Another Man's City
190
Another Man's City
190Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628971019 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Deep Vellum Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/14/2014 |
| Series: | Library of Korean Literature Series , #14 |
| Pages: | 190 |
| Sales rank: | 307,957 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Ju-Chan Fulton is, with Bruce Fulton, the cotranslator of The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui and Trees on a Slope by Hwang Sun-won.
Read an Excerpt
Another Man's City
A Novel
By Ch'oe In-Ho, Bruce, Ju-Chan Fulton
Dalkey Archive Press
Copyright © 2013 Yeoback MediaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62897-101-9
CHAPTER 1
SATURDAY
7 a.m.
(POWER ON)
What the hell? K groped the fuzzy boundary between sleep and wakefulness for an answer—what had awakened him?
His alarm clock. The strident ring a desperate cry letting the world know of its existence. Again the shrill clamor.
Dammit! K didn't like being woken up. He fumbled at the nightstand, found the alarm clock, silenced it.
He wasn't fully awake. But he was conscious enough to splice the snapped filmstrip of his interrupted sleep, and he closed his eyes.
Hey! The alarm was telling him it was time to get up. He forced his eyes open, checked the display on the clock. 7 a.m. sharp. 7 a.m. He groaned. Time to rise. Time to get his butt in gear—get up, get ready, get off to work. He sat up.
Wait. Something wasn't right. Wasn't it Saturday? Saturday—he didn't have to go to work. Saturday—a day of privilege, a day he slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, lazed around.
Sure, it's Saturday, right? he clucked, easing himself back into bed. He grabbed at the elusive remnant of his sleep, felt it twitch like the severed tail of a lizard.
It's Saturday all right. Which meant he'd been out late last night drinking with H, right? And come home and made love with his wife, right? No day off the following day, no sex with his wife the night before. For K it was a rule inscribed in stone.
"The Friday night festival, you and me," he would whisper. Their cue for lovemaking. The next day had to be a day off. Otherwise it was too much work, it took too much out of him. That they'd done it last night was clear proof that today was a day off.
And so… The lizard tail of his dream was no longer twitching. It had disappeared into the magic forest of dreamland. So much for the possibility of going back to sleep.
But if today was Saturday, he should be able to sleep in. So why the alarm? Way back when, he used to set the alarm for seven so he wouldn't be late for work. But these days he rarely bothered. If he didn't get up right on time, his wife was there to awaken him, right? So who had set the alarm to go off on a Saturday morning? His wife? Couldn't be. She was helpless with mechanical contrivances, wouldn't dare touch an alarm clock. Which left him.
He closed his eyes, searched his memory. It was a fact that he'd drunk more than usual last night and come home late, but he wasn't so drunk, so witless, that he'd set the alarm for a morning when he didn't have to get up. But if it wasn't him, and it wasn't his wife, then who the hell had managed to interrupt his sleep? Was someone playing mind games?
No sense trying to get back to sleep. So he opened his eyes, sat up, stretched. The curtains were open, sunlight fanning in through the window. From the kitchen came the clatter of dishes and the smell of buttered toast—his wife was up and about, fixing breakfast.
The familiar aroma, the familiar polka-dot pattern of the curtains.
"My room all right," he murmured.
He felt the urge and sprang out of bed, heading for the bathroom. Tapping his full bladder, he watched the yellow stream foam up in the toilet bowl, noticed the alcohol odor. He flushed the toilet, looked up, was startled. There in the mirror, a man without a stitch of clothing. None other than himself, but it took him an extra moment to realize this. The image in the mirror didn't feel like him. He gaped at that image. That's me? He was buck naked. And not once in his married life had he ever slept without pajamas.
"Who are you?" he mumbled, glaring at the man in the mirror. "Who's hiding there?" There was no answer, only his voice hanging heavy in the air. And then, realizing how silly the question was, he burst into laughter. "Knock knock, who's there? That's a good one—it's me."
The naked, laughing man in the mirror looked obscene. The genitalia beneath the flabby belly resembling the pendulum of a wall clock, his laughter working his body like a metronome.
He chuckled. Who took my jammies off? His wife? He shook his head. No, even when they made love, she couldn't abide him being naked. She'd been like that since the day they were married.
"A naked body is revolting, there's something dirty about it. Makes me think I'm in a butcher shop, looking at a side of beef," she'd say.
And so it was only in pitch darkness that she would agree to foreplay and intercourse. Nor did K want his naked form displayed to anyone, even his wife. Revealing himself was too shameful and embarrassing.
So who left me in my birthday suit? Looking at himself in the mirror, he felt like a plucked chicken.
Maybe he'd shed his pajamas in his sleep? Impossible. Even half-awake, people didn't do that sort of thing, unless they were sleepwalkers or prostitutes.
Where were his pajamas anyway? He returned to the bedroom and looked around. Odds were a million to one his wife hadn't stripped them off of him, but if she had, they'd be somewhere near the bed, folded neatly. He scoured the vicinity. Nothing. No pajamas.
"Honey!"
No response—she was too busy in the kitchen, K figured. Just as well—she'd never seen him naked, and if she did now, she might scream her head off, like he was a pervert exposing himself. He found an undershirt and a pair of briefs in the wardrobe, and threw on an old dress shirt over them.
Back to the bathroom, where he squeezed a large dollop of toothpaste onto his toothbrush and started brushing. He gagged—all that booze!—and took aim at the toilet bowl. Out flowed a short stream of sour fluid, toothpaste foam, and saliva. He flushed the toilet and lowered the lid. Back to brushing. K observed his face in the mirror. A familiar face, gloomy splotches of color. A depressing countenance. It didn't sit well with him.
Well, then, how about a shave—just the thing to brighten his appearance. No good getting down in the dumps, especially on a Saturday, especially after a stressful week at work.
With his shaving brush he worked up a generous helping of lather. His face took on the fuzzy look of their puppy. If he didn't shave in the morning, by the end of the day his face would take on a dark shadow, that's how fast his beard grew. His razor began to slice through the lather. An electric shaver would have been faster and easier, but K stuck with his razor, preferring the sharp edge. Cutting mercilessly through his beard offered the same thrill as when just before ejaculation he stopped thrusting and held back the semen that was about to fountain out.
Before he knew it he was whistling. His whistling was amplified in the confines of the bathroom, and for an instant he imagined himself soloing the part of "Shadow of a Faded Love" that the singer whistles. But K wasn't one to whistle tunes; improvising was better, giving expression to his mood of the moment.
Oops—he had drawn blood. A frequent occurrence. He stuck a piece of tissue to his chin. There—a nice clean shave. He looked much more cheerful now. With warm water he removed the remnants of lather. Then came a palmful of aftershave. Getting out of bed, washing his face, shaving, combing his hair—among this sequence of tasks, applying aftershave was best. It was the climax of his morning grooming.
The aftershave was strong stuff. It felt like a branding iron on his nicks and scrapes. Then came an electric buzz that left his face momentarily numb. And the fragrance, so powerful he didn't need cologne. He'd used the same aftershave since his bachelor days. It was simply called V. Its scent defined him. V is me—accept no substitutes.
But something was amiss. He held up the bottle, examined the label. Y. Not V but Y. A brand he'd never used, had never seen before.
How could it be? As far back as he could remember, V was his one and only aftershave, the one he had used yesterday, the day before, a week and a half ago, last month, last year, years back, even before he was married. V was his brand, his trademark. It had to be somewhere. He examined his toiletries. They were kept in a ceramic bowl on the counter next to the sink. A gift he and his fellow church members had received on the tenth anniversary of the church; it was inscribed "God Is Love." To one side of the bowl were his toothbrush and toothpaste, a selection of Q-tips, his nail clippers, his electric nose-hair clippers, Mercurochrome and other first-aid items, the moisturizer he occasionally applied after his shower, as well as air freshener for the bathroom. They were all where they were supposed to be, just as he'd arranged them. This was his very own space, the sink and mirror and drawer. His wife kept her toiletries in her vanity case.
He checked the drawer next to the sink. Everything in place there as well, everything where he had put it. K liked to organize things, and was peeved if they weren't where they ought to be. In the back of the drawer were the condoms and other contraceptives, as well as the sample of erectile dysfunction medication he'd been given by his doctor friend H. K had tucked it away for emergency use, unbeknownst to his wife.
He glanced at the pills, two of them, blue, secured in clear cellophane. Damn, he clucked. If only I'd remembered them last night.
After coming home drunk he'd signaled his wife that it was festival time. And she had obliged. Unless something unavoidable came up, Friday nights were reserved for the two of them—that was the agreement.
Even though they made love in deep-sea darkness, it was not that his wife didn't take pleasure from it. He could feel, as his wife built toward climax, the temperature of her seething body skyrocket when he entered her. And when she came, he could almost see her light up like a phosphorescent fish.
But last night had been a dud—he couldn't get an erection, hadn't been able to complete the act. Never in their marriage had this happened. Her body had felt ice cold. How to describe it? It was like caressing a dead body, a cold-blooded creature. He remembered passing his hand across the cheek of his mother just before she was encoffined—his wife had felt even colder. The frigidity of marble, of ice, of an inanimate object—that's how his wife's body had felt. He had thought for a moment he was in bed with a corpse. This was supposed to be their love life, their bed—it wasn't a butcher shop, he wasn't raping her, he wasn't some pervert, some necrophiliac.
"Honey, what is it?" she had asked, her voice importunate in the dark room, where no light penetrated the curtains.
"Can't get it up."
"You must be tired. And you probably drank too much, didn't you?"
Looking now at the pair of blue pills, K was seized with regret. If only he'd remembered, he could have taken them on the sly, then given it another try.
But it wasn't those pills he was looking for, it was his aftershave. Where was it? He considered the possibilities. Someone had taken it—and replaced it. His wife? Couldn't be. He was the one who purchased his aftershave, she had nothing to do with it. Which would leave K as the culprit. Am I playing a trick on myself, the old shell game?
K lifted the toilet lid and sat. Not for the usual reason, but because he needed to make sense of what was going on. Something was messed up. It started at 7, when the alarm had come on. It had come on by itself—nobody had set it. And then for the first time in his 15 years of married life he had risen from his bed naked, his bedclothes having vanished like a magician's dove. And finally his aftershave had disappeared, replaced with a brand he wouldn't be caught dead with.
Where had this string of events begun? Or was he imagining this? No—it was real, and the tricks had started last night. Maybe with the menacing chill he'd felt in reaction to his wife's corpselike frigidity, killing his accustomed sexual desire. Did that mean his wife, like his aftershave, had been replaced?
He shook his head. Yes, he was under an illusion—the visible world was real but his brain had processed it into something distorted.
K shot to his feet, turned on the shower. Put a hand underneath and the next moment felt the familiar hot water pouring down. Same hot water as yesterday, thank God. He turned it off. Now he knew he wasn't hallucinating.
He took a quick shower. As he dried his face with the familiar towel he saw in the mirror his familiar face, like a reproduction of a portrait. Further proof that he wasn't delusional.
Combing his hair came next, and here he was especially attentive. Streaks of gray had begun appearing, exactly when, he couldn't remember. At first he had plucked the offending hairs, but before long it became a losing battle. If he kept removing the gray hair he'd end up practically bald. So why bother? By now he was used to the gray. And today he was no grayer than he'd been yesterday.
There in the mirror, his nose, his lips, his ears—K himself. He examined that face with his small magnifying mirror. Exaggerated, grotesque as a death mask, it was nevertheless his face. But just to make sure, he opened his mouth wide and checked his teeth. There, toward the back, his gold crown. The sight of that familiar molar released him, finally, from his unease. There was no hallucination, no illusion; he wasn't on a stage set or in a make-believe world.
Light of heart and whistling, K went out to the living room. Once he saw the familiar scene of his wife at work in the kitchen, he could bring down the curtain on this shadow play.
8:15 a.m.
His wife was at the sink chopping spinach. For breakfast K typically had salad—lettuce, celery, tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, onions—with a banana thrown in for good measure.
"Good morning, honey."
She didn't hear him over the tock tock tock. Instead of repeating himself K poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the table to his newspaper. He took a sip and savored it. Good old coffee.
Between sips he picked up the newspaper. Explosion at Korean Pipeline in Yemen—Al Qaida Responsible. The front-page story—the bombing of a Yemeni pipeline operated by Korea Petroleum—complete with a photo of billowing black smoke.
Yemen, Yemen. Was that something he should care about, the roiling flames and billowing smoke in a small country on the Arabian Peninsula, far, far away? He put down the newspaper.
He looked at his wife. Something wasn't quite right. And then it struck him. What was she doing, wearing his pajamas? Jade blue with polka dots, the bottoms with their cuffs—definitely his pajamas. The very pajamas whose disappearance had flummoxed him since he'd caught sight of his naked self in the mirror. What in God's name was she doing in his pajamas—had she stripped him?
Honey. Before he could voice the word he was hit with a thought: Are you sure that woman is your wife? It was one thing to be stripped of his pajamas, but how dare she wear them herself, and with an insolence he had never seen before. Who in the hell was this brazen, shameless woman masquerading as his wife?
He mustered his courage. "Honey?"
She turned to him: "Oh, you're up."
It was his wife, her voice and her face.
"When did you get up?"
"Just now." K faked nonchalance but remained vigilant. "Did you sleep well, honey?"
But she had resumed her chopping and she turned back to K only to say "Yes, I did." Her brief, noncommittal glance gave him the impression that she was playing hide-and-seek with her feelings and he was "it."
K made a show of picking up the newspaper and casually said, "You did something with the alarm clock, right?"
"Excuse me?" she said, not turning back this time.
"Didn't you set it for seven?"
"What are you talking about—I don't even know how to work it."
"Well, somebody worked it, because it woke me up."
"Are you sure you didn't do it?"
"Why would I—today's Saturday."
"Well, if you didn't do it, then it must have come on by mistake."
Her matter-of-fact tone came across as dismissive to K. He felt indignant.
"And who took my aftershave?"
"What?" She had just bitten into a chunk of the carrot she'd been laboring over.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Another Man's City by Ch'oe In-Ho, Bruce, Ju-Chan Fulton. Copyright © 2013 Yeoback Media. Excerpted by permission of Dalkey Archive Press.
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