by Naomi Foyle
Sam slapped him lightly on the shoulder and headed out to the roof.
“You want me take this garbage down?” he asked at the door, pointing at Damien’s hidey-hole binbag.
“No!” Damien barreled down the hall.
Jake and Sam cackled as he tore open the bag and pulled out his rucksack. Then Sam headed out onto the roof and Jake stepped into the kitchen galley and rolled up his sleeves.
“You sort the studio out, Day; I’ll do these dishes,” he said, turning the water on. “You better collect your utility bills too, so you can call later and cancel your accounts.”
“Good point.” Back in the studio, Damien found his admin file folder and shoved it in his rucksack. He waited for Darren to leave the flat, then he rummaged around in the bundle of boxers and shirts. Yes, the five white envelopes of money were still stashed there: fifteen million won. He took them out, and from his jacket pocket added five hundred thousand of the key-money to his savings. Then he grabbed an elastic band from his desk drawer, and secured the five envelopes together. That, plus the deposit he’d already paid, made exactly enough for the passport and SIN card, less Jake and Sam’s commission.
The commission. He couldn’t head off to Canada owing his mates, not when he had gallons of spunk bucks in his jacket pocket. If he gave them the money now, though, he would have to explain how he got it. Maybe they should just keep his hagwon wages. That would be an extra five hundred thousand, but they deserved it. He could email Jake from Tokyo, say that his mum had coughed up at last. Yeah, that’d do it.
That little quisling Young Ha had given him some Korean notecards for Teacher’s Day. He chose one with a photo of a ceramic flask of soju and two small cups and scrawled “Skunk Buddy, Samba Sam, THANK YOU” inside. Beneath his signature he jotted down the hagwon address and the name of the secretary. Then he sealed the envelope and stuck it in his bag.
What else? He dug back into the wardrobe, found the long woolen scarf his mum had made for him once upon a time. It would be cold in Canada. He wrapped the scarf round his neck and was slinging the rucksack over his shoulder when Jake came back into the room with a broom.
“Kitchen’s spick and span. Do you want me to give the floor in here a once-over too?”
“Christ, Jake, don’t overdo it.”
“Your call, Day, your call.”
Damien held out the bundle of envelopes. “This is the money for your guy in Itaewon.”
“Nice one, Day.” Jake raised his palm for a high-five, then clicked his briefcase open and tucked the money inside. “Now, let’s blow this ginseng popsicle stand and get this wacky little show on the road.”
They took a taxi into Itaewon and got out in front of Burger King. A Western woman was sitting in the window, stuffing her face with fries which were hemorrhaging ketchup down her arm.
“Give me half an hour.” Jake nodded at an alleyway. “This guy’s like your landlord: there’ll be nokcha and cookies involved. If you want to sort out your flights, the travel agent across the road does the best deals in the city.”
Damien realized he was starving. “Great. I’ll meet you in Burger King.”
Jake tipped his trilby and strode off. Damien squeezed his way across a honking, bumper-to-bumper jam and took the stairs to the travel agents two at a time. It was all happening. Next stop: Tokyo with Sydney. They could check out the temples and bars, eat sushi. And once they were out in the big wide world, it would be much easier to persuade her that she didn’t need Da Mi.
The travel agent was a small, boyish woman with fingers that rippled across her keyboard like a concert pianist’s. She raced through eight different airlines to get him the best price possible to Tokyo: one return, one single. “You leave tomorrow, very cheap,” she told him.
Tomorrow? Yeah, why not.
“Your flight eight a.m. Last minute always superdeal. Your name?”
“David Harding,” he remembered, just in time. “And Sydney Travers.”
As the booking reference number printed, Damien sent Sydney a quick text:
Tokyo tomorrow a.m. My treat. Starting with dinner out 2nite. Saying gdby to m8s now. CU 7 ish. Dx
He paid for the flights out of the key-money envelope. He’d change some dollars to yen tomorrow at the airport. Sticking the printout in his pocket with the cash, he bounded down the stairs and back to Burger King.
The food was hot, greasy and North American; just what the doctor ordered. He was just washing the last mouthful down with his Coke when Jake sauntered into the joint.
“David, buddy.” Jake straddled a chair and swung his briefcase on to the next seat.
“You got them?” Damien half-rose from his seat.
Jake winked. “Shh. Strict rules against flaunting the merchandise on home turf. Finish up and we’ll head back to Azitoo.”
Damien drained the rest of his Coke. A taxi ride later, he was admiring his new identity as Sam popped open a bottle of champagne.
The SIN card was clean, shiny and functional, a piece of wallet-sized ID stamped with a nine-digit number that was his key to employment in Canada. The passport, though, that was alluring, aura-charged, a thing of beauty. It was slim and bendy, with a black and gold cover. Inside, the pages were a subtle whirl of color, empty except for a Korean entry stamp. Best of all, right at the beginning, from behind a matte plastic film, a bloke called David Harding one year and three months younger than Damien, but just as handsome, gave him a wry look. There’s more to some Canadians than meets the eye, he was undoubtedly saying.
“Fucking fantastic.” Jake slapped him on the back. “Even looks like you.”
“I told our guy to ask hacker to look for a David,” Sam said, setting the three flutes down on the bar. “So when we visit Canada, we can still call you Day.”
“Here’s to the best mates I ever had.” Damien raised his glass. They downed their Supernovas in one.
Jake sucked the bubbles from his upper lip. “So now you just need to check into a yogwan, watch TV for a few days. Friday we’ll go to the hagwon for you, then you’re set.”
Time to break the news. “Actually,” Damien said, pulling the notecard out of his rucksack and laying it on the bar, “this is the hagwon number here. I’m following your suggestion, going to Tokyo tomorrow. It’ll be safer there, like you said.”
Sam nodded, and stuck the card in the till. Jake, though, raised his eyebrows. “Tomorrow? Oh.” He tapped out a cigarette on the bar. “So you want us to wire you the money?”
What wouldn’t these guys do for him? At last he could repay them, just a little. “No,” Damien said, “you keep it. It’s your commission, plus a thank-you.”
“Keep it? But you’re going to need that for Canada.”
“No, I’m good; someone else lent me the money.”
“Really? You hear that, Sam? We’re all square with Damien, then some. Buddy, that’s great news. So who stumped up the cash?”
Now his face was burning. But he couldn’t not tell them about Sydney either. “That model, you know, the blonde at Gongjang? She’s coming to Tokyo with me, in fact. She might come out to Canada later as well.”
Jake chuckled appreciatively. “Well, well. Dames the dark stallion, eh?”
“Too many girls in Azitoo ask me, who that guy?” Sam shook his head as Jake lit his cigarette. “Too many broken heart when I tell them you go.”
Damien checked his watch. It was half-past six.
“Speaking of going, chaps, I’m taking her out for dinner. This next round is on me, but then I’m going to have to say Annyong.”
“Ah, shit, Day, invite her down here. The Mama Golds will serenade you—impress the hell out of her!”
“Day in love now, Jake,” Sam reprimanded his cousin. “Need privacy; very special thing.”
Another round of cocktails and two mighty bear-hugs later, Damien was out in the alley, grabbing a cab. Night had fallen while he was underground and Hongdae was coming into its full neon romance. He already
had a million vids of Seoul-in-motion on his MoPho, so he just sat back and let it all float through him: the streaky lights and veering, sloshed Korean students, the red-and-orange roadworks signs, the glowing tableaux of mannequins in shop windows: they were all part of him now, always would be, like a dream of flying, or the color of his eyes.
All Jake’s morning texts arrived as he got out of the cab, and one from Sydney.
J Gr8 abt Japan! I gotta meet Da Mi. C U my place @ 8. x S x
Damn. It was only five past seven. Why couldn’t she have let him know earlier? He checked the SMS details. She’d sent it at six, while he was underground in Azitoo.
There was no point going back to Shinchon. He could head to Skoda for a coffee, or go and browse CDs. He was strolling down the boulevard that led to Gongjang when he realized he could see Sydney in the distance. There was no mistaking that blonde head of hair, the blue vest. He was too far away to call, but he sped up his pace; just as she was within earshot, however, she ducked into a building. Confused, he slowed down.
The double doors she had entered opened onto just another gray marble lobby of just another nondescript Korean building. He stood on the step, frowning.
It was cold outside, but not enough to explain why he suddenly felt chilled to the core. Why had Sydney gone into this building? Did Da Mi have an office in Hongdae?
He wrapped his scarf around his neck. Maybe he should just take Sydney at her word, hang out in City Records. But no, if she wasn’t seeing Da Mi, what was she doing—and why had she lied about it?
The blunt corners of the envelopes in his pocket jabbed his armpit through the lining of his jacket. Detach, man, he told himself sternly. You’ve just got together with her, for fuck’s sake. If she came along to Tokyo, he’d know she was interested in him for something more than his class-A bodily fluids.
But waiting to see if she got on the plane was as pathetic as standing on this step, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Taking a short holiday was no proof that he could trust her. Maybe Da Mi did have an office in this building. Maybe right now the two women were thinking up new ways to make a complete and utter fool of him. For Chrissakes—what would Doctor Who do? Bracing himself, Damien entered the building.
The door on the first-floor landing was locked. He kept ascending, as quietly as he could. The second floor was more promising, with a door that opened onto a long corridor. He poked his head through. Canvases were stacked against the wall and thin slits of artificial light fell at angles across the hall from a couple of doors left ajar. Damien trod lightly, his heart rapping against his chest, his nose twitching at the harsh smell of turps. The rooms must be painting studios. Hongdae had a good reputation for fine arts.
He could hear voices now, from behind the far door. He inched along the wall. The center of the door was a strip of glass. Cautiously he peeked through the window into the room. There, at the far end of a long studio, Sydney and a Korean man were standing in front of a massive painting. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but they were obviously having some kind of intense conversation. Sydney’s vest was hanging on the back of a chair and the man’s bare arm was practically rubbing hers. It was the Gongjang painter, wasn’t it? The bloke who ogled all the foreign girls on the dance floor.
Shit. What the hell was he doing? He should knock; let them know he was here. Or just leave.
But he did neither.
“What you think?” Jae Ho gestured to the painting.
A small oil-filled radiator was warming Sydney’s legs, and whether because of the chill in the air, or how close Jae Ho was standing to her, the hairs on her arms were standing on end. She wished she was still wearing her vest, but he’d said he didn’t like GrilleTexTM clothes; that people couldn’t look at his art properly if they were too comfortable, or thinking about changing the temperature. So she’d let him slip it off her shoulders and drape it over a chair. She did feel more alert, perhaps, but wary too. She hadn’t planned to be undressed by him the instant she walked in.
“It’s pretty big,” she said, playing for time.
“Ye Ye. You look. I shut up,” Jae Ho gallantly announced.
The massive canvas did need some time to take in. About nine feet high, it depicted the dingy chamber of a subway station. A station clock read 23:21. The last train was disappearing down the tunnel and vomit spilled over the edge of the platform onto the tracks. The whole thing looked like a cave, not least because a man in a black suit was hanging upside-down from the ceiling. On closer inspection, he proved to be a self-portrait of Jae Ho—looking, Sydney thought meanly, a good few years younger than he was. Beneath him on the platform stood a trendy Korean girl. Her eyes cold sapphires, her face twisted in irritation, she was pulling a MoPho out of her bag.
Behind the girl, a one-armed man in a faded green suit sat on a bench, masturbating. The tip of his penis was like a pink mushroom in his hand. Beside him an old woman, a huddled heap on the floor, was gathering unsold heads of garlic from a faded cloth and stuffing them back into her bag. Red light from the drinks machine blazed over her face.
Sydney’s portrait was the only other spurt of color in the painting: a peeling hot pink advertisement on the wall opposite the platform. Like the background of the painting at the Gold Pig bar, the image was an impression of the traces of her motion. But here Jae Ho had taken her jutting gestures, her long hair and open mouth, and stretched them like ripped stockings over a dancing skeleton. At the center of the portrait, a black perfume bottle in the shape of a heart sent shock waves rippling through the poster. The word “NOW” was scrawled in gold across the bottle.
The longer Sydney stood in front of the painting, the less she knew what to think or to feel. The detail was fantastic, and the Korean faces so spooky, it was like a scene from a graphic novel, ready to burst into action. But why had he put her portrait in this horrible, seedy environment? Why had he given her a black heart? And why was he standing so close his arm was sending a river of heat up hers?
She had to say something. “It’s Chungmuro Station, right? On the orange line?”
“Is not subway station.” Jae Ho raised his index figure. “Is Korea today: is stagnation machine, block drain system, pollution. Is bad air. But opposite also true, always true. Everything good and bad. This girl, she punky Missy generation. She have many choices like never before. Maybe she waiting to choose, waiting longer than her mother. Now she angry she miss train, she calling friend. Is Korean way. This man, he not wanted, he goblin man, but he make own joy. Is also way of Korean people. We crippled, we out-date, we have crazy business, but we do what we always want.”
Sydney laughed, but inside she felt a little sick. His English had improved so much—did he have a new foreign girlfriend? Were there any pictures of her in the studio?
She checked herself. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She was supposed to be so over Jae Ho. She was supposed to be bragging about her new boyfriend, her trip to Japan. She opened her mouth to let him know she couldn’t care less about his wife, his paintings, his endless theories about Korea, but he was already talking again.
“I so glad you here, Sy-duh-nee,” he said. “I want ask you about this painting. Why you think I upside down?”
He could always do that, she remembered: draw her in, make her feel valued. And she did have things to say. Soon she was going to be attending art openings all the time. She tossed her head. “Because you’re spying on them?”
“Spying?” He put his arm around her, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder. The smell of his skin, his breath, invaded her nostrils. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she missed his smell. “Ye, ye,” he praised her. “Is artist job, to spy. Every artist redraw the map. I not kitsch artist.” He stressed the word as if he was proud of knowing it, and dropped his arm, trailing his fingers down her back. She should step away, she knew. But she didn’t.
“Kitsch art is toy soldiers.” Jae Ho snorted dismissively.
“My art real army.” He gestured at the other canvases arranged around the room and she followed his gaze nervously, but she couldn’t see any other pictures of foreign women. Instead, the room was full of gray battlefields, paintings that could have been made with the sludge from subway walls. Why was everything he painted so ugly, so depressing, so gross?
“If I art make from mass produce,” Jae Ho thundered on, “I choose pink rubber glove, glove army of Korean woman use to clean subway station. Power of my art is energy of Korean people. Not afraid to say what wrong. Not afraid of touch other people. We not like Japan.”
He slipped his arm around her waist and squeezed her to his side. She felt an overwhelming urge to throw her arms around him, to complete the embrace. It didn’t matter who else he fucked, or she fucked, there was something special between them, a sizzling current that recharged them both.
But she hadn’t come here for that. She’d come here to prove she could hold her own with him. With anyone. She’d spent hours in the Chair working on her self-esteem, affirming her right to be loved by someone who truly cared for her. That person wasn’t Jae Ho.
His hand was straying down toward her jeans. She interlaced her fingers with his, and pulled them back up to her waist, where she placed her other hand on top of the knot. That was okay, wasn’t it? They could talk like this. “Jae Ho,” she challenged, “you sound so proud of Korea, but most of your paintings are dark and gloomy. This one looks like a grave.” She jutted her chin at the subway station canvas, thinking she was scoring a point, but he just nodded vigorously and tightened his grip on her waist.
“You very smart girl, Sydney. Is grave, and is womb: old-time Korean graves always shape of woman’s place, for rebirth. My painting is mass grave, for rebirth of everyone. This painting called Cave of Tan’gun.”
An image of him eating noodles in the nude, telling her Korean myths, sidled into her mind.
“The halmoni selling the garlic,” she asked, “is she the bear? The first woman in Korea?”
