I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (4 page)

After all the drivers went home, K went back to that place, paid, and took her out. It's my birthday today, Se-yeon said. So they drank some more and slept together in a motel near Sadang Station.

"Why didn't you laugh at first?" K wondered.

"Because nothing was funny."

"Then why did you laugh afterward?"

"Because it was all funny then."

She said it was her birthday whenever he went to see her, so each time they drank and slept together.

That very morning, she'd said it was her birthday again. So K had sex with her before going to work. He gets aroused when she says it's her birthday.

"I don't have any more Chupa Chups. This is the last one," she said during sex.

"I'll get you some when I get off work," K told her.

In the bar, K fumbles with the bag of Chupa Chups next to him. He takes one out, peels off the wrapper, and puts it in his mouth.

But where is she now? Is she with C? C always takes everything. K is used to this. Some people take things as if that's the most natural act in the world. When he thinks about his older brother, all of his memories are about having things stolen from him. When he was very young, before he started going to school, they had a puppy. The puppy was cute, with fluffy brown fur. It was always in C's arms. K tried hard to win its affections, but the puppy would always run back to his brother. Even to this day, K doesn't know why; he doesn't want to know.

That puppy disappeared one summer day. After the rainy season it was found in the mouth of the drainpipe coming down from the mountain. The adults said that it must have crawled into the narrow sewer and was unable to come back out again. Fluffy had rotted, his guts burst, in the corner of a drain for an entire summer. Nobody removed his body. K couldn't understand C, who was able to finish his bowl of rice the night they found Fluffy. K couldn't eat for two days.

Their father was in the military, so they always lived in the military compound. Whether he hated or loved him, C was K's only friend. But he had to pay a price to play with C.
C would always want to bet when they played Chinese chess or children's Go. C always won. Even if K really won, somehow C ended up winning anyway. Those who always come out ahead in the end are a different breed. The foreign stamps that a cousin gave K soon became C's. K remembers the German stamps with cars on them. He wants to see them again. And butterflies. C's butterflies, pinned and rendered into ash.

Once, hearing these stories, Se-yeon remarked, "You guys must have fought a lot."

"No, by the time I entered middle school I never fought with C."

"Why not?"

"When our father beat me for my bad grades, smoking, or because I ran away, C always stopped him. He would calm our father down and come to talk to me gently. Each time C convinced me to shape up. I always thought he was the only one who understood me, and when I left home I missed C the most. Still, when I think about him I get the feeling there's something a little off. You have to be careful with him..."

Se-yeon giggled. "Stupid, those guys are the scariest. They're the most frightening customers I have at the bar. These assholes look after me when I'm in trouble. They hold me when I'm tired and wipe my tears when I cry. But they're the ones who get mad when I eat a lollipop during sex. They try to get away with not paying for motels, and in the morning they tell me they don't have cab fare. Most
often, the guys who bought me a meal when I was really broke were the violent ones, dragging me by the hair and all that."

But it's true that K missed his brother when he left home five years ago. Around the time he stopped missing C, he started fixing cars. He lived in a room in the corner of a garage, a huge poster of a Lamborghini hanging from his wall. During the day his entire body was coated in grease as he changed the oil in people's cars, but he spent his evenings dreaming. He read and reread the automotive magazines distributed free at garages. He memorized the specs of the Mercedes 500. He was contemptuous of the cars he fixed for customers. He found his customers laughable for bringing in cars that could only hit 180 kilometers per hour and fussing about small problems.

Once he saw a Porsche. The man who got out of the car sauntered into the shop, bought antifreeze, and left. He was in his early thirties. How could he drive a Porsche and have such a nonchalant expression on his face? K couldn't understand it. When the man turned on the engine after putting the antifreeze in the trunk, that powerful purr was different from any other engine he'd heard. He realized that he wanted to kill someone for the first time in his life. He was so shocked by this impulse that he tore up his poster of the Lamborghini into bits that night, sobbing.

K is drinking his second bottle of
soju.
The squid is still mostly untouched. There are only two older men drinking
in the bar. They are talking about Dok Islet. The balding man is saying that Japan should be bombed. The other man agrees, and adds that Korea should hurry up and develop nuclear weapons. The snow starts falling harder. K takes another Chupa Chups and puts it in his mouth. He sees double—two owners of the bar. Either his right or left eye has shifted to the outer corner of its socket. He momentarily sees the world askew.

"Isn't it uncomfortable to see double?" Se-yeon asked curiously one time, studying his wayward eye.

"When I'm comfortable, the muscle in my eye relaxes and one eye rolls to the side. It's been like this since I was a kid. When I concentrate on it, it comes back to normal. Or else everything looks overlapped. But it doesn't bother me. I just choose one of the images and go with that."

Se-yeon shook her head as if she couldn't believe it.

"Nobody knows, other than my family. When I'm with other people I make sure to tense my eyes," K explained.

"Doesn't it make you tired?"

"Life is tiring. I'm used to it, anyway."

"If you don't show it to anyone, why do you show it to me?"

"Because of your Chupa Chups."

K closes his eyes and downs the rest of the
soju.
He pays and goes into a phone booth. He dials slowly. Nobody answers. Not Se-yeon, not C—nobody answers his calls. The world doubles again. K yanks the Chupa Chups from his
mouth and flings it outside the phone booth. He weaves over to his car and sits in the driver's seat. Snow is gathering on his windshield. He turns on the engine and the radio. The weather reporter is saying that mountain villages are stranded because of the snowstorm in Yeongdong and Yeongseo, and the Taebaek and Jungang Railway Lines are out of service. They read names of people missing in a landslide. Some places don't have electricity or telephone service; schools are being closed. K shifts into first gear and steps on the gas. He hears the whirring noise of the wheels turning in vain, then the Stella TX starts to move.

"We're almost out of gas," C says.

"I want to go to the North Pole. They say there's only snow and ice—all white. And polar bears wander around and strong winds blow up to thirty meters per second. In the summer, it's always bright out and the North Pole itself is always floating around on the ocean. Isn't that cool? And sometimes the ice cracks and sinks."

"I'm not kidding. We're stranded," C insists. "It's going to keep snowing and the roads are blocked. We have to go now if we want to live."

"I think all guys are just nervous when they have to stay in one place. I mean, even when they drink they like to go from bar to bar. Why bother leaving? I like it here. It's cozy, like a grave. Have you ever been inside a coffin? When I was in middle school we went on a church field trip and we were all supposed to take turns lying in a coffin. And then we
had to talk about what that was like. I think they wanted us to experience death early to make us believe in Jesus more. What do you think I said afterward? I said it was so comfortable. And it really was so cozy that I didn't want to leave. I think a nun asked me if I was scared that I would go to hell. I don't think there is such a thing. But I do want to go to the Arctic. I would like to be bored for eternity. And the North Pole, it doesn't even move."

"There is no North Pole. Didn't you say that the whole thing is a block of ice that floats around on the ocean? If nobody else can find it, you won't get there, either."

The engine shuts off. The lights blink, then fade away. The white LCD of the radio disappears. Only the red anti-theft light blinks periodically. Everything turns pitch-black, like in a blackout drill. It becomes completely quiet. Neither C nor Judith says a word. The cold starts to crawl toward them, like an army of white ants.

"Let's go," C suggests.

"Not yet."

"When?"

"I want to stay a little longer. Hey, do you want to have sex?"

He hears her skirt go down, rustling. Judith pulls his shoulders toward her. He climbs over the emergency brake, squeezing next to her. He settles into the passenger seat and she straddles him, facing out. Holding her from behind, he starts having slow, tedious sex with her. Sometimes her head bumps the ceiling and snow falls off the windshield,
but they still can't see anything. A quiz show plays on the radio, which is still working even though the car is turned off. The first caller says the answer is Antonio Banderas. The DJ perkily says it's the wrong answer. He tells the caller that he'll still give him a bookstore gift certificate, and the guy is thrilled. The second caller guesses Leonardo Di-Caprio. The DJ screams that it's the correct answer, clapping. The prize is a CD player. The winner says she'll give it to her sister as a wedding present.

"Why aren't you coming?" Judith asks, at the end of a long, dull thrust. C remembers he's having sex with her.

"I'm not turned on."

"Then try choking me. That'll turn you on."

C starts to pump away again, choking her. He hears her strain for breath a few times, and he becomes nervous, worrying that she might die. He comes quickly. She coughs a few times, then climbs into the backseat.

"You'll never be able to kill anyone," she announces. "There are two kinds of people. Those who can kill and those who can't. The second kind is worse. K's the same way. You guys seem different, but deep down, you're identical. And people who can't kill can't ever truly love."

C falls asleep mulling over her words. He's tired and spent.

He dreams one dream after another, only remembering the last one. On a white snowy field, a neon sign blinks: "North Pole." The sign brightens one second, dims the next, announcing the North Pole like it's Las Vegas. As he
walks toward the sign, he sees Judith and a polar bear having sex. C shoots the polar bear. With a bang, the bear falls over and Judith glares at him resentfully. When he goes to flip the bear over, it has changed into K. K is bloody, his eyes wide open and glaring. Naked, Judith stabs C's eyes with a long knife. He sees her knife coming out of the back of his head, all the way through his skull. How can he see the tip of the knife coming out of the back of his head, when his eyes are in front? Even in his dream he tries to figure this out.

The noise of something falling wrenches C from his dream. He's still in the dark car. He's suddenly unbearably cold, probably because his sweat is drying in the cold. He hears the noise again, a branch breaking. He opens the window and looks outside, hearing another thud. Snow, piled on a branch, is falling on the car.

"Aren't you cold?" C asks Judith.

"..."

"Let's go."

"..."

No answer. C feels around the backseat. He doesn't find anything. He forces the car door open, pushing against the piles of snow. He opens the trunk and takes out a flashlight. It looks like the back door has been opened. He sees a winding path through the snow, which comes up to his thighs.

"Se-yeon!" he yells, and starts following the footprints. The path is surprisingly long; he can't see the end. He comes
back to the car, shuts the trunk, and gathers his things. He locks the car because he doesn't know how far she's gone.

The wind stings C's eyes. The snowstorm, although it has lightened a bit, continues to blind him. C wades through the snow, the flashlight in one hand, his bag and her purse in the other. It seems to take him a full minute to go forward just ten meters. How did she get through all this snow? He starts to get annoyed. The memory of the last time they had sex and the scenes in his dream float in front of his eyes, jumbled together. But only for a moment. His efforts at fighting through the snow have left him covered in sweat, which drips into his eyes. How far did she go? He starts to tire, and tells himself he doesn't care where she is. She's like mildew that has invaded his life. She's the kind of mold that wouldn't have appeared if he lived austerely, the kind that breeds only in the dark, neglected corners of a building. She has infected his life, not caring what he wants. He hates himself for trudging through the snow looking for a woman who was having sex with his brother on the day their mother was buried.
Seriously, I don't want to know where she is and whether she's dead or alive.
Still, even as he thinks this, he advances, putting one foot in front of the other.

He sees an amber glow far away. The light comes toward him, following the road. It's a snowplow. He signals with his flashlight to stop it.

"Did you see a woman walk by?" C asks the workers.

"A woman with long hair?"

"Yeah, that's her."

The workers point behind them, where they came from. "She was riding a snowplow going to Wontong."

"Where are you guys headed?"

"We're going toward Inner Mount Seorak, so it's the opposite way."

He isn't sure if the woman going the other way is Judith, but he clambers on top of the snowplow. Twenty minutes later, he gets off in front of a restaurant attached to a gas station and stays overnight. When he wakes up the next morning, most of the snow has been cleared from the roads. Gathering his things, he sees her purse lying in a corner of the room. He takes out her identification card from her wallet. She was born on January 21, 1975, in Jumunjin, in Myeongju County, Gangwon Province.