- Excerpt from Road to the Racetrack
R returned on February 16. Or perhaps it had been on February 15, or February 17. Having traveled halfway around the globe, upon arrival he had quickly fallen into confusion about time. True, he should have given some thought to the exact date and time of his arrival. But he had had no time to think about such details, plagued as he had been by a splitting headache, an inexplicable sense of anxiety, and a general lack of sleep during a flight lasting more than twenty hours. But that was not important. Time, in whatever form, was already given to him.
Having gone through customs, he pushed his baggage cart and passed through the automatic door. Through the glass door on the opposite side of the hall, darkness was descending on the square. The hall was far from crowded. There were at most thirty people, and they instantly stared at the automatic door as soon as it slid open. A small woman in the crowd quickly recognized R and waved. Giving a slight lift of the hand, she did not call out or smile. One could say that her gesture was the barest signal of her presence. R, too, waved at her lightly.
The streetlights were coming on outside.
“I parked my car over there,” said the woman, taking his baggage cart, as they came out of the building. [End Page 121]
“A cab would have been just fine . . .” he said. She walked in front of him, across the parking lot. Following her, R asked, “How’s your job situation, J? Think you’ll become full-time this semester?”
He was tall, and his old trench coat, out of style and rather dirty, flapped about him. His hair was tousled.
“Well, I suppose it’ll work out,” replied the woman he called J. It wasn’t exactly clear from her answer if it was in fact going to work out or whether she didn’t know if it was going to work out or not. The two of them stopped behind a gray car parked at the far end of the otherwise empty parking lot.
“Nice car. What’s the model?”
“It’s a Lemans.”
Such was their conversation as she opened the trunk of the car. They then moved the two big suitcases from the cart and put them in the car.
“Why are they so heavy? What’s inside?”
“Nothing much except for the computer and the printer. And some books.”
Once she got in the driver’s seat, J took out a pair of glasses and fastened her seat belt. Then she put both hands on the steering wheel and, for a moment, was completely still. Considering her small size, her movements were surprisingly assertive and confident.
“This isn’t your father’s car, is it?” R asked, in a tone implying she really needn’t have gone through the trouble.
“No.”
“Then you bought it?”
She hesitated a bit, then laughed lightly and said, “Where would I get the money? It was just there . . . in our house. . . . No one used it, so I decided to drive it.” Although she laughed as she said this, her words didn’t sound like a joke. But she didn’t seem serious, either. As if he couldn’t understand, R shrugged.
“I heard Korean cars were all big, and this one’s huge. Isn’t it heavy?” [End Page 122]
“Not at all. It’s a new car, so it drives really smoothly,” she said, showing him the gear stick by moving it this way and that. Then, having started the car and turned on the indicators, she asked, “You’ll be spending the night, won’t you, teacher?”
As if the question took him slightly aback, R gave her a quizzical look and mumbled under his breath, “Yes, I suppose.”
He had a confused look on his face.
J backed the car up. When driving in reverse, she neither turned her upper body to look behind her, nor did she turn the steering wheel with any sense of purpose. She merely looked at the...