I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (10 page)

For the previous five years, K had revered velocity as his god. But his god wasn't generous. His god only appeared to those who sacrificed enough. Those few driving around this track were handpicked by this god. They spent hundreds of millions of won to refit their cars and to order custom-made tires. If they could do something to gain even one second during a race, they didn't hesitate to do it, using tricks like removing their backseats. These cars didn't have even an ounce of machinery or parts that were unnecessary for speed. K inherently understood their obsession.

The garage where K used to work was closed on Sundays, and he would head over here in a customer's car and spend the day like this, watching the cars zoom by, munching on a stale burger. Sometimes he would catch not a practice run but a real race. He would feel a sharp stab of excitement whenever cars flipped over. He was indescribably envious of the injured drivers crawling out from under overturned cars.

During a race, the cars hurtling past the others on curves
hardly ever used their brakes. The only way to get ahead was by using the gears and handling the car fluidly. The smell of burned rubber emanated from the track. If a driver missed shifting gears by a mere second, his car would flip over like a toy or skid off the track and crash. The race-car drivers knew this possibility better than K. Even though they knew it was that much more dangerous to go even a little faster, they gunned the gas without noticing they were doing it. These were the kinds of offerings the god of speed wanted. When one car was offered to the god of speed and crashed, the other drivers were relieved, not nervous. No doubt, they believed that another driver's misfortune lowered the probability that they would get into an accident. K would have thought the same thing.

But the god of speed didn't give K even the opportunity to be in an accident. He didn't hand K a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, cars that can easily surpass 250 kilometers per hour. He didn't even give him a car well tuned enough to enter a race. K got into the business of driving a taxi when he was faced with this reality. He stopped coming to the track. For a while he was satisfied with his Stella TX taxi. That's also when he met Se-yeon. But now she was no longer a part of this world.

I'm going to burn everything,
K thought, picturing the photos of cars that filled a drawer in his bedroom.
They're all useless. My knowledge of a car's piston displacement, maximum speed, and horsepower doesn't make any difference at all.
K went back to the parking lot and climbed into his taxi.
No matter what,
he thought,
I have to see C.

All of the participating artists were already gathered for a simple reception on the opening night of the exhibit when Mimi appeared at the entrance of the gallery. She was wearing a long, black coat that came down to her ankles and a black shawl. Ornate earrings dangled from her ears. Everyone hushed. She nodded politely to the crowd.

The curator made opening remarks, then Mimi walked in front of C's work and turned toward the audience. Standing under the spotlights and surrounded by the swelling music, she surveyed the audience like a queen and disappeared into a room off to the side. The lights dimmed. Everyone heard the door open. She was coming back out. When the sound of her footsteps stopped, the lights turned back on. The light bounced off her pale body in multiple directions. Behind her, in C's video, Mimi was writhing on the canvas, her entire being soaked in blue paint. She turned her head to glance at his work. Then she faced the audience again. A silver knife flashed in her right hand as she stepped onto the canvas. She slowly crawled up to the top of the canvas like a cat, raised her right hand high, as if she were startled by something, and slashed at the canvas. The noise of ripping canvas reverberated in the room. Heavy silence emanated from the audience. The white light beaming down on her revealed her as an
objet
on the white canvas.

Was she performing a sword dance? Her movements were infinitely slow but sometimes unpredictably nimble, like the dance of a raptorlike bird. Soon, the canvas was shredded, ragged, but she concentrated on slashing the canvas even more, her body undulating.

When there was nothing left to destroy, she stood up. Standing tall on the mangled canvas, like a statue of a goddess, she grabbed hold of her thick, silky hair with her left hand. With the knife she started to hack at her hair. Black clumps piled up on the white shreds of canvas. A chill spread up from the tips of C's toes. He shivered. He looked beyond Mimi to his work. In it, Mimi was thrashing about, her hair a pretty hue. His legs shook. The real Mimi was reaching the finale of her seemingly endless haircutting. When her hair was reduced into mere spikes, she dropped the knife. She stumbled into the room where she had left her clothes. C saw Judith in Mimi's silhouette. He thought of Judith, who had disappeared into the snow on her birthday, as he looked at Mimi walking to the North Pole. Cautious applause rippled through the audience. He couldn't stand there for another second.

He wobbled out of the gallery and walked around Insa-dong. He thought he should go into a teahouse and drink some warm green tea. He heard Mimi's voice behind him.

"I turned the handlebar in the direction I was falling. Now if I pedal hard, I'll probably be able to go away, somewhere else." She was wearing a black hat. "But you didn't."

He turned to look at her. The cars driving on the one-way road brushed past them, their headlights flashing intermittently.

"Do you know that we're the same breed?" she asked. "You think so?"

"Do you want to know why I decided to work with you, when I've never allowed myself to be photographed?"

"Please."

"Last winter I performed at a party for the opening of a poet's café. It wasn't a big deal. It was similar to stuff I had been doing, and I performed it like I always did. Then I drank with a couple of people. It was cold and windy when I left. I walked, going past three bus stops. I don't know why. I just kept walking. This guy suddenly came up to me and asked me if I liked Gustav Klimt. I told him I did. He was a weird guy. I spent two days with him and decided to kill myself. I went against his recommendations and chose to cut my wrists in the bathtub. There wasn't a particular reason for it. You'd think that people kill themselves for some grand reason, but that's not true. Maybe it was because of that day's performance. For ten years, I had thought I was creating true art, but that day I didn't think I was. I got the feeling that I had never scrutinized myself. My whole life, I had felt like I was on the run. I was running away from all sorts of things, even though I kept thinking, this isn't it or this place isn't right. I told that guy everything. He held me without saying a word, listening to me talk. It was so cozy and warm that I must have smelled death. I finally realized what I was running away from."

She leaned against a building and continued, her gaze fixed on a placard hanging above.

"I saw myself in the bathroom mirror after I filled the tub and took off my clothes. I don't know why, but I didn't recognize myself. I sat in the tub, holding the knife he had given me, but I wanted to see myself in the mirror one more time. So I did. I repeated that three times. The guy smiled at me gently in the doorway of the bathroom. He told me,
I told you it wasn't going to be easy. Come on out and dry yourself. Give me the knife.
I gave him the knife and drained the tub. I dried myself off. As I was coming out of the bathroom, I suddenly got dizzy and fainted. I was in his arms when I woke up. He was wide awake. I felt like I had been reborn. That's when he told me,
It's not too late to come to me later. You should just rest now.
He said I needed rest. That I should think about this time as my last chance, and if there was something I had always refused to do, I should give it a try. I told him everything. That I wanted to see my work with my own eyes. That's when he gave me your name. When your curator friend approached me about this exhibition, I was happy to see your name on the participants' list."

"Then why did you want the tape back?"

"I don't know. I was afraid that I could be copied infinitely. And I couldn't stand that you had it, of all people. You should have slept with me. That would have been easier for both of us."

Mimi stared at him for a long time, quietly, then brushed past him. He didn't look back. He went back to the gallery. At the entrance, he saw a very familiar man, but he couldn't place him. The man nodded to C in greeting and C did the same. But he couldn't remember who he was. C walked past the man toward his work. A man was standing there, immersed in his work, someone C knew.

"What are you doing here?" C asked.

"I needed to say something to you," K replied, his eyes still focused on C's work.

"About Se-yeon?"

"I'm not here to say that it was your fault. I just want to tell you my side of the story."

"Yeah, these things aren't anyone's fault."

"I wasn't mad when I started smelling your lotion on Se-yeon. I didn't have a hard time accepting it or anything. It was just a bit tiresome." K's eyes were bloodshot. The vein near his temple was defined, protruding. C thought his brother looked like a hyperrealist drawing.

"But now that I'm looking at your work, I feel sick," K continued. "I feel nauseated at myself looking at it and at you who made it. I don't know if you'd understand. It doesn't matter if someone like Se-yeon is around or not. You're always going to live like the world is revolving around you, and I'm going to continue to live off engine oil. All I want to know is when my three
-kkeut
life is going to be over. I'm thinking of driving as fast as I possibly can
today. I've always taken my foot off the gas at the last moment. But now I want to step on it to the end, until I really start flying."

"I can't stop you if you really want to do that."

"I knew you were going to say that. Oh, I came by to tell you something important. Do you remember when our house burned down?"

"Of course I do," C replied.

"All of your butterflies burned up and you cried all night. I was at home when it happened, but when you got home from school the first thing you asked about was the butterflies."

I probably did, C thought, and smiled bitterly.

"That day, I got home early from school. I took one of your butterflies and set it on fire. I wasn't thinking when the fire ate through the wings and slowly burned up the body. It was thrilling, exciting—if I think about it now it was the exact feeling I got when I got laid for the first time. Probably because I knew it was something you cherished. While I was burning up one butterfly after another, something caught on fire somewhere in the room. I didn't realize the blankets were on fire. So I kept lighting up the butterflies. Soon the fire burned the wall and spread to the ceiling, and I ran out of the house. When you came back and cried for the butterflies, I was scared and nervous but also ecstatic."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"It's always bothered me."

"Don't worry about it. They're dead butterflies anyway."

"It's the same with Se-yeon," K said, and left the gallery. C didn't stop him, though it bothered C that letting K go like that came so naturally to him.

When C got back to his apartment, he turned on Mimi's performance tape. Like she had pointed out, now C could play her hundreds or thousands of times.

He watched until late at night. He grew sleepy. Immense fatigue clogged up the space between him and the screen. He dozed off for a while, but when he woke up to get some water, his eye caught the seventeen-inch screen, emitting light in the dark room, the electron gun inside the picture tube shooting irregular scanning lines. His apartment at that moment was a deep, dark cave, and the lonely blue monitor shining within was Mimi and at the same time Judith.

He pressed the rewind button. He was parched.

I FINISHED EDITING THE NOVEL. IT'S still dark. I insert paper in the printer tray and print out the manuscript. Maria Callas sings from the CD player the entire night. I like her. She was eccentric and did whatever she felt like doing. Her powerful voice once blew speakers that couldn't withstand its strength, but her voice is so wondrous that she can be forgiven for that.

I pick up an art book while the printer whirs. My dream is to fill my study with art books. I think I will be able to fulfill that dream when I'm done with this novel. The book I grab is about Delacroix. I'm not too fond of Romanticism, because sentiments are often too exaggerated. But I do like one Delacroix painting,
The Death of Sardanapale.
It's a scene of warriors acting under the Babylonian king's orders to kill the queen and concubines of the king, who is facing the fall of his kingdom. One robust warrior, with a cold expression, is grasping a naked woman from behind. She is leaning back. The warrior is stabbing her with a
knife. The five-meter-by-four-meter canvas is bursting with a murderous energy. On the left side of the painting, there is a black soldier dragging the king's cherished horse to his death.

But it's not as if I like this painting because of its ornate Romantic style. In the top left corner, there is a man overlooking the carnage. This is Sardanapale, the Babylonian king. He's propping himself up on one arm and staring at the blood spurting out of his concubines and horse. He's the last thing you discover in this painting, because he's drawn in dark colors and is relegated to a corner of the canvas. In comparison, the scenes of murder are in bright, vibrant colors, and the women being slaughtered are blindingly nude. At the end, when you finally see King Sardanapale, you can't help but draw your breath and hold it. The finest part of the painting is the contrast between the king, coolly observing his downfall, and the dying, writhing women. Sardanapale, watching the bloody, frenzied ball, is really a portrait of Delacroix. He wanted to be a god. But I truly empathize not with Delacroix but with Sardanapale, the unfortunate king hosting a banquet of death amid the destruction of Babylon.