
He ran a hand through it.
—No, it’s not so bad.
He sat down next to her and looked at the floor, at the stray clumps of hair still beneath the chair. Feeling an itch, he took a towel from the pile of clothes and wiped his neck. Mutsumi got up and took the scissors and comb back to the dresser, then came back to the bed and lit a cigarette. Park sat next to her, listening to the sound of her breathing. Several minutes passed. Eventually he felt her take his hand.
—Do you want to fuck? she asked.
—I don’t really feel like it.
She leaned against him.
—Well, okay.
—What are you going to do tonight? Park asked.
—I might go out.
—With Saya?
—Yeah, maybe her. Or someone else. Why? What are you doing?
—Probably just study.
She laughed.
—I don’t believe you.
He lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. The light was on, silhouetting a handful of dead moths caught beneath the plastic fixture. Staring at them, he felt himself becoming sleepy. He stretched out against the pillow, and before long Mutsumi joined him, resting her head on his arm.
When he woke up she was gone. He found her in the other room watching television.
—Hey, she said, not looking up.
—I’ll probably go soon, he said.
